The Lord our God is Holy - Psalm 99
[9th April 2014]
Psalm 99: The Lord Our God Is Holy
1 The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
2 The Lord is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he!
4 The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity;
you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel also was among those who called upon his name.
They called to the Lord, and he answered them.
7 In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them;
they kept his testimonies
and the statute that he gave them.
8 O Lord our God, you answered them;
you were a forgiving God to them,
but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
9 Exalt the Lord our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for the Lord our God is holy!
I think I might have said before in morning chapel that I nearly didn’t join my missions agency because it declared itself to be a holiness mission. This was not because I didn’t agree with ‘being holy’, but because I never felt holy enough! In those days, in my twenties, I associated holiness with it being all about me! With a list of rules about things I had to do or which I should NOT do. We are called to be holy as he is holy. Hebrews tells us to “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” These are challenging lines in the Bible.
In this psalm we learn a little more of what holiness really is. It’s primarily about the holiness of God rather than me and my failures. The question is: How do we respond to the holiness of God?
Perhaps the author of this psalm had caught a sight of the Lord as Isaiah did in ch6 of his book? Isaiah saw him as King enthroned in the temple, high and lifted up. We know from John ch12 that what Isaiah saw was a vision of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ in his glorious holiness in the heavenly places.
If the psalmist had the same reaction as Isaiah, he would have been horrified at his own unholiness. Isaiah was aware of his impurity of speech, as he saw this vision of the holy King.
In fact this seems to be a fast forward vision of the future Jesus receiving worship from all peoples at the completion of his redemptive work at the end of times. The language seems to be similar to the language of Revelation ch19 at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: Rev 19v6 “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,
As in our psalm 99, the inevitable result is spontaneous worship, v5 Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!
It is the holy God who exercises the very justice which the pious Israelite was looking for. Israelites were crying out for justice and holiness for their nation, but when it came in the form of a person, in Jesus Christ who pointed to himself as the source of national justice and individual holiness, they didn’t like what they received. There was going to be nothing to boast about after all - in fact the exact opposite. Be careful what you wish for, because sometimes you receive it!
As so often in the psalms, there is also a revelation of the state of mind of the human author as he works his way through from a hard situation or a theological difficulty, to the point where he can understand it properly for his own life and for Israel. Here the psalmist draws on the history of Israel, and draws on the experiences of the very fallible Moses, Aaron and Samuel. Perhaps the author was longing for the access to God that those heroes of Israel had had.
The holy God spoke to them. They called on him and he answered. God proved himself to be faithful keeping by his covenants. In spite of themselves, they could interact with God who was seated in seemingly inaccessible holiness in the heavenly places, surrounded by angels worshipping him. That was reassuring to the psalmist – and it is for us.
Now, what relevance does this psalm have to a missions training college on a Wednesday morning you might ask? Much in every way. We have the great privilege (which few others have in New Zealand this weekday morning) to set aside a few minutes for joint worship and prayer to God – the Psalmist’s God is Isaiah’s God, He is the God of Moses, Aaron and Samuel. But He is our God too. Like Moses, Aaron and Samuel we too have access to him in worship and prayer. We call and he answers. We too exalt the name of God in worship - and in fact as Hebrews says, our covenant is a better covenant than that of Old Testament Israel’s. And like Moses and Aaron and Samuel we have access because as the psalmist says: v8 O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings. They had access to God because their sins were forgiven, not because they were ‘holy’ in the first place. No pride allowed, it was all the free gift of God.
But there is another reason for this psalm today, as verses 2 & 3 say: 2 The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. 3 Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he! That reason is missions. At the end of time there will be people from every tribe tongue and nation worshipping the Lamb at that marriage feast. They will be there because someone told them about Jesus - please note that the gospel is an announcement. John Piper has written: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't.” I am sure Piper is right. The holiness of God brings worship, the holiness of the worshippers is the gift of God through Jesus Christ - not a set of do’s and don’ts. But WEC is correct as it calls itself a holiness mission, but perhaps not in the way that Studd intended.