Life and Times of David. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. VIMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
Life and Times of David. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. VI
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Theology
"In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon
_a throne_, _high_ and _lifted up_, and His train filled the temple."
This was a solemn and soul-subduing sight. It is ever a serious matter
for a sinner to find himself standing before the throne of God with
the unanswered claims of that throne bearing down upon his conscience.
Isaiah found it to be so. The light of the throne revealed to him his
true condition. And what was that light? It was the moral glory of
Christ, as we read in the Gospel of John, "These things said Esaias,
when he saw His glory, and spake of Him" (Chap. xii. 41). Christ is
the perfect standard by which every one must be measured. It matters
not what I may think of myself, nor yet what others may think about
me: the question is, What am I as viewed in the presence of Christ?
The law may tell me what I ought to be; conscience may tell me I am
not that; but it is only when the bright beams of Christ's moral
glory pour themselves around me that I am enabled to form a just
estimate of what I am. Then it is that the hidden chambers of my heart
are laid open, the secret springs of action are revealed, the real
condition is laid bare.
But perhaps my reader may ask, What do you mean by the moral glory of
Christ? I mean the light which shone forth from Him in all His ways
when He was down here in this dark world. It was this light that
detected _man_, that disclosed what he was, that brought to light
_all_ that was in him. It was impossible for any one to escape the
action of that light. It was a perfect blaze of divine purity, in view
of which the seraphim could only cry out, "Holy, holy, holy!"
Need we marvel then if when Isaiah saw himself in the light of that
glory he cried out, "Woe is me! for I am undone"? Nay; this was the
proper utterance of one whose heart had been penetrated to its very
centre by a light which makes all things perfectly manifest.
We have no reason to suppose that Isaiah was in any respect worse than
his neighbors. We are not told that the catalogue of his sins was
heavier or darker than that of thousands around him. He may have been
to all human appearance just like others. But ah! my reader, only
remember, I pray you, where the prophet stood when he exclaimed, "Woe
is me!" It was not at the foot of the burning mount when "the
ministration of death and condemnation" was given forth amid
thunderings and lightnings, blackness, darkness and tempest. It was
not there he stood, though even there a Moses had to say, "I
exceedingly fear and quake"; but it was in the presence of the glory
of Christ, the Lord God of Israel, that our prophet stood when he saw
himself to be "unclean" and "undone." Such was his condition when seen
in the light which reveals men and things just as they are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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