Wednesday, January 15, 2024 PM

Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard and the Covenant Lawsuit

Let's open our Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 5 this evening. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day. We thank you for the way that you have provided for us and gathered us here together for this meal and this time together.

We thank you for your generous provision and we pray that you would continue to help us in our time together, that you would feed us and nourish us with your word and you would help us to pray and intercede for each other.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so my voice hopefully will last the lesson. I will refrain from trying to sing my song that I was planning on. Yeah, I know Josh is disappointed. Maybe next week as the Lord wills.

So Isaiah chapter 5, we're going to look at the first seven verses and think about the guilty witnesses that God calls to the courtroom to incriminate themselves. So Isaiah 5 beginning in verse 1. Now let me sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard.

My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones and planted it with a choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst and also made a wine press in it. So he expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge please between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?

And now please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it shall be burned and break down its wall and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briars and thorns.

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold oppression for righteousness, but behold a cry for help.".

So the first seven verses of this chapter serve as the reasoning or the justification for the seven woes that fill out the middle of the chapter. The bulk of the chapter is God saying woe to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, seven times over and describing how guilty they are.

And then wrapping up the end of the chapter with a thoroughgoing proclamation of judgment, which reintroduces the agrarian themes that begin here at the start of the chapter. On their own, these seven verses are a splendid example of the beauty and skill of Isaiah as an author.

He has a memorable parable that is also a song and it's followed by the engaging of the people around him, leading them to their need of salvation. And that is a pattern that we see later adopted and mastered by Jesus.

He would tell the memorable parable that would take everybody with him in a narrative journey to their need of salvation. So in verses one and two, there's a a parable, but it's a dulcetory parable. It's a song.

It is something that is to be sung. And Isaiah sings a song that both praises God and also laments the tragedy of the vineyard. And then he takes on the voice of the Lord to ask a very discerning question in verses three through four.

And then that question forces Israel to self-reflect and end up with an answer that really destabilizes them. It's a discomforting answer in verses five through six. And then the devastating interpretation in verse seven.

So what happens, first of all, is we have this idea of possibly during the Feast of Tabernacles when the vintage is being brought in, and Isaiah gathers the crowd around. He's well known. He is attached to the royal family.

He has priestly connections. He is the prophet, the best artist in all of Israel. And he begins to speak. So everyone gathers around. You can't miss Isaiah. You've got to listen to what he has to say.

And he starts singing a song. And he sings a song of his friend, of his beloved. And then it turns. And then he begins to speak as his friend. And then he reveals who that is. And then he reveals what that vineyard really was.

He's skillfully drawing his hearers to the point where they incriminate themselves. So we begin with the song, the parable that is also a song in the first two verses. And I think there's two things that stand out.

One is Isaiah's devotion to his Lord, how he speaks of his Lord as his beloved, as his friend, as the one whom he dearly loves. And then also alongside of that, we see the detail that he goes into. When you begin to see there's a song about a well-beloved, and you begin to read vineyard terminology, you might be getting ready for wedding imagery.

You think of Psalm 128, or Song of Solomon, or Psalm 45. You're like, okay, is this a wedding song? But this is Isaiah singing of his Lord. And he's lavishing praise on how well his friend, his beloved, took care of this vineyard, created this vineyard, cared for it.

The consummate skill with which his friend planted this vineyard and cared for it, in order to emphasize the lament of how it turned out so awful. And so that you really feel the tragedy and the betrayal of it, especially in light of all seven verses.

And the detail he goes into, it's very beautiful, and it grabs our attention and it lifts us up the hill and brings us into the center as we walk through the various details. The hill is very fruitful.

Obviously, you plant a vineyard on the hill, in the terraces. And this is the right hill. No question, very fruitful hill. Everyone could see that. And Isaiah's beloved put his work in. He dug and he cleared out all of the stones.

There was no lack in quality. The beloved picked the most excellent of vines. Didn't skimp, didn't go on the cheap, got the best vine possible. And fully expecting there to be long-term fruitfulness, you'll notice that there was a watchtower built in the midst of it.

