The Holiness of God
There are some incredible scenes and imagery in Isaiah 6:1-8. Isaiah looks up and sees the Lord sitting on His throne. Interestingly, Isaiah sees the Lord in his vision and immediately sees his own weaknesses. How often do we feel like that? Sitting in church on a Sunday morning, perhaps, about to take communion, and we wrack our brains to what we have been doing over the last week that we might need to get right before the Lord, before we feel ready to take communion with a pure heart, (well, at least pure enough once we have repented and recognised the assurance of forgiveness). This seemed to be the experience of Isaiah when he responded:
“Woe is me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5)
Have you ever stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon or stared up into a clear, star-filled night sky and felt overwhelmingly small? There are moments when beauty and majesty are so immense they don’t just impress us; they expose us, reminding us of our own finiteness. The prophet Isaiah had such a moment, but it wasn’t a canyon or a cosmos that undid him. It was a vision of God Himself. It happened at a low point in Israel’s history. Their long-reigning king, Uzziah, had just died, a king whose reign ended in the disgrace of prideful sin. The nation felt unstable, leaderless. And into that vacuum of earthly power, God gave Isaiah a vision of the true, eternal King, seated on a throne that is never, ever vacant.
Meeting the King: What Is Divine Holiness?
When Isaiah saw the Lord, “high and exalted,” the first thing he heard was the sound of heaven’s worship. Angelic beings called seraphim, whose name means “burning ones,” circled the throne. These magnificent creatures, models of pure worship, covered their faces, unable to look upon the fullness of God’s glory. They cried to one another in a chorus that shook the temple’s foundations: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” This thrice-repeated cry, the Trisagion, is the Hebrew way of expressing the absolute superlative. God isn’t just a little bit holy; He is the very definition of holiness. The word for ‘holy’ (*qadosh*) means ‘set apart’ or ‘cut off.’ It tells us two crucial things about God: He is utterly separate from creation, unique and transcendent. And second, because He is separate from creation, He is completely separate from sin. His holiness is both His majestic ‘otherness’ and His perfect moral purity.
“A genuine encounter with God’s holiness doesn’t first affirm our goodness; it exposes our sinfulness.”
Undone by Glory: Conviction and Cleansing
How did Isaiah respond to this stunning vision of purity and power? Not with excitement, but with terror. “Woe is me!” he cried, “For I am lost.” A genuine encounter with God’s holiness doesn’t first affirm our goodness; it exposes our sinfulness. The blinding light of God’s purity revealed the deep stain of Isaiah’s own heart. He confessed he was a man of “unclean lips,” a devastating admission for a prophet whose job was to speak for God. In that moment, he felt utterly disqualified. But conviction is where God’s grace begins. A seraph flew to Isaiah, not with a word of condemnation, but with a burning coal from the altar, the very place of sacrifice and atonement. Touching it to Isaiah’s lips, the angel declared, “Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” This act is a stunning picture of the gospel: God Himself provides the purification we could never achieve on our own, a cleansing that points forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ.
Remade for Mission: The Call That Follows Cleansing
It is only after being undone by holiness and remade by grace that Isaiah can finally hear the divine call. The Lord asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” The question hangs in the air, waiting for a willing heart. Isaiah, his guilt removed and his lips now consecrated by fire, responds without hesitation: “Here am I! Send me.” This is not the arrogant boast of a qualified expert but the grateful surrender of a pardoned man. His mission is born directly from his experience of holy grace. This pattern is timeless. Our calling from God does not flow from our own strength or resume, but from an honest encounter with His holiness that leads us to Christ for cleansing. As the Apostle Peter would later write, our new identity is rooted in the very character of God: “But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy'” (1 Peter 1:15-16).
“Mission is not born from human confidence but from the grateful, willing surrender of a pardoned and consecrated soul.”
Living This Out
We may not get a dramatic throne-room vision like Isaiah, but we are called to behold God’s holiness every day. We see it revealed in the pages of Scripture. We reflect on it in worship and prayer. We are also called to carry our cross daily, when we hear the voice of the Lord as Isaiah did saying, ‘Who will go for us?’ the challenge for us is to be willing to stand up in our workplaces and neighbourhoods and being ready to give an answer to those who would ask why we believe as we do. With this in mind, we too can respond, “Here I am Lord, send me!”.
