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Our Holy God- Isaiah 6
Rev. Charles R. Biggs
Introduction
Today's study is on Isaiah 6 where Isaiah the
Prophet is sent out to proclaim God's message of judgment upon the
people. Before he is sent out, the LORD of Heaven and Earth allows
him to have a vision of His Great Holiness and Majesty!
During Isaiah's ministry, this
prophet of God had the incredible and challenging task of
bringing the message of God’s judgment to the nation Israel. King Uzziah had died after ruling Israel for over 50
years and the time of glory in Israel’s history was about to be
over. In response to the people
turning away from God by breaking the covenant they had made with him to
obey his Law, God would send judgment in the Assyrian army and the people
would be sent into exile.
To prepare Isaiah for this difficult preaching
ministry of God’s Word, God revealed himself to Isaiah in a
vision. Isaiah sees what is called a
Theophany, or an appearance of
God [2 Greek words made into 1 English Word- theo="God" + Phaneo= "appearance"=
"Theophany"]. God reveals
himself to Isaiah so that it would humble him and remind him of the
incredible power of God’s wrath, and the awesome holiness of His
character and person.
This week we celebrate the 300th
birthday of Jonathan Edwards. God
used this man to bring true reformation and revival to the people in New England.
Why? Because Edwards
faithfully preached God’s Word and kept his preaching focused, as
well as his people’s focus, on the holiness and beauty of God.
Edwards never flinched at telling the people of
God about the awesome God who he served and how his holiness demands
infinite punishment for sin because sin has infinitely offended a holy
God. May we return to this kind of
preaching and understanding of God in our time. May it be what brings us all to our knees
in repentance!
Isaiah 6
Isaiah 6:1 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. 2 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. 3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy,
holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" 4
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who
called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 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!" 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the
altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this
has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. 8
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me." 9
And he said, "Go, and say to this people: "' Keep on
hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' 10
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." 11 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, 12 and the LORD removes people far away, and the
forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. 13 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.
Summary of Isaiah
6
Isaiah chapter 6 is
broken down into two main parts: Verses 1-7 is Isaiah's vision of God's
holiness and majesty, his realization of his own sinful condition, and the
atonement for his sins that God makes for him in order that he may approach
him. Verses 8-13 are the commission of Isaiah to tell the people of
God's judgment with a spark of good news or gospel in verse 13, reminding
Isaiah that although the majority will turn away and be deaf and dumb to
God's revelation and holiness, some will repent and live!
God's Throne room
What is God's Holiness (Isaiah
6:3)?
In Isaiah 6:3, the angels are singing
"holy, holy, holy". What does it mean that God is
holy? The term 'holy' can simply mean 'set apart', but God's holiness
is what makes God "GOD". The fact that God is holy is his
glorious beauty and perfect righteousness, his perfect attributes and law,
and his purity and uprightness in all that he is and does.
How have others in the past described
God's holiness? Jonathan Edwards defined holiness as: “Holiness
is more than a mere attribute of God- - it is the sum of all His
attributes, the outshining of all that God is.”
Stephen Charnock,
the great Reformed pastor who wrote the classic 'Character and Attributes
of God' wrote: “Holiness is God’s beauty and glory. When God would be drawn—as much as
He can be- - He is drawn in this attribute of holiness. Power is in His hand; omniscience in His
eyes; mercy in His bowels; but holiness is His beauty!”
One writer wrote (I cannot remember
at this time): “The holiness of God is altogether beyond our
comprehension. It is the blazing
majesty of God’s perfection.
It is the excellency of all that He is, in
whole and in part. Everything God thinks, everything God purposes, everything God does, indeed everything God is, is altogether and consistently
holy!
And Pastor John Piper wrote
concerning God and His Great Holiness: “All else is creation. He
Alone creates. All else begins. He alone always was. All else depends. He
alone is self-sufficient.”
The Goal of Our Salvation:
Holiness
The holiness of God should be
something that we reflect upon and consider as a people. It is
God’s holiness that places him in a class by himself. It is God's holiness that makes sin
utterly sinful. It is God's holiness that reveals to us that he is
awesome in power, love, grace, mercy, justice, and yet he is holy in all of
these things. God does all things well and for our benefit as His
people.
As the people of God what a
remarkable difference it would make practically in our lives if we could
remember that our God is holy and wants us to be holy as he is holy.
Imagine if the next time you sinned, you didn't merely think of the remedy
of your salvation, but also the design, goal, or end for which you
were saved. What I am saying is that most of the time we merely think
of our forgiveness or the remedy of sin when facing a temptation.
