Resources

Let’s pray

Heavenly Father, speak to us through your word we pray, and so show us more of yourself. In Jesus name. Amen.

Who is God? When we’re on a Zoom call, if I can’t see or hear you, I can speculate about what you’re up to ‘til the cows come home, but I’ll be guessing. Unless you decide to turn on your video and show yourself, I don’t know what you’re wearing. And unless you unmute yourself and speak, I can’t know what you’re thinking.

It’s the same with God. Kind of. We can’t know what God is like unless he shows himself to us. We can’t know what God is thinking, or hear his voice, unless he speaks to us. But that is what he’s done. He’s done it through the prophets of the Old Testament. Supremely, he’s shown himself to us in the person of his Son Jesus. So here’s an example –Isaiah 6 – the account of the commissioning and call of Isaiah.

Here we have a breath-taking view of the behind-the-scenes story of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry. And I want to look at what this chapter tells us about who God is in three sections. So:

1. HE IS GLORIOUS

This is verses 1-5. Verse 1:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord…

Uzziah died about 740BC – and the death of King Uzziah was deeply symbolic. He had reigned over an outwardly prosperous nation for 52 years. He started well, as a young King - living in obedience to God. But when he was strong, as 2 Chronicles 26.16 records, he grew proud, to his destruction. He didn’t lose his religion, but he began to think he could bend the rules that God had given with impunity. As a result, he was struck down with leprosy and excluded from the temple for the rest of his life. He was unclean. And that was how Isaiah saw the whole of his nation. They were unclean. Pride was their downfall. Unless God acted, the nation would follow Uzziah into the grave. But God does act. What does he do? He begins with a revelation of himself (Isaiah 6.1):

I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

And the seraphs above him were calling to one another (Isaiah 6.3):

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!

There are two main things to see there.

i. God is sovereign.

He is the Lord. He is on the throne – reigning, in absolute control. He is high and exalted – outside of and above his creation. But his train filled the temple – he is not isolated and remote but he meets his people at the place of sacrifice. What does the New Testament make of this? John 12.41 says (just after the account of Jesus’s final entry into Jerusalem – and after this chapter has been quoted):

Isaiah said these things because he saw [Jesus’s] glory and spoke of him.

Isaiah’s vision was a vision of the glory of Christ, the son of God. Jesus is sovereign. Jesus is Lord. The amazing thing is that we can share that same vision that Isaiah has as we see Jesus in the pages of the New Testament. But the vision that we can have is so much greater and clearer than his. That is our privilege. Isaiah saw a blur. We see Jesus in sharp focus. And he is the sovereign Lord.

ii Isaiah saw that God is holy.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. In Hebrew, a word is repeated for emphasis - but this is the only place in the whole Old Testament where there is this threefold repetition, so this is uniquely emphatic. God is absolutely holy. What does that mean? Holiness is basically separateness, or distinctiveness. And there are here two main ways that God is distinct, and holy.

For one thing, he is beyond our understanding. We can only know what God is like because he stoops down and reveals what he’s like to our puny minds. He is like Jesus. And for another thing, he is absolutely morally pure. Even the best of us are impure and unclean, like King Uzziah. And if our impurity comes into the presence of God’s purity, we will die. That is frightening. No wonder Isaiah responds as he does to this vision of God – sovereign and holy (Isaiah 6.5):

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!

The sight of the glory of God is always, at first, devastating. It doesn’t puff people up. Their response is not: “Wow, how beautiful!” or “Seeing that is a real boost to my self-esteem!” Isaiah’s cry is right in line with the rest: Woe is me!

Woe is the opposite of blessing. In other words, it means: “God’s curse is on me!” The depth and reality of sin become undeniable. The issue is no longer, “How can God possibly condemn me?” It simply becomes: “Is there any way that I can escape from justice? How can I be saved?” Peter said to Jesus: “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5.8) When John saw Christ in glory he fell at his feet as though dead (Revelation 1.17).

The destruction of our self-righteousness through the sight of the glory and holiness of God is what has to take place before the construction of a new man or a new woman can begin. And that’s what the next section is about. Who is God? First, he is glorious.

2. HE IS GRACIOUS

Read on to Isaiah 6.6-7:

Then one of the seraphim [that’s a heavenly creature] 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.”

The Lord’s response to Isaiah’s despair is not condemnation, but atonement. This was the most profound experience of Isaiah’s life – it is here above all that he experiences the grace of God. Atonement reconciles us to God. It is the response of God’s grace to the ruination that we bring on ourselves by sin. There are three stages by which this atonement is made effective in Isaiah’s life. They apply in our own lives as well.

i. God provides atonement.

This is an act of sheer grace. The live coal is taken from the altar by the seraph. The altar of the temple was the place where the sacrifices were made that dealt with sin and that made forgiveness possible. The fire that consumed the sacrifice on the altar symbolised the wrath of God against sin and the judgement of God upon sin.

