وجبـــــــة روحيـــــ(†)ــــــــــة يوميـــــــــة

[Mary Naeem]

“Which of God’s attributes are above all others?



The question of which of God’s attributes are highest or most important or “above” the others must be answered in two parallel modes. One possible answer differentiates between the attributes of God that are more important for us to understand; but we must also consider whether or not some attributes of God are more important for Him, in reality. Interestingly, when we look at the attributes of God, we find they are all unchangeably perfect, so there is no practical difference in their importance—at least not to God. However, from a human viewpoint, the way we understand God’s qualities has to come in a certain order.

In order to be truly “infinitely” perfect, a being has to be perfect in all qualities. Attributes such as omnipotence and omniscience can only exist in cooperation with each other. For example, a being could not have all possible power unless he also has all possible knowledge. He could not be all-knowing unless he was all-present. And so on and so forth. For this reason, God’s attributes cannot be ranked on a scale of importance as if some were more critical than others to who God is. All of God’s qualities are equally perfect, equally “infinite,” and equally ranked.

At the same time, human beings are not infinite, nor are we perfect. Our understanding has to come in steps and stages. For this reason, certain attributes of God must be understood before we can properly appreciate the others. When all is said and done, the starting point for understanding who God is, from a human perspective, is His holiness (see Isaiah 6:3). God’s holiness means that He is set apart from mankind, that He is something other than we are, in a radical and fundamental way. He is perfection, without a hint of unrighteousness. Before anything else about God makes sense, we must understand that God is holy—without recognizing this uniqueness, none of His other qualities make sense.

More generally, we need to understand attributes of God that are “beyond” mankind before we can make sense of those more connected to human experience. God’s holiness, sovereignty, and omnipotence, for example, are crucial foundations for our understanding of His other qualities such as love and justice. As pointed out before, God’s perfection ensures none of God’s qualities are “more” or “less” present than the others. But, in order to grasp God to the extent the human mind is able, we can arrange those qualities in a certain logical order. That begins with His holiness, extends to His power (omnipotence, sovereignty, etc.), and then to His personality (love, mercy, justice, etc.).

[Mary Naeem]

The glory of God is the beauty of His spirit. It is not an aesthetic beauty or a material beauty, but the beauty that emanates from His character, from all that He is. The glory of man—human dignity and honor—fades (1 Peter 1:24). But the glory of God, which is manifested in all His attributes together, never passes away. It is eternal.

[Mary Naeem]

Moses requested of God, “Now show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). In His response, God equates His glory with “all my goodness” (verse 19). “But,” God said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (verse 20). So, God hid Moses in “a cleft in the rock” to protect him from the fulness of God’s glory as it passed by (verses 21–23). No mortal can view God’s excelling splendor without being utterly overwhelmed. The glory of God puts the pride of man to shame: “Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day” (Isaiah 2:10–11, NKJV).

[Mary Naeem]

Often, in the Old Testament, the manifestation of God’s glory was accompanied by supernatural fire, thick clouds, and a great quaking of the earth. We see these phenomena when God gave the law to Moses: “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently” (Exodus 19:18; see also Deuteronomy 5:24–25; 1 Kings 8:10–11; and Isaiah 6:1–4). The prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the glory of God was full of fire and lightning and tumultuous sounds, after which he saw “what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ezekiel 1:26–28).

[Mary Naeem]

In the New Testament, the glory of God is revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus came as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of [God’s] people Israel” (Luke 2:32). The miracles that Jesus did were “signs through which he revealed his glory” (John 2:11). In Christ, the glory of God is meekly veiled, approachable, and knowable. He promises to return some day “on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30).

[Mary Naeem]

Isaiah 43:7 says that God saved Israel for His glory—in the redeemed will be seen the distillation of God’s grace and power and faithfulness. The natural world also exhibits God’s glory, revealed to all men, no matter their race, heritage, or location. As Psalm 19:1–4 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
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[Mary Naeem]

Psalm 73:24 calls heaven itself “glory” Sometimes Christians speak of death as being “received unto glory,” a phrase borrowed from this psalm. When the Christian dies, he or she will be taken into God’s presence and surrounded by God’s glory and majesty. In that place, His glory will be seen clearly: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the future New Jerusalem, the glory of God will be manifest: “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23).

[Mary Naeem]

God will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8; cf. Exodus 34:14). Yet this is the very thing that people try to steal. Scripture indicts all idolaters: “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:22–23). Only God is eternal, and His perfect and eternal attributes of holiness, majesty, goodness, love, etc., are not to be exchanged for the imperfections and corruption of anything in this world.

[Mary Naeem]

What does it mean that God is transcendent?


To transcend means “to exist above and independent from; to rise above, surpass, succeed.” By this definition, God is the only truly transcendent Being. The “LORD God Almighty” (in Hebrew, El Shaddai) created all things on the earth, beneath the earth and in the heavens above, yet He exists above and independent from them. All things are upheld by His mighty power (Hebrews 1:3), yet He is upheld by Himself alone. The whole universe exists in Him and for Him that He may receive glory, honor and praise.

Being transcendent, God is both the unknown and unknowable, yet God continually seeks to reveal Himself to His creation, i.e., the unknown seeks to be known. Here is a paradox. Being transcendent, God is the incomprehensible Creator existing outside of space and time and thus is unknowable and unsearchable. Neither by an act of our will nor by our own reasoning can we possibly come to understand God or experience Him personally. God wants us to seek to know Him, yet how can the finite possibly know and understand the infinite when our minds and thoughts are so far beneath His (Isaiah 55:8-9)? Romans 11:33-36 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him is the glory forever!”

