Tag Isaiah

Precept Upon Precept

Todd R Leave a comment

Dear fellow travelers,

Many parts of the Bible can seem repetitive and hard to read for that reason.  Did the Bible really need to be written this way?  Couldn’t we have been given a shorter version, covering everything we need, but only once?  A shorter Bible would be easier to read, right?

It turns out that Isaiah the prophet’s audience had similar complaints.  In Isaiah 28:9-10, they complain about Isaiah’s messages from God:

“To whom will he [Isaiah] teach knowledge,
            and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk,
            those taken from the breast?
For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
            line upon line, line upon line,
            here a little, there a little.”

The people mock Isaiah, saying he is repetitive, and is treating them as children.  Can’t Isaiah get to the point and then move on?  Why repeat the same lines and precepts?  The context of the quote above is that Isaiah was telling the people that they were about to be conquered and sent into exile because they wouldn’t listen to God.  The message was repetitive because their obstinacy required it, and therefore their discipline will also be repetitive.  They were acting like disobedient children, so maybe they needed to be treated as children.[1]  Isaiah next writes that God’s people will learn from a people “with a foreign tongue” (their conquerors):

“And the word of the LORD will be to them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
            line upon line, line upon line,
            here a little, there a little,
that they may go, and fall backward,
            and be broken, and snared, and taken.” – Isaiah 28:13

Photo by Aurora K on Unsplash

They wouldn’t listen and follow or obey God, and their discipline would be as repetitive as the message they failed to receive.  As is often true, God’s punishment fits the crime as shown by the parallels in the two quotes above.

To an unbeliever God’s words will always seem like nonsense, as we see from 1 Corinthians 2:14,

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”  However, believers can also get annoyed at the repetition of God’s word.  We may ignore it, as if it was nonsense to us.  But like the people of Isaiah’s time, maybe God is being repetitive because that’s what we need.  Often, it’s hard for us to listen otherwise.

In his letters, the apostle Peter recognized the need for this.  He knew that his readers needed to be reminded of things they should already know:

“I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder” – 2 Peter 1:13
“This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder” – 2 Peter 3:1

Peter knew from experience that Jesus had to repeat many things to him before he understood (for example, John 21:15-17) and therefore knew the importance of reminders.  The phrase “stirring up” means “to wake fully.”  In a sense, encouraging reminders are like spiritual caffeine, awakening us to basic truths we may drift away from.  Like caffeine wears off over time, unfortunately so can the effect of God’s word in our lives.  So, we need to be “stirred up” again and again.

Sometimes we let Christ sink below our other thoughts and feelings instead of keeping him at the forefront, directing them.  When this happens, we need a reminder.  Sometimes we read the Bible and think “I already know that” but fail to see that we aren’t changed by the truths we read, nor are we acting upon them.  When this happens, we need a reminder.  We need God to nudge us “here a little, there a little,” as Isaiah said.

Until we have achieved complete obedience to God in thought and deed, until we have achieved holiness, God will continue to repeat His messages to us.  Even Christians can find it hard to listen.

If we find that God’s message is seeming very repetitive, we should ask ourselves why and pray that we can be better listeners.

[1] See also 1 Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12-14

A Reminder of His Love

Todd R Leave a comment

Dear fellow travelers,

How do we measure how much Jesus loves us?  We may say that His love is endless or infinite.  We may say that He loved us enough to take on human flesh and become a servant.  We may say that He loved us enough to suffer and die for us.  These are all true and there are good verses to tell us all of them, but I think His suffering communicates His love in a way nothing else can.  We get an example at the end of Isaiah 49:13-16, which says:

“Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
            break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
            and will have compassion on his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
            my Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
            that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
            yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
            your walls are continually before me.”

Verse 13 tells God’s people to rejoice, but in verse 14, they say they have been forsaken by God.  During the exile in Babylon, we can’t blame the people of Judah for thinking this way.  The symbols and institutions of their religion had been destroyed, and they had been forcefully removed from the land God had promised to them.  What can God say to reassure these people?  What can God say to the exiles of Isaiah’s time that could comfort the spiritual exiles of our time?

