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Before the Holy One and the Call to Missions · Reformed Thinking

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You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis,
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there's this expectation of precision.
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It feels, well, it feels like engineering.
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You break your arm, the X-ray shows that jagged white line and
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the doctor just points and says there it is broken.
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Yeah, it is binary. Broken or not broken, the
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process is. It's clean, objective and
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undeniable. And it is comforting in a
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strange way, isn't it? We like things to be visible, to
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be categorized, and most of all, we like them to have a
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straightforward mechanical fix. Oh, absolutely.
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Like, put a cast on it, wait six weeks and you are good to go.
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But I want you to think about this scenario.
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OK? What if a doctor walked into the
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room, looked at a patient suffering from a terminal
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systemic blood borne disease, and offered them a Band-Aid?
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Like they see the patient is bleeding a little from a
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scratch, so they slap a piece of adhesive over it and they are
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completely ignoring the fact that the patient's internal
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organs are shutting down. I mean you would call that
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medical malpractice of the highest order.
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Spot on. The doctor is treating a
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superficial symptom while the patient is actively dying from a
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fatal virus. Yeah, and welcome to Reform
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thinking. Today we are asking a very
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uncomfortable question. What if the modern church is
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completely misdiagnosing the fundamental problem of humanity
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in that exact same way? That is a heavy thought.
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It really is. We are taking a deep dive into
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an ancient encounter today, an encounter that completely
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rewrites the script on why we share the gospel, how we view
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human need, and what the actual cure is for a world that is, you
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know, fundamentally broken. And we're looking at a landscape
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today where a lot of what gets called missions or evangelism
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looks an awful lot like handing out band aids in an oncology
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ward. Right.
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So let's set the stage for the listener, because when you look
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at the modern landscape, you see this massive crisis, don't you?
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You really do. We have basically replaced
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theology with sociology. You see a church culture heavily
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polluted by pragmatism. The driving question is no
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longer what is true, but instead people ask what works.
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Right, like if a certain demographic responds well to a
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specific type of music. Or a particular social program
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or, you know, a highly polished marketing campaign.
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We just do that. Then you have the seeker
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sensitive movement which asks what attracts people.
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The goal becomes removing any potential offense from the
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message. And then on top of that, you
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have liberal theology which tries to improve society and
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smooth over inequality while completely avoiding the reality
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of divine judgement. Yeah.
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And when you stack all those approaches together, you get a
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version of Christianity that functions like a humanitarian
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relief project. It has Christian vocabulary
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attached to it. People use words like blessing
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and love and community. But it lacks any eternal weight.
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Right. The focus shifts heavily toward
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alleviating physical poverty, providing education, or
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promoting secular notions of social equity.
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Which, to be fair, treating symptoms like poverty and
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injustice is good. Oh absolutely.
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But if you stop there, if you view human need purely through a
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physical or sociological lens, you are treating the symptoms
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while ignoring the fatal virus. And that gets to the core of the
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issue. If you replace theology with
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sociology, you degrade the gospel entirely.
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OK, let's unpack that a bit. Let's think about how this
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changes our view of God, if God is viewed simply as like a
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therapeutic life coach. Right.
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Someone who is just there to help you self actualize.
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Yeah. Find your purpose and feel
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better about your daily struggles.
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Then the problem of sin is reduced to a psychological wound
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or a social disadvantage. It becomes you are hurting
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because society failed you. Or you are acting out because
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you lack self esteem. But there is a vital theological
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premise we have to establish right out of the gate here.
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Lay it on us. If God is not infinitely holy,
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then sin is not infinitely offensive.
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And if sin is not infinitely offensive to a holy Creator,
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then the cross was a massive overreaction.
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That is, that is such a clear way to put it.
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Because if the cross was an overreaction, then there is
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absolutely no need to cross an ocean or even cross the street
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to tell someone about Jesus. Right?
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Like if the deepest human problem is just a lack of
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education, then missions is just Building Schools.
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Yeah. If the deepest human problem is
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poverty, then Mischie's is just economics.
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But if the deepest problem is objective guilt before an
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infinitely holy God, then that changes everything.
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It changes the entire paradigm. So to really understand this
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fatal virus of sin and the true cure, we have to get out of our
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modern sterilized context. We do We have to travel back to
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an ancient geopolitical crisis. We are heading to the year 740
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BC, right, a time when an earthly throne was suddenly left
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empty. Yes, we are anchoring this
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entire conversation in the opening phrase of the book of
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Isaiah chapter 6. It starts with six words in the
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year that King Uzziah died. And to a modern reader scanning
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the text, that just sounds like a dry date on a historical
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calendar. Yeah, it is like saying in the
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year 1994. Right.
