Angels in the Bible

The Seraphim

The burning ones who cry Holy, holy, holy

The seraphim appear in a single unforgettable scene, Isaiah's vision of the Lord high and lifted up, where they stand above the throne, cover their faces before God's holiness, and cry to one another without ceasing, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts. Their name means the burning ones. They are the great worshipers of Scripture, and their whole existence is praise. Yet even they veil their faces, and one of them carries the coal that cleanses the prophet's guilt, so that their worship ends not in fear but in a sinner made ready to be sent.

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.Isaiah 6:3 (KJV)

The one place we meet them

The seraphim appear by that name only once in the whole Bible, in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, and everything we say about them must be drawn from that single scene with care. In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above the throne stood the seraphims, and the vision that follows has shaped Christian worship ever since.

Because we have only this one passage, we should resist the urge to build elaborate doctrines of the seraphim's rank and number and nature. Isaiah does not tell us how many there were, whether they are the same as the cherubim, or how they fit into any hierarchy. He tells us what they did, and what they did was worship. That is the whole of the revelation, and it is enough.

That single fact, that the highest creatures we glimpse are consumed with worship, tells us more than any catalog of angelic ranks could. Heaven's greatest activity is not administration or warfare but adoration. If we ever imagine that praise is a lesser thing, a warm up to the real business of the spiritual life, the seraphim correct us. They stand nearest the throne, and they do nothing but glorify God, and it is enough to fill eternity. To learn from them is to learn that worship is not the margin of existence but its center.

Their posture before the holy God

Isaiah describes them with a strange and reverent precision: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. Four of their six wings are given to covering, and only two to flight. These are the highest beings in the vision, sinless and glorious, and yet in the presence of God they hide their faces. If the burning ones veil themselves before that holiness, we begin to grasp how far above us God is, and how presumptuous it is to treat him lightly.

There is a lesson here that runs against the grain of much modern religion. The nearer a creature is to God, the more it covers itself in awe. Familiarity is not the mark of the highest worship; reverence is. The seraphim are utterly free and utterly joyful, and their freedom expresses itself in adoration, not in casualness.

We should let this reshape our own approach to God. It is a great gift of the gospel that we may come boldly to the throne of grace, and we must never surrender that boldness. But boldness is not the same as flippancy. The seraphim show that nearness and reverence belong together, that the closer we are drawn, the deeper our wonder should grow. The one who covers his face is not kept at a distance; he is the one who stands nearest of all. True intimacy with God is not the loss of awe but its fullness.

Holy, holy, holy

Then comes the cry that has echoed through the church for three thousand years: And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. In Hebrew, to say a thing three times is to raise it to the highest degree. The seraphim do not merely say God is holy; they say it as it can be said of no one else, and they say it to one another, worship answering worship, so that heaven rings with it.

At the sound the posts of the door moved and the house was filled with smoke. Even the building trembles at their song. And notice what they praise: the whole earth is full of his glory. Their worship is not escape from the world but the truest sight of it, for they see the glory of God filling the very creation that we, dull eyed, walk through unaware. To worship rightly is to see rightly.

And their worship is antiphonal, one crying unto another. Even in heaven, praise is not solitary. The seraphim call and answer, and their song rises as a shared thing, worship kindling worship. There is a picture here of what the gathered church is meant to be, a company that stirs one another to adoration until the whole assembly is filled with the glory of God. We were made to sing the holiness of God not alone but together, echoing back to one another the wonder we have seen.

The coal that cleanses

The vision does not leave Isaiah where it found him. Confronted with such holiness, he cries, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips. The sight of God's holiness first undoes the prophet, as it must undo any honest soul. But then one of the seraphims flies to him with a live coal taken from the altar and touches his mouth, saying, thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Only then does Isaiah hear the Lord ask, Whom shall I send, and answer, Here am I; send me.

This is the shape of true encounter with God: glory that humbles, mercy that cleanses, and a life that is sent. The seraph does not comfort Isaiah by lowering the standard of holiness; it brings fire from the altar of atonement and applies it to him. The burning ones become ministers of grace, agents of the cleansing that makes a sinner fit to serve.

It is worth lingering on the order of the vision, for it is the order of all true religion. First comes the sight of God's holiness, which humbles. Then comes the word of pardon, which cleanses. Only then comes the call and the sending. We cannot reverse these steps. A person who has never trembled before the holiness of God has not yet understood the mercy that removes his guilt, and a person who has been cleansed but not sent has stopped short of the purpose of grace. Isaiah's Here am I, send me is not the beginning of the story but the fruit of it, the natural overflow of a soul that has seen God, confessed its sin, and received forgiveness. The seraphim preside over the whole of it, and every part points beyond them to the God who is holy, and merciful, and worth a life poured out in his service.

How the seraphim magnify Christ

The New Testament tells us something startling about this vision. The apostle John, writing of the unbelief Isaiah foretold, says that Isaiah saw Christ's glory and spoke of him. The Lord high and lifted up, before whom the seraphim veiled their faces, is the same Lord who would one day be lifted up on a cross. The holiness that undoes us and the mercy that cleanses us meet in Jesus, whose blood is the true altar fire that purges our guilt.

So the song of the seraphim is not finished. In the vision of Revelation the living creatures around the throne still cry Holy, holy, holy, and they are joined by a new song to the Lamb that was slain. The worship of heaven, begun by the burning ones, is completed in the praise of Christ, and every believer who has been cleansed by him is being taught, even now, to join that unending cry.

A sober word: Scripture is deliberately restrained about angels. It tells us enough to trust God and never enough to make angels the center of our attention. The Bible distinguishes what is clearly revealed from what later tradition has supposed, and it warns plainly against the worshipping of angels (Colossians 2:18) and against superstition. The angels themselves refuse worship and say, Worship God (Revelation 22:9). Everything true about them points beyond them to the Lord.

Related: The cherubim · What are angels? · Who is Jesus? · Angels in the Bible