Thy Sin Is Purged
Isaiah's encounter with the Divine is an extraordinary occasion. He describes it as an experience that affects all his senses: He sees the six-winged seraph and God on His throne; he hears the seraphims' thundering voices; he smells the smoke in the temple; and he feels and tastes the live coal the seraphim places on his lips (Isa. 6:1-6).
As we saw in yesterday's lesson, after this experience of seeing God, Isaiah is overcome by his own unworthiness.
Indeed, his utterance in Isaiah 6:5 is a confession of his sin and that of his people.
Why the emphasis on "unclean lips"? Was Isaiah's and his people's only sin that of what they spoke? What might that have been a symbol of? See also Prov. 13:3, Matt. 12:37, Luke 6:45.
As soon as Isaiah confesses, a seraphim takes a live coal from the heavenly altar, flies with it to Isaiah, and touches it to his lips.
Read Isaiah 6:6, 7. What happens here? What is symbolized by this act? What message can we take from this for ourselves?
In and of himself, Isaiah, a man of unclean lips, has nothing to offer God. But through the work of the Lord Himself, Isaiah's sin is purged. The Hebrew word translated purged comes from the root qaphar, commonly translated in the Old Testament as atone or atonement (see Exod. 29:36, 30:10, Lev. 16:30, 17:11). The point is that Isaiah, without divine intervention, without his sin being purged, or covered (qaphar has also been understood to mean covered; see Gen. 6:14), would not have been able to do anything for the Lord. He had to be made right with God first; only then could the Lord use him.
| What things in your own life are standing in the way of God's being able to use you? What must you submit to in order to have your sin purged? |
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