Isaiah begins with the image of a woman and her young child: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?”  God had bound Himself to His people as their Father, through His covenant which was based on His character of steadfast love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6).  Unless God stops being loving (which He won’t) He won’t abandon His people.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

But the more powerful image for us today might be verse 16: “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”  While this might have been enigmatic to Isaiah’s contemporary audience, who had no point of reference for anything “engraved” on God’s hands, today we know what marks God has on His hands: the scars of His crucifixion in the body of Jesus Christ.  The scars that He willingly received on our behalf.  Isaiah 49:16 suggests that these scars are a permanent reminder of God’s steadfast love that He has for His people.  “Your walls” would be the walls of Zion, the eternal city of God, and since God says these are “continually before me,” like the scars they are also a permanent reminder.

The Bible tells us Jesus kept the scars in His resurrected body before returning to heaven (Luke 24:39-40, John 20:27), as evidence to His followers that He really was the resurrected Messiah, but also as a reminder of His love for His people.  While it is debated whether Jesus will still have scars on His hands and feet in heaven, many believe He will, but even if He doesn’t, He will remember them.

So, if at times you feel like the people of Zion in verse 14: ““The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me,” then remember “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”  He hasn’t and won’t forget you.

Do We Have It Upside Down?

Todd R 1 Comment

Fellow travelers,

With other people, we can often decide what they know and don’t know about us.  We can guard our reputation by doing things out of the view of others or behind their backs.  We believe we can avoid any negative consequences of our actions and choices if others don’t know about them, especially people in authority.  Sometimes we may even think this applies to God.  Isaiah recognized this when he said the words of Isaiah 29:15 –

“Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
            whose deeds are in the dark,
            and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?””

The verse is directed at people who assume God has limited knowledge of us.  People who think they can avoid being seen and avoid consequences.  But things that apply to other people do not apply to God.  He knows all of our “counsel” – our thoughts – and all of our “deeds” – our actions – even if we think we’re doing them in secret.  He, as our maker, knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows all, and Isaiah points out the foolishness of thinking He doesn’t in the next verse:

Photo by David Tomaseti on Unsplash

“You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
            “He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
            “He has no understanding”?”

It’s upside down and backwards to apply what we know about people (“the clay”) to our “maker” and “him who formed it.”  He sees and understands things we don’t see or understand, not the other way around.  Pretending we can keep secrets from Him only deepens our sense of separation.  It darkens our “counsel” and ultimately our “deeds” as well.  God can’t get us back on the right path if we build up walls against Him.  In the case of Isaiah’s audience, since they were not willing to trust God, they end up allying with Egypt[1], something God had told them never to do.  In the spiritual metaphor, Egypt represents our slavery to sin, since Israel were once the slaves of Egypt, and they/we should never want to go back.  But we so often do, and often because we think He doesn’t know about it or care.

Like Paul in Romans 7:15 (“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”), we are people who don’t even understand ourselves.  But God knows how we’re broken, why we’re broken, and what can be done to fix us, because He is our “maker.”  So, what should we do?

First, we need to recognize that God does see and He does care.  Every thought we have and every deed we do matters to Him, because He wants us to be holy, for His glory and for our good.  He knows better than us and He expects us to act like we believe that.

Second, regular prayer of confession for purpose of self-examination and re-alignment with God is necessary, otherwise we will continue down the wrong path.  I find many of the Psalms to useful guides when it comes to these prayers, but the prayers can come from anywhere as long as they’re sincere.

Third, we must constantly seek to know Him and what He wants, and doing so means spending time with Him in His Word, the Bible.  Hebrews 4:12-13 says:

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

His word can reach all of our “thoughts and intentions.”  It can remind us that nothing is hidden from Him, but it can also teach us what “thoughts and intentions” we ought to have.

Lastly, we must walk according to the Spirit, acting on the right “thoughts and intentions” and live with a clear conscience before God and man.  However, if we keep Him out because we are ashamed of our inner desires and rebelliousness, or because we think we can hide it, we are refusing the only solution He has provided for our deepest problems.

