The Majesty of God

Today's Reading

Read Isaiah 6:1-8: "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim... And one called to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!' And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke."

Then read Revelation 4:8-11: "And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'"

Reflection

Isaiah's vision of God in the temple is one of the most overwhelming passages in all of Scripture. The year is approximately 740 BC. King Uzziah — one of Judah's most successful monarchs — has just died. The political landscape is uncertain. And in that moment of national anxiety, Isaiah is granted a vision of the true King.

What he sees dismantles every casual thought he has ever had about God. The Lord is seated on a throne, "high and lifted up." The train of His robe fills the entire temple. Seraphim — angelic beings of terrifying holiness — hover above, and they are doing something astonishing: they are covering their faces. Even angels cannot gaze directly at the glory of God. Their song — "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts" — is the only instance in Hebrew of a word being repeated three times for emphasis. God's holiness is superlative beyond superlative.

Isaiah's response is not inspiration. It is terror: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips." The encounter with God's majesty does not inflate his self-image. It shatters it. He sees himself as he truly is — and what he sees is inadequacy, impurity, unworthiness.

Packer diagnoses the modern church's most fundamental problem as a loss of this sense of majesty. We have made God approachable — which He is, through Christ — but we have also made Him small. "Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal," Packer writes, "but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are — weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic."

The God of Isaiah 6 is not pathetic. He is majestic beyond comprehension. And it is precisely this God — not a domesticated version of Him — who then says, "Whom shall I send?" Majesty and mission go together. A big God sends people on big errands.

Going Deeper

Revelation 4 shows us that what Isaiah saw is not a one-time event but an eternal reality. The living creatures around God's throne never cease their song: "Holy, holy, holy." The worship of heaven is not boredom but endless wonder — the majestic God is so infinitely rich that eternity is not long enough to exhaust the reasons for praise.

How big is your God today? If He has shrunk in your imagination, return to Isaiah 6 and let the vision recalibrate your soul.