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But to the original audience, to the people of Judah, that phrase
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was loaded with extreme, paralyzing anxiety.
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Oh, absolutely. If you are listening to this
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right now, think about what gives you a sense of security in
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your day-to-day life. Is it your job?
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Is it your savings account? Or maybe the political stability
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of your country? Well, Uzziah was Judas 401K.
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He was their strong man, their security blanket.
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And he had reigned for 52 years. Think about that time.
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Frame Yeah. For the vast majority of the
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population, Uzziah was the only king they'd ever known.
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You were born, you grew up, you got married, you had kids, and
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Uzziah was always on the throne. And he was wildly successful,
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too. Under his reign, Judah
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experienced what historians call a golden age.
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He brought immense economic stability.
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He expanded their military capabilities.
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He was a master of agriculture. You.
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Know right? Building towers in the
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wilderness and digging cisterns, Yeah.
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Because he loved the soil, he fortified the walls of Jerusalem
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with specialized defensive engines.
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The surrounding nations paid him tribute.
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He was a picture of an untouchable, divinely blessed
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monarch. But the timing of his death is
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what creates this perfect storm of national terror.
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Because right when Judah loses their 52 year champion, there is
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a monster waking up next door. You have to picture the
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geopolitical landscape of the ancient Near East at this
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moment. It was a cauldron of
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instability. Just over the horizon, the
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Assyrian Empire is rising as an unstoppable superpower.
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They are under the ruthless leadership of Tiglas pilots or
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the Third. And when we say ruthless, we are
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not talking about a standard military opponent.
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Not at all. The Assyrians were the
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terrorists of the ancient world. They relied on extreme
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psychological warfare. Right when they conquered a
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city, they can just occupy it. They made horrifying examples of
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the population to ensure the next city would surrender
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without a fight. We are talking about skinning
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rival kings alive and pinning their hides to the city walls.
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It's gruesome. It is.
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We are talking about massive deportations, piling up the
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skulls of their enemies and using sheer terror to subjugate
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the region. It is a level of brutality that
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is hard for us to even comprehend.
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Today, and there is the tiny nation of Judah, wedged right
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between hostile regional powers and this looming Assyrian war
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machine. So the Assyrian threat is
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escalating, and right at that peak moment of vulnerability,
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the anchor of Judah's stability dies.
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But his story does not end with a noble state funeral, does it?
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No, it ends under a dark, shameful shadow.
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Second Chronicles 20 Sucks details how Uzziah's
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unprecedented success bred A fatal arrogance within him.
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He grew proud. He looked at all his military
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victories, all his wealth, and he decided that the standard
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rules no longer applied to him. Right.
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He presumptuously entered the temple of the Lord to unlawfully
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burn incense on the altar. Wait, hold on.
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This is where I have to push back a little, or at least ask
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the question that any modern person is going to ask when they
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hear the story. 52 years of peace. 52 years of doing what is
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right, building up the nation, securing the borders.
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He makes one mistake in the temple, one moment of
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overstepping his bounds to burn some incense, and he gets struck
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with instant leprosy. That sounds incredibly harsh to
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a modern ear. It really does.
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Isn't God overreacting here? Why did the judgement have to be
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so immediate and so physical? That reaction, feeling like God
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is being too harsh, is the exact symptom of our modern
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misdiagnosis. OK, say more about that.
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We have domesticated God. We have turned him into a
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harmless, friendly figure, a cosmic grandfather who overlooks
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our minor infractions because we generally mean well.
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Oh wow. But the ancient text portrays a
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God whose moral purity is absolute and consuming.
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You cannot bypass God's ordained boundaries.
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Right, because God had established that only the
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consecrated priests, the descendants of Aaron, were
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permitted to offer incense. Exactly.
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I mean, that's just a strict separation of church and state.
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To use modern terms. The king held civil authority.
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The priest held religious authority.
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And Uzziah, in his arrogance, attempted to consolidate both.
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He attempted to usurp the office of the priest.
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Yes, he assumed his earthly royalty gave him special
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privileges with the divine. So when the priest confronted
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him, telling him to leave the sanctuary, Uzziah became
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enraged. And right there, while he stood
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angrily before the priests with the sensor in his hand, leprosy
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broke out on his forehead. Uzziah's leprosy is a physical
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manifestation of his spiritual uncleanness.
