Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 6:5
Then said I, Woe [is] me! for I am undone; because I [am] a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
5. Isaiah is overwhelmed with the sense of his own unworthiness; he feels himself cut off by a spiritual defect from participation in the solemn mystery which he, alone of mortals, has been privileged to behold; his eyes have seen, but his lips are impure.
I am undone ] The Vulgate and other ancient versions give the impossible rendering, “I have been silent” ( tacui). Jerome’s paraphrase is interesting as explaining the genesis of a curious legend, that Isaiah had already been a prophet, but had lost the gift of inspiration through his unfaithfulness: “quia tacui et non audacter Osiam regem corripui, ideo labia mea immunda sunt.”
a man of unclean lips ] “A pure lip” is required for the worship of Jehovah (Zep 3:9); Isaiah would fain join in the praises of the Seraphim, but the impulse is checked by the uncleanness of his lips, which is the impurity of his whole nature concentrated, as it were, in the organs of expression. Isaiah is not yet a prophet; but in this profound sense of the necessity for a consecration of the faculty of speech we must surely recognise an unconscious preparation for the task of speaking the word of God.
a people of unclean lips ] Cf. ch. Isa 3:8. The vision of God which has brought his own sin to light, reveals to him also the sinfulness of the people among whom he dwells. They too are unfit to take the holy name of Jehovah on their lips; their whole worship of Him is profane. And this comes home to him as an aggravation of his guilt, that his mind is saturated with the atmosphere of ungodliness in which he lives and moves and has his being.
for mine eyes have seen the King ] A second ground for the ejaculation “I am undone!” That the sight of God brings death to men is an idea frequently expressed in the O.T. (Exo 19:21; Exo 30:20; Jdg 13:22); the preceding clauses shew that to Isaiah’s consciousness the danger springs from sin, and not from mere creaturely frailty.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wo is me! – That is, I am filled with overwhelming convictions of my own unworthiness, with alarm that I have seen Yahweh.
For I am undone – Margin, Cut off. Chaldee, I have sinned. Septuagint, I am miserable, I am pierced through. Syriac, I am struck dumb. The Hebrew word may sometimes have this meaning, but it also means to be destroyed, to be ruined, to perish; see Hos 10:15; Zep 1:2; Hos 4:6; Isa 15:1. This is probably the meaning here, I shall be ruined, or destroyed. The reason of this, he immediately states.
A man of unclean lips – This expression evidently denotes that he was a sinner, and especially that he was unworthy either to join in the praise of a God so holy, or to deliver a message in his name. The vision; the profound worship of the seraphim; and the attendant majesty and glory, had deeply impressed him with a sense of the holiness of God, and of his own unfitness either to join in worship so holy, or to deliver the message of so pure a God. A similar effect is recorded in reference to Abraham; Gen 18:27; see also Exo 4:10, Exo 4:12; Jer 1:6. A deep consciousness of guilt, in view of the holiness and majesty of God, is also described by Job:
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear
But now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.
Job 42:5-6.
An effect also remarkably similar is described in reference to the apostle Peter, Luk 5:8 : When Simon Peter saw it (the miracle which Jesus had performed), he fell down at Jesus knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
A people of unclean lips – A people who are unworthy to celebrate the praises of a God so pure and exalted.
Mine eyes have seen – In Exo 33:20, it is said: Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live; compare Joh 1:18; 1Ti 6:16. Perhaps it was in recollection of this, that Isaiah said he was undone. It is not, however, to be understood that the prophet saw Yahweh Himself, but only the symbol of His presence. It was for this expression, according to the tradition of the Jews, that Manasseh took occasion to put the prophet to death; see the Introduction, Section 2.
The Lord of hosts – Yahweh of hosts. John applies this to the Lord Jesus, and this proves that he is divine; see Joh 12:41.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 6:5-8
Then said I, Woe is me!–
The moral history of a rising soul; or, the way up from depravity to holiness
Whilst holiness is the normal, depravity is the actual state of man.
A restoration to his spiritual condition is his profoundest necessity. What is the path of the soul up from the depths of depravity to those sunny heights of holiness where unfallen spirits live an exultant life?
I. A VISION OF THE GREAT RULER AS THE HOLIEST OF BEINGS. Three facts show this.
1. There can be no excitement of the moral sensibilities and powers without a vision of God. Show me a soul that has never had an inner vision of God, and you show me a soul whose moral powers are in a chrysalis state.
2. The means which the great God has ever employed to restore men are visions of Himself. What is the Bible but a record of Divine visions and manifestations to man? What is the Gospel–Gods power unto salvation–but the manifestation of the Eternal in Christ? Here He appears to man in the face of Jesus Christ.
3. The history of all restored souls shows that the improvement commences at this stage.
II. A PROFOUND CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR FALLEN STATE. Then said I, Woe is me! etc. The prophets consciousness included four things.
1. A deep sense of his personality. I am undone. He feels himself singled out from the millions.
2. A sense of personal ruin.
3. A sense of personal sin.
4. A sense of personal sin heightened by a remembrance of his neighbours sins. So long as conscience is torpid, men often make the sinful conduct of others an apology for their own; but when conscience awakes, such sophistries depart.
III. A REMOVAL OF THE CRUSHING SENSE OF GUILT. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, etc. Three thoughts are suggested by this.
1. There are Divine means for the removal of sin.
2. The means are something in connection with sacrifice.
3. The means are employed by a Divinely appointed ministry. Let that seraphim stand as the emblem of a true minister, and we see that his work is to take the purifying elements from the altar, and apply them to men. He has to take burning thoughts, and burning thoughts must come from the Cross.
IV. AN EVER-OPEN AND SENSITIVE EAR TO THE VOICE OF GOD. I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Three thoughts will develop the general and practical meaning of these words.
1. The great God has deep thoughts about our race.
2. Just as the soul is cleared of sin does it become conscious of these thoughts. It will hear the voice of God in every sound, and see His glory in every form.
3. This consciousness of the Divine thoughts about the race is a necessary stage in the moral progress of the soul.
V. A HEARTY READINESS TO DO WHAT THE SUPREME WILL DEMANDS. Here am I; send me. To reach this point is to be in sympathy with the great and good every where; this is heaven. Conclusion–Art thou in the first stage, O my soul? Stay not there; a mere vision of the holy God will only fire thee with remorse; struggle on. Art thou in the second? Stay not there; hell is somewhere in that direction; struggle on. Art thou in the third? Stay not there; freedom from sin is but negative excellence; struggle on. Art thou in the fourth? Happy spirit! thou hast scaled the mountains of difficulty and darkness. Thy jubilee has commenced. Thou art in conscious companion ship and concert with the Infinite. Still stay not there; struggle on. Ascend to the last; and from that supernal altitude, with the vast and beaming universe around thee, look ever, in waiting attitude, to thy Maker, and say, Here am I; send me. (Homilist.)
The vision of the King
Every mans course is shaped by the view that he forms of the Supreme Ruler. If a man has no such view, he has no principle, and he is living either in anarchy or in slavery to some other mind. There are hours in every earnest life, and especially in every powerful leading life, when new truths or new views of old truths breaking in upon the eye of the soul change all the aspects of being, and give an impulse that never loses its force. Such an hour of insight as came to Jacob at Bethel and afterwards at Penuel now came to Isaiah in the temple.
I. THE VIEW OF THE SUPREME RULES. Isaiah now passed through a great spiritual excitement, such as marks the hours of conversion, the chief turning point in the careers of great souls. The leading idea is described in these words, Mine eyes have seen the King. A new regal power had arisen within his life. Now, in his first natural, unenlightened, unregenerate state, a man sees no supreme authority that has a right to rule his inner and outer being. But when the light of God dawns upon his soul, then man becomes conscious of a personal will that claims to rule his life, and of a personal mind that knows his downsitting and his uprising, and understands his thoughts afar off. In this vision of the Triune Godhead Isaiah saw the Divine life now more fully and more clearly than he had ever seen it before. In words he paints for us the impressions made by it upon his soul. Hitherto God had been to him a dim floating idea, far away in the clouds, like a distant monarch exercising no constant sway over existence; but now he recognises that the Divine life is everywhere; that all things are united to God; that all the duties, all the energies and the scenes of existence are, as it were, parts of the royal train, wide as the world, filling the vast floor of the temple of being. This change in the spiritual ideas of Isaiah seems to have been very similar to the change that was wrought in the disciples by the power of the resurrection, the sight of the ascension, and the inspiration of Pentecost. They had before acknowledged Jesus as their Master, but their ideas of His Divine authority were dim and uncertain. But when He rose from the grave and ascended to realms out of sight, when He sent down the light and heat of His Spirit into their hearts and minds, then they recognised Him with the sight of the soul as the King; they then realised that all power was given to Him in heaven and in earth, that the height and the depth, that life and death, that sickness and health, that the cross of suffering and the crown of sovereignty, that the earthly course and the silent grave, the temporal home and the great hereafter, were all subject to the sovereignty of His Divine human sceptre. Similar to that is the change wrought in every human soul when religion comes instead of a misty, cloudy, speculative theory, as a living power to rule our daily being. This revelation of Jesus as the King is going on forever through the ages.
II. THE EFFECTS OF THIS VISION UPON THE SOUL.
1. It produces an abasing sense of personal sin. Why did the vision of the King create this sense of guilt and misery? In the King is the law of our life; it is only when we see the Kings life that we know what our own life ought to be. So it is forever. Where there is no vision of excellence there can be no pangs of self-reproach. The village artist, who has never seen any works better than his own, is self-satisfied in his ignorance; but the man who has seen the master works of sovereign genius, recognises in the light his own nothingness in the presence of an ideal unapproached, high-throned, and lifted up: he cries, abased, Woe is me! I am nothing, I have everything to learn. So is it in the moral world. When the vision of a pure life breaks in upon the eyes of the impure it creates bitter self-reproach, and at first rebellious impatience.
2. It quickens the sense of social sin. We cannot separate our personal life from our social life; therefore, in the moment when we begin to desire a nobler personal life we desire also to create around us a nobler social state. So Isaiah, when he saw the King, looked with agony upon the depravity of the society of which he was a member, and cried, Woe is me! for I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And what were the sins that defiled the lips of Israel in those days? We have a description of them in the five preceding chapters. The fountain of all uncleanness, ever the same, is the self-will of our lower nature, that rebels against the King whose higher law is that love which constrains man to sacrifice his baser instincts for the Divine glory and the social good. Sin is not peculiar to any age. Our nation has its great social evil. There are, amongst us sometimes, men who defile their lips with commercial fraud, but still the motto of the British merchant is Integrity, and Thoroughness is the boast of the British workman. But there is one fountain of uncleanness that pours forth a poisonous stream to defile the lips of the nation. The curse of strong drink is an overflowing well of shame, of sin, of vice, of woe. We feel pain at social evil in exact proportion to the clearness with which we have seen the King–in other words, to the strength of our religious convictions, and thesincerity of our religious emotions. If we take low views of human destiny we do not feel much pain when existence around us is without high ends here, or high hopes of hereafter; then we can bear to look with calmness on the masses of human misery. But if we have seen the King; if, in the light of His face, we have learnt what life is to be, and what by His royal grace He will make it to be, then we never can look at these social evils without feeling our own share of responsibility, without feeling a bitter, salutary self-reproach and crying out, Woe is me! for I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
3. It brings to bear upon the life a purifying power. The altar is a place of sacrifice; sacrifice is an expression of love, and love is a leading feature in the countenance of the King, and therefore the power that redeems us into the likeness of the King is the Spirit that brings to bear upon us the burning influence of love from the altar. The altar is the Cross of Calvary, on which the Son of Man gave Himself for the good of many. Love is the source of all personal and of all social good.
4. It gives to the life an ardent mission. (H. T. Edwards, M. A.)
The vision of Isaiah
There was a veil before the Holy of holies, so that the prophet, who is evidently supposed to have stood in the outer sanctuary, could not ordinarily have seen the throne of the Lord; but the veil is here supposed to be taken away–a circumstance in itself emblematical; for the vision related to the future kingdom of Christ, when the veil of separation was to be removed, and all distinctions destroyed between the Gentile and the Jew.
I. THE CONDUCT OF ISAIAH.
1. Observe how affecting a testimony is given to the corruption and alienation of our nature by the fact that a manifestation of the Divine glory could produce in him nothing but dread and confusion.
2. The reason which Isaiah gives for being sorely confounded at beholding the glories of Christ. By specifying his lips and the lips of the people, as unclean, and thus calling to remembrance sins of the tongue rather than any other offences, the prophet appears to have in mind the office to which he had been appointed, and the difficulties which attended its faithful discharge.
II. THE EMBLEMATICAL ACTION of which the prophet was the subject, and THE COMFORTING WORDS by which he was addressed. It was in consistency with the general course of the Divine dealings that the prophets confession should be followed by an assurance of the Almightys forgiveness. And it was, further, a sort of anticipation of the privileges belonging to believers in Christ, that one of the seraphim should be employed in conveying to Isaiah an assurance of pardon. There was no virtue naturally in the coal–the whole virtue must have been derived from some fire or some burnt offering to which the coal bore a typical relation. And no one living in Christian times and blessed with Christian privileges can doubt for a moment what this typical relation was. And if this were a vision of Christ in His glory, rather than of Christ in His humiliation–a vision more fitted to instruct Isaiah as to the exaltation of the Mediator, than to show him that He might be a propitiation for sins–yet observe, that the scenery of the vision was laid in the temple, all whose furniture and whose every rite was emblematic of the suretyship and offering of Christ. The fire was still burning on the altar, though the Lord was on His throne, clad in that glory which was to be gained by the extinguishing the sacrificial flames–extinguishing them by the one oblation of Himself; and therefore might it justly be said, that the temple, thus lit up and thus crowded with brilliant forms, presented to the prophet a complete parable of redemption. From the altar of burnt offering whose fire went not out, though celestial shinings flooded the sanctuary, might he learn, that the Divinity of the Person of the Mediator would not rescue humanity from the flames of Gods wrath against sin; from the throne, with all the attendant gorgeousness, might he be instructed, that when the work of suffering was complete, there should be given to the Saviour a name above every name, and that He should sit in heavenly places, the Head over all things to the Church. But then it is as a live coal that Christ acts. He was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Isaiahs vision
There were two purposes which might be served by this magnificent vision: it could hardly fail to be profitable both to the prophet to whom it was originally given, and to the people to whom he would assuredly reveal it.
I. We have, perhaps, the most affecting possible illustration of HUMAN DEPRAVITY.
II. THE SENSE OF DEFICIENCY IN THE PERFORMANCE OF DUTY.
III. THE COMFORTING ASSURANCE OF PARDON.
IV. THIS WORK WAS ACCOMPLISHED BY PERSONAL AGENCY. One of the burning ones came and took the live coal with the tongs from off the altar and touched with it the lips of the delinquent prophet. And a fair inference from this will land us in the grand New Testament doctrine and privilege of the direct witness of Gods Holy Spirit to the adoption of the believer not the family Divine. (W. M. Punshon, LL. D.)
Sin and its cure
Then said I, Woe is me! etc. It is always thus when God draws near to man. When Moses saw that bush in the desert, which burned and was not consumed, he took the shoes from off his feet and hid his face, for it is written, He was afraid to look upon God. At Sinai the people trembled and said, Let not God speak with us lest we die. And when that glorious vision of the living Christ appeared to the apostle in Patmos, he says, I fell at His feet as dead. Revelations of the unseen, of the eternal, of the unnameable Jehovah have filled men always with alarm and with fear. And when the saints of God–men of pure and irreproachable lives–have been going home to heaven, it has been said of many of them, They died under a cloud. The sense of eternity drawing near has filled even them with apprehension. Is it that the unseen, the mysterious, must always be to creatures such as we are, the source of terror? as it was with those disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, of whom revelation records, They feared as they entered into the cloud. It is nothing that you say our fears are vain and foolish under the circumstances, that blessings in disguise coming in this way have filled men with terror, that Jesus Christ Himself drawing near to His tempest-tossed disciples upon the Sea of Galilee, and drawing near to bless them, approached after this fashion and alarmed them in this way–the fear is there, and the trouble is that this bondage of fear is upon some men all their lives, and that we do not leave it behind even in the most exalted moments that come to the saints of God. Men may have their theories which explain, or which contradict, the fact–it is true nevertheless. Isaiahs experience sums up that which is noblest and best in human life.
