Isaiah 6
CHAPTER 6 is one of the very few passages of Scripture in which the unseen is revealed. Here is the very presence of God. By and by this will be made good here on earth, in Christ, and what is revealed in this passage is in view of the day of the Lord, as well as to show that man, even the godliest, is in himself unfit for God’s presence.
In this scene of glory are seraphim, a symbolic representation not named elsewhere in Scripture; in Revelation 4 are four “beasts” (properly “living creatures”) who seem to combine the characters of the cherubim of Genesis 3:2424So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24), and the seraphim of Isaiah 6. Six wings are seen on the seraphim, two cover their faces, two cover their feet, and with two they flew. The representations of cherubim in the tabernacle and the temple (Exodus 25 and 37; 1 Kings 6 and 8, and 2 Chronicles 3 and 5) had two wings; in Ezekiel 1 and 10 four wings are mentioned, and in Revelation 4, six wings. Evidently these are all symbolic, and when Scripture does not explain or gratify our curiosity, we shall not speculate.
Holiness, the precise opposite of the uncleanness and defilement so characteristic of the world that now is, marks the scene of glory which Isaiah beheld. What he saw filled him with a deep sense of his own unfitness, and the unfitness of the people among whom he dwelt.
“Woe is me!” is his cry, not now pronouncing for God woes upon the unbelieving as in chapter 5.
One of the seraphim took a glowing coal from off the altar and made it touch Isaiah’s mouth. Thus cleansed and set free he can say,
“Here am I, send me!”
It is not however, the blessed message of the gospel that has reached our ears, that Isaiah is to deliver to Judah and Jerusalem, but a solemn indication of impending judgment.
How long? “Until the cities be wasted, without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land become an utter desolation, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the solitude be great in the midst of the land. But a tenth part shall still be therein, and it shall return and be eaten; as the terebinth and as the oak whose trunk (or stump, or sap) remaineth after the felling; the holy seed shall he the trunk (or stump, or sap) thereof.” (N. T.).
Here we have the first assurance that there will be a remnant saved in the last days; not including any who have heard and refused the gospel of the grace of God, but many who having never heard the glad tidings of this dispensation, will receive the gospel of the kingdom, that Christ is coming to reign. Thus grace and mercy will have their part amid the awful scenes of judgment on earth. Here, too, is the key to the condition of the land of Israel at the present time. It will not be fully restored until Judah and Israel are back there, a redeemed, worshiping people before God.
ML 04/23/1933