Jesus: The Light to the Gentiles
Finding Jesus In The Old Testament • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
As some of you likely know, the nation of Israel has at times had difficulty relating to people outside their nation. They have a name for anyone who is not Jewish, they call them Gentiles. When God chose Israel He gave them His special law and their promised land and set them apart from everyone else. They were to be His holy nation and not do the same idolatrous things that the nations around them did. I suppose knowing human nature it’s not that surprising that for many of them this went straight to their head. For some Jewish people, this led to an attitude of superiority. If you read the actual law that God gave you’ll find that although Israel was given a special covenant and inheritance from God, they were meant to be a blessing to all other nations, and although there weren’t to marry gentiles or live life the same way as them, they were still to love them. Sadly eventually this led to Rabbi’s writting in the Mishna:
"The dwelling places of Gentiles are ritually unclean (Ohalot 18:7). David Stern summarizes other passages in the Mishna, "…Jews may not remain alone with Gentiles, leave cattle at their inns, assist them in childbirth, suckle their children, do business with them when they are traveling to idolatrous festivals, drink their milk or vinegar or wine…or eat their bread or oil or pickled vegetables or…their cooked food."
[Source: Jewish New Testament Commentary by David Stern, p. 258.]
So I wonder what rabbis like the ones that wrote this made of prophecies like the one found in today’s scripture, Isaiah 49:1-13
Coasts and islands, listen to me;
distant peoples, pay attention.
The Lord called me before I was born.
He named me while I was in my mother’s womb.
He made my words like a sharp sword;
he hid me in the shadow of his hand.
He made me like a sharpened arrow;
he hid me in his quiver.
He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I myself said: I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and futility;
yet my vindication is with the Lord,
and my reward is with my God.
And now, says the Lord,
who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him
so that Israel might be gathered to him;
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
and my God is my strength—
he says,
“It is not enough for you to be my servant
raising up the tribes of Jacob
and restoring the protected ones of Israel.
I will also make you a light for the nations,
to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
This is what the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, says
to one who is despised,
to one abhorred by people,
to a servant of rulers:
“Kings will see, princes will stand up,
and they will all bow down
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel—and he has chosen you.”
This is what the Lord says:
I will answer you in a time of favor,
and I will help you in the day of salvation.
I will keep you, and I will appoint you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land,
to make them possess the desolate inheritances,
saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
and to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They will feed along the pathways,
and their pastures will be on all the barren heights.
They will not hunger or thirst,
the scorching heat or sun will not strike them;
for their compassionate one will guide them,
and lead them to springs.
I will make all my mountains into a road,
and my highways will be raised up.
See, these will come from far away,
from the north and from the west,
and from the land of Sinim.
Shout for joy, you heavens!
Earth, rejoice!
Mountains break into joyful shouts!
For the Lord has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
This is of course a part of our “Finding Jesus in the Old Testament” Series, where we’ve been looking at types of Christ, Christophanies and prophecies about Christ. Today of course we are looking at a prophecy from the book of Isaiah and what it can teach us about who Jesus is.
This passage is the second of what many scholars call the four “servant songs” of Isaiah. These are passages that talk about the servant of Yahweh, the Lord, and what God was promising to do through this servant. Now there are some, especially amongst Jewish scholars who don’t follow Christ, who teach that the “servant” in Isaiah is always referring to the nation of Israel, not to the Messiah.
Now there are some passages that do seem to be calling Israel the servant of the Lord, but then there are others that seem to be very clearly talking about an individual called the servant. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until after Jesus’ death and resurrection and the spreading of the Christian church that many Jewish teachers taught that these passages were about Israel. Before then many rabbis included these servant songs in their lists of Messianic texts.
The reason that I bring this up is because this passage contains one of the verses that people use to claim that the servant is supposed to be understood to be Israel not the Messiah. This is Isaiah 49:3
He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
Now we have good reason to believe that these passages are about Jesus, because the inspired Scripture of the New Testament quotes them as being fulfilled by Jesus. Consider the words of Simeon in Luke 2:28-32
Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said,
Now, Master,
you can dismiss your servant in peace,
as you promised.
For my eyes have seen your salvation.
You have prepared it
in the presence of all peoples—
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and glory to your people Israel.
