Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Crisis in Leadership”. A study of Isaiah 6. So many good lessons for the week. And a couple here I’d like to mention briefly.
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts” (Isaiah 6:3) says the seraphim. So what is “holiness”? Philippians 2 gives us the answer. It is an emptying of self for the benefit of others. Hence the greatest earthly demonstration of holiness is seen at Calvary. Do you want to know what holiness is? Do you aspire to holiness? Aspire to God-like-ness? Than look to the Cross. There is holiness distilled to its essence. And this is what brings admiration, worship and aspiration to all of heaven. And to those of us on earth who have learned of our God and who love Him. The absence of self-centeredness. The fullness of true love.
God’s great aim is to eliminate sin from our minds and hearts. Sin is a perverse, stubborn, rebelliousness of thinking and being. Sin is the absence of true love in the heart and mind. So the remedy for sin is to change our minds and hearts. And this change is not done by authoritative declaration or by fiat. It is “’not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). It is a work immensely internal. Inside of you. Inside your very motivation and heart (spirit).
So God’s demonstration of Love on the cross is designed to change you. And the change happens… the “iniquity is taken away” (Isaiah 6: 7)… by “a live coal” taken “from the altar” of sacrifice and “touched to your lips”, thereby purifying your heart. (Isaiah 6: 6, 7). A coal heated on this altar of sacrifice symbolizes nothing more than the fire that all-consumes that sacrifice. The fire of love. For that was the passionate, burning motivation of God’s heart for sinful man. Love. Ardent, dedicated, burning passionate love for sinners like us.
And when that love touches our lips, that act symbolizes the touching of our hearts. “Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?’ And He said, ‘What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” (Mark 7: 18-23).
So the love of God, displayed by the life and death of Christ (understood by Isaiah pre-incarnate), chosen by the sinner to be the sinner’s life and death, too, is what happened to Isaiah. And what happens to us, too. The Love of God, the selfless, self-sacrificing love of God displayed on the cross and chosen by you and me, is how iniquity is “taken away”. An act of our will, inspired by passionate, ardent love for others.
This is our true calling. This is what awaits our complete unity with Christ on His cross, making His death our own, making His love our own. God does not want dead sinners. He wants reformed sinners, fully alive and full of love for others. And this is holiness.
With brotherly love,
Jim