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.”
As I mentioned last week, a central theme throughout Scripture is the holiness of God. It is one of the most important doctrines of the faith for a Christian to try and grasp. It is basic to our whole understanding of God and of Christianity.
The idea of holiness is so central to Biblical teaching that Mary, in her song of praise in Luke 1 says, “Holy is His name.” His name is holy because He is holy.
If God is the Creator of the entire universe, then it must follow that He is the Lord of the whole universe. No part of the world is outside of His lordship. That means that no part of our lives can be outside of His lordship.
God is inescapable. There is no place we can hide from Him. Not only does He penetrate every aspect of our lives, but He penetrates it in His majestic holiness. This is why we need to try and have just some understanding of His holiness.
There can be no worship, no spiritual growth, no true obedience without it. It defines us as Christians, or at least, it should do.
Probably the most tragic indictment of fallen human beings is that we have lost a holy fear of our Holy God. We were created to enjoy and glorify Him forever. God’s purpose for us is to constantly turn to Him, but since the Fall we have no fear of God anymore.
In stark contrast is Isaiah’s vision recorded in chapter 6.
There is a progression in this text. It is only when we see God in His majestic holiness that we begin to understand our unworthiness to stand in His presence until He acts in mercy to forgive all our sin. It begins with the holiness of God.
Because of our sin we have systematically relegated God to the point where He has little or no relevance or importance in our lives anymore. And Christians are not exempt from this. Within the sanctity and safety of the four walls of our Church buildings we are very comfortable and at ease with proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, but there is a real reluctance to take that message into the world where God is no longer welcomed.
The whole orientation of mankind is to move away from God, rather than towards Him. The true God of Scripture makes us extremely uncomfortable and one of the ways that people try to deal with that discomfort is by reducing Him to something that He is not. In the eyes of sinners, God is no longer as holy as the Bible reveals Him to be. We have reduced, and in some cases, even completely eliminated His holiness to the point where we no longer fear Him. In our eyes He has now become an irrelevant God who we can control.
Mankind has tried to recreate God in our own image. We now have a God who is just like us, because the God of Scripture in His holiness and in His purity is a God we don’t know how to deal with.
We like the idea of a God who will inspire us, but we don’t want a God who will make us ashamed of who we have become as a result of our sin.
We don’t want a God who is fearful, who is truly awesome, but our opinion of what God is like (or should be like) does not change the reality of who He is, and His nature and character is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
The holiness of God sets Him wholly apart from us. We are the creatures, and He is the Creator.
Ever since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, God has stood directly opposed to us because of our sinfulness, and so instead of us being the image bearers of God, we find ourselves on the opposite extreme. The Bible calls us enemies of God. That is how far we have fallen. We’re now at the point where, as Paul says in Romans 3, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18)
It’s hard for most people to accept that we’re enemies of God because what we hear all the time from people both inside and outside of the Church is that God is love and all of us are children of God, so everything is going to be just fine at the end of the day.
This is why the Gospel is so offensive to so many. The Gospel’s point of departure - its starting point - is to emphasise this chasm that exists between the creator and the creature. People don’t like being confronted with their sin, but unless they are, they will never understand their desperate need of a Saviour outside of themselves.
The miracle of Jesus calming the storm is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. A point often overlooked is the disciples’ reaction when Jesus merely spoke to the storm in order to calm it. They didn’t throw their hats into the air, give Jesus three cheers and say, “We knew you could do it!” No - they were terrified, and the reason they were terrified was that they were beginning to understand just who this was in the boat with them. They were more afraid of the holiness of God than they had been of the storm.
How many sermons have you heard based on this text, and the main point of the sermon is, don’t worry, Jesus is in the boat with you, and He will calm the storms of your life? John MacArthur has a different take on the disciples’ reaction when he writes, “This was not fear of being harmed by the storm, but a reverence for the supernatural power Jesus had just displayed. The only thing more terrifying than having a storm outside the boat was having God in the boat!” This is the kind of healthy fear and reverence we should have when we consider the holiness of God.
How did the prophet Isaiah react when he was given a miraculous glimpse into the throne room of heaven? Verse 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!”
In the first four verses of chapter 6, God reveals Himself to Isaiah. “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple. 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. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.”
And instead of just glancing over those words, we should read them slowly and carefully. The picture which Isaiah paints for us here is wonderful.
