Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the 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.”
I learned about friction pens a few years ago. I had never heard of these things. However, they are really neat. Friction pens write like any other pen. However, if you rub the top of the pen against the ink, the ink disappears. You can erase the ink! What’s even cooler is that you can do the same thing with a flame. Write with the pen on paper and then hold a flame under the paper, far enough away it doesn’t burn the paper but close enough for the heat to hit the paper. Then watch as the ink disappears. It’s like it was never there. That pen is pretty cool.
God has something like that for your sin. It’s a sacrifice made by your Savior. In Isaiah 6, we hear about God’s call to Isaiah to enter the ministry. Isaiah was noticeably and understandably upset because when his life was face-to-face with God’s holiness he realized very quickly how imperfect and sinful he was. But God had a solution, a burning coal from the altar was applied to Isaiah and all his impurity was washed away. A sacrifice had been made for Isaiah to cleanse him of all his sin. He was now forgiven and righteous before God.
God has done the same thing for you through Jesus your Savior. Yes, your sin is great, but God’s forgiveness and Jesus’ sacrifice is greater. His sacrifice had burned away all the sin in your life and so it’s as if it never existed. God doesn’t see it because Jesus took care of it. Your sin is gone. Forgiven. That’s pretty cool.