I. First of all, it was THE SENSE OF SIN, which moved Isaiah in that hour and in this way; sin in himself, sin in others, sin in the world around, sin which the sense of the nearness of Gods presence made all the more vivid and real to him, just as the light reveals the darkness and the things of darkness to men who are immersed in it, men who otherwise may not have had and would not have had a thought concerning it. Live away from God, and sin is nothing, lies light as a gossamer upon the conscience; draw near to God, and sin begins to be a trouble, a perplexity, a burden to man.
II. In the Divine way of dealing with men there is A PROVISION MADE FOR REMOVING THIS FEAR AND PURGING THIS INIQUITY. It is not so much the method which is illustrated here as the fact itself. Sense of sin and unworthiness there must be to that man who comes near to God. But it need not be an abiding sense as of terror. There comes a day, or there ought to come a day, when God says, Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. The sense of the remission of sin is as real as the sense of sin itself. (W. Baxendale.)
The Holy One the Purifier
I. WHAT IS THERE IN THE VISION OF GOD THAT NEED A MAN, AND ESPECIALLY A RELIGIOUS MAN, WITH SUCH OVERWHELMING TERROR.
1. No doubt certain very impressive contrasts are suggested between God and man when the Divine Majesty comes into close contact with His frail and feeble creature; but these are not, at any rate, all of them, of such a kind as to cause alarm.
(1) There is the contrast between Gods greatness and mans littleness and insignificance. This is, indeed, humiliating, and should lead us to abandon all foolish feelings of self-importance and self-sufficiency; but it need not induce overwhelming terror and alarm. So far from this, is there not something in our nature that seems to delight in the contemplation of greatness? Do we not go in search of greatness?
(2) Or, again, there is the contrast between mans weakness and Gods omnipotence. Yet here, again, we can but notice that in the mere revelation and exhibition of power, as of greatness, there is nothing necessarily alarming. All that we need to know is, that the power is friendly, or, at least, not actually unfriendly.
(3) Or, just once more, there is something very humiliating in the contrast between Gods eternal and ineffable wisdom and mans ignorance and blindness. Yet there is nothing alarming in superior wisdom; nay, there is something necessarily attractive in it.
2. What was the thought, then, that broke the prophet down, and what the contrast between God and himself that impressed him so powerfully and so painfully? For an answer we have but to listen to that song of the adoring seraphim that was sounding in his ear at the moment he was seized with this uncontrollable agony of terror. When he heard them cry, Holy, holy, holy! there rushed into his mind the thought of his own unfitness to stand before One to whom the intelligences of glory bore such witness. And it is to this that God brings us when we yield to the convicting influence of the Holy Spirit. There comes in most mens lives who yield to God–it is not equally marked in all–a moment of utter breakdown; a moment when all our self-respect seems to be humbled, and our self-confidence to melt away; a moment when the sense of sin seems indeed an intolerable load, that crushes the staggering conscience beneath its weight, and suggests the gloomiest anticipations of judgment, the forecast of despair. Some are led to God through Christ in very early days, and retain no recollection of any such experience, even if it ever occurred with them; though my personal observation leads me to conclude that it often does occur, even with very young children. Such an experience would doubtless occur in many more cases, were it not for our successful efforts at evasion. We endeavour to get away from reality, and take refuge in what is superficial and conventional; we flatter ourselves into the deep stupor of self-complacency by the cry, Peace, peace! when there is no peace. He speaks to us just as if we were a pack of sinners, said the indignant churchwarden of a church in which I once conducted a mission, and yet that man had probably joined in repeating the Litany that very morning!
II. But let us look again at this trembling man as he lies there in his terror and anguish. WHAT IS TO BECOME OF ONE WHO IS, BY HIS OWN CONFESSION, GUILTY AND CONDEMNED IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS JUDGE?
1. At the very moment when the man felt himself undone, at the moment when the contrast between Gods dazzling purity and awful holiness and his own uncleanness and sin had taken possession of his moral consciousness, and he could think and speak of nothing else, then flew one of the seraphim, speeding on a congenial errand, to bring the provisions of Divine mercy to bear upon this trembling soul. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity. No doubt the phrase represents a feature of Gods providence that is, at any rate, frequently illustrated in the incidents of our natural life. But I think we may say the words represent a law of the spiritual world, a great principle from which God seldom, if ever, departs in His dealings with human souls. How often, when men think they are waiting for God, and wondering why He does not intervene on their behalf, is He waiting for them to reach the end of their own resources, in order that He may find His opportunity!
2. Let us notice, too, how Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are alike concerned in the provision of this Divine consolation. It is at the behest of the eternal Father, responsive to the voice of His childs bewildered terror, that the great seraph speeds on his mission. God so loved the world that He sent His Son, and God so loves still, that He is ever sending–sending fresh influences of grace, fresh messages of mercy, fresh flashes of spiritual light. But further, notice how the mission of mercy is performed through the Divinely-appointed means. There stands the sacrificial altar where the expiatory sacrifices had that day been offered. Cleansing must reach the guilty in Gods own appointed way. And as we have the love of the Father, and the sacrifice of the Son, presented to us here as the conditions on Gods side of the cleansing of the sinner, so have we also a symbolic presentation of the work of the Holy Ghost. The spirit of burning, the refiners fire, that alone can cleanse the heart, and consume the dross and filthiness of our sin, breathing health and infusing purity, approaches us through the sacrificial work of Christ. And thus the night of sorrow and of self-despair melts into the blessed dawn of pardon.
3. As we contemplate this marvellous transformation scene, it is as well to dwell upon the fact that these effects were produced, not only by forgiveness, but by the knowledge of forgiveness.
4. And, most of all, was it not the expression of forgiveness to the heart of the awakened sinner that drew him towards the heart of his God, and led him in grateful love to present himself to God for service? (W. HayAitken, M. A.)
The three thens of Isaiahs temple vision
The prophet commenced his narrative by a note of time, and he makes his time bell ring again and again–striking then, then, then.
I. The first THEN occurs thus–The prophet was led to feel his own uncleanness, and the uncleanness of those among whom he dwelt. When was that? For it is important for us to feel the same conviction, and we may do so by the same means. Was it when he had been looking into his own heart, and seeing its dire deceitfulness, and the black streams of actual transgression which welled up from that inward fountain of depravity? He might certainly have said Woe is me! if he had been looking there; but he was not doing so on this occasion. Had he been considering the law of God, had he observed how exceeding broad it is, how it touches the thoughts and intents of the heart, and condemns us because we do not meet its demands of perfect obedience? Assuredly if he had been looking into that pure and holy law he might have well bewailed his guilt, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Or, had he been turning over the pages of memory, and noting his own shortcomings and the sins of his fellows? Had he noted his own failures in prayer, or in service, or in patience? Had he watched himself in private and in public, and did the record of the past bring a consciousness of sin upon him? If so, he might well enough have lamented before the Lord and cried, Woe is me! for I am undone. I might even say, had he been carrying out self-examination for a single day of his life, and had that day been the Sabbath, and had he been acting as the preacher, or had he been sitting under the most stirring ministry, and had he been at the holy feasts of the Lord, he might have found reason for confession. But none of these things are mentioned here as the occasion for this humbling cry. It was then–when he had seen the Lord. If you have never seen God, you have not seen yourselves; you will never know how black you are till you have seen how bright He is; and inasmuch as you will never know all His brightness, so you will never know all your own blackness. Learn, however, this lesson, that to turn your face away from God in order to repent is a great mistake; it is a sight of God in Christ Jesus which will breed humiliation and lowly confession of sin. Now, did I hear you say, I am a man that lives very near to God, etc.? No man who has come fresh from God ever speaks in tones of self-congratulation. What said Job? (See Job 42:5-6.) This was the experience of a perfect and an upright man.
II. You see the man trembling; in himself unclean and conscious of it, and surrounded by a people as unclean as himself, and it is while he stands in that condition that we meet with our second THEN. Then flew one of the seraphim, etc.
III. Let me now speak of the third THEN. Then said I, Here am I; send me. Knowing that we are now clean in the sight of God, through that altar which sanctifies all that it touches, we shall have all our fears removed, and then with grateful love burst out into the cry of full surrender and complete consecration. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The essentials of true worship
These verses teach us the essentials of true worship and of acceptable approach to God. And they seem to indicate these essentials as threefold, involving–
I. A SENSE OF PERSONAL WRETCHEDNESS. To worship truly, there must be a sense of our own nothingness and need. The sense of wretchedness is first induced by the contemplation of the holiness and majesty of God. It is relieved by the condescension and mercy of the King. Mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace embrace each other; and in that embrace the man who is undone is folded, and invited to bring forth his offering.
II. A SENSE OF PARDON. Our God is a consuming fire, and our first contemplation of Him thus is one which appalls and overcomes us. But a little further prostration before the Holy One shows that the fire is a purging fire, not to consume the man, but only to erase the confessed uncleanness from his lips. With the anointing of the holy fire on the lip there comes the new life into the heart, and now the mortal may mingle his praises with the seraphim themselves.
III. But worship is not complete without SERVICE. To the ascription of the heart and lip there must be added the alacrity and obedience of the life. There was service for the seraphim: to fly with the live coal. And there is service for the seer: to fly with the living message. Here am I; send me.
Here is the alacrity of obedience. There is no curious inquiry about the nature of the service. The man becomes as winged as the seraph. (A. Mursell.)
Isaiahs purification
I. In the text we have PERSONAL UNCLEANNESS ACKNOWLEDGED.
II. Observe, GODS METHOD OF DISCOVERING THIS CONDITION TO HIS PEOPLE.
1. A vision of Himself.
2. The prophet discovered his corruption by a particular manifestation. Unclean lips. Lips are indicative of character; they reveal the state of the heart.
III. THE PROPHET WAS FILLED WITH KEEN DISTRESS when he discovered that there was corruption within him.
IV. The text reveals GODS WILLINGNESS AND ABILITY TO SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM ALL SIN.
V. The text points out THE DEFINITE NATURE OF THIS FULL SALVATION.
1. As to date. The year that King Uzziah died.
2. As to place. The sanctuary. It has been said that of all places in the world there are two which a man never forgets–the place where he was converted, and the place where he got his wife. A sea captain says, I was crossing the Channel one day, in command of a passenger steamer, when a person rushed up to me, and said, Captain, why, that is Jersey! Jersey, I said, I know that, right well, for I have seen it hundreds of times; but the speaker was not to be shaken off with my reply, and, with greater emphasis, repeated, But, sir,–Captain, that is Jersey! I replied, Well, my good woman, what of that? Why, said she, I was born to God there!
3. As to results. Readiness and fitness for service. (H. Woodcock.)
The views of the glory of Christ which produce humiliation and penitence
I. REPRESENT THE GLORY WHICH EVERY TRUE SAINT BEHOLDS IN JESUS CHRIST.
1. The saints behold the Son of God undertaking, and in the fulness of time accomplishing, the work of our redemption.
2. They contemplate the exalted Redeemer, calling and entreating sinners to accept of the benefits of His purchase as the free gift of God.
3. They behold the great Redeemer setting up that kingdom which shall never be destroyed; taking possession of those by His Spirit, whom He hath purchased with His blood; and adorning and beautifying them with His own image.
4. They behold, with awful reverence, the majesty of Christ, when those who have heard the Gospel, but have not received the truth in the love of it, are given up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart.
II. EXPLAIN THE PECULIAR MANNER IN WHICH THE TRUE SAINTS BEHOLD THE GLORIES OF THE KING, THE LORD OF HOSTS.
1. The saints, having the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the know ledge of Christ, behold a glory and excellency, and taste a sweetness in Divine things, which other men cannot and do not perceive.
2. The saints alone are spiritually convinced of the reality and certainty of the great doctrines of the Gospel.
III. CONSIDER THE TENDENCY OF SUCH VIEWS OF THE GLORY OF CHRIST, AND OF THE SCHEME OF SALVATION THROUGH HIM, TO PROMOTE THE VARIOUS EXERCISES OF PENITENCE AND SELF-ABASEMENT.
1. Such views of the great Redeemer will produce deep and serious thoughtfulness about salvation.
2. They will excite those who receive them to a strict and close examination of their hearts and lives.
3. They will produce low and debasing thoughts of ourselves.
4. They will promote in the mind of a saint a godly sorrow and a holy indignation on account of his personal sins.
5. They will determine those who receive them to turn from sin unto God, and by His grace to devote themselves entirely to His service.
6. They have a transforming or sanctifying influence.
7. They wean the affections from things below and place them on things spiritual and Divine. (J. Erskine, D. D.)
Personal responsibility of man as the possessor of speech
Like the coins which we daily pass through our hands without reading the superscription or testing the metal, we use language for our momentary needs without thinking whence it came to us, or what is its worth. But words are a great gift of God so man, language is our inheritance from the ages that are gone; it grows richer as generations pass from the accumulations of their thought. Descending to us, it educates us. But if language does so much to fashion us, it is an instrument for us of wonderful power in moulding other minds. Gods work, or else Satans work, it is forever doing.
1. If we were to decide what was the commonest fault of the tongue amongst ourselves, we should almost all answer that it was the making light of sin. We can allude to any sinful act in three ways: we can speak of it as the Bible speaks, as a sin against the Holy God; or as prudent men of the world speak, as a mistake, and a blunder, and a want of self-command and dignity; or, as the thoughtless speak, as something to be laughed at and forgotten, a natural and admissible thing. Our language is copious enough for any of these. One of the greatest dangers to souls is impurity. What shall we say of one who in that moment of trial when a soul is suspended between life and ruin, steps in, with no interest in the case except the love of evil, to unloose the bands that hold him to life, and so to help his downfall? If there is any retribution for sin, is not this the sin to call it down? Tell him that modesty is weak and boyish, and that a certain measure of dissipation befits the finished character of a man. Disconnect this sin, in all that you say about it, from every thought of God; speak never of fornication and adultery; language is rich in words that soften and disguise the guilt of this sin. Show how common the sin is. Throw on nature and on youth the blame, if there is blame, of passions too strong for restraint. You will extinguish, by such means, the last spark of that shame, which, fostered in a home where all was pure and chaste, has been sustained till now from extinction by a mothers pure prayers, by her solicitous efforts to keep enfolded even when far off, her darling in the invisible arms of her chaste affection. You will succeed. It were better that a millstone were hanged about your neck, and you drowned in the depth of the sea, than to reap ouch an accursed success against one of those for whom our beloved Lord died.
2. This brings us to another peril of the tongue. Two of the safeguards against sin are the love of God and the fear of judgment. But they suppose a faith that God indeed is, and that He verily is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. A theology of suppositions has no force as a safeguard. Faith may be strong or weak, but it cannot be faith and not faith at the same time. Through this state of division and doubt men have sometimes had to pass, but to linger in it is death. It is not a phase of religion, but a suspension of it. He for whom nor God, nor Christ, nor conscience, nor the life to come for a reality, has nothing on which he may support himself. But how are these questions, this state of doubt, treated in common talk? People mean no harm when they jest about the last new theory in science, yet when they come to consider what is the tendency of the conversation in the circle in which they live, they may have to confess that its tone tends to encourage doubt, and to make them contour with the darkness.
3. Might not even our religious conversation be more fruitful than it is? St. James, from whose Epistle we might derive a complete code of rules for the government of the tongue, says, Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. He is speaking of religions things, of hearing and speaking the word of truth, mentioned in the former verse. Does not religion suffer often from our hot and impetuous advocacy? We are zealous for God, and that, we think, excuses everything; and we are ready with the nickname or the good story against those whose views differ from our own, and we separate readily from those that will not go as far as we; and the lines that separate Church parties are daily more deeply marked Gods great purposes, in the growth of His kingdom, will gain nothing from our noisy warmth. (Archbishop Thomson.)
The making of a prophet
I. IF WE SEE GOD WE SHALL SEE OUR SIN.
II. Note the second stage here, in the education of a soul for service–THE SIN RECOGNISED AND REPENTED OF IS BURNED AWAY. I would notice about this stage of the process–
1. That Isaiah singularly passes beyond all the old ritual in which he had been brought up, and recognises another kind of cleansing than that which it embodied. He had got beyond the ritual to what the ritual meant.
