Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his
hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth
and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and
your sin atoned for." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
"Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here
am I. Send me!"
Introduction:
More than a mere secretary for God, a prophet was charged with
speaking the very words of God to His people, whether they wanted to hear them
or not. Although we can infer a fair amount about Isaiah’s personality from the
book that bears his name, ultimately, he was far more concerned that people
know the person of God. His primary mission in life was to point people back to
God and encourage faithful obedience to God. Isaiah’s writings are almost
exclusively directed toward God, revealing an incredibly deep-seated passion
for God’s glory to be elevated above his own personal experiences.
The Vision of Isaiah:
Isaiah, who was married with two children, served as a
prophet in Jerusalem for about fifty years under at least four different kings.
This was a time of immense political upheaval and uncertainty, both locally and
internationally. Facing threats and enemies on all sides, there were massive
temptations to trust in visible military might and strength over the largely
invisible power and authority of God. Isaiah’s message was always the same—that
God alone saves. Perhaps in large measure, his constancy stemmed from the
vision of God he had as a young man. This brief personal recollection gives us
a glimpse of Isaiah’s humble obedience before God and his willingness to go and
do and say whatever God commanded. While many kings and leaders ignored his
advice, Isaiah is remembered as the greatest prophet in the Old Testament, a
man of both phenomenal literary talent and astonishing faith in God. His whole
message is a single vision because it was a literal vision that formed the
basis of his ministry. In the year 740 BC, the year Uzziah king of Jerusalem
died, Isaiah records, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up” (Isaiah 6:1). This vision of God overwhelmed him. He understood, in a way
we can only imagine, just how far he fell short of the glory of God. There is
only one way to respond to God’s glory: confession. “Woe is me!” Isaiah cries
in despair, “For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the
midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of
hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5). But in the midst of his grief and fear, we see the mercy
of God—one of the angels, a seraphim, takes a red hot coal from the altar,
flies to Isaiah and presses it again his unclean lips. Contrary to what we
might expect this does not destroy Isaiah’s lips, it purifies them. The angel
declares, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and
your sin is atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7).
Jesus often quoted from Isaiah’s prophetic book. And no
wonder. The book of Isaiah contains some of the most memorable prophecies of
the Messiah. More than 324 messianic prophecies of Isaiah had been fulfilled.
Summary of How Isaiah Describes the Messiah:
•Wonderful
Counselor - Isaiah 9:2-6, John 14:15-17, John 16:12-15
•Mighty
God - Isaiah 9:6-7, Colossians 2:15
•Everlasting
Father - Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 1:16-18, John 14:1-11
•Prince of
Peace - Isaiah 9:2-7, Isaiah 11:1-9
•A Light
Shining in Darkness - Isaiah 9:2-3, Isaiah 60:1-3, 19-20, Matthew 5:14-16,
Revelation 22:1-5
Isaiah lived with eyes set on God. This is clear from the
opening words of his book: “The vision of Isaiah.” Vision is singular, which
tells us that Isaiah is meant to be read as one unified whole. Isaiah is an
organized, structured, thoughtful presentation of God’s revelation. Each
portrait hints at the human and divine nature of the Messiah.
The King:
By the time of Isaiah, the Jewish people had split into two
kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
Isaiah prophesied in the capital of Judah, Jerusalem. He reminded the people of
a promise God made years before the kingdom splintered; a covenant promise to
David: “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your
body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and
I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12-13). In the
first thirty-seven chapters of Isaiah we find many prophecies about this
offspring, the king in the line of David who would establish an eternal reign.
For example,
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the
government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of
his government and peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over
his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore. (Isaiah 9:6-7)
This prophecy is echoed in the angel Gabriel’s announcement
to Mary that she will become pregnant and give birth to a child who “will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give
to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of
Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33). Jesus
Christ is the promised king of whom Isaiah spoke; the ultimate fulfillment of
Isaiah’s prophecy that “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall
call his name Immanuel” (Isiah 7:14). Matthew makes this clear in his account
of Jesus’ miraculous conception (Matthew 1:22-23). Jesus is born of the virgin
Mary and he is truly Immanuel, “God with us.”
Prophecies of a Messiah King in the line of David point us
to the birth of Christ, but that is not all. They also point us to the time
when Christ will come again. We are told, “There shall come forth a shoot from
the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the
Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him” (Isaiah11:1-2). Jesse is, of course,
the father of David. Isaiah tells his listeners in Jerusalem that though Israel
will be chopped down by the Assyrians (and later Judah by the Babylonians),
from the stump that remained a savior would arise. God’s promise to David shall
not fail. No matter how dark the future may seem the Messiah will come. This
was true for Isaiah’s listeners and it is true for the church today. Jesus did
not reestablish the kingdom of Israel, but he ascended to the right hand of the
Father after his resurrection. We, just like Isaiah’s audience in Jerusalem,
are looking forward to the day when Christ will come. In Revelation we learn
that, “the Root of David, has conquered” (Revelation 5:5). The Root of David
came once, and he will return as the triumphant King in the glory of his
victory.
The Suffering Servant:
The second Messianic portrait Isaiah paints is quite
different from the royal King and the triumphant Conqueror. He describes a
humble, suffering Servant, whom the reader will know by the herald sent before
him: “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make
straight in the desert a highway for our God’” (Isaiah 40:3). Matthew tells us
that that herald was John the Baptist, the prophet who prepared the way by
preaching a message of repentance and baptism because “the kingdom of heaven is
at hand” (Matthew 3:2). What is truly remarkable about this is that the one
whom John the Baptist prepares the way for is a man, Jesus. Matthew identifies
Jesus with the eternal, self-existent, independent God of the Israelites. In
Isaiah’s prophecies there are hints that the Messiah will be a figure who is in
some sense both human and divine. This must have been intriguing to his
original hearers, and only more so as they heard that the divine Savior of
God’s people would come not only as a King and Conqueror, but as a Servant.
