I will also praise You with a harp, even Your truth, O my God; to You I will sing praises with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. (Ps 71:22).

As common as the word “holy” is in Scripture, and as frequently objects associated with Israel’s worship are called holy, in what sense can we use the same word of the most high God? To describe Him with similar words as earthly objects seems to diminish God. Is God holy just like the Ark of the Covenant is holy? That would be like saying the shadow of a beautiful building is as beautiful as the building itself.

When we use a word to describe God we mean to say, at the least, that God is better in the realm of that attribute. So God is holy like the Ark is holy, but “more” holy. But isn’t God more than just “more holy”? He is absolute holiness. He defines holiness, epitomizes it, originates it, generates it and imparts it. He cannot be made unholy. His holiness is not just “better” or “more.” It is a difference on the order of essence. Michelangelo, for example, was a Renaissance artist and his works are Renaissance art. The painter and his art of the same “genre,” that is, are described as Renaissance. But the two are completely different in “kind.” The artist is of a different essential nature than his art work, and this difference is of immense magnitude.

God, then, is holy of a different kind or magnitude. The holiness of things is a derivative of His holiness. He is completely separate from all things and stands unique. If “holy” is a word that “connotes the state of that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament), God by definition is holy. He completely belongs to the sphere of the sacred because He IS the sacred. Nothing is sacred or holy apart from Him. Before anything else existed, there was God (Gen 1:1, John 1:1).

The psalmist extols God for His holiness. He writes from the vantage of old age (Ps 71:9) but has learned to continually call on the Lord for help in troubling times. The longer we live, the more we are immersed in this fallen world. Temptations to abandon faith in God—to stop trusting God, who doesn’t always seem to answer our prayers or rescue us from difficulties—never stop piling on. Some things just seem to go on and on. The refrain of the world is, “God has forsaken him, pursue and seize him, for there is no one to deliver” (Ps 71:11). That is the world’s wisdom, and it is easy to believe. But our God is holy; He is different from the world. Our hope is in Him. So in faith, we join the psalm writer’s chorus and say …

I will also praise You with a harp, even Your truth, O my God; to You I will sing praises with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.