Community Bible Study -- Isaiah

Text of Presentation, Lesson 5, Isa 8:19-9:7

Click Here for Lesson 5 Photos -- Click Here to return to Isaiah Home Page

Signs of God's Presence
"To Us A Child is Born"

Last week we talked about Isaiah's glorious call to the office of prophet . . . and about the Immanuel prophesy:

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel {which means God with us} (7:14).

The Immanuel prophesy was given by Isaiah to Ahaz, an unbelieving King of Judah, about 735 BC. Since a virgin birth is a physiological impossibility, Christians believe it foretells the Messiah . . . demonstrating God's omnipotence. In fact, the story of Jesus' virgin birth was one of the most critical proofs to the Jews that he was the Messiah - and for this reason, Jesus' enemies spread the rumor he was illegitimate (cf Jn 8:41).

Last week we also discussed the birth of Isaiah's second son, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, which occurred soon after Isaiah's meeting with Ahaz. This child is not born of a virgin . . . but he clearly fulfills another part of the Immanuel prophesy, because he was younger than 12 when Samaria was overrun by Assyria in 722/1 BC.

Most of you probably learned more about Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz last week than you ever wanted to know! But I mentioned him because unbelieving scholars ignore parts of the Immanuel prophesy unique to the Messiah, and argue this prophesy refers only to Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. To be "knowledgeable" about Isaiah, we need to know this.

On the other hand, evangelical scholars believe the Immanuel prophesy is actually two prophesies of two different children, superimposed in what I call "prophetic imprecision." The prophets knew only what was revealed to them by a God who stands outside of time, and Jesus says God doesn't to reveal His timetable (Matt 24:42).

According to this interpretation, the first child is a sign of Israel's destruction: a negative prophesy, fulfilled by is Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz --> quick to the plunder. The second child is a sign of restoration and reconciliation: a positive prophesy of Immanuel --> God with us --> Messiah, fulfilled by Jesus --> Yeshua --> The LORD is Salvation.

The first fulfillment occurs soon to validate the prophesy. It happens because Israel and Judah - like Ahaz - have rejected God; the Assyrian army will be "quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil" as they carry out God's punishment of the Jews. This conquest unfolds throughout the book of Isaiah, and is foreshadowed here in chapter 8:

The Lord is about to bring . . . the mighty floodwaters of the (Euphrates) River - the king of Assyria. . . . It will overflow . . . all its banks and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it, passing through it and reaching up to the neck. Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel (8:7-8).

What vivid imagery to describe a military conquest! The Assyrian army is as irresistible as floodwaters! But notice it ties back to the Immanuel prophesy - convincing us even more that Isaiah's reference to Immanuel must be the Messiah. Isaiah is saying rejection of God by the Jews will soon bring the Assyrians to plunder the land that formed the kingdom of David . . . a land which now belongs to the son of David, the Messiah, Immanuel, "God-with-us." Yet even if Assyria conquers the land of Immanuel, that doesn't change its ownership: it's still Immanuel's land. The Assyrians - and later the Babylonians and Greeks and Romans - are only briefly in charge of the Messiah's kingdom for God's purpose! Today Immanuel's land is again under Jewish control . . . and soon, we pray, the Messiah will come again to reclaim it!

Chapter 8 is filled with such imagery; listen to what Isaiah says about God in 8:14:

(The LORD Almighty) will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.

God is either a sanctuary or a stumbling stone we fall over. God does not change. He does not love one and hate another. He loves everyone and does not want anyone to be lost (Matt. 18: 14; 2 Peter 3:9). But it all depends on how we experience God. If we focus on Him and on living our lives in the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing the world can throw at us need disturb our peace in any final way.

The stories of Joseph and Moses and David and other patriarchs, who overcome overwhelming odds because of faith in God, are illustrations of this. Another example is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, protected by God in the firey furnace of Babylon about 200 years after Isaiah (Dan. 3:16-18). In the 16th century, Martin Luther wrote the hymn A Mighty Fortress is Our God while he was under sentence of death for heresy. And Methodists remember that an important factor in the conversion of John Wesley is that while he was on a ship bound for America, he observed Moravian missionaries continue to worship and pray in total serenity despite a major storm, which terrified Wesley. He wanted that kind of faith and trust of God!