Now the watchtower, of course, would be an excellent place to stand and survey the condition of the vineyard, the condition of the vintage, and see how all the vines are doing and where things need to be tidied up or helped.

You could be able to stand up there and be very still and watch and see if any little foxes might begin spoiling the vine. And also the watchtower beneath could be a place of residence and you could live there.

And you could live there amongst your vines and your vineyard and take care of the place. He's planning to stay there a long time and he has every reason to believe it's going to be a profitable venture.

In fact, he also installs his wine press there. A wine press, and the idea of the term includes the wine vat, so the upper and the lower portions, in which the upper portions is the treading down of the grapes and then the resulting liquid comes down into the vat.

And then you proceed from there. So everything was done in such a way that the highest quality and the expectation was that this is going to be a profitable venture and it's going to last a long time.

High expectation and confidence. There's an idea here that Isaiah's beloved put everything he had into this venture, but then contrary to all the prime ingredients and all the expert labor, the vineyard produced, in the Hebrew literally, stink fruit.

It was rotten. It was awful. It was the complete opposite of everything that was to be expected. And so then the question comes, a discerning question. So now Isaiah takes on the persona of the beloved.

I sing a song. He says, I sing a song of my beloved and his vineyard. He sings it from a distance and then he takes on the persona of the beloved. He says, now I have a question for you. And now, oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge please between me and my vineyard.

So the prophet stands and the prophet is accustomed to saying, thus says the Lord. And then the prophet, you'll notice in the scriptures, will speak in the first person as the Lord. The prophet is anointed to stand as the mediator, to mediate God's truth to his people, to say in the voice of the Lord, this is what God says.

And that's what Isaiah begins to do here. He says, judge please between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?

So who does he ask to make this judgment call? Who does he invite to render a decision, to act in a discerning fashion, and to declare what kind of justice should be rendered? What kind of outcome should be followed?

Who does he invite to render a decision? The inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah, they've been reading the first four chapters of Isaiah. We might appreciate how ironic that is. These inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah who can't see straight, let alone walk straight.

They're so crooked. They're so crooked that they take bribes morning, day, and night. These people don't even know truth. They wouldn't know truth if truth walked up and shook their hand. These are the worst possible candidates to be judges or a jury, and yet they are called to render a decision here in this case.

And so why is it that they are being asked to render a decision? He says, now notice the rhetorical question comes first. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Well, that's an obvious answer.

Did everything right. You didn't miss a step. You didn't skimp. You did everything right. That's an obvious answer. Here's the real question. Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?

And in that question, those who have been invited to render an answer are implicated, for they are the wild grapes. And everything had been done for them. Everything had been done well and appropriately, and yet they are the ones who are the wild grapes.

We've already been seeing them through the first four chapters. They are the rebellious children who don't know that God is their father. They are the rotten fruit. And so comes a discomforting answer in verses five and six.

God says, and now please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it shall be burned. No more protection. I will break down its wall. It should be trampled down. I will lay it waste.

So at first it's in the passive. I'm going to remove the protection and then it's going to get overrun. But who is the one who's going to ensure that it's overrun? God says, I will do it. Or the beloved says, I will do this to my own vineyard.

I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. It becomes pretty clear who the beloved is at this point.

The one who has the power to do all this, even to command the clouds to rain no rain. Well, that's straight out of the covenant curses, the famine. If you don't keep covenant with God, God will make the sky like brass and the ground will have no water.

And so we even hear about not only the catastrophic collapse of Judah and Jerusalem, but also the notion of the curse of creation is there. But it says, there shall come up briars and thorns. Briars and thorns.

That reminds us of Genesis chapter 3 verse 18, when God is talking to Adam and Eve about the curse upon creation and the thorns that are going to come up in the ground. And I think we're reminded here that the dynamics of the covenant play out in the static of creation.

What God is saying to Israel, what he's saying to Judah here about their covenant breaking, and then his response to it. The dynamics of that are playing out in the static of the fallen creation and thus addressing what has already taken place.

And of course, he constrains the clouds. And then everything becomes absolutely clear in verse 7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. Here's the interpretation. And the men of Judah are his pleasant plant.

