October 20, Isaiah 43
”Your are my witnesses,” declares the LORD,
“and my servant whom I have chosen, that you
may know and believe me and understand that I
am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall
there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and
besides me there is no savior.” Isaiah 43:10-11
The LORD God issued a subpoena to his apostate nation to testify in a vast courtroom, where all the nations of the world were gathered. The nation of Israel would have been a reluctant witness in the days of Isaiah the prophet. They had forsaken God and turned to idols. God called Israel to be his covenant people. But they had ignored their covenant and lived ungodly lives. After good King Hezekiah died, his wicked son Manasseh ruled in his place. Judah had become the deaf and blind servant God described in Chapter 42. They were deaf to God’s words and blind to God’s works on their behalf. But God was faithful to his covenant and sent prophets such as Isaiah to warn and encourage them. A faithful remnant of believers remained true to God, but the nation as a whole was corrupt.
It’s strange that some of the most beautiful promises and most encouraging pictures of God’s blessings for his people are found in this chapter that ends with God’s decree to deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.
The Lord accused Israel of being weary of him and not calling on him. They had failed to offer sacrifices that God commanded, and burdened and wearied the Lord with their sins.
How could a holy, righteous God make such sweeping, beautiful promises to bless and save such profane and wicked people? I think the best answer to that question is that there were two Israels, and I do not mean the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah. Instead, I mean that the two Israels are the physical descendants of Abraham (racial Israel) and the spiritual descendants of the father of the faithful (the godly remnant who were faithful and obedient to the Lord). I believe all the rich promises and wonderful assurances were for those people who were devoted to God, and those who heard and heeded the warnings and returned to God. He warned and pleaded with all Israel. God is merciful, long-suffering, gracious and forgiving. But the same God who described himself as all those things to Moses also said that he would not clear the guilty.
Those who would not repent and return to God would know his wrath instead of his blessings. God gathered all the nations to hear the testimony of Israel to compare his trustworthy words and mighty works to the mute and impotent wood and stone idols of the pagans.
Israel should have demonstrated and celebrated God’s superiority over all the idols. But their fascination with the pagan fertility gods and their lewd “worship” rituals led them to do the same abominable things as their neighbors.
God reminded Israel and the pagans around them of how he prevailed over all the gods of Egypt and the Canaanites, and called Israel to affirm that it was true. Israel, blind and deaf to the Lord, needed to face and admit the truth about God from their own history. Then God spoke of events to come in that past perfect tense that spoke of things to be done as if they had already happened. Babylon would fall, a remnant would return home to Jerusalem, and God would redeem his people.
Israel understood the idea of redemption because of the kinsman redeemer provisions of the law that allowed a near relative to buy freedom for his enslaved relative by paying their debt. I doubt that anyone could grasp at the time how God would redeem people to himself by coming in the person of Jesus to lay down his life to accomplish that redemption. All the past examples of God delivering his people may illustrate, but do not really begin to compare with the amazing redemption God purchased for us in Christ. The beautiful promises of God’s redemption and restoration reflected back to Israel’s history in Egypt and looked ahead to Judah’s return from Babylon. But in a richer fuller sense, those promises and prophecies reached beyond Israel to include Gentiles, and ultimately to Christ’s kingdom, the church. Their transgressions would be blotted out and their sins no longer remembered.
What about the great majority of the nation who were not in that faithful remnant? Would they get in anyway, because they were the physical descendants of Abraham? No. The chilling last verse says that God would deliver Jacob to destruction and Israel to reviling. Ruin, not redemption, was coming to the profane idolaters among God’s people. They had a rich heritage of faith, great promises of blessings for the obedient and warnings of curses for the lawless rebels. Despite all that background, they still abandoned their place as God’s people and followed after idols. We today have even less excuse for turning away from the Lord. Let’s embrace the promises and heed the warnings, trust God’s grace and resolve to live for God’s glory today and every day God grants us.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—October 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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