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It is a visual, undeniable proof that approaching God without the
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proper mediator is lethal. So when he approached God on his
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own terms, relying on his own resume of accomplishments, he
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was met with the consuming fire of divine justice.
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Precisely. The king who conquered nations
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was literally thrust out of the temple by the priests.
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He had to live in a separate, isolated house as a leper until
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the day he died. He was completely cut off from
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the House of the Lord. He couldn't even be buried in
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the same field as the other kings.
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So when Isaiah writes in the year that King Uzziah died, he
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is recalling the terrifying reality of a monarch who dared
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to trifle with the unapproachable holiness of God.
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Yes, Uzziah profaned God's holiness and died in disgrace.
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So the earthly throne is empty, the earthly king is a rotting
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courts, and the nation is plunged into a massive identity
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crisis. Their false security is
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completely shattered. They are mourning their fallen
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champion, they are dreading the Assyrians, and they are suddenly
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realizing that the God they claim to worship is not a tame
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deity they can manipulate. So what happens to a nation when
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their king falls in disgrace and the ultimate enemy is marching
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toward their borders? God issues a subpoena.
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Because Uzziah's pride ruined the nation's sense of security,
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the prophet Isaiah steps in to deliver a devastating legal
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indictment against Judah's hypocritical religion.
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We have to look at the literary context leading up to chapter 6.
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It is vital to read the book of Isaiah as a unified whole.
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Yeah, because for a long time there was a trend in critical
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scholarship to fragment the book into multiple authors, right?
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You would hear terms like Deutero Isaiah or Trito Isaiah
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suggesting that chapters one through 39 were written by the
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historical Isaiah and the later chapters were written centuries
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later by someone else. Simply because the scholars
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didn't believe predictive prophecy was possible.
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Yeah, let's clarify that for the listener.
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That critical view basically assumes that if the text
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accurately predicts the Babylonian exile and the Persian
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king Cyrus by name long before they happened, it must have been
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written after the fact. It is a bias against the
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supernatural, but we are looking at the text as it presents
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itself, a singular, cohesive vision given to one prophet.
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And within this unified structure, the 1st 5 chapters of
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Isaiah act as a divine lawsuit. In Hebrew, the term is a rib.
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A rib. Yes, God is acting as the
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prosecuting attorney against a nation whose hands are full of
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blood, yet who still perform all the outward religious rituals.
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God calls the heavens and the earth to the witness stand to
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testify against His own people. And the hypocrisy Isaiah
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describes is staggering. God tells them I have had enough
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of your burnt offerings. Right.
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Your incense is an abomination to me.
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He says when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my
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eyes from you. Even though you make many
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prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.
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They are going through the religious motions, they are
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keeping the festivals, but their leaders love bribes.
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They run after gifts. They do not defend the orphan,
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and the widow's plea never reaches them.
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It is a total moral collapse. And then chapter 5 features this
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brilliant, tragic parable called the Song of the Vineyard.
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Oh I love this part. God describes how he lovingly
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planted Israel as a choice vineyard on a fertile hill.
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You have to understand what viticulture meant in the ancient
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Near East. It was incredibly labor
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intensive. You had to manually dig up the
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soil, clear out heavy stones by hand, plant the choices finds.
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You'd build a watchtower for protection.
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Yeah, and hew out a wine VAT in the solid rock.
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The owner invests everything into this vineyard.
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He gives it every possible advantage.
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He expects sweet, cultivated grapes.
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But when the harvest comes, the vineyard yields toxic wild
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grapes. It yields bloodshed and
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distress. The people of Judah have taken
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all of grand covenant blessings and produced utter corruption.
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This leads directly into 6 devastating woes pronounced at
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the end of Chapter 5. Isaiah stands up and declares
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woe upon the greedy land grabbers who add house to house
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until there is no room left for anyone else.
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He declares woe upon the drunkards who rise early just to
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chase strong drink. He pronounces woe upon those who
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mock God, pulling their sin along with cart ropes.
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He declares woe upon those who call evil good and good evil,
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who substitute darkness for. He declares woe upon the
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prideful who are wise in their own eyes, and woe upon the
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corrupt judges who acquit the guilty for a bribe.
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So for five solid chapters, Isaiah has been pointing his
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prophetic finger at the society around him.
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He is the righteous preacher condemning their total failure
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to uphold the law of God. He is delivering the closing
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argument of the prosecution, laying out airtight evidence of
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Judah's guilt. But then we hit Chapter 6 and
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the transition is startling. It is a massive literary hinge.
