The Servant of Yahweh's Conquest of the Nations
Notes
Transcript
Scripture Reading: Eph 2:11-22
Intro
Intro
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PNP
PNP
Review
Review
Servant of Yahweh - collective use as in Isa 41
But the same title is used in other places where it cannot be the collective nations.
In Isa 53, the Servant of Yahweh is described as an atoning sacrifice, which does not permit a collective meaning.
There is no analogy of a subset of pious Jews dying for the naiton or for the Jewish nation being an atoning sacrifice for the world.
As well as this text in 42, Where we affirm to be referring to most prominently to the Messiah and His work in the world. this is in accord with the unanimous Christian tradition, the Targums, and plenty of Jewish writters,
And of course, the explicit and repeated application of this text to the Messiah in the NT, and all of its aspects to Christ int he NT.
in Isa 42:1 The Servant of the Lord is the Messiah
Now there is an important question: is this title exclusive and description here exclusive to Jesus?
Why ask this? because it must be admitted that Israel as a nation is called by the same name.
Remember Israel in 41, and also even in the very same chapter in 42. The servant of Yahweh is described as being blind and sinful, and clearly reffers to the Servant of Yahweh as Israel as a nation.
There it cannot be a description of Christ, because Christ is both sinless and He is not blind. The description does not fit.
There are two choices for accounting for this.
The first is just to say, that it is simply an entire change in subject. Which is in fact to deny to answer the question.
It just means one thing here, and a different thing here.
It’s possible to have the same term in the same context refer to two different referent (explain what a referent is, that car or that car pointing. Same sentence two refferents.),
and sometimes it is necessary and assumed,
but (I’m going to quote here)
“unless we abandon all attempt to interpret language upon any settled principle, we cannot but admit that nothing short of exegetical necessity can justify the reference of the same descriptive terms to different subjects in one and the same context. If then there is an exegetical hypothesis by which these applications can be reconciled, without doing violence to usage or analogy, it seems to be clearly entitled to the preference.”
Such hypothesis is one which has been stated previously is that in these prophecies of Isaiah “we are to understand the church with its Head, or rather the Messiah with the church which is his body, sent by Jehovah to reclaim the world from its apostacy and ruin. This agrees exactly with the mission both of the Redeemer and His people as described in Scripture, and accounts for all the variations which embarrass the interpretaion of the passages iin question uipon any more exclusive exegetical hypothesis.” (Alexander vol 2, 131.)
This understanding is seen in analogy in several places in Scripture.
In Deut 18:3, Moses promise a prophet who will be like himself, and gives test for various prophets. The best interpretation of that passage is that there is a line of prophets, it is not Christ exclusively, but Christ is the head of that prophetic line.
Even better is that of the concept of Abrahams seed, which is seen in galations three to be both Christ and the Church. It is Christ in the signular sense, and the His body as the church which is grafted into Him, or brought into union with Him by faith and the connection of the Holy Spirit. And this hypothesis agrees in every way with the analagy of language used of the church, whereas, Christ is designated the Head and we are His body.
Some objections can be made of applying these titles given to the Head to body on the basis of that Israel as a nation is apostate and in continually at war with gaza; but this reflects a superficial view of the nation of Israel, which is primarily an ecclesiastical body (a church body, a relgious counsitution) and only secondarily does it have any ethnic
“An essential feature in the theory proposed iss that this nation was set apart and organized for a specific pu8rpose, and that its national character is constantly subordinate to its ecclesiastical relation.” (pg 131)
that is to say that essential to the identiy of Israel is it’s ecclesiastical function or religious function, and not priamarily as an ethnicity.
"Israel is sometime described as he was meant to be, and as he should have been; sometimes as he actually was.” Somtimes the name is given to the whole ethnicity, someimtes only to the faithful portion of it.
This variation in the way the word is used is the same as how we see the word ecclesia used in the NT.