Next time, by God's grace and Spirit as we allow this vision of God's
holiness to recapture our imaginations, we think of the design, goal, or
end of our salvation, which is to be made holy!
I think most of us think about our
forgiveness when tempted, and the flesh and the Devil come along and
whisper: "Oh, it will be alright, go ahead and sin against God, he'll
forgive you. He has a fine remedy for sin." However, what
we should say in response is this: "I have been saved not merely to be
forgiven by God, to be like God and I am called to pursue holiness.
The design, goal, or end of my salvation from the LORD was so that I might
be holy as he is holy!" What a difference this would make in our
lives if we all were to set out to pursue Christ-likeness or holiness in
this manner.
And we can, by God's grace and by
asking him to give us the same vision that Isaiah had through his Word and
by the power of His Spirit working within us! Remember: Without
holiness, no man shall see the LORD (Hebrews 12).
The Teaching of Scripture on
God's Holiness
It is interesting that Scripture describes
God and His name over 900 times as “Holy”. Here are a few
references as to how Scripture defines God's holiness, or what makes God
"GOD".
In the context of God's redeeming Israel from Egypt, Moses sings in Exodus 15:11 "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing
wonders?" David gives praise to God because of who he is in Psalm
29:2 "Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name;
worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness". In a Psalm
concerning God's covenant promises to David, the Psalmist writes in Psalm
89:35 "Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I
will not lie to David". Again, considering God's covenant
promises, the Psalmist writes of God's holy promises in Psalm 108:7 "God
has promised in his holiness: "With exultation I will divide up Shechem and portion out the Valley of Succoth.
And in the later prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah describes the place of God's
habitation in Isaiah 63:15 "Look down from heaven
and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and
your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held
back from me."
God reveals himself as holy so that
we might know of our need for atonement, our distance that has been placed
between God and ourselves because of our sin, and that we might return to
him so that he might make us holy as he is holy! Our great goal in the Christian life is
to be made holy as God is holy!
Yet, why is his holiness so foreign to us all?
Our sins have made us all dull to his holy beauty and caused us to seek
after everything but God in and of himself. We seek his gifts, what
he can do for us, but how often do we actually pursue God and His Holiness
just because of his loveliness and great beauty in and of himself?
Holiness is not something we think
upon often enough. We have so
many other thoughts that occupy our time, why do we not think more about
this glorious vision of God’s holiness? Holiness is a thing
that men are least concerned with because they are tainted by sin, yet it
is the most beautiful part of God and creation. We should ask God to
give us hearts to pursue him for WHO HE IS in and of himself, in all his
glorious beauty and holiness, rather than merely when he gives us what we
want! In other words, we pray that we can say "holy, holy,
holy" more often than crying to God "me, me, me!"
Do we honor God's holiness in
our worship? God is
present when two or more are gathered in his name to worship him. Are we overwhelmed by His Holy Presence
or do we walk (or casually prance) into worship without a thought
of our sin and his greatness. Do we tremble at all?? Or, do we come
carelessly into the presence of God with no thought to his great mercy and
holiness?
Do you remember the spiritual "Were You
There?" Remember the line that says: "Sometime it causes me
to tremble...tremble...tremble!" I don't think in our worship
services we have enough "tremblen'" goin' on these days. We do indeed call God
"Father", but even Jesus the glorious, eternal Son of God,
addressed God as "HOLY" Father! (John 17)...and Isaiah when he
got a glimpse of God's holiness did not say "Daddy- -what a
super-duper dude you are!"
Do we honor God's holiness in
our prayer: We are reminded
before we ask anything of God (as we learn in the Lord’s Prayer)
that we first “hallow God’s name” or make
“holy” his name before we enter into our prayer for what we
need! We do indeed pray 'Our Father Who is in Heaven' - -but then
right away, we are taught to pray: "Hallowed be Your Name" -
-Holy is your Name. Do you approach God in prayer as a Holy Father as
our LORD Jesus did, or does your attention mindlessly wander as if he is
not a God to be honored and considered "HOLY"? Remember
these words from the worship service in Revelation 15:3-4:
Revelation 15:3 And they sing the song of Moses,
the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and
amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your
ways, O King of the nations! 4 Who will not fear, O Lord, and
glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and
worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."
"Who will not fear, O Lord and glorify your
name?" is the question asked in the worship service above in
Revelation 15. We must fear God in a good way as Hebrews 12 says:
Hebrews 12:22-29- But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in
festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who
are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of
the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a
new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the
blood of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse him who is
speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them
on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet
once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 27
This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things
that are shaken- that is, things that have been made- in order that the
things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us
be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us
offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for
our God is a consuming fire.
