A Surprising Ransom

Isaiah 43 and the Surprising Exchange of Ransom

Please turn your Bible to Isaiah chapter 43. We'll be looking at verses three and four today. Isaiah 43, when you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word. But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned.

And the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you.

I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the East and from the West, I will gather you. I will say to the North, give up and to the South, do not withhold.

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made, amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

It is a rich mine of treasure. We pray that you would help us to receive from it because we know it is only by the power of the Spirit that we would, only by the power of the Spirit that our eyes would be opened, that our ears would likewise, and our hearts, we pray that you would make us receptive to your word and that we would be transformed by it.

In Jesus' name, amen. In this passage, which continues after Isaiah 42, Isaiah 42, having talked about the people's failure to open their eyes and to be able to see what the Lord is doing, even upon as many calls to them for repentance as many acts of discipline, things which should call them to wake up and recognize their own sin, and yet they think that the Lord has abandoned him, where it is his very hand by which their discipline has come.

Now he explains that he will save them. He will redeem them. He will open their eyes. These things will come to pass at his hand. And in all these statements about salvation that we see in this passage, we get this surprising statement that he gives Egypt as their ransom and Cush and Seba in exchange for them.

In other words, God's love is so great that he is willing to exchange others for them. Many times when people talk about the love of God, they talk about it as something that is very spread out and even.

This is not how love is. The Bible does speak of him loving the wicked, and that is why we are called to love our enemies. Yet at the same time, that love that he has for each individual is not an equivalent love.

As some have called it, it is not a peanut butter love. You ever heard that? It's just spread out evenly over all the bread. It's not a peanut butter love. The love that you have for others is not identical to every person, nor should it be.

The love I have for my wife is not the same as the love I have for my kids. It's not the same as the love I have for you all. Hey, these are different loves, and it is right. Likewise, the Lord has a different love for his son than he would for the wicked.

And he has a different love for us than he does for the wicked. And this, by design, demonstrates and experientially communicates to us the greatness of his love. Many people become very perplexed by the fact that there is so much wickedness in the world because they do not see how it is for their own good.

And they are perplexed why God would have so many wicked people, why he would permit them to go off to destruction, why he would arrange things as he has. But in the end, as it explains in Romans 8, 28, that all things work together for good to those who love God, that this is true even in the wicked, that God has created the wicked for the day of judgment, particularly to make his love known in a greater way to his people.

I know that in some ways this is a theme that I have pointed out frequently through Isaiah, but I think there's a particular way that that comes forward in these verses, in verses three and four. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

Several things to note about this passage. First of all, the Lord introduces himself several times, three different times, in fact. He says, for I am the Lord, your God. The importance of him being their God is that this is the basis for their salvation.

For a God to be a people's God means that he protects them. This is why the different peoples of the different nations have their gods. There's the gods of Edom or the gods of other nations, and they all go and worship their gods because they think that their gods will protect them.

Well, God is unlike those gods in that he is capable of protecting his people and does so perfectly, but this is what it means to be someone's God. In Exodus chapter 20, right before the giving of the 10 Commandments, it says, and God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and then he immediately goes into the 10 Commandments.

You know that in the modern Jewish numbering of the 10 Commandments, this is regarded as the first commandment, that I am the Lord, your God. It's not a commandment, but it is of such importance that it has stood out to people as though it were a commandment.

I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. This is the basis on which people should obey God. Okay, so if you are the people of a God, you obey that God.

We are the people of the true God. We obey that God. How do we know that we are of that God? Well, he has brought them out of the land of Egypt. That is how he communicates this to them. So when he says this here, I am the Lord, your God, I give Egypt as your ransom, he's saying the same thing that he said at the beginning of the 10 Commandments.

Then he goes on and he says, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. So he is the Holy One of Israel. This is a special identity that we see in Isaiah. This name is repeated a few times, that he is the Holy One of Israel.

What it means that he is the Holy One is that he is unlike the other gods. Other gods may be defeated by greater gods. He is unlike those other gods. And so the assurance that this name gives us is that he would not let his people be utterly defeated, utterly conquered, because if that were to happen, then it would be the case that his own name would be tarnished.

And his own name cannot be tarnished because he is the Holy One of Israel. He's not just the God of Israel, but he is the Holy One of Israel. And then, of course, your Savior. He is the Savior of the people.

