Isaiah announces the deliverance of the nation from its
exile in Babylon. The “him” of verses 14
and 15 would appear to be Cyrus, the one the Lord will use to accomplish this
deliverance and return them to the Land.
It would be a surprising turn of events to use a foreign ruler to
provide the way back to the future as opposed to a deliverer like Moses. The expectation of a messianic figure would
certainly have been someone who was committed to the nation and a part of the
covenant community. In verse 16 the
speaker seems to change with the announcement, “Draw near to me, hear this:
from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I
have been there. And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.” That speaker would be Jesus, the true
deliverer and redeemer. In the short
term, the agency would be Cyrus as the time had not yet come for the
incarnation, but ultimately the redeemer is only Jesus, inaugurating a new
messianic age. The call is to return to
the ancient ways, the ways of the commandments and the teachings in
righteousness. It always is.
Sometimes our unbelief comes from allowing what we think we
know to get in the way of new information.
The people in Nazareth thought they knew everything there was to know
about Jesus, who were his mother, brothers, sisters, that he was a
carpenter. (Odd that His father wasn’t
mentioned) They are amazed at what He
has done and how He has taught but their familiarity with Him caused them to
doubt what they saw because of what they knew.
We have a difficult time with new information when it cuts against what
we already know, that is why Paul wrote to the Romans that we have to be
transformed by the renewal of our minds.
We don’t come with a blank slate, we come to faith with a good bit that
we know about the world. Much of that
allows us to make sense of the sensory and scientific world around us and yet
there is so much unexplained by those data inputs and so much of what we think
we know isn’t true in an ultimate sense.
We have to allow Him to instruct us and lead us into all truth, just as
Jesus promised the Spirit would do.
Paul’s argument is that he needed no affirmation from
Jerusalem of his apostleship, it was given him directly from Jesus just as the
original twelve were called and sent.
For this reason, Paul was secure enough in his own call that he made no
overtures to Jerusalem for three years and then he only went to visit with
Peter for a couple of weeks. In fact, he
says, the only other apostle he saw on that first trip was James, the Lord’s
brother. After another fourteen years
passed he went back with Titus just to make sure he was on the same page, as
far as his preaching to the Gentiles was concerned, with the others. They, he says, added nothing at all to his
preaching, his message was complete, he had left out nothing essential. There were, however, some trouble-makers who
tried to add Jewish practices to the message but these were ignored. In all particulars, Paul’s ministry and
message bore the imprimatur of the apostles in Jerusalem. The old ways were to give way to the new Way
of Jesus and His command was to baptize and teach all to obey His teaching, it
did not include things like circumcision and the Law. Salvation was by faith
and not works, the cross was sufficient. The covenant was through His blood not
circumcision.
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