We must keep God's grace, love and
fatherly goodness to his people in balance with God's other attributes of
holiness, justice, and wrath. We must have a healthy fear of God as
we approach him in worship and prayer. Notice the genius of the
Westminster Confession of Faith in keeping this biblical balance on the
character and attributes of God:
WCF 2.2
God hath all life,(1) glory,(2) goodness,(3) blessedness,(4) in and
of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing
in need of any creatures which He hath made,(5) not deriving any glory from
them,(6) but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them: He
is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are
all things,(7) and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them,
for them, or upon them whatsoever Himself pleaseth.(8)
In His sight all things are open and manifest;(9) His knowledge is
infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature,(10) so as nothing
is to Him contingent, or uncertain.(11) He is most holy in all His
counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands.(12) To Him is due from
angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or
obedience He is pleased to require of them.(13)
A God like this must be revered as an awesome
God! As Pastor John Piper has written so effectively: "God's
chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Himself forever!" This
captures the ultimate aim of God as a Holy Being and it should cause us to
fear Him and to strive by His grace to do the same with our own lives!
God's Provision for Sinners to
Approach Him
Notice when Isaiah gets a glimpse of God's
holiness and his majesty as He is seated on the throne. He is
undone. He realizes that he is a sinner. He says in essence:
"Lord, you're sending me out to a sinful people to tell of your
judgment on their sins, but I too am a sinner! I too have
unclean lips!" We can imagine God's reply to him: "Yes, but
I have chosen you to go- - and I will prepare you by atoning for your sins
specifically so that you might approach me and represent me to
others."
Remember: Unclean Lips Reveal Unclean Hearts-
“Lips are the tip of the sinful iceberg”
Isaiah's problem was that his heart, his sinful problem
in the heart, was revealed by his lips. From out of the heart comes
uncleanness, Jesus says (Matt. 15). So, Isaiah's lips are a
"dead giveaway" that he is a sinner in need of redemption if he
is to stand in the presence of a Holy God!
Isaiah was God’s man to preach his Word and
through his lips men would hear judgment and grace. Yet, this was the opening, the outlet,
the tip that revealed Isaiah’s sin and guilt and need for God’s
assistance if he was going to stay in his presence. So, Isaiah is cut
to the heart- “Woe is me!!” He is terrified. The other people in Isaiah’s day
were not so fearful of God. They
continued to break his Law and step on the grace and mercy that God had
shown to them.
“I am undone”, says Isaiah -
-unraveled: It is this vision of the
holiness of God that reveals our sins and our need for his help. Listen to Calvin on this:
“…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…”
Many in our day are the same. We get “accustomed” or
“used” to hearing of God’s grace and forgiveness. We recognize that we are truly forgiven
and have been given the righteousness of Christ, yet we forget that God is
HOLY and is a consuming fire. Even today, many of us are trying to
change certain behaviors or habits rather than focusing on the real problem
which is the heart.
Only God can fix this deep and radical problem of
the heart. He begins this good work of fixing the root in the heart
by atoning for our sins and sending his Holy Spirit to change what we love,
what we set our affections upon, so that we might ultimately set our
heart's eye and focus sincerely and singularly on the LORD's
beauty and holiness!
God's Forgiveness of Guilt and
Sin
God is willing to remove Isaiah’s guilt and
sin, and send him out as an imperfect but faithful representative of God's
message of judgment as well as his message of salvation for the few who
will hear, see and believe!
When we hear “Holy, holy, holy” we
are like Isaiah: We hear “guilt, guilt, guilt”! But God
takes away our guilt in Christ Jesus. God gives us new hearts so that
we might find him utterly lovely. The angel in Isaiah's vision takes
tongs from the altar, takes a hot, burning coal and makes atonement for
Isaiah's sins by touching his lips. This is symbolic to the Person
and Work of Christ for us in atonement. Christ Jesus our Savior lays
down his life and sheds his blood on the altar in heaven, taking God's
wrath upon him so he can send the Holy Spirit to us.
The coal from the altar symbolizes punishment and
purification. The altar from which the coal was taken was the place
where bulls and goats were placed to shed blood before God and to offer a
substitute in place of the sinner. The fire that consumed the animal
on the altar was God's purification. In Christ, Jesus lays down his
life once and for all as a man, a once and for all sacrifice for sinners to
be punished in their place. After his resurrection from the dead and
ascension back to the throne room of heaven, Jesus sends forth His Spirit
to us so that we might then be purified. So, the coal from the altar
symbolizes the punishment and purification that would come in time because
of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ!
