And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I; send me.
Isaiah has just seen the Lord on His throne, called himself ruined, and had his lips touched by a coal from the altar. Only then does he hear God ask for a messenger — so why does a ruined man step forward at once?
Cleansed Before Called
The order of the chapter matters. Isaiah does not volunteer right away. He waits until God has dealt with him.
The prophet has the fullest sense of this, both for himself and the state of the people. He is in no hurry to go. He feels what he is, and what the people are, in the presence of a God who is holy and clearly known... Then the coal from the altar cleanses his lips. The Lord asks, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" and Isaiah offers himself: "Here I am! Send me." This is very beautiful. We tend to rush out as soon as we are stirred — and I admit the gospel makes a difference here — then we shrink back when the world is careless or hostile. Here he does not move until the Lord has fitted him and called him. Then he is His ready servant.
The cleansing comes first. So the offer that follows cannot be a way of earning anything.
Isaiah had nothing to do for salvation, but he had plenty to do for his Saviour. He had nothing to do to get his sins purged, but plenty to do for the One who had purged them... This puts works in their proper place. The order is absolutely perfect. No one can do good works until he has experienced, in some degree, the action of the "throne" and the "altar."
The God Who Says "Us"
God speaks of Himself in the singular and the plural in one breath. One writer points to two places where the New Testament quotes this same chapter.
John 12:41 speaks of the blind rejection of Jesus. There we learn that Isaiah "saw His glory and spoke of Him." In Acts 28:26 Paul quotes this chapter and says the Holy Spirit was right in speaking those words. So here is one of those hints of the Trinity in the Old Testament. In verse 3 we have "Holy" repeated, not twice nor four times but three... And in verse 8, "the voice of the Lord" is the voice the New Testament calls the voice of the Holy Spirit. God is One and yet Three: Three and yet One. So He asks, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"
Another writer marks the switch line by line.
"Holy, holy, holy," that is Trinity. "Whom shall I send?" there is Unity. "Who will go for us?" there is Trinity.
Where the Stress Falls
Isaiah's reply is often quoted as an offer of himself. Commentators note that the weight of the words lies elsewhere.
Mr. Darby points out that the emphasis is on the "send," not on the "me."
That distinction has a plain practical edge, and it leaves no one with nothing to do.
Oh that many of the Lord's people would as earnestly cry, "Send me"! It is no use going unless we are sent. We will fail if we try to do what God has not fitted us for. But we can all do something. ALL CAN PRAY.
Isaiah and Moses
Isaiah is not the only man God called with a question. His answer and Moses' answer are worth setting side by side.
As often pointed out, the unvarying order is: first, conviction; second, cleansing; third, commission in the service of God. Isaiah said, "Here I am! Send me." When God called Moses, the answer He got was, in effect, "Here I am; send somebody else," as we see in Exodus 4:13. God overruled that answer and sent Moses anyway. Let us all — especially the young Christian — give Isaiah's response and not that of Moses.
Gratitude, Not Duty
The reason Isaiah answers at all is traced back to what he had just received.
When we know peace with God, through the amazing sacrifice of His beloved Son, it moves us to love and serve Him. We owe Him so much. The prophet had the same spirit. Once he was sure of pardon and peace with God, he wanted to give himself to the Lord's service.
Summary
- Conviction — Isaiah sees the Lord first and calls himself ruined. No one is fit to volunteer until the throne has shown him what he is.
- Cleansing — the coal from the altar deals with his sin. His service answers forgiveness; it never pays for it.
- Commission — he does not stir until God fits him and calls him; the emphasis in his answer falls on "send," not on "me."
- The Sender — the "us" of the question, read alongside John 12 and Acts 28, shows one God who is also three.
- The Choice — Moses asked God to send someone else. Isaiah's answer is the one to copy — and prayer is a part everyone can take.