Isaiah 43:1-13 The Savior of Israel

 

This long section (44:1-44:5) is fundamentally a reaffirmation of Israel’s calling to be the Lord’s servant. The fact that the Lord has pointed to another and greater Servant does not mean that Israel’s own servant role has been done away with. Quite the opposite; it is confirmed here in the strongest possible terms. The main thrust of the passage can be summarized in six great statements of encouragement, one for each of its six parts. (We will review two in this study and the remaining four on the next study.)

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you” (vv. 1-7): In these verses you will find some of the tenderest words that God ever spoke to His children. They are addressed to people far from home, still in the midst of fires and deep waters, with many trials to face before they reach their final rest. There is no promise here of a quick fix or a trouble-free future, but God’s sustaining presence right through to the journey’s end, come what may. They are words which as believers can treasure, because even though we have the cross and the empty tomb behind us, we remain aliens and exiles in a hostile world. It is the faithfulness of the same God, who has promised never to leave them or forsake them, that will bring them home. Isaiah goes on to say that the God of creation and redemption is the same God that has created and formed them too, for His glory (vv. 1, 7). People who are loved like that have absolutely nothing to fear.

“You are My witnesses, declares the Lord” (vv. 8-13): Fear of course, turns us in upon ourselves. It chills our heart and silences our lips, and is the greatest possible hindrance to effective witness. So it is not until he has dealt with the fear that was crippling Israel that Isaiah can move on in verses 8-13 to tell them of their call to be the Lord’s witness. Isaiah uses again a favorite literary form, the courtroom drama. The fundamental point behind this figure is that what he asserts are not fables but truths tested and attested at law, verified conclusions based on firm evidence. At first sight it would seem that the issue to be contested is whether, like the Lord, the idol-gods can predict and fulfill their predictions. As we listen to the proceedings, however, this issue begins to recede and to be replaced by a question about which of all the claimant gods can act and which has the sovereign capacity to determine on a course of action and see it through.

Israel’s own blindness and deafness are swallowed up by a new assurance, and they leave the court with a firm tread and heads held high (v. 10b). The feeble people of God can and will be His witnesses! Truth on their side, and as they rise above their fears and proclaim it, that truth will grip them and transform them. Witness is not an onerous burden, but and unspeakable privilege. It is a means not only of projecting the truth about God into the world, but of strengthening God’s people themselves.

But here we strike a problem. How were those whom the enemy would herd off into exile to fulfill their calling to be witnesses? The deportees never did proclaim the truth about the Lord to the nations in the way that we normally think of witnessing today. They simply returned to Jerusalem when God opened the way, and lived there again as His people. But the fact is that this itself was proof of the Lord’s claim to be God, for it was the historical fulfillment of the Word He had spoken concerning them through the prophets. He had done what no other god could do, and established His people like a lamp on a lampstand or a city set on a hill, bearing witness by their very existence to the truth about Him.

Isaiah also foresaw the day when witnessing would assume a far more active form; heralds would be sent out far and wide to proclaim the Lord’s glory among the nations (66:19-20). This lay far beyond the horizon of Isaiah’s own experience, or that of those who were to live through the dark days following his death, but it was part of the vision he gave them. They were to see what happened to them as laying the foundation for something far greater that God would bring to pass in the future, and take courage from that.

Isaiah 43:1-13 Reflection Questions:

Write down as many encouraging words that speak to you in verses 1-7.

What is the correlation between verse 6 and 2 Cor. 6:17-18?

How are you witnessing each day? Do you see witnessing as a privilege?

What lessons do you learn from this study?

Hebrews 8:1-13 Christ’s Surpassing Priesthood and Covenant

 

The study of the Word of God, especially lofty passages in Revelation or Ezekiel or Hebrews, sometimes makes us feel like we are traveling on the wings of angels. Certainly John’s Revelation was given to expand our minds and quicken our heartbeats to the glories we will experience. As we continue to consider the surpassing glory of the Christ’s heavenly priesthood, let us imagine what it must have been like when the Lamb of God ascended to take His seat at the right hand of the Father as our eternal High Priest. This is what the writer of Hebrews wants us to see and take to heart at this point in the letter (vv. 1-2). The precise point here is that Christ’s priestly session in Heaven is transcendentally supreme and superior to the old earthly priesthood of Aaron.

