The Gospel of Isaiah: Highlights of Chapter One
The Gospel of Isaiah: Highlights of Chapter One.
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).
“Israel does not know Me, nor do My people understand.” (1:3).
Knowing God. The Hebraic-Christian understanding of “know” is not at all limited to an intellectual or mental knowledge. To know someone in the Biblical sense is to experience that person in a deeply intimate way. “Know,” whether with ‘yadah’ (Hebrew) or ‘ginosko’ (Greek), is a relationship word, and involves knowledge that comes from personal experience. To know involves a deeply personal union with a truth or a person. In the Hebrew and Christian mind, we don’t really know something until it becomes a part of us, something that changes us in some way. To truly know something is to be able to live it out, to experience participation with that which is known. Knowing something involves a heartfelt focus, an intense investment. To know something is to care for it, to give oneself over to it. To know someone in the Biblical sense is to literally participate in a profound relationship with that person, to establish an ongoing union with someone, to be personally invested to an intimate degree with a person. Limiting our knowledge to the abstract, religious principles, doctrinal statements or theological propositions doesn’t even come close to approaching the biblical ideal of knowledge. Too many of us seem to talk about God theoretically, instead of talking to God heart to heart. Intellectual knowledge is a worthless dead end if disconnected from a personal relationship with God. Truly knowing Jesus means going way beneath a surface level with Him. It is doing a deep-dive into Him through His Holy Spirit and personally experiencing His character. To know God is to read His mind by soaking in His Word. To know the Lord is significantly more than a passing acquaintanceship with Him, it is not half-hearted. To know God is not abstract head knowledge. To know God means one has a life-changing relationship with the Lord, a friendship that involves reliance, obedience, submission, trust, devotion, commitment. To know God is to experience Him, to participate in His life and allow Him to change your life direction and purpose.
“The multitude of your sacrifices… What are they to me? says the Lord. I have more than enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations… I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of hearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offered many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong; learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (1:11-17).
Don’t Even Bother! On the one hand, Yahweh loved the Feasts and Sacred Assemblies seen in the Hebrew Bible… the fasting and feasting, the family celebrations, the remembrance of God’s saving deeds, the acknowledgment of God’s character, the focus on God’s truth. Of course God loved the Feasts! They were his ideas in the first place! “These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.” (Lev. 23:2). The Jewish Feasts and Assemblies were opportunities to remember, to worship, to teach, to listen to the Word of the Lord, and speak of His care and presence. They were intended to cause believers to reenact sacred events, to confirm the Faith of the people of God. Celebrations like Sabbath, Passover, and Succoth filled a deep need to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and to be reminded of God’s actions on behalf of the believers. The people are spiritually fulfilled when they gain the habit of pointing to God as the supreme reference point in all of history. But on the other hand, if these appointed spiritual activities become personally meaningless, if the words become empty, if the people are just going through the motions of faith, then the celebrations become repugnant to God, a stench in His nostrils. And how can the LORD tell if the Feasts are merely rote, useless and pointless? The answer according to the prophets: when the religious celebrations, whether in large groups or family settings, don’t result in a lifestyle of justice and mercy. If the biblical celebrations don’t result in a changed heart, in a transformed way of life that reflects the heart of God, then He says, Don’t bother! I hate your feasts if your faith style is empty and doesn’t reflect My priorities. Keeping the Law doesn’t necessarily translate to pleasing God. As Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23, how ridiculous it is to observe the tiniest details of the Torah and at the same time ignore the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faithfulness.
“Come now and let us reason together. Yahweh promises you over and over: ‘Though your sins stain you like scarlet, I will whiten them like bright, new fallen snow! Even though they are deep red like crimson, they will be made white like wool!” (1:18).
Reason Together about Purity. To reason together meant to have a sit-down, a pow-wow, a calm and rational discussion when people would deliberate about something important, they would talk it out to decide the next steps together. And what did the Lord want to discuss that was so important? Redemption. Forgiveness. Purity of heart. Deep cleansing. It’s like this, says Yahweh… It’s like when something is double-dipped in a permanent red dye that could not possibly be removed from the material. You might think this scarlet red dye made a permanent stain, but it didn’t. Yes, you might be fooled into thinking the deep crimson red color will never come out, but I am here to tell you that, though it might look like your sins have permanently stained your heart, trust Me, it’s only temporary. The fact is, the red of my righteous blood will purify your heart from the red of your sins. As we reason this out together, let me tell you a story about the scarlet worm that produces the crimson dye. There was a small worm, or grub that the Israelites discovered when they were in the Sinai desert. This tiny worm the size of a pea is called the “shani”, which means scarlet red. This color is named after both the worm and the color dye it produces. As amazing as this story is, the history of the shani is completely true. When the female shani becomes pregnant, it climbs the nearest tree and buries itself into the bark so it is protected. The female will then give birth to its young, and the mother proceeds to die. During the birthing process and death, the female bleeds a bright red scarlet color, making the tree appear as if it’s bleeding. At the death of the mother shani, the newly birthed young feed on the dead mother until they are mature enough to crawl down the tree and live their lives. The dead mother’s body is still able to produce the bright red color when it is crushed during the dying process. The shani, the scarlet worm, continue to thrive in the Sinai desert to this day. It is astounding, continues Yahweh, that when My Son was on the Cross, when reciting Psalm 22, He certainly continued to cry out that psalm after the first verse, which means He recited verse 6: “I am a shani worm, and not a man!” Jesus knew the story of the shani, and He declared that He will offer His life, His blood sacrifice, to give birth to new lives around the world. His red blood will cleanse sin’s permanent stain on your heart.
“Look how the once faithful city has become a whore, as unfaithful as a prostitute! She was once filled with justice, where righteousness made its home, but is now the dwelling place of murderers! Your sterling silver is no longer pure, and your wine is watered down… I will take action against you, My sinful children, burning off whatever is worthless dross, removing whatever is impure. I will put my fiery hand upon you and purify you with fire into something clean.” (1:21-22, 25).
Isaiah is hinting here at a future prophecy in his book… “Your husband is your Maker” (54:5), proclaims Isaiah, and the Lord says you are unfaithful to me. You are prostituting yourselves through your unrighteousness and chasing after other gods. Like the prophet Hosea shouts to Israel, “This whole country has become a whorehouse!” (Hosea 1:2). My chosen people have violated our covenant, our sacred marriage vows. They are uniting themselves with wickedness and other gods. And yet, and yet, says the Lord later… “With everlasting grace I will have compassion on you. With great mercy I am taking you back.” (54:7-8). Isaiah promises that the Lord will pursue His people in faithfulness, He will be faithful when His people are at their worst. But then Isaiah follow that up with His refiner’s fire in which the Lord refers to the process of removing the dross from precious metals like silver through a fire’s intense heat. The refiner’s fire does not consume the silver, it does not destroy anything that is worthwhile or precious in the metal. The fire is completely constructive and purposeful, and results in perfectly pure and highly valuable silver. Dross is an old word that means impurities, foreign objects, waste materials, worthless and unwanted substances imbedded within the metal. Dross is anything that is keeping the precious metal from being completely pure, and the Lord is promising to remove unrighteousness from His people the same way. Once again, Isaiah is leaning into a prophecy that he will proclaim later… “Look, I have refined you, but not as severely as silver; rather, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction, I have purified you in the furnace of adversity.” (48:10). And sure enough, Isaiah offers hope in the Lord… “After that, you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City. Zion will be redeemed by justice; and those in her who repent, by righteousness.” (1:26-27).