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It really is. After pronouncing 6 outward woes
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on everyone else, the land grabbers, the drunkards, the
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corrupt politicians, Isaiah suddenly turns the prophetic
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curse upon himself. Yes, I keep thinking of this
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like a prosecuting attorney who has just finished a blistering
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closing argument against a room full of criminals.
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He has the jury entirely convinced, and then he suddenly
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turns the spotlight onto his own face, drops his briefcase, and
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confesses his own guilt to the judge.
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That's a great image. Why does he do this?
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How does the structural pivot guard anyone who preaches
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against self righteousness? It forces the reader to
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understand that the standard of God's judgment is not relative
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human morality. We naturally love to grade on a
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curve. Oh, we do all the time.
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We compare ourselves to other people.
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We think, well, I might have my flaws, but I'm certainly not as
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bad as the corrupt judge or the greedy corporate executive.
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And Isaiah was doing the exact same thing.
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He was the moral compass of the nation.
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But then the earthly throne room fades away.
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Isaiah is no longer comparing himself to the corrupt Society
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of Judah. He is suddenly standing before
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the absolute burning holiness of God's own nature.
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This structural pivot shows that no servant of God may denounce
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the sins of the culture without first standing condemn
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themselves. And the reason the prophet
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suddenly turns the condemnation upon himself is specifically
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because of what he sees. We are at Isaiah 6 verses one
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through 4. Uziah is dead, the Assyrians are
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coming. And in the middle of that
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geopolitical terror, Isaiah receives a vision.
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He sees Adonai, the Sovereign Master, sitting undisturbed on a
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high and lofty throne. The.
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Hebrew text here is so deliberate.
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Let's look at that title used Adonai.
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Yeah, Adonai emphasizes God's absolute mastery, authority and
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ownership over all creation. It is the title of the Supreme
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Boss. And the posture is vital.
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He is sitting. The grammatical participle
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portrays total control and calm rule.
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Earthly kings die, nations panic, superpowers rise, rise
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and fall. But Adonai sits undiscurbed.
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He is not pacing the floor of heaven worrying about Tiglof
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piles or the third. Not at all.
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And the text says the hem of his robe fills the temple.
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Think about the scale of that imagery.
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It's. Massive.
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The robe is a symbol of royal majesty, and just the trailing
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edge of it, just the hem, completely fills the entire
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temple space. It communicates an overwhelming,
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suffocating majesty. The earthly sanctuary, which is
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the pride of Jerusalem, becomes a tiny, inadequate theater for
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his heavenly King, right? God is not contained by the
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temple. The temple is overwhelmed by
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God. And stationed above him are the
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Seraphim. This is the only place in the
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Bible where these specific creatures are mentioned by name.
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The word literally translates to the burning ones, right?
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Yes, the burning ones. These are sinless, majestic,
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heavenly beings. They exist entirely in the
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presence of God. And yet, look at their posture.
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They each have 6 wings. With two wings they cover their
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faces. With two they cover their feet,
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and with two they fly. Let's unpack the wings.
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Because it is not just biological anatomy, it is deeply
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theological. Yeah, they're sinless creatures,
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yet they have to cover their faces.
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It shows a reverent inability to casually gaze upon divine glory.
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Even unfallen angels cannot stare directly into the
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unshielded face of God without being undone.
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Exactly. Then they cover their feet.
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In the ancient world, covering the feet was a sign of intense
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humility and modesty. Yeah, before a superior.
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And with two wings, they fly, meaning they're hovering
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entirely ready for immediate, instantaneous service.
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Their posture completely rebukes the flippant way we often
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approach worship or casual religious activism.
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Oh, absolutely. These burning ones do not treat
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God's presence lightly. They do not presume upon His
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grace. They are engaged in an
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antiphonal cry, calling out to one another in the Trazogen.
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Kadosh, Kadosh Kadosh, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
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The whole earth is full of His glory.
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That repetition is so fascinating.
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In English. If we want to emphasize
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something, we use bold text or italics, or we add an
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exclamation point. We might say someone is very
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holy or extremely holy. Right, but ancient Hebrew syntax
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doesn't have punctuation like that.
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In Hebrew, repetition serves as the method of emphasis.
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OK, if you want to say a pit is deep, you say it is a pit pit.
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A pit Pit. I like that to say something
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twice emphasizes it, but to say it 3 * a threefold repetition
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elevates the attribute to the absolute maximum degree.
