The Restoration of Jacob

The Holiness of God in Isaiah’s Vision and in the Restoration of Jacob

Amen. Well, please turn to Isaiah 29. We'll be finishing up Isaiah 29 today. Did you know a big theme in Isaiah, starting with the commission of Isaiah in chapter 6, where Isaiah sees the angel singing, holy, holy, holy, is the holiness of God.

Major central theme. In fact, it's the central theme. And so today I'd like to tell you the secret to holiness. Let's go ahead and read this passage. Beginning in verse 22, please stand for the reading of God's Word in Isaiah 29.

Therefore, thus says the Lord who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale, for when he sees his children, the work of my hands, and the midst, and his midst, they will sanctify my name, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

Those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your Word. We thank you for the rich promises it has for us, the rich promises of salvation.

I pray that these would be things that we would be able to appreciate and enjoy today. These are things that even those who heard these words did not know the full measure of what they meant, but we, ones who live after the coming of Christ, may appreciate fully your plan of salvation, knowing what it is that he came to do, and how it is that your salvation was accomplished in him.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, as I said, I'd like to tell you today the secret to holiness, the secret to holiness, and the secret to holiness is that we must see God as holy. Apart from recognizing God as holy, how can we be holy?

To be holy is to be like God. To be like God, you have to know who he is. You have to realize that he is above all else. And so to be holy, we must recognize God as holy. The problem in the nation of Israel, in the land of Judah, was that they did not recognize God as holy.

They recognized him as common, as being one among the other gods. Why would they go to Egypt for help against their enemy of Assyria? The reason is because they want the help of Egypt's gods. Each nation understood their gods to be the power behind them, and they were not satisfied with the power that they saw in their own God, but they wanted to tap into the power of other nations, and thereby tap into the power of their gods.

And so they did not regard the Lord as holy. They did not regard his commands as holy. And as such, they themselves were a people who are not holy. But what this says is that that God who made that people holy before would make his people holy again.

He promises that he will come, demonstrate his holiness, and in demonstrating his holiness to them, they would regard him as holy, and thereby their holiness would be restored. And so this passage about the restoration of Jacob, the restoration of Judah, is realized ultimately not just in the work that was done there in the defeating of Assyria, but rather ultimately points forward to the work that is done in Jesus Christ, where God demonstrates his holiness, he demonstrates his otherness, that he is that he is different than all other gods, that he is greater than all other gods, that he transcends all through sending his son, through procuring such a wonderful and great salvation, that it trumps all other salvations.

So here it begins in verse 22, saying,. Therefore, thus says the Lord who redeemed Abraham. Thus says the Lord who redeemed Abraham. It's worth stepping back and considering this introduction to this passage, that God is the God who redeemed Abraham.

He took Abraham away from a pagan nation, and he made him a holy person. And this is the very God who can do that thing again. Moreover, in saving Abraham, he establishes a relationship between himself and Abraham and his people.

And frequently you see throughout scriptures when it talks about God saving Abraham, or when it talks about God saving the people out of the land of Egypt, it says very directly that it is through that that God becomes their God, and the people become his people.

If God is our God, and we are his people, then we owe to him our full allegiance. We owe to him our full obedience. And we must recognize him as holy. And how terrible is it for a people who ought to recognize him as holy to fail to do so?

You see, these people, though they were descendants of Abraham, and though they had been made holy in the context of this covenant, were not truly God's people in another greater sense. As I quoted before in the catechism teaching, Galatians 3 7 says,.

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Who are the true sons of Abraham? It is not those who have merely descended from him, but ultimately it is those who are the sons of God by faith.

And so it is through a greater salvation that God makes his people holy. And he has established a covenant, not the covenant that he made with this people, a covenant that could be broken, but rather a new covenant made in Jesus Christ that cannot be broken, because the one who fulfills it is not a people who can turn aside from what God has called them to, but rather it is kept by Jesus Christ, one who perfectly does the whole will of his Father, and thus procures a perfect salvation for his people.

