Dear Amy,
What is the elephant in the room of Isaiah 6?
Isaiah’s vision of the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, is a glimpse into heaven itself and convicts him deeply of his own sinfulness. We should be similarly convicted. But immediately after his guilt is taken away and his sin atoned for, we find this.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
― Isaiah 6:8-10
What are we to make of this?
Jesus said a similar thing to his disciples.
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled …
― Matthew 13:10-14a
We must understand this in the context of the verbs that the Lord uses when commanding Isaiah: make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes. This is not a passive observation of failure to understand. It is the actual cause. To them it has not been given. The Lord himself confounds the understanding of the lost, lest they turn and be saved.
What are we to make of it? And how is it remotely fair?
Firstly, we must not brush this aside merely because it offends our sensibilities. May we never presume so to stand in judgment on the revealed word of God. He is sovereign, not us. So we must grapple, and we must grapple in the context of what we know to be true.
What then do we know to be true? Behold God’s own description of himself, his response to Moses’ request, please show me now your ways, that I may know you.
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
― Exodus 34:6-7
We had no right to expect that the infinitely powerful creator God of the universe, glorious in splendour and terrifying in holiness, would be quite so good and kind. But we must not overlook that the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). Nor must we overlook the judgment to the third and fourth generation, nor the steadfast love to the thousandth generation, nor the orders of magnitude difference between these.
Ultimately our response will be the same as Isaiah’s.
Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
― Isaiah 6:11
How long, O Lord? We have grappled with this before. But here we must notice something else, even after the land has become a desolate waste, and after the burning again of the tenth that remains⸺terebinth or oak, whose stump remains when it is felled: the holy seed is its stump (Isaiah 6:13)⸺hope remains! With God, all things are possible, and hope remains.
Even in the mystery of the confounding, Amy, know that all his ways are steadfast love and faithfulness, and that hope remains! 🙏