Isaiah 43:1-7

Undeserved Redemption

Background into Isaiah

Barry Webb, a Reformed Theological Old Testament Scholar based out of Australia, describes the book of Isaiah as “the Roman of the Old Testament”, as it pieces together all of the many threads and shows us the full picture. Isaiah is split into 3 major parts, the current generation that Isaiah is in or pre-exile, the Babylonian exile, and the post-exilic period (think Nehemiah and Ezra’s day). Our scripture reading for today is in the second part of Isaiah, focused on the exile the Israelites are experiencing in Babylon. An exile that has come as judgment upon them for their transgressions against the Lord.

Before we move into exegeting our text, I want to look back in to Chapter 42 to give us some context. Verses 14 & 15 show us God’s thought process on those who worship false idols, “

English Standard Version Chapter 42

For a long time I have held my peace;

I have kept still and restrained myself;

now I will cry out like a woman in labor;

I will gasp and pant.

15  I will lay waste mountains and hills,

and dry up all their vegetation;

I will turn the rivers into islands,

and dry up the pools.

But the Lord has tried to reason with these people and tried to call them into repentance, but they have hardened their hearts and dug in, look at what verses 22-25 say, “

English Standard Version Chapter 42

22 But this is a people plundered and looted;

they are all of them trapped in holes

and hidden in prisons;

they have become plunder with none to rescue,

spoil with none to say, “Restore!”

23  Who among you will give ear to this,

will attend and listen for the time to come?

24  Who gave up Jacob to the looter,

and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned,

in whose ways they would not walk,

and whose law they would not obey?

25  So he poured on him the heat of his anger

and the might of battle;

it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;

it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

God has called them into repentance and they have rejected him, they have put themselves to shame and as verses 17 & 18 put it, trusted in carved idols and worshiped metal images as their gods. NOW, we arrive at our text, where we should expect God’s response to mimic that found in 42:14-15, with the laying waste of mountains and the drying up of rivers, in other words, the judgement that the Israelites deserve for their transgressions against God and for failing to live up to the image of the messenger of the Lord they were supposed to be to the nations.

I have recently begun a course in my studies called Moral Theory, it’s an advanced look into the moral framework that shapes the Christian worldview. In this course we are studying a few subjects related to meta-ethics, and to give that a definition, it is the study of the concepts related to philosophical ethics.

Some of you may be familiar with the study of philosophical ethics, maybe you even did the classic trolley car exercise in a study of utilitarianism, but that’s not what this is. It doesn’t ask questions like, “Is abortion bad?” or “Is it morally bad to cheat on your spouse?” It instead asks questions about the nature of ethics such as, “what defines good?” or “do moral facts exist?” or “is there objectivity to morality or is it just as preferential to mayonnaise versus mustard on a sandwich?”. It’s mayo to settle that debate for all of you though.

You might ask, how does this apply to me, isn’t this just a bunch of big words people at universities use to sound important, well yes, but also no. The study of metaethics as it relates to the Christian does a few things for us, it teaches us the WHY behind the ideas we hear from within the our congregations and from the world around us, it gives a framework for understanding our own beliefs and being able to defend them as scripture commands us in 1 Peter, and it makes us put the worldview of others into our perspective, hopefully to understand them better and lead them into empathetic conversations that bring forth the good news of the Gospel into their ears.

Important to this discussion is the term “pre-supposition”, it literally means to make an assumption based on your understanding of the world that you take for granted when speaking. A recent example I can think of is when Pastor Rick came to preach to us last year and everyone here sang the Zaccheus song, and this was not a negative thing at all and a very welcome addition to the worship, but when Pastor Rick made the reference to the song, there was a presupposition on his part that everyone would understand what he meant. Of note, I got to listen to all of your lovely voices sing that song, because I was soooo lost. When dealing with people in the context of ethics discussions though, we want to be careful about presuppositions, because not everyone did grow up singing the Zaccheus song, and if we use those as a framework for our conversations we will be talking like two ships passing in the night, never truly hearing one another. I’m sure you’re waiting for this to all tie together, but I’m going to make it to the end first and then you’ll see why it’s important.

