“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
One of the problems in understanding the truth of Scripture when it comes to holiness, is that we don’t have a good parallel concept in our contemporary vocabulary. Holy used to have a meaning that was derived from the Scriptural concept of holy, but since our culture has drifted from its roots, that meaning no longer carries weight. Holy describes a spiritual state that manifests itself in the physical state. Only the One True God is holy. We can only be holy as we reflect His holiness. Holiness means separate from anything that might contaminate. Here are some earthly ideas that might help get us thinking about that separateness: surgically sterile, above reproach, unquestionable character, pure motives, 100% upright, faultless, without hidden agendas, separate and different from us, no contamination, no loopholes, no crossed fingers, no cross contamination. This list could go on, but I hope you get the point. Holiness is very different from our normal, everyday lives. So in heaven all the inhabitants end up proclaiming the truth that only the Lord God Almighty is holy. Think about it. All those who exist with God in heaven are not holy like He is holy. Even when we get there we will not be holy like He is holy. Our holiness is only because of our association with Him. We have derivative holiness. We are only holy because He is holy. God is holy by Himself. Notice also that God is timeless. He is in the past, in the present and in the future. He is not bound to a specific point in time. He simply exists across all time, because time is one of His inventions. He existed before time, He created time for us, and when time is no longer needed, it will go out of existence. He remains constant throughout. So when you think about God, make sure you don’t pull Him down to our level. He is never at our level. He came to us, and lived among us, but never lost His holiness. That is why Jesus was so different from us; He never sinned. He never contaminated Himself with anything that might conflict with His character as Lord God Almighty.