Seminary isn’t as idyllic as the websites suggest. Beautiful days, fresh-faced students, and faculty with all the time in the world for you are a “best foot forward” encounter. I know—I work for a seminary. As the term progresses, the assignments mount up, and both staff and students look increasingly disheveled, it’s easy to feel like you’re beginning to sink. You question why you’re here, doubt you’ll ever complete all the necessary tasks, and wonder how you’ll face tomorrow.
Instead of throwing you a life buoy when you begin to sink, the gospel grace in Isaiah 6 can prevent you from reaching that point. Three truths here can help you swim.
God’s Greatness
One being looms large at the outset of Isaiah 6: God. The description of God in these verses is highly exalted.
He’s enthroned (v. 1a), and the throne of heaven is reserved for the One who’s truly sovereign. He’s high and lifted up (v. 1b). We join Isaiah in craning our necks to see up. It’s like standing at the bottom of a skyscraper and peering up to the top.
As the seminary term progresses, the assignments mount up, and both staff and students look increasingly disheveled, it’s easy to feel like you’re beginning to sink.
God’s train fills the temple (v. 1c). Alec Motyer helps us understand this strange phrase which “expresses the general truth that God is present in all his majesty at the center of his people’s life. The temple is no mere symbol of his indwelling presence; it is the reality of it.” God is present everywhere, but he’s present in a special way with his people.
God is worshiped by the heavenly creatures who are in perpetual motion and unending song (vv. 2–3). Serving and praising God never ends. And this is right because he’s holy and glorious across all the earth.
For the seminary student in danger of sinking, consider the privilege it is to study this great God. To be permitted to set aside time every week to delve into Scripture. To again and again—across days, weeks, months, and years—study God’s revelation of himself. What a privilege to know God, to see God, to behold God. Don’t waste this precious period of devoted study.
There was no way Isaiah could ever forget his vision of God. Our prayer must be to have a similarly unforgettable encounter with God through our studies.
Seminarian’s Sin
Our God is great, and Isaiah 6:1–4 only scratches the surface. But it’s not always that simple, because we’re sinful saints.
Isaiah’s a sinner too. He’s a saint—a prophet of God—but he’s also a sinner.
Isaiah declares himself lost and possessing unclean lips (v. 5). He’s not alone. He lives among a people who share the same sinful nature and tendencies. After seeing the greatness of God, seeing our sin is inevitable.
The call to make the most of our studies is idealistic because of our sin. Every seminarian needs to know he or she is a sinner. Your sin will manifest itself in many ways during your studies: laziness, misplaced priorities, jealousy of others, pride in success, distraction from communion with Christ, and more.
Seminarians need to know others are sinners. The faculty aren’t perfect. Fellow students aren’t perfect. Churches aren’t perfect. Many people you interact with across your studies will sin against you, both intentionally and unintentionally. We operate in a fallen world, and that world doesn’t stop at the seminary’s gates.
But even though we’re fallen, God can still use us because of his glorious grace.
Glorious Grace
The burning coal is taken from the altar (v. 6). It’s where God accepted sacrifices for sin. Substitution takes place there. Something dies on the altar instead of Isaiah.
The result of this substitution, symbolized by the touching of the coal to the lips, is twofold (v. 7). First, Isaiah has his guilt removed. This is expiation. As the psalmist puts it, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). God’s glorious gospel grace takes Isaiah’s sin away from him. It’s removed.
Second, sin is atoned for. This is propitiation. God’s wrath is satisfied, and Isaiah no longer faces judgment. God’s glorious grace doesn’t simply take sin away and sweep it under the carpet. God’s grace deals with sin. It’s grace, as Motyer reminds us, because “Isaiah contributes nothing; all is of God.” In Jesus Christ, it’s no different. Our sin is dealt with—removed and atoned for—by God’s grace.
In his novel Silence, Shūsaku Endō writes, “Christ did not die for the good and the beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and the beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and the corrupt.” But that’s the gospel. Jesus died for us in our miserable and corrupt sinful state. It’s central to who we are.
The gospel of grace must be the pot in which we plant our entire life. It’s the fertile soil in which we grow. It’s central to our lives together in seminary. We must marvel at God’s work in and through us that has led to the opportunity to study together. God’s goodness to us is only possible because of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Without this, we’re lost with our unclean lips.
Great Ideas Through Ordinary People
Ronald Reagan didn’t think highly of himself. He credited his rise through the political ranks in America to what he said, not who he was. Peggy Noonan quotes him as saying, “It was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things. . . . I never thought of myself as a great man, just a man committed to great ideas.”
We must marvel at God’s work in and through us that has led to the opportunity to study together.
As a result of beholding God in all his greatness, Isaiah offers himself for service (v. 8). If we don’t behold God as he reveals himself in Scripture, we’ll never serve him. So I encourage you as fellow sinful saints to resolve to behold your great God and his glorious grace throughout your time at seminary. Let’s agree with Reagan that we’re not great but we have great things to speak of. And as we remember and speak the gracious gospel, may the Lord save us from sinking in seminary.
The Gospel Coalition