When we get a glimpse God’s beauty by
His Sovereign Grace in the face of Jesus Christ, we see the ugliness of our
sins and the life our sins have tainted! We glimpse God’s holiness, we understand a little more the unholiness of our sinful affections. Yet God is
gracious to us as well! He takes our
sinful hearts, when we are dead and cold to the life and warmth of God’s
grace, and he transforms us.
He makes atonement for our sins in Jesus Christ
who steps down from the throne of God, takes off the robe that filled
God’s temple, to find himself in a land of sin and misery as a poor
servant under a tyrant king! Jesus takes off this royal robe not to
merely wear our clothing, but to wear our very humanity! He came to
represent us and to be holy as God is holy- - perfectly. Then he laid
down his life not on an earthly altar that merely represented atonement,
but he laid down his life on the altar in the very throne room of God
(Hebrews 7-10). This makes us worship our Holy God as David does in
Psalm 27:
Psalm 27:4-8: One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I
seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my
life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.
5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he
will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a
rock. 6 And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all
around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I
will sing and make melody to the LORD. 7 Hear, O LORD, when I
cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! 8 You have said,
"Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, LORD, do I
seek.
The Dullness of Our Hearing and Seeing God
You probably aren’t a prophet being sent
out by God as Isaiah was (in fact I know you're not!). But as a mom seeking for your son or
daughter to grow in the LORD; a father who worries about how much time he
spends with work; a home school parent who wonders if your children
are being taught as much as they deserve; a busy person who is trying to
find your goal, a husband or wife, a career and calling, etc. You approach a holy God who has stepped
down from his throne to make you holy- -to make you like him.
This is the Holy God who you can trust because he
is faithful and he will do above and beyond that which you could ever ask
or imagine. You too have been sent out much like Isaiah in order to
tell the gospel in word and deed and to call men to repentance (Matthew
28:18-20). Don't be surprised when people are bored by holiness and
especially bored or taken back by the Holiness of your God!
Isaiah sent to bring good news, but
the majority of the people were deaf, dumb, and blind.
Jesus comes in the fullness of the times to proclaim the same gospel and to
visibly show God's holiness in flesh and the majority are deaf, dumb, and
blind (John 1:9ff; 12:36ff). That deaf, dumb, and blind kid might be
able to play a mean pinball as the song goes, but they sure cannot get a
vision of God's holiness and their sin until the Sovereign God awakens them
to their peril!
Are we in Christ's Church deaf and dumb to
God’s holiness? Is there true
fear and at the same time an understanding of grace in our lives? Do we
think on God’s glorious holiness in our private times?
Indwelling sin makes our heart’s callous to
God’s beauty and we have to fight it and put it to death! I dare
say that there is too little of the “tremblen'’” (lack of fear) that we
spoke of earlier.
I truly believe if we will ask God to recapture
our minds and imaginations with the vision that Isaiah had, through His
Word and Spirit, that we will see reformation and revival in our
days. We might just even begin to see true holiness in our
lives- -even a pursuit of holiness as the deer pants for the water.
The Hope of the HOLY Spirit!
I am not trying to be
obvious when I say this, but God gives to us his 'HOLY' Spirit (maybe this
isn't that obvious). His "HOLY" Spirit is sent to us to
make us like Jesus, to make us Holy! That is why Paul says we
"quench" Him when we do what He tells us not to do as the people
of God. Remember Galatians 5:17-18: the Spirit wars against the
flesh. That means that it is the flesh that most wants you to deny
the "HOLY" found in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit's work is
to point to Christ and His atonement so that you might have salvation and
assurance in that salvation (John 14-16). Once the Spirit begins a
good work (Phil. 1:6), he continues to make us Holy as Christ was Holy, so
He might present us to Christ as a pure and unspotted bride (Eph. 5:28ff).
In other words, when God
grips us by His grace, he begins a transforming work in us by His
"HOLY" Spirit. Just as
when his presence before Moses turned plain earth into Holy ground; just as when he gave the priests of the temple
garments to wear, they became Holy
garments; just as when God came to accept the sacrifices in the small
room in the temple, his presence made this small room, a cubed box, the Holy of Holies; so he comes to dwell
in us and by his presence he takes those corrupted and tainted by sin and
makes us HOLY PEOPLE. Allow this reality in Christ to fuel
your pursuit of holiness and encourage you to combat sin, flesh, and the
devil with all you of the power you have within you (Eph. 3:14-21).
The wonder of
God’s Spirit indwelling us as God’s people is that the Holy
Spirit indwelling us is not merely a gift from God, but is a gift of
God. If we want reformation and revival in our time, it will be
because of God’s Spirit and grace working through the preaching of
His Holy Word and a continuous meditation on and glimpse of Our Holy God!
CRB
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