Who Can Rescue?

I. Introduction

Isa 58-59

Back third of the back third of Isaiah.

Entering the last 9 chapters. Focus is still Christ, but more and more emphasis is put on the eschatone as we progress.

Chapters 58 and 59 look at the hopelessness of our situation given our sin and our Judge, the Holy God.

Even in the holies of days, the day of Atonement, God’s people cannot live righteously (58:1-5).

God would rather them focus on righteous living and mercy than on law fulfillment (58:6-14).

Their sin has rendered them completely separated from God (59:1-13).

God sees that they cannot save themselves, so He steps in Himself to bring Justice and salvation (59:14-21).

II. Body

1. Isaiah 58:1–5 (ESV)

“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?

Isaiah here announces the verdict of Israel’s sin for all to hear. This is not hidden.

The context is the Day of atonement, the only fast day commanded in the Law (Lev 16:29).

On this Holy day, people were to afflict themselves and be aware that God is judging their actions.

People gave an outward show of having faith with the procedural steps of the ceremonies, but their hearts were far from God (vs 2, 5).

“Seek me.. delight to know… as if the were..... They looked like their faith was real, but it was not.

Even on this day, though, in the day of judgment, they were unable or act righteously (vs 3)

Jesus condemned this kind of fasting in Matthew 6:16-18.

This is actually a very similar passage to the reaction of the Goats in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:41-46).

There was some religious experience, “Lord, Lord.”

They had done religious things, but they had not lived with love for their fellow man.

Jesus gave some of his hardest words against empty shows of religion (Matthew 23:13-36).

2. Isaiah 58:6–14 (ESV)

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah lays out examples of right living, which God prefers over observance of the Law

God has always used love of fellow man as a barometer of our love for Him.

Hosea 6:5-6.

Mat 22:35-40.

John 13:35.

This is also how Jesus let people know that He was united with the Father’s heart. Luke 4:18-19.

This is the litmus test in Christ’s parable of the sheep and the Goats as well. Matthew 25:31-40.

(vs 8-10) It is the example of this kind of other-love, born out of our Love for God, which illuminates the world.

Luke 1:78-79.

Matt 5:14.

(vs 10-12) This is the kind of people which God desires to bless.

It is not that God rewards the good deeds so much as it is that the good deeds demonstrate a strong love relationship for the Lord, in the context of which there are blessings.

Everything is set right when God is given first place in our hearts, even the physical creation benefits from it.

The rebuilding of ruins happened under Nehemiah, but their faith was incomplete then, and so was their blessing.

This is looking to a future messianic hope and ultimate fulfillment in the Millennium.

(Vs 13-14). The joyful fulfillment of the law, which is put out as an ideal here, is impossible.

Nobody has fulfilled the law perfectly besides Christ.

Nobody receives the fullness of the blessings here besides Christ.

It is only in Christ that the Law is fulfilled and we are blessed in the fullest sense.

Romans 10:4.

Matthew 5:17-20.

3. Isaiah 59:1–13 (ESV)

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. They hatch adders’ eggs; they weave the spider’s web; he who eats their eggs dies, and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched. Their webs will not serve as clothing; men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace. Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men. We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.

God promised restoration and great blessing at the end of Ch. 58. Why aren’t the people experiencing it?

It’s not because God can’t bring it about or doesn’t care (vs 1).

It is because of their sin (vs 2ff).

Isaiah breaks up this section into two portions, one (vs 1-8) in the 3rd person, in rebuke, and the second (vs 9-13) in 1st person plural. He also experiences the consequences of universal sin.

The rest of this section reads as a thorough description of the fallen nature of mankind, then and now.

Very similar to Romans 3:9-20.

We make our own coverings (Genesis 3:7) which cannot cover any better than spiderwebs.

We are dead in our sins and transgressions (Eph 2:1).

We cry out and moan, but we cannot reach heaven with our prayers unless they are first prayers of confession.

4. Isaiah 59:14–21 (ESV)

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives. “And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord. “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

God looks at his people, who He longs to save (vs 1), and realizes that they cannot save themselves. They need a Savior.

No man, not even righteous Isaiah, can stand in the gap, fulfill the law, and bring the people back to God.

(Vs 16). His “arm” brings salvation.

Hebrew word זְרוֹעַ zerôaʿ.

Already discussed that it can also mean “seed.” Singular and Masculine —> Son.

As is Isaiah 51 and 53, this can read “Then His own Son brought him salvation.”

Again, the Hew brew word for salvation in vs 16 is Yeshua, the name of Jesus in Hebrew.

God calls himself the redeemer (vs 20), another clear reference to Christ.

How does God go about bringing salvation?

He puts on armor and fights the enemies of God.

In one sense, the physical enemies of Israel, which has Millennial overtones in the final battle of Armageddon.

But Ephesians 6:10-20 frames this moment in the spiritual and salvific realm, drawing upon God’s armor quite literally.

The passage ends declaring that God’s servants will never cease to proclaim the words of God by the power of the Holy Spirit (vs 21).

This is exactly the prayer that Paul prays at the end of the passage in Eph 6:19-20.

The trinity is present in Vs 21. The Lord, The Word, and the Spirit.

III. Conclusion/Application

This passage lays the groundwork for much of the teachings of Jesus and later of Paul regarding the reasons why we live in a universe where God longs to save but cannot unless we reject our sin and turn to Him.

God longs to reward a righteous life that loves God and loves others, but sin separates us from that possibility. No man is without sin, and so we are all in a hopeless state.

The Armor of God is not some abstract concept for the Church. It is God’s armor, the same things with which He equipped himself to earn our redemption when He defeated the forces of evil.

Now He asks us to use His weapons when we participate in battles with cosmic evil.