THE FIRST PART: A BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
From Captivity to the Return
Message Three—Isaiah (2)
Scripture Reading: Isa. 41:1, 5; 42:1, 6; 44:28; 53:1-3; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15
I. The prophet’s speaking in Isaiah 40—his announcing of the all-inclusive Christ, Jehovah the Savior, as the glad tidings—is an excellent example of preaching the gospel; all human beings need the incomparable God (vv. 18-26), the coming Christ (v. 3), the glory of Jehovah as the center of the gospel for the new creation (v. 5), the living and abiding word of God for regeneration to have eternal life (vv. 6-8), and the manifestation of the Lord Jehovah, the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ (vv. 9-12):
A. The word of comfort spoken to the heart of Jerusalem is actually the announcing of the gospel; the fact that this word is spoken to the heart means that it is concerned not with the outer man but with the inner man—vv. 1-2.
B. The word of God is actually Christ Himself, the embodiment of God, as the gospel of God—Isa. 40:8.
C. In Isaiah 40:9-26 we have the revelation of the Lord Jehovah—the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the incomparable God.
D. Christ as the glory of Jehovah is the revealing of Jehovah—Isa. 40:5.
II. We need to live in the Reality of the New Creation; the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah, corresponding to the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, focus mainly on the old creation, whereas the last twenty-seven chapters, corresponding to the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, center on the new creation—2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15:
A. Isaiah 40 reveals the announcing of the gospel (corresponding to the four Gospels—Isa. 40:1-5), salvation through regeneration (corresponding to the Acts—Isa. 40:6-8), and transformation (corresponding to the Epistles—Isa. 40:28-31); this is the revelation of God becoming a man through incarnation so that man might become God (in life and in nature but not in the Godhead) through regeneration and transformation as the content of God’s eternal economy.
B. Isaiah 40:28-31 reveals a regenerated and transformed person who is one with the eternal God and absolutely in the new creation:
1. Isaiah 40 presents a comparison between Hezekiah, a godly man who was still in the old creation (chs. 36—39), and a regenerated and transformed person in the new creation; the apostle Paul is the best representative of the kind of person described in Isaiah 40.
2. May we all be like Paul, who was absolutely in the new creation; with him, the old creation had been terminated, fired, and replaced, and now the new creation is here with Christ—Gal. 2:20; 6:15-18; cf. Rom. 6:4; 7:6.
III. In Isaiah 41 through 66 Christ is revealed as the Servant of Jehovah:
A. In the book of Isaiah Christ as the Servant of Jehovah is typified by three persons—by a Gentile king, Cyrus the king of Persia; by God’s chosen corporate people, Israel; and by the prophet Isaiah:
1. Cyrus was raised up by Jehovah, anointed by Jehovah, and loved by Jehovah—41:2a.
2. Israel typifies Christ for the carrying out of the kind word of comfort spoken by Jehovah.
3. Isaiah typifies Christ as the Servant of Jehovah (Mark 10:45) for God’s speaking (Deut. 18:15; John 3:34; 14:24).
B. The source of Christ as the Servant of Jehovah is His divinity (Isa. 42:1, 6; 49:5, 7-8), whereas His qualification is in His humanity, in His human virtues (42:2-4).
C. Christ as the Servant of Jehovah is for the exposing of the falsehood and vanity of the idols—42:8; 43:10-11; 46:5, 9:
1. Everything except Christ is false, vain, and an idol—42:8; 43:10-11.
2. We testify that we are nothing, that we have been “fired” and replaced by Christ, and that Christ is everything to us as our reality, centrality, and universality—John 14:6; Col. 1:18; 2:9; 3:11; Gal. 2:20.
IV. The all-inclusive Christ according to God’s New Testament economy in the stage of His incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension—Isa. 52:14—53:3, 10b-12a :
A. The incarnated Savior is the arm of Jehovah; the arm of Jehovah is God Himself in His saving power—Isa. 53:1b:
1. “For He grew up like a tender plant before Him, And like a root out of dry ground. He has no attracting form nor majesty that we should look upon Him, Nor beautiful appearance that we should desire Him”—v. 2.
2. “He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of 1sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised; and we did not esteem Him”—v. 3:
a. When the Lord Jesus came out to preach the gospel, that was the unveiling of the arm of Jehovah—Luke 4:18-19; Mark 1:14-15.
b. Christ’s being such a man and His living such a lowly and sorrowful human life fully qualified Him to be the Redeemer and the Savior to save us from Satan, sin, death, and self—Heb. 2:14-18; Matt. 1:21; Rom. 8:3; 2 Tim. 1:10; Matt. 16:24-25.
