Word of Encouragement (12/9/2021)
“And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, ‘Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed’” (Rev. 15:3-4).
God alone is holy—that is, God alone is holy in and of Himself. If to be holy is to be set apart, God alone is holy in the original and purest sense of the word. He alone is the uncreated, self-existing, eternal, infinite Creator while everything else is created by Him. The only way a created being/thing can be holy is in a secondary, derivative sense: when it is set apart unto God who is inherently holy.
We can say that everything at the time of its creation in its pristine condition was holy through its relationship to God as His creation. But this is not to say that everything was equally holy. There seems to have been varying degrees of holiness even before the Fall. Adam and Eve had a special connection with God as those who were created in the image of God while other creatures were created according to their own kind. The Garden of Eden, too, seems to have served as a temple of sorts, set aside for man’s communion with God. This is why Adam and Eve could not stay in the garden after they fell in sin: as fallen sinners, they could no longer dwell in the garden sanctuary.
As a result of the Fall, everything and everywhere became profane. (The Garden of Eden seems to have retained its status as a holy place but only for a time.) From then on, only the places where God made His appearance became consecrated, and that only temporarily. And only those, who are set apart from the profane world unto God in a special covenantal relationship, can be holy. We can say that redemption is to restore the whole creation to the state of incorruptible holiness, especially those whom God has chosen for Himself.
Those who are set apart as holy through the redemption of Jesus Christ are preeminently people of worship. With the blindness of sin removed, holy people recognize the insuperable transcendence of the holy God. That recognition leads them to worship Him. In this song, the 144,000 envision a day when all nations will come and worship the one and only true and holy God. What will bring this about? “...for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
God’s “righteous acts” may have a double meaning: 1) the righteous acts by which He has saved His people (cf., Rom. 1:16-17); 2) the righteous acts by which He has judged the reprobates. So then, “all nations” that come and worship God on the last day may refer to all the redeemed of the Lord, who are delivered from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people. But “all nations” may also include the reprobates. God exalted Jesus above every name “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11): “every knee” and “every tongue” will include those of unrepentant sinners and Satan and demons. As there are two different kinds of fear of the Lord (as we saw yesterday), there are two different kinds of worship, too: the worship of God by those who have the love of in their hearts and the praise of God on their lips; the worship of God by the enemies of God in their defeat and surrender.
I hope that this reflection will cause you to look forward to gathering with your fellow saints (“holy ones”) and worshipping your holy God on the Lord’s Day. May it also stir up your heart to worship God in all that you do today—by acknowledging God as the Fount of every blessing you have in your life and as the reason and motivation for all that you do!