And so in considering the comparison between this people of the Old Testament who are in a covenant with God and owed him their allegiance and to regard him as holy, and us who are in a new covenant, and that great salvation that has been procured, it is important to consider the similarities and differences.

The similarities and obligations, but the differences in terms of how fully that salvation is accomplished. The similarities in terms of our obligation to God, but the differences in how that once again is accomplished.

Holy Allegiance, the Lord’s Day, and the Covenant People

Now consider your behavior. Consider whether or not you regard God as holy. Are you a holy person? It will depend on whether or not you regard God as holy. Do you regard his commands as holy, as something that must be obeyed above the commands of men?

Then you are one who will be holy. But if you regard God's commands as similar to man's commands, or you regard God's commands as though they are simply man's commands, just as it had said in verse 13, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, then you do not regard as God is holy, and you will not yourself be holy.

Now consider this day, the Lord's Day. It is a day that God has set apart and made holy. He has made a holy Sabbath for man to worship him. Now if you do not regard God as holy, you do not regard his day as holy, you yourself will not be holy as you do not follow in this way.

And the same is true with everything that God has, all his commands, all his ordinances, even his people. Do you regard God's people as special? Do you regard your relationship with them as more important than the relationships you have with other people in the world?

That is something that God calls us to. As he is holy, his people are holy, you must regard them as a holy people. And if you're looking at your life and you realize that there's some serious lacks in there, there is no reason to fear, because God will make his people holy.

There is a reason to fear if you are not in Jesus Christ, because if you are not in Jesus Christ, then you will not see this holiness and you will not thereby become holy. But it is in Jesus Christ that the blind eyes are made to see, we see God as holy, and we ourselves become holy as we honor him as holy.

He continues on, saying, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale. So in speaking of Jacob, speaking of the people of Israel, they will no more be ashamed.

What is shame? What is shame talking about in this context? So shame, when the Bible speaks of shame, is most often speaking of having a insufficient object of trust, having something that will fail you.

Why does Romans 1 16 say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ? Because it is the power of God to salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why will we not be ashamed? Because it is powerful.

The one who leans on something else will be ashamed. And the context here, the people are considering leaning on Egypt to save them from Assyria. And what is said later on in this book, in chapter 36, is that Egypt is like a broken reed.

The one who leans on it will have their hand pierced. It is not something that will support them. It is rather something that will hurt them, and they will be ashamed that they had trusted in something that cannot actually save.

And moreover, associated with the shame is that accusation that we had seen in that previous passage. Talks about the ruthless one in the scoffer, the one who watches to do evil, who by a word makes a man out to be an offender, who lays a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turns aside him who is in the right.

So why should we be ashamed? Well, if our trust is in something that will fail us, and moreover, if there's grounds for accusation. But in Christ, we have a perfect trust. In Him, all grounds for accusation is taken away since He bears those accusations on our behalf, since He bears our sins on the cross.

And so, as we are found in Him, our face does not need to grow pale. Judah, being chased by her enemies, face growing pale because it is clear that the enemies are stronger, that the enemies will destroy.

But if they trust in the Lord, there is no reason to be ashamed, there is no reason to fear. Likewise, as we trust in the Lord, as we trust in His provision for salvation in Jesus Christ, there's no reason to fear, there's no reason to be ashamed, because He protects His holy people.

You see, He attaches His name to His people, and them being His people, that means that they are His representatives in the earth. And so, if His people are destroyed, then His holiness is tarnished. If you are God's holy people, then His name is attached to you, and He cannot allow you to be destroyed, because that would tarnish His holy name.

But as the people become unholy, and as they detach themselves from them, there is no protection. But He promises to restore this. He promises to restore this holiness and His people. It says in verse 23, for when He sees His children, the work of my hands, in His midst, they will sanctify my name.

They will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. And so, this is what God will do. He will establish salvation, making it evident that He is holy, making it evident that He is above all other gods, that He is above all men, He is above all powers.

