REVELATIONS OF GOD
Isaiah 6:1-5. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw, &c. [700]
[700] The scene of the Vision is the Temple, and its features will have been the same whether we suppose them to have risen before Isaiah’s imagination while he was absent from the spot, in the solitude of his chamber or his house-top, or assume (as I myself prefer to do), that he was actually praying in the Temple at the time.
Though it is unlikely that any of the successors to what was but a small remnant of Solomon’s kingdom perfectly restored the Temple after it was deprived of its original splendour by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, yet we see the worthier princes from time to time repairing the structure when it had been suffered to fall into decay, and replacing, as far as they could, the treasures and the costly decorations of which it was repeatedly despoiled to buy off foreign invaders; and probably there was no period in which the restoration would be more complete than in the reign of Uzziah, who in his power, wealth, and magnificence, came nearer than any other to Solomon. And there will be much more of fact than of fancy in the picture, if, for the clearer understanding of the scene of this vision, we figure to ourselves the youthful prophet in his rough hair or woollen garment (probably not unlike that of the Capuchin friar as we now see him in the streets or churches of Rome), going up to the Temple to worship;—and if we look with him at the Temple as, at the end of 300 years from its building, it must have presented itself to his eyes, with its ample courts, and colonnades, and porch, and its holy house, and holy of holies, well-proportioned, and of the most elaborate workmanship, though rather massive than large according to our notions. As he crossed the variegated pavement of “the great court of the congregation,” and stopped—for we have no reason to suppose him a Levite—at the entrance to the inner, or “priests’ ” court, on each hand would rise one of the tall pillars which Solomon set up in token that the kingdom was constituted by Jehovah, and would be upheld by His might (1 Kings 7:21; 2 Chronicles 3:17), and which, once of “bright brass,” but now mellowed into bronze, had their square capitals richly wreathed with molten lilies, chain-work, and pomegranates; before him, resting on the back of the twelve oxen, and cast like them in brass, would appear the “molten sea,” a basin of thirty cubits in circumference, and containing two or three thousand baths of water, its, brim wrought “like the brim of a cup with flowers of lilies,” and under these a double row of ornamental knobs; while on each side stood five smaller lavers, the bases of which rested on wheels, and were most elaborately ornamented with oxen, lions, cherubims, and palm-trees engraved upon them; and beyond these again he would see the great brazen altar of burnt-offering, with its never-extinguished fire; and overhead the roof of thick cedar beams resting on rows of columns. These were the courts of the palace of the divine King of Israel, for the reception of His subjects and His ministers.[Compare the description of Solomon’s own house, which besides its inner porch had another where he sat to judge the people, 1 Kings 7:7. The arrangement of the Temple is plainly that of a palace.] The house itself again consisted of two parts, the outer of which, the holy place, was accessible to those priests who were in immediate attendance on their unseen Sovereign, while the inner, or holiest place, was the very presence-chamber of the Monarch who dwelt “between the cherubims,” which spread their golden wings over the ark containing the covenant He had vouchsafed to enter into with His people, and itself forming a “mercy-seat,” where was “the place of His throne and the place of the sole of His feet.” In the position which I have, following the requirements of the narrative in the chapter before us, supposed Isaiah to be placed, he would see through the open folding-doors of cypress, carved “with cherubims, and palm-trees, and open flowers,” and “covered with gold upon the carved work,” into the holy place, which he could not enter; and the light of the golden lamps on either side would show him the cedar panelling of the walls, carved with knobs and open flowers, with cherubims and palm-trees, festooned with chain-work, and richly gilt; the mosaics of precious stone; the cypress floor; the altar of incense; the table with the shew-bread; the censers, tongs, and other furniture of “pure and perfect gold;” and before the doorway at the further end, and not concealed by the open leaves of the olive-wood doors (carved and gilded like the others), would be distinguishable the folds of the vail “of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen,” embroidered with cherubims. In the East the closed vail, or purdah, declares the presence and secures the privacy of the monarch, into which no man may intrude and live; and in the Temple at Jerusalem it was the symbol of the awful presence and unapproachable majesty of the King Jehovah, Lord of hosts.… Perhaps on this occasion, or certainly on many others, Isaiah had been joining in the public daily sacrifice and worship and had afterwards brought his own free-will offering—a bullock or a lamb without blemish. Such an offering, the symbol of his dedication of himself to Jehovah’s service, would be the natural expression of his earnest desire for some token that at last it was permitted him to enter on the actual functions of the prophetic office for which he had been so long preparing; and that this vision was the answer to such beautiful prayerful desire—itself an inspiration from on high—we may well believe.—Strachey.
