Thy Sin Purged

The first chapter of the Book of Mormon contains an account by Nephi of the heavenly vision his father Lehi had which was a call for him to preach to the people at Jerusalem. As I read it this morning, I realized there are some similarities with the vision Isaiah had when he was similarly called to preach. Nephi wrote of his father, “He was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God” (1 Nephi 1:8). Isaiah described what he saw in these words, “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims” (Isaiah 6:1). Both of them saw God on a throne surrounded by angelic beings, angels for Lehi and seraphim for Isaiah. Lehi learned of the wickedness of Jerusalem in a book that was given him and mourned because of their iniquities: “And he read, saying: Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations!” (1 Nephi 1:13) Isaiah also mourned because of the wickedness of the people he dwelt with: “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” (Isaiah 6:5). For Lehi, this appears to have been the call that sent him forth to preach to the people at Jerusalem: “After the Lord had shown so many marvelous things unto my father, Lehi, yea, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, behold he went forth among the people, and began to prophesy and to declare unto them concerning the things which he had both seen and heard” (1 Nephi 1:18). Similarly, Isaiah’s vision was his own call to preach to the people: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people” (Isaiah 6:8-9). Both prophets went forth to preach against the wickedness of the people of Jerusalem, only Isaiah was about 100 years before Lehi. It may be that one of the reasons that Nephi loved Isaiah so much was that he saw similarities between Isaiah and his own father.

               Perhaps the most important part of Isaiah’s vision was when he was symbolically cleansed. He wrote, “Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:6). So he received a burning coal from an angelic messenger that took away his sins, representing the power of the atonement of Christ to cleanse his iniquities. Lehi also similarly received something from an angelic messenger: “And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read. And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord.” After reading, Lehi exclaimed, “Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish!” (1 Nephi 1:10-12, 14) Though it doesn’t say in particular that Lehi was cleansed, surely that is what happened for that is what being filled with the Spirit of the Lord does. As the Lord said to Adam, “by the Spirit ye are justified” (Moses 6:60). And Lehi’s exclamation that the Lord is merciful to those who come unto Him was surely motivated by his own forgiveness he received in this experience. Perhaps then we should see a connection between Lehi’s book (representing the word of God) and Isaiah’s live coal (representing Christ’s cleaning power). We can think of the books the Lord has given us—the scriptures—as doing for us what the live coal did for Isaiah: helping to purify us from our sins. That gives us another reason to read and study the word of God, for through it we can receive the Spirit of the Lord which can purge us from our iniquity.