But whereas God in our lives is an impregnable sanctuary, if we reject God, He is a hindrance to all we undertake. The unfaithful Jews of Isaiah's time continually stumbled over God. Now, with the "negative side" of the Immanuel prophesy fulfilled by the birth of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, the cleansing fires of destruction are almost upon them.

New Testament writers also use Isaiah's image of stumbling stones . . . but modify it slightly by saying stumbling stones are things that keep us from God. Paul tells the church of Rome that the works gospel of legalism is a stumbling stone; he tells the church of Corinth that the absurdity of a crucified Messiah is a stumbling stone; and Peter says Jesus' gospel itself is a stumbling stone to unbelievers.

How about 21st century America. The incredible physical and material wealth we enjoy often seems a stumbling stone. We have jettisoned the realities of the spiritual world and accepted the dictum that there is nothing in life except the physical and material. But such wealth has not made us happier or more contented. Instead, we find something strangely missing . . . we have a spiritual emptiness. The missing something is God . . . but turning back to the biblical God of our ancestors would be old-fashioned. We are too educated to believe in miracles; we prefer something more "modern" and "scientific." So we buy in to a pseudoscience of superstition and paganism.

That leads in to the focal passage, which begins at 8:19 . . . because this is exactly what the Jews of Isaiah's day are doing. These people had God's word in the Torah, and they had the preaching of God's prophets up through Isaiah. But they refused to trust and obey God; they failed to follow this wisdom. Instead they consulted the dead through "mediums and spiritists"; presumably, their mysterious mutterings were more interesting than the austere commands of God. The result is "distress and darkness" (8:22); but this is not surprising. Neither nature ("the earth," 8:22) nor politics ("the king," 8:21) nor religion ("their God," 8:21) can shed any light on the dilemma; the Jews trusted these things instead of the revealed God, yet all of them failed.

Perhaps part of man's basic sin nature is a need to feel we have knowledge of - and/or control over - the future. The Jews of Isaiah's day refused to trust God and leave things in His hands; they sought to gain control over life's forces. This led them to seek access to the spirit world, believing that the dead - thought to live in a dimension outside of time - had this knowledge . . . and had enough interest in their living relatives to reveal it.

21st century man is scarcely different. Some seek to consult the dead - like in the movie Ghost - but that's not "in" among the "intellectual elite." We reject the God of the bible because we want to put our faith in something "scientific" and "modern." We look to horoscopes based on our superlative modern astronomy; we look to Eastern religions and the occult. But in reality, we have only come to modern manifestations of the same paganism condemned by Isaiah. And those caught in this trap fall into a deeper and deeper darkness of fear and superstition, as practitioners of these spiritualist cults resort to sleight of hand, mysterious rites, and then spirit-possession in to hold their clients. So why should we be surprised at the rapid increase of spiritual darkness all around us? God is our stumbling block, and we are falling all over him. The only question is how far we will fall before we finally get the picture. Does a fate of "distress and darkness and fearful gloom" (8:22) await us as it did the Jews of Isaiah's time? We're going down this same path!

This leads into chapter 9. The Jews chose man's way rather than God's way and trusted in human glory rather than God. Therefore, instead of enjoying God's protective canopy and being guided by God's pillar of cloud and pillar of fire (4:6), their nation was plunged into confusion and darkness; they became prey to Assyria, the very nation King Ahaz had trusted to protect him.

The Assyrian conquests began in the tribal territories of "Zebulun" and "Naphtali" - Galilee - extending from the Jezreel Valley northward to the foot of Mount Hermon. The main trade route from Mesopotamia to Egypt, called "The-Way-of-the-Sea," goes through this area, which makes it a high priority for conquest.

But God is greater than Assyria. Just as the people of "Zebulun" and "Naphtali" were at the "point of the spear" in the Assyrian conquest, God promises the light of renewal will dawn in Galilee. Just as the Midianites were defeated here by Gideon not long after the Exodus (Judg 7), God will defeat Israel's enemies here again, and the people will "rejoice" in victory (9:3-4).

How will God accomplish this great feat? Through the birth of a child (9:6)! For the third time in as many chapters, the birth of a child is filled with great portent. When King Ahaz wanted to trust Assyria for delivery from Syria and Israel, a child's birth was proclaimed in 7:14 as a sign Judah must trust God rather than man for deliverance from their enemies. In 8:3 the birth of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz was a sign that Ahaz's misplaced trust in Assyria was going to result in disaster for the nation of Judah. Now in chapter 9 comes another prophesy of birth:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. . . . He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever (9:6-7).