B. Isaiah 53 covers the all-inclusive Christ in His crucifixion:
1. “Surely He has borne our sicknesses, And carried our sorrows; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God and afflicted”—Isa. 53:4.
2. “We all like sheep have gone astray; Each of us has turned to his own way, And Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him”—53:6.
3. “Because He poured out His life unto death And was numbered with the transgressors, Yet He alone bore the sin of many And interceded for the transgressors”—53:12b.
C. Isaiah 53 covers the all-inclusive Christ in His resurrection:
1. “But Jehovah was pleased to crush Him, to afflict Him with grief. When He makes Himself an offering for sin, He will see a seed, He will extend His days, And the pleasure of Jehovah will prosper in His hand”—Isa. 53:10.
2. “He will see the fruit of the travail of His soul, And He will be satisfied”—Isa. 53:11a.
D. Isaiah 53 covers the all-inclusive Christ in His ascension:
1. “Therefore I will divide to Him a portion with the Great, And He will divide the spoil with the Strong”—v.12a:
a. Christ fought the battle on the cross and in His resurrection, and by winning the battle He captured all Satan’s captives as the spoil—Col. 2:15; Acts 2:24; Rev. 1:18.
b. In His ascension Christ, the Fighter, and God, the Great and the Strong, shared the spoil with each other.
2. Christ’s ascension consummates in the accomplishment of the work of God for His new creation—2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Rev. 21:2.
3. The work of God for His new creation is to complete the constitution of the New Jerusalem to be God’s corporate expression and the saints’ blessing for eternity—Rev. 21:2, 9-11; 22:3-5, 14, 17.
V. The All-inclusive Salvation brought in by Christ to Israel and the nations—Isa. 40:1:
A. God’s full salvation is based on His righteousness and consummated in His life—Rom. 10:3; 3:21-28; 5:10, 17-18.
B. Christ has been called by Jehovah to be a covenant for the people; “I have kept You and I have given You As a covenant for the people”—Isa. 42:6b.
C. Christ has been called by Jehovah to be a light for the nations; “I have kept You and I have given You…as a light for the nations”—42:6b.
D. “Therefore you will draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation”—12:3a:
1. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament show that God’s practical salvation is the processed Triune God Himself as the living water—Isa. 12:2-3; 55:1; Rev. 7:10, 14, 17; 21:6; 22:1, 17.
2. To be our salvation, the Triune God was processed to become the life-giving Spirit as the living water, the water of life—1 Cor. 15:45b; John 7:37-39:
a. The waters in Isaiah 55:1 and Revelation 22:17 are the redeeming God, the very God who accomplished redemption for us through His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection.
b. In totality, what Christ is and has accomplished is just the divine water, which is the consummated Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God for us to drink and enjoy—Isa. 55:1; John 7:37-39; 1 Cor. 12:13.
E. God’s building is the desire of His heart and the goal of His salvation—Exo. 25:8; Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:2-5.
Ⅵ. The central thought of the Scriptures is that God is seeking a building as a living composition of persons redeemed by and mingled with Himself—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22; 4:16:
A. God intends to have a dwelling place in the universe that is the mingling of—God and man, in which God is built into man and man is built into God, so that God and man, man and God, can be a mutual abode to each other—John 14:2, 20, 23; 15:4; 1 John 4:13.
B. In the church as a house of prayer, God wants us to pray concerning His sons, concerning the work of His hands, and concerning Jerusalem—Isa. 56:7; 62:6-7:
1. “Concerning My sons, And concerning the work of My hands, command Me”—Isa. 45:11.
2. “Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night They will never keep silent”—Isa. 62:6.
3. Our prayer in the church as a house of prayer should be for the fulfillment of God’s economy; the Holy Land, the holy city, and the holy temple are three crucial things regarding God’s economy—1 Kings 8:48; Dan. 6:10.
Ⅶ. Living and Proclaiming Christ as the Jubilee of Grace will issue in the full enjoyment of Christ as the jubilee in the millennium and in the fullest enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth—Acts 3:20-21; Matt. 19:28; Rev. 21:1-2:
A. The proclamation of the jubilee in Luke 4 governs the central thought of the whole Gospel of Luke, and the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is an excellent illustration of the jubilee—vv. 11-32.
B. The living of the jubilee is a living in the enjoyment of Christ, a living of enjoying God as our inheritance and real freedom—Acts 26:18; John 8:36.
C. We need to be today’s ministers and witnesses by living and proclaiming the gospel—Christ as the jubilee of grace—for the accomplishing of God’s eternal economy—Acts 26:16-19.
