Isaiah Lectures
Isaiah 40-48
Lesson #
I. Introduction: Salvation from Sin.
A. Salvation in Isaiah 40-55
In Isaiah 40-55 the most important event in Israel’s history was the Exodus from Egypt. Isaiah picks up the themes of the Exodus event and uses the “Exodus metaphor” because he saw a similar event coming.
The release from Egypt, from oppression would form the paradigm or master example for the future acts of God. For Isaiah, the exodus event signified freedom and release, but also (as in some of the Psalms) as the struggle against chaos.
>>>> Let us read together Isaiah 43:16-21
Isaiah knew this was part of the plan of God: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs u p, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert… (43:19). see also 51:9-52:3)
There is a new dynamic in Isaiah; the need for deliverance in the Exodus story was from freedom from oppression (by powerful Egypt) but in Isaiah the oppression is not due to a greater human power but due to sin. Isaiah 40-55 is addressed, I believe, to those who have sinned – to a sinful church.
“So I will disgrace the dignitaries of your temple, and I will consign Jacob to destruction and Israel to scorn” (Isaiah 43:28).
B. The Relationship to the Other Prophets
1) Isaiah 40-55 relates to the theological themes of the earlier prophets, especially the prophets of doom. Isaiah 40-55 is not all light and hope, but contains stern denunciations of sin. See Isaiah 43:22-28 and all of chapter 48.
“…but you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses” (43:24b).
2) These chapters also contain “Prophecies to the Nations” as well: Isaiah 47: is against Babylon.
3) In Isaiah 40:8 and 55:10-11 there is reference to the fact that Israel had sinned against the teaching of the Law and the earlier prophets (as in all of Isaiah 1-35) but God’s Word still stood true. Like the earlier prophets, Isaiah builds a profile of Judah, to expound her true nature and therefore her need of salvation: her need to experience a new Exodus.
II. A Profile of Israel or the Church in Chapter 48.
>>>> Let us read together 48:1-2.
The believers of that time (the believing community or the church of that time) were called the house of Jacob or Israel. In these verses they were being summoned as those who “invoke the name of the Lord” but do so without righteousness.
Q Is that true of the church today? How is it true in your church?
>>>> Let us read together 48:3-4.
God reminded the believers of that time that He had predicted the future and they had seen it (for example the judgment on sinful Israel over a century before) but that they were blind, stiff necked and had a forehead of bronze. These metaphors were used to help the listener or reader visualize their stubbornness.
Q Is the modern church the same way: even the conservative churches? How?
>>>> Let us read together 48:5-8.
God reminded them that He had shown His glory to them in the past with accurate prophecies so that they could not attribute them to their false worship. He said He would do it again. He would forecast new things that cannot be attributed to themselves or their own ingenuity. He also predicted they would not be open to the words of God because they were what they had always been: treacherous and a rebel from the beginning. These are harsh words.
>>>> Let me read to you Isaiah 48:9-11.
God said I have put you into deep difficulties to refine you as silver instead of destroying you as you deserve. God showed them rough times to cleanse them instead of merely wiping them out because of His own reputation and praise (remember Judah bears His Name and claims to be His: 48:1-2). He would not be defamed. This could mean either God would be defamed when people saw them wiped out or He would be yielding His glory to them by letting them act the way they did and not push them to change because their behavior defamed His Name.
Note: Raise your hand if you know of people or churches that have defamed God’s Name. In other words, people will not go to church any more because of the actions of the people who bear the Name of Christ.
Q Have you ever thought of our poor behavior as stealing the glory of God?
>>>>Let us read together Isaiah 48:12-13.
The people are reminded who Yahweh is. God spoke to the church, the people of God in Isaiah’s day (Judah or Israel) and reminded them that He was the beginning and end of all things. He created the world: the heavens and the earth. Everything in nature responded to His voice because He was their origin. They had forgotten who their Lord and Master was.
>>>> Let us read together Isaiah 48:14-19.
