Servant Songs I: Context and Backdrop | The Whole Counsel

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder, and Chuck Baggett is on vacation for a few weeks. And so, Teddy and I have talked about what we could do with the podcast instead of kind of running ahead with our Salvation in Full Color, which we've been working on with Chuck.

So, I'm excited to be able to take a couple of weeks and to focus on a portion in the that I think is just about the most thrilling of all the Old Testament descriptions of Christ. When we think about theology, some of the Puritans used to talk about theology, and then when they would talk about Christology, one of the comments that was bounced around back then was that Christology is noonday divinity.

It's divinity, it's theology at its height. It's the sun at noon. Brilliant, clear, almost too much to look at. So, we're going to be talking about the person of Christ, and we're going to be using four songs that Isaiah wrote about the Lord Jesus in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and then by far the best known is Isaiah 53.

But before we get to them, there's some preliminary things that I think we can look at, and that will help us to really benefit from them as a whole. So, let's just jump right in. These are going to be songs.

If you have Bibles that kind of break up the text, like in the book of Psalms, where you can see that this is not just normal prose. While it doesn't sound like a song to us in English, in Hebrew, it is a song.

And so, the Bible in those passages, you can tell by the way the words are laid out, it's an indicator that this is a song. So, let's just think about that. When God directs men to write Scripture, and He gives us theological truths in the form of songs, there's two things I think we ought to immediately kind of grab hold of.

First, when theology is rightly grasped, there are aspects of it that really, it's just too difficult to say them straight-faced, you know, just calmly. There are certain facts that God has revealed, especially when we look at the person and work of His Son, and how that impacts people like us.

It ought to turn our normal language into song. And I've mentioned this quote many times before, but I'm going to mention it again. Medieval Bible translator, Richard Roll, an Englishman, said that he was compelled to sing what he once only had spoken.

And that's really my goal as I look at these, and in a sense, my goal for our podcast is that having considered the truths of Christ in these four songs, when we come to the end, and someone perhaps would ask us, well, what was the podcast about?

Or what were those chapters about? It would almost be inappropriate to explain it. We feel like we have to burst out in song. The joy that ought to fill our hearts. Good test for whether or not you've really understood what Isaiah has written is, would you prefer to sing it?

Second, songs are poetry. And so God gives the prophet the task of putting these truths into poetic form. And poetry really is so helpful for us as believers because it brings these great, these great massive truths down into small pictures.

And now they're portable. So when we think of the doctrine of the crucifixion of Christ, the atoning death of Jesus, you know, the propitiatory work of Christ, you go to Isaiah 53, and in verse 10, you read that it was the father's good pleasure to crush him.

And there are so many doctrines involved there. God pleased from eternity past to offer the son as the sacrifice, if he would offer himself as our sin offering, so that we would not bear that penalty.

And so that very simple picture carries all those truths. Well, there is a specific order to these four songs. There is a progressive or a gradual unfolding of the picture of Christ. Imagine a child coming to a door and slowly pushing the door open on Christmas morning.

And, you know, you get an ever-widening perspective. So we're looking at the coming of the Messiah, centuries before the birth of Christ. And we are getting in each song a progressively clearer look.

So Isaiah 42 is the first look at the coming servant. And what's said there is wonderful, but it's just a peak. 49 builds on that. 50 builds on 49 and 42, and then ultimately Isaiah 53, the song of the cross, really is built on what we learn in the first three, which I find very helpful.

Because if we can discipline ourselves and slow down and let the prophet reintroduce us to Jesus of Nazareth and not interrupt the prophet, you know, so to speak, right in the middle of, you know, one of these chapters, it's always a temptation for me to jump in and say to Isaiah, wait, wait, wait, I know exactly who you're speaking about.

This is Christ. And we have all of our, you know, knowledge that we've collected about the Lord Jesus Christ through the New Testament, through sermons. Whether or not our knowledge of Christ is careful, it's better not to interrupt the prophet.

If you do, what happens is you become the teacher and you don't learn anything new. It would be so much more beneficial for our souls if we let Isaiah be our teacher for these next weeks. So while we're reading 42, 49, 50, and 53, here's what we want to do.