2. But far more important than that thought is the human condition that is required ere this cleansing can be realised. I am a man of unclean lips. I am undone! It was because that conviction and confession sprang in the prophets consciousness that the seraph winged his way with the purifying fire in his hands. Which being translated is just this: faith alone will not bring cleansing. There must go with it what we call, in our Christian phraseology, repentance, which is but the recognition of my own antagonism to the holiness of God, and the resolve to turn my back on my own past self.
3. Again, note that we have here set forth most strikingly the other great truth, the two being as closely synchronous as the flash and the peal; namely, as soon as the consciousness of sin, and the aversion from it, spring in a mans heart, the seraphs wings are set in motion. Remember that beautiful old story in the historical books, of how the erring king, brought to sanity and repentance by Nathans apologue, put all his acknowledgments in these words, I have sinned against the Lord; and how the confession was not out of his lips, nor had died in its vibration in the atmosphere, before the prophet, with Divine authority, replied with equal brevity and completeness, and as if the two sayings were bits of the one sentence, And the Lord hath made to pass the iniquity of thy sin. That is all. Simultaneous are the two things.
4. Still further, notice how the cleansing comes as a Divine gift. The Lord is He that healeth us.
5. But, further, the cleansing is by fire. By which, as I suppose, in the present context, and at Isaiahs stage of religious knowledge and experience, we are to understand that great thought that God burns away our sins; as you put a piece of foul clay into the fire, and the stain melts from the surface like a dissipating cloud, as the heat finds its way into the substance. He will baptise with the Holy Ghost and with fire–a fire that quickens. A new impulse will be granted, and that will become the life of the sinful mans life, and will emancipate him from the power of his own darkness and evil. Now, let us remember that we have the fulness of all that was shadowed to the prophet in this vision, and that all these emblems are gathered together, not with confusion, but abundance and opulence in Jesus Christ Himself. Is He not the seraph? Is He not Himself the burning coal? Is He not the altar from which it is taken? All that is needed to make the foulest clean lies in Christs great work.
III. The third stage here is–THE PURGED SPIRIT IS READY FOR SERVICE. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The true messenger of God
Though the prophecies of Isaiah are amongst the most evangelical portions of the Old Testament, and though we read them with true delight, yet the history of the prophet himself, the writer of this splendid poem, is only very partially revealed. He is like a summer bird who sings sweetly on the branch of a tree, but hides himself from view. In this chapter we have an account, if not of his conversion, at least of his call to the prophetic office. It took place in the year of Uzziahs death. That was more than a date, or he would have probably said the year when Jotham began to reign. We find here the essential qualifications of the true messengers of God.
I. A VIEW OF GODS HOLINESS. He saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and heard the heavenly choir chanting: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The word holy means separate Israel was a holy nation, separate from all the people of the earth, and Canaan was the holy land. But God Himself is the holy, the separate, dwelling in light inaccessible. God is love, but He is holy love. He is a Father, infinitely excelling any earthly parent in kindness and compassion; but He is a holy Father. Gods holiness was revealed to Isaiah in a remarkable manner. He saw God, not with his natural eyes, but in such a manner as every quickened spirit must see Him. He saw God; that is, had a true conception of His character He had heard of Him before when attending the national festivals, but he never saw Him properly until Uzziah was stricken with leprosy for his presumption. Every prophet and every messenger has a certain truth which has sunk deeper into his soul than any other truth, and it is not strange, therefore, if he enters into a covenant with that truth, as it were, that he will be faithful to it at all costs; and, on the other hand, he will receive great comfort to himself from such a truth, and find shelter under its branches from the heat of the day or the fury of the storm. Every worker for God in order to be successful must first have a vision of God. This must be the foundation of our work and the source of our success. To have a firm building, the foundation must be sound. We have never understood holiness, righteousness, and truth unless we have seen God. We can never have any idea of law except in the light of the Lawgiver. Great reformers have been great believers. This is the place to grow a creed in the sunshine of Gods presence, and in contemplation of His supreme will. A short creed of thirty-nine letters burnt into our soul by the fire of conviction is better than a long creed of thirty-nine articles conveyed to our mind by traditionalism. A personal contact with God will ever leave its mark on the soul. This was experienced by Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, and other men of valour in the religious world. When Christmas Evans was once on his travels between Dolgelly and Machynlleth he had such a view of Gods glory that he felt that the barren mountain of Cader Idris had become a Holy of holies. He wrestled with God for several hours, praying for the Churches and ministers of Wales by name. What wonder that he returned to Anglesey like a giant refreshed, and that a strong religious awakening was the natural result.
II. ANOTHER NECESSARY QUALIFICATION IS A SENSE OF MANS SINFULNESS. The vision of Gods holiness created within Isaiahs mind a sense of his own unworthiness. Then, said I, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. Why does he say unclean lips? Because he was called to speak for God, and therefore he must be, before all things, a man of pure lips, and must utter true words. He is only a voice uttering the thoughts of God, and it requires a clean channel for the waters of Gods blessings to flow. He appears to be anxious to join the seraphic song, but how could he with his lips unclean? A sense of mans sinfulness will naturally follow a true view of Gods holiness. No one with a light view of sin, viewing it only as mere weakness, the result of circumstances, or the effect of mans environment, can effect any real deliverance.
III. ANOTHER NECESSARY QUALIFICATION IS FAITH IN THE POSSIBILITY OF A MANS RENEWAL. Isaiah looked upon God, the Holy Being, as dwelling apart. On the other hand, the prophet views man in the darkness of his corrupt nature as far from God–the distance being measured, not by miles or geographical distinctions, but by sins and mans shortcomings. The prophet, first of all, seeks his own purity, and cries for renewal, and one of the seraphs, the agents of Gods mercy, becomes the medium of that blessed work. We very often find during the first real awakening of a religious activity that men become very pessimistic in their views They have passed through these two stages–the contemplation of Gods holiness and mans sinfulness–and think of the great gulf between, but before they can expect to effect a great improvement, and turn any portion of the vast wilderness into Gods garden, they must reach a further stage, and possess faith in the possibility of a mans renewal. They must look upon sin as a terrible enemy, but as an intruder in the city of Mansoul; look upon it as a serious blot upon our nature; but still to be removed by the healing influences of the grace of God. Michael Angelo saw in the rough stone at Florence the necessary material for the picture of an angel. So our Saviour looked with a prophetic eye upon all conditions of men, and He saw in Matthew, the publican, the making of an apostle. We need preachers of the Gospel of joy and of hope. John Newton said that he never doubted the power of God to save any, since he himself had been rescued from the bondage of sin. William Carey, studying a map of the world that hung in his workroom, thought with pain how small a portion of the human race had any knowledge of the Saviour; but he determined that something should be done, and he conversed, corresponded, preached, and published in order to awaken men, so as to expect great things from God, and to attempt great things for God. To love God and love our neighbour are two parts of the same law.
IV. ANOTHER QUALIFICATION IS A DESIRE TO PARTAKE IN THE WORK OF RESTORATION. Isaiah heard the voice of God saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us? This voice is only heard by those who are possessed of an obedient nature.
1. Man does not lose his personality in the work of God. Here am I; send me. He offers himself. Nothing less will do, and nothing more is possible. The grace of God does not destroy mans identity, nor his personality. The most solemn thought possible is the responsibility of personal man to a personal God. We should lay our best at the feet of our Saviour, and put every faculty under tribute to Him. There is room in His service for the gifts of the imagination, the strength of the intellect, the power of the will, and the emotions of the heart. Let us do duty first, and then we can leave the consequences to God. Let us say, Send me, and let us consecrate the entire man on the altar of service.
2. The true worker must also feel that he is the object of Divine commission. Send me. He feels, though willing and anxious to do his best, that he can accomplish nothing, unless he receives Divine commission, is endowed with Divine wisdom, and inspired by Divine fellowship. With this equipment a man can weather many a storm, and struggle manfully against many foes. Paul came face to face with God on the way to Damascus, and that made him strong to fight the battle and run the race. (H. C. Williams.)
In the temple
Jerusalem was the London of the Holy Land, the capital of Palestine. Well, a very dreadful thing had just happened in Jerusalem. The king was dead, and he died in the saddest possible way. The people were very sorry, and talked a great deal about it; and Isaiah, too, was filled with grief and wonder. What could it all mean? But there was nobody in all Jerusalem who could tell him. But God, who had a great work for the youth to do, took him and told him what it all meant. He showed him a vision. Just as we see things with our minds when our eyes are closed, so God taught Isaiah the meaning of the kings death, by making him see and hear wonderful things with the eye and ear of his mind.
I. WHAT ISAIAH SAW. He saw the Lord sitting on a throne. The King Uzziah was dead, but the eternal King never dies. He was on His throne, high and lifted up, and the glory of His garments filled the temple, so great and glorious was He. And then Isaiah heard angels singing, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory. If you went into a great picture gallery you would probably come to one room which would be called the Rubens room, where all the pictures would be by Rubens; then in another part of the gallery you would come to the Turner room, and all the pictures in that would be Turners, the great English painter; and so on through room after room. And if you went into a library, on one shelf you would find the works of Shakespeare, on another the works of Bacon, on another the works of Milton. But with regard to God, the angels say you may go up and down the world, and everywhere you go you will find every room, every shelf, filled with the glory of the same One. The whole earth is filled with the glory of One, and that One is God. Now, why does God say that to Isaiah? In order to teach Isaiah reverence; to teach him to fear God–not to be afraid, but to teach him to honour God. Uzziah had dared God, as it were. Uzziah had forgotten the greatness of God, and so the first thing God did with the boy was to stamp upon his mind that he must be reverent. And, dear children, it is one of the greatest lessons that we all need: have your play and fun and laughter in their right time and in the right way; but when you come to this place for worship, for prayer and praise, remember how great God is.
II. WHAT ISAIAH FELT. He knew that Uzziah had done wrong; and God taught him that, young as he was, he too had sinned, and so he cried out, Woe is me, I am unclean. He felt that he had sinned, and then lest his heart should be broken with sorrow, God made him feel that He–the God against whom he had sinned, could pardon and cleanse him. It is a grand moment when you find fault with yourselves. That is the finest thing a boy can do, to stand up and, as it were, pitch right into himself, find fault with himself, feeling that he has done wrong. Have you felt that, children–felt that you too have sinned? But if you have sinned it isnt hopeless,for God can take your sin away. Ask Him for pardon, ask Him for power not to sin.
III. WHAT ISAIAH HEARD. He heard God asking for somebody to carry a message for Him and do work for Him. Well, but you say, We never heard God say that. No, you never heard Him in so many words, but if you know how to listen for Gods call, you can hear Him calling every day. How does God call? God calls by putting a need before you. When anything wants doing, that is Gods call to somebody.
IV. WHAT ISAIAH SAID. Here am I. He didnt look about and say, Who is there that will go? No; he said, Here am I; send me, and God did not refuse him. You know that in arranging their play, the bigger boys choose who shall be on their side, and they always choose the best boys; the poor little fellows who cant play well are left for the other side. They are always so anxious to be called; but are always passed by, or left to the very last. God doesnt do that; He doesnt say, Oh no, no, I want somebody else. He says, Come, whosoever will let him come. (J. M. Gibbon.)
Fear, as a preparation for duty
I. THE EMOTION WHICH THE MAN EXHIBITS. (Isa 6:5.)
II. THE BEARING IT HAS UPON HIS HISTORY. Inferences–
1. To make conviction of sin profounder a man needs to come up more and more evidently before the presence of the Divine purity. It never helps anyone to begin desperately to study his wickednesses with a view to outroot them. It is better for him to keep looking at God. The objective study of Christ, His life, character, etc., is far safer and more profitable for growth in grace than any painful act of self-examination.
2. He who has suffered himself to tolerate trivial notions of disobedience has not yet ever had a proper conception of his Maker, who is one day to be his Judge. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
A vision of God humbles
The prophet does not come away triumphing in what he has seen; he does not hold the vision as a prize, and mock other men because they have not seen similar revelations; he says, in effect, If ever you see God you will fall down in humility, self-abhorrence and self-helplessness. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Isaiahs true character
Only the pure in heart can see God. But he who is sufficiently pure in heart to see God is, by that very vision, convicted of an unspeakable impurity. Isaiah was not a bad man but a good, one of the excellent of the earth in whom God took delight. But the very light that is in him turns to darkness in a glory so ineffable; and he finds a sentence of death in the very life which alone can quicken and renew him. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Self-humbling a preparation for service
I have noted in my own experience that whenever I have been most blessed in the winning of souls, it has generally been just after I have endured a thorough stripping in my own heart, or when by soul trouble I have been brayed as in a mortar among wheat with a pestle till I seemed ground into dust. Trial has preceded triumph. A wider field has been opened to me by the breaking down of my hedges. I have shrunk into self-oblivion, and then the Lord has moved me to speak in a burning manner to His glory. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Gods holiness, a revelation of sin
Like some searchlight flung from a ship over the darkling waters, revealing the dark doings of the enemy away out yonder in the night, the thought of God and His holiness streaming in upon a mans soul, if it is there in any adequate measure, is sure to disclose the heaving waters and the skulking foes that are busy in the dark. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The thought of God in the heart
The sleeping snake that is coiled in every soul stirs and begins to heave in its bulk, and wake when the thought of a holy God comes into the heart. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
No heaven possible to the uncleansed man
Oh, you who think that you are sure to go to heaven, are you quite sure that you would be happy if you got there? Might not the vision of God produce a similar effect upon you to that which was produced upon one who was probably a better man than you, by this august display? And what would heaven be but a moral hell if you found yourself grovelling in the dust, crying out in anguish and terror, Woe is me! for I am undone? (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
Consciousness of sin
When one turns to look with a steadfast eye upon ones own doings, the terrible revelation comes as a sickening fear to each of us, that the dark side of our life is practically limitless. President Edwards used to exclaim for months together, Infinite upon infinite! Infinite upon infinite! And many an awakened soul has felt that the words were hardly exaggerated. (D. M. Mclntyre.)
The sense of sin
Augustine of Hippo records in his Confessions: Thou, O Lord, while he [Pontitianus] was speaking, didst turn me round towards myself, taking me from behind my back, where I had placed me, unwilling to observe myself, and setting me before my face, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and defiled, besotted and ulcerous. And I beheld and stood aghast; and whither to flee from myself I found not.
Self-revelation a preparation for great usefulness
Students of religious biography are familiar with the strange tale of the great mediaeval preacher, Dr. John Tauler, of Strasburg, and know how popular he was while sermons were of the letter only, and not from the Spirit, and how he was set to the childs task of learning the very A B C of Christianity ere he could preach with the tongue of fire which reaches the hearts and consciences of the hearers. Falling into great weakness of body and continual sorrow of soul, losing all trust in himself and his own doings, he owned with bitter tears, I am wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. It was at that moment he received the blessed knowledge of Christ as the sin offering, and the Spirit of the Lord used him thenceforth in a marvellous manner for the convicting and comforting of the citizens, in the midst of earthquakes and wars and famine and pestilence, so that the great power of God fell upon that town as probably never before nor since. (F. Sessions.)
Jonathan Edwards conversion
Jonathan Edwards was suddenly converted, ms by a flash of light, in the moment of reading a single verse of the New Testament, into contact with which he was brought by a series of unusual circumstances. He was at home in his fathers house; some ordinary hindrance kept him from going to church one Sunday with the family; a couple of hours in prospect with nothing to do sent him listlessly into the library; the sight of a dull volume with no title on the leather back of it piqued curiosity as to what it could be; he opened it at random and found it to be a Bible; and then his eye caught this verse: Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen. He tells us in his journal that the immediate effect of it was awakening and alarming to his soul; for it brought him a most novel and most extensive thought of the vastness and majesty of the true Sovereign of the universe. Out of this grew the astonishing pain of guilt for having resisted such a Monarch so long, and for having served Him so poorly. And whereas, he had hitherto had slight notions of his own wickedness and very little poignancy of acute remorse, now he felt the deepest contrition. Here is a precise reproduction of Isaiahs experience. (C. S.Robinson, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Wo is me! for I am undone] nidmeythi, I am become dumb. There is something exceedingly affecting in this complaint. I am a man of unclean lips; I cannot say, Holy, holy, holy! which the seraphs exclaim. They are holy; I am not so: they see God, and live; I have seen him, and must die, because I am unholy. Only the pure in heart shall see God; and they only can live in his presence for ever, Reader, lay this to heart; and instead of boasting of thy excellence, and trusting in thy might, or comforting thyself in thy comparative innocence, thou wilt also be dumb before him, because thou hast been a man of unclean lips, and because thou hast still an unclean heart.
