The Gospel of Isaiah: Ch. 49:1-7, The Second Servant Song

The Gospel of Isaiah: Ch. 49:1-7, The Second Servant Song.

WANTED: An imaginative scribe who can write exquisite poetry. A faithful, articulate believer in Yahweh who can switch from one extreme to another at the Lord’s command… from a sublime vision of God’s glory, to a ridiculous demonstration of shameful nakedness; from confronting the people over their sinfulness, to comforting people with hopefulness; from being an outspoken messenger one minute, to a living object lesson the next; from having one foot in the immediate surroundings one minute, to one foot in the future messianic realm the next. Must be adaptable, thick-skinned, and extraordinarily brave. Person who answers, “Here I am. Send me!” will be especially considered. (from The Jerusalem Post, 740 BC).

Isaiah’s Second Song of the Servant:

“Listen to what I have to say, you islands! Pay attention to Me, you who live in distant lands!

Lord Yahweh called Me as His own before I was born and named me while I was still in my mother’s womb.

He gives me words that pierce and penetrate.

He hid Me and protected Me in the shadow of His name.

He prepared Me like a polished arrow and concealed Me in His quiver.

He said to Me, ‘You are my special Friend, Israel. I will be glorified in You.” 

I had thought I’d worked and served for nothing.

Yet my justice and my rewards are secure with my faithful God.

And now, the Lord Yahweh – who shaped Me in the womb to be His Servant,

to bring Jacob’s tribes back to Him, that Israel would be gathered back to Him.

For I am honored in the sight of Yahweh.

I find the source of all my strength in My God.

He says to Me, ‘Is it too small a thing for you, my Servant, to restore greatness to Jacob’s tribes and the survivors of Israel?

I will do even more, for I will make you to be a light to the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth!’

Yahweh, Israel’s Kinsman-Redeemer and Holy one,

says to the One who is deeply despised and repulsed by rulers, and is a slave to the ruling class,

‘Kings will see and stand up in respect; Princes will bow down to honor the faithfulness of Yahweh,

the Holy One, who has chosen You.” (49:1-7).

A Messianic Prophecy. In this classic prophetic word from Isaiah, we find that the Singer of the Song is the Servant Himself! God’s chosen Servant narrates this entire poem as He accepts His Father’s unique mission just for Him. The servant is Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshua, and He has humbly accepted His earthly destiny from the Father. Yes, it is Messiah Jesus who was called to His mission before He was physically formed in Mary’s womb; was named before His birth, Jeshua, the Lord-Who-Saves; was given the tongue of a two-edged sword, able to pierce and penetrate for the sake of truth; was protected in obscurity for many years before His ministry began; was equipped and prepared for His mission during that time of hiddenness; had complete, wholehearted trust in the Father and His plan; continually found His strength and power in the Father throughout His ministry; joyfully embraced the Father’s call to not only restore Israel but also serve as the light of salvation for the Gentiles, for all the nations world-wide; was aware of a time of rejection and persecution that will occur before being honored and then bringing glory to the Father.

Small Beginnings in the Life of Jesus. Jesus was like a mustard seed planted by the Father-Gardener. Jesus was hidden from the world when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was tucked away from acclaim when growing as a fetus in the womb of an unknow teenager in Nazareth. He was far away from adoring crowds when He was born in cattle shed in Bethlehem. He was out of the picture when a refugee with His mom and stepdad in Egypt for a couple of years. He was in obscurity as He grew up in an isolated little village until He was thirty years old. Isn’t it amazing that Jesus waited patiently for the fullness of time to start His ministry, that he wasn’t chomping at the bit to get things started?  Nazareth was an overlooked, underestimated, basically forgotten village during the time of Jesus, relatively poor and working class, with a population estimated between 200-300 at that time. It wasn’t the type of village where people would make it a destination. Situated in northern Israel on a steep slope of a hill, midway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth didn’t have much going for it, except that one of its residents was the hidden Son of God. Nazareth was nothing special, rather backwater and unpolished in language and culture, the perfect place to hide someone until the time was right. Jesus was the walking definition of insignificant. Despite His humble upbringing, He ended up starting the biggest movement in the history of the world. Jesus was a mustard seed, planted in the world’s garden by the Father, and grew way out of proportion to His beginnings. And the tree is still growing.

