It’s All About Jesus!
Isaiah’s earth-shaking encounter with the King.
It was due to the evident increasing interest in Jesus expressed by Jews, along with the growing exploration of our Hebraic roots among Gentiles, that I was recently encouraged to write King of the Jews, demonstrating how Yeshua (his Hebrew name) fulfils all the hopes of the Jewish people as their Messiah-King – how his finger-prints are all over the Tanakh (Old Testament).
I have since completed this project, but there is a lot more to be said on the subject. It was only later, for example, that I realised how the Apostle John pointed out that Isaiah’s awesome vision of the Lord in Jerusalem’s Temple was actually of the pre-incarnate Jesus. And it was in the context of the general unbelief of the people at the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry that John quoted the prophet’s experience of spiritual blindness and misunderstanding that he also had to deal with. (See John 12.37-41).
“Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him,” John explained. With the Lord seated on a throne surrounded by angelic beings praising his name while the doorposts and thresholds shook as the temple was filled with smoke, the prophet was almost speechless, crying: “Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips…and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” (Isa 6.5)
Tragically, Jewish unbelief at the time of Christ’s first coming now seems to have transferred to Gentiles. For as Jewish eyes are increasingly being opened to the true identity of their Messiah, many Gentile Christians are failing to recognise the miracle of modern Israel and her ongoing role in God’s purposes as Isaiah outlines so clearly.
The prophet speaks much of judgment and hope – judgment for a rebellious people, and indeed for the whole earth (chapter 24); but also of the wonderful hope of a Saviour to come. Again and again, Isaiah speaks of the advent of Messiah – first as a suffering servant who would open the eyes of the blind, then returning as King of Kings to rule from Jerusalem with total authority.
Two in one …
In many cases he writes of the two advents almost in the same breath. He starts (in chapter 1) by addressing a sinful nation that has rebelled against the commandments of God with “hands full of blood” (v15) and immediately offers the remedy. Some 700 years before its fulfilment, he points to the cleansing of sin achieved by the coming Saviour on the cross of Calvary: “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (v18)
And we are soon transported a further 2,000 years (or more) into the future when all nations will stream to Jerusalem where the King will teach us his ways. (2.3f)
When Isaiah saw the King in all his glory, which amounted to his calling, he was forced to acknowledge that he was a man of ‘unclean lips’. But his sin was atoned for by the pre-existing Jesus whose future death would cover the sins of all the saints who had obediently followed and trusted him – even though they hadn’t yet seen him.
Isaiah’s guilt was taken away and his lips were cleansed, ready to be a mouthpiece for the King, touched by the live coal from the altar of sacrifice on which Jesus would lay down his life. I guess this is a clear instance of God’s purposes not being constrained by time.
Who has believed?
Isaiah’s lips would henceforth breathe the fire, passion and deep conviction that follows an encounter with the Lord of glory. But it would be a thankless task as his listeners would “be ever hearing, but never understanding” (6.9). And it was with an air of considerable doubt that he approached the staggering prophecy of chapter 53 when he asked: “Who has believed our message?”
Chapter 7 includes the extraordinary prophecy of the virgin birth, a sign from ‘the Lord himself’: “The virgin shall be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (7.14)
Elaboration comes in chapter 9 which straddles both first and second comings: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light…For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end…” (9.2,6f)
After touching on the miraculous nature of Christ’s ministry in Galilee, this prophecy speaks of a time when “the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev 11.15) You can almost hear Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus ringing from the rafters of the Temple. No wonder Isaiah has inspired so much glorious music.
His calling may well have been to fail in the short-term, but his message still reverberates like a heavenly orchestra in the hearts of millions today. This is because it came out of an authentic, world-changing encounter with the King. Isn’t that what we all need?
Further into the future …
In chapter 11 we have another example of the Lord’s double advent when we are told: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse…and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him…” clearly fulfilled in Jesus, the son of David whose father was Jesse. But then the prophet fast-forwards to the time when the wolf will live with the lamb. (11.6).
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This is a beautiful vision of the Messiah’s future reign when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (v9), referred to again in chapter 65. As he also assures us in chapter 16, the day will come when the oppressor and the aggressor will vanish, and King Jesus, the Prince of Peace, will reign: “In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it – one from the house of David – one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.” (v5).
Even during the current COVID crisis, there is an appropriate word of encouragement: “Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by.” (26.20) In the context, the Lord is expressing his wrath for the innocent blood shed on the earth which now particularly resonates with the modern-day Holocaust of unborn children.
A promise given
But Isaiah returns to the theme of Messiah, the answer to our sin, as he hears the Sovereign Lord saying: “See, I lay a stone in Zion…a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.” (28.16) The prophet predicts that the poor and needy will gladly hear him (29.18f); the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped, and the lame will leap like a deer (35.5f). But when he returns, only the redeemed will journey on the highway of holiness.
As Israel’s turbulent history continues, with worse to come, the prophet raises hope as we reach chapter 40: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her… that her sin has been paid for…” (40.1f).
He proceeds to proclaim the gospel message in all but name and, though he doesn’t actually name John the Baptist, he clearly spells out his credentials as a voice crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’.
And what’s the message of this ‘voice’? That all men are like grass – they blossom and bloom for a season, and then they wither and die. It’s time to reckon with eternity, and consider the legacy we will leave when we are gone. The message, Isaiah concludes, is about bringing good tidings to Zion (v9) and saying to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ In other words, sharing the gospel of Israel’s King and Redeemer with the Jew first, and also with the Gentile. For he is the Lord Almighty, who said: “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God,” (44.6) a claim repeated in chapter 48 and again in Revelation 1.17.
A promise fulfilled
The One who humbled himself to be born to a virgin in Bethlehem will also one day place his feet on the Mount of Olives at his Second Coming, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (45.23).
He is the One of whom Isaiah wrote: “When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes…and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.” (52.8 & 10)
At his first coming, however, he would be “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” who was “pierced for our transgressions” and “cut off from the land of the living” before being “raised and lifted up and highly exalted” (see 52.13-53.12) – all in God’s perfect plan.
And so we come to the climax of Isaiah’s revelation – the passage Jesus quoted in the Nazareth synagogue at the start of his ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind…” (Luke’s gospel, 4.18, quoting Isaiah 61). Afterwards he made the stunning claim: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4.21).
And so, in the fullness of time, Jesus came from heaven to fulfil the Jewish scriptures in the land of the Jews. As St Paul put it in his defence before King Agrippa, “it is because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial today,” (Acts 26.6) adding: “I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen – that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles.” (Acts 26.22f)