I am undone – “I am struck dumb”] nidmeythi, twenty-eight MSS. (five ancient) and three editions. – I understand it as from dum or damam, silere, “to be silent;” and so it is rendered by the Syriac, Vulgate, Symmachus, and by some of the Jewish interpreters, apud Sal. b. Melec. The rendering of the Syriac is tavir ani, stupens, attonitus sum, “I am amazed.” He immediately gives the reason why he was struck dumb: because he was a man of polluted lips, and dwelt among a people of polluted lips, and was unworthy, either to join the seraphim in singing praises to God, or to be the messenger of God to his people. Compare Ex 4:10; Ex 6:12; Jer 1:6.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I am a man of unclean lips; I am a great sinner, as many other ways, so particularly by my lips, which being in a special manner consecrated to God by my prophetical office, should have been entirely devoted to him; but, alas! my speeches, either to God in prayer, or from God in preaching and prophesying to the people, have been mixed and defiled with so much irreverence, dulness, distraction of thoughts and affections, carnal fear, and many other infirmities, that I dread the thoughts of appearing before thy judgment-seat, which I see erected in this place. For Isaiah had been a prophet before this time, Isa 1:1, and was now called, not in general to his prophetical office, but to the delivery of this special message.
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; I am an unclean branch of an unclean tree; and besides my own uncleanness, I have both by my omissions and commissions involved myself in the guilt of their sins, and therefore may justly fear to partake with them in their plagues.
Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts; the sight of this glorious and holy God gives me cause to fear that he is come to judgment against me, together with others. Whilst sinners are secure and presumptuous, the holiest persons have ever been filled with great reverence, and ofttimes with doubts and fears, at any extraordinary manifestation of Gods presence. See Gen 16:13; 17:3; Jdg 13:22.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. undone (Ex33:20). The same effect was produced on others by the presence ofGod (Jdg 6:22; Jdg 13:22;Job 42:5; Job 42:6;Luk 5:8; Rev 1:17).
lipsappropriate to thecontext which describes the praises of the lips, sung inalternate responses (Exo 15:20;Exo 15:21; Isa 6:3)by the seraphim: also appropriate to the office of speaking asthe prophet of God, about to be committed to Isaiah (Isa6:9).
seennot strictlyJehovah Himself (Joh 1:18;1Ti 6:16), but the symbol of Hispresence.
LordHebrew,“JEHOVAH.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then said I, woe [is] me,…. There’s no woe to a good man, all woes are to the wicked; but a good man may think himself wretched and miserable, partly on account of his own corruptions, the body of sin and death he carries about with him; and partly on account of wicked men, among whom he dwells, Ro 7:24:
for I am undone; a good man cannot be undone, or be lost and perish; he is lost in Adam with the rest; in effectual calling he is made sensible of his lost and undone state; and under the power of unbelief may write bitter things against himself; but be can never perish, or be lost and undone for ever. The Targum is,
“for I have sinned;”
and his particular sin is after mentioned: some o render it, “for I have been silent”; as if he had not performed the duty of his office, in reproving for sin, or declaring the will of God: others p, “for I am reduced to silence”, I am forced to be silent; he could not join with the “seraphim”, being conscious to himself of his vileness, and of his unworthiness to take the holy name of God into his polluted lips, as follows:
because I [am] a man of unclean lips; he says nothing of the uncleanness of his heart, nor of his actions; not that he was free from such impurity; but only of his lips, because it was the sin of his office that lay upon his mind, and gave him present uneasiness; there is no man but offends in words, and of all men persons in public office should be careful of what they say; godly ministers are conscious of many failings in their ministry. The Targum is,
“because I am a sinful man to reprove;”
and so unfit for it.
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; such were the Jews, not only in Isaiah’s time, but in the times of Christ and his apostles, who traduced him, as if he was a wicked person, calumniated his miracles, said he was a Samaritan, and had a devil; they taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and opposed and blasphemed the truths of the Gospel; and to live among men of a filthy speech and conversation is a concern to a good man; he is vexed and distressed hereby; he is in danger of learning their words, and of suffering with them in a common calamity.
For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts; the same divine and glorious Person described in Isa 6:1 who is no other than the Lord Christ, King of kings, and Lord of lords, King of saints, and Lord of the armies, in heaven and in earth; and a lovely sight it is to see him by faith, in the glory and beauty of his person, and in the fulness of his grace; such a sight is spiritual, saving, assimilating, appropriating, very endearing, and very glorious and delightful: wherefore it may seem strange that a sight of Christ should fill the prophet with dread; one would think he should rather have said, happy man that I am, because I have seen this glorious Person, whom to see and know is life eternal; but the reason of it is, because in this view of Christ he saw the impurity of himself, and was out of conceit with himself, and therefore cries out in the manner he does; just as in a sunbeam a man beholds those innumerable motes and atoms, which before were invisible to him. It was not because of his sight of Christ he reckoned himself undone; but because of the impurity of himself, and those among whom he dwelt, which he had a view of through his sight of Christ: his sight of Christ is given as a reason of his view of his impurity, and his impurity as the reason of his being undone in his apprehension of things. The prophet, in these his circumstances, represents a sensible sinner, under a sight and sense of his sinfulness and vileness; as the seraph in the following verses represents a Gospel minister bringing the good news of pardon, by the blood and sacrifice of Christ.
o “quia tacui”, V. L.; so R. Joseph Kimchi. p “Ad silentium redactus sum”, Tigurine version.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The seer, who was at first overwhelmed and intoxicated by the majestic sight, now recovers his self-consciousness. ”Then said I, Woe to me! for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.” That a man cannot see God without dying is true in itself, and was an Old Testament conviction throughout (Exo 33:20, etc.). He must die, because the holiness of God is to the sinner a consuming fire (Isa 33:14); and the infinite distance between the creature and the Creator is sufficient of itself to produce a prostrating effect, which even the seraphim could not resist without veiling their faces. Isaiah therefore regarded himself as lost ( nidmethi , like , perii, a preterite denoting the fact which, although not outwardly completed, is yet effected so far as a man’s own consciousness is concerned), and all the more because he himself was of unclean lips, and he was also a member of a nation of unclean lips. The unholiness of his own person was doubled, in consequence of the closeness of the natural connection, by the unholiness of the nation to which he belonged. He designates this unholiness as uncleanness of lips, because he found himself transported into the midst of choirs of beings who were praising the Lord with pure lips; and he calls the King Jehovah, because, although he had not seen Jehovah face to face, he had seen the throne, and the all-filling robe, and the seraphim who surrounded and did homage to Him that sat upon the throne; and therefore, as he had seen the heavenly King in His revealed majesty, he describes the scene according to the impression that he had received. But to stand here in front of Jehovah of hosts, the exalted King, to whom everything does homage, and to be obliged to remain mute in the consciousness of deep uncleanness, excited within him the annihilating anguish of self-condemnation. And this is expressed in the confession made by the contrite seer.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Isaiah’s Heavenly Vision. | B. C. 758. |
5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. 6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Our curiosity would lead us to enquire further concerning the seraphim, their songs and their services; but here we leave them, and must attend to what passed between God and his prophet. Secret things belong not to us, the secret things of the world of angels, but things revealed to and by the prophets, which concern the administration of God’s kingdom among men. Now here we have,
I. The consternation that the prophet was put into by the vision which he saw of the glory of God (v. 5): Then said I, Woe is me! I should have said, “Blessed art thou, who hast been thus highly favoured, highly honoured, and dignified, for a time, with the privilege of those glorious beings that always behold the face of our Father. Blessed were those eyes which saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and those ears which heard the angels’ praises.” And, one would think, he should have said, “Happy am I, for ever happy; nothing now shall trouble me, nothing make me blush or tremble;” but, on the contrary, he cries out, “Woe is me! for I am undone. Alas for me! I am a gone man; I shall surely die (Jdg 13:22; Jdg 6:22); I am silenced; I am struck dumb, struck dead.” Thus Daniel, when he heard the words of the angel, became dumb, and there was no strength, no breath, left in him,Dan 10:15; Dan 10:17. Observe,
1. What the prophet reflected upon in himself which terrified him: “I am undone if God deal with me in strict justice, for I have made myself obnoxious to his displeasure, because I am a man of unclean lips.” Some think he refers particularly to some rash word he had spoken, or to his sinful silence in not reproving sin with the boldness and freedom that were necessary–a sin which God’s ministers have too much cause to charge themselves with, and to blush at the remembrance of. But it may be taken more generally; I am a sinner; particularly, I have offended in word; and who is there that hath not? Jam. iii. 2. We all have reason to bewail it before the Lord, (1.) That we are of unclean lips ourselves; our lips are not consecrated to God; he had not had the first-fruits of our lips (Heb. xiii. 15), and therefore they are counted common and unclean, uncircumcised lips, Exod. vi. 30. Nay, they have been polluted with sin. We have spoken the language of an unclean heart, that evil communication which corrupts good manners, and whereby many have been defiled. We are unworthy and unmeet to take God’s name into our lips. With what a pure lip did the angels praise God! “But,” says the prophet, “I cannot praise him so, for I am a man of unclean lips.” The best men in the world have reason to be ashamed of themselves, and the best of their services, when they come into comparison with the holy angels. The angels had celebrated the purity and holiness of God; and therefore the prophet, when he reflects upon sin, calls it uncleanness; for the sinfulness of sin is its contrariety to the holy nature of God, and upon that account especially it should appear both hateful and frightful to us. The impurity of our lips ought to be the grief of our souls, for by our words we shall be justified or condemned. (2.) That we dwell among those who are so too. We have reason to lament not only that we ourselves are polluted, but that the nature and race of mankind are so; the disease is hereditary and epidemic, which is so far from lessening our guilt that it should rather increase our grief, especially considering that we have not done what we might have done for the cleansing of the pollution of other people’s lips; nay, we have rather learned their way and spoken their language, as Joseph in Egypt learned the courtier’s oath, Gen. xlii. 16. “I dwell in the midst of a people who by their impudent sinnings are pulling down desolating judgments upon the land, which I, who am a sinner too, may justly expect to be involved in.”
2. What gave occasion for these sad reflections at this time: My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. He saw God’s sovereignty to be incontestable–he is the King; and his power irresistible–he is the Lord of hosts. These are comfortable truths to God’s people, and yet they ought to strike an awe upon us. Note, A believing sight of God’s glorious majesty should affect us all with reverence and godly fear. We have reason to be abased in the sense of that infinite distance that there is between us and God, and our own sinfulness and vileness before him, and to be afraid of his displeasure. We are undone if there be not a Mediator between us and this holy God, 1 Sam. vi. 20. Isaiah was thus humbled, to prepare him for the honour he was now to be called to as a prophet. Note, Those are fittest to be employed for God who are low in their own eyes and are made deeply sensible of their own weakness and unworthiness.
II. The silencing of the prophet’s fears by the good words, and comfortable words, with which the angel answered him, Isa 6:6; Isa 6:7. One of the seraphim immediately flew to him, to purify him, and so to pacify him. Note, God has strong consolations ready for holy mourners. Those that humble themselves in penitential shame and fear shall soon be encouraged and exalted; those that are struck down with the visions of God’s glory shall soon be raised up again with the visits of his grace; he that tears will heal. Note, further, Angels are ministering spirits for the good of the saints, for their spiritual good. Here was one of the seraphim dismissed, for a time, from attending on the throne of God’s glory, to be a messenger of his grace to a good man; and so well pleased was he with the office that he came flying to him. To our Lord Jesus himself, in his agony, there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening him, Luke xxii. 43. Here is, 1. A comfortable sign given to the prophet of the purging away of his sin. The seraph brought a live coal from the altar, and touched his lips with it, not to hurt them, but to heal them–not to cauterize, but to cleanse them; for there were purifications by fire, as well as by water, and the filth of Jerusalem was purged by the spirit of burning, ch. iv. 4. The blessed Spirit works as fire, Matt. iii. 11. The seraph, being himself kindled with a divine fire, put life into the prophet, to make him also zealously affected; for the way to purge the lips from the uncleanness of sin is to fire the soul with the love of God. This live coal was taken from off the altar, either the altar of incense or that of burnt-offerings, for they had both of them fire burning on them continually. Nothing is powerful to cleanse and comfort the soul but what is taken from Christ’s satisfaction and the intercession he ever lives to make in the virtue of that satisfaction. It must be a coal from his altar that must put life into us and be our peace; it will not be done with strange fire. 2. An explication of this sign: “Lo, this has touched thy lips, to assure thee of this, that thy iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged. The guilt of thy sin is removed by pardoning mercy, the guilt of thy tongue-sins. Thy corrupt disposition to sin is removed by renewing grace; and therefore nothing can hinder thee from being accepted with God as a worshipper, in concert with the holy angels, or from being employed for God as a messenger to the children of men.” Those only who are thus purged from an evil conscience are prepared to serve the living God, Heb. ix. 14. The taking away of sin is necessary to our speaking with confidence and comfort either to God in prayer or from God in preaching; nor are any so fit to display to others the riches and power of gospel-grace as those who have themselves tasted the sweetness and felt the influence of that grace; and those shall have their sin taken away who complain of it as a burden and see themselves in danger of being undone by it.
III. The renewing of the prophet’s mission, v. 8. Here is a communication between God and Isaiah about this matter. Those that would assist others in their correspondence with God must not themselves be strangers to it; for how can we expect that God should speak by us if we never heard him speaking to us, or that we should be accepted as the mouth of others to God if we never spoke to him heartily for ourselves? Observe here,
1. The counsel of God concerning Isaiah’s mission. God is here brought in, after the manner of men, deliberating and advising with himself: Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? God needs not either to be counselled by others or to consult with himself; he knows what he will do, but thus he would show us that there is a counsel in his whole will, and teach us to consider our ways, and particularly that the sending forth of ministers is a work not to be done but upon mature deliberation. Observe, (1.) Who it is that is consulting. It is the Lord God in his glory, whom he saw upon the throne high and lifted up. It puts an honour upon the ministry that, when God would send a prophet to speak in his name, he appeared in all the glories of the upper world. Ministers are the ambassadors of the King of kings; how mean soever they are, he who sends them is great; it is God in three persons (Who will go for us? as Gen. i. 26, Let us make man), Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They all concur, as in the creating, so in the redeeming and governing of man. Ministers are ordained in the same name into which all Christians are baptized. (2.) What the consultation is: Whom shall I send? And who will go? Some think this refers to the particular message of wrath against Israel, Isa 6:9; Isa 6:10. “Who will be willing to go on such a melancholy errand, on which they will go in the bitterness of their souls?” Ezek. iii. 14. But I rather take it more largely for all those messages which the prophet was entrusted to deliver, in God’s name, to that people, in which that hardening work was by no means the primary intention, but a secondary effect of them, 2 Cor. ii. 16. Whom shall I send? intimating that the business was such as required a choice and well-accomplished messenger, Jer. xlix. 19. God now appeared, attended with holy angels, and yet asks, Whom shall I send? For he would send them a prophet from among their brethren, Heb. ii. 17. Note, [1.] It is the unspeakable favour of God to us that he is pleased to send us his mind by men like ourselves, whose terror shall not make us afraid, and who are themselves concerned in the messages they bring. Those who are workers together with God are sinners and sufferers together with us. [2.] It is a rare thing to find one who is fit to go for God, and carry his messages to the children of men: Whom shall I send? Who is sufficient? Such a degree of courage for God and concern for the souls of men as is necessary to make a man faithful, and withal such an insight into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven as is necessary to make a man skilful, are seldom to be met with. Such an interpreter of the mind of God is one of a thousand, Job xxxiii. 23. [3.] None are allowed to go for God but those who are sent by him; he will own none but those whom he appoints, Rom. x. 15. It is Christ’s work to put men into the ministry, 1 Tim. i. 12.
