Community Bible Study -- Isaiah
Text of Presentation, Lesson 14, Isa 43:1-44:5
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The Servants of the Lord, His Witnesses (Part
2)
You Are Precious
Tonights session is the second one
emphasizing the certainty God will deliver the Jews from
Babylonian captivity, and how that deliverance will witness for
God and against idolatry. But notice the dramatic shift in tone
from the last session. In 42:22 God spoke of looting and
plundering the Jews for their sins; but in 43:1 God speaks of
grace. And the Jews dont have to do anything for this grace
. . . not repent or even promise to. God simply declares, as in
40:1-2, He has "redeemed" them. Its a completed
fact.
God can redeem the Jews because He created them (43:1). God the
Creator can redeem his people from both captivity and sin
if He wishes. And He proclaims He will be with them to prevent
the judgment of captivity and exile from destroying them (43:2).
The fires of judgment bring hope to these people (cf chapter 5),
not destruction.
Why? The pronouns "I" and "you" recur twice
in 43:1-7 as God says, "I am/will be with you
(43:2,5). God has a personal relationship to his people; He
identifies Himself as the LORD, your God, the Holy One of
Israel, your Savior (43:3). The Creator of the universe
loves them; they are precious to him. We wonder why
He pays any attention to rebel beings on this small planet? But
he does! And although these people have broken their covenant
with him time and time again, he will keep his side of the
bargain. God will pay any price to ransom them even
exchange Egypt, Sheba, and Cush (43:3).
43:5-7 reiterates the promise first made in 11:11: God will
recover his people from where they have been taken. The
expectation was that exiles would disappear as an identifiable
group as succeeding generations mixed indistinguishably with the
local population; but Gods emphasis on your children
indicates this will not happen to the Jews. Gods ancient
promises to Abraham will be kept alive! The exiles taken from
Jerusalem may not go home, but their children God's sons
and daughters (43:6) will. He created
Israel for his "glory, and that purpose will be
realized (43:7)! . . . the LORDs control of history again
proves His Godhood.
But that raises an interesting for today. Without inspired
prophets like Isaiah to interpret events, how do we know God is
still controlling history? Is AIDs or the recent Asian Tsunami
Gods judgment . . . or not?
We may not have prophets like Isaiah to explain individual events
. . . but on a larger scale, it seems clear God does still
control history. The fact that the church of Jesus the Messiah
has stood for 2000 years despite gross imperfections
is surely such evidence. Likewise, the survival of the
Jewish people despite all odds . . . and the establishment of a
Jewish state in Israel in 1948 for the first time in 2200 years.
And how about the sudden and shocking collapse of godless Russian
communism!
This passage of scripture also helps understand adversity
and how to overcome it. The Babylonians viewed life as a playing
field for good gods and evil gods, with man as their pawns. We
follow such a pagan way of thinking if we say good things come
from God and bad things from Satan: if more bad things happen
than good things, we need to do more religious things . . . as if
to strengthen the good gods.
By contrast, the biblical perspective begins with God as sole
Creator and Lord, the ultimate good (43:1,7). Nothing exists
outside of him. Evil is not an eternal principle; its
failure to surrender to and obey God. We have free will and must
accept responsibility for the consequences of our choices, but we
must believe nothing happens to us apart from God's will
because the alternative is that other divine or semidivine beings
can cause things to happen contrary to God's purposes; and that
is an unacceptable option.
Adversity is not outside God's control. This does not mean God
causes everything to happen. If I do something stupid and hurt
myself, God does not necessarily cause this. He could prevent it
but he permits it to happen in keeping with the cause and
effect principles He programmed into the world. When God permits
a bad thing to happen, it means he can enable me to deal with it
and use it for positive purposes.
43:1-7 reminds us of the fundamental importance of grace in mans
relation to God. In the Garden of Eden the serpent questioned Gods
grace by suggesting God had an ulterior motive in telling Adam
and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Their sin severed the relationship between man and God, and
there was no way man could reestablish it; only God could do
that. So God offered Abraham a free, unconditional promise (Gen
12:3). And God freed the Hebrew slaves in Egypt then later
gave His law on Mount Sinai. The Hebrews were not freed from
slavery by obedience, but by Gods grace . . . then came the
call for obedience. Hope for the human race comes from God's
grace . . . not from anything man does. Obedience does not
produce deliverance . . . but gracious deliverance should result
in obedience.
This is the paradigm presented here in Isaiah. God calls his
people to listen to and believe His promise to deliver them . . .
but His grace is declared to them even before they are
necessarily prepared to hear. And His grace is not conditioned on
obedience. God simply announces through Isaiah that he will
deliver them. Its a stated fact.
