Isaiah recoiled! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Isaiah 6:5,

"'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.'"

Here is Isaiah's reaction at seeing a vision of the Lord on his throne. He recoiled in horror as he cried out for his own sake. The horror he felt was that the vision he experienced of our pristine God in his glory caused him to recognize his own meager sinful condition, both his and the people he had come from. A major moral and substantive heartfelt relative deprivation of the creature beholding his Creator.

How Isaiah's vision of the Lord was limited, we don't know. What we do know is that mankind, in this lost and fallen world, is incapable of surviving a full view of the Lord in his full glory. Paul told Timothy, "...God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see." 1 Timothy 6:15-16. When Moses requested God show himself to him, the Lord said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Exodus 33:20.

What captures my thoughts, as often does when I read this passage, is the "other-ness" of God. Although we are made in God's image, he is not like us, he is different. As Isaiah beheld the Lord, what he felt was his own sinfulness, his own shortcomings, his own limitations as a sinful human being. 

Although we are made in God's image, and although we possess many of the qualities God has, we are but a corrupted reflection of his magnificent glory, his pristine and incorruptible character and nature. As God is, we have a mind, a will, and emotions, as God is, we have a sense of justice, a sense of humor, and the proclivity to communicate. However, all of what we possess within us as made in God's own image, since the fall of man in the garden, is corrupt, is limited, is in a terrifying contrast to God himself.

As I think of these things, it causes me to wonder about the existence we will have with God in the resurrection. In Revelation 21 we read of a time when we will actually live in God's presence in what is pictured as a complete and happy comfort with him.

How much God's redemption will change us in preparation for that day! Exciting to consider, isn't it?! 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com