Atonement is provided through the appropriate sacrifice. But there is only one sacrifice that can deal with sin once and for all – and that is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. There on the cross the curse – the woe – fell on Jesus, and atonement was provided for the sin of the whole world. There is now, if you like, an unlimited stock of live coals on the altar for the seraph to take and touch each one of us with. And that is the second stage. So, God provides atonement at the cross of Christ.

ii. God applies atonement.

This, too, is an act of sheer grace. Isaiah’s sinful mouth was touched by the burning coal from the altar of atonement. In the same way, as we throw ourselves in despair on God’s mercy, the Holy Spirit enters our lives and applies what Christ has done personally to us. In an air-sea rescue, the provision of the helicopter makes the rescue possible – but the rescue is not effective until the shipwrecked sailor is winched to safety. God provides atonement. Then God applies atonement.

iii. God explains atonement.

The Lord, through the seraph, tells Isaiah exactly what is going on (Isaiah 6.7):

Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

Isaiah doesn’t have to speculate or try and work it out for himself. This is very important for us. The New Testament doesn’t just tell us that Jesus died. It explains his death. He died for our sins. (Galatians 3.13):

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…

We need to know that. That is what the death of Jesus on the cross is all about. This isn’t human insight or speculation. It’s God’s explanation of what he has done. Without it, we couldn’t respond properly to what God has done for us. Without it, we couldn’t tell other people how and where to find atonement for themselves. Out of his sheer grace towards us, God provides atonement; God applies atonement; and God explains atonement. To be on the receiving end of that atonement is to experience directly for ourselves that God is a God of grace. He is gracious.

We need to know, deep down, that God is glorious and holy. We do need to know that, though God made us, we are profoundly sinful. We need, as it were, to stand on the edge and look into the jaws of hell. And then we do need to know that God is gracious and that through faith in Christ and the cross we are utterly forgiven and acceptable to him. Who is God? He is glorious. He is gracious. Then:

3. HE IS A GOD WHO CALLS US TO SERVE HIM

We’re looking now at the rest of the chapter, from Isaiah 6.8-13. Isaiah 6.8-9:

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.” And he said, “Go…”

Note four things here:

i. It is by atonement that God both qualifies us and motivates us for his service.

If we’re not reconciled to God, then we can be no use to him. And if we’re not reconciled to God we won’t want to be of use to him. It is only when his mouth is touched with the burning coal that Isaiah’s Woe is me! For I am lost! becomes “Here I am. Send me.”

ii. It is God who chooses us and calls us.

The Lord knew who he was talking to here. It wasn’t as if he was just musing to himself, “Well now, let me think, whom shall I send? Oh! You Isaiah! Well, I hadn’t thought of you – but I suppose you’ll do.” The Lord is provoking a response of commitment from Isaiah (as he does with us) – but the initiative for choosing and calling comes from him.

iii. God looks for a response from us that is total.

When God says, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? he’s demanding a response of the whole of someone’s life. Isaiah’s response is complete. He does not offer some of his time, some his talent, some of his money. He offers himself. No limitation. No conditions. We have to ask ourselves whether we do the same.

iv. God makes clear to us what we can expect.

The Lord makes very plain to Isaiah what lies ahead of him in his ministry and it’s not a pretty sight. In Isaiah 6.9-10 he makes clear that Isaiah can expect his message to be rejected. His message will be an instrument of judgement. In Isaiah 6.11-13 the Lord makes clear that Isaiah can expect his country to be destroyed, and destroyed again, leaving a pitiful remnant. And at the end of Isaiah 6.13, the Lord makes clear that from that remnant will come hope. He can expect a new King – a messiah. But he won’t live to see him.

You need a searing experience of atonement if you’re going to sustain a ministry like that. But what should we expect? Should we, like Isaiah, expect our message to be rejected? The answer to that is no. Certainly we shouldn’t be surprised when some reject it, and the going is hard. It will be. But, unlike Isaiah, we should be expecting the gospel to be believed and accepted ever more widely. This is exactly the point that Paul makes from his prison cell in Rome right at the end of Acts. Most of the Jews he tries to convince about Christ don’t believe him. And he quotes Isaiah 6.9-10 to them. Then he says (this is Acts 28.28):

Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.

Our expectation should be conversions and church growth. We should have the same determination as Isaiah. But we need not have the same expectation of almost total rejection. Colossians 1.6:

…in the whole world [the gospel] is bearing fruit and increasing…

So have we responded to the call to serve God, by handing over our lives totally to him? We won’t do that unless we’ve first experienced the grace of God. And we won’t see our need of God’s grace unless we’ve first seen the glory of God? God is glorious. And God is gracious. And God calls us to serve him. That is who God is. Let’s pray:

Lord God show yourself to us, and speak to us, so that we might see your glory, and experience your grace, and respond to your call. In Jesus name. Amen.