Sermon Tone Analysis

Invasion . . . the very word itself causes us to pay attention.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Invasion refers to an incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.

Or, the incoming or spread of something usually hurtful.

Sermon: Advent 4

December 20, 1998

(15–17)

Other Lessons: ; ;

Theme: Series: 4. The Peaceful Invasion

Goal: That the hearers rejoice in the good news that God is with them always through the mercy of Jesus, our Immanuel.

St. Thomas (December 21): V 2, Pt 4, 1992, pp 56–57

Suggested Hymns: LW 13, 30, 42; TLH 95, 74, 97; LBW 28, 312, (25); CW 2, 17, 64

Rev. Charles W. Blanco, pastor, Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, Fort Lupton, Colorado

Advent Pericopal Series: Visions of the Last Days

Based on Old Testament Readings from Isaiah

1.

Time for a Beating ()

2. Provision for the Improbable ()

3. Overtaken by Joy ()

4.The Peaceful Invasion ( [15–17])

Liturgical Setting

The Epistle accents God’s fulfillment of the promises made through the prophets in former times; most certainly the text from Isaiah is a stellar example of prophecy and fulfillment.

The Gospel records the visit of the angel to Joseph to explain Mary’s miraculous, immaculate conception.

Matthew’s gospel settles right away any question about whether the words of Isaiah have messianic import.

The conception and birth of God’s Son, Immanuel, in the Virgin Mary is the fulfillment of what God had spoken through the prophet more than seven centuries earlier.

Joseph is reminded, then, that when God gives his Word, one can depend on it.

Although all human experience screamed at Joseph that Mary must have been unfaithful, Joseph counts the Word of the Lord as more reliable.

The context of our text is the invasion of Judah by the coalition army of Rezin, king of Aram (Syria), and Pekah, king of Israel (Ephraim), during the reign of King Ahaz of Judah, a weak and disobedient king.

Rezin and Pekah sought Ahaz to be their ally against their stronger neighbor to the north, Assyria.

When Ahaz refused, Rezin and Pekah attacked Jerusalem (circa 734 B.C.).

Ahaz was faced with two options: (1) repent of his sinful ways and trust in the Lord; (2) appeal to Assyria to deliver Jerusalem in exchange for vassal-like loyalty from Judah in the future.

Isaiah urged the former, assuring Ahaz that Rezin and Pekah were nothing more than “two smoldering stubs of firewood” ().

Concerning their plan to overrun Judah, God stated starkly, “It will not take place, it will not happen” ().

Ahaz, however, regarding what he could see with his eyes (the Syro-Ephraimite army threatening him), longed for Assyria’s might.

Sensing Ahaz’s weakness, the Lord offered to provide a sign as proof that God would make good on his promise to defend Jerusalem.

Although it was God himself who offered to perform any sign of Ahaz’s choosing, Ahaz replies that he does not want to put God to the test.

Putting the best construction on it, Ahaz’s response demonstrated a misguided piety: it’s not wrong to test God when God offers to do the test!

Less positively, Ahaz may already have had his mind made up to seek help from Assyria and simply didn’t want any miraculous sign of God’s presence to muddy the waters.

Regardless of the motivation, Ahaz’s response wearies God.

Thus, Isaiah speaks of the sign of God’s choosing, the sign of Immanuel, God with us.

In the time it would take a newly born child to come to know the difference between right and wrong, God would dispense with the cause of Ahaz’s dread.

To stop the Syro-Ephraimite invasion in 732 B.C., God sent Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria to invade Damascus, forcing Rezin to retreat and defend his own capital, where he was captured and executed.

By 722 B.C. the Assyrians had invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel.

Thus, within a period of 3–12 years, God’s counterinvasions had delivered Jerusalem.

Because of Ahaz’s faithlessness, however, Assyria would also be the agent of God’s just judgment as its armies ravaged the cities of Judah, forcing Ahaz to pay a large tribute (“You wanted Assyria, well, now you’ve got Assyria!”).

What is the sign?

“God is with us.”

