Isaiah

Seven Ways to Read Isaiah

/ davidsschrock

IMG_3712Tomorrow begins the first day of the Via Emmaus Bible Reading plan. However, because one facet of this plan is the absence of daily requirements, you could start today. You could also start on January 5 and not have to “catch up.”

At the same time, because there is not a prescribed daily regiment, I am writing this blogpost to offer a variety of ways to read Isaiah—a formidable first book with sixty-six chapters—so that you can have a sense of progress and planning in your reading this month. (First time Bible readers might find that the New Testament (Track 3 in this plan) is the best place to begin. This year, however, this blog will resource Track 2, which is comprised of the Prophets and Writings).

Not to be daunted by Isaiah’s sixty-six chapters, there are many ways to read Isaiah once or more than once this month, especially when we define ‘reading” as reading and listening to God’s Word. To help you plan read Isaiah within in the month of January, here are seven approaches. Continue reading →

Come and Worship the King (Isaiah 60)

/ davidsschrock

Torah

Come and Worship the King (Isaiah 60)

At Christmas we celebrate God’s light come into the world. And on Christmas Eve this year we looked at how Isaiah 60 both predicts and expands our understanding of God’s glorious light. In the fullness of time, we see how the Magi in Matthew 2 fulfill Isaiah’s promise of the nations coming to worship the Lord. This teaches us that coming to Zion is not simply a future reality; it is something we also experience through Jesus Christ.

As Hebrews 12:22 tells us, when we worship the Lord we have come to Mount Zion and join in the worship that is ever present in glory. Truly, this way of thinking stretches our imagination, but it is the way Scripture leads us to think—which a firm grasp of finding our position in Christ in the heavenly places (cf. Eph 2:5).

At Christmas, we ponder both the coming of God from heaven to earth. But we should also consider what that means, and how Christ’s Incarnation leads us to heaven—just as Isaiah 60 envisions.

With that in mind, you may find the following discussion questions and additional resources helpful. You can also listen to the sermon online. I pray these resources are an encouragement to you as you celebrate the birth of our Lord. Continue reading →

Two Rivers Run Through It: Tracing Zion and Zera’ (Seed) through the Book of Isaiah

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

matt-lamers-328906Isaiah is massive book that displays an even larger vision of God’s glory. And because of the scale and grandeur of its message, it often seems difficult to grasp its meaning. Sure, there are those familiar verses we often return to, but how do we grasp at the whole message of Isaiah?

In what follows, I am going to trace out two key themes that may help us see the forest and not just a few trees. The first stream relates to Zion, the key place in the book. The second relates to the messiah, or the seed (zera’), the key person in the book. By holding these two streams together, I think it helps us see the arrangement of the forest so that we can climb the heights in this glorious book. Continue reading →

The Divine Warrior Wrapped in Swaddling Clothes

/ davidsschrock

samuel-zeller-364234And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob
who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.
— Isaiah 59:20 —

Wars and rumors of war.

Throughout the world right now, armies are planning and preparing for various military operations. Closer to home, domestic abuse, interpersonal strife, and political injustice continue unabated. Just this week, I learned that a man was shot and nearly killed less than a block from my house.

All that to say, we live in a violent world. And it is right, to pray for, work for, and want for something better. But it is wrong, to think that this sort of violence is new or that God is unaware.

As Ecclesiastes says, “there is nothing new under the sun (1:9). Injustice, immorality, and bloodshed are as old as sin itself. But just as old is the promise that God redeem his people and deliver them from the curse of sin.

This was the promise in Genesis 3:15, when God said to the Serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” And this ancient promise is just as good today as it was 4000 years before Christ.

Indeed, if you’re familiar with the Bible, you know how strange and circuitous God’s story of salvation story is. God did not bring peace to his people in Genesis 4. Rather, he let the world go to seed—literally.

In Genesis 4, Cain killed Abel in cold blood. Theologically speaking, the seed of the serpent killed the seed of the woman. And from this first act of aggression, bloodshed has followed. Yet, in the face of this violence, God chose one people from whom he would bring a peace-maker. Often Israel, like Abel, would find themselves subjected to the serpent’s seed. But at other times, they would themselves become a brood of vipers, earning the divine wrath of God.

This is how Isaiah 59 depicts Jerusalem, when God compares their sin to that of snakes and spiders. And it is this graphic image that Paul applies to the whole world, when he quotes Isaiah 59:6–7 in Romans 3:15–18:

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.

For us who live in the same dark world described in the Bible, we need to remember that this is the backdrop to the birth of Christ. Continue reading →

Singing the Four ‘Spirit’ Songs in Isaiah 56–66

/ davidsschrock / 3 Comments

motyer

Perhaps you are familiar with the four Servant Songs in Isaiah. They are found in Isaiah 40, 49, 50, and 53. And I would contend, they are deeply important for understanding who Christ is and how God promised to save his people.

But do you know there are also four “Spirit” songs in Isaiah? Or better, as Alec Motyer puts it, there are four songs in Isaiah 56–66 that identify the Spirit-anointed Savior who will also come to be identified with Christ? Until, reading Alec Motyer’s commentary on Isaiah 56–66, I had not seen that.

