Responding to the Otherness of God

Responding to the Otherness of God

Psalm 99

Main Idea: The exclusive holiness of God demands that we trust him to save us and make us holy.

While teaching at New Orleans Seminary, I had a humbling experience that has stuck with me. Two young Asian men were considering coming to our seminary to study, so they called to set up an appointment to discuss their journey. When they arrived for the appointment, I went out to the outer office to meet them. They greeted me with the traditional bow, we shook hands, and I invited them into my office. As I entered, I turned around to invite them to sit down. That’s when I saw something I’ll never forget. They were bent over, backing into my office with their faces to the ground. In my surprise I asked what they were doing. One of them responded, “This is the way we enter our professors’ offices in our country. It’s a sign of respect for them.”

Although I thought their response to me was misplaced, that humbling experience did make me process how I act toward people who—by virtue of their person or position—deserve appropriate response from me. It especially made me process my response to God. Psalm 99 is the sixth of the royal psalms (93; 95–100), all of which magnify God’s sovereign rule over the universe. After the joyful energy of the previous psalm, this song keeps our spirits in check with how exalted and holy God actually is and with the great reverence we owe him because of his personal character and positional reign.

God’s holiness defines and describes this psalm. The word holy is used four times to describe him and his rule. The word can be defined as “separate, set apart, totally different” and has been described as that attribute of God that makes him wholly other. It emphasizes the distance between God and man morally—as between the pure and the polluted—as well as existentially—as between the infinite and the finite. The previous psalm assures us the gulf between God and man has been bridged, but this psalm reminds us that God constructed the bridge. So the repeated cry, “He is holy,” ensures that we don’t act casually or tritely toward him, his holiness, or his grace.

God’s holiness also determines the development of this psalm. The uses of the term holy are all found in the thematic refrain repeated in verses 3, 5, and 9. “He is holy” is declared in the first two refrains (vv. 3,5), and then the restatement “The Lord our God is holy” is declared in the third one (v. 9). Each of these declarations is prefaced by some command to worship God, obviously in response to his holiness. The psalm essentially comprises three sequences, each containing some expression of praise to this holy God followed by the refrain calling for a suitable response to his holiness. We can easily analyze the psalm by identifying what sets God apart in each sequence and then determining from the refrains how we ought to respond to his holiness.

What Sets God Apart

We really can’t know how to respond appropriately to someone unless we understand his or her nature. The Asian students I mentioned above responded the way they did to me not because of anything about me personally but because of the regard they had for my role. In their minds the nature of the role of a professor deserved a certain respect. Understanding God’s nature is the key to knowing how to respond to him.

He Is Sovereign (99:1-2)

As with Psalms 93 and 97, the first sequence of this psalm opens with the declaration, “The Lord reigns!” He is not just king in Israel but sovereign over the whole planet. While God’s holiness was first exhibited in his distinctive kingly authority over Israel, the entire world is destined to acknowledge it. The commands to “Let the peoples tremble. . . . Let the earth quake” suggest it would be unwise for anyone to respond to this God in any way other than fear. He is sovereign, and he is all-powerful!

This universal scope of God’s reign is pictured in two ways. First, “he is enthroned between the cherubim.” These angelic beings were identified with God’s rule not only over Israel (80:1; cf. 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15; 1 Chr 13:6) but also over all creation. Contrary to much religious art, these cherubim aren’t harmless, unarmed, cuddly cupids. They’re mighty beings representing the whole kingdom of earthly creatures (Ezek 1:4-28; 10:1-22; Rev 4:6-11). God’s throne isn’t inanimate or stationary but magnificently depicted as a living, flying, fiery chariot that moves over the earth. Second, “the Lord is great in Zion.” While Zion was the city of Jerusalem from which God ruled Israel, it also is the locus of his reign over the whole earth (cf. Pss 2:1-12; 110:1-7)! Both cherubim and Zion show his supreme reign!

