The Holiness of God

Introduction

Last week, in chapter 5, we heard God pronounce his woes of judgement on a sinful nation. For example look at Isaiah 5:11

Isaiah 5:11 NIV

11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.

Judah has no regard for the works of the Lord. They are living self-indulgent lifestyles, with no care for others or fear of God. Their moral compass is so confused that they are incapable of telling right from wrong.

Isaiah 5:20 NIV

20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

The shock in Isaiah 5 is that the woes and judgements of Chapter 5 are not addressed to the pagan nations - that would make sense.

What is shocking is that they are addressed to the chosen people of God.

God’s people had forgotten God. They no longer feared the Lord. They had lost sight of his holiness.

Three things to note: strips, saves, sends

God’s holiness strips us

v1-5

Uzziah ruled for 52 years. You can read about him in 2 Chronicles 26.

He was made King at the tender age of 16. In his reign he provided running water, he built watch towers to provide for security; he built a capable army of over 300 000 men. Under him there was development and stability.

And so when he died - you can imagine - there was lots of uncertainty.

Amidst the uncertainty of Israel’s earthly king, and weighed down by the immorality around him, Isaiah is transported in his mind as he has a vision of the Lord - in the throne room, in the temple.

The OT uses the word ‘Lord’ differently. Here it means ‘King’.

And the implication is: The king of Judah might be dead. But the real King is high and exalted.

‘High and exalted’ is a favourite phrase for Isaiah. He uses it often.

And the Lord - seated on his throne is surrounded by 6 Seraphim.

This is the only place where seraph’s are mentioned in the bible. ‘Seraph’ means ‘burning one’. They are angelic beings - sinless and pure servants of God.

But they have covered themselves with their wings - because in spite of their moral perfection - God is too perfect even for the sinless seraph’s to look at.

In comparison to God - even sinless beings need to hide their faces.

Their song in v3 helps us to understand what to make of it all: READ.

The most holy place on earth was the Holy of Holies (sometimes called ‘The Most Holy place’) in the temple - that front bit of the temple blocked off from the rest by a curtain. The place at the front where God was thought to reside. That place only gets 2 ‘holies’. The Holy of holies.

Notice that God is not just holy. He is holy, holy, holy - three times - in case we miss it! God is so holy that even inanimate objects like the the door posts and thresholds are shaking - v4.

Holy = other, different, pure, hatred of immorality

And Isaiah uses a name for the Lord in v3 that we need to understand: Lord Almighty is better translated - Lord of Hosts. That is, Lord of armies. He commands armies.

The surprise in Isaiah is that God will command the Assyrian armies to go against his own people.

God’s glory cannot be contained by a man-made temple - the whole earth is full of his glory. The fullness of the whole earth is his glory.

And look at the effect of this on Isaiah:

In v5, he is devastated.

He sees how similar he is to those he’s just been preaching to. He is a man of unclean lips.

The more clearly you know God - the more aware you are of how sinful you are.

It is why Paul can say in 1 Timothy 1:15 “15 . . . Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

We are taught to magnify our virtues and minimises our faults. We compare ourselves down - and that makes us feel good about ourselves.

When you compare yourself up - when you realize how holy God is - we realize how ruined we are and how lost apart from his grace.

Isaiah doesn’t say ‘they are the problem’. He recognises that he is the problem.

The closer we get to God, the more we grow in maturity knowledge of the Lord, the more clearly we see ourselves from God’s point of view, and the worse our feeble attempts to justify ourselves.

Calvin: The more we get to know God, the more clearly we see ourselves.

V5 - Isaiah sees his mouth as his problem, which is surprising - for he is a prophet - a preacher. That was his ministry.

His ‘mouth ministry’ would have been the thing he may have seen as the thing that made him right with God - his preaching.

But his experience of the holiness of God shows him that he is wrong.

In the light of God’s holiness - even the thing we think is best about ourselves, is something we need to repent of.

God’s holiness should strip us. Even the very best things about ourselves - we take to him in repentance.

God’s holiness saves us

v6-7

God’s holy presence is a problem: For the presence of God brings death.

God is too majestic, awesome, transcendent. Who can dwell with this consuming fire?