Any confusion or difficulty with this hypothesis, of applying the same descriptions and predications (which is to say something about something else will be eased and mitigated by realizing that “Christ was in the highest and truest sense the Servant of Yahweh and His messenger to man, but that His body, church, or people, was, and is, a sharer in the same vocation, under the Gospel as an instrument or fellow-worker, under thh Law as a type or representative of the one who had not yet become visible.” “131”
The same things may be predicated or said of both. The Messiah is the messenger to the nations, as was Israel. The Law was always to go from from Zion (Isa 2, maybe read)
and word of God from Israel to the world.
The distinctions in the Law between Israel and the Gentiles were not for the purposes of keeping gentiles out of Israel, but for the purpose of keeping Israel separate from the Gentiles. If the Gentiles had converted and Israel had been faithful to her charge, than all the world would have been assimilated into Israel.
Even then the benefits of Israel were not restricted to the natural born children.
So with this hypothesis, how is the honor title “Servant of Yahweh” to be applied in this distinction:
If the things said about the Servant can be applied to both the head and the body, there is no need to distinguish them.
When sinful imperfection is implied, the application is off course only applied to the body.
“Where a freedom from such imperefection is implied, the language can have a direct and literal reference only to the Head, but may be considered as descriptive of the body, in so far as its idea or design is concerned, though not in reference to its actual condition.”
When anything is said implying diety of infinite merit, the application becomes exclusively to the Head.
All this means that the body represents the Head. Particular offices of the body, prophet, priest and king, are all represented chiefly and unitedly in Christ. Different aspects of these offices take various levels of predominance in Prophecy.
The degree to which this theory is necessasry to coherently explain these prophecies will be demonstrated by an application of these principles to different parts of the prophecy.
LIke the prophecy we’re looking at today,
PNP, we’re going to see that that Lord sends the Servant, and that the Lord prosper’s His servant.
PNP, we’re going to see that that Lord sends the Servant, and that the Lord prosper’s His servant.
The LORD Sends His Servant (1-4)
The LORD Sends His Servant (1-4)
His Election
His Election
1 Listen to Me, O coastlands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. Yahweh called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He made My name to be remembered.
This phrase of coastlands is a Poetic representation of foreign and distant nations,
“idea of attention being drawn to a central point from distant points around it.”
Remember as well in the immediate context in Isa 48:16 that we had the very eternal Son of God just introduced in the context.
The distinction in the Godhead, in perhaps the most trinitarian passage of the OT.
(Read 16)
And so Now this sent one has been introduced, and we bring this to the context today, (because remember, this whole prophecy is one long cyclical prophecy).
So this person who has eternally existed with Lord Yahweh and His Spirit, He has been introduced. And now it’s heavily implied here that it is the same person speaking.
Several contextual indicators imply the Messiah, as we will continue to see, that this one is raised up to return the lost tribes of Israel.
But also, what about the corporate body? Is this speaking of the corporate body. Well if you see in verse 3, this person is specifically designed as Israel. You are my Servant, Israel.
So it’s the Messiah, and it’s Israel? This is reconciled by the hypothesis which I just explained.
“The two most plausible interpretations may be reconciled and blended, buy assuming that in this case as in chapter 42, the ideal speaker is the Messiah considered as the head of His people and as forming with them one complex person.” Alexander 224
We remember that the grand theme of this prophecy is “the church, in its relation to its Head and the World” (Alexander 225) And so this is not implausible at all.
What is said about the Messiah here has application all to His body! That mean you! Christian, or little Christ.
Now this “from the womb” implies both when the child is in the womb, and before. It represents a divine foreknowledge and election. The Servant as such was selected and set apart for this purpose.
The servant of Yahweh, form the Servant from the womb, He made His name to be remembered and known.
And of Course Christ was sent into the world. Incarnated, and chosen unto this office,
And also every member of the Church is chosen before the foundation of the world, foreknown and elected, and appointed unto office:
1 Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
2 He has set My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; And He has also set Me as a select arrow; He has hidden Me in His quiver.
The Servant of the Lord, Christ’s mouth is set like a sharp two edged sword, which goes forth to strike the nations.