Israel had missed the wonderful promises: direction in life (the Law) that would have produced peace like a river, righteousness like waves, tremendous growth and no destruction (48:17-19). Even to those who had spurned His commands and His express desires (all of which were given to bless them) He still predicted things for them so they could see His sovereignty extended over the nations. He predicted the fall of Babylon even before it became a world power and the prediction said it would come from one person (no doubt Cyrus who was spoken of in chapters 44 and 45). God told them it was foolish to not submit to His commands and to trust Him who controls all the earth.
>>>> Let us read together Isaiah 48:20-22.
What is interesting is that God was going to judge Babylon and deliver Israel from their bondage and they did not deserve it (17-19). God would shatter their enemy and bring them safely home through the desert like He did in the days of the Exodus. He would provide for their redemption and their sustenance after being released. The wicked would be judged (48:22). The wicked that would be judged could either refer to those who would oppress them in the future or those who did not accept and participate in the redemption. The peace or shalom (the communion with God) would not be given to the wicked (48:22).
Q After someone is saved from their sins when they repent, do they still need nurture in their spiritual lives to survive? So what does verse 21 mean spiritually for new believers?
III. The Psalter and Isaiah 40-55.
Almost every page in Isaiah 40-55 reveals affinities to the language of the Psalter. Isaiah 40:12-31 has a great similarity to a Psalm of praise. The lament forms of the Psalms are present in these chapters as well (one out of three Psalms is a lament psalm). In addition, as in the Psalter, Isaiah praises God in two major ways: God is creator and He is the Lord of History. Both of these truths magnify the Lord and fill the songs of the Psalter and the form the most beautiful phrases of Isaiah 40-55. Finally, like the Psalms, salvation is held out as a real fact of reality. In God, salvation in this life can be experienced. It is possible if God is involved and Isaiah used a striking metaphor to illustrate the miraculous nature of this possible salvation: a place of death miraculously would be come a place of hope…. God would use the desert.
IV. Major Motifs:
A. God has Power in the Desert:
A key motif through out these chapters is that of the desert being turned into fertile land: 40:3-4; 41:27-28; 42:15; 43:19-20; 44:3; 49:9ff; 55:12-13. The desert was a place of death, but in Isaiah the desert became a metaphor for hope. The desert, the place of sparseness and difficulty would not devour them but they would be lead safely through it:
“I will lead the blind by ways they have not know, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do: I will not forsake them” (42:16).
“I am making a way in the desert and steams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen” (43:19b-20).
Q What does this mean theologically? Why does God take Moses, Elijah and Jesus into the desert?
Q What is the place of “deprivation” or “hard times” in the hands of the Redeemer of Israel? What does that mean for us in a sin-ridden church (Matthew 5:4)?
Q Can salvation be a man-induced thing? Does God have to be involved? Is salvation understood today as a miracle?
An = It is so easy to get discouraged when the church forgets that God is still powerful and able to do what He did at the Exodus. However, the same God can not only save but judge as well: He can turn the fertile lands into deserts too: 42:15; 44:27; 45:7.
“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things” (45:7).
B. God is Against Making Idols:
A repeated motif through out these chapters is the issue of being disloyal to God by the use of idols. God was against the making or crafting of idols: 40:19-20; 41:6-7; 42:17; 44:9-20; 45:16, 17, 20; 46:5-8.
“To whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared? Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out sliver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Though one cries out to it, it does not answer; it cannot save him from his troubles. Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels” (46:5-8).
Q Why is this so important that it is repeated so often? What was God trying to protect them from?
Q What is so upsetting to God about “making” something with our ability and worshiping it?
Q In what specific ways does Isaiah want to speak to our churches today through these verses?
IV. Isaiah 40
>>>>Let us read together Isaiah 39:5-7.
