Tongs

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live cooal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from th altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7)

It did not surprise me that God chose to remove Isaiah’s sin with a burning coal, but it did surprise me that the angel used tongs to do it. In other encounters with fire in the scripture, angels move about both in and out of fire. In the Exodus the burning bush of Moses’ encounter is inhabited by an angel: The the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. (Exodus 3:2)

When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were joined in the furnace of intense fore by an angel of God, not one of them was so much as scorched; and Nanoah, Samson’s father, , after making an offering to the Lord : “as the flames blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. (Judges 13:20)

The humble tool of a pair of tongs seemed incongruous in the hand of a supernatural being and servant of God Himself, until we remember the humble person sent by God to perform the task performed by the tongs. It is Jesus alone who removes our guilt, and Jesus alone who atones for our sins. The angel in Isaiah’s vision could no more perform that feat than you or I could. The tongs were essential to Isaiah’s experience, for they delivered the burning coal from the altar of the holy of holies, the very place where, centuries later, an angel would meet Zechariah to tell him he would have a son named John who would prepare the way for the Messiah. (Luke 1:1-14)

The tongs represent that Messiah, for he is the one who will in fact atone for humanity’s sin with his own life. He will bring the salvation that is hungered for across all lands and people, and open the door for the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in and with human beings. The tongs used on Isaiah are a tiny, almost obscure reminder that the presence of God on earth was yet to be fulfilled and that the day did come when flames rested on the men and women meeting at Pentecost in a room in Jerusalem when God anointed the disciples following Jesus’ resurrection.

No longer would tongs be needed, for Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection achieved God’s plan for us: Behold! I am making all things new. (Revelation 21;5)

Love in Him,

Prue