The Word is unfathomable in the extent of its truths. I started teaching this chapter in 1988, the first time in Dorchester in Dorset. Since then I have returned having become more and mature in my reading of the context of this vision. There are things I used to teach that now I cannot because I see from the narrative they are outright wrong. There is a balance to be drawn here, because if I was to be scrutinised then, surely they would have certified me as a false teacher. However, I think a mixture of grace and understanding that our Biblical insight grows with our Christian maturity as well. There are those who go after those who they consider false, and I think there is a place for testing the people of God to see whether they are teaching truth. And there is also the question of “private interpretations” which the Word specifically sanctions against being that there has to be a central body that tests insights from the Word of God, however with all the denominations this condition and this capacity is all but fragmented.
There is a mystery that distinguishes us from the angels and it appears here in the narrative of Isaiah 6, the fact that the Seraphims cover their faces.
Then contrast this Biblical fact of Isaiah’s vision in 2 Corinthians 3 of Paul, and we see here a great truth.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Not taking this verse out of its context being the comparison by how the Law was given in glory, yet Moses’ face needed a veil, we in Christ can see that Glory without our face covered, but also responds to our condition to the Seraphim of the Glory in the temple. This means we have a privilege over them, in that we do not yet live in that same glory, but live upon a world that is fallen from that glory, yet through Christ we can have our faces covered.
The question needs to be asked is why do the Seraphim have their faces covered? And why can we have ours uncovered? Seraphim live in that place of Glory constantly, and as such they are keepers of that Glory. They have no free will given to them. They are created to worship. Yet we have been created with free will, however corrupted by the sin, world and the devil. In the submission to the Lord this free will surrendered is testimony to the exposure of the lie that God created us to be His robots. Our faces are uncovered because of the value of the work of Calvary and the whole Person of Jesus, who qualified us in Him. Yet sometimes I am left with the sensation we can treat this privilege with a certain contempt. We have somehow flipped out on over emphasis on the faith for things, instead of the faith that leads us to the true nature of the Fear of the Lord. The Fear of the Lord is one of the seven attributes founded in Isaiah 11. Here these attributes are just as important as the gifts and fruit of the Spirit. This touches the character of the Holy Spirit.
Could it be that through ignorance, through spiritual laziness we have come to despise, show contempt for, the very thing the Seraphim have dreamt of being able to do; to Behold Him!!!
Let us begin to ask God to alert us in His Word, through His Church to the privileges God has given us in Christ, and begin to ask for His Fear!
Maranatha! Lord Jesus come quickly!
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