God’s holiness is a big problem.

Everything is screaming - go away. pillars shaking, billowing smoke, flaming angels. You wouldn’t want to go into that!

Nathan Lovell.

He has found himself a sinner in the presence of a holy God.

God never shows you your sin except to heal you with his grace.

When God shows us things that need to be changed - the wrong response is to justify ourselves. It is a very human response - and we are all guilty of it. Instead of self-justification, we need the Lord to justify us.

And so, in v6 God fixes the problem:

The Seraph takes a burning coal in his hand from the altar: Don’t try this at home! Since he is already a burning being - he can apparently do that!

He touches the mouth of Isaiah with it, and immediately his sin is removed - and atoned for.

How does this work? The cleansing is achieved through the payment of a price.

The verb ‘atoned for’ means to ransom.

Remember where this throne room vision is playing out - in the temple. The temple was the place you went to have your sins forgiven. In those days, it was God’s gracious provision of the whole sacrificial system to deal with sin.

A live coal is taken from the altar in v6. The altar was where animals were sacrificed in the place of humans for the forgiveness of sin.

Symbolically, Isaiah has been offered up as a burnt offering.

Now having been put to death in the flesh - he finds that his sin has been atoned for.

And notice that the cleansing is comprehensive: Isaiah mentioned his lips - but then God removes all of his sin - not just his sins of his lips - but all his other shortcomings and failures to live God’s way.

He is not asked to list all his sins and shame. He only mentions his lips - but the atonement that comes from God has the effect of forgiving him all his sins - past, present and future.

God’s holiness sends us

v8-13

Isaiah’s lips are now clean. He can approach God. He has been atoned for. And now he is ready to hear God speak: And so God speaks for the first time in this passage - in v8

Any relationship with the holy God must begin with the removal of our sin.

In v5 he thought he was at his end. But now - in v8 - he is transformed - and volunteers! He is healed.

God sends Isaiah to fulfil a ministry that in human terms will look like a failure.

Isaiah preached to Israel for the next 50 years - with almost nothing to encourage him - no revival, response, no repentance. Things just went from bad to worse.

The message was - you have so squandered your heritage; you have so wasted God’s word; you have presumed upon his grace; you rejected his word - now his word will be taken from you: You’ll hear but not understand; see but not perceive: you have so hardened yourself against me - that I will now step back and harden your heart; dull your ears and close your eyes.

What a message!

Getting students to sign up for mission - imagine: Your mission is to declare judgement on a people - who won’t listen or care about your message.

Would you sign up for that job?

How long Lord do I preach judgement - v11. The 722BC invasion of Assyria - until exile!

Isaiah doesn’t object, he just gets on with it: explaining the word of God week by week to those who won’t listen or understand or care; and who eventually will go off into exile.

When you have seen the holiness of God - and realised the problem we all have - sin - it is an urgent call to gospel service, regardless of the response.

We need to learn from Israel’s failure: They sat under the preaching of Isaiah for 50 years and never did anything with it.

Nothing has changed in our day. How many are taking God’s word seriously?

God’s judgement on Israel is a warning for us: v9 and 10 are quoted 5 times in the NT: those words are for Christians of every age.

God’s word is like the sun: the sun melts wax and hardens cement. When we are sitting under God’s word our hearts will soften or harden.

How are you responding to God’s word - even now.

If you are responding with indifference, it may be that you haven’t yet experienced God holiness; and if you haven’t experienced God’s holiness, you haven’t experienced God’s grace.

What kept him going through long years of rejection? A promise. A glimmer of hope. The holy seed - the stump - v13.

Chapter 11 will expand on this - it’s a shoot from the stump of Jesse - which later on gives rise to Jesus.

Conclusion

The message of this passage is that God is high and exalted.

He is stands against self-exaltation . He will not tolerate human pride. In the light of God’s holiness - human beings are shown for what they are: sinful and unqualified.

The Lord of Armies will be the only one who is lifted up - with one exception.

Isaiah 52:13 NIV

13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

In the NT the glory of God is seen in Jesus on the cross:

John 12:39–41 NIV

39 For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn—and I would heal them.” 41 Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.