Woe is Me!

And I said: “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!”

—Isaiah 6:5

Is that not the case in our day to day lives? We live lives of indifference even as we ascribe to Bible truths like the omnipresence of God, the omniscience of God, and even the sovereignty of God. These are very basic truths for any Christian and yet we take these truths for granted far too much as if they are not real in any way, shape or form.

We go through the motions of life, totally oblivious of the holiness of God. What an indictment it is that we are bettered by inanimate objects that had the good sense to tremble, to quake in fear, before the Holy.

It is not my desire to simply challenge you on these issues. Christian theology is not a pointless enterprise that seeks to think about things that are of no practical use in life. Theology rightly learned as taught by the Word of God, is life. What is your life grounded upon? What is your life saturated with? In the things you do? In the way you steward your life?

Or is it true right now in your own hearts that instead of God and the noble pursuit of knowing God, these can never compare to the importance of your self?

Dear beloved, unless you know who God truly is, you will never know who you really are. Unless you are brought to the place that you see God as God, for who and what He has revealed of Himself in His Word, in all His glorious magnificence, His transcendent holiness and His unbending righteousness; unless you are brought to that place, you will never understand who you are.

And if you do not understand who you are, you will never ever really seek a Savior.

This was the experience of Isaiah. In that same 6th chapter of his book, as righteous and as noble Isaiah was in all the nation of Israel, upon beholding the superlative, unspeakable holiness of God, for the first time in his life Isaiah learned who Isaiah was.

And he said: “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!” (Isaiah 6:5)

Upon beholding the LORD of glory, Isaiah didn’t simply apologize to God for his sin and himself being a sinful man. He pronounced a curse upon himself! He didn’t put the blame on the culture. He didn’t place the blame on his people who were worse than him that perhaps had influenced him to sin. No, he cast a woe upon his own person! As his first act as a prophet, Isaiah cast a curse upon himself! He declared that he was undone!

In modern translations that word “undone” has been replaced by the word “ruined”. I’m not too happy with the choice of words. To be undone speaks volumes more than ruination can ever express.

Nobody speaks of being undone these days. We live in a culture that shuns this idea of being undone. You go to a psychiatrist and you tell the psychiatrist all your problems and how you’re unraveling emotionally and mentally, instead of being told that you do not feel bad enough, they tell you that you’re fine, they do all they can to exalt the worth of self and the power of the individual.

Isn’t that the case with our society today? Even in our own personal lives? We say we feel bad, but we do not realize that we do not feel bad enough. We have the “privilege”, so to speak, of being shown the depravity of our souls by small degrees. Imagine the horror one would have to experience and endure when the full measure of the abomination of one’s soul is clearly revealed in all its horrible colors in one moment?

What Isaiah experienced is what is called a psychological disintegration, he literally fell apart upon seeing for the first time who God really was and realizing for the first time in Isaiah’s life who Isaiah really was. Isaiah’s eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

The Atonement

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.”

—Isaiah 6:6-7

Have you seen the LORD of hosts? In all of His glory? In His hatred against sin? In His unbending righteousness that will never compromise His justice? Do you see God’s wrath burning against sinners?

Do you see yourself as undone, utterly ruined before Him? Or is our eyes and our hearts still bound to this earth, our affections and purposes chained to the fleeting pleasures of this life? Deceiving ourselves of having great estimations of our own persons when in truth, apart from Christ, we are but moral rebels before Him?

Isaiah was groveling on the floor. Every nerve fiber in his body was trembling. He was looking for a place to hide, praying that somehow the earth would cover him or the roof of the temple would fall upon him—anything to get him out from under the holy gaze of God. But there was nowhere to hide. He was naked and alone before God. Unlike Adam, Isaiah had no Eve to comfort him, no fig leaves to conceal him. His was pure moral anguish, the kind that rips out the heart of a man and tears his soul to pieces. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Relentless guilt screamed from his every pore.

—R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, ch.2

This is the scream of one’s heart as one has seen the ineffable and indescribable holiness of God. Indifference is stripped away. No longer can we be casual when we encounter God. The choice of moral neutrality is not upon us anymore.

Instead we understand fully what it means when someone said:

Intense the agony–
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again;
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

To a man who has seen his desperate need of a Savior, to a man who has seen his desperate state before such a holy God, to such a man God sends forth His burning, white-hot coal to touch his lips. The greatest act of mercy, yet the severest act of mercy. This was more than cheap grace of being forgiven after a person “rededicates” his life to God just after shedding a few tears of apology. No! But in the depths of God’s love, He burned away every fiber of moral repugnancy from Isaiah. Every inch of sin in Isaiah’s being was cleansed away.

This is the work of salvation. Such that I hope you already are well acquainted of.

Isaiah was in deep, deep mourning for his sin, overcome with moral anguish, and God sends for his cleansing and healing.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

—Psalm 51:7

Same is such when God saves a man. He reveals to him His utter holiness, His unbending righteousness. He shows man his desperate state. He shows him how abominable he is, and how he has continually and perpetually violated God’s character and God’s law. He shows him how profane and obscene his entire person is before the eyes of the thrice Holy.

Then this same God cries out to the man:

Yet behold the gates of salvation are open before you! Though as horrendous and abominable your sinful state is; though you think yourself to be deserving a thousand woes more than Isaiah ever cast upon himself; though your sins are as red as scarlet, I can wash you whiter than snow.

Come to Me, I am a gracious God, I will never cast you out. Repent from your sin and by faith and faith alone believe in Jesus Christ my Son as Lord, your sovereign King, and as Savior, the perfect and sufficient Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, and you will be saved.

And as the seraphim flew to Isaiah, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched his mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7), so too will God in the Holy Spirit bring you from spiritual death to spiritual life, and show you that 2000 years ago, God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, took your guilt away, and has paid perfect atonement for your sin.

Coram Deo

As Isaiah was not simply challenged in his confrontation with the holy God of Scripture, I pray that you too wouldn’t be simply challenged. I pray that you and I would be changed totally and wholly, from the deepest recesses of all of who we are, in beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ the Lord.

These are absolutely glorious and amazing things that God has done for sinners. Let us repent and beg God for the grace that we wouldn’t anymore take for granted His holiness and the depths of His own grace that He Himself paid for on the Cross.

As we reflect on what we have heard and learned today concerning the holiness of God, answer these questions.

1. Have you ever had an experience in which you were overcome by God’s presence, in which you were “undone” by God’s presence?

2. Isaiah’s response to God’s revelation of His holiness was, “Woe is me.” What is your response?

3. In what ways do you need to be refined by the fire of God’s holiness?

4. What aspect of God’s holiness, as described in this chapter, causes you to worship Him more fully?

This study is based from R.C. Sproul’s book “The Holiness of God”, on chapter 2 “Holy, Holy, Holy”. To read more lessons from this book, click here. To purchase a copy of this paperback, click here.