While the past couple of days we've been trying to reflect together on the holiness of God,

and yesterday I was quoting a favour at him from my youth, Thomas binney's him, eternal

light. If you were listening yesterday you may be remember that while I've always loved

singing the words of the second verse, at the same time I feel there's something missing.

The spirits that surround Ithroen may bear the burning bliss, but that is surely theirs alone,

since they have never, never known, a fallen world like this.

The vision of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6 seems to me to suggest that even unfallen,

perfectly holy spirits surrounding the throne actually feel they cannot bear the burning bliss

of God's holiness. Isaiah felt it was unbearable because he was a sinner, but there must be a different

reason the serifs respond the way they do, don't you think? It's not their sin that makes them

shield their faces, they've never sinned, never known a fallen world like this.

And this vision helps us, I think, to understand that there's another dimension to God's holiness.

It's not only separation from something, it's also consecration to something that gives God's

holiness its deep intensity. I think we get a helpful hint of this in Jesus' prayer for His

disciples in John 17. He prays sanctify them, make them holy, and then he goes on to say,

for their sake I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified. It's actually the same

verb used three times. The translators of the ESV render the words of Jesus, for their sake I

consecrate myself. Perhaps because they wanted to avoid using the word sanctify, in case someone

misunderstood it as though the Lord Jesus was sinful and needed to be sanctified, and that's

perfectly understandable. But when we realize it's the same word used three times, that brings

out a nuance in the idea of holiness, but we might otherwise miss. Jesus is not only separating

himself from something, in this case sin, he never did sin, he's separating himself for something,

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