Future Holiness

Several times, Revelation identifies God triadically, triunely as the one “who is and who was and who comes” (1:4, 8; 4:8). He is the present God, the God who reaches back beyond the origins of all things – the God of whom it could always be said “He is” – and the God whose coming we anticipate. As Father, Son, and Spirit, He doesn’t stand aloof from time, but overarches and embraces all time.

The brief speech of the “angel of the waters” (Revelation 16:5-6) offers a variation of this title. In a neat twelve-word speech of praise, the angel says:

A. Righteous you (2 words)

B. who is (2 words)

B’. and who was (3 words).

B”. the holy (2 words)

A’. Because these things judged (3 words).

The God who is, was, and comes is the God who demonstrates His righteousness in judgment. And the text alludes numerologically to the fact that this judgment is carried out on behalf of (or against) Israel. The Righteous One who judges is the God of the Twelve. We might muse on the distribution of the words in this sentence: Seven words are devoted to the description of God (the Creator?) while five describe His righteous works of judgment (perhaps a faint military allusion).

What is intriguing here is that the pattern of was, is, and comes is violated, and in place of a reference to the Lord’s future coming is the declaration that He is “the holy” (osios). When this formula is compared to the other triads in Revelation, we get the tantalizing hint that holiness is associated with advent, and specifically with advent in judgment. More specifically, God shows Himself holy by coming to carry out future judgment.

The association of holiness with future makes sense of Old Testament notions of holiness. The places and persons of things Yahweh consecrates anticipate the future glories of God’s kingdom. The holy priest is a foretaste of the glorified humanity; the sanctuary is an image of heaven, and is a sign in the present of the future new creation. Entering the sanctuary is a re-entry to Eden, but it is a glorified Eden, a whisper of future Eden. Things are made holy by the coming of the Holy One, and the hope of Israel is that the Holy One will come yet again. To say God is the Holy One is to say He is God of the future.