Out of the disaster of the Assyrian conquest, God will bring final victory. And this third prophesy clearly reflects God's intention to keep his promises both to Israel and the house of David (9:7). Furthermore, 3-fold repetition of a birth prophesy and the close connection in the meaning of the three signs argue these three are connected.

We have said the child born of a virgin in 7:14 must be the Messiah. So who is the child prophesied in 9:6-7? The titles given argue forcefully against its being merely human. No Israelite or Judean king was ever identified as "Mighty God." This child will reign over God's people with a justice and righteousness that no mere human descendant of David could ever achieve. The government and the social and personal integration ("peace," Heb. shalom) he will produce will be eternal (9:7). This can't be a human son of David; this prophesy clearly refers to the Messiah.

This passage teaches several things about the character and purpose of God and about the nature and ultimate significance of the Messiah.

1. It teaches about God's grace. If God "humbles" a person or a nation, His purpose is to give that person or nation "honor" (9: 1) in the end. God brings us down only because, given our sinfulness, that's the only way he can raise us up. He never wishes simply to destroy; even if that's the result in some cases, it's not because God wants it that way. God wants light, joy, abundance, liberty, and cessation of hostility (9:2-5).

2. It teaches the Messiah will come as a child. Startlingly, God's answer to oppression and hostility in this proud and cruel world is not a great warrior smashing the enemy at the head of a mighty army. Yet somehow the Messiah will shatter "the yoke that burdens" . . . then disarm warriors, so deliverance does not become oppression - as often happens with conquering armies (9:4-5). It's easy to see how Jewish theologians might find this hard to understand!
   

3. It teaches the Messiah will be a son, but we are not told whose son he is. He will be the Mighty God, but he will reign from David's throne. And although David's throne is in Jerusalem, his light will dawn in Galilee (cf Matt. 4: 14-16). Nor will these events happen by chance: they will be accomplished through the passionate involvement ("zeal") in earth's affairs by the transcendent God, the Lord of heaven's armies ("LORD Almighty"). These statements seem mutually contradictory, and Jewish theologians were incapable of resolving them.

Yet Immanuel, "God with us," has its foundation in these verses - both in theology and in history. If the God who is inescapably with us were a demon or a monster, our lives would be endless terror. If the "God with us" were implacably just, his presence would cause us guilt and anguish - unless were somehow able to live without sin at all times. (Not!) But the good news is that the God who is with us is a God who wants to turn our darkness into light, our conflict into shalom, our loss into abundance, our despair into joy. The One who rides at the head of the hosts of heaven ("LORD Almighty"; lit., "YHWH of hosts") has a passionate desire to do good to all people. If a God like that can be with us . . . that is good news indeed to all eternity.

But how can this God be with us? If he is transcendent, morally perfect, infinite, and eternal, how can He be with us who are created, sinful, finite, and mortal? These barriers seem insurmountable . . . so can God be with us only in a metaphorical way? If that's all the phrase means, it seems hollow. But that's not all it means . . . because this prophesy sets the stage for the most astounding event in history. The transcendent becomes one of the created; the morally perfect experiences sin; the infinite becomes finite; the immortal experiences mortality. God is with us!

We observed that Jewish theologians - from Isaiah's time up through the 1st century AD - couldn't explain this. Although they believed God had the power to do miracles, they couldn't "think outside the box" and resolve the contradictions in this prophesy based on God's omnipotence. Hence they just threw out the supernatural elements of this prophesy and assumed the Messiah would be a human descendant of David. They called him the "Son of David," a Messianic title which appears in the New Testament, and believed he would be a mighty warrior like David who literally restored David's earthly throne.

But these contradictions were resolved in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The "child" born of the virgin is the son of David, but he is also the Son of God. The bulk of Jesus' ministry was in Galilee - the land of Zebulun and Naphtali - but he was "enthroned" on a cross in Jerusalem. He took our sins upon himself when he died to give us righteousness and freedom, and He was resurrected to give us hope and fulfillment. In fact, it is hard to imagine any other way the apparent contradictions of Isaiah 9:1-7 could be resolved than as they were in Jesus the Christ.

The contemporary significance of this passage of Scripture comes down to this: Have we allowed the Child-King to take over the government of our lives? Only then can we know the benefits of "God with us." We cannot have the light, the honor, the joy, the abundance, the integration he offers in any other way.