Apart from its unspeakable glory, the supremacy of His priesthood is seen in that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. His posture points to His completed work. It is the physical expression of His triumphant cry from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Because in His person He brought finite man and infinite God together, He could then do what no one else could – He could bear all our sins in a single cosmic sacrifice.

Jesus’ footwashing service here on earth was not an aberration of the Incarnation. Serving is part of His divine being. Think of it! Jesus, our eternal Priest who sits at the Father’s right hand in ineffable glory enthroned on emerald atop a crystal sea amongst the adoration of millions, serves in our behalf! “God serves me”! It is a ludicrous expression but true. Take a deep breath, swallow your disbelief, and humbly believe it. Jesus’ prayers are placed in your service and mine. There are no lapses, no disaffections, no uneven devotion – only a loving constancy of intercession – serving, serving, serving… The writer goes on to further demonstrate the surpassing nature of Christ’s priesthood by pointing to its superior reality and substance (vv. 3-5).

Our author’s logic moves from Christ’s superior session, through His superior reality, and now to His superior covenant and ministry. He introduces the subject of the new covenant by pronouncing the old covenant flawed (vv. 6-8). The old covenant was flawed, not in what was spelled out in the Law’s requirements, for the Law was good, but in that it was “weakened by the flesh” of the people (Rom. 8:3), because “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s Law; indeed, it cannot” (Rom. 8:7-8). Because of this, it could not deliver on its wonderful promises. But the new covenant was founded on “better promises,” both because of their extent and because of the covenant’s ability to bring them to fulfillment in the lives of sinful humanity. This new covenant was to prove superior in every way, because it was founded on “better promises” (v. 6).

So what are these promises? First of all, the new covenant promises superior inwardness (v. 10a). The problem with the old covenant was, it was patently external. Its laws were written on stone. They provided no internal power to live them out. To be sure, there was (and is) great benefit in memorizing God’s Word, but the writing on the heart was beyond the power of unaided man. Something far more radical was needed – a spiritual heart operation.

Next, the new covenant promises a superior relationship (v. 10b). This is perfectly fulfilled in all who partake of the new covenant, in which believers actually become God’s possession and possess God. There is a tender, truer relationship of heart to heart, spirit to spirit – so that “I will be their God, and they shall be My people” is true in a deeper, more soul-satisfying way than those on the outside can imagine.

Superior inwardness and superior relationship are followed by a superior knowledge (v. 11). The old covenant was corporately entered into by a nation, including many who did not know God personally. But those who experience the new covenant come one by one as they are born into a relationship with God. Jesus defined eternal life by saying, “And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). God’s command “Know the Lord” is meant to allure men and women, boys and girls toward life. For those on the inside, personal knowledge will make them ache for more.

Finally, there is the promise of superior forgiveness in the new covenant (v. 12). This is precisely what the old covenant could not do. Under the old covenant, sins were never completely forgiven because they were never truly forgotten. They were covered, awaiting and pointing to the forgiveness through Christ’s death. Forgiveness is the most important of the qualities we have discussed, for it is the basis of the other three. Here forgiveness is tied to memory. God never forgets anything. In fact, He cannot forget unless He wills to do so. Any sin He remembers must be punished because He is holy. The new covenant brings total forgiveness! God does not just forget our sins. It is impossible for God to remember them!

Hebrews 8:1-13 Reflection Questions:

Do you know God personally? Do you ache for more of God?

Why is important that we forgive “those who sin against us”?

How are the above promises accomplished?

Isaiah 42:10-25 Praising the Lord, and Israel’s Failure to Listen and See

 

What would be more appropriate after a tremendous announcement of the previous passage than a great outburst of praise to God! Like the apostle Paul, Isaiah cannot contain himself when the glory of the gospel grips him. Isaiah calls on the whole world to join him in praising God (vv. 10-11), and why not, since He is the Creator of all and Lord of all? But the song of these verses has a higher theme than this, which emerges in verses 13-16 as the praise reaches its climax in two bold and dramatic pictures of the Lord as the Savor of His people. Redemption is accomplished with tremendous effort and at great cost. He is totally committed to the welfare of His people, however blind they may be and however dark their circumstances (v. 16). This new song anticipates the song of the saints in heaven.

