“The Expected Characteristics
of the Life of Servants of the Lord”
Isaiah 56:1-8
After reading last week’s passage one might think that Isaiah has answered the problem and should have ended his book. What more does one need? God’s grace has been promised and is freely available to all who accept the urgent invitation. What more can be said in regards to the relationship between humans and the divine?
Alas, there is more, we have another eleven chapters to go.
What more does Isaiah need to tell us?
Well, if you have been paying close attention,
in the first thirty-nine chapters Isaiah spoke of “righteousness” in regards to how poorly humans were at keeping the statutes of God.
Then in chapters 40-55, Isaiah talked about the “righteousness” of God and how He faithfully delivered His people, in spite of their continual sin.
Had Isaiah ended there, the reader may well assume that righteousness is impossible for humans and
they need to be delivered into a position of righteousness by God’s grace,
through His Servant, Jesus.
This would mean that based on the first section of the book, living righteously is not possible for humans and possible only for God.
Isaiah suspected such assumptions and so we have eleven more chapters focusing on synthesizing the teaching of the first two sections. This final section of Isaiah focuses on demonstrating that
righteous living is a requirement for the servants of God, but such righteous living is only possible through the grace of God.
Isaiah doesn’t just tell us what is needed, he also tells us how.
The first verse of this chapter is an excellent example. The reader is called on to “Maintain justice and do what is right.” We read similar language like this in chapters 1-39. But the verse immediately says we should do this because of God’s “righteousness” and because His “salvation is close at hand.”
It is only because God’s righteousness is made available to us, that we are able to do righteousness.
One could have read through chapters 40-55, thinking that we are unable to what is right, but thanks be to God, He delivered us from the negative effects of our behavior with His righteous act of grace. On our own, we can’t do it, therefore it can’t be expected.
Oh no!
Isaiah wants to make sure that myth does not get any credence. Verse 2 reads, “Blessed is the person who does this [maintains justice and does what is right], [Blessed is the person} who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing evil.”
Isaiah declares that righteous living is not only the very expression of God’s righteous salvation,
it is absolutely necessary.
It is important to also remember the first people Isaiah is writing to,
the Israelites.
It may have been easy for them to read chapters 40-55 and think, well we have secured this salvation because we are God’s chosen people. It is our birthright.
The Israelites knew deep down they were not delivered from captivity because they deserved it.
There weren’t any demands in these chapters for them to change their way of living. They believed they had been delivered for one reason, because God had made a promise to their ancestor, Abraham. How many Israelites may have thought, “it doesn’t really matter how I live, as long as I accept my birthright and refuse to give up hope in God.”
This may have been a way of thinking, but when we keep reading verses 3-8, it is easily refuted. Isaiah claims the very opposite. It is not the purebred Israelite who is doing his part to continue the physical line of Abraham that is pleasing to God. Check it out, it is “the foreigner” who is not part of the line and “the eunuch” who is unable to pass that line on. When the foreigner and the eunuch choose to live in obedience to God’s “covenant,” they become more pleasing to God, than an Israelite who lives in rebellion against the covenant. Isaiah is quite specific with what the eunuch and foreigner will receive.
The castrated man will receive “a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters.” And the foreigner who binds themselves to the LORD to serve him, will be brought to the “holy mountain” and will receive “joy in [God’s] house of prayer.”
The righteousness Isaiah is talking about here is more than legalistic law-keeping.
Isaiah writes of relational terms in verse 6, when he speaks about binding oneself to God,
as an act of love and
of service and
of worship.
And all of this is done for a purpose, verses 7-8, so that God’s house will be called “a house of prayer for all nations” and “to gather the exiles of Israel.”
The Israelites that were reading this for the first time, had they read this closely,
they would have been shocked.
Isaiah was taking them back to the beginning of the book and reminding them that the redeemed servants of the Lord have a mission, to draw all the world to the “holy mountain.” But Isaiah was also telling them that in order to be a member of the covenant community it was not a matter of their inheritance, but a matter of their obedience.
Where did the Israelite leaders miss this?
The same place our evangelical leaders do today.
The start down this slippery slope began in the century after the Israelites return from exile. We read in Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi that instead of being a light to the nations and drawing those around them to their God of Israel and maintaining a distinction between them and their surrounding pagan nations, they were sucked up into the culture around them.
It was only after Ezra and Nehemiah ministered to the Israelites did they begin to see their peril and they began to restrict the influences of the surrounding people. Unfortunately, they went from one extreme to the other. They went from being engrossed in the culture to pure isolationism. Israel cut itself off completely from the surrounding world, making a fetish of its purity before God.
That is where the disciples step into the picture. The early Christians had many hiccups before they were able to accept what Isaiah had written.
Peter had to have a vision from heaven before he was willing to share the gospel with non-Jews (Acts 10:9-16). This in itself created conflict over association with the Gentiles. Paul had to confront Peter publically in order to set him straight so he wouldn’t return to his old ways (Galatians 2:11-14).
For the early Christians, who were devout Jews, the idea of a Gentile being able to, or allowed to, bind themselves to obedient love to their God, to their covenant, was not even in the picture. That would taint their birthright, and they would no longer be the “chosen people” of God.
Fortunately, Paul understood Isaiah chapter 56 and through his ministry [Ephesians 3:4-13], the early church understood God’s eternal plan, verse 8 from Isaiah 56,
“I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.”
I believe this is a yellow flag for the evangelical portion of Christendom today. We can so easily fall into the same error. Without a second thought we ask ourselves who are the elect of God?
Our quick response may be, obviously it is those who have “believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.” For once you believe you are a child of God, His servant, you have been adopted into the family, you have been given the birthright.
In contrast, in the non-evangelical church, if we were to ask someone if they are going to heaven, their response would be something like, “Well, I hope so. I am doing my best.” Which we know, is not what Christianity is all about. For there is an assurance found in 1 John 5:12, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” And we know that God keeps His word to deliver those who believe on Him, and that is a good thing.
However, there is a downside to the understanding of faith.
Many Christians believe, just like the Israelite who counted on their birthright, that once they have exercised this belief, they are saved, regardless of how they live day to day.
Doesn’t God forgive us of our sins, isn’t that what it is all about?
Humans sin, we can’t help it.
All truthful statements, however, those statements are like reading Romans 7, in isolation, without reading chapters 6 and 8. In chapter 7, Paul declares those very facts, humans are in bondage to sin, and this is evidenced by those who, like the Jews, try to defeat sin in their own strength. Unfortunately, this may represent a normal Christian life today.
In fact, in North America how many persons claiming to be “born again” Christains
live ethical lives
no different
from those who are lost?
Yet, when we read chapter 6 of Romans, Paul writes that as Christians we must not continue to live lives of sin, 6:15-18, and we don’t need to because we have the Spirit of Christ living in us. And it is that very Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that is able to put to death the deeds of our sinful nature 8:13.
It is difficult to see the “Hope of Heaven” in those who say it with their lips, but their lives demonstrate the same existence as everyone else around them. As Christians, we need to remember that it is indeed by grace that we have been saved, not our works, Ephesians 2:8-9, but just as important, we need to continue reading verse 10 of Ephesians,
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Our righteousness earns us no good favor with God at all, but our righteousness is evidence
that we have been adopted into the family of God, because our behavior
is in the likeness
of the Head of that family.
In fact, it is the only evidence.
Let’s pray.
