Why would the 4 living creatures repeat 3 times, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty" (Rev. 4:8)?
Revelation 4:8
ESV - 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!
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Asked April 24 2018
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Jack Gutknecht
Supporter
Community answers are sorted based on votes. The higher the vote, the further up an answer is.
Doris Manning
Supporter
I am taking an educated guess that Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, and Holy is the Holy Spirit.
Tim Maas
Supporter
I would say that the threefold repetition of the word "holy" by the four living creatures in John's vision from Revelation has multiple meanings: 1) By its similarity to Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6:3, it shows that the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament. 2) The threefold repetition reflects the triune nature of God as three Persons in one Being. 3) The repetition of "holy" (especially three times rather than twice) denotes emphatic intensity (force and passion) in this declaration, stressing the essential characteristic of God's awesome nature that underlies all His other attributes, and that separates Him from everything else in the universe.
Kenneth Heck
Supporter
I believe this saying is for the benefit of those temporarily visiting the throne room to quickly orient themselves to the infinite holiness of Lord God Almighty sitting on the throne. Any potentially less than holy thoughts or statements by the visitors may thus immediately disappear. Since there is no cessation due to night there, the four creatures say this without stopping as long as God is on his throne.
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