I. Consider what the prophet saw. He sees Jehovah as Ruler, Governor, King; He is upon a throne, high and lifted up. It is the throne of absolute sovereignty: of resistless, questionless supremacy over all. He is in the temple where the throne is the mercy-seat, between the cherubim; over the ark of the covenant, which is the symbol and seal of friendly communion. His train, the skirts of His wondrous garment of light and love, filled the temple. Above, or upon, that train stood the seraphim. These are not, as I take it, angelic or super-angelic spirits, but the Divine Spirit Himself, the Holy Ghost, appearing thus in the aspect and attitude of gracious ministry. With this great sight voice and movement are joined. A voice of adoring awe fills the august temple with the echoing sound. The voice occasions commotion, excitement, shaken door-posts, the smoke of the glorious cloudy fire filling all the house.
II. How the prophet felt. It is a thorough prostration. He falls on his face as one dead. He cannot stand that Divine presence that living, personal, Divine presence abruptly confronting him in the inmost shrine of the Lord's sanctuary, and the sanctuary of his own heart. What the Lord really is, thus flashing on his conscience, shows him what he is himself. Undone! unclean! Unclean in the very sphere and line of living in which I ought to be most scrupulously clean!
III. How the prophet's case was met. There, full in his view, is an altar with its sacrifice; present to him then, though future; with a living coal from that living altar, the blessed Spirit touches him at the very point of his deepest self-despair. And the effect is as immediate as the touch. Nothing comes in between. Enough that there are, on the one side, the unclean lips, and on the other the live coal from off the altar. To the one let the other be applied, graciously, effectually, by the sevenfold, myriadfold, agency of the Spirit who is ever before the throne on high. The prophet asks nothing more. He hears the voice, as of Him who said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."
IV. The subsequent offer and command. Two things are noticeable here: the grace of God in allowing the prophet, thus exercised, to be a volunteer for service; and the unreservedness of the prophet's volunteering. It is no half-hearted purpose, conditional on circumstances; but the full, single-eyed heartiness of one loving much, because forgiven much, that breaks out in the frank, unqualified, unconditional self-enlistment and self-enrolment in the Lord's host, "Here am I; send me."
R. S. Candlish, Sermons,p. 86.
References: Isaiah 6:1-8. H. F. Burder, Sermons,p. 115; S. Cox, Expositor,2nd series, vol. ii., pp. 18, 21.Isaiah 6:1-10. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xii., p. 283.Isaiah 6:1-11. Ibid.,vol. iv;, p. 274.