He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry for help. Now, I reckon that the interpretation of the parable was pretty obvious before Isaiah said it, but you just have to go ahead and say it.

The devastating interpretation of the parable had to be brought to bear upon the people. They had to know. Now, this language of the house of Israel, we aren't to be thinking of the house of Israel as the northern kingdom versus Judah in the southern kingdom.

This house of Israel is the household of Jacob, Jacob's children, the children of Jacob. So this is looking and invoking the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning the seed, concerning their descendants.

So the vineyard, what is the vineyard? The vineyard is basically the confines of his covenant and the area of his governance, the area of his blessing into this covenant. God planted his choice vine of Judah.

And God, in making covenant with Israel so thoroughly, he is the beloved who made every provision for his vineyard. When we read through Genesis 12, all the way through, at this point, we're somewhere in the book of Kings, historically, how well did God care for his people?

What are all the things that he did for them? What are all the blessings that he poured upon them? What are the ways that he prepared for them? Think about the way he prepared the people and made them multiply, the way that he brought them into the promised land, how he prepared that land, how he was always working and giving blessings on his people time and again.

And he says that the men of Judah, that the people of Israel, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, these are his choice vine. And we read in the parable that he's the one who planted them. So he owns them and he's the one who set their parameters.

Their earth, they are his earth and he is their heaven. All of their days and months and seasons and years are governed by him. They sprout, blossom, fruit and harvest according to his design. And there's a problem, not with the vineyard, not with the ground, not with the stones, not with the watchtower, not with the wine press, there's something wrong with them.

Everything that God did, he did and it was good. It was very good in his covenant, but he found fault with them. Hebrews 8 says he found fault with the old covenant, not with his design of the old covenant, but he found fault with them.

Even as God made all things good in creation and it was very good, he didn't find fault with anything that he had made in his design. He found fault with Adam and Eve when they broke away from him in rebellion.

Same with the old covenant. So look at these violations. Isaiah brings in the poetry, brings in the rhymes here in this. He says that God looked for justice, but behold, oppression. That's verse 7. For righteousness, but behold, a cry of help.

So in the Hebrew, he looked for mishpat, but he got mishpach. He looked for tzedakah, but he got tzedakah. That's what Isaiah is rhyming. He's bringing that, those tones together. Derek Kidner tried to find a way to get that into the English.

So he said he looked for right, but he got a riot. He looked for decency, but he got despair. The idea of the second terms in both, the idea of mishpach is the idea of oppression, but through bloodshed.

And the idea of tzedakah is that of a scream. He looked for, he looked for righteousness, but behold, there was nothing but screams. Screams from the oppressed being killed. And that leads us to the violence going on.

The shed blood of the innocent is married to their screams in the text. Even long after their bodies are taken by the vultures and the jackals, their blood continues to scream for justice from the ground.

How often do we find that in the Old Testament, the blood cries out from the ground and God has not failed to respond. So there is a special relationship being explored here between God and Israel in the parable, and one that is repeatedly amplified throughout the Old Testament.

If you want to read about the people of Israel being God's vine that he planted and took care of, read Psalm 80. Psalm 80 is all about that. Psalm 80 is a very robust composition of Asaph about how Israel is the vine of God, planted so well, but then they rebelled against him.

And Asaph pleads with God on the basis that, hey, you're, you're, you're the one who planted us and we're your vine. Have, have favor upon us. The great care that God took in creating the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1 was such a buildup, an emphasis upon man.

That's the same framework that helps us understand what, how God is dealing with, with, with Israel and how much care he took for them and placing them and working amongst them. Israel being a shadow Adam and a shadow Eden.

I think the point is made here that no matter how much care God takes in blessing or in cursing, the problem is never with him. It's with man. He does all things well. He does all things right. Adam and Eve brought forth bad fruit.

Noah, after all that mess and the whole flood and everything else, he brought forth bad fruit, got drunk from his own vineyard. Abraham's children brought forth bad fruit. David's sons brought forth bad fruit.

God did everything right, but what's the problem? He did everything right in the vineyard, but what's the problem? He did everything right in the garden, but what's the problem? It's the vine. The vine, he even put the choice vine.

