Trinity Sunday Isaiah 6:1-8

Context

Prophecy: Not Just Future-Telling

When confronted with the question of the purpose of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, it is commonly supposed that their primary purpose is future telling or the supernatural revelation of certain events before they happen. However, in reality the prophetic books actually engage in very little having to do with anything related to the future and in fact spend the vast majority of their time analyzing the past! In this way, the books of prophecy contain “divine interpretations of history,” as my mentor John Sailhamer used to say, and any talk of the future that they do engage in is most often presented as an outgrowth and consequence of the people of God’s failure to act according to the terms set out in the series of covenants that God established with His people earlier in the Old Testament.

Thus, rather than future casting, the main purpose of the books of prophecy is to call a nation’s people (e.g., Israel, Judah, Assyria, et. al.) to repent of their sins in order to avoid a future time of judgement. Any future telling that does take place in the prophetic books is typically in the form of a warning being issued for impending judgement or a vision of a glorious restoration that will take place after a time of judgement. As a result, the primary task and calling of the biblical prophets is to act as God’s advanced warning system that sounds the alarm of upcoming judgement that can be avoided or abated by means of repentance.

A Lawsuit that Introduces the Rest of the Prophets

This is important because these themes are those that fill the chapters of Isaiah leading up to our passage for today, and by extension, also those that comprise the rest of the prophetic books. The author of Isaiah writes the first five chapters of the book in the form of an Ancient Near Eastern lawsuit, indicting the people of Judah for their sins and establishing their just deserves of the punitive sentence that will follow. Thus, as the opening chapters of the Old Testament’s prophetic corpus, Isaiah’s introduction in chapters 1–6 in many ways serves as an introduction to the entire section of books.

The Content

God Seated—Royal Implications

This background helps make sense of Isaiah’s call to action that takes place in Is 6:1–8, our primary text for today. In this very famous passage (that gave rise to the popular worship song written by Chris Falson!), Isaiah is caught up into the throne room of the heavenly temple where he sees the Lord seated “upon a throne, high and lifted up,” where “the train of His robe filled the temple” (Is 6:1). That Isaiah emphasizes the Lord’s seated position seems like normal language to us due to our familiarity with the passage, but in an Ancient Near Eastern royal context, only the most high, supreme, and powerful individual is allowed to sit in the thrown-room. In using the imagery of the Lord in the seated position, Isaiah employs the most explicit terms available to him to convey that God is the ultimate sovereign and there are none remotely like Him (cf., Ps 29:10; Heb 1:3, 10:12).

The regal imagery employed for the Lord is further emphasized by the extraordinary length of His robe, which filled the entire throne-room. Through both images, Isaiah is eliciting the Kingship of God vis-à-vis his other attributes in the strongest terms possible, and so in our approach to today’s passage we must be careful to call to mind and emphasize the authority, command, and dominion of the Lord that Isaiah wished for us to grasp.

"The Burning Ones"

Like any king ancient or modern, the Lord is surrounded by a host of attendants, however, in Is 6:1–8 God’s attendants are angels, which the Bible only here terms “seraphim” (6:2). The root of the term “seraphim” is the Hebrew verb sāraf, which means “to burn,” and so either these beings were literally aflame or more likely were so alight in otherworldly splendor that they glowed or shown as if they were on fire. It is also the case that in the Old Testament whenever God breaks into human space-time there is nearly always fire present (Ex 3, 13:21-22, 24:7; cf., Heb 12:25, Rv 14) and thus a herald of His presence and a consequence of His all-consuming holiness. As such, it is only fitting that the heavenly beings in God’s presence would be described as seraphim, “the burning ones.”

Why Say "Holy" Three Times?

Isaiah encounters these seraphim as they are in the midst of an antiphonal hymn of praise to God, singing back and forth to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Is 6:3). Here, it is often missed that the seraphim are the “host” that is referenced in their own hymn, demonstrating that even these creatures who appear to Isaiah as beings on fire are subject to God’s lordship, furthering Isaiah’s theme of kingship and dominion that he began in his opening description of the Lord.

