They Have Provoked The Holy One – Part 2c

We’ve looked thus far at 11 characteristics of the counsel of God:^[1]

1. They are Great – High in status, formally great.
2. They are Wonderful – astounding, causing amazement and boggling the mind.
3. They are Immutable – they will stand forever, never to be altered.
4. They are Sovereign – they demonstrate the absolute control of God over His creation.
5. They are Eternal – they extend from now into eternity future.
6. They are Faithful and True - demonstrate God’s faithfulness and truth to His Word.
7. They Cannot Be Frustrated & Shall Be Performed – There is nothing that men can do to prevent God from Doing As He Had Decreed.
8. The Scriptures tells that even the sufferings and death of Christ were according to these counsels – Christ was crucified from before the foundation of the world.
9. Saints are called and saved according to the counsels of God – The root of salvation rests, not in the mind and will of man, but in the determination counsel of God established before time began.
10. We see that the union of all saints in Christ, is according to these same counsels of God – the relationship of believers together, as a church is rooted in these same counsels.
11. Ultimately, all of the Works of God are according to the Counsels of God – in fact, all of his works are according to these self-same counsels of God.

We’ve seen that the counsels of God are the basis for virtually all that we experience as people.  But the Bible has more to say to us that just to declare these truths.  It talks a great deal about what we are supposed, as believers, to do with those truths once we know and understand something about them.

Twelfth, the Scriptures tell us that these truths should be declared by ministers of the Gospel.  Luke, referring to his preaching, said in Ac 20:27:

27 For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.

“The whole counsel of God” refers to the entire plan and purpose of God for man’s salvation in all its fullness, culminating in His Son Jesus Christ: divine truths of creation, election, redemption, justification, adoption, conversion, sanctification, holy living, and glorification. Paul strongly condemned those who adulterate the truth of Scripture (2 Cor. 2:17, 2 Tim. 4:3, cf. Rev. 22:18).^<2>  He did not suppress any truths of the gospel but preached the full gospel to Jew and Gentile. He always used tact and discretion but never compromised the good news.

This is the responsibility of all ministers of the Gospel, formal ministers especially, but certainly this truth applies to all believers as we preach and teach the Gospel to all men.

Thirteenth, we are to attend to these Counsels.  God, of course, does not speak for nothing.  Nor does He speak merely for ornamentation or for the sake of effect.  He intends that men not only pay attention to what He says, but that they take action on them, obeying and implementing them in their lives.

Jeremiah 49:20 says:

²⁰ Therefore hear the counsel of the Lord that He has taken against Edom, And His purposes that He has proposed against the inhabitants of Teman…

“Hear”  specifically refers to use the perception of hearing with the ears specifically to process information ^[3].  The verb is in the imperative and thus is a command.  We MUST hear these commands, we are commanded to do so, it is a responsibility of believers to hear the commands of God and act on them.  It is not something we SHOULD do, it is something we MUST, we are OBLIGATED to do.

As in the prior verse, Jeremiah, speaking to a disobedient people, says in 50:45:

Therefore hear the counsel of the Lord that He has taken against Babylon, And His purposes that He has proposed against the land of the Chaldeans:

As in 49:20, he uses the same word, in the same form.  We are commanded to hear the counsel of the Lord, that is the advice, counsel, i.e., the act. of telling someone what they should do based on a plan or scheme ^[4]. He also uses the word “purposes” speaking of a thought, i.e., the content of reasoning and thinking ^[5].  The point being that the counsel that He has communicated is the content of the plan God has thought through and developed in His mind.

The implication of this is tremendous!  Why in the world would anyone, ANYONE wish to cast aside the plan thought through by the God of the universe?  The overwhelming truth in all of this is that this is not just a matter of authority, but also a matter of wisdom and submission.  It simply does not make any sense for men to cast aside the counsel of, the fruit of the machinations of His mind.  The rest of Bible makes clear the reason for casting that counsel aside is not because men come up with better  ideas, but because sin compels them to do so.

Fourteenth, portions of God’s counsels are secret and, like it or not, cannot and are not to be searched into.  What we mean by this is that though God has revealed much in His Word, He has not revealed all.  This is true in two regards. 

• First, we are not capable of understanding all that His mind thinks.
• Second it is not time for all of His counsels to take place.
• Third, there are surely matters that He has reserved for only He to know, He is not responsible to tell His children all things.

Deuteronomy 29:29 says:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

It is clear from this that God, Who is certainly capable of revealing anything that He desires to reveal, has reserved some of that information, some of that plan for Himself.  That which is revealed included the law with its promises and threats; consequently, that which is hidden only can refer to the specific way in which God will carry out His will in the future, which is revealed in His Word and completed in His great work of salvation, in spite of the apostasy of His people.^[2]

Matthew 24:36, for instance, tells us of a portion of the plan of God that is surely set in stone in all  of its aspects, but is reserved for His knowledge alone.

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Whereas the disciples wanted to know the time and date of His return, but the emphasis of the passage is not that information, but on faithfulness, watchfulness, stewardship, expectancy, and preparedness.^[2] It is important to note that this statement is true to this day.  Any attempts to know the “day of hour” even as we get closer and closer to the time of the end, are effectively stopped by it. 

Similarly, at the time of the ascension, the disciples inquired about the time of Christ’s return.  Christ’s reply in Acts 1:7 was even more direct and to the point:

And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.

Even at this point, the apostles still believed the earthly form of the kingdom of Messiah would soon be re-established (cf. Luke 19:11; 24:21). They also knew that Ezek. 36 and Joel 2 connected the coming of the kingdom with the outpouring of the Spirit whom Jesus had promised.  But this verse shows that the apostles’ expectation of a literal, earthly kingdom mirrored what Christ taught and what the OT predicted. Otherwise, He would have corrected them about such a crucial aspect of His teaching. times or seasons. These two words refer to features, eras, and events that will be part of His earthly kingdom reign, which will begin at the second coming (Matt. 25:21–34). The exact time of His return, however, remains unrevealed.^[2]  It remains the province of God the Father and He alone.

The essence of the matter is that God has revealed information to us and we are responsible to act on that information.  But there is also information that He has reserved for His own and we are not only NOT responsible for that knowledge, but we are responsible to leave that knowledge with Him.

___________________________________________

^[1]Torrey, R. (1995, c1897). The New Topical TextBook : A scriptural text book for the use of ministers, teachers, and all Christian workers. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos research Systems, Inc.

^[2]MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Ac 20:27). Nashville: Word Pub.

^[3] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 9048, #1). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^{[4] [5] Ibid.}

They Have Provoked The Holy One - Part 2b

We’ve looked thus far at 7 characteristics of the counsel of God:^[1]

1. They are Great – High in status, formally great.
2. They are Wonderful – astounding, causing amazement and boggling the mind.
3. They are Immutable – they will stand forever, never to be altered.
4. They are Sovereign – they demonstrate the absolute control of God over His creation.
5. They are Eternal – they extend from now into eternity future.
6. They are Faithful and True - demonstrate God’s faithfulness and truth to His Word.
7. They Cannot Be Frustrated & Shall Be Performed – There is nothing that men can do to prevent God from Doing As He Had Decreed.

Eighth, the Scriptures tells that even the sufferings and death of Christ were according to these counsels.  Acts 2:22-23 says:

^22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— ^23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;

Even the greatest of all of the actions of God in history was a part of the counsel, of His plan – the death of only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Notice that the entire matter was a part of that counsel, this verse specifically says that Christ was “delivered up” according the counsel of God.  This adjective means to be given up or over.  The is the implication of betrayal and of being delivered over to enemies or to some hostile power. 

