The Holiness of Christ - The LORD of Hosts (part 1)

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." -Isaiah 6: 1-5


In my walk with God I have heard many sermons on His holiness, and in practically every one this passage, or parts of it were quoted. Much of what you read may be a repeat of what I have learned From such Great men of God as R.C. Sproul, and Jerry Bridges, and S.L.Johnson, whose sermons and books on God's Holiness are of necessity for anyone who desires to Learn of the truths of this divine Attribute of God.

In the prior studies on the attribute of God's Holiness I have only briefly mentioned this passage, because I feel that some great truths, concerning The Lord Jesus Christ can be gleaned from this vision of Isaiah... truths that are lost in our present culture of Play- doh Christianity... I will not spend a serious amount of time ranting about the Christ of the post modern/ liberal / Emergent Culture, as the illustration to the right pretty much sums up how "So called Christianity" views it's savior today. No, this time I would like to dive straight into the Word of God itself and glean the truths concerning our precious savior. Truths that fall unseen before the spiritually blind as they cling to a false idol of their own making.

Isaiah chapter 6

In this portion of scripture we see The prophet of Isaiah's vision in the sanctuary of Solomon's temple, There is no specific time mentioned except it was in the year that Uzziah died, that being 757 B.C. Uzziah was an example of a good king who made the mistake of violating the holiness of God. After living a life pleasing in the sight of God, and accomplishing much for the kingdom of Judah, Uzziah sought, in his pride to put himself in a place where God did not intend him to be. He wanted to burn incense in the sanctuary of the LORD, a privilege that The Lord set aside solely for the Levites. As eighty-one priests went into the sanctuary to resist him, and warn him to leave , God smote Uzziah, in his pride and anger, with leprosy. Uzziah was thrust out of the Temple and lived the rest of his life quarantined, until he died...
It was this in this year that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prophet of God, saw the glorious vision as it appeared to him. How rich the wonderful truths are found in this passage .

I. A Vision of God

Isaiah's vision is a wellspring of great truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. His deity, His sovereignty, and His holiness are all seen clearly in this passage of Scripture, in addition, we will see the theological truth on the doctrine of a Christophany. But before we come to those truths, lets start with a detailed study of Isaiah's encounter with The Lord Of Hosts.

A) The Throne
In verse one we see that Isaiah saw The Lord, and in this vision He was sitting on a throne.
Throughout the Bible a throne is a symbol of authority for the person who sits on it. It denotes kingship, and sovereignty. Notice that this throne that Isaiah saw was "high and lifted up"... it did not touch the earth, it was suspended in the air... it was not just an earthly throne, it was a heavenly throne, he saw it for what it was, the exalted throne of God.

B) The Train
Perhaps you have seen a Hollywood movie where a king was passing through his court, and his long cape draped behind him, carried by servants. Or maybe you have seen a bride at a wedding, who during the ceremony walked with a flowing train of her dress trailing behind her.. Symbolically, the longer the train, the more majestic the person wearing it...Isaiah noticed that the train of The Lord's robe , that part which hung down from The Lord's throne, filled the temple..., a testimony to his majesty of The Lord...The Lord who is Sovereign, Exalted and Majestic.

C) The Seraphim
Isaiah also saw above the Throne a number of creatures that he identified as "Seraphim"
These creatures stood above the throne. How powerful must they have been to be so close in proximity to the face of The Lord. Powerful beings indeed when you consider that man can not, even for the slightest moment, glance upon God's face. (Exodus 33:20)
The sseraphim are fiery creatures...Their name is taken from the word meaning "burning." (Heb. "saraph") Some Consider this to refer to their color, being that of copper, (Strong's) yet I believe that they were literal fiery creatures, standing in attendance of God on His Throne.

" And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." -Hebrews 1:7, Psalm 104:4

Now each of these flaming creatures had Six wings, and each set of wings had a specific purpose.
The first set mentioned covered the angels face... perhaps to veil him from the Glory of God. As close as they were and as powerful as they must have been to stand in His presence, they still had to veil themselves from direct contact with The Lords Face.
The second set mentioned covered their feet...a form of reverence..

"And he [GOD] said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground". - Exodus 3:5

Feet... Why would the seraph have to cover their feet? Do feet symbolize a connection to creation?
Moses standing in the presence of God's holiness was commanded to remove his shoes. As lso was Joshua (Joshua5:15.) It seems whenever man encounters the presence of holiness, he is told to remove his shoes. It is considered by many to be a sign of reverence to the holy, such as one would remove his hat when entering the church, yet I feel that there could be a deeper meaning. Perhaps, by wearing shoes in the presence of holiness, a connection is broken of man from the ground... and in that sense, the separation is considered to be an exaltation... a lifting up of man from the earth that he came from...Mans connection to the ground is a symbol of his being a creature...
Is it possible that this is why the seraphim's feet were hidden? Maybe feet, being symbols of a created being, were to be hidden when they weren't connected to the creation... In other words The seraphim when lifted up with the throne of God, were required to hide their connection to the creation...that being their feet...
I am sure that muddied the water up a little... but the third set were for the purpose of transportation... they flew with 'em...simple e'nuff...

