Let’s take our Bibles in hand and turn please to the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 6; Isaiah chapter 6. This has been, throughout my Christian life and especially since coming to be a Gospel minister, this has been an incredibly important and precious passage for me. And I thought it might be helpful for me and for all of us together, as I resume my ministry here, for us to return to it. You might consider the two messages this Sunday and next Sunday something of a manifesto for the next ten years of preaching ministry here at First Presbyterian Church. Here’s what we are about, here are the central concerns, the big ideas, the governing principles of our ministry. So do turn your attention to Isaiah chapter 6 on page 571 in the church Bibles.
I want to highlight four things in the text, four attributes of God, that ought to be the perpetual emphasis of our ministry here and are surely the great needs of our Christian lives. Look at the text. First of all, we are going to see the sovereignty of God. He is the great King and He reigns over all. Then, the holiness of God. We’ve noted the angelic song around the throne in Revelation and we see the same scene opening here as the seraphim sing in wonder and adoration at the thrice-holy God. The sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the judgment of God. God’s holiness, when it comes into contact with sin, is judgment. So sovereignty, holiness, judgment, then finally and wonderfully, the grace of God. The God who judges sin also saves sinners. So those are the four themes I want us to see. Before we consider them and read God’s Word, let’s bow our heads and pray and ask Him to help us. Let us all pray.
Lord Jesus, You reign right now at the Father’s right hand and You send Your Spirit to open Your Holy Word. Send Him now to us to fulfill that office in our midst that we may see Your glory and see our need and by the Spirit’s power, be enabled to receive and rest upon You once more, or perhaps for the very first time, as You are offered to us in the Gospel. For we ask it in Your name, amen.
Isaiah chapter 6 at the first verse. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!’
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’
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.’ And he said, ‘Go, and say to this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’ Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.’ The holy seed is its stump.”
Amen, and we praise the Lord that He has spoken in His holy, inerrant Word.
The Sovereignty of God
Well let’s think about the sovereignty of God first of all. The sovereignty of God. Notice carefully the context for Isaiah’s vision. Verse 1, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple.” King Uzziah’s story, you may know, is recorded in 2 Chronicles chapter 26. His reign is notable for three features. First, it’s remarkable for the godliness with which it began. The chronicler says, Uzziah, “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father, Amaziah, had done, he set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah who instructed him in the fear of God.” So his reign began with the young king pursuing God under the tutelage of the prophet, in the Word, striving for godliness. Remarkable for the godliness with which it began.
Secondly, his reign was remarkable for the prosperity in which it progressed. “As long as he sought the Lord,” the Scripture says, “God made him prosper.” He defeated the Philistines. The Ammonites paid him tribute. We are told he built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate and at the Valley Gate and at the angle and fortified them. He built towers in the wilderness and cut many cisterns, for he had large herds both in the shafella and in the plain and he had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and the fertile lands for he loved the soil. The land flourished and prospered. It was well fortified and well defended and the enemies all around were subdued. The prosperity in which it progressed and the godliness with which it began.
And thirdly, his reign is remarkable for the catastrophic failure with which it ended. The catastrophe failure with which it ended. Second Chronicles 26:16, “But when Uzziah was strong, he grew proud to his destruction, for he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. The priests confronted him say, ‘It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary for you have done wrong and it will bring you no honor from the Lord your God.’ Then, Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censor in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord God by the altar of incense and Azariah, the chief priest, and all the priests looked at him and behold, he was leprous in his forehead. King Uzziah was a leper,” we are told, “to the day of his death. And being a leper, lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the Lord.” He was unclean because of his sin.
Now you may also know that it’s a general principle in the Old Testament Scriptures, “As goes the king, so goes the people.” As goes the king, so goes the people.” King Uzziah was the representative of his people. When he walked with God, the Lord blessed him and the nation prospered. But then in his arrogance, he usurped a role that God had not given to him and the Lord excluded him from the temple in His holy wrath. His leprosy shut him out from the people of God and from the worship of God. He became a kind of living symbol of sin and decline. He was an emblem of the liability of the people to the very judgment that Isaiah the prophet has been speaking about in the opening five chapters of this book. And now the judgment of God upon the king has reached its zenith, his highwater mark in his death. The king is dead. What would that mean now for the people of God? The Assyrians, the great super power of the day, they were posturing and threatening Israel’s borders, Judah’s borders. There were enemies now on every hand. There were dark clouds gathering on the horizon. What will the future hold?