Paul says the same thing later in Acts 4:27-28:

^27 “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together ^28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.

Those who acted against Christ did so because they were doing that which God had planned and decreed in His foreordained purpose!  While admittedly this is difficult to get hold of for many, it is the plain teaching of Scripture.

Ninth, Saints are called and saved according to the counsels of God.  As Christ was crucified from eternity past, according to these counsels. so also are the redeemed brought into the family of God by those self-same counsels.  Paul very clearly says in Romans 8:28-30:

^28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. ^29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. ^30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

This calling starts the so-called “Golden Chain of Redemption” that begins here with the decree, the counsels of God in eternity past and finishes, as we see in verse 30, with glorification in eternity future. 

The clear teaching of these verses, signified by chain of “alsos” through the three verses, is that these they are an unbreakable chain of events, each predicated on the one before.  If the prior one occurs, then the next one will certainly occur.  If we follow the “chain” or salvation all the way back to its’ beginning, we do not find anything human; we find the counsels of God in eternity past.  That is key to understand – The chain of salvation reaches all the back to BEFORE there even were people. 

Paul elaborates in 2 Timothy 1:9:

…who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,

Note that the grace that brings salvation is grace that is “given” to the children of God.  Based on what we have already seen, that step is a part of that “chain” and is inevitably followed by the rest of the chain.  Further, note that the this grace is not given during “time”, or at the time of decision; but rather in eternity past, “before time began”.  This too is a part of the decree, or the counsels of God.

Tenth, we see that the union of all saints in Christ, is according to these same counsels of God.  Understanding the above concepts, we ought to be able to that the next step is only logical.  If the death of Christ was a part of the Counsels of God, and the redemption of the people of God were a part of those same Counsels, then it simply makes sense that the principle will continue after redemption is in place and the sinner is united with the saints of God.

Paul makes the truth very clear in Eph 1:9,10:

^9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, ^10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.

Verse 9 sets the context for us once again – verse 10 is all according to the good pleasure of His will “which He purposed in Himself or in Christ (depending on your translation)”.  It says that this purpose was founded “in Himself” or “in Christ” (as we said, depending which translation you use).  It is not founded in any other source, and does not owe its fount to any other spring.  It springs from the mind and purpose of God and He alone. 

That leads to the statement of verse 10.  This gathering of all things in Christ had its root in the counsels God in eternity past.  That purposes shows itself in, among other things, the gathering together of all that belongs to Christ into one body.

Eleventh, Ultimately, all of the Works of God are according to the Counsels of God.

Eph 1:11:

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,

There is little to add to such a bald statement.  We have an inheritance as believers and that inheritance has been obtained “in Him” and  is obtained because of this purpose that was “predestinated”.  God is described notably here as one who “works ‘all things’ according to the purpose of His will’”.  “All things” is simply the word “all” and, in this context where there is noting to suggest any modification, argues that the counsel of God in eternity past controls literally all things.

While we don’t have the time to develop this idea to its fullest, we can note that the word translated “works” is the same one from which “energy,” “energetic,” and “energize” are derived. When God created the world, He gave it sufficient energy to begin immediately to operate as He had planned. It was not simply ready to function, but was created functioning. As God works out His plan according “to the counsel of His will,” He energizes every believer with the power necessary for his spiritual completion (cf. Phil 1:6; 2:13).^[2]

__________________________________________________

^[1]  Torrey, R. (1995, c1897). The New Topical TextBook : A scriptural text book for the use of ministers, teachers, and all Christian workers. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos research Systems, Inc.

^[2]  MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Eph 1:11). Nashville: Word Pub.

#6 - They Have Provoked The Holy One – Part 2a

We looked at the first three of the characteristics of the Counsels of God in our last post.  God’s counsels are Great, they are Wonderful and they are immutable. 

We fourthly^[1] observe that they are Sovereign. In the midst of a discourse on the nature of God, Isaiah comments of the this aspect of God’s counsels in Isa 40:13,14:

¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
Or as His counselor has taught Him?
¹⁴ With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him,
And taught Him in the path of justice?
Who taught Him knowledge,
And showed Him the way of understanding?

After his humbling time crawling on his belly and eating grass like an animal, Nebuchadnezzar came to know about the wisdom of bowing to the counsels of the God of heaven.  In Daniel 4:35 we hear him say:

All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, “What have You done?”

The control of God exercised over His creation is both an encouragement and a consolation.  Looked at from either side of an event, the truth of the sovereign hand of God is essential to a proper, Christian view of life.  From the “before” side, it can encourage us to to look at events with hope the assurance of God’s positive involvement.  From the “during” and “after” side, it can calm and reassure use that the is a controlling hand at the controls and life is not random.  This too is encouraging.

Fifthly, the Counsels are Eternal. Paul says in Ephesians 3:10-12:

^10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, ^11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, ^12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.

Dr. MacArthur has said:

“The supreme purpose of the church is to glorify God, which includes the displaying of His wisdom (v. 10) before the angels, who then honor Him with even greater praise.” ^[2]

If this is the supreme purpose of the Church (and it surely is) then those purposes must be eternal.  The highest purposes of God must also be the ones that He will seek to serve for the “longest” time, thus for all eternity. 

Further, sixth, the Counsels of God are proved to be faithful and true. Isaiah said in Isa 25:1:

O Lord, You are my God.
I will exalt You,
I will praise Your name,
For You have done wonderful things;
Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

This passage begins a section in Isaiah of praise for God concerning His final judgment of the world as laid out in Chapter 24.  The praise is because God ahs planned all of His actions ahead of time, and will act in righteousness and faithfulness to His plan, to His counsel given long ago.

It is interesting that this affirmation is very personal on Isaiah’s part.  Note the use of personal pronouns and very individual nature of the application of the truth here.  This is fairly typical of the way that Isaiah responds to the revelation of God.  It is not a dry and academic truth for him, but something that seizes his mind and his emotions and propels his him forward into the midst of what God is doing.

Seventh, The counsels of God cannot be frustrated, they shall be performed.  Many of these ideas are certainly related, but it is good to consider them separately I believe.  Men seek to frustrate the plans and counsels of God by various means, what means they can think of really.  But the plans and schemes of man come to naught.  God’s counsels are sovereign and will be performed.  Isaiah said in Isaiah 14:26-27:

²⁶ This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth,
And this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
²⁷ For the Lord of hosts has purposed,
And who will annul it?
His hand is stretched out,
And who will turn it back?” .

This is obviously an rhetorical question, the implied answer being “no one!  We must note that the emphasis here is the power lies with the decree of God.  It is not that God figures out a way to make it work.  The decree is, in and of itself, unable to overcome.  It is the arrogance and sinful pride of man that leads him to set himself against it, but that does not make the decree breachable.  The possibility of it being frustrated does not have to exist in order for this statement to have meaning! 

Our free-will buddies, those who argue for a libertarian free will, that in order for the will to be truly free there must be the possibility to contravene the the final desire of God, could take a lesson from this example.

Just before that statement Isaiah had said in verse 24:

The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying,
“Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass,
And as I have purposed, so it shall stand:

The verb here is in a form that means “to swear an oath”.  It is coupled with the Name of God, “Lord of Hosts” that traditionally is associated with the might of God, His power and ability to do as He has decreed.

