Psalm 99: Holy, Holy, Holy

What do you think of first when you think of God? Which of His attributes do you give thanks for most often? I am so grateful for God’s goodness. I do not believe I ever pray without, at some point, quoting from Psalm 136, and giving thanks to the LORD “for He is good. His love endures forever.” (NIV) I love God’s goodness, I love His mercy, I love His patience, His generosity, His gentleness, I love His love. I love that God is perfect, that there is nothing lacking in Him. I love that “He does all things well (Mark 7:37).” I love that He is near me, that He is with me, that He is for me, and that by the Holy Spirit He lives in me. There are so many parts to God, so many attributes, so much beauty and power and majesty and yet, in the Scripture there is one part that stands out above all the others, one part that God Himself emphasizes to man far more than man emphasizes it to God or even to each other. The attribute of God that makes all His other attributes possible, the part of His character from which all the other parts flow, the part that He makes clear we must know above all others is that God is holy. 

Psalm 99 is the last of the royal psalms that began with Psalm 93. Seven psalms that sing of the kingly nature of God. Four times in these seven psalms the writer declared, “The LORD reigns”. In fact, these are the only times in all of Scripture that the statement is made (I Chronicles 16:31 also says “The LORD reigns” but it is widely believed that Psalm 96 is simply a quotation of David’s song I Chronicles 16 making one statement shared in two different places). In Psalm 93 God reigns over all of creation. In Psalm 96 His people are commanded to tell others of God’s reign. In Psalm 97 He reigns over all the nations of the earth and then, here in Psalm 99 God reigns in holiness. In fact, in this psalm, the author (assumed to be David) announces God’s holiness three separate times. 

What does it mean for God to be holy? The Hebrew word used here in Psalm 99:3, 5 and 9 is “qodesh”. It is often translated as “holy”, its biblical usage is of something or someone that is “sacred, holy, set apart”. Jack Wellman writes that it means “apartness, set-apartness, separateness, sacredness”. He adds that it should also be “otherness, transcendent and totally other.” Holiness is not about being strict, following the rules or keeping the law, holiness is about discernable difference. Here is the truth about God, He is different from us. Not only is He different from us, but He is also different from everything and everyone else, He is all together other.

We are made by Him. We are made for Him. We are even made in His image and yet we are not like Him, or maybe it is better to say that He is not like us. There are three specific places in Psalm 99 that God’s holiness, where His difference, is revealed. Verse 2 says, “The LORD is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.” God possesses a greatness that cannot be found, cannot even be approached in or by anything else. A few years ago, while visiting a friend in Alberta, Canada we went for a drive to see the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I was amazed at their beauty, I had never seen mountains that vast, they were truly great and yet, as we stood at looked at them, we began to talk about the greatness of God that these mountains were His creation. A year later I had the opportunity to hike a volcano in the Philippines with my Mom and some friends. As I hiked up the volcano I came to an area where I could both see and feel steam coming through cracks in the rock. When I finally reached the peak, I looked down to see a lake in the middle of the volcano, a sight so unexpected and beautiful that it left me speechless. But then, just like in Canada, I was overwhelmed with the reality that this sight, in all its glory was nothing more than the handiwork of God. He does not just do great things, He is great, but His greatness is all together other. He is not great like the mountains or the seas, He is not great like a volcano or the power of gale-force winds, God is all together other in His greatness. 

God is not only holy in His greatness, He is also holy in His justice. The psalmist wrote, “The King in his might loves justice. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” We live in a world of injustice, so often justice is something we recognize more for its absence than its presence. But God does not just do justice, He loves it, He does not simply cause equity, He created or established it. God is never unfair, but there are times when His actions, His plans, His justice is not what we expect, not what we think justice should be. I will be honest, I still wrestle with Jacob being chosen over Esau, with David’s first child with Bathsheeba dying, with Zechariah being stuck dumb for nine months because he had trouble believing the unbelievable things the angel Gabriel was saying to him. Those things do not seem just to me. But I have learned to balance those things with this much greater one, that God would so love the world that He would give His only begotten Son, that whosoever, including me and you, would believe in Him would not receive the just outcome of our sin, which is death, but would be given the inequitable gift of eternal life. If I am going to rejoice in the undeserving justice of salvation from God, I must learn to trust Him in the acts of justice that might seem inequitable or unfair to me. He is holy in His justice, which means that His justice is not like mine, it is all together other, it is without any of my weakness, my prejudice, or my offense. 

The psalmist then shares a third place where God’s holiness is evident, He chooses to hear and to answer us. The writer uses Moses, Aaron, and Samuel as examples and says, “They called to the LORD and he answered them . . . he spoke to them . . . O LORD our God, you answered them . . .” The God of all things, the God who spoke everything that exists into existence, turns His ear toward me and shares His voice with me. How much more “other” could He be? In a world where you have to make appointments to talk to people in authority, where you have to call ahead to get a table at a restaurant, where you have to have connections to get an audience with people of perceived importance, our heavenly Father is in the secret place waiting, even wanting to listen to us. God created prayer to invite us into the conversation of the Godhead. As the Son intercedes at the Father’s right hand and the Spirit intercedes from within those who are in Christ, we have been invited to “pray without ceasing”, to be heard by God and to listen to God. Because God is holy, we are never tuned out, never unheard and never dismissed. The heavens do not turn to brass because God’s heart never gets hard and He never goes silent because man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and God would never starve His children. 

When the Bible says that God is holy it is not threatening our rejection but rather it is promising our acceptance. He is not like us, He is all together other, He is greater than our definition of great, more just than any justice we have ever dreamed of and more willing to hear and be heard than the most intimate of human relationships. No wonder the seraphim fly about God’s throne shouting to one another, “Holy, Holy, Holy . . .” They never leave His presence and are constantly amazed at how all together other He is, they never stop singing and yet never get tired of reminding each other that He is not like us and He is not like them, as He told Moses He is who He is and there is none like Him. Whatever we think that He is, He is more. Whatever we hope Him to be, He is more. Whatever we will ever need, He is more. He made us to be His and He has chosen to be ours. He is many things, but in all those things He is holy. He is holy. God is holy.