The Discipline of Obscurity. Theology professor Dr. Ellen Davis wrote about how a believer who desires to be used of God must be concealed before ministry can begin. She reflected on Isaiah 49:2, in which the sharp sword of the mouth was first hidden in the shadow of God’s hand, and the polished arrow was first concealed in the darkness of the master’s quiver. Dr. Davis called this the “discipline of obscurity,” in which we find God and are protected by Him while we are hidden in His care. It is in the out-of-the-way places that God prepares us in our fight against evil and enabling us in our walk with Christ. We ask God to hide us under the shadow of His wings, and it is there while hidden in Him that we ‘jealously guard’ our private times of prayer, Bible study, mediations and spiritual retreats. It seems that before the light is to spread for all to see, it must first be hidden under a bushel in obscurity. “Learn to be unknown” advised an old, wise spiritual director, Thomas A’ Kempis, in his classic meditation Imitation of Christ).

The Servant’s Word is Still Penetrating! “The Word of God is alive and actively working to this day. Sharper than any two-edged sword, like a surgeon’s scalpel that penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, piercing deep enough to separate joints and marrow. This Word is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart, our innermost attitudes!” (Hebrews 4:12). In St. Paul’s spiritual armor of Ephesians 6, the Word of the Spirit is an offensive weapon, the Spirit-Sword, and is seen as our reference point of truth, so sharp that it can help us cut between truth and deception. It can help us separate the substantive meat of God’s message from the fatty distractions. The Sword can cut away the foolishness that the devil tries to feed us, from the true wisdom of the Lord. The Word-Sword can help us divide the eternal knowledge of God from the lies of that ignorant devil. The Spirit-Sword can go far in helping us distinguish the righteous mind of God from the warped mind of Satan. The Word can reveal to us what is life-giving and what is death-dealing. The Sword of the Spirit, the Word of the Lord, is truly a “weapon of righteousness.” (2 Cor. 6:7).  Our holy weapon of God’s Word can penetrate any type of resistance in the demonic realm. The Word of the Lord stands forever.

God Strengthens the Servant. The Servant-Messiah went much further with the Father than merely being strengthened by Him. Jesus the Son only did what the Father asked Him to do. He only spoke what the Father wanted Him to say. Jesus literally did not go one step ahead of the Father, and He never took His own initiative. The Son stays in lockstep with the Father at all times. If we were to explore the biblical relationship between God the Father and God the Son, especially in the gospel of John, we would have to include:

1. Truly, truly, I say to you. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever the Father does, the Son will also do in like manner.” (John 5:18-19).
2. The Son would rather do the Father’s will than His own (Mark 14:36);
3. “My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11:27).
4. The Father dearly loves the Son and shows Him everything He is doing. The Father is totally transparent to the Son. (J. 5:20);
5. Just as the Father gives life to those He raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone He wants. (J. 5:21);
6. The Father is not the judge. He has given full authority to the Son to judge (J. 5:22);
7. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent Him (J. 5:23);
8. The Father has life in Himself, and He has granted that same life-giving power to His Son (J. 5:26);
9. The Son can do nothing on His own as judge. He judges as the Father tells Him (J. 5:30);
10. The Son has come in the Father’s Name (J. 5:43).
11. The words of the Son are not His own. His words are the Father’s words (J. 14:24);
12. The Son humbly nods to the Father as the greater of the two (J. 14:28);
13. The Son will do whatever the Father requires of Him, so that the world will know that the Son loves the Father. (J. 14:31);
14. The Son is the only way to the Father (J. 14:6);
15. When you know the Son, you know the Father. When you see the Son, you have seen the Father (J. 14:7);
16. The Son brought glory to the Father on earth by completing the work He was sent to do (J. 17:4);
17. The Father and the Son are essentially One… The Father in the Son, the Son in the Father (J. 17:21).

“The secret of the whole world of humanity is the love between the Father and the Son. This is at the root of it all. Upon the love between the Son and the Father hangs the whole universe.” (George MacDonald, Knowing the Risen Lord).

