Word of Salvation – January 2025
A Holy, Loving, Sovereign God
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Isaiah 6 & W.C.F. 2:1
Reading: John 12:37-50, Isaiah 6, Westminster Confession – art.2:1
Singing: BoW.097 God reigns; let earth rejoice
– BoW.497 Christ is the world’s true light
– BoW.360 Immortal, invisible, God only wise
– BoW.236 All praise to You, my God this night
Theme: The self-revelation of a holy, forgiving and sovereign God in the temple vision of Isaiah.
Introd: Some time ago I came across a meditation for dieters.
I kept the clipping from The Briefing.
It was based on Mark 9:23.
These words: “‘If you can?’ said Jesus. ‘Everything is possible to him who believes.’”
The meditation read like this: All my friends said they didn’t think I could do it. They had watched me stuff myself so many times; they didn’t think I had any self-control at all. I showed them. I knew in my heart I could make it. Sure, it was tough, but I’m no quitter. When the going got the toughest, it just made me more determined to lose the weight. The key is to believe in yourself. God believes in us, even though we don’t always deserve His trust. If God can believe in us, then who are we to do otherwise? Pray for God’s assurance, and you will find more than enough faith to make it through.
That meditation concluded with a Thought for the Day. These words: God believes in me!
Did you notice how the roles have been reversed… the relationship between God and us is out of kilter.
Scripture calls us to believe in God… we are to put our trust in Him
I know of no Bible verse about “God believing in us”. If you know one please let me know.
To avoid making this sort of mistake we need a good understanding of God.
If we have a good understanding of God we’ll also have a good insight into ourselves.
And then we’ll see that it’s not all about us… it’s all about God.
Probably no other chapter in the Bible gives us such a powerful picture of God as Isaiah 6.
Probably few other chapters picture as clearly how we relate to that God.
So I want to take you through an overview of the three main themes that make up Isaiah 6.
A] THE VISION OF A HOLY GOD IN HIS GLORY (Vss.1-4).
- In the first four verses we have a vision of a holy God in all His glory.
While in the temple Isaiah has a vision of the Lord… and the Lord is sitting on a throne.
He’s not walking around attending to some temple business.
He is sitting… but He is not sitting on a chair…. He is sitting on a throne.
And that throne is no ordinary throne… it is a throne that is high and exalted.
This is a picture of God as Ruler… as King… as the one who has total authority.
His throne is above all other thrones. This is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
This vision of God on the throne comes at a crucial time: it was the year that King Uzziah died.
Uzziah had been a godly king… a king who followed in the footsteps of David.
A righteous king who kept God’s commandments… and God blessed him abundantly.
But he was also a king who came to a sad end.
When he became powerful he became proud and disobeyed God.
It’s as if he tried to push God off the throne and take his place.
And God struck him with leprosy…. and now he was dead.
So it was a sad time: a godly king had come to an unhappy ending.
It was a time of uncertainty… of change in the nation… of political turmoil in the world.
And right at this crucial moment Isaiah sees the Lord on the throne.
It’s as if in a sad and uncertain situation God is saying:
Don’t worry, Isaiah, I have things under control, I am on the throne. The king is dead but I reign.
In the W.C.F. it talks about God before it talks about us.
It has many wonderful things to say about God, things that may have come right from Isaiah 6.
“God is… Almighty… completely free, completely absolute.”
IOW God is accountable to no higher authority… He doesn’t follow rules… He makes them.
The Lord is King of kings… who sits on a throne that is high and exalted.
- This God not just King… He is also the God who is announced as being holy – three times.
A thrice-holy God..!
This God is so holy that the attending angels – the Seraphim – literally ‘the burning ones’…
cover their faces and their feet in awe and reverence.
Their wings shield them from this holiness of God.
Holiness is a concept we struggle to understand.
We have some idea of what it means when applied to people… and to things… and to times.
The Bible talks about holy people – priests; and holy things – the temple; and holy days.
Holiness here means being set apart… set apart for God and His service.
What is holy is distinct from what is ordinary and secular.
What was holy was separated from other things and devoted to God.
It’s much harder for us to grasp holiness when it applies to God.
It doesn’t make sense to talk about God as being set apart and devoted to God.
What it means is that God is the totally other One… totally separate from His creation.
He is not part of His creation… He, the holy One stands above it and beyond it.
Our English word holy also conveys another idea.
It comes from the same root as our word ‘whole’ (complete) and ‘holistic’.
So only the Lord God is complete… only He is without fault… only He lacks imperfections.
So the Lord is announced by the angels as completely holy.
The word is three times repeated so that Isaiah is no doubt about it.
The W.C.F. struggles to express also this truth about God.
It says “God is… infinite in being and perfection…“.
And then it simply takes up the idea of the Seraphim: “He is… completely holy”
- Furthermore this Holy God is also a God of great glory. And we see that in a number of ways.