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It is the superlative. God is not just holy among a
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list of other attributes, He is supremely, infinitely, uniquely
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holy. There is a quote from the
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theologian AW Tozer that points out that God does not conform to
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an external standard of holy right.
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We often think of holiness as a list of rules that God happens
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to follow perfectly, but Tozer argues that God is the standard.
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Whatever God is, is holy. Yes, His Holiness is His
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absolute otherness. He is entirely separate from
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creation and completely devoid of any moral deficiency.
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And the Seraphin declare that the whole earth is full of his
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glory. We need to distinguish those two
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terms, don't we? Yes, Holiness is God's concealed
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glory. Glory is God's revealed
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holiness. Glory cavode in Hebrew implies
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weight, substance, and visible splendor.
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The visible manifestation of God's invisible perfection is
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filling the whole earth. Cavode Weight and this
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manifestation is so intense, so overwhelmingly weighty, that the
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text says the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of
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him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
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Yeah. I have to point out the
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frightening math here. Well, the math is terrifying.
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If sinless, burning angels, creatures who have never
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rebelled, who reflect the fiery holiness of God, if they have to
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hide their faces from this light, what chance does a fallen
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human have? None 0.
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Is this why the thresholds are shaking?
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Is it because the sheer weight of this purity is structurally
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destructive to anything less than itself?
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Absolutely. Absolutely.
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Think about the physics of sound and resonance.
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If a frequency is powerful enough, it shatters glass.
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The voice of the seraphim declaring the holiness of God is
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shattering the structural integrity of the temple.
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The chasm between the uncreated God and an unfallen Angel is
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infinite, but the chasm between the uncreated God and a fallen
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sinful human creature is exponentially worse.
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The physical shaking of the temple mirrors the spiritual
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shattering that is happening to Isaiah.
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The sheer weight of God's purity cannot be tolerated by a fallen
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world. And the smoke filling the house
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is the Shekinah glory. It is the thick cloud that
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reveals his presence while simultaneously and graciously
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obscuring his full, lethal brilliance from Isaiah's eyes.
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So if the smoke wasn't there, Isaiah would have been instantly
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incinerated. He would be gone.
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When the structural integrity of the temple starts failing under
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the weight of this purity, Isaiah realizes his own
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structural integrity is failing too.
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He breaks down completely. He cries out, Woe is me, for I
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am lost. And that word lost doesn't mean
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he misplaced his keys. The Hebrew word is nidmeti.
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Nidmeti implies being ruined, completely destroyed, forced
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into silence, or struck dumb. Isaiah is looking at the
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absolute standard of moral perfection and the light of that
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holiness completely annihilates his self righteousness.
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Keep in mind Isaiah is the guy who just spent 5 chapters
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pronouncing woe on everyone else.
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Exactly. He is the prophet.
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He is the guy who goes to church every Sunday, tithes, leads the
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small group, and knows his Bible.
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He is arguably the most righteous man in the nation.
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But in the unshielded presence of absolute holiness, his mouth
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is stopped. It reminds me of the Apostle
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Paul in Romans 3.1 tune where he says that the law speaks so that
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every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable
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to God. Isaiah has run out of arguments.
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Know this. Specifically, what Isaiah
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confesses is polluted, he says. For I am a man of unclean lips,
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and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean.
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Lips right, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
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hosts. The very instrument of his
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prophetic calling, his lips, the tool he uses for ministry, is
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the exact thing he realizes is is utterly tainted by sin.
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He recognizes that his best deeds, his most righteous
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prophetic sermons, fall infinitely short of the
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standard. It is like a brilliant heart
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surgeon washing up for critical operation.
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OK, I like this analogy. They scrub their hands, they put
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on the gloves. They're ready to save a life,
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but right as they look down at the tray of scalpels and clamps,
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they realize the instruments are covered in rust, bacteria and
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toxic mold. Oh man, how can you perform the
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task if your tools are fundamentally contaminated?
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You can't. You would end up killing the
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patient you're trying to save. So Isaiah realizes he cannot
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speak for God because his equipment is legally
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compromised. The text makes a start point
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here that challenges our entire modern framework.
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What's that? Sin is not a lack of education.
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It is not a psychological wound. It is not a sociological
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disadvantage. Sin is uncleanness before a holy
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king. It is a fatal systemic
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corruption of the human nature. Without this assumption of
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radical corruption, any evangelistic effort is a fool's
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errand. We are not going out to tell
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people they are a little bit broken and just need some minor
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adjustments. No, the biblical text insists
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that humanity is spiritually dead and requires resurrection.