2. The consent of Isaiah to it: Then said I, Here am I; send me. He was to go on a melancholy errand; the office seemed to go a begging, and every body declined it, and yet Isaiah offered himself to the service. It is an honour to be singular in appearing for God, Judges v. 7. We must not say, “I would go if I thought I should have success;” but, “I will go, and leave the success to God. Here am I; send me.” Isaiah had been himself in a melancholy frame (v. 5), full of doubts and fears; but now that he had the assurance of the pardon of his sin the clouds were blown over, and he was fit for service and forward to it. What he says denotes, (1.) His readiness: “Here am I, a volunteer, not pressed into the service.” Behold me; so the word is. God says to us, Behold me (ch. lxv. 1), and, Here I am (ch. lviii. 9), even before we call; let us say so to him when he does call. (2.) His resolution; “Here I am, ready to encounter the greatest difficulties. I have set my face as a flint.” Compare this with ch. l. 4-7. (3.) His referring himself to God: “Send me whither thou wilt; make what use thou pleasest of me. Send me, that is, Lord, give me commission and full instruction; send me, and then, no doubt, thou wilt stand by me.” It is a great comfort to those whom God sends that they go for God, and may therefore speak in his name, as having authority, and be assured that he will bear them out.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
5. Wo to me! for I am undone. The Prophet now relates how powerfully he was affected by that vision; namely that he was so terrified by seeing God; that he expected immediate destruction. He assigns the reason for believing that it is all over with him; because, says he, I am a man of unclean lips
I wonder why Jerome renders it, because I was silent; seeing that there is no ambiguity in the expression. דמה ( damah) does indeed signify to be silent, but here the undoubted mark of a passive verb is added. This passage may likewise be rendered, Wo to me! for I have been reduced to silence. In the Scriptures silence is often taken for death and those who have been buried are said to have been reduced to silence. But as the meaning is the same, I will not dispute much about the translation.
The Prophet therefore means, that he was so terrified as to resemble a dead man. And certainly we need not wonder at this; for the whole man, so far as relates to the flesh, must be reduced to nothing, that it may be renewed according to God. Whence comes it that men live, that is, imagine that they live, and are swelled with vain confidence in their wisdom or strength, but because they know not God? Accordingly, until God reveal himself to us, we do not think that we are men, or rather, we think that we are gods; but when we have seen God, we then begin to feel and know what we are. Hence springs true humility, which consists in this, that a man makes no claims for himself, and depends wholly on God; and therefore on this point the present and similar passages ought to be carefully studied.
It was customary with the godly fathers, whenever they saw God, to break out into these words:
I am gone; I am utterly undone. (Jud 13:22.)
Our life, therefore, until our minds earnestly draw near to God, is a vain delusion; we walk in darkness, and can with difficulty distinguish truth from falsehood; but when we come into the light it is easy to perceive the difference. So when God draws near to us, he brings light with him, that we may perceive our worthlessness, which we could not formerly see, while we entertained a false opinion of ourselves.
And yet mine eyes have seen the king, Jehovah of hosts. (93) But does the sight of God bring death to men? For it appears strange that the sight of God or approach to him should take away life, of which he is the source and giver. I reply that this is an accidental result; for it takes place through our fault, and not on account of the nature of God. Death is within us; but we do not perceive it, unless when it is compared with the life of God. This is unquestionably what the Prophet means; for he does not merely say that he is dead, but assigns the reason, because he has unclean lips.
But why does he confine the pollution to the lips ? Was he pure in understanding, or in the other parts of the body? I answer: the Prophet mentions that which he regarded as the most valuable, his tongue, which was consecrated to God; for God had appointed him to be a Prophet. Even though he was in other respects a sinner, yet because the office which he held was holy, this part of his body was sacred; and as it does not correspond to the divine holiness, he confesses that, even in that part which in itself is more holy, he is polluted. Such appears to me to be the true and natural meaning of this passage, in the explanation of which commentators have hitherto been unsuccessful.
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. This is added by way of explanation; for he includes himself as an individual in the number of the common people, tainted with that pollution which extends to the whole body, and forgets the purity which he had received from God, because it cannot dwell in his presence. Hence it is evident that they are mistaken who imagine that the Prophet spoke under erroneous views; as the common people are wont to contrive a variety of false notions concerning God. For, as I have said, the presence of God and approach to him is the destruction of our flesh; because it shows that we are nothing in ourselves. When he who is conscious of his wretchedness sees God, what can he expect but destruction? For God is our judge, to whom, we know, nothing is concealed or unknown, in whose sight our purity is impure. And if this happened to the Prophet, what ought we to think of ourselves? For what are we in comparison of him? Even if the LORD hath begun to cleanse us, yet we ought to acknowledge our pollution, the remains of which always continue in our flesh. Hence also we ought to draw a universal doctrine, that the lips of all men are impure and polluted, till the Lord has cleansed them; from which it also follows, that human doctrines have an uncleanness which betrays them, and that there is nothing pure but what has come from God.
(93) For mine eyes have seen the king, the LORD of hosts. — Eng. Ver.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
A SIGHT OF GOD AND A SENSE OF SIN
Isa. 6:5-7. Then said I, &c.
Visions of the throne of God were given to Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel among the prophets, and to John among the Apostles [748].
[748] We should naturally expect that a vision vouchsafed to an Apostle of Christ, at the end of the first century of the Christian era, would be larger in scope, brighter in glory, less enigmatical in structure, in significance, than those which were attached to the ministrations of prophets. This expectation is not disappointed. We find the visions of the throne of God which prophets saw revived and incorporated in the Apostles vision, and we find the Christian seer enlightened with a more distinct understanding of the heavenly symbols. Isaiah saw the throne of God in the temple, surrounded by seraphim, crying one to another, Holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. Ezekiel, sitting by the river of Chebar, saw the throne of God as a chariot of war coming out of a whirlwind and going forth over the earth, attended by mighty ministers of judgment, carrying the Son of Man to victory. Daniel beheld the great session of justice; the gathered myriads before the awful purity of the Divine Judge; the consuming laws executed by the faithful servants. But the Christian Apostle, looking through the door of heaven, beheld all these ancient visions, which had come down through eight centuries of time, blended into one. He saw Isaiahs seraphim, but they had the appearance of Ezekiels living creatures, with fourfold countenance; their wings were still visible, and their voices still responded, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! He saw the thrones round about the Throne, as Daniel saw them, but he was able to count them; they were four and twenty; and upon the seats he saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold. The stream of fire, which the prophet saw proceeding from under the throne, was now a sea of glass like unto crystal. He that sat on the throne, who appeared to Ezekiel as though He were clothed with fiery amber, was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone; and the rainbow was still there, round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.Lightnings, thunderings, and voices proceeded out of the throne, as before fire flamed out and devoured. The seven spirits of God, like burning lamps of fire, stand in the presence of the Holy One. And the Apostle witnessed the sublime service of heaven, the living creatures giving glory and honour and thanks to Him that sat on the throne; and, in response to their worship, the four and twenty elders falling down before Him and worshipping Him, and singing their united praises, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created!R. A. Redford.
I. The distinguished privilege. I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. The invisible and unapproachable God revealed Himself to the bewildered seer through the glory of the afterwards incarnate Christ (Joh. 12:41). May we behold God? Certainly we may.
1. In His Son Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:3; 2Co. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Joh. 14:8-9).
2. In His works and Word. The works are the embodied words of God. In the Scriptures we may see the mind, the heart, the purposes, the character of God.
3. In His sanctuary. In the act of worship, while in the temple, Isaiah beheld the glory of the Lord (Psa. 63:1-2; Psa. 68:24).
II. The profound abasement. It is true that before honour is humility. The converse is also true. Isaiahs humility was the effect of overwhelming honour. A sight of God brought self-revelation; depravity was revealed by the dazzling whiteness of divine purity.
1. There was consternation. Woe is me; for I am undone.
2. There was self-loathing. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. The vision of God results in a vivid and painful sense of sin (Job. 42:5-6; Luk. 5:8).
III. The divine cleansing. Absolution is connected with confession (1Jn. 1:9).
1. The cleansing was efficacious.
2. The purification was by means of sacrifice.
3. The removal of defilement was immediate. A man so prepared is made ready for any ministry of testimony, toil, or tribulation.Matthew Braithwaite.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE MORAL HISTORY OF A RISING SOUL
Isa. 6:5-8. Then said I, Woe is me, &c.
Whilst holiness is the normal, depravity is the actual state of man. A restoration to that spiritual condition is his profoundest necessity, his want of wants. The recovery of holiness involves the recovery of all other good. There seem to be, in the nature of the case, five stages through which the soul must pass in this all-important and glorious transit.
I. A VISION OF THE GREAT RULER AS THE HOLIEST OF BEINGS. Isaiah had this: Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Three facts will show that a spiritual vision of God is the first step of the soul towards holiness.
1. There can be no excitement of the moral sensibilities and powers without a vision of God. Show me a soul that has never had an inner vision of God, and you show me a soul whose conscience, whose moral powers, are entirely dormant. The passions, the intellect, the imagination may move, but the conscience, the heart, the moral essence, the self of the man, moves notis dead.
2. The means which God has ever employed to restore men are visions of Himself. What is the Bible but a record of Divine visions and manifestations to man? What is the GospelGods power unto salvationbut the manifestation of the Eternal in Christ? Here He appears to man in the face of Jesus Christ.
3. The history of all restored souls shows that the improvement commences at this stage. The explanation which Paul gives of the first upward movement would generally be true of all: When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, &c. What the sun is to the plant, God is to the soul.
II. A PROFOUND CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR FALLEN STATE. Then said I, Woe is me, &c. His consciousness included four things
1. A deep sense of his personality. I am undone. He feels himself singled out from the millions. When conscience is touched, she breaks the bond, individualises the man, and makes him feel as if he stood alone before the Eternal Judges 2. A sense of personal ruin. Woe is me, for I am undone. My prospects are blighted, my hopes are gone.
3. A sense of personal ruin arising from a sense of personal sin. I feel my ruin because I feel my sin. I am a man of unclean lips; I am a sinner, and therefore undone.
4. A sense of personal sin, heightened by the remembrance of his neighbours sins. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. So long as conscience is torpid, men often make the sinful conduct of others an apology for their own; but when conscience awakes, such sophistries depart.
III. A REMOVAL OF THE CRUSHING SENSE OF GUILT. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, &c. Three thoughts are suggested by this
1. There are Divine means for the removal of sin. This live coal, this altar, and seraphim in the vision, symbolise this truth.
2. The means are something in connection with sacrifice. Fire is a purifying element, and is regarded as the emblem of purity. This live coal was taken from the altar of burnt-offering. The fire of that altar was at first kindled by the Lord, and ever afterwards kept burning. What is the power that takes away sin? The Divine Word in connection with Christs sacrificethe doctrine of the Cross. This, like fire, has a purifying power.
3. The means are employed by a divinely-appointed ministry. Let that seraph stand as the emblem of a true minister, and we see that his work is to take the purifying elements from the altar and apply them to men.
IV. AN EVER-OPEN AND SENSITIVE EAR TO THE VOICE OF GOD. I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, &c. Three thoughts will develop the general and practical meaning of these words
1. God has deep thoughts about our race. The Bible reveals some of these thoughts, and so does Nature.
2. Just as the soul is cleared of sin does it become conscious of these thoughts. Let the conscience be thoroughly cleared of sin, and it will hear the voice of God in every sound and see His glory in every form. The universe to a holy being is the tongue of God (P. D. 2545, 2552, 2560, 2563, 2564).
3. This consciousness of the Divine thoughts about our race is a necessary stage in the moral progress of the soul. It is only thus we walk with God, as Enoch did of old.
V. A HEARTY READINESS TO DO WHAT THE SUPREME WILL COMMANDS. Here am I; send me. I am ready to do whatever Thou commandest. Send me anywhere, at any time, to do any work; I am ready to catch the slightest whisper of duty; my soul stands with plumed pinions.David Thomas, D.D.: The Homilist, vol. v. pp. 411418.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE SERVICE OF THE SERAPHIM
Isa. 6:1-2; Isa. 6:5-7. I saw also the Lord, &c.
In that perfect prayer which our Lord bequeathed to His disciples we are taught to ask that Gods will may be done in earth as it is done in heaven. Thus angelic service is set before us as a model and pattern. Not that the services we are called upon to render are the same with those assigned to angels. Their sphere is heaven, ours for the present is the earth; and each of these spheres has its distinct and peculiar duties, appropriate to the nature and faculties of its occupants. But the spirit in which the employments of angels and men should be prosecuted is the same. One common sentimentthe sentiment of adoration and devotednessshould animate and govern them all. Hence the passage before us, although containing a record of the transactions of another sphere, contains a lesson, if not respecting the nature of our duties, yet respecting the method in which we should seek to fulfil them.
I. The twofold life of a servant of God, whether human or angelic, is here very beautifully exhibited to us. The seraphim are represented as veiling their faces and feet with their wings while they stand in adoration before the throne of God. But although engaged in ceaselessly adoring the Divine perfections, they do not lead a life of barren contemplation. The words, with twain he did fly, intimate to us that they are also engaged in the active execution of those errands with which God has charged them. The Christians life, like that of the seraphim, branches out into the two great divisions of contemplative devotion and active exertion. It is the life of Mary combined with that of Martha (P. D. 2417).
1. The devotional branch of the Christians life. In the exercises of the closet and of the sanctuary are to be found the springs of the Christians exertions in his Masters cause. These exercises are not originating sources of grace, but they are channels and vehicles through which Gods Spirit conveys Himself to the soulpitchers in which may be drawn up the waters of the River of Life to refresh and recruit the energies of him whom a painful resistance to evil within and without has rendered weary and faint in his mind (H. E. I. 3426, 4107, 4108, and 34383448). If devotion be essential to the perfection of a seraphs service, how much more essential must it be to ours, our necessities being so immensely greater than those of the bright inhabitants of heaven! The exigencies of our time make devotion especially needful now. The present is emphatically a period of the worlds history in which many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased. Moreover, there is a revival of outward energy and activity in the cause of religion. This is a blessing. But remember, days of excitement are not days of deep devotion. There may be much of rapid movement abroad in the world without a corresponding adoration of God in the secret chamber of the heartmuch of flying without veiling of the face [1303]
[1303] If this be the case with any of us, if, with the busy occupation of the hands in the furtherance of religious objects, we have allowed the inward life of communion with God to decline, how painfully do we resemble those virgins who took no heed to provide for their dying lamps a continual supply of oil! The profession which we have made before men, however bright its blaze, will one day be shown to have been delusiveto have been destitute of those animating principles of faith and love from which alone can flow an acceptable service.Goulburn.
2. The outward manifestation of the Christian life discernible by the world. Care must be taken not only that the lamp shall be filled with oil, but that there shall be a light shining before men (Mat. 5:16; H. E. I. 1042, 1044, 3906). The seraphim are not so wrapt up in adoration of God that they are forgetful of active service. With twain they did fly for the execution of the errands on which they were commissioned.
Here is a reproof of the monastic principle, that seclusion from the society of our fellow-men and from the active duties of life is necessary in order to secure an uninterrupted period of leisure for solitary spiritual exercises. Undue predominance is thus given to one branch of Gods service, to the prejudice and neglect of the other and no less important branch. Exercise as well as nourishment and repose is essential to the health of the body, and so toil in the vineyardearnest endeavour to advance the kingdom of God in our own hearts and the hearts of othersis no less essential to the health of the soul. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; but for what purpose? That they may walk in good works, and run with patience the race that is set before them (chap. Isa. 40:31; H. E. I. 17361742).
II. Some practical lessons concerning the maintenance and manifestation of the twofold Christian life.
1. A lesson as to the spirit which should pervade all devotion. These bright and glorious beings are without sin. Still, such is their sense of the infinite distance between themselves and their Creator, that they veil their faces and their feet before His throne in token of adoring reverence. The first and most essential element of devotion is a feeling of deep awe flowing from a sense of Gods transcendent excellences and leading to profound self-abasement (H. E. I. 3798, 3799, 5074). If reverence was befitting in the seraphim, how much more is it necessary in sinful men! (Luk. 18:13; Ezr. 9:6).
