Community Bible Study -- Isaiah Community Bible Study -- Isaiah
Text of Presentation, Lesson 19, Isa 61:1-11
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The Lord has Glorified You (Part I)
“Jeans of Joy and Shirts of Praise”
The author of our study guide titles this lesson, “Jeans
of Joy and Shirts of Praise.” I think he misses one of the
points of Isaiah 61; it should be called “Dior gowns of Joy
and sequins of Praise.”
Before getting into tonight’s focal passage, Isaiah 61, I’d
like to make a few comments about chapter 58 – which we read
but won’t discuss. It includes a reference to “rebuilding
ancient ruins,” like we find in 61:4 . . . something I can
only interpret as restoring the nation of Israel – in 530 BC
and/or 1948 AD.
Chapter 58 sounds a familiar refrain: the Jews think they honor
God by rote observance of religious ritual – even with evil
in their hearts; God needs to set them straight. In this case,
the subject is fasting. After following the fasting ritual, the
Jews complain God does not seem to be blessing them. “‘Why
have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’”
(58:3). God responds:
"On the day of your fasting, you . . . exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarrelling and strife. . . . Is that what you call . . . a day acceptable to the LORD? . . . The kind of fasting I have chosen (is): to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke . . . to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood. . . . If you do away with the yoke of oppression, . . . and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness. . . . Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. . . . Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations. . . . You will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you . . . to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isa 58:4-14).
This is a familiar theme for Isaiah . . . which for us
Christians is just another example emphasizing God takes no
satisfaction in religious ritual; it’s our heart attitude
the counts with God. But even as God condemns the Jews, He makes
them an interesting promise: if they will “not turn away
from (their) own flesh and blood” and will “spend
(them)selves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the
oppressed,” they will “rebuild the ancient ruins and .
. . feast on the inheritance of . . . Jacob.” Many modern
Jews – and, in fact, fundamentalist Christians –
interpret this literally, as a command to bring oppressed Jews to
Israel, and to feed and clothe them. They believe God promises in
Isaiah 58 to repay such faithfulness by blessing the Jewish
nation of Israel . . . confirming God’s promise to their
forefathers that the land of Israel will be their eternal
inheritance. And this is not an unreasonable attitude, if we
recall that in Deut 28 (The “Dominion Covenant”), God’s
promise to bless the Jews in the land of Israel is qualified by
an if/then condition; and we have seen – both in Isaiah and
historically – that God indeed will temporarily remove
blessing because of Jewish unfaithfulness . . . so why not
believe God will literally restore it for faithfulness!
Moving into the focal passage . . . chapter 61 again introduces
God’s Anointed One, the Messiah, as the means whereby God's
people will be enabled to live righteous lives (61:1-3a) . . .
which will in turn draw the nations to God. This is such an
important summary of the Messiah’s role and mission that
Jesus quotes it about Himself when he initiates his formal
ministry, after His baptism by John. Luke describes it thus:
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. . . . He went to Nazareth, . . . and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue . . . and he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour." Then he . . . sat down . . . and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (Lu 4:14-21).
When we studied Luke last year, we emphasized that Jesus knew
he was the Messiah; He said it loud and He said it often. This is
not clear to most Gentiles, because Jesus always used oblique
language rooted in Jewish tradition when he made this claim; but
in the context of Messianic prophesy and this passage of Isaiah,
Jesus’ simple statement in the synagogue of Nazareth is an
unambiguous claim to be the Messiah, now assuming that role. And
the Jews in the synagogue knew this; they tried to kill him for
blasphemy.
In the balance of chapter 61 – after Isaiah reintroduces the
Messiah – he lists the benefits the Messiah will bring
(61:3b-7). Then he quotes God (61:8-9), making it clear that His
objective is covenant righteousness in His people, and that the
Messiah is the One who makes that righteousness possible. The
chapter concludes as the people praise God for what He had done:
making them righteous in the sight of the nations (61:10-11).