“As I have thought” is translated in that fashion because it is an infinitive, an active sense for the verb “to say”.  God has no verbal ability, no tongue with which to speak in the normal way in which in this verb would be used and thus the translator uses the idea of thinking or purposes in this context for God.  The idea is active, ongoing, not passive and looking backward at a finished act. 

The grammar of the phrase is a simple statement, very emphatic and thus the use of “surely.  As I am “thinking” or “saying”, so it shall be.  There is no question that what I purpose will come to pass!

Isaiah 46:11 repeats the idea:

Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.

Here God speaks more of a settled purpose, and declares that it will be accomplished – it will be done.  But the idea is the same nevertheless.  God has declared, He has purposed it – and those purposes will come to pass!

____________________________________

^[1]  Torrey, R. (1995, c1897). The New Topical TextBook : A scriptural text book for the use of ministers, teachers, and all Christian workers. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos research Systems, Inc.

^[2]  MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Eph 3:11). Nashville: Word Pub.

#6 - They Have Provoked The Holy One – Part 2

We’ve spoken about the wisdom and counsel of the Lord previously and want to develop the idea a bit.  The Bible, of course, has quite a bit to say about the idea and it would be good to systematize it a bit.

The Counsels and Purposes of God ^[1]

Jeremiah (among many other passages) tells us that those counsels are “great”. Jeremiah 32:19 says:

You are great in counsel and mighty in work, for your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.

Great here meaning not large or many but pertaining to having high status, to be high, or formally great.  It is not that this is saying that God gives a lot of counsel (though one could surely observe that He does have a LOT to say about a LOT of things) but that God’s counsel is significant, it is counsel that stands out over and above other counsels from other sources.  To ignore such counsel is foolish and self-destructive.  This is the beginning of a case that is both conclusive and condemning.

Secondly, God’s counsels are described as “wonderful”. Isaiah, in a passage speaking of the need to listen to and heed the teaching of God, speaks of the counsels of God in this fashion in Isaiah 28:29 where he says:

This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.

The phrase “wonderful in counsel”  contains a verb that means “astound, to cause amazement, or to be wonderful”.  The counsel of God is astounding, it boggles the mind, it goes far and beyond any and all human counsel to the point of causing one to stop and take amazed notice.  And this is the norm for our God!  Once again we are compelled to note that the fact that Israel ignored, and even more than that, tossed aside that counsel (remember that God has already taken them to task for “provoking Him to anger” or showing despite or His commands.  The more wonderful the counsel, the great the crime involved in casting it aside!

Thirdly, the Counsels of God Are immutable. David said in Psalm 33:11:

The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart to all generations

We’ll want to note several things about this great verse.

• Note that the word “counsel” is singular.  It is a common word, neither truly feminine or masculine.  David is not speaking of the specific things that God has said, but of His counsel in general, the entire package as a unit!  It is all trustworthy!  It can all be counted upon – none of it is more reliable or less reliable than any other part of it.
• The Word “LORD” is Yahweh – the covenant name for God – and casts our minds back to God and all of promises  and the reliability of His nature and the power of His great right arm to cause those promises to bring those promises to pass.
• The root meaning of the word “Stands” in stands forever means to present, i.e., to stand in front of a superior as an offering, or for evaluation (Gen. 43:15).  In this context and form it means to endure, to formally stand, i.e., be in a duration of time which lasts for an indefinite period of time (Ps 111:3) ^[2] The counsel of God is not a thing that will pass from the scene.  It stands before Him (for He is the authority, the Judge Who passes sentence on all matters) for all eternity.
• “Forever” is not intended to be understood as hyperbole.  This is not a figure of speech – it is intended to be understood literally.  His counsels stand from now until, well,there is no then!  His counsels, now given are never revoked.  They are ever in effect and always in force.They stand “forever”!

Not only do the counsels of the Lord stand of themselves, but the cannot be frustrated by any device of man.  Solomon observed in Proverbs 19:21:

There are many plans in a man’s heart,
Nevertheless the Lord’s counsel—that will stand.

We might be tempted to think of this as speaking to a simple contrast, man’s counsel versus God’s counsel.  But this cannot be so because of the use of the contrastive conjunction that starts the second phrase.  God’s counsel will stand despite what man plans and no matter man seeks to do to frustrate the plan of God.  That which God has promised cannot change.

Jeremiah puts it is sad, negative terms in 4:28 speaking of the time when those counsels come to pass and the earth reaps the result of the decree of God in judgment:

For this shall the earth mourn,
And the heavens above be black,
Because I have spoken.
I have purposed and will not relent,
Nor will I turn back from it.

All of this, by the way, is not empty theology.  It is real and it is “now”, working itself out in the now, not just waiting for the future.  Paul, speaking of the birth of Jacob and Esau, and God’s hand in the details of that birth, tells us in Ro 9:11:

(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls),

God is not passively waiting for eternity future to come before He starts to enact His purposes.  They are being enacted now and those purposes will continue to be enacted from now throughout all time.

The writer to the Hebrews says Hebrews 6:17:

Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,

_________________________

^[1]  Torrey, R. (1995, c1897). The New Topical TextBook : A scriptural text book for the use of ministers, teachers, and all Christian workers. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos research Systems, Inc.

^[2}  Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 6641, #7). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

#5 - They Have Forsaken the Lord

Alas, sinful nation,
A people laden with iniquity,
A brood of evildoers,
Children who are corrupters!
They have forsaken the Lord,
They have provoked to anger
The Holy One of Israel,
They have turned away backward. (Isaiah 1:4)

A sinful nation, seed of evil-doers, laden with iniquity, and children that are corruptors... not a glowing evaluation that anyone would want on their resume.  Yet this is God’s evaluation of His chosen people, Israel.  How terrible to see, in print, in reality, God’s estimation of you!  We all have a cherished view of self.  We like to think of ourselves in a certain fashion, at the least in a somewhat positive fashion at any rate. 

To have that view of self destroyed is devastating.  It is crushing!  But yet, from a Biblical point of view, this kind of realization is necessary.  Of course, it is far better never to have fallen down into sin to begin with, to obey is better than to need to repent.  But when and where there is need to be called to repent, to hear and to heed that call is best.  We don’t do anyone any favors when we sugar-coat the truth and beg and plead in terms less that what the real truth of the matter is.  Isaiah speaks truth to the Israelites and calls them to repentance, and he is not done with them yet!

When we think of the verbs in this verse, we need to remember that the Hebrew had no real sense of grammatical “tense” as we think of it, we do, however, understand that they had “aspect” and viewed verbs as to whether or not the action of the verb was accomplished from the point of view of the speaker. That roughly correspond to our idea of tense.

The action of the verb here, forsaking or leaving, is viewed as finished, or complete, without any technical reference to time. That is difficult for us to grasp, but there it is. Hebrew also had a “Person” called the “Common” that was used for a group that included both male and female.  It is that which is used here.

In the English it might appear that this is a participle, but that is not the case, is a simple verb actually, in a simple form.

Note that there is a clear chain of reference here. The “they” refers back to the “children” in the prior phrase. That, in turn, speaks of the “brood” from the prior phrase, which speaks of the “people” referred to earlier, all the way back to the “nation” at the beginning of the verse. That chain of reference can be trace all the way back to verse one and the reference to Judah and Jerusalem.

“Forsaken” conveys a fairly condemning Hebrew word^[1]. It means to abandon, to reject, or desert, specifically, to leave a former association. In 1Ki 18:18 Elijah replies to Ahab’s charge that he has troubled Israel:

And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house have, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the Baals.”