Sure, I had often wondered why Christian tradition stops counting the Servant songs at Isaiah 53, when Isaiah 61 is clearly another song extolling the glories of a Spirit-anointed Servant. But until preparing for this current sermon series, I had not put together the reality of four songs in Isaiah 59, 60, 61, and 63. Nor did I make the connection of these chapters with the previous four Servant songs in any specific way.

But after reading Motyer’s observations, it’s hard to miss the way in which these four ‘songs’ balance and apply the previous four songs. In what follows, let me share Motyer’s illuminating insights. I’ll add a few (work in progress) observations at the end. Continue reading →

The Divine Warrior in Mary’s Womb (Isaiah 59)

/ davidsschrock

Torah

The Divine Warrior in Mary’s Womb

Perhaps Isaiah 59 is not the first passage that comes to mind when you think of Christmas. A month ago, it wasn’t on my radar as a “Christmas passage,” either. However, after doing some preliminary study the armor of God in Ephesians 6, which quotes Isaiah 59:17, I soon realized how much Isaiah 59 (with the rest of Isaiah 56–66) prepares the way for Christ.

Today, we began a three-part series on Isaiah, where we considered how the promise of salvation in Isaiah 59:15–21 resolved the problem of sin in Isaiah 59:1–9. Indeed, in response to Israel’s confession and plea for mercy (Isaiah 59:9–15), Yahweh promised that he would bring salvation. And as Isaiah 59 and the rest of Isaiah foretells, this promise ultimately leads to the birth of Christ in a Bethlehem stable.

You can listen to this sermon online. Discussion questions are below, along with some additional resources on Isaiah and the meaning of Christmas. Continue reading →

Mapping Isaiah and Beholding Christ: A Literary Study of Isaiah 59

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

himesh-kumar-behera-216019This Sunday I will preach Isaiah 59. And to prepare for this Christmas message, I have spent time getting to know the landscape of Isaiah. Because the literary shape is so important for understanding the (theological) message of any book, I’ve spent time trying to figure out how this one chapter fits into the whole of Isaiah.

In what follows, I will share a few observations from what I’ve found. If you are interested, I’d love to hear your feedback and insight into this glorious chapter. Continue reading →

The Arm of the Lord: From Moses to Isaiah to Christ

/ davidsschrock / 5 Comments

robert-nyman-442994In the Bible, the “arm of the Lord” is a vivid image of God’s saving power. But is it more than that? In Isaiah 59:16 and 63:5, the prophet tells how God will save his people by his own arm. In context, this builds on an important theme in Isaiah 40–66. But it also amplifies the promise of the messiah. Indeed, as we study “the arm of the Lord” across the Bible, I believe we begin to see how the “arm of the Lord” leads to the Son of God, who as Hebrews 10:5 says, citing Psalm 40, has received a body prepared by God.

Indeed, by better understanding the origin, development, and goal of this phrase (“the arm of the Lord”), we will gain greater insight into God’s Word and the work he planned for Christ to accomplish—namely the salvation of a people from all nations. Even more, we learn something about how the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament are intended to direct us toward God in Christ.

So to organize our thoughts, lets consider the arm of the Lord in eight steps. Continue reading →

Reading the Bible in Context(s): Why Faithful Interpretation Means Considering ‘Various Strata of Biblical Discourse’

/ davidsschrock

aman-bhargava-272763When reading the Bible (especially the Old Testament) we must always endeavor to read it “in context.” However, because Scripture is book composed of many books, written by many authors, and recorded over many centuries, reading the Bible in context means paying attention to “various strata of biblical discourse.”

On this point, Andrew Abernathy, in his book The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom, offers a balanced approach to reading in context that both holds fast to the grammatical- historical of the Old Testament context and the biblical-theological context of the whole canon. His words are worth considering, as we seek to understand any passage of Scripture and apply it through Christ to ourselves.

In the opening pages of his book, Abernathy writes, Continue reading →

Immanuel: How God Came to Us (Matthew 1:18–25)

/ davidsschrock

advent03This week we started a new sermon series through Matthew 1–2. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord, we look to the way Matthew explained his birth as the “fulfillment” of God’s promises of old. For instance, as Matthew writes, Jesus is Son of Abraham and the Son of David (Matthew 1:1), the “Immanuel” promised in Isaiah 7:14 (Matthew 1:23), the royal son born in Bethlehem, the city of David (Matthew 2:6; Micah 5:2), and the child like Israel who God brought out of Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15; Hosea 11:1)—to name but a few. 

Matthew’s Gospel begins by introducing  who Jesus is and how to read the Old Testament in the light of his coming. So important is this information about the Messiah’s identity, Matthew crafts a 42-person genealogy to identify Jesus. Two years ago, Jared Bridges preached on Matthew 1:1–-17, so we began this year with Matthew 1:18–-25.

In what follows, I have included discussion questions about Sunday’s sermon and resources to consider biblical interpretation and the birth of Jesus Christ. You can listen to or read the sermon on online. Or even better, if you are in Northern Virginia, come join us during this advent season. Continue reading →