Isaiah 6

Isaiah 6:1

B. Isaiah’s Call, Cleansing, and Commission (Chap. 6)6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah had a vision of the King of kings. We learn from Joh_12:39-41 that the King he saw was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. F. C. Jennings comments: He, like John of Patmos, becomes “in the Spirit,” and sees Adohn (the name of God as the supreme Lord of all; and here, as in Rom_9:5, “Christ who is over all, God, blessed forever”) with every accompaniment of majestic splendor, sitting on a Throne, which is itself “high and exalted,” for “His Throne ruleth over all;” yet, while sitting on this lofty Throne the hem of His raiment fills that glorious temple. 6:2-5 Attending Him were celestial beings called seraphim, with “four wings for reverence and two for service.” These celebrate the holiness of God and require that God’s servants be cleansed before serving Him. The vision produced deep conviction of sin in the prophet, then brought him to the place of confession. 6:6-8 This was immediately followed by cleansing. Only then did Isaiah hear the call of the LORD. He quickly consecrated himself to the Lord and was given his commission. 6:9, 10 He was to declare the Word of the Lord to a people who would be judicially blinded and hardened through rejection of the message. Verses 9 and 10 do not describe the goal of Isaiah’s ministry, but its inevitable result. These verses are quoted in the NT to explain Israel’s rejection of the Messiah. Vine writes: The people had so persistently perverted their ways that they had gone beyond the possibility of conversion and healing. A man may so harden himself in evil as to render his condition irremediable, and this by God’s retributive judgment upon him. 6:11-13 The question “How long?” means how long would God’s judgments continue on His people. The answer was “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate, the LORD has removed men far away.” God will spare a remnant (a tenth), but even this remnant will have to pass through deep tribulation. This holy seed is like the living stump of a great tree that survives after the rest of the tree has been destroyed.