The Messiah has been anointed by the Spirit of God, both to
"preach good news" (61:1) and to provide
"beauty" instead of "ashes,"
"gladness" instead of "mourning,"
"praise" instead of “despair" (61:3), so
God's people will be “oaks of righteousness." No mere
human prophet can fulfill such a calling; it must be the work of
the Messiah, the Anointed One prophesied throughout the book, who
will make of his people what they cannot make of themselves.
As a result of the Messiah's work, God's people become "oaks
of righteousness." This is quite a contrast from 1:27-31,
where they were described as an "oak with fading
leaves" because of their unrighteousness and injustice
(1:21)! But even then God promised Jerusalem would one day
"be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful
City" (1:26), which shows the Servant/Messiah's work
fulfills that promise by both delivering the people . . . and
transforming them.
Such deliverance and transformation is expressed in the language
of rebuilding in 61:4 and in the language of freedom in 61:5. The
nations will make it possible (61:5-6) for the people of Israel
to fulfill their ancient calling as a royal priesthood (Ex 19:6),
serving God in holiness. They will move from "disgrace"
to “inherit a double portion" (Isa 61:7): the
"inheritance" of a firstborn son.
God’s words in 61:8-9 underline the central point in this
final section of Isaiah (chapters 56-66). The people of Israel
will enjoy the inheritance of God’s firstborn son because
("for") "I, the LORD, loves justice." What
does God mean here? Is God’s “justice” a reward to
the Jews because of their oppression by the nations? Isaiah’s
reference to "robbery and iniquity" suggests that is
not the case. Rather, God means that since He loves justice, He
hates it when his people practice robbery and iniquity. Hence as
one effect of the “everlasting covenant” (61:8) he will
make with them, they will be able to live the life of God’s
true children. “All who see them” (61:9) will recognize
this fact.
As has been the case before when Isaiah describes the work of the
Servant/Messiah, the response is a song of praise. In 61:10,
Israel sees herself as a bride whom the Groom has dressed in
beautiful wedding garments of “salvation" and “righteousness"
(61:10). According to ancient marriage customs, on the day of the
wedding, the bride was led to the groom's home dressed in a gown
he had provided. There the guests admired the bride in her new
gown, while they feasted and celebrated. In the context of Isaiah
56-66, there can be no doubt of the meaning and import of this
metaphor. God will give his people the righteous behavior they
have been unable to produce in themselves. He will do this for
his own praise and glory before the nations as a witness to his
almighty power.
61:11 reinforces this idea with a 2nd metaphor. Israel also sees
herself as a fruitful field in which God causes seeds of
"righteousness" and "praise" to grow (61:11).
Only God can make seeds grow; God is doing for Israel what she
cannot do for herself.
The New Testament uses Isaiah’s metaphor of a bride and her
wedding gown to talk about the same issues. In his letter to the
Ephesians, Paul compares the church to the bride of Christ,
presented to him "without stain or wrinkle or any other
blemish, but holy and blameless" (Eph. 5:27). The same point
is made in Revelation 19:7-8: "For the wedding of the Lamb
has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen,
bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for
the righteous acts of the saints.)" Paul uses similar
language in 1 Thessalonians (although without specific reference
to a wedding gown): "May he strengthen your hearts so that
you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and
Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones";
and "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through
and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept
blameless at [or “until”] the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (1 Thes 3:13, 5:23).
Trying to restate this metaphor in the context of ancient wedding
customs but in language we understand . . . God through his Son,
Jesus, has sent his bride, the church, a “garment of
praise" (61:3) to wear for the wedding. Clothed in such a
wedding gown, we hear oohs and aahs from onlookers as we walk
through the streets to meet God. Without this gown, we would be
forced to go through the streets dressed in the rags of our own
failures, which would be humiliating; and it would be ridiculous
to wear the rags of failures, en route to a life where sin is
defeated. Hence God allows us to come to him clothed in a gown of
righteous behavior that he enables us to experience! The New
Testament images merely repeat what Isaiah is saying: God wants
us to share an intimate relation with Him, in which he will do
for us what we cannot do for ourselves: make us like Himself . .
. to make us behave as he does..
