The Covenant of Comfort

Overture: Covenant History - 1-3

We again pick up Isaiah poetic prose at the outset of the 5th or 6th of his “Servant Songs,” these magnificent declarations from the mouth of Yahweh’s Servant, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, whom we know as Jesus Christ.

These songs contain some of the most powerful Christological and soteriological truths in all of Scripture, as they put Christ forth and proclaim the salvation that He brings.

As we pick up Isaiah 51, I want us to be aware of the covenant context into which this song speaks. The Servant here, as recorded by Isaiah, presents Himself as the true and better Abraham and the true and better Adam, fulfilling Adam’s covenant of works so that He might mediate Abraham’s covenant of grace to all Abraham’s descendants through the promise of faith.

With the covenant context in mind, let’s observe the text together as we see the Covenant Overture of the Servant’s 5th Symphony.

The Servant first establishes his audience: those who pursue righteousness and seek Yahweh.

At first we might think that this is a good thing, that the Servant is preaching to the choir a little bit. But that’s not the way Paul understood Isaiah.

Romans 9:30–33 LSB

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, laid hold of righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “BEHOLD, I AM LAYING IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND THE ONE WHO BELIEVES UPON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.”

Paul’s reading of Israel’s pursuit, even in Isaiah’s day, was that it was vain, because they were pursuing it on their own terms and not on God’s terms.

So how should Israel pursue righteousness and seek Yahweh?

The Servant exhorts them to “look to the rock from which you were hewn, and the quarry from which you were dug.”

What is meant here? This is a compelling word picture of Israel’s origins. At first brush we might think of this as just an interesting picture of rocks being cut out at a quarry, but Isaiah is actually being very intentional here. He is subtly, but clearly, setting the people of Israel within a pattern that Peter makes explicit in 1 Peter 2:4-5

1 Peter 2:4–5 LSB

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Those who would truly seek after God and pursue righteousness are hewn, quarried stones in the temple of Yahweh. And what is the quarry from which these stones are drawn? The quarry of the faith of Abraham.

The Servant is clear: those who would pursue Yahweh can only do as rocks hewn from the quarry of Abraham’s faith.

Now continue to look with me at the Servant’s song in the middle of verse 2. Who is the actor in Abraham’s drama? The Servant. He is the one who called Abraham, who blessed Him and multiplied him.

Now verse 3 would appear to be a break in the Servant’s Song, with Isaiah himself providing some commentary before returning to the song. What does Isaiah say? He describes to Israel the work that Yahweh, through the arm of His Servant, will do at the end of all things.

How does he describe it?

It is a double comfort.

Isaiah repeats himself for emphasis. Yahweh will comfort Zion, and He will comfort all her waste places. We can rightly describe the covenant in view here in chapter 51 as a covenant of comfort. We’ll talk more about comfort in a minute.

It is a restorative comfort.

The comfort is restorative, in other words, it will bring Israel back to the peace and prosperity of the garden of Eden. This adds a layer to Isaiah’s vineyard and garden theology that we see throughout the book. Israel’s eternal purpose is to be the center of God’s global New Eden. As history moves forward toward eternity, ironically, it is actually moving backward. Backward toward the peace and prosperity of Eden, only this time, unlike the first Eden, ruled by the first Adam, the true and better Eden will be ruled by Yahweh’s Servant, the true and better Adam.

It is a joyful comfort.

The covenant of comfort in the New Eden is one that results in joy, gladness, thanksgiving and song. As Isaiah declares and the apostle John repeats in Revelation: Isaiah 25:6-8

Isaiah 25:6–8 LSB

And Yahweh of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, Even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, And Lord Yahweh will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For Yahweh has spoken.

The Servant, along with Isaiah, has established the major themes of this his 5th symphony, in this brief overture. What is here for us?

Right pursuit of Yahweh is only accomplished by faith. Only by believing and receiving Yahweh’s servant and all His benefits can we draw near to Yahweh. If we would pursue him, we must pursue him with the faith of Abraham.