The seraphim express their awe of God with the so-called “Trisagion,” a Greek compound of the word for “three” (τρι, trī) and that for “holy” (αγιος, agiōs), for the repetition in the opening of their hymn of praise, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Some have thought this to be an implicit reference to the Trinity, whereby each declaration of “holy” is designated for a different person of the God-head. While God on His thrown before Isaiah is certainly triune, as God is Trinity from everlasting to everlasting, there is no evidence in the text itself that the Trinity is meant here (see discussion on v. 8 below). Rather, a very common method for ascribing emphasis in the Semitic languages is the use of repeated terms in near or immediate succession. That the seraphim use the word “Holy” three times in quick succession without any intervening particle or conjunction shows the extent of their conviction that the Lord is absolutely unique and incomparably holy. Their song of praise thus communicates that the Lord is holy par excellence, and they convey this divine attribute by means of their repetitive language.

Isaiah's Response

When confronted by this heavenly chorus, Isaiah is immediately struck by his unworthiness to stand before the Lord and His heavenly host. This elicits his response of lament, “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!” (Is 6:5). It has often been suggested that Isaiah’s reference to his “unclean lips” is an admission of a problem with cursing or swearing, and so this text has sometimes been used to preach about the virtues of avoiding foul language. However, the intent of the text is to communicate that Isaiah, having just heard the seraphim sing their incredible hymn of praise to God, is now is painfully aware of the sin that prevents him from praising God as the angels do. In his present state, Isaiah is unable to purely espouse the kind of true and pure worship that the Lord of hosts inspires and deserves.

Seemingly aware of this, one from among the host of seraphim flies to Isaiah and with a burning coal taken from the altar before the Lord touches Isaiah’s lips. That a deeper more fundamental issue than swearing has been affected by this act is demonstrated by the words of the seraph: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Is 6:7).

Cleansed by Touch

To put this consecrating action and its effects into their proper context, it is critical to note that this is the only instance in the Old Testament when something that is “unclean” is made “clean” by virtue of its contact with something or someone that is “clean.” The Levitical law is replete with examples whereby “whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening” (Nu 19:22). Thus, by Isaiah’s own admission he is “unclean” (Is 6.5), and therefore should render whatever he comes into contact with similarly unclean. But here, in contravention of the Old Testament cleanliness laws, the “cleanliness” of the ember from the altar passes over to Isaiah rather than the other way around. This stunning reversal of the broader Old Testament cleanliness norms is important for at least two reasons.

Firstly, prior to being sent out as a prophet to deliver God’s message of repentance to His people, it was first necessary for Isaiah to be set apart and divinely empowered for the role. This is accomplished through an extraordinary act of divine intervention and condescension where Isaiah is given access to the heavenly realm and is changed as a result. This is mirrored in the New Testament where the saints, only after being empowered and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, are commanded to “go” as a part of the Great Commission (Mt 28:19).

Secondly, it is important not to miss the explicit parallel between the sanctifying and purifying power of the coal from the altar of God and the power of Jesus to “make clean” in the face of ritual impurity. Besides this scene in Is 6, the only other instances in the Bible where something or someone that is “clean” and remains unaffected by contact with the “unclean” are in the miracles of Jesus. In His dealings with those with skin diseases, unrelenting menstrual bleeding, or the Gentiles, Jesus remains “clean” and more importantly, leaves those who come into contact with Him likewise clean where by were previously “unclean.” In these situations, Jesus is making a powerful display of His divine nature and an explicit parallel to the scene portrayed in our text for today.

The Commissioning of Isaiah

As just intimated, the cleansing and purification of Isaiah were a prelude to his divine commission that takes place in the final verse of today’s passage in Is 6:8. Here, the Lord asks, “Who should I send? Who will go or Us?” to which Isaiah replies “Here I am. Send me.” What the Lord requests here is someone to go deliver the message that is central to each of the books of prophecy — that the people of God must repent of their sins or face divine judgement, typically in the form of an invading foreign army sent to displace them from the land.

