Holiness is God’s Glory

Hook:

The throne room of God. Can you imagine a place more glorious, awesome, and terrifying all at once? In our passage today, we are actually told what it looks like with some detail. In response, I decided to copy and paste his description of the throne room into an AI image generator for us, and this is what it spit out.

Show Image Provided in Slideshow (Slide 2)

Not everything in this photo is exact, but I do think it gives us a general feel of what that room might have looked like. Because of how awesome this vision is, I’m going to play the passage from a dramatized audio bible to set the tone. There will be a 10-second pause between each verse for us. During that 10 seconds, if you want to meditate, pray, or just keep imagining the scene, that’s up to you. But I really want us to just put ourselves in Isaiah’s shoes.

Book:

1. Have your phone connected to the speaker.

2. Open Dwell

3. Set voice to Mark and reflection for 10 seconds between each verse.

4. Set the chant background noise.

5. Play Is 6:1-7

(2.5 minutes)

Background

This passage was written among the backdrop of hopelessness for God’s people.

Since Solomon’s death, there had not been a better military leader and king than Uzziah. But becuase of his pride the Lord gave him leprosy and he died, and now, the rival nation of Assyria is pushing nearer and nearer to Judah. The people felt that their strength and king and army was gone, and it was only a matter of time before they were decimated and brutalized by an evil enemy.

During this hopelessness, many in Israel rebelled against God, dismissing him as their king and doing whatever they wanted because they felt like he abandoned them.

But God does not leave his people hopeless. And that’s why Isaiah receives this vision. God presents himself as the king that never dies, and rules over all things in wisdom and holiness.

6:1

Isaiah 6:1 ESV

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.

So Isaiah introduces us to his situation, and he doesn’t really give us much context to where he was or what he was doing when he recieved this vision, Uzziah died, and here the Lord brings Isaiah to himself.

And the first thing Isaiah’s attention is brought to is “The Lord” The Hebrew word for Lord here means the Master, the sovereign, the king. The one who has control over all kingdoms. And this Lord is sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

In that time, The holy of holies, where ark of the covenant was house in the temple, that was the place where God focused his presence on earth. That was the most sacred place humanity could have ever seen. but God’s heavenly throne is on a whole different level. This is the Lord in his most most most holy place. And the veil has just been torn.

God shows himself to Isaiah as the king of the universe.

The elevation of his throne shows how exalted he is.

The train of his robe symbolizes his prestige, The stylized hem or train of a robe was used to mark the high rank of the wearer. The high priest of Israel was required to wear a robe with a special hem. And the train of the Lord’s robe was large enough to fill his dwelling place.

During the threat of decimation by Assyria, God shows us that King Uzziah’s death serves to show us the true king, the one who rules over all creation, who can do what Uzziah never could. Sometimes it takes us removing the false rulers in our lives to reveal the real one.

6:2

Isaiah 6:2 ESV

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.

This is the only time that the heavenly creature “Seraphim” appears in the bible. They are often depicted as fiery angels, whose flames are reminiscent of God’s holiness. Their name can also mean “flaming serpent.”

Show depiction

The way that the Seraphim use their wings are symbolic of how great God is. They cover their face, becuase the sight of the Lord is be too much for them, and Isaiah says they cover their feet, to tell us that the rest of their body is shielded too. It’s like saying “From head to toe” they have shielded themselves from the full, radiant, glory of the King. And they fly around the King praising him. And here’s what they say:

6:3

Isaiah 6:3 ESV

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

Holy is elevated to the third degree and matched with God’s glory.

Here’s what R.C. Sproul said in his book The Holiness of God:

“Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that he is holy, holy, holy.”

So let’s define this word,

Q: What comes to mind when you hear the word “holy”?

Holiness in the Bible is described in two ways. Otherness and purity.

Otherness has to do with how different God is from us and Purity has to do with how perfect he is.

And so Yahweh, the King of the Universe, he is thrice holy and that holiness, his glory, fills the whole earth.

This the main idea of our lesson today, “God’s glory is his radiant holiness”

“God’s glory is his radiant holiness.”

So let’s see how Isaiah responds

6:4-5

Isaiah 6:4–5 ESV

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!”

Isaiah cannot process what he is seeing. He is having a full on mental breakdown, and rightly so. Because Isaiah’s own darkness has been fully reveled to him in the light of the King.

After seeing who the King is, Isaiah becomes aware of exactly who he is.

John Calvin comments on this state of mind at the beginning of the Institutes

“No one ever attains clear knowledge of self unless he has first gazed upon the face of the Lord, and then turns back to look upon himself. Deeply rooted in all of us is an arrogance which persuades us that we are righteous, truthful, wise and holy. Only clear evidence that we are unrighteous, deceitful, foolish and vile will convince us of the contrary. The Lord is the one and only standard with which our judgement must accord. If we turn our thoughts to the Lord and realize how consummate is his righteousness, wisdom and power which are the standard to which we must conform, what we once took to be righteousness will appear foul and utterly evil.”

Here the prophet of God is put on the same level of uncleanliness as the people he is sent to preach to. We also as future ministers of the gospel must realize that we are in need of it as anyone else in the church.

That leads us to our second question:

Q2: In what ways has our culture been unclean/unholy before God? Our community? OCC?

6:6-7

Isaiah 6:6–7 ESV

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 scene completely redefines what holiness is for us: When the most holy being in the entire universe is faced with an unholy person and nation, his reaction isn’t to glare or cast us away, his reaction is to treat our disease, to cleanse us of the leprosy of sin, to touch us with his healing power, to atone.

God did not reveal himself to destroy Isaiah, but to redeem. Isaiah had no idea what to do but crumble under the weight of his own sin, God took the initiative. Isaiah didn’t ask for healing, but God gave it.

So in this scene, the Seraphim takes a purifying coal from the place where the sacrifice was made, the altar, and touches it to the lips of a sinner and the sinner becomes pure.

In the same way, since we are in Christ, his blood was taken from the cross and applied to us. The blood of the king himself was taken from the altar and made us pure. That’s what holiness looks like.

Here’s our final question for today:

Q3: What do you think our churches can do to appreciate God’s holiness more?

Transition: How then should we ourselves react when faced with God’s holiness? In three ways: Confront, Confess, and Consecrate

Took:

So with the last 5 minutes of class, I want us all to fill out this handout. Then when my timer runs out of time, I’ll pray us out.

1. Column 1: Confront - Write a sin (or more) that our Holy God is confronting in your life right now through the Holy Spirit.

2. Column 2: Confess - Write down a short prayer confessing that sin to God; pray as you write)

3. Column 3: Consecrate—Realize that your sin has been atoned for and that you are forgiven in Christ, and write down an action step that you can take when that sin tempts you towards unholiness.