An Isaiah-sized vision of God

When I decided to begin a sermon series in the book of Isaiah, I knew that my church and I were embarking on a trek through a sometimes-dense forest of difficult-to-understand Old Testament prophecy. Sure, I had a reasonable familiarity with Isaiah from my own previous reading and study of the book. I suspected that we would behold God in his august glory in that vivid manner in which one finds in Isaiah. But I did not plan on Isaiah causing me to be undone by turning the spotlight on the rebellious disobedience of God’s people, and I did not realize I would receive the incredible gift of seeing my own sin.

Spectacular glory, sobering judgment

I imagine that for the majority of people, their first association with the book of Isaiah is the vision of the LORD in Isaiah 6. This vision is spectacularly moving, and it ought to strike each of us with a profound sense of God’s holiness as we look upon the LORD sitting high upon his throne with his robe filling the temple and seraphim proclaiming, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3) The majesty of God depicted in Isaiah is indescribably magnificent!

But I was entirely unprepared for how God would force my church and I to wrestle with His indomitable glory as the King who judges His people in their rebellious sin. I knew that God’s judgment upon sin was found throughout Isaiah, but the vivid detail by which Isaiah illustrates the wrath of God upon His people’s sin has been sobering and even disorienting at times. Before we enter the throne room of God’s glory in Isaiah 6, we must walk through the vineyard of God’s people, both devastated by an earthquake sent by God and destroyed by an invading army beckoned at God’s command (Isaiah 5).

A severe warning

God’s wrath has not been difficult to stomach because I have vain inclinations that I know better than God and that where He acted in wrath, I would have acted in compassion.

No, the wrath of God upon the sin of His people has been difficult to stomach because I recognize the warning of Isaiah does not expire in Jerusalem and Judah in 680 BC. In His divine wisdom kindness, God has given Isaiah to us and to our churches that we might behold the holiness of God and hear the warning of God against becoming comfortable in our sin and flippant towards the obedience that God’s Word demands of us.

Crushed for our iniquities

Fellow pastors, I have found that as I have taken my church by the hand and we have begun to walk through Judah, ravaged and desecrated as a result of her sin, we have eventually come upon the cross that our Savior bore, ravaged and desecrated because of our sin. With the wrath of God upon his unrepentant Jerusalem and Judah behind us, the wrath of God upon His Son is all the more stirring.

May we be quick to repentance and faithful in clinging to Christ. As Isaiah 53:4-6 tells us,

Surely He has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed Him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions;
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with His wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on Him
    the iniquity of us all.

Stephen McDonald is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Scituate, MA.