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This is why the modern church misdiagnoses the world.
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If you think the deepest human problem is ignorance, then your
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version of missions just becomes education.
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Let's build schools. Right, if you think the problem
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is poverty, missions becomes economics.
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Let's build businesses. If you think the problem is
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political oppression, missions becomes activism.
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But if the deepest problem is objective guilt and uncleanness
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before a holy God, then missions must proclaim atonement and
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reconciliation. It has to deal with the wrath of
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God. Because Isaiah is entirely
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passive and incapable of fixing his own ruin, he cannot scrub
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the rust off his own instruments.
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To use your analogy, the solution must invade from the
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outside. Notice what Isaiah doesn't do
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here. He doesn't pull himself
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together. He doesn't promise to do better
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next time. He doesn't climb up to the altar
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to cleanse himself. Mercy has to initiate the
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movement. Mercy has to come to him.
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And it does, in a terrifying, bloody and invasive way.
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We get to the altar of propitiation.
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Isaiah is trembling on the floor, waiting for the
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executioner's block, but instead one of the seraphim flies to him
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with a live coal in his hand. The Hebrew word is ritzpah.
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And the Angel has taken this burning coal with tongs from the
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altar. We have to dive into the
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Levitical theology happening in this moment.
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Go for it. The altar is not just a heavenly
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fireplace to keep the temple warm.
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The altar is the specific place where blood is shed.
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It is the place of sacrifice. It is where the innocent
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substitute is slaughtered in the place of the guilty worshipper.
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The fire on the altar represents the holy wrath of God that has
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been poured out and consumed the sacrifice.
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So that coal isn't just hot rock, it is completely soaked in
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the concept of substitutionary blood and satisfied justice.
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The serif touches the burning coal to Isaiah's mouth.
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The very place of his confessed uncleanness is met with the fire
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of the altar. And the serif declares, Behold,
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this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and you're
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sin atoned for. The Hebrew verb used, therefore
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atoned for or covered is tecopar.
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I know there is some serious grammatical weight to that
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specific word. Yes, Tecopar is in the intensive
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pool imperfect form. OK, stop right there.
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Pool imperfect. Give me the explain it like I'm
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5 version. What does that mean?
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For someone who doesn't read ancient Hebrew, sure.
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It means the action is passive for the subject but intensive in
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its execution. OK, think of a patient on an
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operating table under heavy anesthesia.
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The patient isn't participating in the surgery.
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They aren't handing the doctor the scalpel.
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Exactly. They're completely unconscious,
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totally passive. The surgeon is doing 100% of the
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work to them. That is the pool form Isaiah is
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receiving an atonement that has been objectively and sovereignly
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achieved entirely outside of his own effort.
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So grace is not God shrugging his shoulders and lowering his
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standard. Grace isn't God saying, hey,
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nobody's perfect, don't worry about it.
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Grace is God providing a bloody substitute to meet the absolute
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standard of holiness on behalf of the Sinner.
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Yes. The holy God who exposes the sin
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through his unapproachable light is the exact same God who
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provides the covering for it through the altar.
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This completely dismantles the liberal theological concept that
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people can simply choose to do better.
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It really does. Atonement is invasive.
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It requires a supernatural intervention.
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You cannot self atone. But I want to ask about the
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physical sensation described here.
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A burning coal pressed against human lips.
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The lips are one of the most sensitive parts of the human
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body. Yeah.
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Is the text suggesting that justification, while saving us,
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is also a painful destruction of our pride?
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The imagery absolutely implies A searing, refining process.
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The fire of God's holiness consumes sin.
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For the unrepentant, that fire is experienced as eternal
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judgment. But for the justified, that fire
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consumes the guilt through a substitute.
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Yet it still burns away the ego. Isaiah is reduced to absolute 0
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before he is built back up. The removal of our self-reliance
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is often a painful severing. We like to think we contribute
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something to our salvation, even if it's just our good
27:43
intentions. The burning coal sears all of
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that away. It is a necessary trauma to
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apply the grace of the altar. While the altar coal provided a
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real objective covering for Isaiah in that moment in 740 BC,
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we have to look at the bigger picture.
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Because that coal, that altar, the blood, it was all pointing
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forward to a much greater final sacrifice that would permanently
28:05
satisfy divine justice. We have to look at the
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Christological reality of this vision.