The vision of God wrought in Isaiah a feeling almost akin to despair. It seemed to him as if the perfect holiness of God was engaged to banish for ever every creature possessing the slightest taint of moral evil (Isa. 6:5). In Isa. 6:6-7 we have the glorious remedy. What is the significance of the symbols? By the work of the Son of God a mighty Altar of Propitiation has been reared up, and thence there comes to the penitent sinner cleansing as well as pardon. The live coal is an emblem of that love and zeal in Gods service with which the Holy Spirit imbues the souls of those who flee to the Altar of Atonement as their only refuge from the wrath to come. A participation in that Spirits influence is absolutely essential to our true participation in the chorus of the angelic host (H. E. I. 2887).
2. A few words on that active service which is the outward manifestation of the principles nourished by devotion.
(1.) We must prepare for it by the care and culture of our own heart [1306]
(2.) There is also an outward work which God has made binding on all of us. He has assigned to each of us a certain position in life. Every such position involves its peculiar responsibilities, snares, and occupations. The responsibilities must be cheerfully and manfully met, the occupations diligently fulfilled, as a piece of taskwork allotted to us by the Lord of the vineyard (Eph. 6:7). Besides, God has intrusted to us, in various measures, substance, time, abilities, influence, and these we are diligently to use for the promotion of the cause of God in the world. In our busy path through life, which brings us in contact with so many individuals, opportunities are ever and anon presented to us of being useful to our fellow-men; and to watch for, seize, and improve such opportunities is not the least important of these branches of active service (P. D. 40, 3567, 3569).
[1306] God requires us to set a strict watch over its outgoingsa watch such as sentinels keep over the persons and goods which pass out of a city whose allegiance to the sovereign is suspectedto curb and quell at its earliest outbreak every rising of vanity, temper, bitterness, passion, and justto drag forth from its dark recesses and to slay every cherished iniquity which has found there a harbour and a hiding-place. Our own heart is a vineyard over which God hath set every one of us to dress it and to keep it. We are to extirpate the soils poisonous produce, and to implore upon the soil of this vineyard the precious dews of the Divine Spirit, which may remedy its native barrenness and turn it from a desert into the garden of the Lord.Goulburn. See also H. E. I. 1841, 1 42, 26952708.
CONCLUSION.
1. It is not the intrinsic dignity of our duties, nor the large result of our fulfilment of them, which renders the diligent performance of them an acceptable work in Gods eyes. The great design of our being placed in this world is not that we may do some signal service, or large amount of service, to our Creator, but rather that we may execute the service (be it great or small) allotted to us in a spirit of fidelity, zeal, and love. The spirit which is thrown into and pervades the work is everythingthe work itself (comparatively) nothing. Be the sphere what it may which Divine Providence has assigned us, let the duties of it be executed in a seraphic spirit (P. D. 1484).
2. We have overwhelming motives, if we did but rightly appreciate them, to devotedness of our every faculty to the service of our God. The redeemed sinner owes to God far more of allegiance than the angel who has retained his integrity. Angels no such Fall have known, angels no such Love have known, as we.E. M. Goulburn, D.C.L.: Sermons, pp. 7799,
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
b. THE GRACE
TEXT: Isa. 6:5-7
5
Then I said, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.
6
Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
7
and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven.
QUERIES
a.
Why did Isaiah consider himself undone?
b.
What does the altar signify?
c.
Why touch Isaiahs lips?
PARAPHRASE
Then I said, My doom is sealed for I am a foul-mouthed sinner a member of a foul-mouthed, sinful nation, and I have looked upon the Holy King. Then one of the seraphs flew over to the altar and with a pair of tongs picked out a burning coal. He touched my lips with it and said, Now you are pronounced Not guilty because this coal has touched your lips. Your sins are all forgiven.
COMMENTS
Isa. 6:5-7 THE GRACE: The cry of need. Isa. 6:5. Isaiahs vision of the Holiness and glory of Jehovah brought conviction of his own sinfulness.
(a)
I am cut off, destroyed. He had seen God and could not expect to live. Exo. 33:20. Doomed to die.
(b)
My lips are unclean! And if his lips are unclean, then his heart is unclean. Jas. 3:2; Mat. 12:34.
(c)
My people are unclean, 1Co. 15:33.
(d)
Mine eyes have seen the king The Real King.
The divine Response, Isa. 6:6. A glowing coal from the altar a hot stone. Altar of Incense Prayer. Isaiahs prayer of confession of sin is answered as the angel takes a coal from Altar of Prayer to cleanse his impure lips. Here is revealed the Grace of God:
1.
The prayer of the sinner is heard.
2.
The song of the Seraphim is hushed that the prayer of the sinner might be answered.
Divine forgiveness. Isa. 6:7. Thy sin is forgiven.
(a)
Sin can be purged.
(b)
The highest angelic nature alone cannot purge it.
(c)
God never acts alone in saving men from sin.
(d)
Forgiveness from sin is always conditional upon the following:
1
Desire on part of sinner
2
Intervention of second person (messenger servant)
3
Application of divinely appointed means.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(5) Then said I, Woe is me.The cry of the prophet expresses the normal result of mans consciousness of contact with God. So Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God (Exo. 3:6). So Job abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes (Job. 42:6). So Peter fell down at his Lords feet, and cried, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Luk. 5:8). Man at such a time feels his nothingness in the presence of the Eternal, his guilt in the presence of the All-holy. No man can see God and live. (Comp. also 1Sa. 6:20.)
I am a man of unclean lips.The prophets words present at once a parallel and a contrast to those of Moses in Exo. 4:10. The Lawgiver feels only, or chiefly, his want of the gift of utterance which was needed for his work. With Isaiah the dominant thought is that his lips have been defiled by past sins of speech. How can he join in the praises of the seraphim with those lips from which have so often come bitter and hasty words, formal and ceremonial prayers? (Comp. Jas. 3:2; Jas. 3:9). His lips are unclean like those of one stricken, as Uzziah had been, by leprosy (Lev. 13:45). He finds no comfort in the thought that others are as bad as he is, that he dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Were it otherwise, there might be some hope that influence from without might work his purification. As it is, he and his people seem certain to sink into the abyss. To have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, was in such a case simply overwhelming (Exo. 33:20).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Woe is me At sight of this display of divine holiness the prophet is dismayed. The fire of purity, he fears, will not cleanse, but consume him, conscious as he is of impurity.
A man of unclean lips And yet he had dared to prophesy in the name of this thrice holy!
Midst of a people of unclean lips Impure, not only inwardly and individually, but by contagion from without. The filthy tongues of neighbours and countrymen have contaminated my ears, heart, and soul. The thought is not that I am by this uncleanness unfitted for joining the “holy, holy, holy,” of the seraphim; but it is that I am unfit to speak as the mouth of Jehovah: for it is for this that the coal of the seraph purifies his lips; and this profound consecration for his office is key to this whole vision.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Yahweh’s Call To Isaiah ( Isa 6:5-13 ).
As Isaiah stood, or possibly prostrated himself, before the wonderful vision of resplendent holiness, it was all too much for him as he was made aware of his own sinfulness. But God arranged for his cleansing preparatory to calling him to the task that he has in store for him, the proclaiming of God’s message to an ungrateful people, with the promise that it would finally result in a holy seed.
Analysis of Isa 6:5-13.
a Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Hosts (Isa 6:5).
b Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, and he touched my mouth with it, and said, “Lo, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged” (Isa 6:6).
c And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am. Send me” (Isa 6:8).
c And He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘Hear you indeed, but do not understand, and see you indeed, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again and be healed” (Isa 6:9-10).
b Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered, “Until the cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste, and Yahweh has removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land (Isa 6:11-12).
a And if there be yet a tenth in it, it will again be eaten up. As a terebinth and as an oak whose stump remains when they are felled, so the holy seed is its stump” (Isa 6:13).
In ‘a’ we have the sense of the uncleanness of this holy man, who was separated to God and seeing the King, and in the parallel we have a description of the ‘holy seed’ who will survive as those who are separated to God. In ‘b’ we have the description of how God cleanses His messenger, and in the parallel how He will go about the process of cleansing the land. In ‘c’ we have Isaiah’s response to the call of God, and in the parallel what it will involve in heartache and disappointment
Isa 6:5
‘Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Hosts.” ’
Isaiah’s response is one of terror, and awareness of his own total unworthiness. Like Job he saw himself as totally unfitted to see God, and unfit for His presence. We have here a parallel thought to that of Job, ‘Now my eye sees you for which reason I abhor myself and repent in sackcloth and ashes’ (Job 41:5-6).
‘Woe me.’ Woe was the word that supremely declared the deserts of those who came under God’s anger, and later Isaiah would declare God’s woes on those whose behaviour angered God (Isa 5:11-24). But at this time he sees that woe as directed against himself. Indeed it is only because he has seen this that he can be permitted to declare God’s woe on others. For the man of God does not stand as judge, he stands as one of the accused who has found mercy, speaking on behalf of the Judge. And at this moment Isaiah could see no hope for himself at all.
In the previous chapter we have seen God’s six woes declared. Are we to see in this the seventh woe in the series? Isaiah’s recognition that he too is subject to woe?
‘For I am undone (destroyed, ruined).’ As a result of what he was experiencing he could only visualise disaster for himself. He was devastated in the fullest sense. He was appalled at his own state. For he recognised that only one thing was now fitting, his own total destruction. All hope that he had had of being a minister to God’s people was now come to an end. The word ‘undone’ contains within it the idea of being silenced by disaster, sorrow or death, and by all that is most devastating.
‘Because I am a man of unclean lips.’ Here was the cause of his ruin, for what a man is, is revealed through his lips (Mat 12:37). And he knew that his lips were not worthy to say ‘holy, holy, holy’. Rather they were only fit to be silenced and doomed. They demonstrated him as fitted for destruction. With them he had sworn fealty to Yahweh. But with them he had also spoken that which was contrary to all that Yahweh is. Thus they were ‘unclean’, barred from God’s presence, not fitted to speak of God, excluded from referring to holy things. Approach to God was totally out of the question. Like the dying king he could only wait for the death that he deserved. He was a spiritual leper.
Such an experience of awareness of sinfulness, of self-abhorrence, of feeling totally unworthy can be the experience of every godly person in times of spiritual exaltation, although possibly not in the intensity with which it struck Isaiah, because as we become aware of the glory and holiness of God it contrasts with what we ourselves are. For in ourselves we too are often people ‘of unclean lips’, saying but not doing, and when we come into the presence of God it can make us very much aware of it. But thankfully there is for us too a ‘burning coal’ that contains within it all the essence of sacrifice, for ‘if we walk in the light as He is in the light — the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin — if we openly admit our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1Jn 1:7; 1Jn 1:9).
‘And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.’ He knew also that what was true for him was also true for his people. They also were without hope. They were excluded from God. They were no longer the people of the covenant, a prospective holy nation. They were rather under sentence. And any hopes that he had entertained of being God’s representative to them were now gone. For he knew that he was not fit, and that they were not fit. They were unclean. They had proved unfaithful to the sworn covenant, the covenant which their lips had sealed but their lives had denied. Their sins and their iniquities had thus totally separated them from God.
With their mouths they had sought or declared what was unjust, voiding justice, they had lied and deceived in life and business, they had encouraged lust or expressed it, they had arranged theft, and even encouraged murder, they had expressed envy, they had revealed hatred, they had dishonoured the Sabbath, and above all they had treated God lightly in the way that they maintained the cult, going about their activity apathetically, and even denying Him by giving to their idols the honour due only to Him. They were utterly unclean. All this has been expressed in chapters 1-5 preparatory for these words.
The words bring new meaning to the words ‘in the year that King Uzziah (the isolated leper king) died’. He was dying an isolated leper. And now Isaiah was aware that he himself was spiritually a leper, and that the people too were lepers, and thus isolated from God, and that they too were worthy only to die as the king had died, repulsive and spurned.
‘For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Hosts.” ’ And this was because his eyes had seen the King, Yahweh of Hosts. And yet not his eyes only. It had pierced into his heart and his whole moral being. For the first time he had seen Who and What God really is. And once he had seen Him all else was unworthy, and nothing more so than sinful, disobedient man. Note that it is as ‘the King, Yahweh of hosts’ that he speaks of God (compare Deu 33:5). Splendid, glorious, all-powerful, The One Who on Sinai had adopted His people for Himself and declared Himself Overlord over their hosts. Here was the One with Whom Israel had confirmed covenant, and Whom they had subsequently so miserably neglected and spurned. No wonder that he did not feel that his lips were clean enough to swear fealty to such a One. And it was from this vision that would be born his favourite title for God, ‘the Holy One of Israel’.
We too may have made many promises to God in the past, especially in times of crisis. But deeply mistaken, are the ones who can say that they have fully kept them all. For ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of the Holy One’ (Rom 3:23). And we too must thus cry out in the presence of the Holy One, ‘I deserve woe. I have broken my promises. I have not loved Him as I should. I am unclean.’
Isa 6:6-7
‘Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, and he touched my mouth with it, and said, “Lo, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged.” ’
‘Then’, as Isaiah watched in total despair, he saw one of the seraphim fly to the altar and, with the holy tongs, pick up a live coal from the altar, from among the coals on which the blood of many sacrifices had fallen. And as he watched the seraph flew to him and touched his lips with it. That coal represented in itself the consuming of all the offerings and sacrifices of Israel. in their being offered to God. It represented all that was good in the sacrificial system. It represented the God-provided means of atonement. And when Isaiah later condemned the Israelite perversion of the sacrificial system (compare Isa 1:10-15), it was not this that he condemned. This represented the good side, the God provided side, of that system. He realised that he was covered by the shedding of blood, by the death of a thousand substitutes offered on his behalf, but all pointing ahead to the One great Substitute Who would be offered for the sins of many (Isa 53:5; Isa 53:12; Romans 5:25).
That the seraph flew at God’s command is not stated but can be assumed, for in His presence none would dare to move except at His command, whether expressed or unexpressed. There He was all prevailing.
‘A live coal from the altar.’ Its glowing ‘life’ represented its immediacy in connection with the recent offerings and sacrifices. It had helped to consume the current sacrifices. Thus it represented present atonement. The thought is not of fire purging, but of the sacrificial significance applied, as the words of the seraph reveal. By it his sins would be ‘covered’, atoned for. He could thus once more look upwards to God with hope.
‘He touched my mouth with it, and said, “Lo, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged.’ It was his ‘lips’, his mouth, that Isaiah had declared to be the proof of his utter sinfulness, and so it was his mouth that was symbolically cleansed. His unclean lips were now touched by the God-provided means of atonement. His iniquity was taken away, his sin was purged. Rightly used and approached the sacrifices were still effective for atonement to those who truly sought God, until One would come Who would Himself be the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world (Isaiah 53). Then all would need to look to Him.
‘Taken away — purged.’ ‘Iniquity’ is the sin deep within that affects our very ‘hearts (our inward beings), and is an essential part of our sinning, staining us in God’s presence. But now for Isaiah this was taken away, removed, got rid of. ‘Sin’ is the actual outworking of iniquity in wrongful action, and that too was ‘purged, covered, atoned for’. There was now no barrier between Isaiah and God. The result was that from a position of complete self-despair he came to a place of being able to listen to the voice of the Lord God.
For us there is better than even this live coal, for we may see Jesus Who was the one sacrifice for sin for all time, and we may call on Him knowing that, if we admit to Him our sin and look to Him, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin (1Jn 1:7).
Isa 6:8
‘And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am. Send me.”
The plural ‘us’ reveals that God is talking to the seraphim. They were His support in the work of salvation. Or it may be a plural of majesty. We can compare it with the ‘us’ spoken at creation (Gen 1:26). But the question was really intended for Isaiah. It was the voice of the Sovereign Lord seeking for a messenger. Any one of the seraphim would have been delighted to be the messenger, but it is a sign of how Isaiah had been transformed by his experience that he steps into the conversation and offers himself to be the messenger. Filled with gratitude and awe he cries, “I am here, send me.”
We should recognise from this that any true experience of God will do the same. Once we have truly known God we cannot but speak of those things which we have seen and heard.
