Isaiah 1: During the Reign of Kings
Friends,
Sadly, I have been so busy I have not been updating this blog as often as I would like to be. I offer no excuses or apologies, it is what it is right now. Still, I have been thinking and praying about this new direction, trying to understand what it means to be a Jesus follower.
I have just finished, recently, reading my third consecutive NT Wright book. This one, Simply Christian, was most helpful in understanding how to put into practice my faith in Christ, that is, how to live the Resurrection Life. Wright, commenting on why Christians read the Bible, wrote:
…the Bible isn’t there simply to be an accurate reference point for people who want to look things up and be sure they’ve got them right. It is there to equip God’s people to carry forward his purposes of new covenant and new creation. It is there to enable people to work for justice, to sustain their spirituality as they do so, to create and enhance relationships at every level, and to produce that new creation which will have about it something of the beauty of God himself.”–(181-182)
What’s more, he doesn’t end there. He takes this further:
The resurrection of Jesus enables us to see how it is that living as a Christian isn’t simply a matter of discovering the inner truth of the way the world currently is, or simply a matter of learning a way of life that is in tune with a different world and thus completely out of tune with the present one. It is a matter of glimpsing that in God’s new creation, of which Jesus’ resurrection is the start, all that was good in the original creation is reaffirmed. All that has corrupted and defaced it–including many things which are woven so tightly into the fabric of the world as we know it that we can’t imagine being without them–will be done away. Learning to live as a Christian is learning to live as a renewed human being, anticipating the eventual new creation in and with a world which is still longing and groaning for final redemption.”–(223)
So the purpose of this blog is to explore the ways in which we, Christians, are advance signs of what God is doing. I have been jotting down ministries that I have heard about in order to write about them here. I have to say that I am beginning to see a lot of these ministries in a new light. I think the problem that I have experienced, in large part due to my conviction as a social and fiscal conservative, is that I had the mistaken notion that the policies of the (‘kingdom of America’) government necessarily coincided with the advance of the Kingdom of God. What I mean is, too often Christians in America, and here I am thinking specifically of myself, pictured the interests of the Government as the interests of God. This means, again sadly, that I have paid far more attention to the policies of conservative commentators than I have to the Word of God. I confess this is a serious deficiency in much of American Evangelical Christianity.
I have listened to them as they point out the flaws of people like Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu or Martin Luther King jr. or Bono or some other such person and then discarded anything these men may have done as irrelevant or simply a disguise for a socialist agenda. I’m not saying these men are flawless; who is? What I am saying is that much of what these men have done has been motivated by the person of Christ. That should not have been overlooked.
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I have been getting up by 6 AM every day for the last two weeks and devoting myself to prayers and the Word of God. I was led to read the book of Isaiah the prophet. This has been remarkably rewarding as the Lord has really opened my eyes to a great deal that I have all too willingly overlooked in the past. Now things are becoming clearer, much clearer. Isaiah 1:1-9:
1The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth!
For the LORD has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.3 The ox knows his master,
the donkey his owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”4 Ah, sinful nation,
a people loaded with guilt,
a brood of evildoers,
children given to corruption!
They have forsaken the LORD;
they have spurned the Holy One of Israel
and turned their backs on him.5 Why should you be beaten anymore?
Why do you persist in rebellion?
Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart afflicted.6 From the sole of your foot to the top of your head
there is no soundness—
only wounds and welts
and open sores,
not cleansed or bandaged
or soothed with oil.7 Your country is desolate,
your cities burned with fire;
your fields are being stripped by foreigners
right before you,
laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.8 The Daughter of Zion is left
like a shelter in a vineyard,
like a hut in a field of melons,
like a city under siege.9 Unless the LORD Almighty
had left us some survivors,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.
I’ll note a couple of thoughts about this chapter, of which these 9 verses are merely representative. What first caught my eye is this: Isaiah prophesied these words during the reign of kings. Isaiah saw these things, and said these things, during the reign of four different kings. This means that the things he saw were not isolated events. They were not anachronistic. These things he saw, these actions of the people, were not anomalies. They were the prevailing culture of the nation during the reign of four very different kings.
I looked back at the book of 2 Kings where highlights from the reigns of these kings are recorded. Here’s what is said of Jotham and Uzziah: “He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father Uzziah had done” (2 Kings 15:34). Here’s what it says of Hezekiah: “He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done” (2 Kings 18:3). The only one who didn’t do right was Ahaz. The point is, even during the reigns of the best kings, the Israel (Judah) was a place of severe corruption, sin, injustice, and unrighteousness. Here’s what the author said of Hezekiah:
Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses. 7 And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. 8From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory” (2 Kings 18:5-8, NIV)
You can see, from this sampling, that Hezekiah was an ‘OK sort of guy.’ Nevertheless, Isaiah was not kind concerning the way things were in the culture of Judah during his reign.