Even though we know it's talking about Christ, we want to try to discipline ourselves. And I don't know if I'll be able to succeed. And we want to say, here is the coming hope. It is the servant of God, but let Isaiah introduce you to him.

And by the time you reach 53 then, and you see the servant on the cross, then in a sense, we're free to let all that we know from the New Testament fill that picture. And again, we ought to want to sing.

Well, there's a very specific order. There's a context. Isaiah chapter 1 through chapter 39 is so distinctly different from Isaiah 40 through chapter 66 that some liberal theologians have said that these are actually two different authors.

Now, there is no manuscript evidence for this, and there is no biblical reason to think this. So let's dismiss that, but let's not overlook the distinct difference. Chapters 1 through 39 deal with God judging the world and judging Judah, his people.

Israel to the north is already under judgment. Judah is headed to judgment. Chapters 1 through 38, God has so many bitter messages for his own people. Chapter 1 opens with three terrible pictures. God says that Israel has drifted so far from him into idolatry that they are like, the first picture is barn animals.

And God says barn animals know enough to know where to go to get their food from their master. My people don't know that much, so they go to idols. Second picture, he said, you're like a child who, because of their rebellious nature, has been disciplined by a loving parent from head to toe.

There's nowhere else left to spank you, so to speak. Third picture, God not attending church. In chapter 1 verse 15, he says, you raise your hands to heaven in prayer. I will not look. I will not listen.

I will not come to your meetings. So there's the moral and spiritual decline of Israel into idolatry. Second, the second aspect of the dark backdrop to these wonderful pictures of Christ is that even the once very careful and godly King Hezekiah is now careless.

Chapter 39, we find that Babylon, which is at this time a pretty small world power, sends a delegation of people to meet, a political delegation to meet the king of Israel. And Hezekiah is so puffed up and proud, he shows them all the gold in his palace.

He shows them all the gold in the temple. And they, of course, are impressed. And then they go home. Isaiah is sent by God to Hezekiah with this basic message. You're very foolish. These men come from the nation that will rule us one day and will carry us into exile.

When Hezekiah finds that it won't happen in his lifetime but in his descendants, he's okay with it. It's a picture of Hezekiah's carelessness, pride, indifference. Now, let's stop and ask ourselves, does that not remind us of our own present day, particularly in the Western world, in evangelicalism?

We find a moral decline that's so shocking that we don't even notice it. We've become used to it. And maybe God would have to say those things to us. You're like a donkey that keeps going to the wrong place for food instead of coming to me.

Why? You're like a child that's been disciplined everywhere. Where else could the American church experience judgment? And even though you lift your arms in prayer and you still gather on Sunday, God doesn't attend.

Now, I'm not saying that it's that way everywhere, but that does describe a great deal of what we experience. And it is a picture of our judgment, our moral decline. What about our leaders? Well, whether it's national or sometimes religious, we do find that too often men who once were trustworthy are no longer trustworthy.

And as we say that, we're certainly not above that ourselves. That's the dark context. Now, that means the next big event in Israel's history, the next thing on Israel's calendar is the book of Lamentations.

Take some time before we go to the next podcast to read Lamentations. It is shocking that this is God dealing with his people and it's love, but it's judgment. Now, in light of that, we have chapter 40, and that's the other big backdrop to these four servant songs.

Chapter 40 is like God throwing open a door and commanding you to come out. And you come out of the deepest, darkest, most hopeless dungeon ever in the history of humanity. And you're walking out of the dark, and it's been so dark that any light at all is just about unbearable as your eyes are trying to adjust.

And God brings you all the way out, and you walk all the way to the surface of the earth, and the doors are thrown open, and you walk out into a Switzerland. And it's early morning, and on the horizon, you see that the sunrise is coming.

And that's what Isaiah 40 is. It's the turning point of the book. 39 chapters of warning and judgment, and what follows is 27 chapters of mercy. And in this last half of the book, the heart of the mercy is the coming of the Messiah.

Well, in chapter 40, verse 9, we find the first of a series of commands for the people of God to behold, or to look. Now, I want to say, they're not always going to be told to look at God. Next week, we're going to talk about chapter 41 and 42, and 41 has to come before 42, because they are being commanded to look at something that is so hopelessly empty, to prepare their hearts to look at something that is so hopeful, Christ.

