LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Vision that Tears Down and Raises Up
Isaiah's vision as seen from the New Testament.
Pedro Alarcón
We are going to consider Isaiah's vision as a starting point for what we are going to share.
The first thing is the revelation of Christ
"In the year of the death of king Uzziah, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple". It is no coincidence that, upon having reported this wonderful experience, the name of a king appears. One might say: "well, that's so that we can locate this event in a timeline". Yes; but that's not the only reason. The king represents an earthly government, and spiritually he represents what is of flesh and blood, human reasoning; all that that is earthly.
That which this king represents receives a deadly blow. This was also our experience when Christ was revealed into our hearts. King Uzziah dies to give place to something that is spiritual. When king Uziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord. He saw Him in glory, seated on a high throne, lifted up, and his robes filled the temple. So Isaiah saw this throne; he saw God's glory there.
Brothers, the first step in a Christian experience is that our eyes are opened to receive revelation of the glory of God, of Christ glorified. And we have been participants of this initial vision; we have seen the glorious Christ crowned with honor, with glory and with power. He is the maximum authority, the owner of the universe, the reason behind all things, the center of God's will.
The first thing that must happen to us is to have this vision of Christ. Many other men of the Old Testament had a vision like that. Their walk with God began with a vision of God's glory.
Abraham was called, and obeyed by going out to where God told him. God was revealed to Abraham as El-Shaddai, Almighty God, He who provides all things. And He appears in the Word in the figure of a mother who has a son in her arms, nursing him. This is the protection that The Lord God, as our Father, offers us.
Moses also saw the glory of the Lord, first in the experience of the burning bush that was not consumed. God was revealed to him by name, saying to him: "I AM THAT I AM" - Jehovah or Yahweh. And that glorious name not only implies God the Father, but rather it binds up the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is a phrase that Hebrews repeatedly quotes: "Hear, Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah" (Deut. 6:4). God is named three times in this phrase - Jehovah, Elohim, Jehovah-. However, although it was recited by memory, it was not revealed to them that God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; they do not see God in these three blessed persons.
It is necessary to be torn down
"Then Jehovah opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Angel of Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed and prostrated himself on his face... Balaam the son of Beor saith, and the man of opened eye saith, He saith, who heareth the words of God, who seeth the vision of the Almighty, who falleth down, and who hath his eyes open:" (Num. 22:31, 24:3-4).
Because of our nature, because of our reasoning that opposes and questions heavenly things, it is necessary for us to fall down before the Lord so that our eyes may be opened and we may have a real vision of him. God produces this tearing down, and then He is revealed. When we are debilitated, when we have no strength in ourselves, when any human impetus is torn down and we think that there is no longer any hope, that's when the Lord is revealed into the heart.
The way of Balaam was that he loved the price of evil; he worried about how much he could gain if he fulfilled God's command. This was the obstacle that blinded his eyes. And when the men came looking for him, he was willing to negotiate with the gift that God had granted him.
After this experience, when Balaam speaks of himself, he says: "...the man of opened eye ... who seeth the vision of the Almighty, who falleth down, and who hath his eyes open". It is necessary to be broken down. Nobody in his natural state can draw near to God. To those who think that by having some religious knowledge they can draw near to God and do many things for God, we have to tell them that we must first be completely torn down so that God can put what is His in us. He does not put a new patch over an old garment, but rather he makes the garment new. So, the old has to disappear, so that the new may be introduced. Nothing of the old will have any part in the communion with God, and even less so in God's glory. Only what we now are in the Lord.
The vision is a miracle of God
In Mark 10:46, 51-52 we have another expression of spiritual vision. "And they come to Jericho, and as he was going out from Jericho, and his disciples and a large crowd, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, the blind man , sat by the wayside begging.... And Jesus answering says to him, What wilt thou that I shall do to thee? And the blind man said to him, Rabboni, that I may see. And Jesus said to him, Go, thy faith has healed thee. And he saw immediately, and followed him in the way".
