The Holy Lord of Hosts
Isaiah 6:1-13
Main Idea: God’s glory displaces us, his grace saves us, and his greatness commissions us.
I. The Holiness of the Lord (6:1-4)
King Uzziah died in ~740BC after a 52-year long & prosperous reign, bringing uncertainty about the future. The end of his reign was marked by sin, as he grew “proud to his destruction” (2 Chron. 26:5, 16), desecrating the temple.
In the face of the uncertainty of the death of an earthly king, Isaiah is swept up to see the King of all Kings “high and lifted up” above the temple; He is unable to describe the Lord himself, but he does describe all that is happening around him:
He is on his throne, the “foundation of justice & righteousness” (Ps. 89:14)
The train of his robe filled the temple
Seraphim: lit. the ‘burning ones’ are above him with their eyes & feet covered, unable to look directly at his glory.
The seraphim cry out “holy, holy, holy” to one another; repetition is a sign of emphasis in the Scriptures, and this three-fold repetition is the only time it occurs in the OT. This speaks to God’s “otherness” & “set-apartness” in a superlative sense; he is holy beyond comparison.
“We must not think of God as highest in an ascending order of beings, starting with the single cell and going on up from the fish to the bird to the animal to man to angel to cherub to God. God is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite.” ~ A.W. Tozer
“We keep trying to fill [earth] with monuments to our own glory—kingdoms, businesses, hit songs, athletic victories, and other mechanisms of self-salvation. But the truth is better than all that. Created reality is a continuous explosion of the glory of God. And history is the drama of his grace awakening in us dead sinners’ eyes to see and taste to enjoy and courage to obey.” ~ Ray Ortlund
At the proclamation of the angelic beings, the whole foundations of the temple “shook” & smoke ( the presence of God) filled the house. An encounter with the true holiness of God such as this is dangerous & terrifying.
II. The Grace of the Lord (6:5-7)
As Isaiah is confronted with the holiness, glory, & transcendence of the Lord, he pronounces a “self-woe” (cf. 6 ‘woes’ in Isaiah 5). He specifically identifies that he is a man of “unclean lips” because:
The proclamation of the seraphim
His unique role as a prophet & mouthpiece of God to Israel
His “lips” being an overflow of his heart (Mt. 12:34)
“When people encounter the true God, they experience a self-quake. That’s one way you can tell if you’ve met Israel’s God or simply a figment of your imagination. A made-up God will leave your world undisturbed, conveniently aligning your priorities without displacing anything, because ultimately you are more glorious than it is. The real God, however, will land in the middle of your life like an elephant crashing through the ceiling, displaying your sin, changing all your priorities, and forcing you to reorient yourself around the weight of glory.” ~ Andrew Wilson
Just as Isaiah experiences this “displacement,” the Lord of glory also shows himself to be the Lord of grace. A burning coal from the altar, where blood was shed & sins atoned for, touches the mouth of Isaiah, meeting his confessed place of need with grace & mercy. This act of atonement is a picture of the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
III. The Commission of the Lord (6:8-13)
The experience with God’s grace opens Isaiah ears to hear the voice of the Lord. Isaiah is both humbled and emboldened by what has just happened and he answers the call of the Lord to go to his rebellious people.
Verses 9-10 are the most quoted verses from Isaiah in the NT; they are most often connected to Jesus’ reason for teaching in parables (cf. Mt. 13:10-17). The ministry of Isaiah is a picture of all true gospel ministry; the word of God either hardens or softens those who listen to it, and a supernatural work is required to bring about salvation.
After the land is defeated (6:11), exile (6:12), and further destruction (6:13a), an unexpected hope appears. Though all appears to be burned down & destroyed, a “holy seed” and “stump” will remain. Within this stump is the seed of new life & hope, ultimately to be seen through the promise of a “shoot from the stump of Jesse” (11:1).
John 12:41: Isaiah said these things because he saw his [Jesus’] glory and spoke of him.