Now, chapter 40, verse 9, after telling them that their sins have been paid for, judgment has come, but God will, in mercy, remove them from Babylon, bring them back. It is God himself that will come and rescue them.

He will come like a shepherd. He will come like a warrior. And you find this statement, get yourself up on a high mountain, Isaiah 40, verse 9, O Zion, people of God, O Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news, lift it up, do not fear, say to the cities of Judah, and here's what they're to say, here is your God.

In the Hebrew language, it is the same word as behold. So sometimes it can be tricky with our English translations. This is the first command, in the second half of the book, to look. Behold, here comes your God.

Now, I want us to point out, before we go any further, that this command shows up again. It shows up in chapter 41, in verse 24, and then again in verse 29. Chapter 41 says, Behold, you are of no account.

He's talking to the idols. So he says to his people, Look, idols are empty. Verse 29, Behold, look, all of them are false. That's the idol maker. Then chapter 42, verse 1, first song, Behold, look, my servant.

The final song begins in chapter 42 and verse 13. Now, we say it's chapter 53, but actually in the Hebrew Bible, it's chapter 42, verse 13, is the beginning of the Jewish Bible for chapter 53, we could say.

So let's start there, and it starts with the final command, Behold, look, my servant will prosper. So, very simple, four songs about Christ, an opening command, Look, here is your God, and then the songs start, Look, here's the servant, and the songs end, Look, here's the servant.

So, very simple way of kind of pulling all that together. Let me say something about the command of looking. It is the look of faith. It's not just intellectual. We are looking with a complete dependence.

I'm looking everywhere else. I have no hope. I'm looking at Christ. So there's a yearning, trusting look. Second, do not mistake this as something that is extra to the Christian life, just because it is sweet.

We know that certain commands are clearly part of the Christian life. Do not, you know, think of the ten commands. You are not to murder, not to lie, not to commit adultery. We know that those are not optional, but when God gives us a command that is so sweet and so beneficial to our souls as this, Look, here comes God.

Look, here is the servant, the Messiah. It is tempting to believe the lie that you will hear, and that because this is sweet and precious and beneficial, it's extra. It's like dessert. It's not the meat and potatoes.

It's the extra. It's wonderful, but it's optional. So let's just settle it right now. When God commands us to look at Himself coming in the person of His Son, there are aspects of the Christian life you will never enjoy.

You will never understand. You will never live out. There are aspects of the glory of God that you will never be a mirror of if you do not take this as absolutely essential. What follows in chapter 40, and then we'll just have to wrap it up, and next week we'll pick up with chapter 41 and 42, is I would call it the children's board book theology of God.

If you have kids or grandkids, you know those books when they're very little that each page is kind of a hard cardboard page. I love those because even though they look thick, you can get through them in about three minutes.

So there's only about six or seven pages because they're so thick, but you know what they are? They're children's books with big pictures so that children can understand what you're talking about. Isaiah chapter 40 is commanding you to look at God, but how could you understand the incomparable?

How could you comprehend the incomprehensible? And so what Isaiah is directed to do by God is to give you four great pictures, four pages in your child's theology book. And the pictures show you how God cannot be compared to even the biggest stuff.

And now it starts over in chapter 40 in verse 12, and it goes down through verse 26. And I won't take the time to read it, but I hope you will. In verse 12, he compares God to creation. God is incomparable.

Look at the biggest thing you know, creation, and it is nothing compared to your God. Next, verse 18, look at the idols that the world has constantly thrown itself before in this astonishingly ignorant, stupid dependence, this false hope that's touching if it weren't so tragic.

Compare God to the idols, no comparison. Look at God and the great nations, verse 21. We think of nations as impressive, like creation, or as the old world thought of idols. When you compare God to the great empires of earth, what are they?

They're nothing. God is incomparably great. And finally, in verse 23, look at God compared to the great leaders of earth, the greatest men in history. What are they compared to God? They are nothing. And you come to the end of the chapter with this conclusion.

I've been commanded to look for hope to God. He is coming as my shepherd and my warrior to save me. He is incomparable. That is, the pictures you're about to see of God in 42 through 53, you are looking at one that we can say honestly, there is no one like him.

There is no one but him. And we're going to see that God is coming, not as we expect, but in the form of a servant. We'll look at that next week.