6 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said,
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The [a]whole earth is full of His glory.”4 And the [b]foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the [c]temple was filling with smoke. 5 Then I said,
“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is [d]forgiven.”
For all Uzziah’s strength, and though he followed God for most of his reign, the people were stubborn and still worshipped on the high places, as evidenced by the prophecies against them. Ultimately, pride was Uzziah’s undoing, he dared to enter the temple to offer sacrifice himself, and was struck with leprosy until the day of his death.
In contrast, in the year Uzziah died, Isaiah has this vision from God. Even this brief description is enough to give one goosebumps, and the description of the Seraphim is most fitting. God’s glory could not be contained, and “the whole earth is full of His glory.” Not just part of it, but the whole earth.
I remember a series years ago where they spent years capturing amazing footage of the earth, and animals, and showed a whopping seven hours of that footage. It was breathtaking, but it is a mere reflection of God’s glory. Isaiah rightly exclaims “Woe is me, for I am ruined!” He was unclean, his people were unclean, he knew it, and he knew there was nothing he could do to be holy before the most holy King.
Yet amazingly, God doesn’t send a seraphim to tell him to go get his act together. Rather, the angel brings God’s cleansing power to Isaiah, freely taking away his iniquity and forgiving all his sin. Isaiah becomes the exact opposite, what Uzziah would not be, because Uzziah tried to do it himself. Isaiah knew that was folly, and admitted his filth to the only One who could make Him clean again.
It’s an amazing parallel to what God offers us through the sacrifice of Jesus. Over and over we see in Jesus’ teaching, and in Paul’s writings, that we cannot be made clean by any power we possess. There are not enough good deeds we can do to make up for our failures. Should we live a thousand years, or a hundred thousand, and never sin again, we could not cleanse our blackened hearts.
But God can, and did, and does. Jesus died in our place, to take upon himself all of our filthy rags, our sin as black as coal. He had none of His own, but buried ours in the grave, then returned to welcome us to the father as children of the most holy King. We must admit, as Isaiah did, our unclean hands, hearts, and lips, and he will take away our iniquity, and forgive us of all our sins.
Though even then it is not enough. It is unlikely that Isaiah was perfect from that point on, and neither are we. God is working on us daily, and we must continue to let Him do the work which He began. He will be faithful to complete it, will we? We need to confess our sins to God, not just once, but continually, so that they may be taken away and that we might be forgiven once more, polished just a little more, just a little brighter, to reflect the glory of our awesome King.