Here we have a glorious way in which the Lord is revealed, and how he can give spiritual sight to one who is blind. This blind person represents all those who do not know the Lord, who have not yet seen Christ. There is a way for all of them to meet him - and it is by means of faith. He himself here affirms this with his own words: "Go, thy faith has healed thee".
"And he comes to Bethsaida; and they bring him a blind man, and beseech him that he might touch him. And taking hold of the hand of the blind man he led him forth out of the village, and having spit upon his eyes, he laid his hands upon him, and asked him if he beheld anything. And having looked up, he said, I behold men, for I see them , as trees, walking. Then he laid his hands again upon his eyes, and he saw distinctly, and was restored and saw all things clearly." (Mr. 8:22-25).
In this other case, the blind man who meets the Lord did not immediately receive complete vision; the vision that he obtained was gradual. This is how God deals with us: to some, he abruptly reveals many things; to others, it is more gradual because the Lord knows the condition of each one of us, and knows that for some, if too many things are revealed at once at once, they might possibly become arrogant and use this revelation incorrectly.
The last of the blind people who had the experience of recovering their sight is in John chapter 9. "And as he passed on, he saw a man blind from birth... And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore and washed, and came seeing... He answered therefore… One thing I know, that, being blind before , now I see" (Jn. 9:1, 7, 25).
In these three cases, the act by which our eyes are spiritually opened to see heavenly things is a miracle of God. If God does not open eyes, nobody can see; we remain in absolute darkness. That's why we praise God, because he has opened our eyes to see the One who is real: his Son Jesus Christ, the true God and eternal life. The light pierced the darkness, and today we see the Lord. How glorious this is!
The need to increase vision
Let's look at Ephesians 1:17-18: "...that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him being enlightened in the eyes of your heart, so that ye should know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints". Here we have another type of person, the believer who has already received the vision of God, to whom Christ has already been revealed.
Paul here writes to the church in Ephesus. They knew the Lord, and when Paul was writing the previous verses, where he spoke of all that had been given to them in Christ, we might think that they wouldn't need to see anything beyond that? Not so; they needed to.
So we also need our vision to increase; we need God himself, who revealed Himself to us, to clarify the vision for us. We might distort things, because we are still subject to the limitation of a carnal mind that is opposed to God's plans. We need to be renewed in our mind, so that we may know what the good and perfect will of God is, so that we may have a complete understanding of the vision of God.
The Lord wants us to walk governed by the vision that he has shown to us. And if he has shown us the vision of a glorious, holy, righteous and true Christ who lives by faith in our hearts, God also wants us to come down from the heavenly heights to our reality, and to live as the Lord Jesus Christ lived on the earth.
God wants the image of his Son to be engraved in us. That's why he gives us the vision; not so that we may be proud, not so that we discredit others. If we were doing that, we would reach a state like that of Laodicea, a church that started out seeing many things, but which lost the vision; a church that started boasting about what God had revealed to them.
The Lord keep us from this, and allow us to grow. And may he place a desire in our hearts to grow together, because we cannot achieve this alone. We have to consider all the brothers; we have to think about Christ's body, so that we may grow as one new man, who is Christ and the church, he being the head and we his body. We need one another, and no brother to be rejected. There is no difference of color, race, culture or social condition, because all of us are one in Christ Jesus.
God reveals himself so that we may serve the church
There are several passages in the Scriptures where Paul appears, reporting his testimony of what happened when his eyes were opened. In Acts 26, Paul, before king Agrippa, reports the experience of his meeting with the Lord. At first, the Lord had said to him that he him would be a witness before kings, governors, princes, before Jews and gentiles.
After this initial revelation, the Lord began revealing himself more deeply, in a gradual way. Paul would continually enter into deeper understanding of God's will, and in the measure that he did so, he was able to serve the churches. So all those who already have some spiritual vision should not think that they already see everything, and that they are self-sufficient. We should know, brothers, that this is something gradual.