Perhaps you are not near to the Lord this morning. Perhaps your heart is far from him. Perhaps it’s always been far from him. Today is the day. Wait no longer. Believe in the Servant. Receive the Servant. Worship the Servant. He was the hope of Abraham, He was the hope of Israel, and He is the hope of all in this room today.

Perhaps you know Christ. Perhaps you’ve tasted of His beauty and glory, his love and his grace. Do not be deceived into thinking that while you began with Christ by faith, you must now continue by works. Abraham was not only saved by faith, but he was sustained by faith. The Servant beckons you: recall your roots. Look to the rock and quarry of Abraham’s faith from which you were hewn. That faith not only justifies, but sanctifies.

Christ has always been the mediator of salvation. It’s tempting to take the Old Testament a little too literally and assume that because Jesus Christ isn’t mentioned by that exact name in the Old Testament that He isn’t there. But Christ Himself said that all Scripture testifies of Him. And that is made clear here as Isaiah proclaims that the author of Abraham’s salvation, the mediator of this first covenant of grace, was not Yahweh the Father, but actually the Servant, His Son. Therefore we can say with confidence that Christ has always been the way, the truth, and the life. He was so for Abraham, and He is so for us. Praise God for His unchanging plan of salvation!

The servant has established the themes of his fifth song. Let’s look now at the first stanza:

Stanza 1: Covenant Immutability - 4-8

This first stanza establishes the immutability of the covenant of comfort. In other words, this covenant is eternal and unchanging. It will not move, it will not break, it will survive into eternity.

Again the Servant calls to the people and to the nation to listen to Him. The Servant speaks with the tone of King Solomon imparting wisdom to his son in Proverbs 1-9, for the Servant of Israel is also the King of Israel.

What type of covenant is this? The Servant describes it in four ways:

It is a law that goes forth

It is a justice that illuminates

It is a righteousness that is near

It is a salvation that goes forth

Notice at the end of verse 5 who the object of the covenant of comfort is. It’s not just Israel, it is the coastlands. The King James translates this as islands, and the Septuagint actually translates it as Gentiles, and that’s how both Mark and Luke quote this passage in their gospels. The point is this: The covenant of comfort, mediated by the Servant, is not merely a covenant for those who were hewn from the rock of Abraham’s flesh, but also for those who were hewn from the rock of Abraham’s faith, regardless of what their ethnic background is.

Now in verse 6 the song takes a dramatic turn. The Servant calls his hearers to lift their eyes to the sky, and then look to the earth beneath, and then to take a peek at the the future with Him. All that they behold will vanish, wear out, and die.

Let’s pause here. There are some things in this life that we take for granted. The ground on which we walk. The sun that shines in the sky. Some of us may have lived in the same house for half a century. Some of may have driven the same route to the same job every day for years. While we perhaps acknowledge our own transience to some extent, especially as we grow older, we tend to think that the world we live in is eternal. We may pass from the scene, but someone else will take our job, live in our house, drive our route to work.

Yet what the Servant calls us to reflect on here is that all things are transient. Even those things that seem to last forever, and last longer than us, will all eventually pass away, whether by natural causes today or supernatural causes at the end of time.

Yet for the Servant, that transience serves simply as a contrast. A dark backdrop for a brilliant truth: The covenant of comfort, and the salvation and righteousness that it brings, are not transient. They are eternal and unchanging, as eternal and unchanging as Yahweh who forged them and His Servant who mediates them to us. They will last forever, and they will not be dismayed.

So again the Servant calls His audience to listen, addressing them as people of the covenant, who have tasted of the righteousness of the Servant, who have had His law written on the tablets of their hearts. The Servant’s instruction is this: do not fear man. Do not be dismayed when they revile you. For just as the sky and land and sea were transient in verse 6, so in verse 8 the men who revile the Servant, His covenant, and His people are also transient. They are like an old shirt, gathering dust in the closet and being eaten by moths and grubs.