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Yeah, we cannot read Isaiah 6 as just a detached historical
28:13
document or an isolated mystical experience.
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No, the New Testament gives us explicit, infallible commentary
28:20
on what Isaiah actually saw that day.
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In the Gospel of John chapter 12 verse 41, the apostle John is
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reflecting on the ministry of Jesus and he states clearly that
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Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of
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him. Here's where it gets really
28:33
interesting. John is saying that the king on
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the throne, the Adonai high and lifted up the 1 causing the
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thresholds to shake and the Seraphim to hide their faces was
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the pre interned at Jesus Christ.
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It is a massive paradigm shift. Christ fulfills every single
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dimension of this vision. He does.
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He is the final prophet, speaking the Father's word
28:51
perfectly, unlike Isaiah who had unclean lips.
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He is the great High Priest who doesn't just take a coal from an
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earthly altar, but enters the heavenly reality to secure
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eternal redemption. And he is the king of kings, to
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whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given.
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Earthly kings like Uzziah die in disgrace.
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Jesus dies in glory and rises to rule forever.
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And the fiery coal itself is a prophetic type of the cross of
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Calvary. In the fullness of time, God did
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not just send a six winged Angel with a coal on a pair of tongs.
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He sent his only begotten Son to become the ultimate sacrifice.
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On the cross, Jesus absorbed the infinite burning wrath of God
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against sin. The law demands absolute purity.
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We do not have it. The gospel provides the perfect
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obedience of Christ, which is imputed or legally credited to
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the account of the believer. At the cross, you see the
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perfect intersection of the two themes in Isaiah's vision,
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absolute holiness and invasive grace.
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God's holiness demands that sin be punished.
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God's grace provides his own Son to bear that punishment.
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The staggering contrast here is what really gets me.
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Think about the two scenes in Isaiah 6.
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You have the untouchable Lord of hosts, the foundations of the
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temple are shaking, smoke is billowing everywhere, and
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sinless angels are terrified to look at him, right?
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And then you Fast forward to the upper room.
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In the Gospels you have the Incarnate Jesus, the exact same
30:14
person wrapping a towel around his waist, getting down on his
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knees and washing his disciples dirt caked feet.
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Is that unbelievable? He lets them touch him.
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He lets John lean against his chest.
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Does knowing that Jesus is the terrifying king on the throne
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actually magnify the gentleness he displayed on earth?
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It amplifies it infinitely. The incarnation is not God
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abandoning His Holiness. It is God veiling His blinding
30:39
glory in true human flesh to accomplish salvation.
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The Jesus who wept at the tomb of Lazarus.
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The Jesus who held children in his arms and the Jesus who was
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spat upon and beaten by Roman soldiers is a very same
30:52
sovereign Lord before whom the Seraphim hid their faces.
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He allowed himself to be treated as unclean so that we who are
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actually unclean could be made holy.
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At the cross, holy justice and holy mercy meet perfectly.
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God is far more holy than we ever imagined, and far more
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gracious than we ever dared to hope.
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It is only after a person is completely crushed by the
31:13
reality of that law, and then entirely justified by the
31:16
finished work of Christ, that they are finally ready to hear
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the call. You cannot skip straight to the
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work, you have to pass through the fire.
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That brings us to the vocation of the doxological mandate.
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Look at the sequence of events. After Isaiah is justified, his
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guilt removed, he is suddenly permitted to hear the divine
31:32
counsel. The voice of the Lord speaks,
31:34
asking, Whom shall I send, and who will go for?
31:37
US and Isaiah, the man who just moments ago was ruined weeping
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on the floor and struck dumb, immediately responds with
31:43
absolute readiness. Here am I.
31:45
Send me. The order of operations here is
31:48
everything. Revelation of God's
31:50
unapproachable holiness. Recognition of radical human
31:53
depravity. Substitutionary atonement from
31:55
the altar and finally Commission.
31:58
You cannot bypass the altar and leap onto the mission field.
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No, you cannot just volunteer out of human enthusiasm or guilt
32:05
or a desire for an adventure without first passing through
32:08
the fire of justification. If you try to go without the
32:12
cold touching your lips, you will go out with a misdiagnosed
32:15
message. You will preach sociology
32:17
instead of salvation. We need to talk about the
32:20
motivation for going. We use the phrase doxological
32:23
mandate. Let's unpack the word
32:25
doxological. It comes from the Greek word
32:27
doxa, which means glory. It means our mandate, Our reason
32:31
for evangelism, is driven entirely by the glory of God.