What this demonstrates to me, at the purely political level, is that the leaders of man cannot be trusted. Or, better, if these people represent government, then government cannot be trusted to do what is right or lead people correctly or properly administer the justice of God. So the Lord says:
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,17 learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
You might say that the Lord bypassed the leaders and went directly to the people, pleading as it were, for them to do what was right: To be people of justice, compassion, and mercy. Something about their failure to do so was so offensive to the Lord that he refused to accept their worship as a delight; it was offensive to Him! Will our worship be acceptable to God when we have neglected such things? Jesus said, as recorded in Matthew 23:
23“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
I am inclined to believe that apart from doing the right things–justice, mercy, righteousness–saying the right things is rather meaningless.
Why do earthly rulers fail to bring about these things? Here’s what Isaiah said:
21 See how the faithful city
has become a harlot!
She once was full of justice;
righteousness used to dwell in her—
but now murderers!22 Your silver has become dross,
your choice wine is diluted with water.23 Your rulers are rebels,
companions of thieves;
they all love bribes
and chase after gifts.
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
the widow’s case does not come before them.
And the people were suffering. The people had become so self-centered, so self-focused, so self-absorbed that they had neglected God. When they neglected God, or removed him from the center, others no longer mattered; others became an obstacle to ‘getting what I want.’ The Lord would intervene and begin to fix all that they had broken:
24 Therefore the Lord, the LORD Almighty,
the Mighty One of Israel, declares:
“Ah, I will get relief from my foes
and avenge myself on my enemies.25 I will turn my hand against you;
I will thoroughly purge away your dross
and remove all your impurities.26 I will restore your judges as in days of old,
your counselors as at the beginning.
Afterward you will be called
the City of Righteousness,
the Faithful City.”27 Zion will be redeemed with justice,
her penitent ones with righteousness.
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What I have been thinking about is along these Isaiah lines. If the Lord declared he would do such things, and if Jesus’ resurrection is the first-fruits of such things, and if Jesus is ‘making all things new’ even as we breathe, then how are we a part of what is going on? How are we helping? What are we doing? Clearly the Lord is interested in Justice and purity and righteousness and faithfulness and the people had failed: From the top to the bottom they had failed. As Isaiah wrote at the end of chapter 2:
Stop trusting in man,
who has but a breath in his nostrils.
Of what account is he?
How can we play a part in what God is doing? How can we be advance signs of what God is doing to restore justice and righteousness as the prevailing norm, the only norm, around which this world revolves? I think this is the point: The people of God should not be sitting around waiting on even the best governments to be doing the work that he has called all of his peopleto do. The government is going to fail; the people of God must be moving about doing justice, being merciful as the Father is merciful, loving even as we are loved. It is not the responsibility of the government to be the primary advocates of what is right and just. The people of God must be the first line of offense against injustice, inhumanity, un-mercy, un-grace, un-love, violence, hatred, abuse, and the entire litany of self-destructive behaviors that we humans like to inflict upon one another.
What are we doing then? Well, allow me to preface my next statements by saying that this is in no way an endorsement of everything that Rick Warren says or even does or believes and teaches theologically. However, what I am demonstrating here is that at minimum Warren is taking seriously what Isaiah said and what was repeated by Micah and others not least of whom was Jesus.
In his P.E.A.C.E. Plan, a plan panned by many theologians and Christians and secularists alike, Warren proposes to dream big and attack those things which stand in direct opposition to the work Jesus is doing to ‘make all things new.’ He proposes to undo the following 5 Global Giants. And why not?
Spiritual Emptiness
Self-Serving Leadership (Isaiah 1!)
Extreme Poverty
Pandemic Diseases
Rampant Illiteracy
Here’s another look:
I’m troubled as to how anyone could find fault with what he has said, what he is proposing, what the content of this plan is.
A lot of people are critical of the plan, but from what I have seen of this plan, Warren is proposing to attack these 5 Global Giants on the basis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What he is proposing to do, and is in fact doing, is to accomplish what our current governments–regardless of the religious affiliation of the government in question, Christian, Islamic, Atheist, Buddhist, etc–are decidedly not accomplishing. They talk a big talk, but in the end their best solutions are all rife with the violence of war and corruption. If the governments in Isaiah’s day were failing, and those kings did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, then how more are the governments in our day and our kings, who do not do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, failing?
I think people get angry with Warren because he is daring to call out these monsters. Too many Christians are content to elect politicians to solve the problems of this world. Too many Christians are content to listen to their own commentators saying insipid things like, “If only this bill passes,” or “if only this person is elected,” then all will be well. Isaiah’s commentary is that human leadership, governments of all stripes and shapes, cannot solve the problems of our world, will not do so.
This is all very preliminary as I am only just working this stuff out in my head and I shall have more to say about it later as I learn. I wonder what would happen if people, Christians, instead of raging against Warren’s perceived theological illiteracy, actually acknowledged that these are serious issues that need to be addressed by Jesus minded people. I wonder what would happen if we took seriously the call to justice and mercy and righteousness? I wonder what would happen if the Church started loving people and stopped relying on governments to do so and then complaining when those same governments want to stifle us, strip us of rights, and remove all vestiges of the church’s influence from the culture? I wonder what would happen if the Church took seriously the called to Love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving God is easy. Loving our neighbor is not. I wonder why?
Soli Deo Gloria!
PS–I have done a follow up post to this one, or perhaps a companion post, at my other blog: Life Under the Blue Sky