Literally it means to leave, that is, to depart from an area with linear motion, implying a continuing state or condition is the result. In Jos 8:17 we read:

There was not a man left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. So they left the city open and pursued Israel.

Note the clear expression of the full idea. They left the city completely and fully.

Metaphorically, it can mean to leave behind, abandon, i.e., cause an object to stay in a place while the participant leaves. Genesis 39:6 expresses this idea well:

Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate…

Following the example of Ahab, these Israelites has forsaken the commands of the Lord and abandoned the relationship they had had with Him historically, in the face of all blessing and evidence.

It is no small matter that the word used here for LORD is YAHWEH – this is the “covenant name” of the God of Israel. According to the biblical account, it is the name by which God identified himself to Moses in the encounter at the burning bush (Exod. 3:14).^[2]

And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

Although the meaning of the name remains subject to debate, Yahweh is most likely a verbal form of Heb. hâyâ (perhaps originally hwy) “be, become.” It is frequently held to be a hiphil form “cause to be,” and as such may represent the initial element in a compound such as Yahweh-El (“God, who causes to be”). ^[3]  The bottom line is that the grammar, really, is almost as inscrutable as as God Himself! (I suspect purposefully!)

This is the chief OT title and representative name for God.  It was translated kyrios (Gk., ‘Lord’) in the LXX and ‘the Lord‘ by several English versions. This name was used by ot authors more than 6,000 times, compared to about 2,500 times for elohim, ‘God.’ The NT continues to use ‘Lord’ for God (about 100 times), primarily in quotations from the LXX (e.g., Mark 1:3; 12:11; Acts 2:34) and in set phrases such as ‘hand of the Lord’ (Luke 1:66).

The vast majority of the 719 occurrences of kyrios (‘Lord’) in the NT refers to Jesus, however, usually as the exalted Christ (e.g., Acts 2:36; John 20:28). Thus, the two most common OT names for deity, ‘God’ and ‘Lord,’ are used in the NT not only for God but also (though rarely in the case of the word ‘God’) for Jesus as the exalted Lord of the church’s faith. A much less common word for ‘Lord’ in the LXX, despotēs (Gk., ‘lord,’ ‘sovereign,’ ‘master’) is also used in the NT both for God (Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10) and for Christ (Jude 4; 2 Pet. 2:1). ^[4]

 

The significance of the statement in its’ context could not be greater!  They have forsaken the God of the universe!  This is the God Who bought them, made them a nation, molded them into a people, set them as a holy people above the other nations around them, preserved them above all or the other families around about them.  He provided for them, protected them, defended them and loved and cherished them and yet they have abandoned Him, “forsaken” Him; walked away from for that which is no god!  There is little wonder that His anger is falling and His judgment, in the form of chastening and captivity.

---

[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 6440, #4). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[2] Myers, A. C. (1987). The Eerdmans Bible dictionary. Rev., augm. translation of: Bijbelse encyclopedie. Rev. ed. 1975. (1075). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans.

[3] Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row, P., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). Harper's Bible dictionary. Includes index. (1st ed.) (684). San Francisco: Harper & Row.

[4] Op Cit, Myers.

#4 – They Are Children Are Corrupters

#4. Children that are corrupters

A fourth thought is continued is continued in the next phrase. All of the parallelism in this verse is completive or continuous, that is, it continues or builds on the thought of the phrase before it.

Parallelism is a rhetorical device involving one or more linguistic repetitions or correspondences (grammatical, lexical, semantic, or phonetic) in adjacent lines or phrases. While present in prose, parallelism is more prominent in biblical poetry, where it often appears to be a basic structuring device. An example is Ps. 103:10: ‘He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities.’ In this verse the syntactic, semantic, and lexical correspondences between the two phrases are many and obvious (e.g., ‘deal with’/‘requite’; ‘sins’/‘iniquities’; ‘according to’/‘according to’). Other verses may have fewer correspondences but may still be considered parallel.¹

They are the brood of evildoers, namely children who do what their parents have taught them to do. It seems like that is the point here. Not only are the children themselves, does Isaiah say, but they are only being what their parents have trained them to be. They are the seed of evildoers and thus are children who are themselves corrupters and will thus continue the process and will produce another generation like themselves.  The implication is that this is a primary reason why God is interceding – to interrupt this process!

“Children” is the plural of the Hebrew word for sons - the same word that is used in Isa. 1:2 where God referred to the “sons He Himself raised up:

“I have nourished and brought up children,
And they have rebelled against Me;

It is interesting that Isaiah has used three words in this sentence that where particular words used by God to refer to Israel as His people, a seed or brood, and a children. Israel had failed in all of these areas. They were not a unique people of God as God had desired them to be. They were not a seed, holy unto His Name, having mixed with the nations round about them. They were not children who honored and obeyed their Father, as God intended. It was as if they were bastard children, wayward sons living in disobedience and wasting the heritage that God had placed in their hands, and, in fact, were it not for the remnant that God Himself called out from among them, that is precisely what the case would have been!

The Progression

Notice the progression in the sentence. They are sinful, laden with iniquity, thoroughly sinful (the implication of the phrase), and corruptors themselves.

Of course, from a certain point of view, we are all sinful. None can avoid that. But that, as we have seen, is not what Isaiah has in mind. Israel is sinful in the fashion that the nations round about them are sinful.

Further, they were not only sinful, but they were virtually “laden” with iniquity. The picture is powerful. Iniquity was, as it were, ripe fruit, at the very point of falling off the vine to the ground. They had sported a great crop of sin where they ought to have been holiness!

Nothing happens in a vacuum. The Israelites alive at the time of Isaiah’s prophecy were the product of the training of their own family and national environment. They were the brood or seed of evildoers. Their sinfulness came naturally to them, as they came by it from their parents.

Because of their natural sinfulness, they had become corruptors themselves. Their own sinfulness had caused them to corrupt others. Sinfulness is always handed on! God had intended His people to be the vessels by which holiness and godliness were handed down to the next generation and by which they were held up to the unredeemed world around them. Instead of being that kind of vessel, they were instead one that actually caused corruption. How tragic and how ironic. They were the adopted people or sons of God, but they had now become corruptors.

“Corruptors” is from a word meaning to destroy, to lay waste, as an invading army does a city or country.  Josh. 22:33 uses the term in the context of the kind of absolute destruction that is the result of war:

So the thing pleased the children of Israel, and the children of Israel blessed God; they spoke no more of going against them in battle, to destroy the land where the children of Reuben and Gad dwelt.

Gen. 19:13 uses the word to speak of coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which we know to have complete and absolute:

For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”

The “corruptor” then is not one who merely alters" or damages, but is one completely and fully destroys. 

There are a number of examples of this.  A corruptor is one who destroys a vineyard Jer. 12:10:

“Many rulers have destroyed My vineyard,
They have trodden My portion underfoot;
They have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

A corruptor can also be one who breaks down walls; Ezek. 26:4:

And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.

It can be applied to conduct (as it is here, and means to destroy, or lay waste to virtuous principles; to break down the barriers to vice; to corrupt the morals. Gen. 6:12 uses it in this fashion:

‘And God looked upon the earth, and it was “corrupt” - for all flesh had “corrupted” his way - upon the earth;’

Deut. 4:16 uses the idea n connection with religious activity in warning the Israelites against mixing with other nations lest they draw them away and “corrupt” them into idolatry.

…lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female.

