When Isaiah wrote this prophetic word Israel was vulnerable
to both the empires of Egypt and Assyria.
What he saw was that there would come a time when both these nations and
empires would worship Yahweh. The bumper
sticker today is, “No Jesus, no peace.
Know Jesus, know peace.” That is
the vision Isaiah had here. The only
path to peaceful coexistence for Israel, Egypt and Assyria was common
worship. Isaiah saw that this was going
to happen. The focus is on Egypt and he
uses language from the time of the Exodus.
They would cry to the Lord because of oppressors, just as the Israelites
cried to the Lord when they were oppressed by the Egyptians. The Lord would send them a savior and
deliverer just as He had sent Moses. The
Egyptians would know the Lord in that day.
He had been making Himself known to them since the plagues but finally
they would know Him and worship Him. The vision awaits the coming of the
kingdom of God.
This parable was actually quite contemporary. Herod and his sons received their kingdoms by
going to Rome and, in recent memory, the people had actually sent a delegation
to Rome opposing the giving of the kingdom that included Judea to the Herods. Jesus says that working on behalf of the king
is expected of his servants. The application may have looked like it applied to
Herod but it also says something about our relationship to the King of
kings. He, too, would be opposed in
receiving a kingdom. He will come again
to judge those who have both been stewardship and those who opposed His
kingship. Something is expected of us,
we have been entrusted with great treasures in the Gospel. How are we investing what we have been given
and are we prepared to give an accounting of our stewardship?
Paul writes of the mission of Jesus and the mission of the
church. He encourages them to seek unity
among themselves, making no distinctions between Jews and Gentiles. His argument is that Jesus became a servant
to the Jews, the circumcised, in order to fulfill the promise that the Gentiles
would glorify God for His mercy. Paul
sees that the vision of Isaiah is partially fulfilled in the work of Jesus
through the church’s faithfulness to go to all nations and preach the Gospel,
baptizing and making disciples. The
fullness of that vision awaits His coming again in glory but now, we the
church, have been given the commission to go.
It is for faithfulness to that commission that we will be held to
account in the end.
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