Ministry Excerpts:
ISAIAH BEING A BOOK OF TWO MAIN SECTIONS
The first section (chs. 1—39) concerns God’s governmental dealing with His beloved Israel and His punishing judgment on the nations so that Israel may be brought back to God and the all-inclusive Christ may be ushered in with the expected restoration of all things (11:6-9; 35:5-6; cf. Matt. 19:28; 10:1; Rom. 8:19-23). The last section of Isaiah (chs. 40—66) is the kind word of Jehovah spoken to the heart of Israel, His beloved people. This word unveils the prophet’s vision concerning the redeeming and saving Christ as the Servant of Jehovah and reveals the all-inclusive salvation brought in by Christ to Israel and the nations, with the full restoration of all things, consummating in the new heaven and new earth.
The first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah, corresponding to the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, focus mainly on the old creation, whereas the last twenty-seven chapters, corresponding to the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, center on the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). Both this chapter and the New Testament begin with the coming of John the Baptist, who ushered in the expected Christ for the initiation of the new creation (v. 3; Mark 1:1-11). The coming of the new creation does not immediately end the old creation; rather, the old creation remains for a time, until it is terminated at the end of the millennium (cf. 2 Pet. 3:7, 10-12). The end of the thousand-year kingdom will be the termination of the old creation as well as the completion, the consummation, of the new creation, which is signified by the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1-2). (The Holy Bible Recovery Version, Isaiah 40:1, footnote1)
JEHOVAH’S WORD OF COMFORT TO ISRAEL
The first thing announced in Isaiah 40 is the coming of John the Baptist (vv. 3-4). Immediately after this is the appearing of Christ as the glory of Jehovah (v. 5). The glory of Jehovah is the center of the gospel for the new creation (2 Cor. 4:4-6). Christ is the effulgence of God’s glory (Heb. 1:3), and this effulgence is like the shining of the sun. The New Testament tells us that Christ’s first coming was the rising of the sun (Luke 1:78). Thus, when Christ appeared, the glory of Jehovah appeared to be seen by the God-seekers and Christ-believers.
After Isaiah 40 speaks of the coming of John the Baptist and the appearing of Christ as the glory of God, this chapter tells us that, like the grass and the flower of the field, all men will wither and fade, but the word of God remains forever (vv. 6-8). The word of God is actually Christ as the gospel of God. This word is abiding, and as the word of life, it is also living. All men of flesh, all withering and fading human beings, should receive Christ, the glory of God, who comes to people as the living and abiding word of God. Those who receive Christ as this word of God will be regenerated that they may have eternal life to live forever (1 Pet. 1:23).
A Kind Word of Comfort Spoken to the Heart of His People
Isaiah 40 is Jehovah’s word of comfort to Israel. This word is actually the word of the gospel. Verses 1 and 2 say, “Comfort, O comfort My people, / Says your God. / Speak unto the heart of Jerusalem, / And cry out to her, / That her war- fare has finished, / That the penalty for her iniquity has been accepted; / For she has received from the hand of Jehovah double / For all her sins.” For centuries Israel has been suffering under God’s chastisement, but the day will come when this word of comfort, this word of the gospel, will be spoken to Israel. (Life-Study of Isaiah, msg. 21)
Christ as the Servant of Jehovah for the Exposing of the Falsehood and Vanity of the Idols
In chapter forty of Isaiah, Christ is the replacement for everyone. Since we have been replaced by Christ, we must realize that we are nothing—a drop from a bucket, specks of dust on the scales (v. 15). God Himself is the only One in the universe who remains forever. Today God is embodied in the Word. As people who are withering grass and fading flowers (vv. 6-8), we need to learn to come to the Word of God so that we may touch God. When we receive the living and abiding word of God, we are regenerated, and we realize that we are part of the new creation. At such a time we can declare, as Paul did, that we have been crucified with Christ, and that it is no longer we who live but Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20). This is what it means to wait on Christ (Isa. 40:31), that is, to stop ourselves, our living, our ambition, and our everything and to receive Christ as our life, our person, and our replacement. Christ then becomes everything to us. In particular, He becomes our strength. (Life-Study of Isaiah, msg. 22)
THE THREE PERSONS OF THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH
