Bible Commentaries

Lessons of a Vision

Isaiah 6:1-8

We have seen how wrathful Isaiah was with the oppressions and iniquities of his day. The death of Uzziah probably coincided with the year of jubilee, and therefore brought out more vividly than was otherwise possible the state under which the people groaned and mourned, a state which elicited the maledictions which we have already studied. The prophet's mind is still upon the year when King Uzziah died. A great gap was created in history. It was time that the prophet saw something to cheer him. He had been looking at the earth, and all was vile; iniquity had filled up her measure to the brim. The people were groaning under the heel of the oppressor; the small freeholders had been driven into slavery, as we have just seen. It was in that darkness that Isaiah began to feel that he had eyes within, the vision of the heart, the sight of the soul. God's opportunity is often created out of our extremity. The prophet would have died of the grief of wounded patriotism if something had not occurred to lift him up into a new state of mind, and a keener realisation of the broadest facts of the universe. As a statesman and a patriot he had been wounded to the heart. The Lord will now come to him through a vision, through his higher imagination, through those wondrous sensibilities which set us at an infinite distance apart from the noblest beast of the earth or finest bird that seeks the gate of the sun. It is well to have amongst us some seeing men. We are tired of earth's bleak monotony: the days are so much alike; the wheel goes round and round so regularly as to weary us by its very punctuality. Is there nothing but what we see with the eyes of the body? is this the sum-total of things? that sky, now so beautiful, now so thunder-laden; and this earth, so green, so wild, so beautiful, presenting a thousand phases, according to the process of the sun,—is this all? Then there come to us prophets who live a hard life amongst us. The prophet cannot have an easy life: he does not belong to the country; he does not belong to the time in which he lives; he has little or nothing to do with the present, and the future is so far away, and the market-place spirit of the world is so material, that the prophet has laughter for his applause, and pity or contempt for his reward. Still he lives, and he must speak as long as he lives; and some men receive him with gratitude; occasionally they pay visits to him by night and say, Rabbi, what seest thou? anything new in the fields above? any new voice spoken to thee lately? Come, tell us the whole tale, for really and truly, though we dare not confess it in public speech, we are sick at heart, and we are dying under the burden of weariness. What seest thou? is there anything more to be seen than these blear-eyed lamps that skirt the sluggish river of time? what hast thou seen? The prophet in this instance answers: I will tell thee what I have seen: I have seen the Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Have you seen that? Yes. Do you affirm that vision? I do. Then that circumstance cannot be overlooked in any true psychology. There it is: you saw it, or you thought you saw it; so be it, in the meantime; but there it is: what is possible to the imagination may be possible to the realisation of human experience. What you have imagined may one day come to pass. I will not sneer at thee, O prophet, but listen to thee: come, tell me all thy tale, for I have a spirit of discernment, a spirit of criticism common to Isaiah 6:1).

So far there is nothing to find fault with. The Lord is always upon a throne, even when he is nailed to the Cross; this Lord and his throne are inseparable. There are dignitaries that have to study how to keep their thrones, but the Lord and his throne are one. "His train filled the temple": the glory-cloud filled all high places—I saw the Lord in vivid representation, in perfect outline of figure; I saw him in his majesty. It a man can persuade himself that he has done Isaiah 6:5).

So the prophet does not come away triumphing in what he has seen; he does not hold the vision as a prize, and mock other men because they have not seen similar revelations; he says in effect: If ever you see God you will fall down in humility, self-abhorrence, and self-helplessness: "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone." He was self-convicted. Not a word of accusation is reported as having been addressed to the prophet. Up to this point he has done nothing but behold, look upon, and stand in amazement before the great vision; there is no report of any one having whispered in his ear, Thou art a bad Isaiah 6:6).

Then the seraph did not come in his own personality alone; he did not say, I can remove all the impurity of which thou dost complain; it lies within my power to make thee a good man? No such speech did he make. It is not in mortal to purify mortality. This help that we need is supernatural aid. Even a seraph cannot redeem, purify, or forgive. But the seraph instantly answered the cry, which was implied rather than expressed, for purification. When was a prayer for holiness long neglected? When a man has really felt the burden of sin, how long has God kept him waiting, groaning, and suffering under the intolerable pressure? They are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be the heirs of salvation. The twelve legions of angels are always near at hand to help those who need supernatural help. The angel was not far off when the devil left the Saviour; hardly had the tempter gone until "angels came and ministered unto him." About this angel-life we know little; we can know but little whilst we are in the body; but what little we do know helps us to believe that we are assisted, directed, by messengers, sent from the living One and by the living One to do us good in this weary difficult pilgrimage of life. Who shall say when they come, when they go? who knows what relation the spirits of those who have left us sustain to us now in all this earthly toil and discipline? There we can but wonder, sometimes we dream, sometimes we hope, sometimes we think we see a hand others cannot see, and hear a voice they cannot hear. If what we do feel in this direction tends towards purification, enrichment, it is no phantasmagoria. Invite it to come again, and next time have the door of the heart wide open; for any vision that tends to purification is God's vision, and it should be received with glowing thankfulness.

