Angels Cry Holy

By: Wendy Duckworth Vance  

In July 2022 Chris Tomlin released a song called “Holy Forever.”When I heard this song, I was blown away. I just had to stop what I was doing and raise my hands to Heaven. Why? Because this song is such a potent reminder of why we worship God, or rather why we should be worshiping God. It is not because He has blessed us, although He does every day just by providing us with our next breath. It is not because He provided for our salvation, although He did through the death and resurrection of Himself in the form of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). It is not because the “rules” say so, although the Word of God is clear that we are to worship Him and to set aside time to commune with Him in His presence. No, the song reminds us that we should worship God because He is Holy. He is worthy of our reverence. He is pure and perfect, devoid of sin. His holiness is so pervasive, so all-consuming that even the angels and creation itself cry “Holy.” But while the very universe is bowing in reverence and lifting praise to the Holy One, we as humans often forget His holiness. You may ask how I can say that we as humans have forgotten the holiness of God. After all, churches can easily be found all over the world.   Millions of people identify as Christians. We still speak of God within public spheres. While these statements are true, attending a congregation or professing a label of “Christian” does not mean that one recognizes or acknowledges the holiness of God or what His holiness means for believers.   

Acknowledging God’s holiness is so much more than attending church. Even if you attend every time the doors are open, if you do not walk away from that attendance changed in some way, did you interact with the holiness of God? The Bible is full of examples of how true interaction with the holiness of God impacts and changes believers in a very noticeable way. For example, in Exodus 34:29-35 we are told that after Moses came down from Mount Sinai, his face was visibly changed, it was described as “radiant,”and his face continued to exhibit such a radiance after each interaction that he had to wear a veil over his face so that his fellow Israelites would not be afraid of him. He was visibly changed by his genuine communion and interaction with the holiness of God. And Paul tells us that when we invite the Spirit of God to dwell within us, we are changed/made new, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV). Yet as I discussed in my previous post, in the modern age there seems to be less of a quest to be transformed by God and more of a race to see who can be most conformed to the world. And while it is true that we cannot “hate people into Heaven,” we equally cannot become the world as the world lives in active rebellion against God’s commands, separating us from God, not bringing us closer.    

God created us in His image or character for the purpose of relationship. We were created as beings imbued with free will. Freewill allowed us to choose to worship and be in a relationship with Him. In the beginning, He appeared to Adam and Eve. He walked and talked with them and built a relationship with them. But the same free will that makes a meaningful relationship possible also leaves the door open to our base, fleshly nature that craves the easy thing, the wide path. The side of us that is flesh gave in to Satan and the appeal of the instant gratification of the forbidden fruit. At that moment, we lost our innocence, our purity, our protective covering from the burning flame of His holiness. Without the protective covering of His holiness, the only outcome of an interaction with His holiness is death. In Exodus 33:18-23, Moses wishes to see God’s full glory/holiness, but God tells him that doing so would mean death because no flesh can see or interact with that holiness and survive.  But it was not God’s will for us to be separated from Him. That was the choice of man; we turned to the instant rather than the eternal as we still do.

When you look at the church today, it is indisputable that many are choosing this world over the will of God. We are seeking power, changing God’s Word to align with the world, and accepting several sins as acceptable so that we can be “acceptable” to the world. And again, I am not just discussing those items that get media coverage, but also those things that we have decided to overlook because they are “not that bad” or we don’t want to offend anyone because they might leave. In doing so, we are turning our backs on the holiness of God, treating His Word as a suggestion or a book of history that no longer applies. We are also misleading millions, teaching the idea that there is no sin and that it is judgmental to say that there is. But if I warn you to put on oven mitts before pulling a hot pan out of the oven, is that judgmental or is that telling you that something bad is going to happen if you don’t wear the gloves? In the case of sin, there are eternal consequences, if we don’t share that sin is real, then we are unloving.   

You see, God wishes to restore us to our purity, our innocence, and our covering of holiness so that we can interact with His holiness. Since the mortal flesh cannot survive in the presence of His holiness, we must change and put on holiness to be in His presence. He gave salvation, redemption, and covering through the shed blood of Yeshua. In this way our sins can be forgiven, we are made pure, holy, and viewed as being without sin because we are clothed in His righteousness. As part of this beautiful gift of redemption, He changes us from the inside out, restoring us to beings in His image, "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26, ESV). He makes us capable of loving the way He loves and works in us to remove those things that are not of Him. Those things that were traps  laid by the enemy to steal the richness of joy that is found in the presence of His holiness.

When Adam and Eve turned from God humanity chose death over eternal life. Humanity opted for the brief moment of disobedient pleasure. Today, I invite you to interact with His holiness, let it work in you and reveal anything within you that is not of Him. Any sin that you are clinging to is not of Him. All sin, no matter how big or small separates us from the holiness of God. To be in obedience to God, we must let go of our sins. He tells the people of Israel   

in Leviticus 11:44 “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.”

God is the same, He does not change, the  New Testament declares that the command to be holy stands. So today we need to let go of anything that the Word (Bible) says is sin. We cannotcontinue doing it, we cannot promote it, and even if we are not called to condemn others, we cannot approve of it. We are to be the planter and waterer of the seeds of God's Word, but salvation belongs to our God. We can share with the world what sin is and the better path of Christ with love. Not only can we, but we must. If we are to love like God we must share like God. He shared with us what sin is and the path of redemption because He loved us so much, how can we do any less since we are changed from the heart of fleshly desire to the heart of the Holy Spirit? And not only should our receiving of this precious gift of redemption motivate us to share our knowledge of the joy and freedom of returning to God’s love, but we should be motivated to give up our old, sinful ways.

Holy God pursued us, made a plan for our redemption, and paid the price that we deserved -death - separation from an eternity in the beautiful glow of His holy light. Knowing that, how could we not want to put down everything that is displeasing to Him so that we could draw nearer to His glorious holiness and with the angels cry HOLY!