In order to understand Isaiah 49, we need to see the three persons of the servant of Jehovah—-Christ (vv. 5-9a), Isaiah the prophet (vv. 1-4), and Israel (v. 3). Both Isaiah the prophet and Israel consummate in Christ. All three are one servant. First, all are Israel. Israel, of course, is Israel, Isaiah was an Israelite, and Jesus Christ was a typical Israelite. Thus, as Israelites they all are one. Second, as a whole, Israel was God’s servant, His witness, in the Old Testament. Isaiah as a part of Israel also was a servant of Jehovah. In the New Testament Christ is unveiled as the Servant of God (Mark 10:45) and His Witness (Rev. 1:5). This again shows the oneness of Isaiah, Israel, and Christ as servants of Jehovah. But in the New Testament, our oneness with Christ as servants of God is seen more clearly, because the New Testament says that we are in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). Together we are one corporate Christ. Since we are in this corporate Christ, and Christ is the Servant of God, we also are one servant of God, one witness of God. This is God’s eternal view, and this is the view we need to have in order to understand Isaiah 49—50. (Life-Study of Isaiah, msg. 25)
THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST IN HIS FOUR STAGES ACCORDING TO GOD’S NEW TESTAMENT ECONOMY
Isaiah 53:1b-3 refers to Christ’s incarnation. Verse 1 says, “ Who has believed our report? / And to whom has the arm of Jehovah been revealed?” The arm of Jehovah is a figure of speech signifying Jehovah Himself in His power. Thus, the arm of Jehovah is God Himself in His saving power. This arm of Jehovah has been revealed. Two thousand years ago, when the Lord Jesus came out of Nazareth to preach the gospel, that was the unveiling of the arm of Jehovah. Christ as the arm of Jehovah was revealed to many, but they did not realize that He was the arm of Jehovah. They did not see that He was Jehovah Himself coming in power to save them.
Isaiah 53:3 begins, “He was despised and forsaken of men, / A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” In verse 1 Christ is referred to as the arm of Jehovah, and in verse 3 He is called a man of sorrows. The arm of Jehovah is Jehovah in His power, and the man of sorrows is Jesus. When these two are put together, they equal incarnation. One day Jehovah, the very Elohim, became a man by the name of Jesus. In Isaiah 53 Jehovah is signified by the arm of Jehovah, and Jesus is called a man of sorrows. This is incarnation.
In His vicarious death for us, the sinners, Christ bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows (Isa. 53:4). It may seem that He did this while He was ministering on the earth, because at a time when He healed many sick ones, Matthew 8:17, quoting the word in Isaiah 53:4, says, “He Himself took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Actually, Christ bore our sicknesses at the moment He was judged by God on the cross, in the hour when God put all our iniquities upon Him. He bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows when He bore our evildoings, wrongdoings, mistakes, transgressions, trespasses, iniquities, and sins on the cross.
By reading the four Gospels carefully, we can see that Christ hung on the cross for six hours, from nine o’lock in the morning until three o’lock in the afternoon (Mark 15:25, 33-37; Matt. 27:45-50; Luke 23:44-46). During the first three hours, from nine o’lock until noon, all that Christ suffered was inflicted by man. Then, at noon God came in to cause all the iniquities of His chosen people to fall upon that dying One. Immediately the sky became dark. This was a sign of God’s dealing with His chosen people’s sin. Then Christ shouted, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). It must be a fact that at that juncture God forsook Him. God had been with Christ continuously until that time. In John 16:32 the Lord said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” But at noon on the day of His crucifixion, God caused all the iniquity of His chosen people to fall upon Christ, taking Him as our Substitute, legally, according to God’s law. God removed all the iniquities from us and put them on Christ, making Christ the unique sinner. Then God forsook Him because at that time He was our Substitute. Thus, Christ died a vicarious death, a death that was recognized and approved by God’s law. (Life-Study of Isaiah, msg. 50)
Isaiah 53:12a says, “Therefore I [Jehovah God] will divide to Him [the ascended Christ] a portion with the Great, / And He will divide the spoil with the Strong.” The word spoil in this verse is very significant. It indicates that there was a war. Without a war there could be no spoil. Spoil signifies prey, and prey denotes captives taken in a war. The word spoil indicates that a war was fought and someone won that war, and the winner got the prey, the captives, the spoil. This one word opens a wide window to us, enabling us to see the invisible scene of a war. Christ, the One who won that war, divided the spoil with the Great and the Strong. Here, the Great and the Strong refer to God. God is the Great, and God is also the Strong. As the Great, He received the honor from Christ’s ascension, and as the Strong, He gained the victory. So the two, Christ and the strong and great One, shared the spoil with each other.