Isa 6:9-10
‘And he said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘Hear you indeed, but do not understand, and see you indeed, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again and be healed.’ ”’
God does not want Isaiah to be deceived into thinking that his ministry will be gloriously successful. The message that he as messenger will have to bear will not be an easy one. He is called to go to a stubborn people, and most would remain stubborn to the end.
Some ministries are much harder than others, and outward success is not the only criterion of the genuineness of a man’s calling. Some sow, and others reap (Joh 4:37-38). The words did not describe literally all he had to say (his whole prophecy indicates how wide ranging his message was), but they were the essence of what would be achieved. As he proclaimed God’s truth and saw the people’s negative reaction, (and that, God stressed, is what he must mainly expect), he would be driven to point out to them what was happening. They were hearing, but they were not accepting with understanding, they were outwardly seeing, but not inwardly perceiving. Thus the more they heard the more they would become hardened to his words because their hearts were closed. Yet let them but open their hearts and they would both see and hear.
But he knew that most would not. The result of his words would only be that their hearts would become fat (clogged up, inactive), their ears heavy, their eyes closed. They would refuse even more to see, they would refuse even more to hear, they would refuse even more to understand. Like Pharaoh they would harden their hearts, and become hardened, and all through God’s activity in seeking to reach perverse hearts.
There is a slight sarcasm in the final phrases. By constantly preaching to them he will be finally ensuring that the vast majority do not respond and be healed. And the more he proclaims God’s word the more certain it will be. Thus paradoxically by preaching to them he is making their turning to God theoretically less likely because they will have hardened themselves further. It is not that God does not want them to turn, He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. It is rather that He sees their hearts, He knows what their response will be and how they will react. How by their hearing they will be even more hardened. How by their obstinacy they will destroy themselves. Thus He knows that His very act of seeking to help them will result in their condemnation. By pleading with them He will be hardening their hearts. And yet they must be given the opportunity.
But what if He had left them alone? Would they have turned? Of course not. Their hearts were so set that turning was not for them. It was only a theoretical possibility, not a practical one. They would simply become theoretically ‘less reachable’. Previously it was certain from God’s viewpoint that most would not respond, after the preaching it will be even more certain. The hardening will have taken place. Even the theoretical possibility will have been removed. Then why preach to them? Firstly because it gave them every chance to exercise the theoretical possibility. Once they had heard His word they could blame no one but themselves. God’s justice and fairness would be revealed. Up to that point they could have said, ‘if only we had known’. After it they had no excuse. And secondly because some few would respond as God worked in grace on their hearts. There would be ‘a holy seed’ (Isa 6:13). God’s purpose for the few would be carried through in the hardening of the many.
We can compare how when Jesus preached to the antagonistic among the Pharisees His words hardened them. Instead of responding they became more antagonistic, and so much so that He had to warn them that they were in danger of ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’, that hardening against the Spirit that guarantees that no response can be even theoretically possible. And He knew that this would happen, but He still gave them their opportunity. They would not come because they were not of His sheep, given to Him by the Father (Joh 10:26; Joh 10:29). Yet through His words some among the Pharisees did come. The hardening of the many had to be, for the sake of the few.
We have here specifically expressed the mystery of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Man is ever free to choose, but his freedom is limited by what he is. God is sovereign over all and in the end it is His purposes that will be worked out. And He knows what the consequences of what He does will be. And so, in a real sense, He is responsible for all. When He allowed Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened by Pharaoh himself in the time of Moses, He knew that by His continued actions He was hardening Pharaoh’s heart. When He arranged for a messenger to these people, He knew that He was bringing about the consequences described, that He was bringing about the sealing of the ears, the closing of the eyes, the hardening of the heart. And yet it was they who were responsible for their own response. It came because of what they were. No blame could be attached to God. Thus does He carry through His purposes.
Isa 6:11
‘Then I said, “Lord, how long?” ’
We can understand Isaiah’s misgivings. How long must he engage in this thankless task? What will be the limit? He is ready to obey but wishes for a limit to be put on what he has to do. But he has to learn that there is no limit. He must go on to the end. God has purposed judgment and he must go on until that judgment is fulfilled. There is no let up in the work of God.
Isa 6:11-13
‘And he answered,
“Until the cities be waste without inhabitant,
And houses without man,
And the land become utterly waste,
And Yahweh has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.
And if there be yet a tenth in it, it will again be eaten up.
As a terebinth and as an oak whose stump remains when they are felled,
So the holy seed is its stump.” ’
Apart from a few details the whole of Isaiah’s message is contained in these words. From the moment of his calling he was informed that one day first Israel, and then Judah and Jerusalem, would be invaded, would be taken over, and would be carried into exile. It was the inevitable consequence of the fact that they would not hear. The cities would be wasted. The houses emptied of occupation. The land would become a wilderness. The inhabitants would be removed far away, either by captivity or flight Few would remain. Only a ‘tenth’ would be left. But would this be a new beginning? No. For even for them would come judgment, for the land would be ‘eaten up’ again. And then finally after all the felling there would be a stump left. The holy seed would be the stump (Isa 4:3).
This then was God’s purpose. Although He would yet spare and delay, the end was inevitable because of what men were. The whole would be whittled down to a tenth (a small proportion). But this tenth was not the Lord’s, and they would refuse Him even that tenth. So that tenth would be whittled down even further. The land was doomed because the covenant which gave them the land was broken. Yet out of all of it would come a stump. And that stump was the holy seed that He continually promised, the final remnant. Only God could populate Heaven from a stump!
The terebinth and the oak were both symbols of Israel’s sin (Isa 1:29-30; Hos 4:13). Thus the thought includes the hewing down of idolatry out of which would spring the holy seed.
Note. While Assyria were the initial rod of God’s anger (Isa 10:5), Isaiah was to learn later that this would not be just by Assyria. Thus when the Babylonians came on the horizon he knew in his heart, guided by God, that they also would contribute to Judah’s downfall (Isa 39:5-7), and would later learn and recognise, again by God’s inspiration, through whom initially deliverance would come, the house of Cyrus I of Persia (Isa 44:28 to Isa 45:1). Thus he knew the essence of what was coming, without the detail, and could give due warning. He was a prophet not a fortune teller. End of note.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 6:5-7. Then said I, &c. The second part of this vision contains the sanctification of the prophet for the undertaking of a great prophetical office, and consists of two parts: the first describes the prophet’s state of mind upon the sight of the preceding illustrious vision: His consternation upon the sense of his great unworthiness. He expresses his fear of perishing, (I am undone,) because, being a man of unclean lips, and dwelling amongst an unclean people, he was therefore unfit to join in the celebration of the Godhead with the seraphim. The uncleanness of the lips means, not only offence in words, but the want of due qualifications for the important office in which he was to be employed. We have, secondly, in the 6th and 7th verses, the benefit of sanctification conferred upon the prophet by a singular mode of lustration. The idea is here again from the temple; and it has been generally allowed, that the live coal, or fire, is a symbol of the purifying and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. See Act 2:3. Mat 3:11.; and this coal, taken from the altar, refers to the participation of the gift of the Spirit, as it proceeds from the merit of the great Sacrifice for the sins of the world. See Heb 9:14. The designation of Isaiah to the prophetical office is here particularly taught, and more remotely the sanctification of men to the ministry of the gospel; some of whom, like St. Paul, being men of impure lips, and unholy lives, are by the word of grace illuminated, sanctified, made holy and seraphic, and glowing with love and zeal for the glory of Christ. See Vitringa.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 866
ISAIAHS VISION OF CHRIST
Isa 6:5-7. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
PREVIOUS to the full revelation of himself in the Gospel, God was pleased to communicate his mind and will to men by dreams and visions, which, since the completion of the sacred canon, are no longer to be expected. But we must not therefore imagine that the revelations so made are less interesting to us, than those which proceeded more immediately from the enlightening influence of the Holy Ghost. The same importance must be attached to every thing which God has spoken, so far at least as the instruction which is intended to be conveyed is itself important. For instance, the vision of Isaiah seems to have been a peculiar favour vouchsafed to him: but still it contains many instructive lessons for us: and in this two-fold view we will consider it,
I.
As a peculiar favour vouchsafed to him
That we may have a more distinct view of it, we shall notice in succession,
1.
The vision given
[The place where the prophet was supposed to be, was the outer court of the temple; from whence, the veil which separated it from the sanctuary being drawn aside, he beheld jehovah seated on his throne, and his train, like that of eastern monarchs, filling the temple. Had no additional light been cast on this vision in the New Testament, we should not have thought of inquiring more minutely about the glorious object whom he saw, and who is here so repeatedly designated by titles peculiar to the one supreme God; but we are authorized to declare, that the person whom he saw, was the Lord Jesus Christ, even our Immanuel, God with us [Note: Joh 12:41.].
Around the throne were the seraphim, the holy angels, like flames of file [Note: Psa 104:4.], in a posture of devout adoration. Each of them had six wings; with two of which he covered his face, as unworthy to behold the Deity; and with other two, his feet, as unworthy to serve him: whilst with the remaining two he flew with all possible activity to fulfil his will. In themselves they were perfect and spotless creatures: yet, conscious of being as nothing in the sight of a pure and holy God, they were filled with profoundest awe, and served him with reverential fear.
In their worship of him they celebrated, in alternate and responsive songs, the holiness of his nature, and the wonders of his grace. Whether, in the repetition of the word holy, there be any reference, as some have thought, to the Three Persons of the Godhead, we undertake not to determine: but they evidently regarded the holiness of the Deity as that attribute, which constitutes the glory and perfection of all the rest: and indeed it is that attribute in which he is more especially glorious [Note: Exo 15:11.], and at the remembrance of which the whole universe should give thanks [Note: Psa 30:4.]. Together with this glorious subject they evidently combined the wonders of redeeming love. It is in that view alone that the earth can be said to be full of his glory. In the whole creation indeed there is a marvellous display of wisdom and power; but in redemption alone are seen the mercy, and truth, and faithfulness of our God. And though the seraphims are not interested in that work as we are, yet, as exhibiting the full radiance of all the divine perfections in united splendour, they admire it, they sing of it, they, glorify the Lord Jesus on account of it [Note: Compare Psa 72:17-19. where the same person is spoken of, and the some subject pursued.].
At the sound of their voices the doors of the temple were shaken, and the house was filled with smoke. It is possible that this was designed to express the approbation of the Deity, and his delight in that work which was the subject of their praise [Note: 2Ch 5:13-14; 2Ch 6:1.]. But we rather suppose, that it was intended to intimate the future abolition of the temple worship, when the time should have arrived for the complete establishment of the Christian dispensation [Note: Amo 9:1. with Heb 12:27.].]
2.
The fear excited
[In all the manifestations of God to men, the sight of his majesty has excited alarm and terror [Note: Jdg 13:22. Dan 10:6-8. Rev 1:17.]. A measure of this feeling we behold in the prophet on this occasion. But together with this, there was also a deep sense of humiliation and contrition. As Job, on a similar occasion, was led to exclaim, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes [Note: Job 42:6.], so the prophet, viewing himself, and all around him, in the light of Gods holiness, accounted himself a leper in the midst of a leprous world. Whatever he might have judged of himself before, he now was dumb; as indeed every human being must be in the presence of a holy God [Note: Rom 3:19.]; since we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags [Note: Isa 64:6.]. From the apprehension and terror we are freed by the Gospel: but the humiliation and self-abasement should rather increase in proportion to the more exalted privileges we enjoy [Note: Eze 16:63.].]
3.
The consolation administered
[Instantly did one of the seraphim fly to him, to declare, that his iniquities were all blotted out as a morning cloud, through the atoning blood of Christ. This was emblematically represented to him by a coal taken from off the altar of burnt-offering, and applied to his lips. Doubtless the performance of this office was a delightful service to the Seraph, who would willingly forego for a season the more immediate vision of the Deity himself, for the honour of executing his will as a messenger of mercy to sinful man.]
But we hasten from this more restricted view of the subject, to consider it,
II.
As an instructive lesson to us
Whilst we acknowledge that such visions are not to be expected by us, we may contemplate this with great advantage to our souls.
We may learn from it,
1.
That a sight of Christ is the highest privilege we can enjoy
[What is it that constitutes the felicity of heaven? What is it that is the great source of happiness to the seraphim around the throne? It is a sight of Christ enthroned in his glory. Yet was that sight afforded to the prophet in a vision: and afterwards to St. Paul, by an immediate admission to it in heaven. And is there no such vision to be enjoyed by us? To our bodily eyes indeed there is not; nor to our imaginations will any such view of him be presented: but to the eye of faith the Lord Jesus is clearly visible; and the eyes of every believer may even now behold the King in his beauty [Note: Isa 33:17.]. In the Gospel he is fully revealed to us: there he appears as the brightness of his Fathers glory, and the express image of his person: and we may behold his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We need not envy the prophet himself; for we may have even brighter views of Jesus than he ever enjoyed. We are told that John was greater than all the prophets; and yet that the least in the Kingdom of heaven, that is under the Gospel dispensation, is greater than he [Note: Luk 7:26-28.]. How did he excel all others?. Others prophesied of Christ; but he pointed him out: Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world! And wherein do we excel him? He beheld Jesus when he came to accomplish our redemption: and we behold him after its accomplishment, seated on his throne of glory, and actually applying to millions of his people the full benefits of that redemption. Let those who embrace the Gospel know their high privilege. Let the poor especially rejoice and be glad. It is not to human learning or to strength of intellect that this discovery of Christ is made, but to faith: and if we search the sacred records with a believing eye, then will God shine into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.]
2.
That the more lowly we are in our own eyes, the richer communications we shall receive from him
[Behold how speedily the angel was sent to comfort the mind of the dejected prophet! This was a faithful representation of the care which Jesus takes of all his afflicted people, especially when humbled in the dust before him. He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, till he bring forth judgment unto victory. Though he is The High and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, yet will he dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the Spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones [Note: Isa 57:15; Isa 66:2.]. Does not his word universally attest this blessed truth, that whilst he who exalteth himself shall be abased, the man that humbleth himself shall be exalted? Be not afraid then, ye who feel your own unworthiness: give not way to despondency; say not, Woe is me! I am undone: follow not the unbelieving example of Peter, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord [Note: Luk 5:8.]. But know that, if you feel yourselves lost, it was precisely such persons that he came to seek and save [Note: Luk 19:10.]; and that, where sin has abounded, his grace shall much more abound [Note: Rom 5:20-21.]: and if, like Mary, you are enabled to go behind him, and wash his feet with your tears, he will ere long say to you, Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee. Indeed it is in this way that he is daily acting by the ministry of his word: he sends his servant to take his promises, and apply them to the hearts and consciences of his people [Note: 1Th 1:5.], and thus to fill them with a peace that passeth understanding, and with joy that is unspeakable and glorified.]
3.
That a sense of his pardoning love should animate us to an unreserved surrender of ourselves to him
[See the effect which was instantly produced on the prophets mind. God designed to send his messages of love and mercy to the Jews, notwithstanding he knew beforehand that they would prove ineffectual for their conversion. To carry such messages was a painful task; but yet, when God asked, Who will go for us? the prophet hesitated not one moment to offer his services, saying, Here am I, send me [Note: ver. 8.]. Thus should we also manifest our gratitude to God for all the mercies vouchsafed unto us through the Son of his love. We should not inquire whether the office be pleasant; or, whether it will advance our credit in the world. It should be sufficient for us to know what the will of the Lord is; and then we should account it our honour to do, or suffer it. Especially does this observation apply to those who minister in holy things: if God say, Who will go for me, to carry my Gospel to the heathen? we should not stand to inquire, Whether the office be lucrative or not; or, whether the climate to which we are to go be more or less salubrious. No: we should stand forth and say, Here am I;, send me. O that we all felt this holy zeal, and that we did not so lamentably confer with flesh and blood, when, if called to it, we should leave even the vision of God himself, to execute his will towards sinful man! [Note: This is a fit subject for Missions.] But, in whatever line of life we move, we should be actuated by the same spirit; and so feel the constraining influence of Christs love, as to live no longer to ourselves, but altogether unto Him who died for us, and rose again [Note: 2Co 5:14-15.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Here we see, even in God’s own servant, what trembling is induced in a near apprehension of God’s presence. Men may think lightly of sin, who never felt the galling chain of it; and some poor unawakened sinners, who have never ascertained what righteousness is, by the divine standard, may fancy much of themselves, and of their own righteousness; but when a soul hath once seen God in Christ by faith, and Jesus expiating sin by no less a sacrifice than himself, then all self-complacency and self-righteousness fall to the ground. Reader, I pray you look at Isaiah in this view of him, and hear his confession; then turn to observe Job’s account of himself, Job 42:5-6 ; and then hearken to the Lord’s testimony of him, Job 1:8 ; then look at David, the man after God’s own heart, Psa 51:1-5 ; hearken also to Paul’s relation, Rom 7:18 , to the end: and if such views do not humble your soul to the very dust of the earth, depend upon it, it is because the Holy Ghost hath never convinced you of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment Joh 16:8-11 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 6:5 Then said I, Woe [is] me! for I am undone; because I [am] a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
Ver. 5. Then said I, Woe is me. ] The ordinary fear of the faithful, when they had seen the Lord in his majesty. Gen 16:13 Deu 5:24 Heb 12:21 Jdg 13:22 How shall the wicked then be able to stand before him at the last day?