We spoke last lesson about Isaiah 39 anticipating some of the themes of 40-66. This chapter contains a prediction of the coming Babylonian captivity nearly a century before it happened. The prophet was given the ability to share with the people what God knew about how history would unfold. It is a sad revelation, something worthy of lamentation because of the doom that awaited the people of God. When it happened it was a monumental destruction. They nation was reduced to almost nothing. The country was depopulated, an only about a 10th of the nation was left in the Promised Land. However, no sooner was 39:5-7 written than the message of Isaiah 40:1-2 appeared.
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”
These are beautiful words but this is not sentimental religion that makes us feel good. This word of comfort came only after massive destruction. This is not cheap grace, but a word of hope to a desperately depressed and devastated people. These verses are addressed to a church that has been judged because of her sin.
>>>>Let us read together 40:1-11
Notice in verses 6-8 that the hope is not in human beings or their talents. Most of our attempts at evangelism and renewal are to focus our own talents in a creative manner. Isaiah reminded the sin-filled church of his day that all humans are like that which quickly is terminated and that includes groups or churches. This is true of all individuals and of groups. “All men are like grass…surely the people are grass.” Grass is a temporary thing. What is everlasting is the Word of God. What God has spoken and will speak will never fade nor perish. This obviously refers to the written word of God, but also to the living Word (Jesus) and the Words that God will speak to the church in our day.
In the verses that follow (9-11) our job is to announce salvation (40:9), not accomplish salvation. The Sovereign Lord comes with Power, His arm rules, His recompense accompanies Him, He tends His flock, He gathers the lambs, He carries them close to His heart, and He gently leads those that have young. Salvation is God’s thing. He will bring it about. It is His miracle and He will be both powerful and gentle in the way He does it. Our job is explaining and proclaiming what has already taken place by the power of God.
Isaiah 40:12-31 is a great song of praise. With in the song of praise is the task or the message that the church is to have.
>>>> Let us read together Isaiah 40:12-26.
The powers of human beings, the great national powers are nothing compared to God. He is the Almighty (12), the Creator, beyond all wisdom or knowledge that we have (13-14), He dwarfs the things we so fear (i.e. the nations, 15 a) and has infinite power: “He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.” It is impossible to offer the proper or a worthy sacrifice to such a God (16) and foolish to turn to idols given the nature and power of the real God (17-20. Isaiah called them to rethink what they already knew or to let it hit them in their very inward being for the first time:
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Hs it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grass hoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.”
Isaiah wanted to remind Israel of the nature of their God. Like Israel, the church has to remember just whom she serves. She should not turn to other religions or the occult because it is foolish in the face of who the real God is. The Creator of all that there is described in the teachings of the church and she should not fear human powers no matter how great they appear to us. He created and controls all of the heavens. We have to remember who we serve and fear or depression is not a rational choice despite the obstacles in our way that our sins have brought into our lives. The people of Isaiah’s day feared the foreign nations that were attacking and succeeding in their attacks. Isaiah reminded them:
“He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff” (23-24).
They needed to rethink the facts and so in verse 25 Isaiah records the rhetorical questions asked by God about His majesty and incomparability. God then challenges them to “look up” at the heavens and realize the nations cannot even tough the stars but they are totally under the control of God.
>>>>Let us read together Isaiah 40:27.
Israel did not seem to believe Isaiah 40:1-26. Despite their amazing beauty the prophet knew his words did not penetrate. So he asked the question of the believing community of his day: “Why do you think God does not care about your situation? Why do you feel God has abandoned you?” God’s answer to a discouraged church that no longer understood God’s holiness, God’s power, or the need their own sins had created and had thus placed them in need of hearing 40:28-31.
>>>>Let us read together Isaiah 40:28-31.
As we read these beautiful words of promise, we always have to remember to whom they are offered to: the weary and the weak (29). Perhaps, the key, the beginning of renewal in our own churches is to first understand who God is, who He truly is, and then to understand who we are.
>>>>Let us read together Matthew 5:3
Q To whom are the promises of God given?
Brevard Childs says:
“Sinful Israel would always be the object of divine terror; repented Israel would receive His promises of forgiveness.” (The Old Testament as Scripture, 387).