We call upon God's holy name, we must be prepared to approach Him as "Our Father." He, after all, does not forget, though we do repeatedly. We do this not for His sake, butįor our own. God of the special relationship He has with us. When we call upon the name of the Lord, we are reminding This is why we must never, in the words of the commandment, "take the name Name, children of His covenant, which we invoke whenever we say "Our Father." Name from all eternity, for we invoke Him with the proper name "Holy Spirit."Īs God's family on earth, we share in His holiness because we are called by His Is not holy merely in relation to human beings who hold Him in awe. The Virgin Mary said: "Holy is his name" (Lk. That His name is holy, consecrated, set apart for intimate conversation within Those who are, by covenant, the children of the King. Name apart - segullah - as the possession of the King of heaven, and Of the King who live in the palace and are heirs to the throne. We are His children and not just His creatures.Īll creatures possess God as their beginning and end, but we possess Him as children He owns all the jewels in the realm, but the King, after all, legally owns all the real estate in his kingdom, but the palace Segullah, which denoted something set apart, reserved for the use of a king. What, then, makes Israel so different?Įxpressing a special relationship with Israel, and He did so by using the word God first says that Israel is His possession then He goes on to say thatĪll the world is His. If you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possessionĪmong all peoples for all the earth is mine" (Ex. When God is establishing the terms of His covenant with Israel: "Now therefore, He is all these things, andĬonsider the following passage from Exodus, When we consider God as awesome and transcendent. This is an astounding fact - even more astounding Name is not merely transcendent and mysterious it is intimate and personal and We also bring on His judgment, but that judgment is a blessing to thoseīe Thy name," He shows us that the name of God is consecrated, it is holy.
That name - Our Father! - God responds as a Father, and we receive His It's what proves our personal relationship with Him. The name of God, then, is His own covenant identity, His personal Upon Him and place oneself under His judgment. If they were unfaithful, they drew down their In effect, calling down a blessing or a curse (cf. By entering a covenant relationship, they were, Should they fail, they accepted the most dire penalties, because they had placed Parties of a covenant invoked God's name as they swore to fulfill their responsibilities. New family relationships brought with them certain privileges and duties. Or treaty, a covenant created a family bond between persons or between nations.Ī wedding took the form of a covenant oath so did the adoption of a child. World, this consecration was achieved by means of a covenant. Yet it is set apart not for isolation, but for a personalĪnd interpersonal purpose not for distance, but for intimacy. Is holy, it is consecrated, set apart from everything else - in that sense,
Hebrew word for holiness is kiddushin, which also means "marriage." When something What made Him holy was not intended to distance Him from us so much as it was Identity, independent of whether we exist in order to sense its wonder. "Holy" is His name - that is, His essential God to be anything less than mysterious or powerful, but God's mystery and power God from all eternity, before creation, and so before there was even a singleĪngel or human being to be awestruck by the Almighty. Jesus, however, saw holiness as something belonging to The scholar sees holiness measured in the awe or theįear felt by a believer. This is not the devotional counterpart to a scientist's evocation of "billionsįor Jesus' idea of holiness was precisely the However, we are doing much more than expressing awe or stating a supernaturalįact. God is transcendent, powerful, mysterious,Īnd fearsome. Here, they believe that David is verbally distancing himself from a transcendentīy itself, that idea is half true. Made heaven and earth," rather than just, "Our help is in the Lord" (Ps. They point out that the Psalmist says, "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who Of the Lord, they are consciously avoiding any language that might suggest intimacy. That when biblical authors invoke "the name of the Lord," rather than the person Holy, holy" is what even the angels cry in the presence of a power and a mystery Is something entirely different from what we experience in ordinary life. Other," in the defining phrase of the 20th-century scholar Rudolf Otto. People associate the word "holy" with things that are transcendent - "wholly