This indicates that in Christ’s ascension there was a demonstration of Christ’s victory by the sharing of the captives, the spoil, the prey, taken in Christ’s victory. Isaiah 53:12a, just one half of a verse, is the only portion in Isaiah 53 that speaks concerning Christ’s ascension. But this half verse, with the demonstration of Christ’s victory by the sharing of the prey, opens a wide window to us. God the Father was the Great and also the Strong, and God the Son was the Fighter. He fought the battle on the cross and in His resurrection. He won the battle, and by winning that battle He captured all Satan’s captives. All men, beginning from Adam and including us, were captured by Satan. We became Satan’s captives. However, according to Ephesians 4:8, when Christ ascended to the heavens, “He led captive those taken captive and gave gifts to men.” This verse is a quotation from Psalm 68:18. Those taken captive refers to those who had been captured by Satan. This verse indicates that when Christ ascended to the heavens, He led a train, a procession, of captives. These captives included all the saved sinners. Before that time, we were captives under Satan’s hand. Satan captured us and made us his captives because of sin and death. We were in slavery to Satan under sin and death. Then Christ through His death and resurrection defeated Satan, and He captured all the captives under Satan’s hand and made them His captives. First we were captives of Satan, but now we have become captives of Christ. Then, in His ascension Christ led us in a triumphal procession, “a train of vanquished foes” (The Amplified New Testament), to the heavens. (Life-Study of Isaiah, msg. 52)
CHRIST AS A COVENANT FOR THE PEOPLE AND
A LIGHT FOR THE NATIONS
Christ as the Servant of Jehovah serves God by being a covenant and a light to God’s chosen people that He may be the full salvation of God extending to the ends of the earth (42:5-7; 49:6, 8b-9a). God’s full salvation is based on God’s righteousness and is consummated in God’s life (Rom. 5:17, 21). Righteousness in God’s justice and life through God’s light are the two basic factors of God’s salvation (Rom. 1:16-17; 5:18b; Titus 3:7). God’s salvation in its two aspects is composed of Christ as the covenant for justification and Christ as the light for life (Rom. 5:10). Through His death Christ as the covenant satisfies God’s righteousness for justification as the base of God’s full salvation, and in His resurrection Christ as the light imparts life as the consummation of God’s full salvation. Ultimately, the complete salvation of God is embodied in the New Jerusalem, which is a matter of life built on the foundation of righteousness (Rev. 22:1-2; 21:14, 19-20 and note 191, par. 2).
Through His death and in His resurrection Christ has become the new covenant as the new testament (Heb. 8:10-12; 9:15-17) according to God’s righteousness to be the base of God’s full salvation. God gave Christ as a light to the nations that He might be God’s salvation to all the world (Matt. 4:16; Luke 2:30-32). The life of this light (John 1:4; 8:32), as the indestructible life (Heb. 7:16b), the incorruptible life (2 Tim. 1:10b), and the real and eternal life that we should lay hold on (1 Tim. 6:19, 12), becomes God’s salvation to us in His righteousness (Rom. 5:10, 17). This life also ensures us, guarantees us, the heirs of God in His life, the right to inherit God with all His riches as our eternal inheritance (Acts 26:18). Such a life of light grows in us continually, issuing in our church life today (Eph. 5:8) and consummating in the New Jerusalem in eternity (Rev. 21:2-3, 9b-11, 18-23; 22:1-5). (The Holy Bible Recovery Version, Isaiah 49:6, footnote 2)
FOR THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL UNTO THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH
God did not consider either heaven or earth His dwelling place, nor did He consider the physical house, the temple, built for Him by the children of Israel the place of His rest. In the Old Testament both the tabernacle and the temple were only symbols of God’s union with the children of Israel, whom God considered His actual house (Heb. 3:6 and note). God was united with the children of Israel and became one entity with them, and this one entity was a spiritual house in which both God and the godly people in Israel dwelt (Psa. 27:4; 84:10; 90:1; cf. 1 Pet. 2:5a). According to v. 2 and 57:15, the dwelling place God desires to have is a group of people into whom He can enter. God intends to have a dwelling place in the universe that is the mingling of God and man, in which God is built into man and man is built into God, so that God and man, man and God, can be a mutual abode to each other (John 14:2, 20, 23; 15:4; 1 John 4:13). In the New Testament this dwelling place, this house, is the church, which is God’s habitation in the believers’ spirit (Eph. 2:22 and note 4; 1 Tim. 3:15 and note 2). The ultimate manifestation of this universal building, this universal house, is the New Jerusalem. In this city God is in man, taking man as His dwelling place, and man is in God, taking God as His habitation (Rev. 21:3, 22, and notes). See note 121 in Gen.28 and notes in 2 Sam. 7:12-14. (The Holy Bible Recovery Version, Isaiah 66:1, footnote1)