“Calvary instead of Sinai”
Isaiah 64:1-9
11/30/08
The Lord’s people ought to be careful what
they ask for. Nobody wants a Mt. Sinai God around. When the
people of Israel saw the smoke, the blazing fire and the darkness, when
they felt the rumblings and heard the sound of a trumpet and the voice
of God, they were terrified and asked that God not speak to them
anymore Himself, but only through Moses. So terrible was the
sight that even Moses himself said, “I am full of fear and
trembling.” And yet this is the kind of God Isaiah calls
for in today’s O.T. text when he prays, “Oh that you would
rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your
presence - as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to
boil - to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the
nations might tremble at your presence!” With such a prayer
Isaiah calls on God to come down as He did at Mt. Sinai with all the
terrifying signs that accompanied Him at that time - only this time,
instead of terrifying His own people, He should terrify His enemies.
And yet, why should anyone be excluded from the
terror of the God of Sinai? As Isaiah here confesses,
“Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been
a long time, and shall we be saved? We have all become like one
who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted
garment...” As a result God had hidden His face from His
people and had made them melt in the hand of their iniquities.
Why should Isaiah, then, want God to come down as He did at
Sinai? If God were to show up like that, no one would be
spared. We’d all fall victim to the fire of His wrath, for
we are His enemies. As the Apostle Paul writes, “All have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And David
writes, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no
one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have
become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” That
includes David, that includes you and me, that includes Isaiah.
How, then, can Isaiah call on God in such a
way? Knowing that he is a sinner deserving of God’s wrath
and punishment as he himself confesses, why does he request that God
come down in judgment? He prays that the Lord not be so terribly
angry and that He remember not iniquity forever. But how is God
to do this, if He comes the way in which Isaiah prays He come?
Upon his call to be a prophet to the people of
Israel, Isaiah was given his own personal Sinai experience. He
saw the Lord “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the
throne of His robe filled the temple.” The foundations of
the threshold shook and the temple was filled with smoke as the
seraphim above Him called to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is
the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”
This was no gospel experience for Isaiah. He didn’t bask in
the glory and join in the song. He wasn’t filled with peace
and joy. Instead, his response was “Woe is me! For I
am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of
hosts!” If you and I were given such a Sinai experience,
we’d express the same thing: “Woe to us!
We’re doomed on account of our sins!” Isaiah mentions
only the sin of having unclean lips, probably because this was the
first sin that came to his mind upon seeing the Lord in His glory and
hearing His holiness being extolled by the angels. You know which
particular sins of yours would suddenly come to mind were you to come
face to face with the God of Sinai. It seems that those sins that
we think are most hidden from God are the sins that He likes to expose
to His judgment first, proving that He knows all the rest of them as
well.
But then what happened to Isaiah as he stood in all
his sin face to face with this God of wrath? Instead of the woe
he deserved, he got forgiveness. Isaiah writes, “Then one
of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he
had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and
said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken
away, and your sin atoned for.’” Well, what is the
meaning of this act on the part of the angel? How is it that
coals taken from the altar and applied to Isaiah’s lips could
have taken away his guilt and atoned for his sin? Consider what
the altar was used for - sacrifice. Under the O.T. Law the altar
was the place where animals were offered up to God. Their bodies
were burned and their blood sprinkled both upon people and the holy
things in order to purify them and make atonement for sins. The
coals from the altar, then, were the burnt remains of the bodies of the
animals which had been offered upon it. In taking a coal from the
altar, the angel was taking a remnant of the animal sacrifice to apply
to Isaiah’s mouth. This action took away Isaiah’s
sin. Isaiah’s mouth, which was formerly dirty, was now
clean. Because the animal had undergone the fire of God’s
wrath in Isaiah’s place, Isaiah escaped that fire himself.
The animal suffered the punishment that Isaiah deserved, so that Isaiah
wouldn’t have to. On account of that sacrifice, the Lord
did put aside His terrible anger and did not remember Isaiah’s
iniquity.
The author of the book of Hebrews writes, however,
that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take
away sins.” They never took away sins once for all; they
had to constantly be offered. In this way, they were continual
reminders of sin. A more perfect sacrifice was needed, a once for
all sacrifice to which all those animal sacrifices pointed. That
sacrifice was that of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice on
the cross took away the sin of the world once and for all. When
Isaiah called upon God to come down as He did at Mt. Sinai, his prayer
was answered at Mt. Calvary. There Jesus experienced Sinai for us
on the cross. There God rent the heavens and came down.
There He poured out His judgment upon His Son instead of you.
There the mountains quaked at His presence. There God hid His
face from His Son as the fire of His wrath consumed Jesus in your
place. Jesus became the adversary and enemy of God that you and I
are, suffering the anger of God for us, so that God might not hide His
face from us, but look upon us with favor, forgive our sins, and take
away our guilt. It was at Sinai that God made His Name known as
Law-giver and Judge. It was at Calvary that God made His Name
known as Savior. Isaiah could pray for God to come down as He did
at Sinai only if He came down like that upon Jesus at Mt.
Calvary. To come down on us would mean our certain death, but to
come down on Jesus means our sure salvation.
It’s because Sinai was poured out on Jesus at
Calvary that we have been spared the fire of God’s wrath.
It’s because the sacrifice of Jesus is now applied to you, that
you can stand before God holy, righteous, and blameless, free from sin,
free from guilt. Just as the coal from the altar when applied to
Isaiah’s mouth took away his guilt and atoned for his sins, so
the body and blood of Jesus applied to your mouth, your body, and your
soul cleanses you from all sin. In your Baptism you were clothed
with Christ and with His blood you were sprinkled. In the
Lord’s Supper His body and blood are put into your mouths to eat
and to drink. And in Holy Absolution you, like Isaiah, hear God
speaking His words of forgiveness to you. You, who were formerly
adversaries of God, have been reconciled to God through the blood of
Jesus. As for those who reject this reconciliation and insist on
remaining enemies of God, they will have to experience Sinai for
themselves on the Last Day. The prayer of God’s people now
is that no one have to suffer Sinai, but that they repent and trust in
Jesus, who saves us from Sinai. But we also pray with Isaiah that
God would once more rend the heavens and come down, in order to judge
the unrepentant and to save the righteous. We pray for the day
when, as Peter writes, “the heavens will pass away with a roar,
and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth
and the works that are done on it will be exposed... the heavens
will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as
they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new
heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
God does not want us, His creatures, to be
destroyed. He does not want us to be victims of Mt. Sinai, but
heirs of Mt. Calvary. As Isaiah says, “But now, O LORD, you
are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the
work of your hand.” We are precious to the Lord who made us
in His image. He wants all to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth in Jesus. He is not willing that anyone
should perish, but that all should repent. And yet, we have all
been marred by sin. The clay with which we are formed is
corrupt. As a result, we are full of cracks and other
flaws. We must confess with Isaiah that we are a people of
unclean lips, unclean thoughts, unclean words, and unclean deeds.
God would be justified if He threw us out and started over. But
instead He has redeemed us and removed our blemishes with the sacrifice
of Jesus, applied to us at our Baptism. Now we are no longer
unclean, but clean. Now we no longer stand before God in polluted
garments, but in a garment of righteousness, the pure white robe of
Christ. God is no longer angry with you and He remembers your
iniquity no more. Sinai has been extinguished by Calvary.
For this Jesus came in the flesh the first time, so that when He comes
again you might be saved and enter into eternal life. Amen.