He Is Just (99:4)

The second sequence of this psalm describes God not merely as one who exercises authority and power over everybody but also as one who does what is right and fair by everybody. He does what is right and fair because he loves what is right and fair. God does what he is. So because he is perfectly upright, faithful, and righteous in his character, he is fully just in his actions. Only in him are holiness, power, and justice perfectly united with one another. He rules justly because he is completely holy and just himself.

This attribute of God ran contrary to the ethic of most nations in the ancient world. Most kings ignored and even defied justice. They were driven by their own self-interest, regardless of who had to be manipulated or oppressed—including their own citizens. God’s condemnation of foreign nations during the exodus and conquest is misunderstood at this point. It’s easy to view his treatment of Egypt, the Canaanite peoples, and other nations as unfair and uncaring, as if he were playing favorites with Israel. The reality is that God was killing two birds with one stone! After many years of patience, he exercised judgment against nations who rejected justice (Gen 15:16; Dan 8:23; 1 Thess 2:16) while establishing Israel as an example of a people who reflected his values of justice, righteousness, and the proper exercise of authority.

He Is Accessible (99:6-8)

The mention of “Moses and Aaron . . . Samuel” (v. 6) at the beginning of the third sequence of this psalm is sudden. It almost seems out of place. What do these guys possibly have to do with what sets God apart? All three served in different capacities—Moses as deliverer at the exodus, Aaron as his priest, and Samuel as a great prophet in a later era of the early monarchy. But one role tied them together: all were mediators between God and his people! All three were “calling on his name. . . . And he answered them” (v. 6). God “spoke to them; . . . they kept his decrees” (v. 7). They prayed to God for his people, and God taught his people through them. And through them he granted access to both his mercy and his justice.

Before Israel entered the promised land, Moses reiterated how important it was for them to have prophets who would serve as their mediators so they could have access to God (Deut 18:15-19). He reminded them how at Sinai they were right to understand this necessity in light of God’s holiness, sovereignty, and justice. When God manifested his awesome power on the mountain, the Israelites trembled with fear to the point they asked Moses to mediate between them and God lest they be destroyed (Exod 20:18-19). They dared not approach this holy God! So Moses told the people God would raise up another prophet to mediate on their behalf so they could have access to him.

How We Should Respond

The recurring refrain of this song provides us with built-in application, calling us to respond to the holiness of God. The repeated declarations “He is holy” (vv. 3,5) and the companion “The Lord our God is holy” (v. 9) indicate each action is a fitting response to this God who is set apart from all others. And each response gives us a window into how our worship is realized through trust in the person of Jesus Christ. Consider three proper responses to God’s holiness for those of us living on this side of the cross.

Trust Jesus as Sovereign (99:3)

The readers and singers of this psalm are first beckoned to “praise [God’s] great and awe-inspiring name” (v. 3). Praise is the only suitable and natural response to one whose name—and therefore whose self—is so great and awesome that it makes people tremble and the earth shake (vv. 1-2)! Otherwise, we will find ourselves on the judgment end of God’s stick. He’s the distinct, supernatural, transcendent, and all-powerful God. We can choose to either tremble before him with reverential praise or tremble before him with petrified horror. The choice is ours.

How to make this choice is clear from this side of the cross. God has determined to receive his praise through Jesus. In him God’s sovereignty is wed with his great and awesome name so that ultimately he might be glorified. And one day everybody in the universe will confess Jesus as sovereign, either willingly or by force. Paul said, “God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11). So we offer this holy and sovereign God the praise he is due by trusting Jesus as Lord and bowing before him in reverent obedience. God has exalted him as sovereign over the universe, and he is worthy of our praise!

Trust Jesus for Salvation (99:5)

The second response solicited by the psalmist is to “exalt the Lord our God; bow in worship at his footstool” (v. 5). To “exalt” and to “bow” convey simultaneous actions that can’t be separated. The former means to lift high while the latter means to prostrate oneself. If you lift something high, you inevitably become lower. If you prostrate yourself before something, you inevitably make it high. This synchronized action leaves the worshiper at God’s “footstool.” Scripture uses this term to signify several aspects of God’s reign (1 Chr 28:2; Ps 132:7; Isa 60:13; 66:1; Ezek 43:7; Lam 2:1), all of which find the worshiper in a humble and submissive position—bowing at the feet of royalty. Kneeling at the feet of a God who loves and exercises justice is an incredibly vulnerable position, one that reminds us we are at his mercy!

