![]() ![]() The scholar sees holiness measured in the awe or the fear felt by a believer. This is not the devotional counterpart to a scientist’s evocation of “billions and billions” of light-years.įor Jesus’ idea of holiness was almost the opposite of Rudolf Otto’s. When we speak of His name as “hallowed,” however, we are doing much more than expressing awe, or stating a supernatural fact. God is transcendent, powerful, mysterious, and fearsome. ![]() They point out that the psalmist says, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (Ps 124:8), rather than just, “Our help is in the LORD.” Here, they believe that David is verbally distancing himself from a transcendent God.īy itself, that idea is half true. Some scholars suggest that when biblical authors invoke the name of the Lord, rather than the Person of the Lord, they are consciously avoiding any language that might suggest intimacy. “Holy, holy, holy” is what even the angels cry in the presence of a Power and a Mystery that inspires fear and awe (Isa 6:2-3 Rev 4:8). The holy is something entirely different from what we experience in ordinary life. Most people associate the word holy with things that are transcendent-“wholly other,” in the defining phrase of the twentieth-century scholar Rudolf Otto. But what do we mean by this? Do we mean what Jesus meant? Whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we acknowledge God’s name as “allowed” (Matt 6:9)-that is, as holy or sanctified. ![]()
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