If there is a fundamental attribute or characteristic of God, it must surely be His holiness, for at the very center of every concept of the nature of God is—and ever has been, and must always be—the pillar of His holy and righteous character.
It may be debated that there is one fundamental attribute of God. Some say that the essence of God is love, and truly God is love; but God’s love is governed by His holiness. God, out of love, never acts in a way that violates His holiness. Man does, but man is not inherently holy, and man is not naturally loving.
God is love; but God is also holy, and God is characterized by a holy love and a loving holiness.
God is fundamentally holy, and His holiness is fundamental! Isaiah, the silver-tongued prophet, was given a divine call from God to preach and prophesy to an unholy people. His task was an impossible one: getting blind people to see and deaf people to hear.
The people to whom this prince of prophets was sent were described by Isaiah in chapter one of the book that bears his name: they were a nation of individuals, and, as a whole, their head was sick and their heart was faint: “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, bruises and putrefying sores.” (Isa.1:5) Isaiah characterized the apostacy and depravity of the people to whom he was sent as being total: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers.” (Isa. 1:7) So total was the spiritual defection of Judah at that time, Isaiah had to conclude: “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”
Before Isaiah could stand before a people such as that, he had to first of all receive a divine call. He did, and it is recorded in Isaiah 6:1ff. Consequent to this call, there had to be a cleansing. Isaiah, after experiencing heartfelt contrition, received divine cleansing, resulting in his unqualified consecration, followed by God’s commission of him. All of this is set forth in Isaiah 1:1-10. That which prefaced the call—the contrition, cleansing, consecration, and commission of Isaiah—was a vision of the HOLINESS of God.
He saw, as a man, what he’d never seen before. It changed his life so that he was never the same. The vision came in the year that King Uzziah died. This king’s long and glorious reign over Judah ended in tragedy and terror. Having been blessed with material prosperity and many spiritual blessings, King Uzziah fatally erred in one of his final acts as Judah’s king. In II Chronicles, we read the account of how he presumed to take upon himself the duties of a priest, offering burnt offerings before the Lord—a high privilege never enjoyed by any of the kings over Judah, a privilege that was reserved rightfully only to the priests. King Uzziah learned, too late, that trifling with God’s holy law can and does end in judgment.
Isaiah saw this—and, in the midst of such a situation, he also saw the Lord. No doubt he, like his peers, had for some time seen many things other than the Lord. They had seen the power, prestige, and popularity of King Uzziah. They had witnessed their little nation rise to unprecedented military prowess. But now, with the death of the king, their world was beginning to crumble about them. Spiritual prosperity had long since passed. Now, material hard times seemed inevitable. In such a context, after Isaiah had gotten his eyes off of a man, he saw the Lord. We can, should, and must see the Lord: His glory, as Moses saw Him, and His holiness, as Isaiah saw Him. Note in this passage:
The Revelation of God to the prophet, vss. 1-4
♦ God’s position of exaltation, v. 1
“The Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.”
♦ God’s position of exultation, vss. 2,3
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”
2. The Response of the prophet, v. 5
♦ Woe because of his internal condition: undone—“Woe is me for I am undone.”
♦ Woe because of his external condition: “I am a man of unclean lips.”
♦ Woe because of his environmental condition (in the midst of an unclean people).
♦“Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
3. The Restoration of the prophet, vs. 7.
♦ His iniquity was taken away.
♦. His sin was purged.
Isaiah saw the Lord, and he heard the voice of the Lord (“Go and tell this people,” v. 9.) To God’s question—“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”—Isaiah replied, having seen the Lord high and lifted up in all of His glorious holiness: “Here am I; send me.” (Isaiah 1:8)
Today, in America, we are witnessing a nation that has been “on the brink.” What is God doing? We wait. We pray. We watch. We must keep our eyes off the man and on the Almighty. We are living in the midst of a people of unclean lips. God is yet saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” Will you? I was reading Isaiah as a 19 year-old pre-law student in 1961. I answered God’s question with “Here am I; send me.” Is He calling you?
YOU and GOD 