At the beginning of Isaiah chapter 42, the portrait of the
Messiah-Servant begins to take clear shape: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him” (Isaiah
42:1). The Servant is one on whom the Spirit of God rests. It is no coincidence
that when John the Baptist baptized Jesus the Spirit of God descended in the
likeness of a dove and rested on him (Matthew 3:16), but a confirmation that
John the Baptist is the voice in the wilderness preparing the way forJesus
Christ who is God incarnate, and that Jesus is the promised Messiah.
Isaiah’s prophecies about the Servant are some of the most
well-known Messianic predictions of the Old Testament because of how clearly
they point to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The quintessential example
of this is Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12. In these verses Isaiah writes a song in which
a picture emerges of a Servant who is, to sum up, “sage, priest, sacrifice,
servant, sufferer, conqueror and intercessor. He is the channel of God’s grace
to sinners. In him the holiness and mercy of God are perfectly reconciled.”
Christ is the fulfillment of the promises and prophecies in these verses, the
one who reconciles the holiness and mercy of God on the cross. He was “wounded
for our transgressions… crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the
chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah
53:5). The apostle Peter described what Christ accomplished on the cross in
words that echo Isaiah’s prophecy, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the
tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you
have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
Isaiah begins by telling us that God’s Servant “shall be
high and lifted up, and shall be exalted” (Isaiah 52:13). From exaltation
Isaiah’s song moves almost immediately to suffering and humiliation. The
Servant is “marred, beyond human semblance” (Isaiah 52:14). He is “despised and
rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3),
with that sorrow and grief resulting in his death: “But he was wounded for our
transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities… he was cut off out of the
land of the living… And they made his grave with the wicked” (Isaiah 53:5,
8-9). Death is not the end for the Servant—because he died for the sins of his
people he will be rewarded. The song concludes with this hope: “Therefore I
will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the
transgressors; yet he bore the sins of many, and makes intercession for the
transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). Death does not conquer the Servant; rather
through the Servant’s death he conquers Death itself. He will receive an
inheritance from the Lord: those for whom he died. He will do what the earthly
priests could not: fully and finally intercede on behalf of sinners, once and
for all. The Servant will be exalted once more because of the redemptive work
he accomplished. This pattern is exactly the pattern Christ follows to redeem
sinners. Paul describes this pattern of humiliation and exaltation in
Philippians 2:5-11,
“Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did
not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by
taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being
found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed
on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Christ freely gave up the state of exaltation and glory he
had with God from eternity to become a man. Just like the Servant he humbled
himself even to the point of dying on the cross in order to atone for our sins.
It is because of his redemptive work that God has resurrected Christ from the
grave and exalted him to his prior state of glory. Christ is at the right hand
of God the Father, in glory, interceding on behalf of the saints. Isaiah’s
portrait of the Servant stepped out of the canvas and into the world in the
person and work of Jesus Christ.
The Anointed Conqueror:
The final portrait of the Messiah begins with a promise,
“Thus says the LORD: ‘Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation
will come, and my deliverance be revealed” (Isaiah 56:1). The Servant comes in
the middle of the book and in the middle of time. Life goes on after the
Servant comes to suffer and bear the sins of many. God’s people are called to
live just and holy lives until the Messiah returns as the Anointed Conqueror.
Salvation and deliverance will come with the arrival of the Anointed Conqueror.
The meaning of the word Messiah is “the anointed one,” a
fact which is highlighted throughout the final prophecies of Isaiah. Isaiah
61:1-2 says,
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has
anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and
the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.
Jesus read these prophetic words in the synagogue of his
hometown Nazareth. After finishing he rolled up the scroll, handed it back, and
sat down. With all eyes on him Jesus said, “today this Scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). I always picture this as a “mic drop”
moment, but the text tells us that Jesus went on teaching with “gracious words”
(Luke 4:22). His claim was to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, the one
anointed by the Holy Spirit. This prophecy also tells us that as the promised
Messiah, Jesus had “the double task of salvation and vengeance.” He is not
merely the Anointed One, he is the Conqueror who will bring blessing and
justice to the world when he comes at the end of time to judge the wicked and
the righteous and to make all things new.
Beholding the Messiah:
As we meditate on the Messianic portraits found in Isaiah,
we become like Isaiah; we become people who live life with eyes set on God. The
New Testament makes it clear that Jesus Christ is the promised King, Servant,
and Conqueror. Christ is the savior and as his followers we are exhorted to,
“run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the
founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the
throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Though the Messianic portraits found in Isaiah
are each unique, they only depict one person: the God-man Jesus Christ. Our
great hope as believers is not only that Christ died for our sins, but that he
will return one day to make all things new.
We must endure through the trials and temptations that come
with life in a fallen world. Like Christ we must be humble, suffering servants.
As Isaiah foretold long ago, the Master is returning. In the meantime, we live
by faith.
“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are
looking for the city that is to come.” (Hebrews:13.14)
No matter how bleak things may look in this world, no matter
what trials we are going through today, one day we will see our Savior in his
glory face to face, wear the crown of life and dwell with him for eternity.