This is the word of God which comes forth, and conquerors every area of life, every nation, every aspect:
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And of course in Rev 19:11, which i believe is a vision of Christ conquoring all His foes throughout history:
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sits on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; having a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself,
13 and being clothed with a garment dipped in blood, His name is also called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses.
15 And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the wrath of the rage of God, the Almighty.
*You are called to be a proclaimer of the message, as 1 Peter 2:9,
9 But you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
In everything, every aspect of every area of life,
in family, in work, in business, there the Word of God is to be proclaimed and obeyed.
The next description is that Yahweh has concealed His servant. Christ who is the hidden power of God, in His humiliation His great glory was veiled,
and in His transfiguaration, it was uncovered but for a moment,
Chirst, the God-man walked about as a concealing His great power,
and You, as His body, the Apostle instructs
3 For you died and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.
As Christs great power and strength was hidden, consider that during the state of His humiliation His divinity was entirely unknown to the world save but a few people.
And during His ministry His power was greatly veiled,
So you Christian are said to be seated with Christ in the heavenly places,
you are reigning with Christ,
and yet your life is hidden with God, concealed, and your reward awaits you in heaven.
Your Father is to be entreated in the secret place, and you strength is to come from a place which the world does not know, nor can it see.
And the Servant of Yahweh has been set as a select arrow: that is that of penetrating power, that Christ was sent forth and in power and effeciency to accomplish what God has sent Him to do.
So is your purpose to be the arrow sent from God, on mission to achieve what He desires.
3 He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In Whom I will show forth My beautiful glory.”
The Servant of Yahweh is sent forth to accomplish the purpose given to Him by God!
Israel, the nation, the church of God, the elect, and Christ as the Head.
Christ typologically paralleled the nation of Israel in many ways on earth. As Israel went to Egypt and was called out by God, so did Christ; as Christ is the Son of God, so Israel is called as a nation to be the son of God. As Christ was baptized in the Jordan and the Spirit of God descneded upon Him as a dove, so the nation built the temple of God, which the cloud of God descneded and filled.
As Christ is the temple of God, so the church is the temple of God.
And so here the whole complex person is addressed in our text. You are my servant Israel, Christ the Head and king of the nation, and all those who are grafted into Him, the children of promise, as His body.
In Israel, “in whom I will be glorified, or in whom I will glorify myself.
Recall of course that we saw in Isa 46:13
13 “I bring near My righteousness, it is not far off; And My salvation will not delay. And I will grant salvation in Zion, And My glory for Israel.
Which is literally the Lord saying, “I will grant salvation in Zion To Israel my glory” meaning both I will give my glory unto Israel, or I will give salvation in Zion unto Israel (who is) my glory.
Christ of course is the
Heb 1:3
3 who is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power; who, having accomplished cleansing for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Christ is the radiance of God’s glory,
We as the church are instructed to:
16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
3 To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a headdress instead of ashes, The oil of rejoicing instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of Yahweh, that He may show forth His beautiful glory.
Does your life glorify God? Do your works glorify Him?
When people look at your marriage, would they glorify God?
From the godly leadership of the husband, his discipleship and active training of His family in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? or are you passive, and walking in a consistent abdication from your duties?
Wives, would they glorify God from the way you submit to your husband in fear, with reverence,
in humility to his authority and respect for him as a man and as your head? Or do you nag and henpeck him like the pagans? Do you complain about him, or let other people come between you and your husband?
Children, do you glorify God in the way you respect and honor the instruction of your parents? Do you see that as sources of wisdom? Or do you direspect and dishonor them as the pagans. Are you addicted to be being catchecized by the world, you want the filth on tik tok, you want pornography, you want to hide in your room and do what you want with no one to tell you otherwise. You think other people know better than your parents, and you disrespect them continuously like little philstine children?
Babies...
Business men, do you conduct your business with integrity, employees do you waste the time of your bosses (I’m certainly guilty of such at times). Is your business honest? Do you fulfill your word? Is your work of quality?