He will save them. But then likewise, in addition to speaking of three names of the Lord, or three descriptions or titles, then it goes on and gives three descriptions of his people. It says in verse four that he will do these things because you are precious in my eyes.

God's people are precious to him. And honored, not necessarily honorable, but honored. He honors them. These are things that he is doing. It is subjective rather than objective, if you know what I mean by that, that he, as the subject who is viewing, is declaring them honored.

He is the one who loves. His people are not particularly lovable people or particularly honorable people, but he is one who finds them precious, finds them honorable. And then the last statement, and I love you.

You are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you. And so what happens because of all these things? There is an exchange that is made. There is that historic exchange of Egypt. Egypt was given as a ransom.

This is pointed out again later on in verse 16. Thus says the Lord who made a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick.

What was that speaking of? All the warriors of Egypt drowning in the Red Sea. So God has given Egypt as their ransom. Now, he could have let the people themselves be destroyed, but instead he let Egypt be destroyed.

Many lives in Egypt lost, all the firstborn, especially for that 10th plague, killing the firstborn males of all of Egypt. And then likewise, their goods, the Egyptians were moved by God to give their goods to the people of Israel as they left the land.

So both lives and goods were plundered away from Egypt. God gave Egypt as a ransom. And then to expand that statement even further, speaks of Cush and Seba, which are just slightly south-ish of Egypt.

Gives Egypt as your ransom. Cush and Seba in exchange for you. This is how much God loves his people and he demonstrates it by giving others in their place, by allowing others to be destroyed so that his people would not be destroyed.

Several things that God gives here. God gives his love. God gives his love. Now, ultimately, these passages point forward as we were singing in this first song, glorious things of thee are spoken, speaks about Zion, et cetera.

Who is that ultimately fulfilled in? The New Testament speaks of God's people as Zion. Ultimately, this passage speaks about his goodwill towards his people, the church. Those who have trusted in him, those who are numbered among Zion's ranks are especially precious to the Lord.

They are honored, not because they are honorable, but because he has honored them and they are loved. You are especially loved by the Lord. Not for any basis in you, but because he is most loving. It says in Deuteronomy 7, 7, it is not because you were many in number that I set my eyes on you and loved you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

This is speaking to Israel. Someone in Israel might think, well, we were the greatest of nations, that's why the greatest God chose us. No, God chose them particularly to show his love to them because they were an excellent vessel for his love, that they might demonstrate his capacity to love a weak and helpless people.

In Romans 5, 18, it says that he loved us while we were still sinners. It's not because of any merit in us, not because of any good in us, but this is what many people think. Many people think that they need to make themselves right with the Lord in order to come to him and that that is what they need to do.

There's a lot of people who have not yet come to the Lord and think that they need to get their life clean, at least mostly clean before they come to him. You will never get your life sufficiently clean in order to stand before his courts, not on your own.

And there are those who have come to him, but then as they see faults in their life, they do not feel that they are at peace with God because they think that their standing before him comes from their own performance.

Well, of course, it doesn't. It comes from his mercy. Now, you can fall, as God's child, you can fall under his fatherly displeasure, but God's children will always be at peace with him. Your standing before the Lord does not depend on yourself.

It rather depends on him, his own mercy. And this is something that he has extended even before we have the mercy of Christ particularly applied to us. And this happens even prior his giving of Christ.

John 3, 16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Okay, so this is happening prior to the giving of the son. A lot of people think, okay, well, I am accepted in the son. That is why God loves me.

There is a sense in which you have God's love in a special way because you are counted in the son. But God's love to his people is something that he was giving even before he gave the son. It is because he loved them that he gave the son.

If it happened the other way around, if he only loved people because of the son, he would have never given the son because he wouldn't have loved the people in order to give the son. Do you see the problem there?

So God's love for his people is given even prior to our own merit or even prior to the merit of the son and prior to us responding to that in any way. God has loved us incredibly apart from anything that we have done in order to earn that.

Ephesians 1 .11 says that this is all by the counsel of his own will. He works all things after the counsel of his will. If you've never thought about what that means, when you make a decision, you're examining several things, you're gathering data, and based on the counsel of either people or your own observations, you decide what to do and based on a limited set of observations.

God does not gather information. He is omniscient. He already knows all things. He does not observe and deduce. Some passages speak about him looking down from heaven, but these are all anthropomorphic.

God is not like a man where he needs to gather information. He knows all things. He does not deduce. He intuits. Okay, to intuit means you just already know it. This is how his knowledge is. He intuits.