Can we do any of these things perfectly?  No, but we can and must try.  Pretending God is like other people who don’t know or care isn’t an option.  He died so we might know Him, and to know Him is to become like Him.

Amen.

[1] Isaiah 30:1-2

Popular Opinion: A Quint of Quotes

Todd R 1 Comment

Dear fellow travelers,

Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, five quotes on the theme of popular opinion when it goes wrong:

“Those who call for Nonsense will find that it comes.” – C.S. Lewis

“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” – Charles Mackay

“The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.” – Ludwig von Mises

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.” – George Orwell

“Woe to those who call evil good
            and good evil,
who put darkness for light
            and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
            and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20

Bride of the High Priest

Todd R Leave a comment

Being an Old Testament priest was a demanding profession, full of rules and restrictions about what you must do and what you couldn’t do.  For the one high priest, it was even more challenging.  Within the first 5 books of our Bible (also called the Pentateuch, or the books of Moses) there are long lists of rules for these people to follow that didn’t apply to anyone else.  And sometimes with these rules we find interesting pictures of Jesus, our High Priest.  Today I’m writing about one example of that.

In Leviticus 21:13-15, God tells Moses, and then to the people through Moses, about who a high priest may marry:

“And he shall take a wife in her virginity.  A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.”

These verses would be good advice for most people, but for high priests these things are required[1].  The point is to keep the high priest, and those closest to him, as holy and dedicated to God as possible.  Because the high priesthood was an inherited role, “he may not profane his offspring among his people.”  There was to be no question that this man’s children were not defiled in any way.

Today, we no longer have a high priest serving in the temple in Jerusalem for us, but what we do have is Jesus as our High Priest[2].  If He is our High Priest, do regulations about marriage have anything to do with Him?  How do these Levitical rules apply to who Jesus chooses to marry, since He didn’t marry while He was on earth?  These rules matter because in the New Testament, most notably in Revelation, the Christian church is the bride of Jesus Christ.  The church is who He decided to marry.

But, in light of Leviticus 21, how does our High Priest Jesus “marry” his church without being defiled?  None of us are spiritual “virgins.”  Instead, we are a church full of sinners who wed themselves to dead gods, separating ourselves from the true God, and defiling ourselves in worship of other gods.  Spiritually, we are prostitutes committing spiritual adultery with all the things we choose to worship that are not God.

So, how does Jesus follow the Levitical regulation to “take as his wife a virgin of his own people”?

The answer is that He sanctifies His people by His blood.  In the Old Testament we are shown pictures of this concept.  In David’s famous penitential prayer of Psalm 51, he asks God to “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (verse 7).  In Isaiah, God says to His people:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
             though your sins are like scarlet,
                        they shall be as white as snow;
             though they are red like crimson,
                        they shall become like wool.” (verse 18)

Back in verse 15 of Leviticus 21, God said: “I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”  Through the shedding of His blood, His death, and His resurrection, we are made as clean from our sin and idolatrous, adulterous worship as we could ever be.  We are made “white as snow”.  We are made to be acceptable in the eyes of a holy and just God.  We are made to be a suitable bride for Jesus Christ, we become “a virgin of his own people,” with no trace of the times we rebelled against our one, true God.  He is the one who sanctifies us.

In this rule that is seemingly irrelevant to modern Christians, there is a picture of the sacrifice of our Lord, and of the way He views His people.  If we were not sanctified, He could not “marry” us.  Do you believe that Jesus sees you as “white as snow”?  The Bible says that His people are, otherwise, they would not be acceptable to Him.  But we are sanctified if we accept Christ’s work on our behalf.

Pray for God to reassure us of this truth today!  Pray for Him to wash away all of our guilt and shame.  Pray that we would know that we, in spite of ourselves, are accepted because of what He’s done for us.

Amen.

[1] Because the Aaronic priesthood was hereditary, celibacy was not required, or even recommended. Marriage and procreation were encouraged, or the line would not continue.
[2] Hebrews 3:1, 4:14, 6:20