'In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. 2. Above
it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered
his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did
fly. 3. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the
Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. 4. And the posts
of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was
filled with smoke. 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 onto 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. 9. And he said, Go, and tell this people,
Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive
not. 10. 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 convert, and be healed. 11.
Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be
wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be
utterly desolate, 12. And the Lord have removed men far away, and there
be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13. But yet in it shall
be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a tell tree,
and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves:
so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.'--ISAIAH vi. 1-13.
WE may deal with this text as falling into three parts: the vision, its
effect on the prophet, and his commission.
I. The Vision.--'In the year that King Uzziah died' is more than a date
for chronological accuracy. It tells not only when, but why, the vision
was given. The throne of David was empty.
God never empties places in our homes and hearts, or in the nation or
the Church, without being ready to fill them. He sometimes empties them
that He may fill them. Sorrow and loss are meant to prepare us for the
vision of God, and their effect should be to purge the inward eye, that
it may see Him. When the leaves drop from the forest trees we can see
the blue sky which their dense abundance hid. Well for us if the
passing of all that can pass drives us to Him who cannot pass, if the
unchanging God stands out more clear, more near, more dear, because of
change.
As to the substance of this vision, we need not discuss whether, if we
had been there, we should have seen anything. It was doubtless related
to Isaiah's thoughts, for God does not send visions which have no point
of contact in the recipient. However communicated, it was a divine
communication, and a temporary unveiling of an eternal reality. The
form was transient, but Isaiah then saw for a moment 'the things which
are' and always are.
The essential point of the vision is the revelation of Jehovah as king
of Judah. That relation guaranteed defence and demanded obedience. It
was a sure basis of hope, but also a stringent motive to loyalty, and
it had its side of terror as well as of joyfulness. 'You only have I
known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for
all your iniquities.' The place of vision is the heavenly sanctuary of
which the temple was a prophecy. Eminently significant and
characteristic of the whole genius of the Old Testament is the absence
of any description of the divine appearance. The prophet saw things
'which it is not lawful for a man to utter,' and his silence is not
only reverent, but more eloquent than any attempt to put the Ineffable
into words. Even in this act of manifestation God was veiled, and
'_there_ was the hiding of His power.' The train of His robe can be
spoken of, but not the form which it concealed even in revealing it.
Nature is the robe of God. It hides while it discloses, and discloses
while it hides.
The hovering seraphim were in the attitude of service. They are
probably represented as fiery forms, but are spoken of nowhere else in
Scripture. The significance of their attitude has been well given by
Jewish commentators, who say, 'with two he covered his face that he
might not see, and with two he covered his body that he might not be
seen' and we may add, 'with two he stood ready for service, by flight
whithersoever the King would send.' Such awe-stricken reverence, such
humble hiding of self, such alacrity for swift obedience, such flaming
ardours of love and devotion, should be ours. Their song celebrated the
holiness and the glory of Jehovah of hosts. We must ever remember that
the root-meaning of 'holiness' is separation, and that the popular
meaning of moral purity is secondary and derivative. What is
rapturously sung in the threefold invocation of the seraphs is the
infinite exaltation of Jehovah above all creatural conditions,
limitations, and, we may add, conceptions. That separation, of course,
includes purity, as may be seen from the immediate effect of the vision
on the prophet, but the conception is much wider than that. Very
beautifully does the second line of the song re-knit the connection
between Jehovah and this world, so far beneath Him, which the burst of
praise of His holiness seems to sever. The high heaven is a bending
arch; its inaccessible heights ray down sunshine and drop down rain,
and, as in the physical world, every plant grows by Heaven's gift, so
in the world of humanity all wisdom, goodness, and joy are from the
Father of lights. God's 'glory' is the flashing lustre of His
manifested holiness, which fills the earth as the train of the robe
filled the temple. The vibrations of that mighty hymn shook the
'foundations of the threshold' (Rev. Ver.) with its thunderous
harmonies. 'The house was filled with smoke' which, since it was an
effect of the seraph's praise, is best explained as referring to the
fragrant smoke of incense which, as we know, symbolised 'the prayers of
saints.'
II. The effect of the vision on the prophet.--The vision kindled as
with a flash Isaiah's consciousness of sin. He expressed it in regard
to his words rather than his works, partly because in one aspect speech
is even more accurately than act a cast, as it were, of character, and
partly because he could not but feel the difference between the mighty
music that burst from these pure and burning lips and the words that
flowed from and soiled his own. Not only the consciousness of sin, but
the dread of personal evil consequences from the vision of the holy
God, oppressed his heart. We see ourselves when we see God. Once flash
on a heart the thought of God's holiness, and, like an electric
search-light, it discloses flaws which pass unnoticed in dimmer light.
The easy-going Christianity, which is the apology for religion with so
many of us, has no deep sense of sin, because it has no clear vision of
God. '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.'
The next stage in Isaiah's experience is that sin recognised and
confessed is burned away. Cleansing rather than forgiveness is here
emphasised. The latter is, of course, included, but the main point is
the removal of impurity. It is mediated by one of the seraphim, who is
the messenger of God, which is just a symbolical way of saying that God
makes penitents 'partakers of His holiness,' and that nothing less than
a divine communication will make cleansing possible. It is effected by
a live coal. Fire is purifying, and the New Testament has taught us
that the true cleansing fire is that of the Holy Spirit. But that live
coal was taken from the altar. The atoning sacrifice has been offered
there, and our cleansing depends on the efficacy of that sacrifice
being applied to us.
The third stage in the prophet's experience is the readiness for
service which springs up in his purged heart. God seeks for volunteers.
There are no pressed men in His army. The previous experiences made
Isaiah quick to hear God's call, and willing to respond to it by
personal consecration. Take the motive-power of redemption from sin out
of Christianity, and you break its mainspring, so that the clock will
only tick when it is shaken. It is the Christ who died for our sins to
whom men say, 'Command what Thou wilt, and I obey.'
III. The prophet's commission.--He was not sent on his work with any
illusions as to its success, but, on the contrary, he had a clear
premonition that its effect would be to deepen the spiritual deafness
and blindness of the nation. We must remember that in Scripture the
certain effect of divine acts is uniformly regarded as a divine design.
Israel was so sunk in spiritual deadness that the issue of the
prophet's work would only be to immerse the mass of 'this people'
farther in it. To some more susceptible souls his message would be a
true divine voice, rousing them like a trumpet, and that effect was
what God desired; but to the greater number it would deepen their
torpor and increase their condemnation. If men love darkness rather
than light, the coming of the light works only judgment.
Isaiah recoils from the dreary prospect, and feels that this dreadful
hardening cannot be God's ultimate purpose for the nation. So he humbly
and wistfully asks how long it is to last. The answer is twofold, heavy
with a weight of apparently utter ruin in its first part, but
disclosing a faint, far-off gleam of hope on its second. Complete
destruction, and the casting of Israel out from the land, are to come.
But as, though a goodly tree is felled, a stump remains which has vital
force (or _substance_) in it, so, even in the utmost apparent
desperateness of Israel's state, there will be in it 'the holy seed,'
the 'remnant,' the true Israel, from which again the life shall spring,
and stem and branches and waving foliage once more grow up.