The awesome glory is perhaps another reason why the angels cover their faces.
But the glory is seen especially in that Isaiah sees the train of His robe filling the temple.
In a royal wedding the train of the bride’s dress is there to highlight her glory.
The more wonderful and long the train, the more glory we attribute to her dress.
So too the train of king’s robes highlighted the splendour of the king.
And here the train of the Lord’s robes fills the whole temple.
An overpowering presence of glory fills that whole temple complex.
The Glory of the Lord is so pervasive… so overpowering
that smoke fills the temple to make the vision more bearable for Isaiah.
Even that is not the end of the story… because the angels see even more of that glory.
They cry out that the whole earth is full of His glory.
That is an amazing thing to say… and it is worth reflecting on.
If the whole earth is so full of His glory… why do we see it so little… why do some never see it?
That is not a reflection on any lack of God’s glory in creation.
That is a reflection on our blindness… we see it so little… may God open our eyes to it.
There is another problem. Doesn’t God say in Scripture that no one can see His glory and live?
In fact the W.C.F. states that “God is… pure spirit, invisible, without body parts”.
So what did Isaiah really see in the temple? Or more correctly, whom did he see?
We find the answer in John 12:41 – inspired by the Holy Spirit, John wrote:
Isaiah said this because he saw His (Jesus’) glory and spoke about Him.
So this God Isaiah sees on the throne who is holy and glorious is our Lord Jesus Christ.
(Pre-incarnate) Isaiah sees Him: A vision of the Holy God, enthroned in all His splendour.
B] THE EXPERIENCE OF A LOVING GOD’S MERCY (Vss.5-8).
- In the second part of Isaiah 6 (in vss.5-8) the prophet experiences a loving God’s mercy.
It is still about God… but now particularly God in relationship to the prophet and his people.
I said earlier that it’s only when we really know God… that we can really know ourselves.
We are made in the image of God.
So if our knowledge of God is faulty then our knowledge of ourselves will be faulty.
Some people have the idea that theology (teaching about God) is just for intellectuals.
It’s for people who read a lot and who don’t quite have their feet on the ground.
Chuck Colson – founder of Prison Fellowship – tells how he once thought like that.
At one stage in his spiritual life things we’re not going real well for him.
Someone suggested that he watch a video by R C Sproul on the holiness of God.
Colson dismissed it as something for theologians removed from real life.
But in the end he gave in and watched the series anyway.
And in his book Loving God, he tells how it transformed his spiritual life.
The more we grow in the knowledge of God the more we grow in our spiritual life.
This vision of God in his holiness transformed Isaiah’s life.
Again and again in Isaiah’s writings there surface the images from chapter 6.
Repeatedly the focus is God in His holiness and glory, ruling the nation and the universe.
And here it begins with that awesome holiness of God.
In the light of that holiness Isaiah sees himself as he really is.
Not as a human being whom God believes in.
Rather as a human being who is deeply unholy.
He experiences his own sinfulness as never before.
In vs.5 he confesses that sinfulness… focusing especially on the sins of the tongue.
Perhaps that’s because of his prophetic calling to speak the Word of God.
He also sees his people’s unholiness…. but only in the light of that ‘holy God’ in all His glory.
Here the W.C.F. makes another statement about God that ties in with that holiness of God.
“He hates all sin and will not acquit the guilty”.
God in His holiness cannot just shrug off our sin… or dismiss our moral uncleanness.
- And yet in this second part of Isaiah 6 the emphasis is not on Isaiah’s sinfulness.
There is no grovelling here in human misery… there is no wallowing in sin.
Yes, for sure… Isaiah is deeply conscious of it… and it touches him to the very core of his being.
But the focus immediately shifts to the angel who is acting as God’s messenger.
So while the experience of sin is very real… the experience of grace is even more wonderful. God mercifully provides atonement for Isaiah’s sin.
And that provision comes from the place of sacrifice.
A coal is taken from the altar – not the altar of the incense offering.
It’s a coal from the altar where the sin offering is brought… where sin was paid for.
And the angel touches that coal to Isaiah’s lips.
“See… your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
So this absolutely holy God whose glory fills the earth is also a gracious and merciful God.
Or in the words of the W.C.F. “He forgives wickedness, transgression and sin.”
Our Confession lists these two seeming contradictory things about God.
OTOH – “He hates all sin and will not acquit the guilty”. He will not just ignore sin.
OTOH – “He forgives wickedness, transgression and sin.”
The answer is that God’s justice and mercy are reconciled at the place of sacrifice.
So that Isaiah is able to experience a loving God’s mercy.
- It is here that we learn another thing about our relationship with the Lord.
God does not call us into his service because He believes in us.
And Isaiah didn’t go because he figured out that God believed in him.
No the whole thing hinges around the experience of God’s mercy and grace.
We live the Christian life and we serve our God not because God trusts us.
We live the Christian life and we serve our God because we have been transformed by grace.