Now that we have gone through the imagery – and logic –
of both Isaiah and the New Testament writers, we might need to
reconsider some of the things we believe. A fundamental tenet of
Christian faith goes something like this: we believe Jesus is the
promised Messiah, the son of God, who died to save us from sin by
taking our sins on himself when he died on the cross. We all
believe some variation of that. But what does it mean to be
"saved from sin"? Most of us would say it means being
forgiven – delivered from the guilt and condemnation of our
sin – because Jesus took our punishment for us. That’s
right, of course . . . but if that’s all it means to us, we
are missing Isaiah’s point in chapter 61: that the ultimate
goal of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is to break the
power of continued sinning! The Messiah proclaims "the year
of the LORD's favor" (61:2) so God's people may become
"a planting of the LORD for the display of his
splendor" (61: 3). What is his splendor but his character?
Can anyone seriously believe God's splendor is displayed in
someone who went through the “plan of salvation” ritual
and tells everyone he is “saved,” yet continually lies
and cheats – regardless of the theology he uses to justify
his sinning? Does a proud, boastful, self-serving, “born-again
Christian" display God's splendor? How about a dour,
judgmental Christian? The New Testament seems very clear about
this, for instance:
Jesus Christ, gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good (Titus 2:13-14).
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? (James 2:14).
For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 John 5:4)
My mother talks of the pendulum swing of history . . . a
principle which also applies to the church. The Catholic Church
of the Middle Ages focused on salvation by works, so when Martin
Luther realized – from Paul’s letter to the Romans and
elsewhere – that Jesus promises salvation through faith, it
caused him great anguish, because this was contrary to much he
had learned. John Calvin formalized this idea in his Institutes,
and today the pendulum has swung back the other way, so that many
modern “fundamentalists” seem to believe salvation is
unrelated to works.
Most Christians realize this is wrong, too, so we try to develop
a synthesis . . . which often goes something like this: we are
brought into a relationship with God through Christ by faith, and
in this faith relationship we experience forgiveness of sins.
Then, as an expression of our faith, we do “good works"
– yet expecting that, by and large, we will not measure up.
Even Paul acknowledges his own shortcomings in his letter to the
Romans (Ro 7:18-23), and it’s because of man’s basic
sin nature.
Yet this misses a subtle point of these passages from the New
Testament, because it separates faith and works – or more
precisely, faith and Christian living. In reality, faith in Jesus
is for the purpose of changing us into Christ's (and thus God's)
likeness. Forgiveness of sin is not the end; it is only the
means. The end is that we should live out the righteousness of
God by faith. As we have said before, believing in Jesus is
turning our lives over to Him – believing Jesus can make our
character like his. To take the attitude that “we try, but
are doomed to failure because of our sin nature” is, in
essence, to say we are trying to be like Jesus in our own
strength as an expression of our faith. And after studying Isaiah
for 19 weeks . . . haven’t we learned that when we try to
rely on our resources we always fail; we need to rely on God’s
resources.
Most of us will say: “I have asked Jesus to make me like
him, and there have been some changes in my life, but I still
fail to be all I know he wants me to be." But have we really
gone all the way? True “faith" in Jesus is an act of
complete trust in which we renounce all other supports. It
requires truly surrendering our own way, our own desires, our own
will into His hands.
In reality, most of us want God's power for holy living while
retaining a firm grip on the steering wheel of our lives. We
would like to be "better" Christians, but don’t
quite go to the brink of total surrender to God . . . and that’s
especially hard in a culture in which everything around us says
to “take care of yourself at all costs."
Furthermore, in this age of instant gratification, if we fail to
see instant, painless change in our behavior, we often allow
doubt to replace faith. But what we really need to do is to ask
God to show us what prevents His power from being released in us.
As we give God the freedom to probe around in our persons and to
excise what is holding us back, we may enter into a painful
process . . . but a process that leads to wonderful freedom and
joyous growth.
In the end, the only question is one of belief. Do we believe
Jesus wants to deliver us from habitual sinning? Do we believe he
can do that? Will we, personally and intentionally, believe in
him to do that in our lives? Will we keep on believing in him to
remake us into his image, despite setbacks and difficulties,
right to the end of the road?