Romans 5:8 is the most concise statement of this truth in the New
Testament: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God
did everything necessary to deliver us from the consequences of
our sin before there was any indication we would respond.
Contrary to what Satan told Adam and Eve, God offers free,
self-giving love, without any taint of "what's in it for
me." God acts strictly out of concern for our well-being. He
values us; we are precious" to Him; and the ultimate
proof is the cross of Jesus. God gave more than Egypt, Sheba, and
Cush in exchange for us; God through His Son, Jesus the Messiah,
offers himself for us (cf 53:10). There is nothing we can do to
merit this offer. It is free.
Biblical faith is not based on intellectual principles, or on
behavioral dicta or moral norms even though it is all of
these. Biblical faith is based on a personal relationship with
our Creator . . . with God who walks in the garden with Adam and
Eve, who admonishes Cain, who dines with Abraham, who wrestles
with Jacob, who speaks mouth to mouth" with Moses, who
calls Samuel by name, who offers a house to David, who shouts and
weeps and sings through the prophets. God wants a personal
relationship with people! And when God through Jesus comes in the
flesh and says, Come be with me" to all mankind, it
only culminates what has been so throughout the Old Testament.
Yet for too many contemporary Christians, the personal
relationship side of faith is more theory than fact. Our faith is
a system of beliefs or a set of habits (more or less followed),
but we fail to personally relate to God on a day-to-day basis. We
dont read the Bible regularly . . . pray . . . or
consciously pay attention to Gods voice throughout the day.
Thats not the way God wants it. We are his special treasure
. . . and to be all we can be, we must live in that reality.
The balance of tonights session 43:8-44:5
discusses Israel's role as a witness for God. 43:8-13 is another
courtroom scene (cf ch 41), involving a chosen servant (43:10)
who is surely Israel. Their hope is not in themselves; they are
"blind" and deaf" (cf 42:18-19) . . . not in
a position to give ministry (cf 42:1-9), but only to receive it.
Again they are called into court with the "nations" and
the "peoples" (43:9). Once more the nations are
challenged to produce "witnesses" who can give evidence
their idols have made a prediction in the past ("the former
things") that has then come true. Their silence proves there
is no such evidence. Then the One who is both judge and defendant
turns to his blind and deaf servant and says, You are my
witnesses." For God to boldly rest his case on this
evidence, God must be planning an amazing work!
43:10-13 relate what will be Israel's relationship to God if only
they open their eyes and ears. They will know"
(affective) and believe" (volitional) and
"understand" (cognitive) that I am He." This
is God's ultimate statement of identity; in todays lingo it
means: "I'm the one." God is the One who made all
things, the One to whom all things will return, and therefore the
only One who can save (43:11). There is no one else like Him, and
the Jews have been called to experience that truth and
demonstrate it to the world.
43:12 explains God has not merely revealed" truth
about Himself, or "saved" them, or
"proclaimed" the meaning of what he has done. He has
done all three simultaneously; His revelation is wholistic,
touching the entire human personality. No one else but the Lord
has done this, and the Jews know it; they have experienced it;
they are witnesses . . . that I am God." God is saying
He is the totality of deity, revealed by what he has done for and
through the Jews. 43:13 concludes: no one can successfully
contest His will. He is It"; there is no one else.
In 43:14-21 God tells his people once again he is going to
deliver them from Babylon. They are witnesses to how he has
delivered them in the past, and will be witnesses of this in the
future. The personal relationship is reemphasized. He is
"your Redeemer," your Holy One," "your
King." These are my people, my chosen, formed
for myself. Because of them the almighty God will
"bring down" Babylon . . . not merely to prove a
theological point, but because he loves them (43:4).
How is he going to deliver them? 43:16-17 invite the people to
remember what he did in the Exodus: God made a way through
the sea" (43:16) for the Israelites to pass, then drowned
the pursuing Egyptian army (43:17). But God tells them to forget"
that (the former things," 43:18). God wants man to
learn things about his character and nature from the past but not
to enshrine the methods of the past. God is not predictable; if
God were predictable, we wouldnt need so much faith! God
the Creator loves doing things in new" ways (43:19);
and we must be flexible and attentive to new ways in which God
may choose to act, just as we should try to be open to new ideas
in general. And Gods new way for this deliverance will be a
way in the desert" (43:19) . . . transforming it into
a place of water" and streams" where his
"chosen" will have their needs supplied (43:20), so his
people "may proclaim my praise" (43:21) as witness to
His deity.