It wasn't after until he planted Adam and Eve in his garden that he said, very good. And of course he put his eye upon Israel and planted, very good. This is my choice vine. But then what happens coming out of the vine?

Bad fruit. Bad fruit. The problem is with the vine. The vine itself is the problem. That's where the fault is. So the vine itself has to be replaced. The new covenant demands a new mediator, but it also demands a new humanity.

This humanity itself has to be reborn in Christ. Reborn in Christ, who is the last Adam. John 3, rebirth. Romans 5, last Adam. Hebrews 2, the new humanity. Jesus Christ is planted as the true vine upon a very fruitful hill called Mount Zion.

And all who come to him and abide in him bear his good fruit of the new covenant. And in the exchanging of the one covenant for the other, it's not enough to simply be a branch from the old vine so I'm good to go.

No. If an old covenant Jew did not come to Christ, then they remained a branch for the burning. They didn't get in simply because they were part of the old covenant. They had to come to Jesus and be saved through him.

Only Jesus, the true vine, gives real life. And that is the meaning of John 15. So listen to John 15. Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Remember, we have to have a new vine.

Israel was the previous vine. The vine's bad. So now Jesus says, I am the true vine. My father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. What are those branches?

What are those branches that he takes away? The branches we read about in Isaiah 5. The branches we read about in Psalm 80. The branches of the old covenant vine that are not fruitful, they are taken away.

And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Verse 3. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. They believe they have come to faith in Christ.

Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. Meaning there is no life, there's no covenant life to be lived if you're outside of Christ, if you're not alive in Christ.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. Right? So just because you're an Israelite and you've lived your whole life in the old covenant and you have all of these promises and significant statements about who you are being of the descendants of Abraham and so on, doesn't mean that you have life in you.

Because all the promises are, yes, in Christ. And so you have to come and abide in Christ. Now if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered. Were they branches? You bet they were.

They were real branches of that old covenant vine. Genuine branches, genuinely dead. Right? Because they weren't in the true vine. They needed the new vine, which was Christ. So if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned.

Well that's the end of Isaiah chapter five. All the burning stuff happens at the end of chapter five. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it should be done for you.

By this my father is glorified that you will bear much fruit so you will be my disciples. Now John 15 is about how Jesus says, I am the true vine. And all the significant things that happen by him saying that the whole significance of Israel being the vine is now fulfilled in him and what that means for those who had identified themselves biblically as God's vine.

What about us? We're branches, but you have no life unless you're grafted into Christ. Romans 11. You have to be grafted into Christ. So John 15 isn't about Christians today. If you fail to perform well in your morning devotions, I didn't abide the day in my morning devotions, well I guess see you're outside of Christ.

You're heading for burning. Often John 15 gets interpreted that way. That's not what it's about. The significance of it for us, the power of the parable both from Isaiah 5 and the lesson from John 15, it causes us to pause and ponder.

Think about Isaiah's parable of my well beloved. Look at all the effort he went to in creating this vineyard. What if you were to so invest your time and your resources and your energy and just invest your life into a project like that and you and you worked so hard and you were you would try to be so thorough and so careful and you poured so much of your life into it only to have it turn out to be absolutely worthless.

To come to the apex of all of your labors, of all of your efforts, and to find that there was nothing worthwhile at all at the end. The whole work come to nothing. The culmination of your life's labors crumbling to nothing.

That is the life lived for the self without the fear of the Lord. The warning of Ecclesiastes. It is the snare of Babel and the shame of Babylon. But Jesus says in John 15, a life lived abiding in Christ, losing our lives in him, that ends up being eternally meaningful.

Right? Why? He's the vine and working from Isaiah 5 into John 15. What is the end result? It's a completely other result. Jesus Christ being the true vine planted its fruitfulness and fruitfulness and fruitfulness and fruitfulness and fruitfulness.

Right? That being planted in Christ and abiding in him, he leads us to live our lives in true eternal, eternally fruitful life. So I'm glad that Jesus took the time to talk about himself as the true vine, so that we would understand the point of Isaiah chapter 5.

All right.