32:35
There is a very famous quote from John Piper that captures
32:37
this perfectly. He says missions exist because
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worship doesn't. Yes, worship is the eternal
32:43
goal. Missions is a temporary rescue
32:46
operation that ceases the moment Christ returns.
32:49
There will be no evangelism in the new heavens and the new
32:51
earth because everyone there will be worshipping.
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This entirely removes guilt manipulation from the equation.
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Have you ever sat through a missions presentation where the
32:59
speaker tries to make you feel terrible about your comfortable
33:02
life, showing pictures of poverty to guilt you into giving
33:05
money or going overseas? Absolutely, the whole if you
33:08
really loved God you would sell everything and move to a jungle
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approach. Right.
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And while compassion for the needy is a valid Christian
33:15
virtue, it is a terrible primary engine for long term endurance.
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Human need is an endless, exhausting ocean.
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If you are driven only by guilt or empathy, you will eventually
33:26
burn out. A doxological motive means we do
33:29
not go primarily because people are needy.
33:31
We go primarily because the Triune God is infinitely worthy
33:35
of the praise of all nations. We go to reclaim the glory that
33:39
is rightfully His from the darkest corners of the earth.
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But I want to look at what God actually calls Isaiah to do
33:45
because Isaiah specific calling was brutal.
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It was incredibly tough. God essentially tells him, go
33:51
and say to this people, keep on hearing but do not understand,
33:54
keep on seeing but do not perceive.
33:57
Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy and
34:00
blind their eyes. God tells Isaiah that his
34:02
preaching is actually going to harden people's hearts.
34:04
There is a massive warning against evangelistic
34:07
triumphalism here. We like to think that if we
34:09
preach the gospel clearly enough, everyone will get saved
34:13
and the culture will be fixed. But how does a doxological
34:16
motive protect a messenger from burning out when they look out
34:19
at their community and see zero visible results?
34:22
If your motivation is simply human success, church growth, or
34:26
measurable statistical metrics, you will quit the moment people
34:30
reject the message. If you measure your faithfulness
34:32
by the size of your congregation or the number of converts, an
34:35
assignment like Isaiah's will destroy you.
34:37
But if your calling is anchored in the unshakable worthiness of
34:41
the king on the throne, your perseverance is not dependent on
34:45
the audience's reaction. Isaiah's faithfulness, not his
34:48
visible success, was the measure of his obedience.
34:51
The holy God called him to proclaim a true message, and the
34:54
messenger continues, simply because the King remains worthy
34:57
of having his truth spoken, whether the world listens or
35:00
not. That flips our whole modern
35:02
paradigm upside down. We are obsessed with results.
35:06
We want the spreadsheet to show that our strategies are working.
35:09
But Isaiah shows us that true success is obediently speaking
35:12
the words of a holy God, trusting that God is in charge
35:15
of the harvest. If true calling begins with
35:17
being undone by holiness and cleansed by grace, it leads to a
35:21
very challenging question for us today.
35:23
What if the greatest barrier to reaching the unreached nations
35:27
is not a lack of funding? What if it isn't a lack of
35:30
marketing strategy or a lack of travel options?
35:34
What if the greatest barrier is simply that the modern church
35:37
has forgotten how to tremble before the Holy One in our own
35:40
local congregations? We have traded reverence for
35:42
relevance. We wanted to make God
35:44
approachable, so we made him common.
35:46
But if we lose the holiness of God, we lose the gravity of sin.
35:50
If we lose the gravity of sin, we lose the necessity of the
35:53
cross. And if we lose the cross, we
35:56
lose any actual reason to cross the street, let alone cross an
35:59
ocean to preach to the lost. We must return to a theology
36:02
that lets the absolute holiness of God practically motivate us
36:06
to labor. We labor so that the Lamb who
36:08
was slain may receive the full reward of his suffering.
36:11
It all comes right back to that initial diagnosis.
36:15
We cannot settle for handing out band aids when the Great
36:18
Physician has provided A radical, bloody, permanent cure.
36:22
The world doesn't need another social program dressed up in
36:25
religious language. The world needs to know that the
36:27
King of the universe is holy, that we are guilty, and that he
36:30
has provided a way of escape through the sacrifice of his own
36:33
son. Let that thought evaluate your
36:36
own view of God's majesty. Is your God too small, or is he
36:40
the Lord of hosts whose glory fills the earth?
36:43
Thanks for joining us for this deep dive into the source
36:45
material. We will see you next time on
36:47
Reformed Thinking.