He already knows. And so what counsel is he receiving? It's not receiving counsel that he's gathering from observing things and collecting information, things that would weigh one way, things that would weigh another.

Rather, he does all things according to the counsel of his own will, and he has chosen to give us his love, the counsel of his own will. Now, just because his love for us is not based on anything in us does not mean that it has no basis at all.

Its basis is found in him, and there are many things that guarantee the continuing of his love. Now, these truths can all be found in Scripture, but I like the way that our confession collects them in 17 .2.

It speaks of how we can know that we continue to have his love. It says that this does not depend on their own free will, okay, so it doesn't depend on us continuing to please God based on our actions or based on our choices, but on the unchangeableness of the decree of election, which flows from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father.

It is based on the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ in union with him. So because Christ has perfectly obeyed the Father and he has offered his life, because he intercedes for his people, he prays for them just as he prayed for Peter, that Peter would not fall away even though he had denied Jesus Christ, Peter was restored.

He's praying for us continually, as it says in Hebrews 7. Then on top of that, we are united with him. We are joined with him so that he could not cast us off because it would be to cast himself off. The oath of God, God has given us his promise.

He would no longer be truth. He would no longer be verity itself, which he is. The abiding of his spirit, the seed of God within them. God's spirit is within us. The abiding of his seed within us, that's using a biological metaphor.

He is our father, and that is established not just in a legal adoption, but in a real spiritual sense, so that there is a reality to it that is analogous to a biological reality. This is something more than just, the Bible speaks of our adoption as sons, but there is something that extends beyond adoption as sons, which is legal, and then there's some kind of cultivated love in adoptions, in human adoptions, but here there's something more powerful and spiritual to establish that sonship beyond simply a legal statement, and then the nature of the covenant of grace that he has made a covenant with us, the certainty and infallibility of their perseverance is based on all these things.

God's continued love for us is based on all these things that he has given us, his promise, his spirit, his son, the merit of his son, the intercession of his son, et cetera. So even though his love for us is not based on anything that we had apart from the son, does not mean that he does not have his purposes or that he has not secured it in a way that it is not continually guaranteed.

If you think of God's love as being completely arbitrary in the sense that he is not bound to anything, then he could just take his love away at any time, but he has bound himself. That is why it says in 1 John 1, 9, that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we confess our sins.

Why is it just for him to do that? Does he owe us forgiveness? Well, he does because he has bound himself to by means of promise, not inherently before having done so, but having done so, he is bound to.

This love is an excellent love. It is not like creaturely love. Creatures love based on their own needs. Okay, you, when you love, it will always be based on something about you needing others. Even when you love in a very selfless way, there is not a way to completely detach that from your felt needs for things.

Okay, when you love God, Hebrews 11, six says, Hebrews 11, six says that without faith, it is impossible to please God for the one who comes to him must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

A right love for God acknowledges the things that you would receive from him. No man marries a woman thinking that she is not going to bring him anything. No woman marries a man thinking that he is not going to bring her anything.

Even your love for your children has to do with, with your own name being advanced. So even though there is a sense in which a lot of these things are selfless, they always have a creaturely nature to it.

And that we are a people of need and there is no way to completely stop being people of need. But God is most blessed. To be blessed is to have a happiness and a contentment. Now we are blessed in that we receive from God.

God is blessed in that he has all those things inherently. And so his love is a very blessed love. It is love that flows from him without having any kind of.

Need.

That is what makes it so incredible and overflowing and, and what should make our hearts overflow with gratitude because it is unlike the love that you would receive from anyone else and that it's selflessness extends beyond the selflessness that a creature is kept capable of having.

Even in a, even in a perfect condition, a creature is not capable of having the kind of selfless love that God has. And so, because of this, he demonstrates this love in exchanging the nations for his people, Israel in this passage.

And of course, this is looking forward to how he's going to destroy Babylon for their sake, looking back at Egypt. But of course it is true for God's people, the church as well. He will destroy his enemies who are the enemies of his people in order to demonstrate his love for his people.

This is something that he is doing in order to show his.

Goodness.

And it is what the wicked are created for. Consider these passages. This is not the only passage that speaks this way. Proverbs 21, 18 says, the wicked is a ransom for the righteous and the trader for.

The upright.

Proverbs 16, four says, the Lord has made everything for its purpose. Even the wicked for the day of trouble, the wicked are made for these things.

They're made.