Jesus would often probe the profound intimacy between Father and Son, relishing the mystery. The Spirit of love shared between them is eternal, and their spiritual union is boundless. The personal relationship between Father and Son has always been so intimate that somehow they are inside of each other. There is nothing in the universe that is as tightly knit together as the Father and Son. Their love for each other is the energy source for all the love in the world. Without their trinitarian love for each other, there would be no love. Human love would not exist were it not for their divine love for each other.

“Now all the glory to God, who is able to make you strong, just as the Gospel says. This revelation about Jesus Christ and His plan for you Gentiles, this mystery that has been kept secret since the beginning of time. But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey Him. All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”  (Romans 16:25-27, NLT). 

The Jews and the Gentiles are Both the Chosen People. Being a steward of God’s mysteries, Paul is inspired in Romans 11:17-24 to provide for us a picture of God’s arrangement regarding the Chosen People of both the Old and New Covenants. The cultivated olive tree represents Israel, and the wild olive tree represents the Gentiles. The farmer tending the cultivated tree enables it to bear fruit by pruning and nurturing it carefully. He trims and discards the branches that are unproductive, and he keeps the roots of the tree intact. Out of tree’s holy root will come the Chosen One. The Gentiles have weak roots, because they are wild and uncultivated. The branches of this wild olive tree were thus incapable of bearing fruit. But then the farmer, out of sheer mercy, took an unproductive branch from the wild tree and grafted it onto the cultivated tree. This grafting would succeed in nourishing the wild branch, giving it new life and enabling it to bear fruit. This is a picture of how Gentile believers can now share in Israel’s blessings through its Messiah, who is the root of the cultivated olive tree. Paul says that the Gentile believers do not replace Israel, that they were grafted onto the Jews through Jesus. Israel remains God’s cultivated tree, His Chosen People even now, and through the Messiah is the source of salvation for all Gentile believers. Christians are branches growing from the Jewish tree, from the root of Christ. Both Israel and the Christian Church are a part of one cultivated olive tree and are given life through Jesus Messiah.

UNPACKING  ST. PAUL’S  MYSTERY:

(1.)  Jews and Gentiles alike are part of God’s chosen people through the Messiah Jesus.

(2.)  The Gospel of grace has grafted the Gentiles, (“branches from a wild olive tree“), onto Abraham’s tree, (“a cultivated olive tree“), through Messiah. Paul expands on this mystery in Romans 11:17-24, as well as below in Ephesians 3:4-6. He mentions this mystery in many other parts of his epistles.

(3.)  Because of God’s grafting, Jew and Gentile have become equal sharers in the rich nourishment of the roots of Abraham’s tree.

(4.)  Both Jew and Gentile are partners together in the same body of faith, the Messiah Community.

(5.)  Both Jewish and Gentile believers share equally in God’s inheritance by being called God’s children. As mutual partakers, they both enjoy the promise of God’s eternal blessings, because they are in union with Christ.

(6.)  God’s revelation concerning salvation was directed to the Jews first as His chosen people in the early covenant.

(7.)  Gentile believers are extensions of God’s chosen people. They are included, but they do not replace the Jews as the original people of God.

(8.)  Jewish and Gentile believers are bound together in Christ, in anticipation of the restoration of Israel, when all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26).

(9.)  The restoration of Israel will include the blessing of all nations.

(10.)  It is Messiah Jesus who gives significance to everything in the body, including Jew and Gentile, which is the basis of equality among the many varieties of believers.

(11.)  Gentile believers remain Gentile, Jewish believers remain Jews, but there should be no division between them, since they are united in Christ.

(12.)  To be included in the mystery of salvation, both Jew and Gentile alike must believe in Messiah Jesus. Their body of fellowship is made up of those who call on the name of Christ.

“If you read what I have written, you will be able to understand my insight into this mystery concerning the Messiah. In past generations, it was not made known to mankind, as the Spirit is now revealing it to God’s holy apostles and prophets; This mystery is that through the Gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together with the Jews in God’s promise in the Messiah Jesus.” (Ephesians 3:4-6).