The Holiness of Jehovah: Eternal, Unchangeable, Supreme

When the seraphim cry out in Isaiah's vision, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts," they proclaim the foundational truth of God's nature. Holiness is not something bestowed upon Jehovah—it is eternally, originally, and unchangeably His own. Unlike the holiness of angels and believers, which God imparts to them, the holiness of God derives from no external source.

This truth manifests across Scripture in six clear witnesses: the uniform testimony of sacred writers; the original state of all rational beings formed in holiness by God; the moral law given in paradise and renewed at Sinai, declared "holy and just and good"; God's awful anger against sin; the supreme display at Calvary, where the Father's infinite displeasure with sin led Him to bruise His own Son; and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in believers' hearts.

The seraphim's threefold cry echoes through heaven because God's holiness is the glory of His nature and the ground of His claim upon all creation's worship. This holiness is displayed in Scripture's declarations, in the representations of the heavenly world, in the punishment of rebellious spirits, and in both the moral law and the Gospel.

When Isaiah beholds this vision, his response is immediate: "Woe is me!" True contemplation of Jehovah's holiness produces not mere intellectual assent but adoring reverence, humility, and transformative awe.