So, speaking of Jacob, He says, for when He sees His children, the work of my hands, in His midst. So, here Jacob is referring to the nation as a whole, and His children are referring to the individual people in the nation.

This is saying that Jacob is dwindling, Jacob is threatened, but when He sees His people full, as many as the sands on the seashore, He will recognize how holy God is. Having experienced that salvation, He will recognize how great God is.

You know, we are a people who do not know things well apart from experience. You know, if someone can tell you something, and you can believe that it's true, but it's not until you see it with your own eyes, and you hear it with your own ears, that it becomes evident to you.

You know, this is what it says at the end of Job. You know, Job says that he had heard that God was holy and glorious, but now that he sees with his own eyes, and he hears with his own ears, he is ashamed of what he had done.

He is ashamed that he had ever doubted the Lord. This is the case with us. We are weak people who might know things intellectually, but apart from experiencing those things, we are people who doubt what we otherwise have every reason to believe as true.

And so, God, being the great and merciful God that He is, condescends to our weakness to not just tell us that of His goodness, but to put His goodness on full display in the work of salvation. He does that particularly through Jesus Christ.

In this context of the people in Isaiah's time who are being attacked by Assyria, He does that by defending them from the people of Assyria. In our context, He has done that by saving us from our sins through Jesus Christ, a salvation far more glorious than the one provided earlier, a salvation that's far more astounding.

To defeat physical armies is one thing. To defeat all the powers of accusation that the enemy holds is something far, far greater. And to do so by the Incarnation, by sending Jesus Christ to the Son of God to be man, this is something that no mind had conceived before.

This is something that's far beyond human creativity. And so, He does this and He allows us to experience His salvation as a way of us being able to see His holiness so that we might ourselves become holy.

The Means of Grace, Sanctification, and Seeing God as Holy

Now, when God reveals Himself to an individual and that person is born again, they begin to see this. They begin to see this truly for the first time. And yet, at the same time, they do not see His glory on full display.

They do not have a full end in perfection to seeing His holiness. This is something where He communicates this more and more to us through what are known as the means of grace, through the preaching of the Word, through Scripture, through prayer.

These are ways that God has given us so that we might more see His holiness and we might more be transformed. These are things that He has given us, not as burdens for us to bear, but rather as, rather as boons to strengthen us.

He says that they will sanctify my name. They will sanctify the holy one of Jacob. It's interesting because it had spoken of Jacob before as a singular individual, and now He switches to speaking of they.

They will glorify my name. When He sees His children, they will glorify my name. So, He had spoken of Jacob as singular before, and now in stressing the size of the nation, God's blessing, and growing His people to a large magnitude, He speaks in plural, saying they will sanctify my name.

They will regard me as holy. This is a people who, as I said, did not regard God as holy. Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, as it said in verse 13. But through a great salvation, God reveals Himself as holy.

God reveals Himself as holy to this people in Judah through defeating Assyria. He reveals Himself as holy through Jesus Christ to us, and it is in that that we sanctify Him and we regard Him as not like other gods, not like other powers on this earth, but as something far beyond, far beyond.

You know, if I asked you the question in comparing giants, you know, who is stronger? Was Goliath stronger or was Paul Bunyan stronger, right? Well, they don't even compare. Paul Bunyan's not a real person, right?

He's a fictitious legend. Goliath was an actual giant who had real strength. So we might, we might ask, well, which one is stronger? Is God stronger? Is our God, the Lord Jehovah, is He stronger, or is it all the other gods of the nations?

Well, they don't even compare. It's not just that our God is stronger as one among this entire class of gods, but rather our God transcends because He is not just a stronger God, He is a holy God. All other gods are not holy at all.

There is nothing that distinguishes them from what is entirely common. And so it is in saving His people and in continuing to work in them this salvation that He reveals Himself as holy, that we might see Him as holy, and we might become holy like Him.

And He continues on in verse 24. And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction. Those who go astray in spirit. You know, this phrase, astray in spirit, I think is chosen very intentionally, because as we've seen throughout this chapter, this is the people that outwardly fears the Lord, but inwardly does not fear Him.