Everything looks precarious and dark. Judgment is surely coming.
And so the prophet, in these circumstances you understand – why? He’s in the temple. He’s seeking God. Here he is in the place God has ordained to meet with him. And then notice this – against that gloomy backdrop of the king’s abject failure, his living under the curse of God, and now his final death in the judgment of God, against that backdrop Isaiah suddenly sees a vision of the true and great King, high and lifted up, sitting on the throne, and the train of His robe fills the temple. It’s a vision of the sovereign God who presides still upon His holy throne, upholding and governing all His creatures and all their actions. Here He is superintending both the rise and fall of nations, the sin and death even of Uzziah, and even the fearful heart of the prophet trembling here that day before the Lord in the temple. It’s a vision of the sovereignty of God. God is Lord. He is Lord over all that was happening. Isaiah needed to see it. Maybe we do too.
Now let me ask you, what is the main use of this great doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God? It’s not a weapon with which to bludgeon unsuspecting Armenians. It is not a shibboleth, by which to signal to others that we belong to the same theological tribe. What’s it for? It is a tool to fight fear. The sovereignty of God – a weapon to fight fear. It’s the ground of courage when everything looks grim and bleak and hard. Uzziah’s death seemed to the prophet a sure sign of coming disaster, and suddenly he sees the Lord still on His throne. You’ve heard, I’m sure, of the presbytery meeting in which a candidate was being examined for Gospel ministry and during the English Bible portion of his exam was asked to give a summary of various books of the Bible. When asked, “What is the message of the book of Revelation?” you remember what he said – “The Lamb wins.” Right? That’s the message of the book of Revelation. The Lamb wins. That’s the message here too. The Lord reigns and the Lamb wins. Uzziah is dead, the Assyrians are coming, things are dire, ah, yes, but the Lord is still, still, always, always on His throne, high and lifted up.
Are things really so different in our day? Think about the way people are treated who affirm in the public square the Biblical sexual ethic. Turn on the news and see the unending parade of cynical politics and human depravity and brutality and banality. We are pulled, ourselves, aren’t we, by our culture in every which way, and yet all of those pressures seem always to pull us away from corporate worship, Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day. Isn’t it easy in days like ours to give into fear, to be overcome with a sense of our own profound inadequacy as we try to stand firm and stay faithful when things are so hard and so dark. We need reminding, I need reminding – the Lamb wins. The Lord is on the throne. He has not abdicated His governance of all.
Now, I’m a Calvinist. I believe that God is sovereign over all things. I believe Ephesians 1:11, “God works all things according to the counsel of His own will,” but I don’t know about you, but I have found that my Calvinism has a nasty habit of slipping. It slips the twelve inches from my heart back up to my head until all I have is a conviction without hope and doctrine unmixed with delight. Maybe we need to push our Calvinism back down those all important twelve inches, back down from our heads into our hearts until the truth we know so well – God is on the throne; God is sovereign – you all blink as though, “Well, of course” – until we begin to feel the wonder and the relief of that glorious truth.
You’ve heard the phrase, the Scriptural phrase, “Underneath are the everlasting arms” – what a sweet phrase. That’s what we’re talking about. The God who reigns from the throne upholding all His creatures. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” He’s got this. Whatever “this” is – He’s got it and He’s got you. Our times are in His hands – our ministries, our families, our trials and our triumphs – they’re all in His hands. How will you not grow weary in well doing when you live in the year that King Uzziah died? How will you keep going in the long obedience in the same direction when things are hard? You’ve got to see the Lord on the throne, high and lifted up, the train of His robe filling the temple, and remember that He’s got this and He’s got you. The sovereignty of God.
The Holiness of God
Secondly, the holiness of God. The holiness of God. Look again at verses 1 through 4. Notice especially the theme of the angels’ song. “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face.” Unfallen angels, majestic seraphim; the name means “burning ones,” holy, whitehot with unfallen majesty of their own, and even they must veil their faces before the presence of the radiance of God in His holiness. With two they covered their face, with two they covered their feet, in humility and modesty, and with two they flew, poised and ready to go at God’s bidding. And one calls to another, “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.”