It's not just that God sees the wicked and then exchanges them for the righteous sees the wicked and decides that they will suffer destruction for the upholding of the.

Righteous.

God has created the wicked for the purpose of being destroyed for the sake of the righteous. Second Thessalonians one five says, and I believe I read this last week. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may consider be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are suffering.

Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction, those who afflict you and to grant relief to those who are afflicted as well as to us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels and flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Now in this passage, it is explaining how it's explaining suffering. The Thessalonians probably being the most persecuted of all the churches that we see in the new Testament. Why is it that they suffer?

And especially why do they suffer at the hand of the wicked? It is because God especially desires to show his love for his people in vindicating them on the day of judgment by destroying the wicked on the day of judgment, these things for the good of his people.

And he would have us to know his love in that distinction to not know it just as it might be if we were created and there had been no wicked people, but rather that we would know it ourselves, having been wicked people and having been redeemed.

And then moreover, having others be destroyed where we could have been.

Destroyed.

God would have us know his love in distinction, in contrast. Okay. If you place a diamond on a sheet of white paper, it is not very brilliant, but in the jeweler's shop, they always place them on black velvet so that you can see the beauty of the diamond.

The beauty in contrast, in distinction of God's love is what he would have us to see. This is his purpose. If you've ever wondered, you know, a lot of people ask why, why is there evil in the world, et cetera.

This is the question of theodicy. If God is all loving and all powerful and all wise, you know, why has he, why has he permitted evil in the world? It doesn't seem right. Well, it doesn't, if you are thinking like a man, but God is much wiser than we are.

He has his purposes in all these things, as he has said repeatedly in scripture. In fact, these things are repeated so frequently in scripture that I'm always surprised at how various Christian theologians and philosophers like to treat this as a deep problem that doesn't have an answer that they can only say a few things about hypothetically, et cetera.

When scripture is just so clear and repeated about his purposes and permitting evil into the world for the sake of.

His people,.

These people who are created for his glory, as he describes later on in this passage in Isaiah. Why has he done this? It is not, it is not just a demonstration. Okay. It's not just an illustration to kind of hammer it in a little.

It is so that it would be experientially known. This is why the new Testament can say that these are things into which angels long to look. Okay. The angels have that demonstration. The angels see what God has done for his people.

They see that he has chosen a wicked people, granted them the righteousness of Jesus Christ for no merit of their own, no reason that they had within them and then exchanged another set of people for them, allowed them to be destroyed.

The angels have this demonstration, but they do not experientially know that kind of mercy for themselves having received that. And so it is something into which they long to look that stated in first Peter one.

And there the mystery of Jesus Christ has already been.

Revealed.

God's purposes have already been revealed, but the angels do not know it completely as we know it. As it says in revelation, our hearts are able to sing because we, the redeemed have learned a song that others who are not redeemed cannot know.

The angels are not redeemed. They could not experience this. Not only have we been redeemed from our sin, but in addition, other wicked people and a vast majority, us being a very narrow minority, those have been exchanged for us.

This is something far greater than what we would know. Otherwise, this is a greater experience of love than even the angels.

Have.

And it is God's kindness towards his people. Now, of course, when it speaks of, when it speaks of a ransom, this is analogous to a ransom. There are a lot of ways that this is not like a ransom. If you're used to thinking of the atonement as a ransom, Jesus Christ paying for our sins, it is not a ransom in that way.

Man cannot pay for another man's life. It doesn't matter how many people you have, you cannot destroy, no matter how many wicked people you destroy, it would not satisfy the wrath of God against one other wicked person.

And so it is not a ransom in that sense. There are some people who think that that's how, ransoms can work. You may not be aware of this, but the Seventh-day Adventists, they teach that the scapegoat in Leviticus represents Satan and that he bears our sins and takes them far away.

Our sins are placed on Satan and he carries them away. It's not what happens scripturally. Scripturally, the greatest ransom is not just that he is willing to destroy the wicked for our sake, but likewise, he has given his own son for our sake, permitting him to be crushed.

He himself, the father, crushing him, as it later describes in Isaiah. And this is the greatest ransom. Psalm 49 speaks of this. And it says, truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice that he should live on forever and never see.

The pit.

No, you can't give one man's life for another. You can't even give a perfect man's life. This isn't even talking about wicked men.

If,.

