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What Isaiah Saw – Part 3
Isaiah Saw God’s Forgiveness
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven” Isaiah 6:6-7
Given the great gulf between God’s greatness and man’s unworthiness, one would never imagine that such a gap could be bridged, God’s holiness and man’s inability to recover from his encounter with sin would seem to be permanent barriers to a relationship with God. When all seems lost, God sends one of the seraphim with a coal from the place where atonement for sin is made—the altar. He applies it to the source of Isaiah’s sinfulness and assures him that this action wipes his sins away.
The unexpected forgiveness demonstrated here is shown to be from God, and only from God. In this vision, atonement is a gift. It is something Isaiah could never merit nor ever expect. But in spite of these impediments God sends from his altar cleansing from sin by his grace. Living this side of the cross, we may be in a position to understand this essential fact about forgiveness even better than Isaiah. Out of God’s love and human need, he provided forgiveness to the unclean, unlovely, and the unreliable. In Romans 5:8 Paul describes it this way, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Throughout the New Testament, salvation is clearly seen as a gift. It is one that must be accepted on the terms of pardon that God, the giver, designates. But nonetheless, because of our inability to earn it, our salvation must be a gift. In Ephesians 2:8 Paul describes it this way, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Another feature of God’s graciousness that defies comprehension is his willingness to make us his children. No matter how many conditions God placed on the reception of his gift, salvation would still be grace because of our inability to achieve forgiveness on our own. Yet divine sonship would not have been necessary to make our redemption “amazing grace.” Allowing us to avoid a devil’s hell and consigning us to the doormat of heaven would have been a gift beyond our wildest dreams. Yet in spite of our unworthiness, he not only allows us to taste his forgiveness, but exalts us as his sons. “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God” (1 John 3:1). Isaiah saw that forgiveness was God’s gift. We must understand this as well and strive to see the matchless love involved in God’s choice to forgive.