1. Fear Not

Isaiah 43:1-2

The first part of our text today is centered around the COMMAND, and yes it is a command, to not fear. And how could anyone fear anything else in the presence of the Lord, who is the creator and sustainer of our universe? Let’s give ourselves a context of God’s power from the text, the Hebrew word for “create” here is ברא (brʾ), and is only used in the context of the God creating and sustaining His creation. In other words, this form of create is never used to mention Morgan creating a bow, or Pastor Josh creating a new invention, it is only used in reference to God in His majesty in creating and sustaining the Creation from Himself.

A few chapters earlier, in chapter 40, Isaiah points us to the wonders of God in His creation of the world around us, now in this he points us to the fact that that same God created and formed us. Though, the Israelites most certainly still feared other’s even when the presence of this omnipotent God was upon them. It happened to 10 of the 12 spies sent into Canaan, and it has happened here where they place their trust in metal idols erected by men. But in spite of their transgressions, God in these two verses promises that His redemption (i.e. one that has already come to pass) and protection are still upon them.

There is another distinct feature to these verses though. God calls the Israelites His own, not only are they redeemed, they ARE God’s possession. This illustrates for us a deep personal connection, because unlike the the rest of His creation, God calls Israel His children, His first born . In fact, like a father protecting a child from harm, the two opposing elements, fire and water, which are responsible for the death and destruction of billions throughout history, can take no toll on God’s people. Obviously he’s not saying we are immune from them, but the message is clear to us here and now. Once you are God’s child, nothing can harm you ultimately. We'll see why in a second.

2. Savior Who Sacrifices

Isaiah 43:3-4

But first, why does God do these things? Because as the text says, He is God, the Holy One of Israel, their Savior! God has made a covenant with them, and nothing is going to prevent Him from fulfilling His end of the bargain, not even the Israelites themselves. They are so precious in His eyes that He is willing to give other nations in exchange for them, in other words God will use the other nations of the world as chess pieces to bring about the fulfilment of His promises.

All of this is summed up in verse 4,

English Standard Version Chapter 43

4  Because you are precious in my eyes,

and honored, and I love you,

I give men in return for you,

peoples in exchange for your life.

Not only nations though, other peoples. If you were waiting for the connection to the New Testament, I think it’s sprinkled all throughout this text, but the clearest example is here. Where else can we find a statement that echoes something along the lines of, “God loved a group of people and so he gave other people in exchange for their life”? John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The sentence structure is almost identical.

While God is talking to the people of Israel in their exile, he is also talking to us, the church, thousands of years in the future. As the replacement for the nation of Israel as God’s chosen people, through the new covenant in Jesus, the Old Testament is the church’s history as well. My biological family may have roots from Ireland and Czechoslovakia, but through my adoption in Christ to the family of God, my family’s lineage goes back to Abraham and the promise.

3. Promise of Purpose and Gathering

Isaiah 43:5-7

With that, we go into the last part of our text, God’s promise to gather His people.

English Standard Version Chapter 43

5  Fear not, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

and from the west I will gather you.

6  I will say to the north, Give up,

and to the south, Do not withhold;

bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the end of the earth,

7  everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”

This is simple, God is speaking to the Israelites in exile, promising to return them to Him and the promised land, no matter the direction or distance they are away from Him. This of course, has two meanings, it’s for them in Babylonian exile, but it’s also for us now in exile here and now waiting for the second coming of Christ.

In verse 6 he calls us sons and daughters, now this question I’m about to ask gets me some weird looks from some people, because it’s in the text but we don’t ever think of Him this way, did you know Jesus is our brother as believers? He calls us so in Mark, in Hebrews 2 he is unashamed to call us brothers (and sisters, the Greek word adelphoi can mean both and does in this context)*flip and read Hebrews 2:10–12; in Romans 8 he is the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.*flip and read Romans 8:14-15; 29

But what we can be sure of, is just as God kept His promise to gather His scattered people then, that He will be just as faithful to His promise to gather us from all the nations of the world. He has placed His name one us, and as our New Testament reading today said, through Christ we have been given the right to become children of the Most High God.

