A Passionate Chapter
I love this
chapter of the Bible. It is absolutely
one of my favorite chapters in the whole of the Old Testament. Sure, it doesn’t compare with the chapters
that talk about salvations through Jesus’ death or even hope through the resurrection. This chapter may not be able to compete with
the chapters on God’s grace in Paul’s writings.
But from an Old Testament perspective this chapter has it all:
supernatural involvement, a stern warning, and truth. It is chapters like this that drive me into
the Hebrew Scriptures!
Let’s start
with a historical look at this chapter.
First, let’s assume for a second that the book of Isaiah is written
roughly chronologically with respect to Isaiah’s life. Thus, we can put together what is happening
in Isaiah’s life. He’s begun to see the
Hebrew people in truth. He’s begun to
know God’s displeasure at their lifestyle.
He’s begun to know the coming wrath.
No sooner does Isaiah begin to get a grasp on seeing the world through
God’s eyes that suddenly God calls him to a very official and proper duty.
Here’s what
is cool about this realization. So often
we think of a prophet’s life as going like this: obedience to God, calling from
God, prophecy to God’s people. However,
Isaiah doesn’t follow this pattern.
Isaiah begins to prophesy to God’s people before the “big supernatural
calling.” Now, I don’t mean to say that
Isaiah wasn’t called when he began as a prophet. Certainly He was! Rather, the point I am trying to make is that
we don’t always have to have this “big supernatural moment” in order to speak
God’s words to the people around us.
That’s pretty cool. Isaiah
doesn’t get his “big supernatural moment” until after he’s been in God’s
service for some time.
The Vision
So now let’s
look at this moment in time. Notice that
when Isaiah sees this vision, he sees the Lord seated upon a throne. Of course, there was no throne in the
Temple. Some people have thus concluded
that Isaiah must have seen god upon the Ark of the Covenant – at the “mercy
seat” as it were. I don’t reject this
conclusion completely; I simply believe it to be erroneous given the
information. There is no need to make
that conclusion. Personally, I believe
that Isaiah sees God on a throne because God is attempting to symbolically tell
Isaiah a message. In spite of what the
people think, God is the one in control.
In spite of what the people do, God is in power over the world. As we can tell by Isaiah’s reaction, this is
a vision of power and control. There’s
no need to bring the Ark of the Covenant into this vision at all.
Next, let’s
take a look at the attitude of the seraphim before the throne of the Lord. First, they are doing something that we do
not typically envision humans doing before the throne of God. We say all the time that we cannot wait to
see God face-to-face. We say that we
cannot wait to gaze upon God. Now, we
say this because we don’t see God all that often. It is something that we look forward to
doing. However, what we see the seraphim
doing here is actually covering their faces.
They don’t look upon the Lord.
They don’t gaze upon Him. Being
in His presence is enough for them. They
are humble before the Lord. They aren’t buddies
with God; they honor Him and revere Him.
The word
“holy” is stated three times.
Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who believe that this tri-fold
repetition indicates the Trinity. If we
take that opinion, then what would we say about all the other visions of God
where there is no tri-fold repetition?
Rather, I believe the tri-fold repetition is done for the purposes of
completing Hebrew symbolism. In the
Hebrew Scriptures, repeating something three times implies perfection. Thus, the angels are saying that God is
perfect in His holiness. That is what I
believe the tri-fold repetition means.
Response To The Vision
What of
Isaiah’s reaction? Here we see humbleness. Isaiah finally realizes where He is. He knows that he is lost. Literally, he knows that there is no hope for
him. Now that’s faith right there. Modern followers of God can’t wait to be in
God’s presence. Isaiah knows that he has
no business being there. That humbleness
with respect to God is why I love this chapter.
So often in today’s Christianity we get a best-friend perspective of
God. In Isaiah we see humbleness and
truth in our relationship with the Almighty.
Of course,
God takes care of the little matter of Isaiah’s guilt before the Lord – as He
shall do for us as well. There’s no
reason to think of the Almighty as uncaring or ambivalent to our need. He loves us and cares for us enough to provide
exactly what we do need! Just because we
should revere Him does not mean we must think of Him as distant or uncaring.
Isaiah’s Call
What is
Isaiah called to do? He is to go forth,
proclaiming the dullness of the people.
He is to go forth, telling the people how close they are to God’s wrath
and judgment. In other words, he is to
go forth and expose humanity for what it is.
Yes, he is to find those who faithfully respond and encourage them in
the faith. But his calling is to go
forth into the world and speak truth about humanity. He is to illustrate just how dull, blind, and
deaf humanity really is.
He is also
to speak about a remnant - literally: a tenth of the people. There will be those who hear and
respond. There will be those who don’t
jump straight to cheap grace but who go through the process of repenting and
acknowledging their guilt. There will be
a people through whom God causes growth out of the stump. Isaiah is to talk about the remnant, because
the Messiah is to come through that very remnant – or stump.
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