God’s Holiness and Human Hope
Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died …

The year was around 740 B.C. Uzziah reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. He ascended the throne when he was just sixteen years old. Uzziah basically did what was right in the sight of the LORD (see 2 Kings 15:1-7). However, Uzziah never destroyed the mountain shrines where some of the Israelites continued to make offerings and sacrifices to fertility gods like Baal and Asherah. As a result, the LORD struck Uzziah with leprosy, and he remained a leper until the day of his death. He was forced to live in a separate house and delegate his royal duties to his son, Jotham. Uzziah’s death raised the specter of palace intrigue, a possible coup, and the question of his ultimate successor.

Something else was afoot around the year 740 B.C. The Assyrian Empire was on the rise. We learned about the Assyrians last Sunday when we read a large portion of the book of Jonah. The Assyrians were a serious threat to the sovereignty of the Jewish states (both the northern and southern kingdoms).

Furthermore, the southern kingdom was in spiritual and moral declension. Isaiah described the spiritual and moral health of the nation in Chapter 1, verses 2-4. “Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged!” It was a dark time. Isaiah described himself and his people as having “unclean lips,” that is, they were vulgar and profane.

There are eerie similarities between 740 B.C. and A.D. 2020. Both were times of great uncertainty, internal and external danger, and spiritual and moral decline.

But in the midst of this political, moral, and theological morass, Isaiah saw a vision of God. He saw Yahweh sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. In the vision, the hem of God’s robe filled the temple. The LORD was attended by seraphs. The seraphs were angelic beings. The Hebrew word seraph means “burning ones.” The seraphs each had six wings. With two they covered their faces. They did not look at God or pry into what God was like. But notice that they did not cover their ears. Their task was to hear and do the LORD’s bidding. With two wings they flew. The verbs indicate perpetual motion. With two wings they covered their feet. With our feet we follow the direction we set for our lives. But the seraphs, the flames of fires, disavowed any intention to choose their own path. Their intent was to go and do only as the LORD commanded them.

The seraphs also proclaimed a message. It seems to have been uttered antiphonally. “And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory’” (Isa. 6:3).

The Hebrew language uses repetition to express superlatives. A superlative is the perfect or supreme example of the thing, person, or trait being described. A good example is found in Isaiah 26:3. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Literally the Hebrew text reads, “Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace (perfect peace).” Only in Isaiah 6:3 is a threefold repetition found. Alec Motyer, in his excellent commentary on Isaiah, says this: “Holiness is supremely the truth about God, and his holiness is in itself so far beyond human thought that a ‘super-superlative’ has to be invented to express it!”

Last Sunday we learned about God’s nature from the book of Jonah. “He prayed to the Lord and said, 'O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing'” (Jonah 4:2).

God is love, but even more, God, in the divine essence, is holy. The Hebrew word for "holy" means “brightness” and “separateness.” The LORD dwells in unapproachable light. Why is God so other, so radically different from creation and creatures? Motyer explains it this way: “The answer is that it is his total and unique moral majesty.” As the New Testament puts it, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” ( 1 John 1:5). God cannot and does not tolerate sin, and as a result God cannot be approached by fallen creatures such as we are.
And yet, God’s holiness is omnipresent. “The whole earth is full of God’s glory.” God’s holiness and omnipresent glory would seem to be at odds with each other. How can a holy God fill the creation that is fallen? Motyer, in a wonderful turn of phrase, observes, “Holiness is God’s hidden glory; glory is God’s all-present holiness.”

Still, the presence of the holy God causes a strong reaction from fallen nature. The reaction of the temple and the prophet Isaiah to the proclamation of God’s holiness underscores the unique moral majesty of Yahweh. “The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke” (Isa. 6:4). The shaking doorposts and thresholds prohibited Isaiah from entering God’s holy presence. The smoke kept him from seeing God in his unmediated holiness and glory.

And Isaiah cries out, “And I said: 'Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!'” (vs. 5).⁹ Isaiah’s vulgar and profane lips could not come near God. Isaiah’s death by God’s holiness and glory seemed to be imminent.

But God intervened! Isaiah does nothing. He cowers. God commands. God commands the seraph to take a live coal from the altar of sacrifice and to touch Isaiah’s unclean lips. Fire was a symbol of wrath and judgment. The altar was the place where sacrifices were offered to atone for sin. The live coal holds together both divine reactions to sin: judgment and forgiveness.

As soon as the burning coal touched Isaiah’s lips, his guilt departed, and his sin was blotted out. This is a powerful image of God’ free and unmerited favor. The burning coal is like the cross. On the cross, Jesus is the object of God’s judgment on human sin and the source of divine forgiveness of sin. This is the gospel we proclaim.

Following his forgiveness, the barriers of God’s holiness and glory are removed from Isaiah. Immediately, he can hear God speaking and all his fear is gone. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’” (vs. 8). There is no more, “Woe is me!” or “I am lost!” Now Isaiah volunteers with alacrity, with prompt gladness, “Here am I; Send me!”

It is a remarkable personal transformation with profound social implications. 740 B.C. was a dark year. There was great political uncertainty, internal and external danger, and spiritual and moral decay. But God intervened. The LORD took hold of one man. God revealed his holiness and glory to him and forgave him. But the work was not complete. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” The work of God’s free grace in banishing human guilt and blotting out human sin was just beginning.

Isaiah would continue to preach and prophesy for some fifty years. Assyria would rise and fall as an empire. Israel would go into and return from exile in another nation, the Babylonian empire. Babylon would eventually succumb to Persia and Persia to Rome and so on ad infinitum.

Isaiah’s vision of God and his experience of God’ free grace and subsequent commissioning are as true today in A.D. 2020. as they were in 740 B.C. God is still seated on his throne. God is still the super-superlative, thrice-holy one. God’s glory continues to fill the earth. God’s free grace in Jesus Christ continues to touch and cleanse people with unclean lips and impure hearts. And God is still asking, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And unworthy servants are still gladly volunteering, “Here am I; send me!”

There is hope for us even in the darkest hour. For God nothing shall be impossible. And we can be useful instruments of God’s gospel of peace. We can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us. So, let us seek to be agents of God, calling our countrymen back to the thrice-holy one, proclaiming the message of the seraphs: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Amen.