Then Isaiah steps back from the glorious future to talk about
present reality in 43:22-28 . . . he often followed this pattern
in chapters 1-39. Unbelief was rampant in Isaiah's day, and
judgment was still to come (43:28). Many people during the exile
will also be filled with unbelief; they may think it unfair for
God to have sent them into exile, since they performed the
rituals God commanded! (The English translation lacks the
inference of sarcasm that seems to have been in the original.)
God answers through Isaiah that ritual worship is useless without
the right heart attitude. God cannot be manipulated
especially not into forgiving us. God has already done that
(43:25); we only need to receive what he has done! Animal
sacrifices were only symbols of changed hearts and changed lives.
God did not want their sacrifices; he wanted them
symbolized by the sacrifices. But many Israelites adopted the
pagan worldview that doing a ritual brought about a particular
effect; they performed sacrifices and rituals to placate God, to
"get him off their backs." Hence although they blame
God for burdening them with offerings and rituals, these only add
to a mountain of sin . . . because they refuse to undertake the
change of heart that the rituals are meant to symbolize!
Thus in 43:26 God suggests His people review the "case"
they are making against him. Far from being unfair, the exile was
necessary because of them. From their father" Jacob
(cf Deut 26:5, Hos 12:2-4) up to the present they continued in
sin, and the inevitable occurred in 586 BC when God consign(ed)
Jacob to destruction" (43:28).
But as always in Isaiah, destruction is not Gods last word;
again, he implores his people to listen" (44:1). Do
not rely on mechanical rituals; listen to the One who speaks and
enter into a relationship with Him. Again He appeals to creation.
If the exiled Jews think God has given up on them because of
their sin, they should remember God made" them,
forming them in the womb (44:2). If a mother cannot
forget her child (cf 49:15), God cannot forget those he created.
Just as God is strong enough to do something about their
captivity, He is great enough to do something about their
persistent sinning. Through His Spirit (44:3), God has found a
way to forgive their sin without ignoring the justice on which
the world rests . . . and to transform proud, self-centered
people to people who gladly find identity in surrender to Him.
Just as in 32:15, the work of the Spirit is to enable Gods
people to do what they cannot: to live lives of justice and
righteousness. People now unable to enter into a committed
relationship with God will gladly identify themselves as
belonging to the LORD when his Spirit is poured out on the dry
ground" of their offspring" (44:3). Isaiahs
talking about Pentecost (cf Acts 2) and the Christian era here .
. . about a faith that will spring up in the dry ground
of Judaism because of the word planted by Jesus the Messiah and
watered by the Holy Spirit . . . and about Jewish offspring being
joined by non-Jews who choose to belong to God (44:5).
We close with a comment on witnessing, because 3 times in Isaiah
43-44 the prophet refers to the Jews as his witnesses.
Weve all been harangued about witnessing by churchmen
trying to put us on a guilt trip . . . so much so that we often
identify that term with going door to door to evangelize or
preaching on a street corner. Many of us cop out and justify
ourselves by saying, "I live my witness" . . . but this
often means no witness at all. So this passage may help clarify
what God really requires.
Notice God gives no command to be witnesses; He simply declares a
fact: "You are my witnesses." Jesus says the same
thing. The Jews who returned from exile and Jesus disciples
experienced things that forever changed them. In the same way, we
are changed if we genuinely encounter Christ in our lives. Like
it or not, we become evidence of his divine, transforming power.
It is not something we must do; it is something we are.
Also notice the exiles and Jesus disciples became witnesses
despite their shortcomings: "blind" and deaf"
on the one hand, and unschooled, ordinary men (Acts
4:13) on the other. Thats because one's witness is the
expression of one's experience. The exiles were not expected to
make speeches, but to report what they knew to be true in their
own lives . . . such as Gods prediction of exile due to
their persistent sin, and Gods promise of a deliverer
whom He even called by name: Cyrus. And their best witness
came as they walked out the gates of Babylon to return to
Jerusalem.
Our witness does not need to be dramatic or attention-grabbing
like this. It is simply our story about the reality of Christ and
his ability to save. But the central requirement is that God in
Jesus has done something in our lives. Unless Christ has
transformed the way we live, there is nothing to witness to.
Thats where Isaiahs promise that God will pour
out (his) Spirit on your offspring (44:3) comes in, because
that promise is for us today. Isaiah spells out in 44:4-5 what
Paul confirms in Romans: that when we receive Gods promised
Holy Spirit, we can say without reservation, I belong to
the LORD" (44:5). And Isaiah predicted this over 700 years
before Paul observed it!
The bottom line is this: God rests his claim to be the sole God
on our witness: the evidence of our lives. That means we need to
ask what really is the content of our daily walk to the witness
stand. Are we allowing God to speak through us or not?