Some Are Not Meant to Understand

Posted July 1, 2011 at 6:31PM in Christian Life.

Today, as I was working my way through my Scripture readings, I came across the tough chapter of Isaiah 6.  In the passage, the prophet Isaiah tells of a vision in which he sees the Lord sitting on His throne (v. 1), surrounded by seraphim, praising God to one another (v. 2-3). Isaiah explains:

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away; and your sin atoned for.”

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” (v. 4-8, ESV)

Whenever I had heard this passage read prior to now in most churches, the reading of the passage stops here, with verse 8. The reading does not continue through the remainder of the chapter. In one case in particular, I can remember being asked to read from this chapter for a Scout Sunday at the church that hosted the troop in which I was a member six or seven years ago. Then, like the other times, the reading stopped abruptly with verse 8.

Verses 1-8 of Isaiah 6 tell a powerful story, one from which Christians today can benefit greatly. The story suggests that, like Isaiah, when we find ourselves in the presence of God, it is right that we do and should feel inadequate. We are all sinners. We do not deserve God or to be in His presence, much less in a position where He has found it in His grace to allow us to even go on breathing in this life, instead of sending us directly to the place where we deserve to be. (See Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.)

We then see (v. 5-7) where Isaiah acknowledges his sin and inadequacy before God, admitting that he is a sinner and that he does not deserve an audience with God, much less His grace. Following Isaiah’s admission, a seraphim flies over to Isaiah and touches a burning coal to his lips, after which Isaiah is pronounced cleansed of his sins. Again, while Isaiah is writing as a Jew under the Old Covenant, his experience is much like that of the Christian under the New Covenant — if we are Christians, our confession of our own inadequacy and sinfulness has been heard, and we are cleansed by the gift of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and the grace of God’s forgiveness and willingness to accept that gift as payment for our sin. Under the New Covenant then, Christians are likewise clean.

Next, in v. 8, God asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, to which Isaiah responds, “Here am I! Send me.” As I’ve already mentioned, most readings of this text stop here with this verse. The congregation is told that, like Isaiah, it is the job of the Christian to respond to God’s call with a willingness to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), after which everyone stands and sings “Here I Am, Lord“, and services are closed.

While all of this is true — we are to respond to the call of God, and we are to speak His Truth to everyone, and we are to “make disciples” of all that He has predestined to accept His gift of salvation (Romans 8:28-30) — what of those who refuse to accept God? Are we really foolish enough to think that everyone we tell about God will come to Him? Surely we know from experience that this is not so.

In these modern times, we live in a world that seems hell-bent (quite literally!) on rebelling against God. Living in times like these can be quite discouraging. In the last part of the chapter, we find that these times are not much different from those that Isaiah was facing. Indeed, the people were rebellious, refusing to listen to the Truth. Yet Isaiah was told to speak it anyway. Let’s continue the passage:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I, send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”

And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.”

The holy seed is its stump. (v. 8-13)

Here, we see a story that is not nearly so happy as the one commonly told along with Isaiah 6 on Sunday mornings in churches throughout modern American Christianity. Isaiah is not only asked to go and speak the Truth to people, he is told to go and speak the Truth to people whom God has willed not to listen to him. Indeed, his speaking of the Truth is meant to bring about their very condemnation (v. 10)!

With this in mind, I think that one very valuable message to take from this passage is this: By the grace of God, those who are in Christ have been cleansed from their sin, and are bound to serve God forever. This service not only involves “living in the light”, or conducting ourselves in the way that God would have us to live, but also speaking the Truths of God — learned through the intentional study of His Word and the continual striving for fellowship with His Spirit, as well as with other believers — to others whom He places in our path. While it is probable that some of those to whom we speak the Truth and demonstrate Godliness will come to God, it is very likely that many will not.

When those who refuse to serve God laugh and joke and scorn the ways of Christ, it is our duty not to be deterred from the task of speaking the Truth in agape — even if the worst should come. Isaiah didn’t, and we shouldn’t either.