On this side of the cross, we can see the connection these harmonized acts of exalting and worshiping have with God’s love for and administration of justice (v. 4). Because sin separates us from this holy God, justice is the last thing on our wish list. So we need someone to help us worship this just God, against whose justice we can’t even begin to measure up by ourselves. So God redeemed us and made us righteous through Christ’s sacrificial death, “so that he would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). God does what he is! So we offer this holy and just God praise by trusting Jesus to save us. God “presented him as an atoning sacrifice in his blood, received through faith” (Rom 3:25)! God executed justice for us in Christ!

Trust Jesus for Sanctification (99:9)

The psalmist’s final call to worship repeats the partnering actions to “exalt the Lord our God; [and] bow in worship.” However, this time—instead of bowing at God’s footstool—worship is to be offered “at his holy mountain.” In addition to being the earthly city of Jerusalem from which God ruled Israel and the nations, Mount Zion also refers to God’s eternal reign in heaven (Heb 12:22; Rev 14:1). Both places are holy because God who inhabits them is holy! So this is a summons for us to come into the presence of the holy God and bring him his due worship, now and forever! But how are we as sinful and finite creatures sufficient for such a great privilege?

At the Passover in Egypt, God gave the Israelites positional holiness. But then he used men like Moses, Aaron, and Samuel to foster functional holiness in them. On this side of the cross, we need a mediator to do the same for us. We get positional holiness by faith in the “one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5); we’re made right with a holy God. However, we still need access to him to get functional holiness. That’s called sanctification, or holiness fleshed out, with skin on it! Jesus is our mediator for that work as well—for both maintaining and maturing our faith in a hostile world (see Heb 4:14-16; 7:25; 10:19-25). When that journey is over, we’ll assemble with angels and Old Testament saints before God in the heavenly Mount Zion, not dreading his holy terror but rejoicing in his holy reign. So with that hope and his holiness, we trust our mediator, Jesus, to equip us to be able to offer holy lives as his acceptable worship as we await his eternal glory (Heb 12:18-29; cf. Rom 12:1-2)!

Conclusion

Recently two professional golfers in the United States went against the grain of the current trend of professional athletes who are publicly criticizing our sitting president on Twitter and other media outlets. Their reason? Both of them said they believe that—regardless of whether you agree with the president—the office deserves respect. Even when it comes to imperfect human beings, certain characteristics of age, administrative roles, and positions of authority deserve a certain response from all of us.

If that’s true for humanity, then certainly the holy God of the universe—who has no flaw or sin—deserves respect, worship, and allegiance from every man, woman, boy, and girl on the planet, all of whom he created by his grace and for his glory. And as if that weren’t enough, he pursued us in Christ Jesus even when we rebelled against him. Certainly the God of the gospel merits our reverential response. But instead of our having to back into his presence, he welcomes our entrance face-to-face, with open arms as the waiting father did with his prodigal son. The Holy Other has graciously invited sinful people to come home to be in relationship with him.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How does God’s “otherness” impact our approach to him?
2. Should we meditate on God’s holiness as we approach God’s Word and prayer? Why or why not?
3. If the angels cry out “Holy, holy, holy” in their worship of God in heaven, how might we specifically consider his holiness while we worship God here?
4. How does God’s sovereignty inform our worship of God and relationship with God?
5. What does the fact that God “loves justice” say to the way we relate with people in our normal day-to-day interactions with them?
6. In what ways should God’s accessibility encourage us to pray and yet convict us of our times of prayerlessness?
7. How does Jesus demonstrate God’s sovereignty, his holiness, and our sanctification all at the same time? In what ways does he do each?
8. What’s the difference between “positional holiness” and “functional holiness”?
9. In what ways does “positional holiness” encourage our walk with the Lord?
10. What does “functional holiness” communicate to us about sanctification in our walk with the Lord?