Covert Trinitarianism?

The other noteworthy aspect of God’s commissioning of Isaiah is His use of the plural self-referential pronoun “Us” in the second half of the verse. Here again, recourse to the Trinity is often sought to explain this self-appellation that only occurs here alongside two other instances in the book of Genesis (Ge 1:26, 11:7). However, it is much more likely the antecedent to “Us” in Is 6:8 is the heavenly host of seraphim surrounding the throne of God rather than to any implicit allusion to the Trinity. This is the case not only because of the central role that the seraphim have played in the passage, but also due to the fact that in the immediately preceding clause God in fact refers to Himself with a singular pronoun: “Who should I send” (emphasis added). In essence, what is being communicated here can be paraphrased with as “Who should I send, indeed, who will go for [all of] Us?"

Not only does the context and language of Is 6:8 suggest an interpretation other than that of a reference to the Trinity, but also theologically, the progressive nature of biblical revelation reserves the full expression of the triune nature God for the New Testament, where the Son and Holy Spirit are fully revealed. To make a linguistic reference to the Trinity prior to God’s full disclosure of His triunity would leave the original readers of Isaiah’s message without the necessary context and content to understand his meaning. Again, this is not to suggest that God here in Is 6 is not triune, but only that the language of Is 6 is not a reference to the Trinity.

Lesson

Sending Parallels

While the Great Commission occurs in its most explicit form in the Gospel of Matthew and has parallels in Luke and Mark, it would be wrong to think that it is solely a New Testament phenomenon. Rather, whether to Adam and Eve in the garden (Gn 1:28), to Noah and his sons after the flood (Gn 9:1), to the pre-Babel population of the East (Gn 11:1-8), or to Abraham (Gn 12:1), God has always wanted His people to “Go.” Thus it should come as no surprise that prior to removing His people from the promised land on account of their sin, God raises up prophets to “go” warn them to repent. Also like the Great Commission where the Holy Spirit is promised as an empowering presence prior to the command to “go out,” here too Isaiah is ushered into the presence of God and divinely empowered prior to his being sent out to Judah.

If God Sends, God Helps

In fact, more broadly speaking, each time a character in the Bible is assigned with some task, God’s presence is also promised to help fulfill that task. God never calls without also equipping and providing everything necessary to fulfill that call. It is not uncommon for saints to feel or sense a call from God in this or that direction, but feel unsure about whether what they are feeling is truly a divine calling or simply a personal desire. Scriptures like ours from Isaiah today help teach us that one very helpful way to know whether God is truly calling in a given direction is to assess how and whether He has also equipped and provided in that direction. While any call from God will require steps of faith into the unknown, we must also take passages like today’s to heart and understand that where God will guide, He will also provide and empower, just like He did for Isaiah.

Obedience is Not Optional

Another important lesson related to this is that if God is truly calling, He deserves to be obeyed. The extraordinary glimpse into the throne-room of God that Isaiah experienced is soaked in language and imagery that emphasizes the kingship and authority of the Lord. He truly is the God-King of the universe and as such is uniquely qualified to issue commands, and these commands that deserve to be obeyed.

God's Will is Restoration

Finally, the great lengths that God is willing to go to see His people restored should also be noted. Isaiah’s entrée into God’s throne-room is obviously not something that occurs often, but is reserved only for this special prophet given the task of bringing a difficult and important message of repentance to God’s people. It should not be lost on us that the ministry and sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was also a similar expression of the extraordinary lengths God is willing to go to in order to bring people back to themselves.

1. Have you ever felt called to do something by God?

2. How did you determine whether your call was truly from God?

3. How did you see God empower and provide for you to accomplish this calling?

4. Where do you sense God calling to “Go” currently?

5. Where and how do you need God to empower and provide for you in this call?