If there were a perfect man who was not also in some other way, more valuable, that would not be a sufficient sacrifice for the people of God, not even for one of them. You know, I recently was talking to some people who deny the Trinity, and I was pointing out this passage here in Psalm 49 to them.

It's like, look, this is not possible.

You're non,.

You're Jesus who is not God. You're non-divine Jesus. Jesus without deity cannot save, but look who can. It says in verse 15, but God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol. He will receive me. So man, a man's life is not good enough, but God can ransom from the power of Sheol.

How does that happen? It happens in the God, man, Jesus Christ. He gives his life in the place,.

The people.

And because he is God, not only is life of infinite value, but likewise, he is able to withstand death, to be upheld through it so that he might be raised from the.

Dead.

This is also something that could not happen for an.

Ordinary man.

If you look in, I believe it's the Westminster Larger Catechism. It has several proof texts about this one in Acts two and other places where it demonstrates that there must be a divine savior, a perfect man, apart from being a divine savior would not be sufficient.

And so God has given an excellent ransom in Jesus Christ dying for our sins, but then on top of that, demonstrating further his love by exchanging the rest of the world for this people, this word that's used in this passage of savior has been used two other times before in Isaiah.

It's not used that frequently. The first time it's used as notable in Isaiah 19, 20, it says, I will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lord, because of the oppressors, because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender and deliver them.

And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering. And they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. And the Lord will strike Egypt striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord.

And he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.

And that day,.

There will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria and Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria. And the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. And that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed saying, blessed be Egypt, my people and Assyria, the work of my hands and Israel, my inheritance.

How fascinating that this same word that's used in Isaiah 43 to speak of God as savior, throwing away Egypt for the sake of his people is used here to talk about him doing the same act and work of salvation in Egypt, striking and healing, just as we saw in Isaiah 42 compared to Isaiah 43.

What this lets you know, said Egypt is pointing to two different things. On one hand, it is pointing to those who will remain in their sins, who will refuse to believe in the savior, who will be destroyed for the sake of demonstrating the gloriousness of God's love to his people.

And then on the other hand, Egypt, likewise in the book of Isaiah represents those wicked who do not naturally belong to the people of God, being a part of chosen physical nation, but rather Gentiles being grafted in to that holy city of Zion, to that tree are able to join in with the people of God.

If you see this passage in Isaiah 43, you think that it means there's no hope for the people of Egypt. Let me tell you, there's hope for the people of Egypt. If you are a wicked person who has turned against the Lord, you may come to him.

He will heal you. If you call out to the Lord, as it says in Isaiah 19, he will heal you. But if you remain opposed to him, then you will glorify the Lord in a different way. You will glorify the Lord by being exchanged for the people of the Lord.

Your destruction will demonstrate the goodness of God's love to his people, who he finds most precious. In order to know this love, you must turn to him and trust in him completely for the forgiveness of your sins.

Bring your sins to him, confessing them because he is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And know his love in distinction. Know his love in distinction, that his love for you as one who trusts in the Lord is not identical to his love for every other person.

It is not peanut butter love, but rather it is a great love that is special for his bride and every member of his bride, all the children of Zion. And this should guide your thinking as you think through the world and you think about problems like the odyssey, like the problem of evil, so that while in some sense, it is right to weep for destruction in the earth, while in some sense it is right to be saddened at the destruction of the wicked.

It even says that God is not pleased when he destroys the wicked. Yet, the fact that that is not pleasing to him in and of itself does not mean that there is no pleasure in it for a greater reason. There is much reason to rejoice in the fact that God has permitted wickedness in the world and the fact that it will be destroyed because it will be for a greater experience of him that you would not otherwise be able to experience, that not even the angels seeing it as an illustration are able to experience and know as fully as we know, him having exchanged the wicked for the righteous.

For I, the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you. I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

Why is this the case? It is because we have the Son of God who is most precious, who God has given as a perfect ransom in order that he would also give us all things. If he has given us a son, how much will he also give us all things, including the destruction of the enemies of his people?

Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this truth. It is a sobering truth. At the same time, it is a wonderful and merciful truth. Pray that you would grant repentance to everyone here in need of it, to those who do not yet know you and to those who know you and have sins that they have not yet confessed.

We pray that you would grant them a greater trust of your mercy, a greater sense of your mercy. They would be made sensible to that truth in order that they would bring these things forward. And Lord, we pray that you would make us more sensible to your love, knowing the special love that you have for your people.

In Jesus' name, amen.