This is the people that outwardly are doing the right things, going to the right ceremonies, observing the correct feasts, yet inwardly they are erring in spirit because they turn away from Him. This is the people who He says murmur.

They are people who murmur. Now that word is used elsewhere in scripture. It's used in Deuteronomy, it's used in Psalm 106, and both those times it's used to describe the people of Israel who had been saved, had out of Egypt, had every reason to regard God as holy, but didn't, but rather murmured because they didn't have the leeks and onions of Egypt.

They wanted, they wanted something else. So even though you have these people who are saved, they did not see God as holy as they ought. But what God is promising here is something better than these former salvations that obligate people to see Him as holy, that give them an opportunity to see Him as holy, and then they fail to see Him as holy, they murmur and they themselves remain an unholy people.

Though they have been set apart as holy, they turn from their Lord and they become an unholy people like all the others because they have treated their God as an unholy God like all other gods. But He promises here something better, that they will not be like those who murmur.

They will not be like those from Deuteronomy 1. They will not be like those from Psalm 106. They will not be like those who have been taken out of Egypt and ended up falling in the wilderness. Rather, this people that He promises that He will save in this chapter in Isaiah, this people will be a people who murmur no more.

These will be a people who accept instruction because this will not be an outward salvation, this will be an inward salvation. This will not be saving the people from an outward death, but rather saving them from that death that is to come by giving them eternal life.

This is not changing their prospects for life in the land, but a changing of the heart that they might know God, not just seeing His acts, but having experienced His goodness through that work of the Spirit.

You know, there is a difference between knowing something because you because you have been told it and knowing something because you really experience it. Now these people, they are in some sense experiencing the hand of God as He is as He is saving them from their enemies, but apart from the Holy Spirit working on their hearts, that experience is not the kind where they have immediately communicated to them the goodness of God.

They are observing the world and they are deriving that He is good, but they are not experiencing that goodness apart from the work of the Spirit. But what God promises here is a salvation far greater.

It's not just a slightly greater salvation, but one that is so much greater because it changes the heart and allows those who before murmured would not accept instruction to be ones who have a perfect salvation in Jesus Christ, where they know God, they see Him as holy, and are thereby made holy in a way that cannot be undone.

You know, we generally we generally regard poverty in our own circumstances as reflecting some sort of poverty in God. It's very easy for us to look at our situation and to say, well, I'm lacking something, therefore God is lacking something because He has not supplied this in me.

But what He promises here is to change people so that they no longer only see such outward things, but that they have such an experience that though we live in this world where there are such poverties, we do not recognize those poverties as coming from God, because He is the one who is full of all wealth, who is perfectly blessed forever, and in giving us Jesus Christ, He has provided a way that we might see Him and experience that fullness of goodness, that we might know Him more fully.

That's what we gather each week to do, to come, hear from His Word, to sing to Him, to know Him more fully, to experience that goodness, to see His holiness, that by it we might become holy. Hebrews 12 14 says that apart from that holiness, we will not see the Lord.

You know what it also says? It says through seeing the Lord, we will be like Him. So He makes us holy so that we can see Him, and He also displays His Son to us to make us holy. God is transforming us to be a holy people, and He is doing it through displaying to us His Son, and that great salvation He has provided in Him.

If you do not have Jesus Christ, you cannot have this holiness. You'll go on in darkness, unable to see things as they truly are, but if you have trusted in Jesus Christ for a full salvation from your sins, you will see God as He is.

You'll see Him as being truly holy, and thereby you yourselves will be made holy. You'll be able to dwell with Him forever, all eternity, in joy and gladness, with brothers and sisters and angels, and to Christ glorified forever.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this great promise that you've given us in this passage of a greater salvation than the ones that had come before, of a salvation that gets rid of murmuring, that changes the heart, that we might accept instruction, and we ask that today that you would instruct us, that you would instruct us in your Word by your Spirit, and that we would be a receptive people, eager to see your holiness, and that by that we would become holy.

In Jesus' name, Amen.