The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he! (Psalm 99:4-5).

The important thing to remember about this term holy is that it is not just one of a list of God’s virtues or attributes. It is the summation and foundation of them all. The attributes of God, and there are too many to enumerate here, taken as a sum, represent his holiness. For example, to say that God is love is to say that his love is holy; it is a holy love because holiness is the essence of his being. The ethical flows from the ontological. What he does flows from who he is.

The response of the psalmist? Exalt the LORD our God. In other words, align yourself with the biblical revelation of his holiness. And worship at his footstool. Jesus, echoing the prophet Isaiah, identifies the footstool of God’s throne as earth (Matt 5:35, Is 66:1). How incredibly humbling that he has revealed himself to us. Holy is He!

Anyone or anything that has been set apart unto the Holy One partakes in his holiness.

In other words, that which is set apart enters the sphere of the sacred. That is why holiness can be ascribed to people, places, and things. They have been consecrated to the Holy God, set apart for special service, for his purposes. The holy temple, the holy city, Jerusalem, the holy nation, Israel. Even the most mundane things, like furniture in the temple, are set apart from common, ordinary service. They are consecrated for special service to the Holy One. They are, therefore, participants in the holy sphere.

Look with me at a vitally important yet often misunderstood text: You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine (Leviticus 20:26).

Do you see this distinction? You are to be holy to the LORD because He is holy. He has set you apart from the nations as his special possession. Yes, this involves being set apart from the common (in this instance, the pagans), but it is so much more than that. You are set apart by, to, and for the Holy One of Israel. You have been chosen for special service. You have been taken out of the world and brought into the Kingdom of God. In Jesus, you are in the world but not of the world.

When you hear holiness spoken about, whether from the pulpit or in conversation, it almost exclusively has this negative connotation—set apart from. You “don’t do this” or “don’t do that.” You can, no doubt, from your own experience, fill in the blanks. As important as that is, what about being set apart for something? Isn’t that at least as important? Why is that omitted in our thinking?

Beginning with the biblical revelation of God as Holy, we can see clearly that the essence of being consecrated lies more in what we do than in what we don’t do.

You must learn to think with two hands. We are set apart from and set apart to. Most importantly, we are set apart by. The Holy God has prepared good works for us in Messiah Jesus. That is what we are to emphasize, to get equipped for, to be about. We each have a special calling, service, and responsibility. To that end, he gives us his Holy Spirit.

Do you see the picture? Do you get it? Can you imagine how frustrating it is to try to explain this? How can I possibly find the words to convey these things? LORD help me. He is so vast. He is so unapproachable. He is so transcendent that it staggers the mind. Words fail to describe the High and Lofty One of all creation. Holy, Holy, Holy!

I enjoy reading and watching programs about the cosmos, about the universe. Truly, as the psalmist says, the heavens are declaring the glory of God. One planetarium was photographing all the stars in the northern hemisphere. They used these large negative plates, I think they were nine inches square. And they would put one in, then expose it to the night sky for a certain amount of time. After taking it out, they’d put another in, move the telescope slightly, and repeat the process.

When they developed just one of these negatives, it looked like a black piece of velvet that someone had liberally sprinkled with salt. Except that every particle of salt was a star. The astronomer commented that there were over a million stars on that one negative plate. One negative! Plate by plate, they were systematically filming the entire northern hemisphere of the universe. How many negatives do you think it took to map that area? Almost 2000. Just the northern hemisphere!

Does this help you get a sense of Kadosh? Kadosh? Kadosh? But wait, there’s more. Astronomers estimate that our little galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of a billion galaxies. No wonder Isaiah says, “Whoa, hold on here. I’ve just seen the One who spoke all of this into existence. The one whose word reverberated through the silent spaces and stars emerged to render faint glory to the transcendent, luminous, awesome, Holy God!”

We must guard against superficiality in this relationship. And it starts with recognizing who he really is and what happens when we do.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:4-5).

So it was for the children of Israel at Sinai. When the Holy One descended, the mountain trembled and was filled with smoke. It is striking, is it not, that we can gather as his church only to casually worship him and half-heartedly offer our praises? We lost something precious. God demands sincerity in worship. We must worship him wholeheartedly, in Spirit and truth, because he is holy.

Isaiah is undone by the encounter. One modern commentator says he was psychologically disintegrated. Or as we’d say in Oklahoma, he’s ruined. Woe is me! We witness Isaiah coming apart at the seams because he is being seared by the luminous transcendence of a Holy God. How quickly our own agenda is consumed by his being. Instead of all about “me,” it becomes all about “Thee.

Mindful of his holy presence, we are undone, disintegrated, ruined. That is the starting place for being set apart, for being commissioned, for being empowered in his holy service.