Likewise, Joshua in his farewell address, admonishes Israel, telling them that will become corrupt after he dies and warning them of the evils of mixing with them…Deut. 31:29:

“For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.”

Judges tells us that they did, indeed, as with Joshua, do so.  No sooner had the authority was God sent died, Israel launched right back into the corrupt ways of their fathers.  Judges. 2:19 makes this plain demonstrating this point (as well as the prior three also):

And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

And so they were not merely corrupt themselves, but they corrupted others, those around them and the following generations, by their example. This is always the case. When people become infidels and debauched themselves, they seek to make as many more as possible. The Jews did this by their wicked lives. The same charge is often brought against them.  This is made in so many words in Judges 2:12:

and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.

Zeph. 3:7 says:

I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me, 
You will receive instruction’— 
So that her dwelling would not be cut off, 
Despite everything for which I punished her. 
But they rose early and corrupted all their deeds.

The principle of separation from sinful peoples for the sake holiness and conformity to godliness a recurring theme in the Scripture.  It is an unbending command of God for His people to be holy and separate from and from the world around them.  Sadly, Israel failed miserably and repeatedly in this in all of their generations.

Israel - A Seed Of Evildoers

3.  A Seed Of Evildoers

“Seed” comes from a word meaning to sow, to scatter, or to disperse. It is a very common word and is applied to seed sown in a field, for instance in Judges. 6:3 to specify the time of year in which Israel’s enemies would launch attacks against them:

“So it was, whenever Israel had sown (literally “seeded”), Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them”.

It is used in Genesis 1:11-12 uses the word to signify that when God created the world He created it to reproduce itself:

^11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. ^12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 47:23 likewise uses the term agriculturally when it speaks of Goshen and the provision that Joseph made for Jacob and his brothers when the came down into Egypt.

“Then Joseph said to the people, ‘Indeed I have bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh. Look, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land’”.

Specifically, it speaks of plants set out, or engrafted; or to planting,and thus was used of transplanting a nation. Isaiah used in Isa. 17:10:

‘And thou shalt set it (shalt sow, or plant it) with strange slips.’

That is why it came to be applied, metaphorically, to children, posterity, descendants, from the resemblance to seed sown, and to a harvest springing up, and spreading.

The word is applied by way of eminence to the Jews, as being the seed or posterity of Abraham, according to the promise that his seed should be as the stars of heaven.  God had made a great promise to Abram.  Genesis 12:7 says:

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

A part of that promise was that Abram’s posterity would be numberless – they would spring up and be like the dust of the earth.  Genesis 13:15-16 says:

^15 for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. ^16 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered.

…or like the stars of the heavens - Genesis 15:5:

^5 Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

All of this by way of covenant (v18-20)

^18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:

“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— ^19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, ^20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ^21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” .

Genesis 17:7

And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.

This brings out the contrast that is intended here. Abraham’s seed was intended, among other things to be a seed of godliness, a root of holiness among the nations, to demonstrate God’s goodness and His holiness, his grace and His mercy to the nations round and about. God’s intention in raising up a nation from Abraham was to raise up a nation that was different, not one that was the same!

What happened, on the other hand, was that Israel ended up just like all of the nations around them. Instead of being the offspring of the godly heritage that God had planted, they were the seed of the ungodly peoples around them. Godliness was intended to be handed down from generation to generation but that had not happened. Instead of being the brood of the godly, Israel had ended up being the brood of ungodly. Their heritage was that of wickedness and judgment, rather than that of goodness and blessing.

This is always the case when the people of God seek to be too much like the people around them instead of seeking to remain separate and allowing God to bring the world to them.  It is surely true that we are to go out into the world to see win the lost and make disciples, but we must take great care NOT to do so in such a fashion that we become like the world in the process.  That is extremely important!  When we become like the world we lose the ability to win them.

Israel - A People Laden with Iniquity

Having laid out His first complaint with Israel, that they are a sinful people, having missed the mark of His holy and righteous standard and owing a debt, Jehovah now goes on to a second complaint here in Isaiah 1:4:

Alas, sinful nation, 
A people laden with iniquity…

“People” is another non-specific reference a familial or tribal relationship. We tend to think of a family in terms of the small unit around which our society is built. The Hebrews, though certainly valuing the immediate family, also placed great value on the extended family, the tribe. That is an emphasis that is prevalent in Middle Eastern society even to this day. In many instances, tribe comes before immediate family. This is something that makes it difficult for us this country, who value personal family above the greater group, to understand that culture.

The word translated “laden” properly denotes anything “heavy,” or burdensome; it is from a word that means “to be heavy.” It speaks of the quality of having actual weight. The “actual” idea is important as opposed to perceived.  It is not so much that that it is thought to have weight as it actually does have weight! 

Of course, in this context, it is not referring to physical weight, but to metaphorical weight. The prior reference to sin and guilt associated with it would indicate that this is the burden of guilt and the resulting wrath and judgment of God. This is another instance of the great “context is King rule” that goes a long way toward making the meaning of the Scripture clear.

At its root, we ought to note that the word can also be used to refer to the grape vine, fruit tree or olive tree that is laden or weighed down with fruit when the time of harvest in near. That is the time when the fruit is both the largest and the most plentiful. The connection to the prior context, the sinfulness of the nation, is still present and the fruit borne is the fruit of sin, both in immediate defilement as well as in long-term effect.

We might also say that it indicates that they were oppressed or borne down with the “weight” of their sins. Thus we say, Sin sits “heavy” on the conscience. Cain said,

‘My punishment is greater than I can bear;’ (Gen. 4:13).

The word is applied to an “employment” as being burdensome; (Exo. 18:18): ‘This thing is too “heavy” for thee.’ (Num. 11:14): ‘I am not able to bear this people alone; it is too “heavy” for me.’ It is applied also to a “famine,” as being heavy, severe, distressing. (Gen. 12:10): ‘For the famine was “grievous” in the land;’ (Gen. 41:31). It is also applied to “speech,” as being heavy, dull, unintelligible. (Exo. 4:10): ‘I am “slow (heavy)” of speech, and of a slow (heavy) tongue.’ It is not applied to sin in the Scriptures, except in this place, or except in the sense of making atonement for it. The idea however, is very striking - that of a nation - an entire people, bowed and crushed under the enormous weight of accumulated crimes.

“Iniquity” speaks of wickedness, iniquity, i.e., wrongdoing, with a focus of liability or guilt for this wrong incurred^[1]

…keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex 34:7)

The iniquity of the people was a major issue in the OT system. Christ had not come to actually pay for sin, hence the elaborate system that symbolically required the giver as well as the Priest to fulfill exhaustive and detailed requirements seemingly filled with minutiae. But all of that detail had meaning and was significant. It all pointed to the qualification and work of Christ in satisfying the wrath of God. Much of what the Priest wore when working in the Tabernacle and Temple was often significant of the Priest’s action as the symbolic bearer of the iniquity of the people, by bearing it, as if it were a heavy burden. a good example is, for instance Exodus 28:38:

So it shall be on Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall always be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord.

This was a major part of the Priest’s role as the Priest foreshadowed the work of Jesus Christ…‘That Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things.’

(Lev. 10:17): ‘God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation.’

(Lev. 22:9; 16:22; Num. 18:1; Isa. 53:6): ‘Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’

(Isa. 53:11): ‘He shall bear their iniquities.’

(1 Pet. 2:24): ‘Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.’