In verse 32 Simeon is quoting Isaiah 49:6. And elsewhere in the New Testament we have other passages about the servant being fulfilled by Jesus. So if we know that this passage is about Jesus, why does God call His servant Israel in verse 3?
This is because Jesus is Israel as Israel was always meant to be. Astute students of the Old Testament will know that being a light to the gentiles and a blessing to the nations was what God asked Israel to do, so now when He asks the Messiah to fulfill that promise than Jesus is acting as a representative of the whole nation of Israel.
So being confident then that these 13 verses are a prophecy about the Messiah, who would turn out to be Jesus of Nazareth, what does this passage teach us about who Jesus is? Well we learn three things about Jesus in this Isaiah Passage:
Jesus’ Words are like a Sword
Jesus is God’s kept Promis
Jesus is the Light of the World
1. Jesus' Words are like a Sword
1. Jesus' Words are like a Sword
Do you remember that old rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Talk about your wishful thinking. The Bible has something else to say about words.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.
So our words either bring life or death. And in James 3:6
And the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is placed among our members. It stains the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
So with our careless words we could destroy ourselves and the people around us.
So we’ve established that words are powerful, and when it comes to their use by flawed and sinful human beings words are capable of terrible destruction.
Well what about the words of Jesus? If our words are powerful, how much more powerful are the words of the divine son of God? God spoke the whole universe into creation, so yeah I think His words are pretty powerful. In our passage for today we read in Isaiah 49:2
He made my words like a sharp sword;
he hid me in the shadow of his hand.
He made me like a sharpened arrow;
he hid me in his quiver.
This of course is not the only place where scripture uses the metaphor of a sword to talk about Jesus’ words. We read in Revelation 1:16
He had seven stars in his right hand; a sharp double-edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was shining like the sun at full strength.
And in Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Because Jesus is God this verse applies just as much to Him as to the Father and the Holy Spirit. So the question is why a sword? What does the sword represent? Well a big hint is found at the end of that Hebrews verse. It says about the word of God that “It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
It is able to judge. In ancient cultures the sword was a metaphor for judgement, especially when used of kings. We see this in Romans 13:4, when Paul says about the government
For it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For it is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.
We see this applied specifically to Jesus in Revelation 19:15
A sharp sword came from his mouth, so that he might strike the nations with it. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will also trample the winepress of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty.
Here Jesus is using the sword of His words to judge the nations of the world. So when Isaiah tells us that the Messiah’s words will be a sword he’s telling us that Messiah will speak words of judgment.
You see when the Bible talks about our words having power over life and death, it’s speaking about consequences stemming from our words. When it comes to Jesus, His Words literally are the difference between eternal life and eternal judgment.
So if we will one day be judged by the words of Jesus, what better reminder of the importance of listening to the words of Jesus now? Thankfully God has provided for us His word to teach us all that we need to know in order to hear the words “well done good and faithful servant” on the day when Christ speaks judgment over us.
2. Jesus is God's kept promise
2. Jesus is God's kept promise
Something I’m working hard to teach my children is the concept of trust being built. How do you know someone is going to keep their promise to you? Their history, have they kept their promises before? So in other words you extend some trust to someone and they get an opportunity to show you if they’re trustworthy, and then you feel more comfortable extending trust to them again and the cycle goes on.
What happens when you give God the trustworthiness test? Well we read in scripture the history of God keeping His promises. Over and over God makes promises to people and then faithfully keeps them, even when those promises were promises to judge and to punish disobedience. It’s a very good thing for us and for Israel that God keeps His promises. Jesus is of course the ultimate kept promise of God. We see this prophecied in Isaiah 49:5
And now, says the Lord,
who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him
so that Israel might be gathered to him;
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
and my God is my strength—
You see at the time that Isaiah is writing this book Israel is living through one of those less pleasant kept promises of God: That if they broke His covenant they would receive the curses they agreed to when they agreed to the covenant, which included judgment and a loss of their land. They are now living in exile and likely losing hope. God however is slow to anger and abounding in love, and has promised from the beginning that He would never abandon His people, in this case Israel. He has promised that he will “bring Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him;”
Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of bringing Israel back to Himself, in heart first and one day in the new Heavens and New Earth there will be a New Jerusalem where the presence of God will dwell forever. We get a picture of the new promised land later in this chapter, in Isaiah 49:8-11
This is what the Lord says:
I will answer you in a time of favor,
and I will help you in the day of salvation.