Some of you may have been watching a near and beautiful landscape in the land of mountains and eternal snows, till you have been exhausted by its very richness, and till the distant hills which bounded it have seemed, you knew not why, to limit and contract the view,—and then a vail has been withdrawn, and new hills not looking as if they belonged to this earth, yet giving another character to all that does belong to it, have unfolded themselves before you. This is an imperfect, very imperfect, likeness (yet it is one), of that revelation which must have been made to the inner eye of the prophet, when he saw another throne than the throne of the house of David, another king than Uzziah or Jotham, another train than that of priests or minstrels in the Temple, other winged forms than those golden ones which overshadowed the mercy-seat. Each object was the counterpart of one that was then or had been at some time before his bodily eyes.… The symbols and service of the Temple were not, as priests and people often thought, an earthly machinery for scaling a distant Heaven; they were witnesses of a Heaven nigh at hand, of a God dwelling in the midst of His people, of His being surrounded by spirits which do His pleasure, hearkening to the voice of His words.—F. D. Maurice.
I. Earthly powers fade and perish, but the Eternal Power that uses them all lives on (Isaiah 6:1). Comfort here, when a great king or statesman is taken away from the head of a nation; when a great leader of an arduous reformatory movement, such as Luther, is laid low; when an eloquent preacher or wise pastor is summoned to his rest; or even when the head of a household is cut off just when his family most need his care. He who has wrought by their instrumentality can work without it (Psalms 68:5, &c.)
II. In God’s temples there is room only for God. “His train filled the Temple.” Ahaz could build in the courts of the Lord’s house an altar to the god of Damascus (2 Kings 16:10-16), but he could not worship two gods there, for the only living and true God departed when His sanctuary was thus profaned. God will have all, or none (Isaiah 42:8). All His earthly temples must be counterparts of the one heavenly temple, where He reigns alone. In no church will God divide His empire with the State or with popular opinion: we must choose between Him and all other authorities. In no heart will He reign along with any other principle or passion (Matthew 6:24.)
III. Until we reach the land where there is no temple, we cannot see God as He is [703] To Isaiah a vision of God was granted, and yet it was but a symbolic vision. He saw a throne, and on it seated? Being of indescribable majesty; but who imagines that he saw God as He is? Does God sit on a throne, after the fashion of kings, such as Uzziah, who fade and die? The vision was a condescension to the human faculties of the seer, and served its purpose, that of impressing upon him the majesty and holiness of the Most High. And he tells us more of the ministers who surround the throne than of its Occupant! Him no words can describe; of Him no absolute disclosure is now possible; He can but give us revelations—visions—administrations of Himself. And this He has done.
1. In nature. The purpose of the manifold and wondrous universe is not accomplished if we look only at the creation, and do not discern in it veils not thickly hiding, but helping to re veal the Creator (Romans 1:19-20) [706]
2. In Providence. The manner in which the world is governed is, to the man who studies it comprehensively, earnestly, and reverently, a revelation of the character of the Ruler.
3. In His Word. That man miserably mistakes, who studies the Bible as anything less than a many-sided disclosure of God.
4. In Christ [709] a familiar thought this, yet how seldom do we enter into its depths! We do not worship an un known God, yet we cannot see Him as He is until we have entered into that light which is inaccessible and which no mortal can approach unto, until we have been ourselves trans formed into “children of Kght,” and so rendered capable of looking on “the Father of lights.”
[703] See my Dictionary of Poetical Illustrations, No. 1501; and my Homiletic Encyclopædia of Illustrations, Nos. 2229–2240.
[706] D. P. I., 1489, 1493, 1496, 1502, 1504–1506, 1508, 1509, 1511, 1514, 1519, 1526, 2545, 2552, 2563; H. E. I., 2242.
[709] H. E. I., 854–857, 2241, 2243.
IV. Those to whom He reveals Himself most fully are most humble, and those whom He most exalts are most ready to serve. We have both these truths illustrated in the seraphim and in Isaiah.