Remember that these were the people of God, the ones to whom God had give the means of the covering of sin. They had the Tabernacle, and then the Temple. They had the Alter and all of the accompanying pieces of hardware and implements. They had the Priests and all of the Levites and the elaborate rituals and profound services. They had the Revelation of the Word and the ministry of the Prophets. If anyone in all of history to that point should have been a holy people at that point in history, it ought to have been the Israelites. But instead, they were as the orchard at the time of harvest, boughs heavy with the fruit of iniquity, the guilt of sin. Not just guilty, as the nations were, but heavy laden with that guilt!

---

^[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 6411, #1). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Israel - A Sinful Nation

We said last time that God, having introduced the topic of His complaint against Israel, is now going to itemize a list of seven specific complaints against this, His chosen people, this nation He has sought to nurture and provide for over the centuries.  It has been clear that He has done all that he can to make them the apple of His eye and they have, in turn, done virtually all they can do to dishonor and degrade His calling and election in their lives.  He picks up in verse 4:

“Alas!” is a an interjectional particle. An interjection is simply an exclamation word that can stand alone grammatically. It is used in two main fashions in the OT. First it is used to express woe or intense sadness or grief as in a sudden exclamation of grief. Secondly, it can be used as an exhortation toward a goal. “Come on!” The common thread between the two ideas is that of emotion and intensity. The first is negative and the second is positive. It is often almost a non-verbal thing, a cry of emotion. In this context it is, of course, negative. The rest of the verse describes sin, the great sin of the Israelites and the tremendous sin they had fallen into. This first word is the exclamation of the great sadness or anger that lay beneath the assertion to follow. It is always indicative of a desire to call immediate attention to what follows.

1. A Sinful Nation

But the phrase rendered ‘Ah! Sinful Nation’ is not a mere exclamation, expressing astonishment. It is rather an interjection denouncing threatening, or punishment. ‘Woe to the sinful nation.’ The Vulgate, the Latin version of the Bible says: ‘Vae genti peccatrici.’ underscoring the sinfulness of the condition and the coming punishment that is due because of it.

“Nation” is “Goy” in Hebrew. It was used in three basic ways in the OT^[1].

First and primarily, it was used of a people in general, a nation, i.e., a large group based on various cultural, physical, geographical ties, and often extended clan relationships. Gen. 10:4-5, speaking of the descendants of Noah, speaks of the sons Javan and says that:

From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

Genesis 25:23 in the prophecy the Lord gave to Rebekah when the Lord finally moved and granted her pregnancy and two children struggled within her womb.

And the Lord said to her:

“Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.”

We ought to note here that that this reference was to both Jacob and Esau and that it can after Abraham, mysterious and perplexing, untidy, but there it is…

Second, it was used to speak of a human population in the terms of an animal. Joel 1:6 says:

For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.

Zeph. 2:14-15 says:

¹⁴ The herds shall lie down in her midst, Every beast of the nation. Both the pelican and the bittern Shall lodge on the capitals of her pillars; Their voice shall sing in the windows; Desolation shall be at the threshold; For He will lay bare the cedar work. ¹⁵ This is the rejoicing city That dwelt securely, That said in her heart, “I am it, and there is none besides me.” How has she become a desolation, A place for beasts to lie down! Everyone who passes by her Shall hiss and shake his fist.

Third, there was a specific sense in which it was used to speak of the Gentiles, i.e., a national group or groups that are not Jewish, with the associative meaning of being uncultured, pagan and heathen. Neh 5:8 tells us:

And I said to them, “According to our ability we have redeemed our Jewish brethren who were sold to the nations. Now indeed, will you even sell your brethren? Or should they be sold to us?”

It is important to see the linkage between the three ideas here in Hebrew thought. In the Jewish mind the word had become almost entirely negative n its context. In the average Jewish mind, the Gentile was simply “them”, the others, unclean and outside the Covenant. But for the Leadership, they were the enemies of God and the oppressors, the opponents of His Kingdom and, by extension, of Jewish blessing and prosperity.

A portion of this was justified. The Gentiles were outside of the Covenant of God, They had no mediating connection to make provision for their sins or to allow them to enter His presence or please Him. They were yet in their sins, in rebellion and even the religious things they did, however well-intentioned, were abominable, because the fundamental problem of their sinfulness was still between they and their Maker.

It is not Isaiah’s point here either to endorse or to dispute this point. Rather, he simply takes it and uses it to underscore his own message from God. The Jews had become no different that the Gentiles at which they looked down their noses. They were, as a nation, no different than the Gentile nations around them. This is a recurring theme which we see again and again in the book.

Isaiah 10 is a good example. In a passage that is developing ideas that Israel would readily agree with, the punishment of the unjust, etc.; the table are suddenly turned.

“Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees,
Who write misfortune,
Which they have prescribed
2 To rob the needy of justice,
And to take what is right from the poor of My people,
That widows may be their prey,
And that they may rob the fatherless.
3 What will you do in the day of punishment,
And in the desolation which will come from afar?
To whom will you flee for help?
And where will you leave your glory?
4 Without Me they shall bow down among the prisoners,
And they shall fall among the slain.”

For all this His anger is not turned away,
But His hand is stretched out still.
Arrogant Assyria Also Judged

5 “Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger
And the staff in whose hand is My indignation.
6 I will send him against an ungodly nation,
And against the people of My wrath
I will give him charge,
To seize the spoil, to take the prey,
And to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

To all of this, Israel would have heartily shouted “Amen and Amen”. This was talking about the Goyim, “them”!

7 Yet he does not mean so,
Nor does his heart think so;
But it is in his heart to destroy,
And cut off not a few nations.
8 For he says,
‘Are not my princes altogether kings?

I’m sorry, what was that? I missed it…

9 Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols,
Whose carved images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
11 As I have done to Samaria and her idols,
Shall I not do also to Jerusalem and her idols?’ ”

Wait, hold on here, we weren’t talking about Jerusalem, we were talking about Syria and Damascus! We were talking about their great sin and wickedness, their great offense against God!

Well, they were at least partly rightly…Isaiah was talking about offense to God…

12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord has performed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that He will say, “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks.”

Note that the sense of the statement has changed…Now the focus of the work is not out there; it is on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem. Once that work is done (elsewhere we see that the instrument that God uses to do the chastening in Jerusalem is this same Assyria) He will then turn His attention to Assyria and punish them for their wickedness.

18 And it will consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field,
Both soul and body;
And they will be as when a sick man wastes away.
19 Then the rest of the trees of his forest
Will be so few in number
That a child may write them.
The Returning Remnant of Israel

20 And it shall come to pass in that day
That the remnant of Israel,
And such as have escaped of the house of Jacob,
Will never again depend on him who defeated them,
But will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob,
To the Mighty God.
22 For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea,
A remnant of them will return;
The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the Lord God of hosts
Will make a determined end
In the midst of all the land.

Note that the aim of the chastening that God puts in place in Israel’s life is entirely different than it is in Assyria’s by the way. In Israel’s, it is restorative. In Assyria’s it is destructive. This alone is a profound idea, one which we will take up in detail as we progress through the book. That the same or similar acts of chastening can serve very different purposes in the lives of the different participants in that action is one of the amazing and mysterious truths of the Bible and one of the great demonstrations of the Great mind and power of the Almighty.

Just as an aside, the entire issue of accountability for Assyria, created, raised up and used by God to chasten Israel is an interesting one that we will address later in the book. The entire reason, in so far as the Bible tells us, for the existence of Assyria, was to serve to demolish the Northern Kingdom and take Samaria into final captivity from which it, as a nation, would never return. Isaiah has much to say about this and we will be amazed at his eloquence and the depth of his theology as we move through the book.

