Isaiah hears the nations, east and west, coastlands, from
the ends of the earth, giving praise to the God of Israel and yet, in the midst
of all this praise, he is troubled within at what he sees in the nation
itself. The prophet sees the truth, that
while the earth may be filled with praise it is also filled with sin. His day sounds a great deal like our own when
there are songs galore praising God while at the same time there is little
pursuit of righteousness, even among those singing God’s praises. Isaiah saw judgment coming and he saw what
looks like floods and earthquakes, the earth itself in paroxysms. It sounds much like what John saw in the
Revelation, the judgment not only of the inhabitants of earth, but of all the
host of heaven, satan and the fallen angels.
As Jesus speaks of His coming death yet again the disciples
seem to either be in denial about what He is saying or they believe Jesus has
lost His mind. Matthew tells us that it
is at this time, in fact, that the mother of James and John comes and asks
Jesus to set her two boys on His right and left hand as He comes into His
kingdom. In Mark’s Gospel, it is the two
disciples themselves who make this request.
Either way, it is certain that the request isn’t motivated by an
understanding that Jesus will be taking over a very non-temporal kingdom. The belief is that when they go to Jerusalem
this time it will likely mean that He takes over the throne of David, as the
messianic King of the nation, restoring its pre-eminence. No one could imagine what was going to
actually happen, it was beyond belief.
We are called to be the righteousness of God. Our lives are to be lived according to His commands. Righteousness is always a rebuke to
unrighteousness, it will provoke others to despise us for it makes them feel
judged. The only response
unrighteousness has is to judge itself righteous and true righteousness as
wrong. That was what happened to
Jesus. His righteousness was determined
to be blasphemy and not true by those who thought themselves to be both
righteous and the arbiters of righteousness.
Peter’s appeal is to live according to the Spirit rather than the
passions of the flesh. We will be called
to give an accounting of our lives. How we
live needs to align with what we say we believe.
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