Isaiah 6 · a question people ask
John says Isaiah "saw his glory" (John 12:41). Whose glory?
Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up" (6:1), and "my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Armies!" (6:5), and the seraphim call, "The whole earth is full of his glory!" (6:3). John writes, "Jesus said these things, and he departed and hid himself from them" (John 12:36), and "But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they didn’t believe in him" (John 12:37). He gives words of Isaiah 53:1 (John 12:38), and then the words of 6:10, "for Isaiah said again" (John 12:39). Then he writes, "Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, and spoke of him" (John 12:41). In John's chapter the one they didn't believe in is Jesus (John 12:36-37), and John says Isaiah "spoke of him" (John 12:41). John says no more than that: he doesn't say how Isaiah saw, or which of Isaiah's words he means beyond the two he has just given. Christians read the Old Testament's sights of God in more than one way; the chapters on Exodus 24 and 33 set out those readings, and this chapter adds none.
The verses
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.”
“One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!””
“Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Armies!””
“They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness. He didn’t lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.”