The corruption Isaiah will describe pertained to the nation, and not merely to a part. It had become general. The character of the nation had become sinful, wicked and depraved. It was national. We might also note that this is no longer the fault of the leadership, or of the Priests and Rabbis, it is the fault of the entire nation. It is true that the people on go as the leadership leads, but there comes a time, when leadership is so very corrupted, that their sin becomes so obvious and clear that the “average” person is more than able to spot it and when the common person becomes responsible before God for their own condition.

Of course, people are responsible for their own condition, ultimately, before God at all times, but we are speaking of a more general, corporate situation here and thus we see that the leadership bears a huge responsibility before God, but that a given point, the corruption ceases to be a matter of the leadership only, becomes an affliction of the entire nation. Of course there is an application to our own nation here. Have we gotten to this point? Is the “average person” in America so corrupted by the vices our leaders have led us into that we are now approaching the kind of national guilt that Israel was guilty of at the time of Isaiah? It is certainly worth pondering!

The Character of Israel’s Corruption

Moreover, we need to remember the character of the corruption of which we are speaking. “Sinful” is actual a verb, a participle. Remember that a participle is a verb that is kind of acting like an adjective. An adjective is a describer and so this is a verb that is an active describer.

The word basically refers to missing a mark. It is used over 235 times in the OT. In reality, the word can, according to the context, be used in both positive and negative contexts, but by far it is used negatively with a sinful implication. The idea here is that God has set forth a standard and Israel has missed it. Because God is holy, that standard is an absolute and inflexible one. This standard is the Law of God. All men are required by God to measure up to that standard and all men have universally missed that mark.

Thus the word came to refer to sin^[2], or to do wrong. God is the authority in the universe and the One Who gets to set the rules. Any breaking of those standards is sinful or wrong. Thus the one committing the sin comes to bear blame, or to be guilty before that authority. They commit an infraction of law or agreement, implying a penalty must be paid or forfeited.

When Abimelech became aware that Sarai was Abram’s sister and thus to have taken her as wife would have been a great sin against God he was furious and called Abram before him in Genesis 20:9:

And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done.”

So also in Exodus 9:27, when God sent thunderings and hail upon Egypt, Pharaoh was filled with fear and a sense of his own sinfulness:

And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “I have sinned this time. The Lord is righteous, and my people and I are wicked.

In both of those cases there was an inherent idea that there was penalty naturally attached to the offense.  That is the nature of sin – it is not simply a matter of falling short, but carries with it the sense of debt, of owing the master and needing to pay that debt.  That is a key idea throughout the entire OT and finds its resolution, of curse, in the cross of Christ.

The irony here is that this is exactly the way the Jews of the times thought of the Goy around them, the sinners. Yet, here they are, declared by God to be themselves utterly and completely sinful. This is the essence of hypocrisy. While a certain amount of their actions and attitudes were not deliberate, the greater part of it was knowing and thus deliberate sin. The Major and Minor Prophets make that very clear, and we will pursue this further as we move along.

---

^[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 1580, #3). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[2] Ibid, DBLH 2627, #1.

A Seven-fold Condemnation - Isaiah 1:4

Having finished the initial portion of his appraisal of the spiritual condition of the Israelites in verses 2-3.  He finished up by saying that they were a people unwilling to think, and disloyal to their masters/owners, unlike even the Ox and the Donkey.  They refused to observe their world and what God had done around them and draw the obvious conclusions.  He will now move on and deal with the specifics of what the complaints are that He has to lodge with them.

4 Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.

One would almost think Isaiah to be thinking as a lawyer here. Having finished his introductory statement and set the stage and tone of the book in verses 103, he now proceeds to lay out the basic indictment of God against His people, an indictment which He will develop over the next chapters and, ultimately, for which He will provide the solution in the person of the Lord Jesus, the coming Messiah.

This indicting statement is not intended to be specific, but rather is general and encompassing. It is intended to display God’s displeasure, even His dismay and upset, His anger and wrath, and to portend His judgment and fury at the betrayal of the people upon whom He had lavished His good graces and blessing over the centuries.

Isaiah is the perfect writer for this kind of communication. His is the consummate poet and poetry is the perfect medium for the communication of this kind of sentiment and information. There are occasions where simple didactics are not sufficient. Poetry allows for an expression of emotion and power that prose is unable to easily achieve. Sadly, this also, for some, makes Isaiah hard to read.

Isaiah opens the verse with an expression of God’s great dismay and then proceeds with a seven-fold declaration of His general displeasure with His people. We ought to take the time to note that, even though they are in the shadow of the Northern captivity, Isaiah is writing some 50 to 100 years before the falling of the captivity of Babylon. There is still time for repentance. 

This is ultimately the case for all men in all cases, save three. 

1. There comes a time in all men’s lives when the word of God teaches that men become hardened to the pleading of the Spirit of God.  Because of their sin nature, many unbelievers rebel against God and refuse to accept divine truth. That pattern of refusal results in the heart being hardened, which was Pharaoh’s response to each of the first five plagues (Exod. 7:13, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7). God then hardened Pharaoh’s heart in a finally fashion, (9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8).¹
2. Men’s have time for repentance until the time of their deaths.  That is, of course, unless God has, as above, judicially hardened them in preparation for judgment.
3. Finally, there will be time for repentance up until the time of the Great White Throne.  One of the great differences between the two thrones in Chapter 4 and chapter chapter 20 of Revelation is that the great glassy sea that symbolizes the ability of men to approach God in no longer present in chapter 20 at the time of the final judgment of sinners, as there is no longer any time for repentance or the “safe” approach of God.

These warnings and calls for repentance are never empty in the Bible. We know that the Scripture portrays God as a Sovereign God Who has ordained the beginning from the end and has set in place all things, assuring His people that nothing can escape His complete control. But yet, we also know that He offers mercy and that this mercy, if grasped, results in real reprieve. One has but to read the book of Jonah to realize the truth here. God sent Jonah to both preach coming judgment and to offer mercy. The Ninevites repented virtually to the man, and God granted reprieve (much to Jonah’s chagrin).

While we may not understand the dynamic that goes on in the Godhead here, we must admit it’s reality and its presence. There is a God Who is absolutely sovereign, to the point that there is nothing that occurs that is not from His hand. We may quibble over what that is called, but it is true none-the-less. And yet, we also know that the Bible clearly tells us that God is not the author of evil. This too is a truth that is unarguable. Sadly, men have argued the one over the other all too often as they have set their own minds and understandings above the teaching of the Bible. There is a reason, I think, that the Bible does not go to lengths to explain these things. They are high and far above our capacity. This is not to dismiss them as mystery with a wave and a knowing glance. Rather it is walk in humility and to recognize that we are but dust and that God, though bowing and stooping to communicate with us still has areas, large areas of His being that will remain shrouded in bright light and remain indistinguishable to us until we walk with Him in glory.

One of the great mysteries is that, in spite of the great sin and rebellion that we will see unfold before us over the next verses and chapters, God still loved Israel. His promise was that He would love her forever and as we watch OT history unfold, we see, in slow motion at times, that promise be fulfilled, time and again. Through chastening, blessing, wrath, judgment, silence and rebuke we see God actively filling His Word. There is literally nothing that can or will cause Him to slacken His will on that promise.