The Servant wants His audience, including us, to know that His covenant of comfort is an immutable covenant. What does that mean for us?

The Servant’s immutable covenant of comfort gives us confidence. In a world like ours, it’s easy to be uneasy. It’s easy to worry. It’s easy to be anxious. Those are our natural inclinations when evil people rule over our land and false teachers and wolves lurk in our churches. Yet the Servant’s encouragement to you this morning is to be strong and of good courage, for My covenant is immutable. As certain and as eternal as the created order might seem to be, My covenant of comfort is even more certain and is truly eternal. As difficult and discouraging as it might be to face the scorn of the world as they mock us openly and spit in the face of their Creator, the Servant says that these things will pass away while His covenant of comfort continues on into eternity.

The Servant’s immutable covenant of comfort gives us assurance. Perhaps even more difficult than our circumstances is our own internal struggle with our own sin. We fail and fall, even as those who have received the Servant and partake in His covenant. Just because we receive Him as our Savior does not mean that we do not continue to battle our own doubts and fears and sinful tendencies. In the midst of that, the Servant’s word to the fearful and doubting Christian today is this: Take heart. My covenant of comfort stands, it stands eternally, and it stands by my power, not yours. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Do not fear, do not doubt, for I will carry you. I will comfort you. My covenant will not change, because I will not change.

The Servant’s immutable covenant of comfort is an ominous omen for the wicked. Those who revile and reproach Yahweh, His Servant, and His covenant people will be eaten like a wool garment. This is a terrifying and sober indictment upon many in our nation and in our world today. The Servant’s word of warning is this: you may make a mockery of Me today, but according to Psalm 2, I will have the last laugh. Yahweh and His Servant will not be mocked. Yes, they are patient, often for centuries, but in the end, all earthly kings must kiss the Son or perish in the way. His anger will devour His opposition, whether by His natural means and methods now, or by His own hand in the future.

The Servant’s covenant of comfort is immutable. It cannot change, because Yahweh who gave it cannot change, and His Servant who mediates it cannot change.

Stanza 2: Covenant Mediator - 9-11

Stanza 2 is, on a technicality, not actually a stanza from the Servant. It is actually an insert from Isaiah, much as we saw in verse 3. Nevertheless, it has it’s place in the song and so we will treat it like it’s own stanza.

Here then we see Isaiah extolling the Servant as the mediator of the covenant of comfort, and he does so by portraying the Servant as a new Moses, leading His people into a New Exodus.

Verse 1 shows us Isaiah crying out to the Servant to awaken and put on strength. The implication is that Isaiah has felt either a personal or corporate distance from Yahweh and understands the Messianic hope that the Servant is, and therefore calls upon Him to awake and to once again work for His people as He did in the days of old.

Isaiah further invokes the history of the nation of Israel by recalling what Yahweh did for Israel in the Exodus and appropriating that work to the Servant Himself.

We need to understand here what is meant by Rahab. We typically think of Rahab as the prostitute who was saved from the destruction of Jericho, and that is correct, but that is not the Rahab in view here.

This Rahab is actually a euphemism for Egypt which can also indicate a large, possibly mythical dragon-like creature, similar to the Leviathan of Job and Psalm 74. This is corroborated by the second line of the phrase where Isaiah equates chopping Rahab to pieces with piercing the dragon.

So what is meant here?

I can trace at least three lines of thought here from verse 9.

Isaiah is indicating that it is specifically the Servant, Christ, the second person of the Trinity, who was acting in the destruction of Egypt in Exodus 13-14. When Moses delivers his record of the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea, he makes no Trinitarian distinctions as far as who was directly responsible for the destruction of Egypt. Moses and Miriam, as they sing their song, simply ascribe the destruction to Yahweh. But here Isaiah shows us that in fact the Servant-Arm of Yahweh, the pre-incarnate Christ, was the one responsible for

Stanza 3: Covenant Freedom - 12-16

Stanza 4: Covenant Wrath - 17-20

Stanza 5: Covenant Fulfillment - 21-23