The experience of forgiveness is so wonderful that we want to respond.
Isaiah hears the call: Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?
And then Isaiah can do nothing else than respond by saying: Here am I send me!
He responds to God’s grace by answering the call to be God’s messenger.
IOW: it’s only when we have caught a glimpse of who God is…
God in His holiness and glory… God as the One who is enthroned in power….
And when we experience that God dealing with us in His love and mercy…
only then will we truly respond with a life of service.
That is also the pattern we see throughout the rest of the Bible.
The familiar pattern that every Christian experiences: The pattern: sin, salvation, service.
Our reformed confessions sum up these Biblical teaching about God’s character for a reason.
The W.C.F. tells us about the only living and true God not as some abstract theory.
But so that we might know God as the holy God enthroned in His glory;
So that we might experience this loving God’s mercy thru Christ His Son.
And then joyfully respond to this God with a heart overflowing with gratitude: Here am I send me!
C] THE MESSAGE OF A SOVEREIGN GOD’S JUSTICE (Vss.9-13).
- The last part of Isaiah 6 (from vs.9 onwards) concerns the actual mission that Isaiah is given.
But there Isaiah was in for something of a shock.
And the shock of it should pull us up too.
The prophet is not sent out with a message that God believes in us… so we should too.
He is not sent out with a message that we should believe in ourselves.
It’s strange that the prophet is actually sent to make the hearts of his people harder.
Go and tell this people, “Be ever hearing but never understanding;
Be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
What on earth is going on here?
You can hardly imagine a sharper contrast to that “meditation for dieters” that I began with.
And this message designed to harden the heart is not spoken to pagan Egyptians or Syrians.
It is the message God has for His own people, Judah.
The reason is that this nation has been turning its back on God and forsaking God’s Word.
And now God mysteriously sends Isaiah to harden them.
So that they will turn even further away from the Lord.
It’s as if God says: “You don’t want me? Okay, then have it your own way.”
Here we learn yet something else about God.
We can’t put the Lord in a box and demand that He conform to our expectations.
This God does as He pleases… and for reasons that He doesn’t have to explain to us.
Again, the W.C.F. sums up the Biblical teaching about God well:
“He works everything according to the purposes His own unchangeable and completely righteous will.”
- That does not mean that we are totally clueless about God’s plans and purposes.
In this third part of Isaiah 6 the focus is on a sovereign God’s justice.
That’s the issue: A sovereign God’s justice.
We see that especially when Isaiah asks: For how long am to be bringing this hard message?
And then God responds by telling Isaiah that it will be until judgment falls on Israel.
”Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitants…
until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged.”
In very colourful language the Lord speaks about the coming exile in Babylon.
They will be far away and the land will be totally forsaken.
God’s just judgment on the nation will be completed in the exile in Babylon.
But why did that happen?
Because this people honoured God with their lips but their hearts were far from him.
And that’s why I find that Meditation for Dieters so scary.
That meditation is not about God… it’s about us.
And that’s exactly the problem God was punishing Israel and Judah for.
They were saying: God believes in us… we’re the chosen people.
And if God believes in us then who are we to do otherwise?
It is sadly possible for people use the words and phrases of the Bible.
But to use them to distort the truth about God and the truth about us.
God overflows with goodness and truth.
But we need to think God’s thoughts after Him.
And be careful to live according to His Word lest we are hardened against His Word.
The W.C.F. says that “His judgements are completely just and awesome.”
But today the word ‘awesome’ has lost much of its meaning.
Awesome… that’s taken as meaning ‘amazing’ and ‘spectacular’.
But awe really has to do with reverence… and godly fear for God’s just justice.
To keep us humbly believing in Him… trusting in Him.
Rather than arrogantly proclaiming that God believes in us.
- The comforting thing is that in Isaiah 6 the last word is not doom and gloom.
The last word is not about hardening… and God’s last word is not about the exile,
God’s last word is a promise of restoration.
That’s the bottom line – there will be the restoration of a remnant.
There will be those who will be kept and preserved.
And then the Lord uses the picture of a tree stump that still has life in it.
The nation will be a stump that’s left after the tree has been felled.
And from those roots there will come new growth.
The W.C.F. reminds us of this lovely truth about God: that “He rewards those who diligently seek Him”.
And now the Lord is promising Isaiah
that there will indeed continue to be those who diligently seek Him.
And God will begin afresh with that faithful remnant.
In Chapter 11:1 the Lord has some more to say about that tree stump.
There he says that the ‘stump of Jesse’ will shoot once again.
From its roots a Branch will bear fruit.
And we know that this Branch is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The very one Isaiah saw enthroned in the temple in His holiness and glory.
Let’s then believe in Him as Holy King of kings whose glory fills the earth.
Let’s trust Him as the one thru whom we experience a loving God’s grace and mercy.
And serve Him as the Sovereign Lord who comes in justice to set all things right.
Amen