Another aspect of God’s transcendent nature that places Him beyond the reach of His creation is His holiness and His righteousness. Because of man’s proclivity to sin and his desire for wickedness, he is denied the right to enter God’s presence. God has no choice but to turn His face away from us like He did with Moses when he asked to see God’s glory. God told Moses, "You cannot see my face, for no one may see my face and live" (Exodus 33:20). To see the fullness of the glory of God would be too much for any human to bear; it would break the earthen vessel in pieces. The full revelation of God is therefore reserved for the future, when all things will be seen as they are, and men will be in a condition to receive them.

The prophet Isaiah realized the necessity of God remaining aloof from His creation: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins” (Isaiah 64:6-7). A transcendent God must turn His face away, for He is forced by His very righteousness and holiness to keep Himself separate from anything or anyone sinful, impure, unclean or less than perfect. However, besides being transcendent, God also possesses immanence (nearness), and it is in His immanence that God chooses to draw near to His creation.

This, too, is a paradox. “‘Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the LORD, ‘and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the LORD. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 23:23-24). God’s transcendent nature strives to keep Him distant and remote from His creation both in space and time, yet on the other hand, His immanent nature works to draw Him near to His creation and to sustain the universe. God’s love for His creation is so great that we see His immanence overshadowing His transcendence. This becomes clear in His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, as He breaks through the barrier of sin and separation to draw all mankind back into a close, personal relationship. We see God not only choosing to draw near to His creation but to personally come into the hearts and minds of His people through the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit. This is the miracle of God’s transcendence.

[Mary Naeem]

What does it mean that God is holy, holy, holy?




The phrase “holy, holy, holy” appears twice in the Bible, once in the Old Testament (Isaiah 6:3) and once in the New (Revelation 4:8). Both times, the phrase is spoken or sung by heavenly creatures, and both times it occurs in the vision of a man who was transported to the throne of God: first by the prophet Isaiah and then by the apostle John. Before addressing the three-fold repetition of God’s holiness, it’s important to understand what exactly is meant by God’s holiness.

The holiness of God is the most difficult of all God’s attributes to explain, partly because it is one of His essential attributes that is not shared, inherently, by man. We are created in God’s image, and we can share many of His attributes, to a much lesser extent, of course—love, mercy, faithfulness, etc. But some of God’s attributes, such as omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, will never be shared by created beings. Similarly, holiness is not something that we will possess as an inherent part of our nature; we only become holy in relationship to Christ. It is an imputed holiness. Only in Christ do we “become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). God’s holiness is what separates Him from all other beings, what makes Him separate and distinct from everything else. God’s holiness is more than just His perfection or sinless purity; it is the essence of His “other-ness,” His transcendence. God’s holiness embodies the mystery of His awesomeness and causes us to gaze in wonder at Him as we begin to comprehend just a little of His majesty.

Isaiah was a firsthand witness of God’s holiness in his vision described in Isaiah 6. Even though Isaiah was a prophet of God and a righteous man, his reaction to the vision of God’s holiness was to be aware of his own sinfulness and to despair for his life (Isaiah 6:5). Even the angels in God’s presence, those who were crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty,” covered their faces and feet with four of their six wings. Covering the face and feet no doubt denotes the reverence and awe inspired by the immediate presence of God (Exodus 3:4–5). The seraphim stood covered, as if concealing themselves as much as possible, in recognition of their unworthiness in the presence of the Holy One. And if the pure and holy seraphim exhibit such reverence in the presence of the Lord, with what profound awe should we, polluted and sinful creatures, presume to draw near to Him! The reverence shown to God by the angels should remind us of our own presumption when we rush thoughtlessly and irreverently into His presence, as we often do because we do not understand His holiness.

John’s vision of the throne of God in Revelation 4 was similar to that of Isaiah. Again, there were living creatures around the throne crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty” (Revelation 4:8) in reverence and awe of the Holy One. John goes on to describe these creatures giving glory and honor and reverence to God continually around His throne. Interestingly, John’s reaction to the vision of God in His throne is different from Isaiah’s. There is no record of John falling down in terror and awareness of his own sinful state, perhaps because John had already encountered the risen Christ at the beginning of his vision (Revelation 1:17). Christ had placed His hand upon John and told him not to be afraid. In the same way, we can approach the throne of grace if we have the hand of Christ upon us in the form of His righteousness, exchanged for our sin at the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21).

But why the three-fold repetition “holy, holy, holy” (called the trihagion)? The repetition of a name or an expression three times was quite common among the Jews. In Jeremiah 7:4, the Jews are represented by the prophet as saying, “The temple of the Lord” three times, expressing their intense confidence in their own worship, even though it was hypocritical and corrupt. Jeremiah 22:29, Ezekiel 21:27, and 2 Samuel 18:33 contain similar three-fold expressions of intensity. Therefore, when the angels around the throne call or cry to one another, “Holy, holy, holy,” they are expressing with force and passion the truth of the supreme holiness of God, that essential characteristic which expresses His awesome and majestic nature.

In addition, the trihagion expresses the triune nature of God, the three Persons of the Godhead, each equal in holiness and majesty. Jesus Christ is the Holy One who would not “see decay” in the grave, but would be resurrected to be exalted at the right hand of God (Acts 2:26; 13:33-35). Jesus is the “Holy and Righteous One” (Acts 3:14) whose death on the cross allows us to stand before the throne of our holy God unashamed. The third Person of the trinity—the Holy Spirit—by His very name denotes the importance of holiness in the essence of the Godhead.

Finally, the two visions of the angels around the throne crying, “Holy, holy, holy,” clearly indicates that God is the same in both testaments. Often we think of the God of the Old Testament as a God of wrath and the God of the New Testament as a God of love. But Isaiah and John present a unified picture of our holy, majestic, awesome God who does not change (Malachi 3:6), who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and “with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning” (James 1:17). God’s holiness is eternal, just as He is eternal.