Then repent and walk in accordance with the calling with which you have been called.
His Despondency
His Despondency
4 But I said, “I have toiled in vain; I have spent My might for nothing and vanity; Yet surely the justice due to Me is with Yahweh, And My reward with My God.”
In reply to what Yahweh has said, the Servant says this:
The has worked Himself to exhaustion and has become weary,
He has spent Himself, and worked and labored, and it looks like there is no reward. From all appearances His mission was a failure,
But the Servant of Yahweh is comforted by this: That His recompense, His reward is with Yahweh. What is His due will come from Yahweh in it’s season and in it’s due time.
God will make good to reward the labor of His Servant, despite the fact that it appears that it is lacking in the present. God has the power to reward His faithful servant.
Christ’s service, His reward is an inheritance of nations,
Not some false idea of a weak church that falters out of existence, but He will see the travil of His soul and be satisfied, Christ will have the ends of the earth as His possession, and the nations for His inheritence,
He poured out His soul for unto death under the promise of the Father to Him that the Father equipped Him for the mission, and that His work will be successful!
And so you are called to suffer and die for Christ, with the promise that you are gifted with everything you need to for the task unto which God has called you, and are commanded to not lose heart, because
We know that the Labor for our God is not in vain.
The LORD Prospers His Servant (5-7)
The LORD Prospers His Servant (5-7)
His Mission
His Mission
5 So now says Yahweh, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To return Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am glorified in the sight of Yahweh, And My God is My strength),
This is to convert Jacob back to Him.
Now there is textual issue, and a translation issue in this clause; I’m not going to get into detail here,
I believe the clause ought to read
“So now says Yahweh, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To return Jacob back to Him, and (yet) Israel will not be gathered, yet I am glorified in the sight of Yahweh, and my God is my strength.”
That’s the better reading.
Now the Head of the Servant takes prominence here. It is in focus. Here is the great objection to all those who would want to limit the Servant just to the nation of Israel.
Israel cannot both be the subject and the object! The nation can’t be sent to reclaim the nation!
Hence our hypothesis deals with this, and all aspects of this verse, and the meaning is such,
Jesus, as the Messiah, as the Head, the King of Israel, and the federal Head, the representative of all the elect children of God, He is the true Israel.
It is He who accomplishes everything which Israel corporately as the Servant was tasked to do.
Here He is spoken of as being raised up for the purpose of gathering back the lost nation of Israel. He is sent to reclaim both the nation of Israel, and also the whole world, the rest of the nations as well.
In this verse He is sent to reclaim the nation of Israel,
And yet, there are many within that nation who will not be gathered in the nation of Israel, due to their stubbornness and hardness of heart.
Yet despite the despite the apparent failure of His mission, despite the rejection of Him by the leadership and the unbelieving Jews, despite being despised and rejected by men, the Lord will sustain Him and prosper His hand. The Lord will strengthen Him.
“The Messiah and His people should be honoured in the sight o fGod, although the proximate design of their mission, the salvation of the literal Israelite, might seem to fail.”
And of course we see this in the New Testament
14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also suffered the same things at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,
15 who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and do not please God, and are hostile to all men,
16 hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.
Many Jews according to the flesh rejected, but they are not the true Israel of God. We will see more of this in the coming chapters.
His Success
His Success
6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to cause the preserved ones of Israel to return; I will also give You as a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Yet Here the Lord Yahweh speaks to the Messiah.
When Jesus carried out His work, He had the promise of the Father that He would succeed! He had the guarantee of God that He would not fail. This is something which is refereed to as the covenant of redemption, which is the promise here of the Father to the Son about the success of His mission. The Father promised the Messiah that the Father equipped the Son with everything needed to carry out His work, and also that His work would prosper!
It is too small a thing, it is not enough for Christ, and His people who faithfully carry out His mission, to labor for the national descendent of Abraham, to plead to the unbelieving Jew, He must have a wider field of increase, He must have a greater reward. It is not sufficient to bless Him for His labor and work.
