Year 2, Week 8, Day 4 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 8, Day 4

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Isaiah 54-56.

Today’s reading continues Isaiah’s prophecy to Judah. Isaiah 54 describes something of the bright future that awaits God’s people because of what was just described, in the previous chapter, concerning the suffering servant: “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the LORD…In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you” (Isaiah 54:1,14). Isaiah 55 is a call to turn to the LORD, who remembers His covenant promises to David: “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David” (Isaiah 55:3). Isaiah 56 describes how even people who were previously excluded from the LORD’s presence, on the basis of ethnicity would no longer be excluded, granted they desire to delight in God’s Word and devote themselves to God: “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters” (Isaiah 56:3-5a).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading is the universal availability of gathering in God’s presence as a result of the success of the suffering servant’s accomplishments: “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities” (Isaiah 54:2-3). The suffering servant did not do a regional thing, but a global one. So, a universal offer stands: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). But the offer entails conditions: "Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7). Any and all may come, but the terms of coming involve repentance, “let the wicked forsake his way,” coupled with trust, “seek the LORD…return to the LORD.” But the benefits of God’s blessings along with joy and peace far outweighs whatever is forfeited through the acts of repentance and faith: “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 55:12-13).

No longer would ethnicity nor physical defect exclude: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD. “No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the LORD…No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 23:1-3). But to say that were no exclusions from coming before the LORD does not mean that there were no requirements for those who did come before the LORD: “Thus says the LORD: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil” (Isaiah 56:1-2). The outcome of the suffering servant’s work is to gather a people—a diverse, multinational people—who are bound to the LORD: “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:6-7). This gathering bound to the LORD includes Israel plus more: “The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered” (Isaiah 56:8).

This work of gathering those bound to the LORD has already begun in the church through the Gospel: “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:14-16). And being bound to the LORD qualifies the gathered church to reflect the work Isaiah expresses in priestly language: “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe