Religion & Spirituality
This passage in Isaiah follows after the description of God on a throne with celestial seraphim by His side. Isaiah must be keenly aware of the holiness of God. With nowhere to go and nowhere to hide, Isaiah cries out in helplessness and distress, “Woe is me!” In a spiral of anguish and complete vulnerability, Isaiah can only declare his shortcomings, “I am a man of unclean lips”. Even as a prophet of God his inadequacies make him unfit to stand before God. At that humble moment, one of the seraphim moves to the altar of the temple. The altar is where sacrifices are made; the altar is where death covers sin. The angel takes coal from it and, touching Isaiah’s mouth, says the sweetest words our earthly hearts could long for, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”