D) The Proclamation of the Angels.
As Isaiah goes further in describing the vision of God, he comes to hear the voice of the seraphim as they stand above the Throne of God, he is not clear how many serephim were there, maybe the fact that he did not give a specific number, shows that there were more than he could count in the short time before he succumbed to his encounter with God, or perhaps it is possible that their message was more important than the number of those proclaiming it. None the less their proclamation, refereed to by theologians as the "Trihagion" (Thrice holy) reveals several truths concerning He who sits on the throne
God is Holy- Bible truth reveals the one attribute that describes everything that God is and does, is His Holiness. Notice that the seraphim pronounce him Holy, Holy, Holy. It is common knowledge that when a Jewish man sought to emphasize something important, in both writing and speech, he would repeat a phrase. He would use repetition like we use bold letters, italics, and ALL CAPS.
Jesus Christ throughout the gospels would show emphasis on the truth of His teachings by using the words "Truly, truly I say unto you." the repetition of the word "truly" showed the importance of what He had to say.
Now notice that seraphim did not just proclaim that God was Holy, they proclaimed he was Holy, Holy, Holy. Few things
in the Bible are repeated to the third degree, and of God's Attributes, only his Holiness is given such emphasis... nowhere do we find any other attribute or emotion (love) being elevated to such great importance... In addition this repetition of the word Holy, also proclaims the "triune" nature of God, for all the members of the Godhead are Holy... (Matthew 1:18, John17:11, Acts 4:27).
If you look back to the beginning of the text, notice that Isaiah said that he saw the Lord...notice the word Lord in the English, the way it is written (Capital "L", lower case "ord")
This is the English translation of the Hebrew word "Adonay." this is the word chosen by the Jewish people, in speech,when referring to God, as opposed to His personal name. This was done for fear of blasphemy. the Jews took great pains to keep from blaspheming His holy name. The seraphim on the other hand had no problem using God's personal name when proclaiming his holiness...
They called him "Yehweh of the hosts" or Jehovah of the armies ...in English the letters for LORD , are all uppercase. This name and title refers to the fact that God is the sovereign over the armies of heavenly angels, as well as the armies of Israel. Jehovah Sabaoath, is Holy, Holy, Holy! And the Whole earth is full of His Glory.

E) The reaction of Isaiah.
We can properly assume that the writing of Isaiah's encounter with God was well after the fact, as when it actually happened, the time between His eyes seeing the throne, and his reaction concerning his spiritual status was at best mere seconds. It took Isaiah not long at all to realize Whose presence he was standing in, and how rotten he was as he stood before God, in His Holiness...His first reaction was to pronounce doom on himself.
Notice the word "WOE"- This word in the Hebrew is a extreme passionate cry of despair. Perhaps you have heard a Jewish person loudly exclaim "Oy Veh ish meir" in a time of distress...That person is saying "WOE IS ME". Now for the prophet, the exclamation of " woe" has a more significant meaning and it is found in the concept of the oracle...
The "oracle" is a single word that often prefaces a prophetic utterance. In the Bible it comes in two forms, the first is an oracle of Weal, or welfare... and the second is an oracle of WOE, or doom. The Lord Jesus used both of these in his speeches. In the beatitudes He used the oracle of weal in the form of the word "Blessed." -(Matthew 5:3-11) In His open condemnation of the scribes and pharisees, He proceeded each rebuke with an oracle of "Woe." (Matthew 23: 13-33) Understanding the impact of the oracle of woe shows the severity of God's judgment on those who receive it.
And it is with this we can understand how Isaiah felt, as he pronounced doom upon himself... "WOE is me for I am undone". Isaiah proclaimed himself dead, cut off, destroyed in the presence of The LORD... Why? What was the FIRST thing that came to mind as he struggled function in Gods presence? "For I am a man of unclean lips". It was his foul mouth...Perhaps he knew that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34) Perhaps he knew his heart was wicked. (Jeremiah 17:9) He saw himself condemned because of his mouth. He stood self condemned in the presence of God.

"For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts " -verse 5

Who did Isaiah see sitting on the throne? Isaiah saw the KING. He saw JEHOVAH SABAOTH

But though he [Jesus] had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:
That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,
He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. -John 12:37-41

Isaiah saw JESUS CHRIST!

THE HOLINESS OF CHRIST - Isaiah, A Picture of Salvation (Part 2)...coming soon