Now we tend to think of the holiness of God primarily in moral and ethical terms. It’s a moral attribute. And there’s a sense in which that’s absolutely correct. God is consecrated, distinct, set apart from all sin and all wickedness. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot look at wrong. Isaiah himself strikes that very note in the chapter immediately prior to this one – chapter 5, verses 15 and 16. “Man is humbled, and each one is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are brought low. But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.” God is holy and His holiness is seen in His righteousness, His purity, His goodness. So there is a moral component to the holiness of God.
But actually, the holiness of God in Scripture means something far larger even than that. There’s a sense in which God’s holiness is not properly an attribute of God so much as it is a way of speaking about all the attributes of God. It is the God-ness of God; the distinctness of God. He is not like us. A.W. Tozer once put it this way. He said, “We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know, infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom but His holiness he cannot even imagine.” And that’s what makes the seraphim sing in stunned rapture. Prose just won’t do before the holiness of God.
One of my pet peeves – if you know me, you’ll have heard me rant about this at some point I’m sure – is the expression, “very unique.” Oh, I hate it. Because you see, for something to be unique it means there’s only one of them and it does not admit of degrees. It’s either unique or it’s not. It can’t be a little unique or slightly unique or extremely unique or very unique. It’s just unique. There’s only one. Unique is a unique expression. Right? So stop it! The holiness of God is already a way to speak about the – if you say He’s holy, you’re saying there is nobody and there is nothing like Him. He is in a category of one. He is the holy one. Holiness adheres in Him.
But notice the seraphim’s song. As they begin to sing, they can’t help it. He’s not just holy; He’s “holy, holy, holy.” In the Hebrew language, you know, repetition is for emphasis. It’s bold italics and underlined. “Holy, holy, holy.” He’s superlatively holy. Holy is already a superlative, but they can’t help it. They have nowhere else to go but to say He is the only one you may legitimately call very unique, extremely unique. He is the only one. That’s what the angels here are saying. He is “holy, holy, holy.” He’s not just holy. There’s a fullness of perfection in Him that surpasses the borders and boundaries of ordinary language that not even unfallen angels can fully articulate.
And they say not just that He is “holy, holy, holy,” but that holiness blazes forth from Him toward His creatures. Look again at what they say. “The whole earth,” they say, “is full” – and you might expect them to say, “full of His holiness” – but they say, “full of His glory.” Ralph Davis has said, “Glory is holiness with a wrapper around it.” That’s helpful. Glory is holiness – the holiness of God – with a wrapper around it. That is to say, God’s glory is His holiness packaged for us to know. It’s His holiness shining out for the world to see. It’s holiness on a mission to capture your heart so that you begin to join the angels and adore Him and worship God in the beauty of His holiness. That is His design and purpose for all of us, isn’t it? Our chief end, after all, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever till we all are “lost in wonder, love and praise.” That’s what God’s glory is. It is holiness on a mission, seeking to ignite in your heart the same fire that burns from these seraphim as they adore the Lord.
The Judgement of God
But that’s actually not what happens in Isaiah’s heart when he sees God’s glory, is it? We don’t find him – suddenly as the glory and majesty and holiness of God is unveiled before his gaze – we don’t find his head back and his hands in the air and a smile of rapture on his face joining the heavenly song, do we? Here’s the third thing that I want you to see. The sovereignty of God, then the holiness of God, but now actually the judgment of God in the third place. Look at Isaiah’s reaction when he sees holiness shining forth in the glory of God. He’s not singing for joy. He does not have warm fuzzies. He’s prostrate in the dust. Verse 5, “Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” You know in his own preaching, if you were to flip back through the first five chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy he’s been pronouncing woe, oracles of woe on God’s own people. Chapter 3 verse 9, “Woe to them, for they have brought evil on themselves.” Chapter 3 verse 11, “Woe to the wicked!” Chapter 5:11, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink.” Chapter 5 verse 18, “Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood.” Chapter 5 verse 20, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” The judgment of God. That’s what’s involved in this word, “woe.” The wrath of God, the holiness of God coming into contact with sin brings judgment. And so Isaiah, under the commission of God, pronounces an oracle of woe. And all the nation ever need do, as they listen to his preaching, is look at the leper colony where Isaiah lives to know that God means business in judging human sin.
