We’re now headed into some wonderfully joyous sections of Isaiah. Try reading 43:1-7 in your personal worship, or 41:17-20, or 44:21-24… Or 51:9-16, or 52:7-10…
But there’s lots going on here. Like we said in last week’s notes, God gave Isaiah these chapters to `comfort` (40:1), strengthen (40:31), Israel, in the terrible experience of exile that lay ahead. So: how does he do that for people who are frankly feeling like `worms` (41:14)? And what will this show us about the themes, the visions, with which he wants to `comfort` us too when we feel we’re in `exile`? (Parts of these chapters are obviously specific to Israel’s situation exiled in Babylon, and God’s promise to bring them home. But lots have wider application, which is why they’re in our Bibles…)
There are four such things here at least; although, like we’ve said previously, we have to get used to how God has Isaiah swing back & forth between them, which is His way of underlining the themes, visions, we so much need to grasp…
`The way through a problem is think about God`, says Motyer of these chapters, `to recall [deliberately] who He is and what He has done`. And the first encouragement here is huge: our `Redeemer`, our loving God who promises to bring us out of darkness and exile, is the one who brilliantly formed each one of us, indeed He is no less than the sole, all-wise Creator of the universe. Feed your heart on this by reading 44:2,24, 45:12,18-19, 48:12-13, 51:12-16. And how striking it is that He says here (awesomely!), `I am the first, and I am the last; apart from me there is no God` (44:6), just when He is going to present to us someone “else”, the Servant, Jesus, who will turn out to be God! `The first and the last` is a title of the old testament God, but it’s also exactly what Jesus says of Himself in Revelation 1:17 and 2:8. Yet God says here in Isaiah that no one but Him is the first and last (indeed, obviously there can only be one `first and last`!); this only makes sense if Jesus is one with God, not `apart from` Him. And so it is; hallelujah! So the strengthening for us is: this Creator God is our God, our Father, our Saviour, our Redeemer!
Then – thank God – part of God’s utter sovereignty over the cosmos and over its history is His unerring ability both to predict the future, and to orchestrate its events to fulfil His purposes. (Loving purposes, purposes full of love for us!) In these chapters God repeatedly announces the coming of a warrior king who will overthrow Babylon and (as Cyrus did, 2 Chron 36:23) send Israel home; first in general terms (41:2,25-26), but then what’s remarkable is how God uses Isaiah to supply the very name of Cyrus (44:28-45:8 – `I summon you by name`, 45:3,4). This is an amazing thing; there’s only one other place in the old testament where someone’s name is prophesied centuries before. But of course this is an exceptional situation when God’s people have been carried away as slaves to Babylon, and now, at the right time, God will raise up His instrument to send them home. We can imagine how it must have felt for someone like Daniel, trapped in Babylon, when he first heard that Babylon’s Median enemies had a king called Cyrus.
But this is not just about God physically delivering Israel. Over and over again they, and we, are told that this is the proof of the Lord’s power to predict and, more, lovingly control (with love for them and for us!) the future; we can feed our hearts on 41:4,26-27, 43:9, 44:7-8, 45:20-21, 46:9-11, and 48:3-7. (Incidentally, how meaningless these many passages would be if, as liberals say, they only came into being during the exile. These whole sections, this entire challenge and proof of God from fulfilled prophecy, only make sense if they came down, as the text says repeatedly, from long before.) And old people in our churches may recall something similar happening again, 75 years ago: how in the Bible God had promised to bring His people back to their own land, despite their sins, `a second time` (Isa 11:11); and so, although Israel had not been a nation for nearly 2000 years, and the Jews were scattered throughout the world, from the 1820s at least Bible Christians were looking for this to take place. In 1948 it did, strengthening many people’s faith enormously. Israel’s exile (both times) wasn’t something that took God by surprise; just as here God had foreordained just who would be the liberator of that whole region (41:25-27).
So `Fear not!`, says Isaiah joyfully (44:8)! `Truly you who are a God who hides Himself` (45:15) – but in the end that is good news: in the darkness of exile, and in any darkness we face likewise, there is truly a hidden God at work; a God of enormous love for each of us, quietly arranging a glorious destiny… To each of us also the Lord says, `I will not forget you` (44:21)… (Thank you Lord!)
And then, like historic Israel, if we want God’s strength for the tough times, we need to hear Him urging us not to worship – that is, not to make central in our lives – anything else but Him. This theme appears over and over again in these chapters (sometimes quite amusingly, 44:14-17), because the idolatry issue was a matter of death or life to the Israelites of Isaiah’s own day; but it was also essential that in exile they didn’t start worshipping the apparently effective gods of their rulers, gods who in time (46:2) would prove powerless. But these warnings translate into our own situation: in a dark time we can start to centre our lives and our hopes for the future on other things but God – hoped-for success? money? reputation? power? possessions? getting married? – idols of this world – thinking they possess the ability to give us the life and joy we want. (Lord, do I? Please help me see?) Actually, if we think about it, idols in our lives often drain us of more strength than they give us, just like God says of the idols here (44:12). The true God carries us, sustains us (46:4); idols have to be carried, laboured for (46:1). And one day they will fail us – but in the meantime we’ll have lost touch with our loving God. `Those who trust in idols will be turned back in utter shame` (42:17).
But then there’s the fourth encouragement, the biggest one of all. Into Israel’s – and our – apparently meaningless, truthless confusion, God is going to send his `Servant` (41:28-42:1). And the Father has called the Servant to bring joy and justice, not just to Israel, but to the ends of the earth (the glorious passage 42:1-12 is really worth reading!) At first Isaiah applies the `Servant` title to ethnic Israel (41:8, 44:21), because this was what they had been called to do and be, a people `created for My glory` (43:7,21) through whom God would bless the nations (Gen 22:18 – and one day they will indeed fulfil that destiny, Rom 11:12-15). But Israel failed drastically in that – as any humans or religious system without God’s Spirit would do. (`Who is blind but my servant`, asks God, `and deaf like the messenger I send? You have seen many things but have paid no attention!` (42:19).)
It’s the lesson running through the old testament: we need to learn that only God can save! So from ch42 onwards, and 43:10, there emerge hints of an individual who will not just `restore the tribes of Israel` but also `bring My salvation to the ends of the earth` (49:5-6; cf 50:4-9, 52:13ff). And this, of course, is Jesus, embodying (49:1-7) all that Israel was called to be. It’s a theme that God used Matthew to unpack – Christ who recapitulated Israel’s calling out of Egypt (2:15) and their testing in the desert (ch4), Christ who fulfilled Isaiah 40 (3:3) and whose whole way of overcoming evil explicitly fulfilled the prophecies of the Servant (12:17).
There are so many great things here to feed us about the Servant that we’ll save them for next time. But in the meantime let’s absorb this fourth encouragement, and thankfully worship Him: Thank you Lord that in my own times of darkness and exile You are there: You my loving Creator; You who foresees and plans all things for my ultimate glorious good; You who became the Servant and went in despised agony to the cross to bring that goodness about; You my companion and You my brother, yet You the Lord of all things; You the first, and You the last……..!
