The announcement is made, the heavens and the earth are
commanded to sing and rejoice for the Lord has comforted His people. The heavens and the earth were created at the
word and command of the Lord and now they are called to rejoice. Think of Paul’s words to the Roman church, “For
the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For
the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected
it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” When
the true children of God are revealed they will be those who properly and
lovingly care for creation. In this
instance, creation is commanded to rejoice ahead of the work of God in
redemption of His people and so Zion says, “The Lord has forgotten and forsaken
me.” That redemption is not yet seen and
so through Isaiah the Lord tells them what this will look like. The Land will not be sufficient to hold the
inhabitants and other nations will come bearing the children of the people,
kings and other leaders will bow before her.
At some level this picture is most fully seen in the ingathering of the
nations to Israel’s God in Jesus. There
is an application for this particular people in being restored but the fullness
of the revelation awaits the vision of Revelation 5 with every tribe and nation
and people and then again in the end when the kings of the earth bring their
glory into the new Jerusalem.
The feeding of the five thousand is a sign pointing to the
fulfillment of the kingdom. Remember
back in Genesis 3 when God spoke to Adam after they sinned in the garden that
He said, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all
the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and
you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread…” Well, in the Exodus God provided
their daily bread for the people, all the people, without pain or sweat in toil
and here we see the Lord Jesus providing not only daily bread but abundance
with leftovers from so little as to be inconsequential. Only God can do such things, and it is a sign
that the kingdom of God is breaking in, reversing the curse from so long
ago. A clue to the identity of this
controversial man for this crowd who is seeking to know Him.
Paul is dealing with the issue that confronts us all. We know that we were/are saved by grace but
somehow, along the way, we begin to believe at some level that performance, our
performance, has become an important part of the equation, that mercy was great
in the beginning but now we have to earn the present enjoyment of salvation. In Galatia it was being taught and sometimes
we all either teach or hear such a message because we all default to do it
yourself spirituality. Grace is always
necessary but that doesn’t mean we should neglect the pursuit of
righteousness. Paul’s reminder is that
it the act of Abraham that was righteousness was simply believing the promises
of God. Believing wasn’t just
intellectual assent though, he went where he was told and didn’t try to take
things into his own hands (well, once he did and made a mess of things then and
now). Even after he had a failure of
faith, however, the promises remained because they were based on the Lord, not
on Abraham. You, too have the promise of
God of eternal life, live in that truth today.
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