But now suddenly, as he’s brought into the heavenly courtroom and sees something of the holiness of God, the prophet who pronounces woe on others must pronounce the same sentence upon himself. “Woe is me, I am lost.” That word actually, “lost,” that’s a very weak translation. It really means “silenced with the silence of the grave.” “I am ruined. I am undone. I am destroyed. It’s curtains for me. Here now in the sight of the Holy One, the King, the Lord of hosts, I ought to be nothing more than a greasy smudge where there used to be a prophet.” That’s what Isaiah feels. And we mustn’t skip over this moment, either in the text and certainly not in our own lives and hearts. Sometimes, let’s be clear – isn’t it true – we operate as if grace means we can short circuit repentance and shrug off confession and skip right past the sinfulness of sin, mumble a few words of apology in God’s direction without a second thought, and move right along. Because after all, “I’m forgiven.” But you know only a trivialization of the holiness and glory of God will allow us to see our sin as something so small and slight and so easily overlooked as all that. You can’t shrug it off. You mustn’t shrug it off. When we really begin to know God, we really begin to know ourselves and that will always lead us here. Those who truly know God, know this moment in Isaiah’s life very well. It leads us to the place of confession where we say what Isaiah says, “Woe is me. Look at my heart. Look at what I found festering there in the blazing light of the holiness of God. I deserve none of His mercy, none of His grace. I deserve His judgment and curse. That’s the truth about who I am.”
The Grace of God
Beloved, if we hope to find comfort in the sovereignty of God and take our seat among saints and angels adoring the glory of God, we need to have this experience – humbled utterly under the hand of God. Do you know anything about it for yourself? Humbled utterly under the hand of God. At the end of yourself with nowhere else to go but to mercy. And of course that’s how the Lord responds and that’s where we must go lastly. The sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the judgment of God upon our sin, but God doesn’t leave His prophet in his sin and misery. And so finally, the grace of God. Look at verses 6 and 7. “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’” This is, by the way, almost the reverse story of what happened to King Uzziah who wanted to burn incense on the altar and in his sin was rendered unclean and was excluded. Isaiah begins by being excluded. The doorposts are shaking so he can’t enter. The place is filled with smoke so he can’t see. The message is clear – “In your sin, Isaiah, you may not come near.” And now instead of being excluded, as was King Uzziah, the prophet is brought near by God’s action. God comes to him and does for him what he could not do for himself. And He makes him clean in all his uncleanness.
It’s interesting, I think it’s a reasonable speculation that the smoke that excluded Isaiah actually is smoke rising from the altar where a sacrifice has already been made for his sin. Before he really knew he needed it, God had made provision for his pardon. And one of the coals from that altar is brought to him to make clear the connection between atoning sacrifice and pardon for sin. And we know of course, don’t we, that “the sacrifices of bulls and goats could never take away sin.” Hebrews teaches us that clearly. But they were designed to point to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, to the final sacrifice and offering of the Lord Jesus Christ who shed His blood “to make the foulest clean,” “God demonstrating His love for us in that while we were still sinners,” before we knew we needed it, “Christ died for us.” He loved you and He knew the need of your heart and He has made full provision for it in the wounds of Jesus Christ.
Notice where the coal touches the prophet. It is touched to his lips. He is a man of unclean lips. This is his epitomizing sin; not his only sin, but this is his great characteristic sin. And so there, precisely at the point of his sharpest need, there, cleansing comes, there, mercy comes. The message is – there is no sin that you may have, no guilt in your life for which there is not abundant pardon in Jesus Christ. You get it not by strutting proudly into the temple like King Uzziah, but by prostrating yourself under the hand of the holy God and acknowledging your own spiritual bankruptcy. And need and look to the altar, look to the cross, look to Christ, because there God has supplied your need in His holy Son.
So these are our great emphases. These are the notes I want to sound Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day as long as God gives me breath. His great sovereignty – He is King. Praise the Lord that He reigns and will never abdicate His throne. He is holy, and His holiness is terrible and beautiful. He is the just Judge, and before Him we must tremble in confession and repentance. But He is also the God of all grace, quick to forgive, ready with mercy for all who come to Him by Jesus Christ. Let us pray.
O Lord our God, we praise You for familiar truth, for old paths, so sweet and precious. Forgive us, please, for mouthing these glorious truths, for acknowledging them, singing about them, but feeling little of their wonder. Would You help us, help us, to come to that same place of adoration and praise and wonder, of contrition, of humility, of brokenness, and bring us also to that place where we, like the prophet, to receive mercy and grace and pardon and cleansing. Do that in our hearts. Do that by Your Word and Spirit, we pray for Jesus’ sake, amen.