God is on the throne. He is the King – the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the ruler of all things, and He is in control. God is the absolute sovereign ruler of everything, and He is not about to give up His reign.
He is high and lifted up, He is over and above all things, and He is majestic in His very nature. Nothing and no one has authority over Him. All governments, all power, all people, and each one of us falls under His authority.
Verse 1 tells us that the train of His robe filled the temple. His train represents His power. God’s power is everywhere and reaches everywhere. We cannot escape God. There is no hiding from Him, and there is no running away from Him. Sooner or later, everyone will stand before Him.
God is holy. He is set apart from everyone and everything else. He is perfect, and He has no sin. Sin is rebellion against Him and He cannot and will not tolerate sin. Our sin leaves us with an eternal problem which will not just go away. Sin cannot stand before God.
The power of God is awesome. Even when He speaks, the earth shakes.
All of creation is in His hands. He holds your life in His hands, and He has the power to do anything He wishes. He has the power to speak and see it done.
This is who God really is, and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface yet.
This omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God is the one we stand before. And we should be trembling with fear.
Because before God can change your life, you have to see Him the way He really is, and then see yourself the way you really are. That’s when we tremble.
When Isaiah saw the way God really is, he realised something. He began to see himself as he really was, and it was not a pretty picture.
In order for us to stand before God and see His holiness, we have to, at the same time, see our unholiness. John Calvin said, “men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”
When confronted with the holiness of God, Isaiah was immediately overwhelmed by his own unworthiness in the presence of such holiness. His response is not, “Wow, this is amazing. I wish I’d brought my camera.” No - he was terrified. He knew he was in trouble, because the holiness of God exposed just how unholy and how sinful he was by comparison.
Every now and then people really are cut to the heart as the weight of their sin seems to bear down on them. This is the first step on the road to repentance and salvation, but the reaction of so many Christians to people who say, “Woe is me, for I am lost,” is to say things like, “No, no, God is not angry with you. God is your friend and He just wants you to be happy.” When we do that, we are not presenting the good news of the Gospel as we should. Yes, God doesn’t want us to be burdened by the guilt of our sin – it’s why Jesus died for us - but we do need to recognise our sin and see how it has ruined our lives when we are exposed to the sheer holiness of God.
It’s not that God isn’t angry with us, because He is, but the Gospel message is that we have a mediator in Christ who bears our guilt, and we can’t actually get people there if we tell them at the outset that they have no guilt and that God is not offended by their sin, and not to worry, everything is going to be just fine.
Isaiah watched in stunned silence as the Lord appeared on His throne, encircled by the awesome sight of seraphs, these angelic beings, who cried aloud to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”
This three-fold repetition of God’s holy character was often used in ancient Hebrew to draw attention to what they were saying.
The main tool for creating emphasis in Hebrew poetry is repetition. In the same way that we might underline a word or use italics, the Jewish writers often repeated a word for good measure. To repeat it three times indicated that the writer was elevating that word to its highest level of importance.
R C Sproul writes, “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 says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. 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, that the whole earth is full of His glory.”
So what are we to do? How do sinners like us dare approach this thrice-holy God?
As our awareness of God’s holiness increases throughout the Christian life we have a greater sense of our sin, and the correct response to this awareness of the immeasurable chasm between God and us is to look to Jesus and the cross. It is here where we learn that despite God’s amazing holiness and how far we fall short of Him, He has provided a way for us to be reconciled to Him.
The Gospel does not circumvent God’s holiness. In other words, we don’t simply get a free pass into God’s presence. The Gospel message emphasises just how desperately we need a Saviour, a mediator between ourselves and this God who is infinite in His holiness. The Gospel teaches us how seriously God takes our sin, and then it goes on to reveal the wonder of just what God has done in order for us to be saved from His righteous wrath at our sin. So instead of saying to someone, “it’s not that bad. Everyone makes mistakes,” they need to reach the point where they actually say to themselves, “it’s worse than I could ever imagine, but there is a God who has provided a way for me, who loves me despite what my sin has done to me.”
The problem is that to the world at large, and sadly even to some who profess to be Christians, God’s holiness has been downgraded to the point where we no longer know the true God. We have lost the awe that Isaiah, the disciples, and so many others had.
There really isn’t any sense in our culture that there is a God distinct from us who is sacred, and who calls our very existence into account.