It is the way of great preachers to shock their audiences at times in order to shake them out of their lethargy and gain their attention. Verses 18-25 are a “shocking” passage in that sense. The words “my servant” are now applied to the Lord’s people in the context of a stinging rebuke (v. 19). What a plunge this is from the anticipation of heaven in the previous song and praise. Israel has so given in to bitterness and unbelief that all they are capable of at present is complaint (40:27). They are deaf to God’s Word, and blind to His purposes (vv. 18-19). In this they are no better than their ancestors, whose stubborn rebelliousness led to the punishment of the exile (vv. 23-25). This blindness is doubly culpable since Israel had the benefit of special revelation: the Lord had made His Law great and glorious among them (v. 21).

Isaiah is quite unsparing of the feelings of his audience. Like a good pastor, he knows that they will never know the comfort of God and fulfill their mission to be His servant people until they have faced up to their sinfulness and repented of it. There is no self-righteousness here at all from Isaiah. Note the “we” in “against whom we have sinned” (v. 24). He has never forgotten that moment when he saw the exalted Lord and knew the he himself was unclean and undone as everyone else (6:5). He speaks as one, who has discovered the wonder of forgiveness himself and longs for others to know it too.

Of course, there is a paradox here. In a sense they have already been forgiven (40:2). But what Isaiah is trying to elicit from them is the response that is necessary is they are to appropriate that forgiveness and live in the good of it. So in case they are overwhelmed by his stern rebuke, he moves on quickly, (in our next study), to assure them again of God’s continued commitment to them.

Isaiah 42:10-25 Reflection Questions:

How often do you give praise to God; daily, hourly, weekly?

Have you ever felt like Isaiah; that you couldn’t contain yourself and had to praise God right then? Where does this praise come from?

What is the Scripture that is the “song of the saints” mentioned?

Do you long for others to know the gospel too? What are you doing about that?

Hebrews 7:26-28 The Superiority Of Melchizedek

 

So far we have seen that Christ is a superior priest because of God’s oath and because of the permanence of Christ’s priesthood. No matter how devoted and obedient the Aaronic priests were, they could not always meet the needs of all the people. But Jesus Christ perfectly meets all our needs. Being perfect, He is able to exercise a perfect ministry for His people. Because of their sins, some of the Old Testament priests not only were unable to serve the people, but actually abused them. This could never happen with Jesus Christ and His people.

Old Testament priests were “set apart” for their ministry, so in that sense they were “holy.” But they were not always holy in character. They were sinners like the people to whom they ministered. The word “harmless” (v. 26) means “blameless.” No Jewish priest could claim this distinction. “Undefiled” means “unstained.” Again only Jesus Christ can claim these characteristics. When He was ministering on earth, our Lord was a friend of publicans and sinners (Matt. 9:10; 11:19), but His contact with them did not defile His character or His conduct. There was contact without contamination. He was not isolated, He was separated. Today, He is “separate from sinners” because of His position (“made higher than the heavens”); but He is not separate from the people to whom He ministers. He is always available to us at His throne of grace.

Another proof of His sinlessness is the fact that our Lord never had to offer sacrifices for His own cleansing, as did the priests. On the annual Day of Atonement, the high priest first had to sacrifice for himself before he could sacrifice for the people (Lev. 16). There were also daily sacrifices offered as a part of the temple ritual; and if a priest had sinned, he had to bring a sacrifice for his own cleansing. But Jesus Christ offered just one sacrifice for our sins and settled the matter forever (9:23-28).

This is the kind of priest we need! We are prone to sin daily, even hourly; and we need to be able to turn to Him for spiritual help. As our High Priest, Jesus Christ gives us the grace and mercy that we need not to sin. But if we do sin, He is our Advocate at God’s throne (1 John 2:1-2). If we confess our sins to Him, He forgives us and restores us (1 John 1:9).

The application is obvious: why turn away from such an adequate High Priest? What more can you find in any other person? The men who served under the Law of Moses had human infirmities and weaknesses, and they often failed. Our heavenly High Priest has been “consecrated [perfectly] forevermore” (v. 28) and there is no spot or blemish in Him. Such a High Priest “suits us perfectly”!