For I am undone.
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah
VISION AND SERVICE
THE MAKING OF A PROPHET
Isa 6:5
In previous pages we have seen how Isaiah’s vision of Jehovah throned in the Temple, ‘high and lifted up,’ derived significance from the time of its occurrence. It was ‘in the year that’ the earthly King ‘died’ that the heavenly King was revealed. The passing of the transient prepared the way for the revelation of the Eternal, and the revelation of the Eternal more than compensated for the passing of the transient. But strengthening and calming as these thoughts are, they by no means exhaust the purpose of the vision, nor do they describe all its effects on the recipient. These were, first and immediately, the consciousness of unworthiness and sin, expressed in the words that I have taken for my text. Then came the touch of the ‘live coal from the altar,’ laid on the unclean lips by the seraph; and on that followed willing surrender for a perilous service.
These three stages flowing from the vision of God, recognition of sin, experience of purging, abandonment to obedience and service, must be repeated in us all, if we are to live worthy lives. There may be much that is beautiful and elevating and noble without these; but unless in some measure we pass through the prophet’s experience, we shall fail to reach the highest possibilities of beauty and of service that open before us. So I wish to consider, very simply, these three stages in my remarks now.
I. If we see God we shall see our sin .
The prophet’s confession assumes a form which may strike us as somewhat singular. Why is it that he speaks of ‘unclean lips,’ rather than of an unclean heart? I suppose partly because, in a very deep sense, a man’s words are more accurately a cast, as it were, from a man’s character than even his actions, and partly because the immediate occasion of his confession was the words of the seraphim, and he could not but contrast what came burning from their pure lips with what had trickled from, and soiled, his own.
But, however expressed, the consciousness of personal unlikeness to the holiness of God is the first result, and the instantaneous result, of any real apprehension of that holiness, and of any true vision of Him. Like some search-light flung from a ship over the darkling waters, revealing the dark doings of the enemy away out yonder in the night, the thought of God and His holiness streaming in upon a man’s soul, if it does so in any adequate measure, is sure to disclose the heaving waters and the skulking foes that are busy in the dark.
But it was not only the consciousness of sinfulness and antagonism that woke up instantaneously in response to that vision of the holy God. It was likewise a shrinking apprehension of personal evil from contact of God’s light with Isaiah’s darkness. ‘Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.’ What is to become, then, of the man that has neither the one nor the other? The experience of all the world witnesses that whenever there comes, in reality, or in a man’s conceptions or fancy, the contact of the supernatural, as it is called, with the natural, there is a shrinking, a sense of eerieness, an apprehension of vague possibilities of evil. The sleeping snake that is coiled in every soul stirs and begins to heave in its bulk, and wake, when the thought of a holy God comes into the heart. Now, I do not suppose that consciousness of sin is the whole explanation of that universal human feeling, but I am very sure it is an element in it, and I suspect that if there were no sin, there would be no shrinking.
At all events, be that as it may, these are the two thoughts that, involuntarily and spontaneously and immediately, sprang in this man’s heart when his purged eyes saw the King on His throne. He did not leap up with gladness at the vision. Its consolatory and its strengthening aspects were not the first that impinged upon his eye, or upon his consciousness, but the first thing was an instinctive recoil, ‘Woe is me; I am undone.’ Now, brethren, I venture to think that one main difference between shallow religion and real is to be found here, that the dim, far-off vision, if we may venture to call it so, which serves the most of us for a sight of God, leaves us quite complacent, and with very slight and superficial conceptions of our own evil, and that if once we saw, in so far as it is possible for humanity to-day to see, God as He is, and heard in the depths of our hearts that ‘Holy! holy! holy!’ from the burning seraphim, the easy-going, self-satisfied judgment of ourselves which too many of us cherish would be utterly impossible; and would disappear, shrivelled up utterly in the light of God. ‘I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,’ said Job, ‘but now mine eye seeth Thee; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’ A hearsay God and a self-complacent beholder-a God really seen, and a man down in the dust before Him! Has that vision ever blazed in on you? And if it has, has not the light shown you the seaminess of much in which a dimmer light detects no flaws or stains? Thank God if, having seen Him, you see yourselves. If you have not felt, ‘I am unclean and undone,’ depend upon it, your knowledge of God is faint and dim, and He is rather One heard of from the lips of others than realised in your own experience.
II. Again, note the second stage here, in the education of a soul for service-the sin, recognised and repented, is burned away.
Now, I would notice as to this stage of the process, first, that Isaiah singularly passes beyond all the old ritual in which he had been brought up, and recognises another kind of cleansing than that which it embodied. He had got beyond the ritual to what the ritual meant. We have passed beyond the ritual, too, by another process; and, though I would by no means read full, plain, articulate Christian thought into the vision of Isaiah-which would be an anachronism, and unfaithful to the gradual historical development of the idea and means of redemption-yet I cannot help pointing to the fact that, even although this vision is located as seen in the Temple, there is not a single reference except that passing allusion to the altar to the ritual of the Temple, but the cleansing comes in another fashion altogether.
But far more important than that thought is the human condition that is required ere this cleansing can be realised. ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’ ‘I am undone!’ It was because that conviction and confession sprang in the prophet’s consciousness that the seraph winged his way with the purifying fire in his hands. Which being translated is just this: faith alone will not bring cleansing. There must go with it what we call, in our Christian phraseology, repentance, which is but the recognition of my own antagonism to the holiness of God, and the resolve to turn my back on my own past self. Now, it seems to me that a great deal of what is called, and in a sense is, Evangelical teaching, fails to represent the full counsel of God, in the matter of man’s redemption, because it puts a one-sided emphasis on faith, and slurs over the accompanying idea of repentance. And I am here to say that a trust in Jesus Christ, which is unaccompanied by a profound penitent consciousness and abhorrence of one’s own sins, and a resolve to turn away from them for the time to come, is not a faith which will bring either pardon or cleansing. We do not need to have less said about trust; we need to have a great deal more said about repentance. You have to learn what it is to say, ‘I abhor myself’; you have to learn what it is to say, ‘I will turn right round, and leave all that past behind me; and go in the opposite direction’; or the faith which you say you are exercising will neither save nor cleanse your souls nor your lives.
Again, note that we have here set forth most strikingly the other great truth that, side by side, and as closely synchronous as the flash and the peal, as soon as the consciousness of sin and the aversion from it spring in a man’s heart, the seraph’s wings are set in motion. Remember that beautiful old story in the historical books, of how the erring king, brought to sanity and repentance by Nathan’s apologue, put all his acknowledgments in these words, ‘I have sinned against the Lord’; and how the confession was not out of his lips, nor had died in its vibration in the atmosphere, before the prophet, with divine authority, replied with equal brevity and completeness, and as if the two sayings were parts of one sentence, ‘ And the Lord hath made to pass the iniquity of thy sin.’ That is all. Simultaneous are the two things. To confess is to be forgiven, and the moment that the consciousness of sin rises in the heart, that moment does the heavenly messenger come to still and soothe.
Still further, notice how the cleansing comes as a divine gift. It is purifying, much more than pardon, that is set forth in the symbolical incident before us. The seraph is the divine messenger, and he brings a coal from the altar, and lays that upon the prophet’s lips, which is but the symbolical way of saying that the man who is conscious of his own evil will find in himself a blessed despair of being his own healer, and that he has to turn to the divine source, the vision of which has kindled the consciousness, to find there that which will take away the evil. The Lord is ‘He that healeth us.’
But, further, the cleansing is by fire. By which, as I suppose, in the present context, and at Isaiah’s stage of religious knowledge and experience, we are to understand that great thought that God burns away our sins, as you put a piece of foul clay into the fire, and the stain melts from the surface like a dissipating cloud as the heat finds its way into the substance. ‘He will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire’-a fire that quickens. A new impulse will be granted, which will become the life of the sinful man’s life, and will emancipate him from the power of his own darkness and evil.
Now, let us remember that we have the fulness of all that was shadowed to the prophet in this vision, and that the reality of every one of these emblems is gathered together-if I may so say-not with confusion, but with abundance and opulence in Jesus Christ Himself. Is He not the seraph? Is He not Himself the burning coal? Is He not the altar from which it is taken? All that is needed to make the foulest clean is given in Christ’s great work. Brethren, we shall never understand the deepest secret of Christ and of Christianity until we learn and hold fast by the conviction that the central work of Jesus is to deal with man’s sin; and that whatever else Christianity is, it is first and foremost God’s way of redeeming the world, and making it possible for the unholy to dwell with His holy self.
III. Lastly, and only a word, the third stage here is-the purged spirit is ready for service.
For such experiences as I have been describing do influence the will, and mould the heart, and make it a delight to do God’s commandments, and to execute His purpose, and to be the ministers of His great Word. Some of us are willing to say that we have learned God’s holiness; that we have seen and confessed our sins; that we have received pardon and cleansing. Have these experiences made you ready for any service? Have they made your will flexible-made you dethrone yourself, and enthrone the King whom the prophet saw? If they have, they are genuine; if they have not, they are not. Submission of will; glorying in being the instrument of the divine purpose; ears sharpened to catch His lowest whisper; eyes that, like those of a dog fixed on his master, watch for the faintest indication from his guiding eye-these are the infallible tests and signs of having had lips and heart touched with the live coal that burns away our uncleanness.
So, friends, would that I could flash upon every conscience that vision! But you can do so for yourselves. Let me beseech you to bring yourselves honestly into that solemn light of the character of God, and to ask yourselves, ‘How can two walk together except they be agreed?’ Do not put away such thoughts with any shallow, easy-going talk about how God is good and will not be hard upon a poor fellow that has tried to do his best. God is good; God is love. But divine goodness and love cannot find a way by which the unclean shall dwell with the clean. What then? This then-Jesus Christ has come. We may be made clean if we trust in Him, and forsake our sins. He will touch the heart and lips with the fire of His own Spirit, and then it will be possible to dwell with the everlasting burnings of that flaming fire which is a holy God. Blessed are they that have seen the vision; blessed they that have felt it disclosing their own sins; blessed they whose hearts have been purged. Blessed most of all they who, educated and trained through these experiences, have taken this as the motto of their lives, ‘Here am I; send me.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Woe. Figure of speech Ecphonesis. App-6.
undone = dumb, or lost. The essence of true conviction is a concern for what I am, not for what I have done or not done.
seen. Compare Job 42:5.
King. Contrast “king Uzziah”, Isa 6:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
said I: Exo 33:20, Jdg 6:22, Jdg 13:22, Job 42:5, Job 42:6, Dan 10:6-8, Hab 3:16, Luk 5:8, Luk 5:9, Rev 1:16, Rev 1:17
undone: Heb. cut off
a man: Exo 4:10, Exo 6:12, Exo 6:30, Jer 1:6, Zec 3:1-7, Mat 12:34-37, Jam 3:1, Jam 3:2
I dwell: Isa 29:13, Jer 9:3-8, Eze 2:6-8, Eze 33:31, Jam 3:6-10
mine eyes: Isa 33:17, Rev 1:5-7
Reciprocal: Gen 18:27 – I have Gen 18:30 – General Gen 29:19 – General Gen 32:10 – not worthy of the least of all Gen 32:30 – I have Exo 3:11 – General Lev 13:45 – Unclean 2Sa 6:9 – afraid 2Sa 12:13 – The Lord 2Sa 24:17 – I have sinned 1Ki 19:13 – he wrapped his face 1Ch 13:12 – afraid of God 2Ch 7:2 – the priests Neh 1:6 – both I Job 4:14 – Fear Job 9:20 – mine Job 10:15 – If I be wicked Job 23:16 – For God Job 40:4 – Behold Psa 31:22 – I am Psa 116:12 – General Pro 18:12 – and Pro 30:2 – I am Son 2:14 – that art Isa 64:6 – are all Jer 4:31 – Woe Jer 23:9 – like a drunken Eze 36:31 – shall loathe Dan 9:20 – confessing Mic 7:1 – woe Zep 1:7 – thy Zec 3:4 – I have Zec 14:16 – the King Luk 2:9 – and they Luk 17:10 – General Luk 18:13 – standing Act 2:3 – like Rom 7:14 – but Rom 7:21 – evil 1Co 9:16 – woe Gal 3:11 – that Gal 5:17 – the flesh Phi 3:9 – not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 6:5. Then said I, &c. The second part of this vision begins here, containing the sanctification of the prophet, in order to his undertaking of a great prophetical office, and showing, 1st, his state of mind upon the sight of the preceding illustrious vision: his consternation under a sense of his great unworthiness; and, 2d, describing the singular mode of his sanctification Wo is me, for I am undone, &c. That is, if God deal with me in strict justice. For I have made myself obnoxious to his displeasure; because I am a man of unclean lips I am a great sinner, having offended him, as in many other ways, so particularly by my lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips I am an unclean branch of an unclean tree; besides my own uncleanness, I have, both by want of zeal and of diligence, and faithfulness in the discharge of my duty, involved myself in the guilt of their sins, and therefore may justly fear to partake with them in their plagues. Add to this, his consternation probably also arose, in part, from a sense of his want of due qualifications for the important office in which he was to be employed, and of his unworthiness to be Gods messenger to his people, or even to join with the seraphim in praising him. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts The sight of this glorious and holy God gives me cause to fear that he is come to enter into judgment with me. Observe, reader, while sinners are presumptuous and secure, even in the acts of their worship, though merely formal and hypocritical, holy persons have always been filled with reverence and humiliation before God: and the more extraordinary the manifestations of Gods presence have been to them, the more have they reverenced and stood in awe of him, and the more have they abhorred themselves. Thus Job 42:5-6, Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes! And thus may not only every penitent sinner, but every justified believer, say,
My humbled soul, when thou art near, In dust and ashes lies; How shall a sinful worm appear, Or meet thy purer eyes!
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:5 Then said I, {l} Woe [is] me! for I am undone; because I [am] a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
(l) He speaks this for two reasons, the one because he who was a mortal creature and therefore had more need to glorify God than the angels, did not do it, and the other because the nearer that man approaches to God, the more he knows his own sin and corruption.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Isaiah feared that he would be consumed since he was in the presence of the purest of all beings. He announced woe on himself; he was in deep trouble (cf. Isa 5:8; Isa 5:11; Isa 5:18; Isa 5:20-22). These are the first words that Isaiah himself spoke in this book, and they announce a prophetic woe on himself. He first had to become aware of his own sin and uncleanness before he could worship God as he should. Not only did he have unclean lips, but he dwelt among a people whose lips were very unclean and, therefore, unfit to praise or speak for God. King Uzziah died an unclean leper (2Ch 26:16-21). Unclean lips evidence unclean hearts (cf. Mat 12:34). Whereas God was holy, Isaiah and the Jews were unclean, not upright, impure in their ethical conduct. Isaiah sensed his danger because he saw the real King of Israel who was Yahweh of armies. It is in seeing God for who He is that we can see ourselves for who we are and can, therefore, accurately evaluate our condition (cf. Job 42:5-6; Dan 10:14-17; Rev 1:17).