Burk Parsons of Ligonier Ministries wrote, “Most people assume they’re good with God, so proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ without the bad news about sin, hell, and God’s wrath just confirms their self-deception.”
One of the best ways of dealing with our self-deception is to behold the holiness of God. Until such time as we realise just how far we have fallen from the lofty standards He expects of us, we will never understand our need for Jesus.
In the modern Christian world we have lost a sense of the holiness of God.
For our own good we must not bring God down to our level. We cannot meet Him on our terms. Rather we need God to send a mediator - His own Son on His terms, in order to save us from His own Holiness.
One of the first instances in Scripture where we begin to see something of the holiness of God is in Moses’ encounter with God in Exodus 3.
“Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.
He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, ‘I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.’ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ And He said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:1-6)
God identifies Himself to Moses by saying that He is the God of his father, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There is a sense of comfort in His words, yet Moses is terrified by God’s holiness.
Often in the Old Testament God’s presence was manifested by a visible fire. What is fire? It gives light, it gives warmth, it can give life, but it is also a sign of judgement. Moses knows he’s in the presence of God.
Later on in chapter 33 Moses pleads with God to show him His glory. God’s reply to Moses is, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,’ He said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.’” (Exodus 33:19-20)
We may sing the words, “We want to see you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your glory,” but the truth is, if sinners were to see the unveiled glory of God we would be consumed in an instant. We would be destroyed, because no man can see God and live.
And so what does God do? He veils His glory as He comes to us. The problem is that the world sees it as foolishness. The world says, “God can’t be present in a feeding trough in Bethlehem. He can’t be present on a bloody cross. He can’t be present with a fallible sinner preaching from a pulpit. He can’t be present in a piece of bread and a little glass of wine.”
Yet, this is precisely where He has promised to meet us - not because He’s trying to avoid us, but because He wants to meet us in such a way that we will not be consumed by the sheer terror of His holiness. In Christ, our Holy God is accessible to all.
In the Old Testament God held man at a distance. Even His chosen people were not allowed to approach, but now, as a result of what Jesus has done, He welcomes us. He is still holy as He has been for an eternity. God’s nature has never changed, and it never will.
At the same time, as long as we are clothed in our earthly bodies we remain sinners. We still dare not approach God on our terms. The difference now though, is Jesus Christ and the power of His blood.
We now have free access to God, not because God is any less holy, but because He has fulfilled the law we broke, and has made good on all of His promises in Jesus Christ.
The book of Hebrews in the New Testament speaks about this access we have to God through Jesus, and the climax of the book is at the end of chapter 12, but when we read it, we’re not told that now because of our free access to God we have license to live as we like. Instead, we are warned in verses 28 and 29, “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, for our God is a consuming fire.” In other words, we are free to enter into His presence, but He remains perfect in His awesome holiness. We must never forget just who this God is who invites us to call Him “Abba, Father.”
We come before Him in reverence and awe, not because we’re expecting condemnation, but because our Father who loves us and has made a way for us, is nevertheless the King of the Universe.
We’re not to be casual or flippant in God’s presence, but we do feel a sense of peace and security knowing that He has adopted us as His children.
What an amazing thing Jesus has done for us. God Himself in human form took on our sin in order for us to be welcomed into the Father’s presence. Our Saviour, the one human being who actually was holy and fulfilled all righteousness, became sin for us, and has ushered us into the presence of Almighty God.
Hebrews 10:19-23 says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
What a wonderful promise and encouragement to actually approach the throne of God with freedom and joy because even though He is a consuming fire, He has made a safe passage for sinners clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read Isaiah 6:1-7
Discuss the significance of Isaiah’s words in verse 5 in response to his brief glimpse of God’s holiness.
What does this teach us about the problem we have in approaching God in our own strength?
Describe a time when you were overcome by God’s holiness.
It is easy to see how the non-believing world has denied the truth of God’s holiness, but the Church has also lost a sense of the awesome holiness of God.
Bearing this in mind, discuss this quote by Burk Parsons: “Most people assume they’re good with God, so proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ without the bad news about sin, hell, and God’s wrath just confirms their self-deception.”
What is your understanding of approaching God with a “holy fear?”
Read Exodus 33:19-20
Discuss the balance we see in these verses of God’s compassion and mercy and His perfect holiness.
Close in prayer by acknowledging the holiness of God, and by giving thanks that through Jesus, He has made it possible for sinful human beings to enter into His awesome presence.