In my October article I claimed that biblical revelation was objective and not ecstatic, and suggested that differences on this matter lie behind differences in the church. By "ecstatic," I meant an experience of God which finds the real God behind or beyond any objective element in God. In this essay I will examine one instance of God's objectivity, Isaiah 6:1-11. The commentary by Otto Kaiser, The Old Testament Library Series, help guide this study.
Isaiah 6:1-11 narrates a theophany, a manifestation of God. It is also a literary unit, the revelation of only one God.
In this theophany God manifested himself to Isaiah through the empirical realities of the temple. These realities were: the temple itself, smoke from the altar, the temple's foundations, pivots of the doors, and two titles, "Lord" and "Sebaoth" and the proper name "Yahweh," normally spoken by the temple priest to invoke the presence of Yahweh. Also, Yahweh appeared at a specific time, the year King Uzziah died.
In this event, God spoke to Isaiah. Just as the realities mediating God's presence were objective, specific time, place, sights, sounds, God's Word to him was specific, objective, and personal. The Word was not a metaphor, an analogy, ineffable, nor ecstatic. God said, "Whom shall I send?" and Isaiah responded, "Here am I! Send me." Isaiah knew what God meant, he was to deliver a message, and he responded accordingly.
Theologically, the Word that Isaiah heard, the Word given to Moses and the prophets, is the Word that became flesh in Jesus Christ. This is the Son, the second person of the Trinity. God the Word is objective because God speaks to us by becoming objective, incarnate, local, bounded, here and not there, saying this and not that. Without incarnation, without objectivity, there is no Christ.
Furthermore, as seen in Isaiah 6, the Word used the same empirical realities, smoke, curtain, liturgical words, to point to a holy transcendent reality that lies beyond human comprehension. The smoke which hid the Holy One, his being high and lifted up, the shaking of the foundations, the chanting of the seraphim, their covered eyes, the train of his garment, the divine name Yahweh Sebaoth, while expressing God's objective personal presence, also denoted God in the high, awesome, and hidden sense. This second aspect of God, God in his holy transcendent self, is God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
Finally, as the seraphim chanted, "Holy, Holy, Holy is Yahweh Sebaoth, his glory is the fullness of the whole earth," Isaiah saw that all creation would be transformed by God as revealed in the Word. Quoting Kaiser, "In heaven there is no mention of how the world is, but the world is addressed in terms of its consummation." (p. 127) The consummation of the world is the work of God the Spirit, who, according to the Creed, brings the "life of the world to come."
Although Isaiah glimpsed the transcendent God, he did not enter an ecstatic abyss beyond the objective Word. God spoke, he answered, God spoke again, and in this dialogue both God and Isaiah were fully personal and only personal as they remained objective each to the other.
As far as I know, all biblical theophanies possess a trinitarian one in three structure: objective, transcendent, future transformation, Son, Father, Spirit, each as God yet one God, and none go behind or beyond the objective element, the specific concrete Word of God. I know of no exceptions.
A modern version of the ecstatic view in which our "imagined substantive sense of self dissolves," so that it is no longer "a subject object relationship with God, but a subject subject relationship," and in which we realize our "eternal identity" with God (p. 5), can be found in Tilden Edward's Living in the Presence. Robert Jenson's, The Triune Identity, is a brilliant presentation of the objective view. (Plenteous Harvest, December, 1995)
Comments
This, to my mind, is a very important little essay. It tells us something about language for God. One aspect of an encounter with God is literal. God spoke, Isaiah understood, replied, and God spoke again. Further, not just the dialogue was literal, but there was a literal aspect to God's appearing. He appeared at a particular time and place, in the temple during the year that King Uzziah died. Further, all the empirical realities of that moment, temple, smoke, doorposts and more, when given in relation to God, are quite literal. It is perfectly reasonable to say, if one were Isaiah, "I saw God in the temple and I heard him speak to me as the priest proclaimed his holy name." I don't see much difference between that statement and my saying, "I saw my wife in the dining room and heard her speak to me." In that sense, the language for God is literal language, about as literal as the language of everyday life.
Literal language, however, is not all there is to the matter. Literal language for God is but one aspect of a complex reality, for God is three in one. The literal aspect corresponds to the Son, God the Word who became incarnate, visible, tactile, and audible. At the same time, however, these same literal aspects have a symbolic reference. They point beyond themselves, denoting "God in the high, awesome, and hidden sense. This second aspect of God, God in his holy transcendent self, is God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." Here the language is not literal. It is symbolic, poetical, allusive, giving a glimpse of the one who is "high and lifted up," whose "train fills the temple." In this respect, in reference to God the Father, the almighty, language for God is symbolic.
Finally, the same passage denotes a day when the whole earth will be filled with the glory of God. Here the language combines both literal and symbolic elements. It is literal because the glory of God will be upon earth, just as Isaiah saw God in the temple. It is symbolic because the glory of God is not something that can be reduced to literal language. The words "Holy, Holy, Holy," denote this. This third aspect of language, the unity of literal and symbolic elements corresponds to the Spirit who proceeds from the Father (symbolic) and the Son (literal).
As just sketched, a sound doctrine of Christian religious language will be trinitarian and christological. Virtually none of the discussions of religious language I have ever seen reflect the three in one character of a God who speaks. Virtually all authors assume that language for God is literal as in fundamentalism, or metaphorical and symbolic as in theological liberalism.
Finally, it must be said that the Sanctus belongs to worship. In that moment it is possible to see and hear God. This event of God speaking and showing his face can be described in its literal aspects, and I have done it elsewhere. But the intensity of the joy, the waves of light and love, the glory of his face, is utterly overwhelming. In that moment one sits at table with God, face to face with God, with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven. There one sees God, hears the song of the seraphim sung by the heavenly chorus, tastes and touches the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Then, as our unutterable joy bursts forth in song, God wipes away every tear from our eyes and there is no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
December, 1995