We ought to note that this is not a dry, accounting type of love. God’s love is not only commitment; it is not only choosing sides. It is not merely setting a plan and then going about seeing that it is completed and accomplished. God’s love is passion. It is all about God’s great, burning passion for His chosen people.

There are many who would describe God in terms of being passionless. He is unaffected by His creation. I can see the point that such are trying to make but I must disagree. I am fully convinced that God is unchanging and that He is fully self-existent and self-dependant. But yet clearly we see that God has a fervent love for both His people and, indeed, for all men. Surely, we must recognize that the character of that love is different for those two groups, but love them He does never-the-less.

It is this passion that server as a portion of both the foundation of both the promise of blessing for His children and the promise of wrath for the unredeemed. It is that passion for His people that we see at the beginning of verse 4.

_____________________________________________________

¹ Campbell, D. K., Swindoll, C. R., & Zuck, R. B. (2000). The theological wordbook : The 200 most important theological terms and their relevance for today. Includes index. Swindoll leadership library (150). Nashville, Tenn.: Word Pub.

The Danger of Ignoring Observed Knowledge – Part 2

The ox knows its owner
And the donkey its master’s crib;
But Israel does not know,
My people do not consider.” (Isaiah 1:3)

“Does not know” is A generic word that is used quite nearly 1000 times in the OT. The verb is the simple word for knowing, but is negated. As a word used for general knowing, it carries the full lexical range of meanings and used to speak of many kinds of knowing covering the gamut of senses from figurative, literal, and euphemistic, to inferential (including observation, care, recognition; and causing or receiving instruction, designation, punishment, etc.). In fact, one might consider that Israel had known God in all of those senses.

Remember the context in which we are speaking. The Ox and Ass know in this self-same sense. But Israel, the covenanted, blessed, and protected people of God, possessors and protectors of the revelation of God, do not! The point here is that of contrast, not of information. The emphasis is not so much on information, as on their willful failure to see what was patently obvious. Their culpability in the face of this rebellious refusal to submit to God and know Him is what is at issue here. Many of the language versions of this passage add the word ‘me’ here to accommodate differences between the two languages. But it must be clear that the emphasis here is on the failure, deliberately, to acknowledge God and submit to Him as God and to yield to Him the honor and obedience that is rightly due Him. All of this in the face of all that God had done for and through the nation.

In summary, all of this, God attributes to their ignorance and inconsideration,  Their dullness of hearing and stupidity of Israel, all of it. God is their owner and proprietor. He made us, and his we are more than our cattle are ours; he has provided well for us; providence is our Master’s crib; yet many that are called the people of God do not know and will not consider this, but ask, "What is the Almighty that we should serve him? He is not our owner; and what profit shall we have if we pray unto him? He has no crib for us to feed at.’’ He had complained (v. 2) of the obstinacy of their wills; They have rebelled against me.

Here He defines its cause: “Therefore they have rebelled because they do not know, they do not consider.’’ We must remember that the understanding of the unredeemed is darkened, and therefore the whole soul is alienated from the life of God, (Eph. 4:18. "Israel does not know), though their land is a land of light and knowledge; in Judah is God known, yet, because they do not live up to what they know, it is in effect as if they did not know.(and that is an important difference!) They know; but their knowledge does them no good, because they do not consider what they know; they do not apply it to their case, nor their minds to it.’’

Matthew Henry notes a couple important things:

1. Even among those that profess themselves God’s people, that have the advantages and lie under the engagements of his people, there are many that are very careless in the affairs of their souls.
2. Inconsideration of what we do know is as great an enemy to us in religion as ignorance of what we should know.
3. Therefore men revolt from God, and rebel against him, because they do not know and consider their obligations to God in duty, gratitude, and interest.

“My People” is a parallel term for Israel in the OT. The phrase “my people” is used 228 times in the OT and always refers to Israel in the sense of being God’s family. It appears 7 times in the NT and is always clearly either a direct reference to Israel or an allusion to or quote of an OT passage. The single exception is Revelation 18:4 where the great angel speaks from heaven and calls “My people” to come out of the great whore, mystery Babylon.

The word translates a fairly specific Hebrew word that speaks of family or kin, i.e., clan relatives on the father’s side. When used in the subjunctive it refers to the group of a tribe (Lev 21:4)^[1] In English “people” is a very general word that is generic in its meaning. That is not the case in Hebrew. This word specifically addresses blood kin from the father’s side. The more general term from which it springs has a far more inclusive range of meanings.[2]

It can refer to a nation, people, i.e., a very large kinship group, regarded as related biologically as well as language and other cultural common features (Ex 1:9) though not necessarily related closely by blood, i.e. a member of immediate family. It is also used to speak of a group, i.e., a number of people assembled together as a bunch, with no particular focus on the kinship relationships (Ge 19:4). In 1 Sam. 11:11 it speaks of an army, i.e., a group of men as a unit. Samuel also used the term to refer to a follower, i.e., one who is in close association or agreement to a leader (2Sa 15:12). In its’ most general sense it speaks of a life, i.e., a person who is alive (2Sa 18:8) or even an animal or creature, i.e., a class of the animal kingdom (Pr 30:25, 26). In certain contexts it be used to speak of everyone, formally, all the people, i.e., the totality of a group, with a focus on the individuals in the group (Ex 19:16).

At times it also speaks of a class or group of people that are related by other than normal family or tribe relationships. Samuel speaks of the humble, formally, people of humbleness, i.e., those who lack or discard improper pride and haughtiness (2Sa 22:28); Isaiah will later speak of the exalted, formally, people of exaltation, i.e., persons of high status or prominences (Isa 24:4).

In the singular it is sued to speak of a leader, or one who is formally a head of the people, i.e., one who is a prominent person to rule or govern (Job 12:24). It can even speak of a multitude, formally, largeness of people, i.e., a very large number of persons, with a focus of having common national ties or even simple human ties (Pr 14:28).

Here we see the reference as specifically speaking of the close blood ties of the immediate family. Though Israel was not, literally, “blood kin” to God, they were His family, His people. The appeal here is a deeper and less tangible one than the previous appeals to knowledge, conscience, et. al. This evokes a deep response and a visceral one.

But all of that leads us to this – Isaiah is talking to the people of God and we, as NT believers must grapple with that.  How could this be?  How could God’s people have gone so badly wrong when the Bible clearly and distinctly tells us that that a good tree bears fruit?  Well, we don’t have time for a full dissertation, but we are left with a couple things that help:

• Those professing salvation are not really “believers” until their lives demonstrate it.  The “sign” of salvation is a changed life, not the profession of belief.
• We need to remember in the OT God was dealing with an elect nation in many passages and not just with individuals.  Observe to whom the passage in view was addressed.  It makes a differnce.
• Remember that salvation was never been a works proposition – God didn’t change horses in the middle of the stream – Sola Gratia/Fide has always been the means of men coming to God.
• Christ was always the focus of the plan of God – the Law was never meant to redeem or to provide any acceptable form of access to God’s presence.  It was always only a covering until Christ came.

“Do not consider” - Hebrew, Do not “understand.” The root means to give proper attention to, to consider or to be cunning, to know, to look or search well, to mark or perceive. It can mean to think and hence to gain understanding.^[3] Many interpret this as speaking of stupidity, but that is not really the sense. The idea here is that they have not given the truth of God’s presence and actions in their lives the proper thought or weight and have arrived at wrong conclusions as a result.

---

^[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 6638). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[2] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 6639, #12). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[3] Strong, J. (1997, c1996). The new Strong's dictionary of Hebrew and Greek words (H995). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.