I will keep you, and I will appoint you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land,
to make them possess the desolate inheritances,
saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
and to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They will feed along the pathways,
and their pastures will be on all the barren heights.
They will not hunger or thirst,
the scorching heat or sun will not strike them;
for their compassionate one will guide them,
and lead them to springs.
I will make all my mountains into a road,
and my highways will be raised up.
As most of us in the North American church are gentiles it can be easy to forget or gloss over the importance of God’s faithfulness to Israel, but it’s important that in the words of Paul in Romans 1:16 salvation is “first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.” Because God giving His gospel to the Jew first is showing that He keeps His word, and this even despite their continued disobedience to His laws and disregard for His name.
Thankfully for us, though, His grace and mercy doesn’t end with the people of Israel.
3. Jesus is the light of the world
3. Jesus is the light of the world
What parent can’t relate to stepping on a toy in the dark, especially if you have more than one child. More than once while we were sleep training Lucy I stepped on a duplo block or stubbed my toes on a plastic guitar. Obviously if her room were well lit I would (hopefully) see the obstacles and easily avoid them, but even in my own house that I generally know well enough to navigate in the dark, it’s easy for some small out of place thing to trip me up or cause me pain.
Life in general can be like walking in the dark. This is the metaphor by which Isaiah describes the people of the nations outside of Israel. They walk in the dark because God gave His revelation and light to the people of Israel. Yet for the gentiles there is hope, because in the words of Isaiah 49:6
he says,
“It is not enough for you to be my servant
raising up the tribes of Jacob
and restoring the protected ones of Israel.
I will also make you a light for the nations,
to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
And this isn’t the only time we see this imagery in prophecy, we see in Isaiah 9:1-2
Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
a light has dawned
on those living in the land of darkness.
So we, the gentiles, will be given by Jesus great light. Now when it comes to prophecies that Jesus has fulfilled, some would have been easier than others to fake. For example, it would be easy for anyone to fulfill the prophecy that said that the Messiah would come into Jerusalem on a donkey. Anyone with access to a donkey and the ability to get to Jerusalem could have intentionally done that and then said, “look, I’m the Messiah.” But then there are prophecies like this.
The claim from these verses and from other prophecies about the Messiah and what He would do for other nations basically boils down to this: The Messiah will make people from all over the world worshi pthe God of Israel, Yahweh.
Who else but Jesus could ever claim to have fulfilled this prophecy? A third of the entire world now calls itself Christian and worships the God of Israel. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of those people are not ethnically Jewish, though there are perhaps more Jewish believers than you might think.
But of course God’s plan to save the Gentiles wasn’t a last minute adjustment to the plan. We’ve seen throughout this series signs and prophecies that showed that God’s heart has always been for all of His creation to be redeemed. No matter who they are, where they’re from, as long as God loves them there is hope.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So of course as at theend of every sermon it’s time to ask ourselves the questions “so what?” Well this passage’s three predictions about the nature of Jesus have for us three different applications.
First, if we understand that Jesus’ words are the standard by which we are judged, than that should inspire in us a seriousness and dedication towards God’s word. It should inspire us to seek to know God’s word deeply and learn how best to live by God’s principles. Of course whether we live forever in the resurrection is primarily about whether upon hearing God’s word we give our lives to Jesus, repent and follow Him.
Second, knowing that God keeps His promises gives us the confidence to withstand the challenges that life gives to us knowing that He will never let us down. Again, turning to Scripture is the key. If we know well every time that God has kept His word than when troubles come our way we can know that He’ll keep His word again. We as believers should easily be the most calm and confident people that there is.
Finally, God giving hope to the Gentiles inspires us to ask the question, who is it that is like a gentile to us? Who are the people we’ve given up for a lost cause? The people we think won’t ever change? The people who vote differently than we do? The people who live in strange places with strange customs? The people who insult us and belittle us? Every one of them are also being given the same light we are and the same chance to repent. Will we be the hands and feet of Jesus? Will we shine our light before others as He said?
“You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
May we have the boldness to go forth in the name of Jesus and bring His gospel to everyone who will hear it.