– 3 Min Read
It seems that every church hymnal begins its collection with “Holy, Holy, Holy” as the opening selection. Written by the Anglican minister Reginald Heber, who wrote 57 hymns, it is a wonderful presentation of the great doctrine of the Trinity. But I believe it is much more than that.
Whenever we are singing this hymn in church, I am drawn to Isaiah chapter six. The prophet tells us that in the year King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord. He describes multiple seraphim, each having six wings. The description is unusual, but I immediately lower my eyes to read what these beings call out to each other. “Holy, Holy, Holy, is Yahweh of hosts; the whole earth is filled with His glory” (Isa. 6:3).
I suppose I have sung the first line of the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord, God Almighty!” without becoming nearly overcome with the thought of the holiness of God, but I really can’t remember when that was. Singing or reading about any of the attributes of God should always stir me, but nothing excites my spirit like these words together in this wonderful song of praise. I wonder if other saints are nearly overcome with awe when they look at the word “Holy,” especially when it is stated three times. Even as I type this, I am filled with wonder and reverence as I try to grasp, even in a minuscule way, what it means for our God, the Yahweh of scripture, to be “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
That night in 1969 when the Lord revealed Himself to me and gave me a new heart, I realized that without Him I was ruined, just like Isaiah confessed in chapter six. I was unclean, and I cried out in desperation for Him to forgive my sins. I have no way of knowing how others respond at moments like this, but I was filled with joy at the same time that I was confessing that I knew I was a ghastly sinner. I felt sick in my soul and light-hearted simultaneously because I knew that I was experiencing something new and real and life-changing. Eventually, I stopped confessing every sin I could think of and I found myself thanking Him for allowing me—in truth, empowering me—to come to Him. I had much to learn, but I knew at the time that my life was changed. In a small way that night, I was beginning to recognize that he was “Holy, Holy, Holy.” I was in awe.
This Thrice-Holy God has called me to follow Him and tells me that I am one of His ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20). Looking again at chapter six of Isaiah, this time at verse 8, the prophet hears the Lord call out, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Isaiah answers: “Here am I. Send me!” I am no prophet, but in some sense, I already understood in those first few moments as a brand new Christian that this was no private conversion. I was going somewhere with this new message, and the God of the Bible was going to do something with me. As R.C. Sproul states in his classic book The Holiness of God, we are not to become self-less; rather, we are to serve Him with a redeemed “self.”
I love how this wonderful hymn reminds me of the holiness, the “otherness” of our omnipotent God. Frankly, once we start singing it, I secretly wish that it wouldn’t come to an end. But it must end for now, and I can only think about what I know I will one day, along with all the saints, fully embrace. Truly I long for that day when “we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2). We, the unholy, made holy by His transforming power, will finally be complete and in the presence of the One who in the words of the hymn writer is, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”