Get to the Gospel

Now we’ve connected this to the New Testament a few times, but you’re probably waiting for me to end with an explicit connection to Jesus and a call to repentance/alter call, typical things that indicate I’m getting close to being done talking and you’re one step closer to a Golden Hibachi Buffet food coma, am I right? Remember what I said earlier about presuppositions?

Before we conclude, we have to ask, what’s the application to us now? Besides the small things here and there we’ve discussed, how does this passage apply to the church and her mission to live in light of the gospel today?

It is this, that in Christ we have been grafted into the family of God, and while we still suffer under the ruler of this age, the kingdom of heaven is already at hand. Christ WILL come again, Christ WILL judge the living and the dead, Christ WILL give to those according to their works, and Christ WILL redeem His people and this broken world. By the grace and love of God, although we sat as condemned as the Israelites were in Chapter 42, the same promises of redemption and restoration to the Israelites in our text, are promised to the church today. Christ was the people/person exchanged for you, a man worth more than all of Cush and Seba. Because of Him, at the judgement you will be seen as cleansed, washed clean with the blood of the Lamb. If that doesn’t give you hope and make you want to jump out of your seat to sing God’s praises, I’m not sure what will.

To give you the answers you’re looking for, and I’m sure you’ve all been on the edge of your seat waiting for it, here is where that term, presupposition, comes in. Before I became a believer, I always understood it as God is the hot head from the Old Testament ready to smite us for our sins and Jesus is the guy holding Him back, talking Him down, and helping us. For many people outside of the Christian faith, this is the primary way that they see God, and so the contrast in the Old & New Testament seems like a contradiction, like a switch was just flipped at the end of Malachi. We of course know this not to be the case, scripture is one story revealing to us God’s redemptive plan to bring us back to Him in the garden. But when someone would presuppose I understood this, I blocked it out, I heard the same repetitious speech, and a lack of answers for the questions that I had.

Passages like ours today are proof of the continuity of scripture, in fact the first time I read this passage was one of the lowest points of my life, I called out to a God I didn’t believe in asking Him what I had done that was so wrong that I deserved His wrath, that I deserved the bad things that were happening to me in my life, and when I first read Isaiah 42, I presupposed that the next thing coming was the typical threats/imagery of destruction for disobedience, but I was instead met with grace, mercy, with love.

There WAS a switch that flipped, it just wasn’t God changing His mind. In that moment, he didn’t hide me away like an ashamed father, He didn’t instantly transform me into the perfect son, He loved me when I was guilty and He redeemed me. This is the exact same thing we see from Christ in the New Testament. In our conversations with people outside the Christian faith, even those who “grew up in church” we have to be careful not to presuppose our understanding of this concept onto them, I certainly didn’t get it, but it makes sense right? The Father kind of planned the whole incarnation thing. There is one more thing that I want us to remember about this redemption though.

You. Didn’t. Earn it, it is a gift given just as the gift God gave the Israelites here in our text today. When I say this, all of you will nod your head up and down, but to paraphrase a pastor many of you may have heard of before, “If the answer you give at judgment to the question, ‘if you died tonight, what would you say about why you should be let into heaven’ is anything other than in the third person, you’ve already gone wrong.” Some of us might say, “Well I gave my life to you, Lord” “Or I allowed you into my heart by praying a prayer.” or even, “I was a deacon and pastor and I served in the church for 30 years. I sang in the choir every Sunday and gave my tithe every week” None of this will suffice for salvation.

As I mentioned earlier, God made no exceptions when he spoke of Israel’s transgressions, he didn’t say, “they have become plunder, except for Moses and Aaron and Samuel...” Israel has had multiple prophets and kings devoted to God at this point, but none of them escape His judgement here, he gives no exceptions. As Isaiah 64:6 tells us, our righteous deeds used to bolster our standing are but filthy rags before the Lord of Hosts. If your reason as to why you deserve to enter eternity doesn’t sound eerily similar to, “I don’t, but He said I can come in.” then you won’t make it. The gift is freely given, undeserved redemption.

If you think it may be deserved, then we will talk about that next week where we’ll be in Ephesians chapter 1 discussing each member of the Trinity’s role in salvation.