Why are we so confident here at CRF about the great commission, because the faithfulness of the Father to the Son depends on it! It is at stake, the Lord’s salvation, which is the very inheritance of Christ, the people given to Christ, will extend to the ends of the earth!
This is the mission and promise to the Servant of Yahweh, to the Head and to His body. And Christ carries out this mission through the church.
Listen to how Paul and Barnabas quote this verse:
44 And the next Sabbath, nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord.
45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, blaspheming.
46 Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. Since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.
47 “For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles, That You may bring salvation to the end of the earth.’”
48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
49 And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region.
50 But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.
The Lord commanded us!
This verse which is spoken to Christ the Messiah the true Isrealite, is commanded to them! and it is also commanded to you!
We are nbimistic about Christ’s influence on the nations, in Romans it teaches that the Gospel of has gone out to the Gentiles for the purpose of the obedience of the nations.
We are not pessimistic about Christ’s influence on the nations. The concept that the church will fail IS A DOCTRINE OF DEMONS. It is wicked as it strikes at the very promise of God, in this age, for the work of the Messiah!
in Romans it teaches that the Gospel of has gone out to the Gentiles for the purpose of the obedience of the nations. God has brought this about for the conversion of the world!
7 Thus says Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One, To the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the Servant of rulers, “Kings will see and arise, Princes will also bow down, Because of Yahweh who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”
The oine rejected by the nation, the one rejected by the godless Israelite, to the one who was
Kings will arise,
Princes will bow down,
Constantine will repent
Trump will sell his Trump Bibles
The greatest and most powerful people on earth will pay homage and kiss the Son, they will revere Christ and the Church which is His body because of the Faithful one!
The one who keeps His covenant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
The one who keeps His promise to crush the Serpent
The one who is the Holy one of Israel, the God of the true Israelite, who has elected and chosen His Servant, the Servant of Yahweh!
The Messiahs mission from the begging was not to one nation, but has always been for the reclamation of the world! to the restoration of Adams race to reconcile the lost, showing forth the great covenantal faithfulness, the unending graciousness of God Almighty, the creator of the heavens and the earth.
He has done this to show the world who He is, to pour out His love on His creation, and to demonstrate His holiness.
Kings will do homage. Kings will do homage. Kings will recognize that they have their own King, that there is a King about the king, there is a Lord above the lord. The coastlands will wait for HIS LAW.
His stands, His justice, which He has given to the world through His Scripture.
“But separation of church and state”
There is no separation of God from state; it’s only that we in the ecclesiastical order ought not to confuse our purpose by taking on the enforcement of civil laws.
Congress has no church, but congress has a God!
There is no separation of Christ from state, Christ is King! And every king who sits on His throne will stand for Christ, and every prince who stands in the court will bow down.
Kings will be nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers, that the Church can carry out her great commission, that Christ will have His inheritance. The Servant will prosper because God declared!
Now these promises, they are spoken to YOU oh Christian. As many as are the promises of Christ, in Him they are yes and amen. You are heirs of creation, of all things!
Remember Isa 45:14
14 Thus says Yahweh, “The fruit of the labor of Egypt and the profit of Ethiopia And the Sabeans, men of stature, Will come over to you and will be yours; They will walk behind you; they will come over in chains And will bow down to you; They will make supplication to you: ‘Surely, God is with you, and there is none else, No other God.’”
Walk like you a child of God, commune with your Father. Treat your Body like it’s a temple, and recognize that we are part of something which the world cannot see. Pray earnestly that God will make them see.
You will be despised, you will be rejected, you will be oppressed, and defauded, and persecuted, but your life is hidden with God! and He has promised to give you everything which you need to succeed, to prosper.
He has given you everything. Every promise, every gift you need for the task at hand. And He has promised that your work will succeed, because it’s not for you, because it’s for Christ!
Walk according to the calling! Walk according to the office, the status.
But you must believe, you must have faith and trust His word. Without faith it is impossible to please Him, faith is the evidence and proof of things hoped for and the substance of things not seen.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