Was there any practical purpose to be served by this vision beyond what has already been seen? The answer is found in the text, notably in the eighth verse:—

"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I send me." ( Isaiah 6:8)

Then the vision was no phantasm; it was not an exercise of a diseased imagination; it led to the consecration of life, to the settlement of a divine purpose, to the warming of the heart into sympathetic obedience towards all things divine, and therefore largely human. It has ever been so along the Biblical line: when men have had an interview with God they have been prepared to risk anything and everything in his strength and grace. It is because we have not seen God that we do not serve him; it is because we have had no transporting, transforming vision that when we are asked to work in the Church we tell lies, we grieve the Spirit with mocking excuses. Oh, lying Christian nominalist! thou art a sevenfold liar; thou dost not lie unto men, but unto God. There is no excuse for idleness, for illiberality, for littleness, for mean criticism; if you had seen God you would have been purified, and if you had been purified you could not rest without saying to God, Send me anywhere, and send me now. When Moses had seen the Lord he said, Make use of me as thou wilt; when Peter had seen the Lord he said, O Lord, I am a sinful man: I hate myself, but I will do what I can to serve thy will; when Paul had seen the vision he was stunned by it, blinded by it, but he came out of it; and who could stop that fire or quench its sacred burning? Call these mental actions dreams that lead to no sacrifice; say you have had grievous nightmare, if your churchgoing ends but in censoriousness and worldliness, and in enlarged audacity to tell lies and do iniquity. Then I care not if you have dreamed with a Bunyan, and expressed yourself with a Shakespeare; it all goes for nothing if the issue be not purification and sacrifice. Bless God for any ecstasy that leads to self-immolation. If you come out of your trance saying, Here am I send me,—send me to the worst neighbourhood, the poorest locality, the most difficult situation: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts: do not deny me: let me go,—what you have seen has been no trance; you have had, real communion, vital fellowship with the holy One.

Observe, by way of practical application, that God's holiness is never represented as a terror to men, but is always in holy Scripture set forth as an example, so to say, to be copied in daily and precise imitation. The holiness of God is not meant to consume men, to drive them into despair, to fill them with a spirit of dejection. Jesus Christ interprets God's holiness, and he brings it very near to us: he says, "Be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy." In another case he is reported in other words, "Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." Isaiah 6:2

This is the only passage in which the seraphim are mentioned as part of the host of heaven. The primary meaning of seraphim is, the burning ones. A use of the word is made in the Book of Numbers which is alarming, referring as it does to the fiery serpents that stung the people in the wilderness. Notice that these burning ones of the text are in the likeness of men with the addition of wings. A distinction has been drawn between the seraphim that excel in love, and the cherubim that excel in knowledge. But this is of little importance. By cherubim and seraphim I understand symbols of essential life. I understand, indeed, the life of God himself. Notice how many degrees and varieties of life are known to ourselves. Take the meanest insect; then take the noblest man; pass on to angels; from angels ascend to archangels; from archangels rise higher still; and thus at the uppermost summit of the idea of life stand the cherubim and seraphim, the meaning being that God himself is the grandest expression of life. Concerning the whole universe it may be said, "Above it stood the seraphim." Around the meanest thing that lives they stand, the seraphim. In the estimation of God there is nothing little, nor can there be anything great. Beside eternity all other duration is as nothing, though men count it by centuries or cause it to dwindle down to dying moments. Let us accustom ourselves to the thought that above our life stand the seraphim; round about all our noblest impulses, desires, and ambitions stand the seraphim; that is to say, we are cared for, watched, loved, and protected by the living God. Thoughts of this kind redeem our life from its insignificance by showing us its true suggestiveness and indicating its purposed destiny. In every little thing see some symbol of the great thing. In time see the beginning of eternity. In life, as we know it, see the type of life as God lives it. Thus the whole universe becomes a sacred temple; all life a holy worship; all destiny a sublime and beneficent decree. Set the Lord always before you; in the high noon when the sun bums in his meridian splendour see a dim emblem of the relation which God sustains to all nature, all life, all evolution.