Isaiah – The Evangelical Prophet Who Saw Christ’s Glory
No Old Testament prophet more fully unveiled Jesus Christ than Isaiah. His oracles span the breadth of messianic hope—from virgin birth to suffering servant, from the Branch of Jesse to the King on Zion’s throne. Isaiah saw what others glimpsed; he described what others could only anticipate. The New Testament quotes Isaiah more than any other prophet because Isaiah wrote more about Christ than any other prophet. John explains why: “These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.”
The Prophet and His Vision
Isaiah received his call in the year King Uzziah died—approximately 740 BC. The earthly king had fallen; Isaiah saw the heavenly King. “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). Seraphim surrounded the throne, crying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”
The vision devastated Isaiah. “Woe is me! for I am undone; because 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, the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). Seeing God’s holiness exposed his own corruption. Before he could speak for God, he had to be cleansed.
A seraph took a coal from the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips: “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7). Cleansing came through fire, through sacrifice, through altar. Isaiah’s ministry was founded on forgiveness—not his worthiness but God’s grace.
Then came the commission: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah answered, “Here am I; send me.” The message he would carry was hard—judgment, hardening, destruction. Yet through that judgment, a remnant would be preserved, “a holy seed” from the felled stump. Isaiah would preach for over forty years, through multiple kings, to a largely unresponsive nation.
The Gospel According to Isaiah
Isaiah’s prophecies contain so much about Christ that some call his book “the Fifth Gospel.” The breadth is remarkable. Isaiah 7:14 announces the virgin birth: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Isaiah 9:6-7 describes the divine child: “For unto us a child is born… and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 11 portrays the Branch from Jesse’s roots, endowed with the Spirit sevenfold, reigning in perfect righteousness. Isaiah 40 announces the voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way of the LORD. Isaiah 42 introduces the Servant who will bring justice to the nations. Isaiah 50 describes the Servant’s obedient suffering, His face set like flint, His back given to smiters.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 constitutes Scripture’s most detailed prophecy of Christ’s atoning death. The Servant would be disfigured beyond recognition, despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. He would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The LORD would lay on Him the iniquity of us all. He would be cut off out of the land of the living, buried with the rich, yet see His seed and prolong His days. This was written seven centuries before Calvary.
Isaiah also prophesied the Servant’s mission to Gentiles—a light to nations, opening blind eyes, freeing prisoners from darkness. The scope extends beyond Israel to the ends of the earth. The Servant’s work is universal in reach, though particular in method. Through this one suffering figure, all peoples would receive blessing.
John’s Revelation of Isaiah’s Vision
The Gospel of John makes a stunning claim about Isaiah 6. After citing Isaiah’s prophecy about Israel’s hardening—”He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart”—John adds, “These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him” (John 12:41). Whose glory? In context, John refers to Jesus. Isaiah, in his throne-room vision, saw the glory of Christ.
This identification is profound. The LORD of hosts Isaiah saw, high and lifted up—that was the pre-incarnate Christ. The King whose train filled the temple—that was Jesus before Bethlehem. The One whose holiness devastated the prophet—that was the Word who would become flesh. Isaiah’s Old Testament theophany was a Christophany.
No wonder Isaiah wrote so extensively about Christ. He had seen Him. The vision of chapter 6 informed everything that followed. When Isaiah described the suffering Servant, he described what he had seen. When he announced the divine child, he announced the enthroned One he had beheld. Isaiah’s prophecies were not mere predictions but portraits drawn from personal encounter.
This understanding illuminates the entire book. Isaiah 6’s “Holy, holy, holy” becomes Trinitarian adoration. Isaiah’s cleansing by fire from the altar anticipates the cross’s cleansing. Isaiah’s willingness to be sent models the Son’s willingness to be sent into the world. The prophet’s experience previewed the greater reality coming.
Isaiah’s Message and Christ’s Ministry
Jesus explicitly claimed Isaiah’s words as His own. In Nazareth’s synagogue, He read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” Then He declared, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:18-21).
Matthew found Jesus’ healing ministry fulfilling Isaiah 53: “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:17). Jesus’ gentle approach to the weak fulfilled Isaiah 42: “A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench” (Matthew 12:18-21). Isaiah’s words became the interpretive framework for understanding Christ’s mission.
The Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah 53 when Philip met him. “Of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?” Philip began at that scripture and preached unto him Jesus (Acts 8:34-35). Isaiah leads to Christ. Reading Isaiah rightly means seeing Christ throughout.
Seeing What Isaiah Saw
Isaiah’s vision of Christ’s glory transformed his ministry. The prophet who saw the King could not help but speak of Him. Every oracle, every judgment, every promise connected to the One he had seen enthroned. Isaiah wrote Christ into every chapter because Christ was the center of everything Isaiah had experienced.
Do you see what Isaiah saw? Not with physical eyes but with faith’s perception—Christ in glory, seated on heaven’s throne, surrounded by worship, holy beyond description? Isaiah’s response was confession and cleansing. He recognized his unworthiness before such holiness, received the altar’s purging fire, and offered himself for service.
The Christ whom Isaiah saw now offers what Isaiah received: cleansing from sin’s defilement, commissioning for service, purpose for your days. The coal that touched Isaiah’s lips came from an altar where sacrifice burned—pointing to the final sacrifice of Christ Himself. What Isaiah received in type, you can receive in reality through faith in the One Isaiah prophesied.
Read Isaiah with new eyes. See Christ on every page. The virgin’s son, the divine child, the suffering Servant, the anointed preacher, the coming King—all are Jesus. Isaiah saw His glory and spoke of Him. Now that Christ has come, what Isaiah saw can become what you believe. See Christ’s glory. Receive Christ’s cleansing. Answer Christ’s call. Here am I; send me.