God reveals himself to us because of the need of his people. The servants that God uses, like Paul, are not an end in themselves, but a gift; a gift for the church. Because God's interest is neither in the workers nor the elders - despite the fact that each one has such a valuable function. No, God's attention is centered on a beautiful woman, in the beloved whom God is preparing for his Son: God's attention is centered on the church - Christ and the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all things. God's attention is on Christ and the church; that the church, as the beloved of God, may take on the form that the Lord wants, in which the wrinkles in her garment are removed, and the stains are washed.
If we see - if the Lord by his mercy grants us spiritual vision - it is so that we may help others so that they may also see.
Isaiah's experience
Let's finish in the same place we begun: Isaiah. What effect did the vision of God's glory, which he saw, have? What is the effect when we truly see God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ? "And I said, Woe unto me! for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts" (Is. 6:5).
When God reveals himself to a man, he inevitably begins to know himself as he is. As the vision becomes clearer, we know more of how defective we are. We realize that it was not only a question of sinful acts that we committed against the Lord, but rather it is a problem of state, of a condition that the Lord wants to free us from.
That is related to what Paul experienced in Romans 7. He knew his condition, he saw what he was like, and ended up saying something similar to Isaiah's exclamation: "Woe unto me! for I am undone". Have we, in the time that we have walked with the Lord, lived this experience? Have we gone so far as to truly detest everything that is of the flesh and which constantly tries to manifest itself in us? Brothers, when the vision increases, we know come to know ourselves better, and so instead of becoming proud men who have seen great things, we are willing to be humbler.
In what way can it be seen that you have more vision than others? When there is increased maturity. Then Christ's meek and sweet character will increasingly appear, and less will be seen of the pride of the old man who we once were and naturally continue to be. The carnal things and areas of our lives will be seen less, and Christ will be more manifest.
When this process of knowing ourselves better begins, it is not an enjoyable time. It is painful, and often we have to be seen for what we really are, we have to be humbled in front of others, so that we may understand that God is holy, that only his life can help us, that only his life frees us, and that there is nothing good in us. Are we sure yet that this is so? God will not give us any more light, until we have experienced it.
But: what happens when we face this condition? The Lord does not leave us there. Because when we are torn down and it seems that we lose all hope of going on in life, look what happens: "And one of the seraphim flew unto me, and he had in his hand a glowing coal, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar and he made it touch my mouth, and said, Behold, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin" (Is. 6:6-7).
There is an answer to sins, not only for those obvious sins that we were committing earlier, but for those subtler sins: when we offend others, when our words are superficial etc. The Lord says that when a man does not offend with his lips, this is a perfect man. So, while we still cause offense to others, we are not yet perfect; we are on way to perfection and need more light from the Lord.
The first things that Isaiah was conscious of when he saw the glory of the Lord were his lips. "I am a man of unclean lips". Because the mouth is where our natural condition has its most evident expression; with words we often offend.
"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" (Is. 6:8). Only men who have been dealt with like this are able to hear the voice of the Lord to be commissioned, to serve in the God's house or in other contexts where the Lord wants.
There are many ways of serving in God's house, but it will only be possible after this has happened. This speaks to us about the washing that we already experienced by Jesus' blood, and also of the work of the Holy Spirit that produces discipline and purification in us, by the washing of the water from the Word that we constantly need.
And then, the man can answer: "Here I am, send me". And: what does the Lord do? The Lord does not refuse him, because he hopes to rely on many individuals who willingly place themselves at his disposal to serve him. After all these things, the Lord will use us.
Let's finally consider Romans 12:1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God". God has a plea for us. He does not demand it, nor force it of us. Today we can present ourselves before the Lord as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable.
What alternative do we have, brothers? Will the Master obtain a people who offer themselves voluntarily to him? Let's do it now, voluntarily, while it is still called today.