IT Smoke is usually associated with God's wrath. But here the smoke that filled the house is hardly to be regarded as a symbol of the dark side of the self-manifesting God coming into view and His anger against sin. Analogies for such an interpretation of smoke in the house seem wanting. The cloud of smoke is rather the manifestation of Himself (iv. 5). The King, high and lifted up, is not immovable. He responds and gives a fuller token of Him- self. On the spirits adoring what they knew there breaks a fuller knowledge and a more sensible nearness. If in the busy day the pillar seems cloud and smoke, in stiller hours it brightens into fire. And to the eastern seer God was a light more distinct and clearer far than to the dimmer vision of the western eye, when —
On the glimmering light far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.^
II.
A Vision of Self.
Next in importance to a vision of God is a vision of our- selves. So far as we know, Isaiah was a young man of excellent character. No doubt he had the confidence and respect of all who knew him. The probabilities are that his life was above
* A. B, Davidson, in The Expositor, 4th Ser., vii. p. 246.
ISAIAH loi
reproach. But when he got a glimpse of the Infinite Holiness he cried out, " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." No man can see God aright without feeling just as Isaiah did. When that vision rises up before him, all his pride, all his self-sufi5ciency, all the small moralities on which he la building will seem to him like blight and mildew on the leaves and flowers. Over against the Divine perfection his own right- eousness will appear as filthy rags.
The keen sanctity, Which with this efiluence, like a glory, clothes And circles round the Deity, did seize And scorch and shrivel him ; and now he lay Passive and still before the awful Throne I
" Then said I, Woe is me ! for I am undone."
1. The sight of God has always a reacting influence on one's self. We always carry with us a sense of relation to God ; and when we think of Him, we always think of ourselves. We cannot think of Him out of relation to ourselves. It is part of our thought of Him, that it always includes ourselves ; for He is Sovereign, high and lifted up. This thought of Him is often fleeting and has little influence upon our mind, oftentimes no eff'ect to influence our life permanently. Our sight of Him is often partial and reacts but feebly back upon ourselves. But a real sight of Him, such as the prophet had, will not be without a powerful effect upon our feeling regarding ourselves.
(1) The first thought it will occasion will perhaps be the one it occasioned to this prophet — fear. There will be such a sense of contrast between Him and us — Him the King and us — that it will beget terror. This was the common feeling in the Hebrew mind. The distance between Jehovah and the creature was so vast, the unworthiness of the creature was so great, that when suddenly brought into the presence of Jehovah the creature felt he must be consumed and die. " No man can see God and live."
I02 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
(2) But this feeling of fear was succeeded by another. Though the first, it was not the last condition of the prophet's mind. In a brief space his mind ran through a history ; and thought succeeded thought of his relation to God. In the vision a seraph flew to him with a live coal from the altar, and touched his lips, saying, " Thy sin is purged." Now these two things, his fear and this that succeeded, must be taken together. They are both req^uired, in order to bring out the proper view of the effect on man of a full sight of God. First, fear ; and then, following it, the sense of sin purged away. " Though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me." If the sight of God stop with producing the first feeling merely, it will not have been a true, full sight of God. It will have been partial, imperfect. When God is revealed to the mind, it may be all perturbed, it may rock to and fro, and feeling after feeling pass over it. The prevailing tone may for a time be terror ; but if the sight of God be full — as He is in Christ, as He is in Himself — the conclusion at the last will be peace.
IF We have seen in Christ a holiness the prophet did not know. It is not less solemn, it is not less sublime, but it is more sweet, it is more deep, it is more abiding. It is not a vision, but a presence and a power. We have seen through the smoke which filled the house. We have seen the face of Him that sat upon the throne. We have seen the Cross upon the altar. We have seen that the holiness of God is the holiness of love. There is no such awful gulf fixed between the King and the creature. We too are kings in Him. The word we hear is judgment indeed, and fear, but it is more. It is our judgment laid on the Holy. It is such mercy, pity, peace, and love. It is, indeed, infinite tender- ness ; but it is soul tenderness, it is moral tenderness, it is atoning, redeeming tenderness. It is the tenderness of the Holy, which does not soothe but save. It is love which does not simply comfort, and it is holiness which does not simply doom. It is holy love, which judges, saves, forgives, cleanses the conscience, destroys the guilt, reorganises the race, and makes a new world from the ruins of the old.^