Hebrews 7:26-28 Reflection Questions:

When you are out in the world, does your character and conduct model that of Christ’s? Do you stand out?

Are you availing yourself of Jesus’ gracious ministry? What is your need? Bring it to Him in prayer today!

Isaiah 42:1-9 The Lord’s Chosen Servant

 

The “servant of God” theme is one of the richest strands of Isaiah’s thought, and it lies right at the heart of his message as it moves to its climax in this second half of the book. The announcement at the beginning of the chapter, “Here is my servant…” suggests that a new and significant stage has now been reached in the development of this theme. Clearly, God Himself is the one who makes the announcement in verse 1. But who is the Servant He is referring to, and to whom is He speaking? The announcement is made to God’s people themselves. The Servant it refers to is not just a ideal they should aspire to but (as we shall see in due course) a real person who is God’s answer to their weakness and failure.

There are three parts to this first song. Verses 1-4 are addressed to Israel with the Servant as the subject. Verses 5-7 are addressed to the Servant Himself, with Israel overhearing what is said. Finally, in verses 8-9 Israel is once more addressed directly. The main topic of all three parts is the mission that the Servant is to carry out.

The key term in verses 1-4 is justice. The Servant will bring justice to the nations (v. 1); He will faithfully bring forth justice (v. 3), and He will establish justice on earth (v. 4). But we have to be careful here, for in the book of Isaiah the Hebrew word for justice is a rather bigger thing than we normally think of as justice. In 40:14 it has to do with the order God has given to the whole universe by His creative acts. In 40:27 it refers to the maintenance of Israel’s position in the world as a nation in a special relationship with God, and in 41:1 it has to do with the false claims of the nations and their gods being silenced, and the truth about the Lord’s total sovereignty over history being established. Viewed against this background, the mission of the Servant is a gigantic one. It is nothing less than to put God’s plans for His people into full effect, and to make the truth about the Lord, Israel’s God, known everywhere, especially the fact that He alone is the sovereign Creator and Lord of history.

The same breathtaking mission is explained in verses 5-7 in terms of the Servant being a covenant and a light (v. 6b). As Creator, God is the one who gives breath to all people (v. 5b). Moreover, the God who made the world is committed to its welfare; there is a “covenant” between God and the human race implicit in the act of creation itself. And the Servant, as a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, is to be the very embodiment of that covenant. It is through Him that God’s purposes for His world will be realized, by the opening of blind eyes, and freeing of captives, and the release of those who sit in darkness (v. 7). In short, the Servant will undo all the horrendous and degrading effects that sin has had on the human race and restore to people their true freedom and dignity as sons and daughters of God.

Finally, in verses 8-9, the mission of the Servant is spoken of in terms of former things and new things. The work of the Servant would open a new chapter in God’s relationship with His people and with the world, in which His glory would be displayed in a new way, far surpassing anything that had happened previously. In fact, it would lead eventually to new heavens and a new earth.

The real wonder of the Servant’s mission, however, lies not so much in its breathtaking scope as in the manner in which it will be accomplished. He will not be a military conqueror like Cyrus. The source of His strength will be the Spirit of God (v. 1). The instrument of His rule will be the Word of God (v. 4b). His manner will be gentile rather than overbearing (vv. 2, 3a), and there is more than a hint in the opening line in verse 4 that His mission will involve Him in personal suffering.

This contrast between Cyrus and the Servant brings us back at last to the people in view in this message. They were going to need two kinds of deliverance. They would need release from physical captivity, and God would use Cyrus to achieve that. But they would also need release from bitterness, blindness and spiritual darkness (v. 7). Their deepest need would be for someone who could heal their broken relationship with God. And here God points them to the One who will accomplish that for them. The message of comfort with which chapter 40 opened has its deepest roots here, in the work of the Servant. This first Servant Song is good news for all people, but it was good news for Israel first of all. God’s healing; saving work would bring with them, and then overflow to a waiting world.

Isaiah 42:1-9 Reflection Questions:

Where in the New Testament Gospels do verses 1-4 appear in reference to Christ?

Where do you see yourself in this study?

How are you reflecting God’s glory daily?