Isaiah’s Cleansing and Calling

Isaiah 6:1-13 

(cf. Ezek. 1:4–28)

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. 2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to 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 were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 So I said:

"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 my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts."

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

"Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged."

8 Also 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 tell 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 shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed."

11 Then I said, "Lord, how long?"
And He answered:

"Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,
The houses are without a man,
The land is utterly desolate,
12 The LORD has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

13 But yet a tenth will be in it,
And will return and be for consuming,
As a terebinth tree or as an oak,
Whose stump remains when it is cut down.
So the holy seed shall be its stump."

Isaiah’s cleansing from sin and calling to preach the forerunner of the gospel was a calling for the remnant of sinful Israel out of the majority who had hardened hearts, deaf ears, and blind eyes.  We see this in Jesus’s words explaining to His disciples why He spoke in parables in Matthew 13:10-11, 13-15 to those who were not chosen (elect) and to the remnant called out and given understanding (Matthew 13:16-17).  The call of Isaiah began with him seeing God’s heavenly glory with surrounding angels praising Him around His throne.  The seraphim sang God’s glory and honored Him with words of holy, holy, holy (Revelation 4:8) because all of creation was full of His glory to behold as incentive to worship the worthy One.  As that place shook from His omnipotent power and presence, the prophet admitted and confessed his sinfulness and that of all God’s people.  Their holiness simply was nonexistent in light of God’s standard of the word which is defined by Himself.  This is our fallen state to this date as well.  We all fall short of His standard of righteousness and holiness.  When we are given a glimpse of His glory by the opening of the eyes of our hearts and our ears to hear the truth of His word, we too are undone and hit the ground in awe and submission to that glory.  This is our conversion experience in varying degrees when He reveals Himself to us in order to deliver us from the bondage of sin under our deaf, dumb, and blind souls from birth.  The LORD took away the sin of the prophet and the iniquity of sin from him by His own righteousness and willful act to save him.  As soon as Isaiah heard and saw he knew he had been released from the bondage of sin and given senses to know and see God, he answered the call to go with the message to tell those being delivered who would hear and as a testimony against those who had been hardened by God to remain in their already existing sin.  Hineni!  Here am I, and send me!  That was the response to his deliverance.  It should be ours as well.  The message was one of judgment given to Isaiah, that the people who had continued to reject God and His word would not be able to hear or see His glory and truth because God had judged already and chosen not to undo their sin as a consequence.  It was not given to any but those chosen by God to hear and understand to turn from sin to Him.  That is true always, for salvation is not by the will of the flesh or man’s choice but of God’s working (John 1:13) and His choice of the remnant of sinful man to be able to hear and see and follow as called out (John 6:44, 65).  The question of Isaiah is as ours today, how long will this go on?  For Israel, it meant further suffering of judgment to prepare the remnant with a holy seed, which is a picture of Christ coming in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4) and then the church called out as that remnant of Israel and the nations as promised to Abraham long ago.  We have been given understanding and vision; may we tell that to those who can hear and see by God’s working of grace!