If the people will welcome God’s presence (his “invasion”) with faith, they will receive his gracious blessing.

However, if the people spurn God’s presence in unbelief, then his presence will be an “invasion” of judgment in the hope that his people will repent.

God showed that he was with his people in many and various ways throughout history, but the greatest display of his presence was when God invaded human history in the incarnation of Jesus.

Jesus is the fullness of the Deity in human flesh; God can’t be more with us than by becoming one of us.

As it was with the sign in Ahaz’s day (either for blessing or for curse), so it is with the fulfillment of the sign in Jesus: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” ().

Textual Notes

Vv 11–13: In v 11 Isaiah uses the term “your God” when speaking to Ahaz.

However, after Ahaz has refused the offer of a sign, Isaiah refuses to refer to the Lord as “your God” (i.e., Ahaz’s God), but now switches to “my God” (v 13), a not-so-subtle declaration of Ahaz’s faithlessness.

V 14 is famous in the history of exegesis, and we certainly will not answer every question here.

There are two camps of interpretation.

In the “critical” camp are those who see no predictive character in the verse at all, regarding Matthew’s Gospel as “reading into” the text what really isn’t there.

In the “conservative” camp are those who believe that Isaiah’s words are God’s Word predicting the birth of the Messiah.

The prophecy of Immanuel is fulfilled, as Matthew says, in the conception and birth of Jesus.

Clearly, we are in the latter camp.

Within the “conservative” camp are two approaches to the prophecy.

One understands the prophecy in a typological sense.

According to this view, Isaiah spoke to his contemporary situation, referring to a contemporary woman and a contemporary birth as a sign that God was still with Israel and, further, that before the young child would came of age, the Syro-Ephraimite threat would be gone.

What happened in Isaiah’s day is seen as a “type,” a foreshadowing of the final fulfillment in the birth of Jesus, the “antitype.”

As with all examples of typology, the antitype exceeds the type.

In the birth of Jesus we find no mere, ordinary child, but the incarnation of the Deity through the miraculous conception within the Virgin Mary.

In the birth of Jesus the foes engaged are sin and death and hell.

In the birth of Jesus the sign is given to the whole world.

In the birth of Jesus deliverance will come not by the hand of another nation’s military might but by Immanuel shedding his own blood to deliver sinners through a vicarious atonement.

(As an example of the typological approach, see the note on the verse in the Concordia Self-Study Bible [St.

Louis: Concordia, 1986].)

Others in the “conservative” camp promote a rectilinear approach.

These interpreters understand Isaiah’s reference to the conception and birth of Immanuel to mean Jesus and Jesus only.

They believe that the Lord inspired Isaiah to see into the future when God would make his presence known among his people in the incarnate Jesus.

This promise of God’s future presence was to be a sign to believers in Isaiah’s day that God would never break his covenant promise.

Isaiah then drew on this future fulfillment for a contemporary application: in the span of time it would take for Immanuel (Jesus) to grow to know the difference between right and wrong (according to his human nature), that is, in a general time frame of 3–12 years, the Syro-Ephraimite threat would be over.

(As an example of this approach, see Edward J. Young’s three-volume commentary, The Book of Isaiah [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965].)

Can the text itself decide between these two “conservative” approaches?

If the Hebrew ‘almah can only mean “virgin,” and if the Hebrew word harah is a verb pointing to a future virgin conception, then the typological interpretation would seem to require two virgin births, denying the uniqueness of the immaculate conception of Jesus in the Virgin Mary.

However, the term ‘almah isn’t that precise.

Of the six occurrences of ‘almah in the Old Testament (, referring to Rebekah; , referring to Moses’ sister; , referring to timbrel-playing maidens in a holy procession; , referring to “the way of a man with a maiden”; , referring to maidens’ love for a man; , referring to maidens as distinguished from queens and concubines), all appear to refer to young women of marriageable age, but without explicit reference to virginity (although in the context of Israelite culture, that status would certainly imply virginity).

None of the passages refer to a married woman (i.e., a woman who is certainly not a virgin).

However, in , when the virginity of Rebekah is specifically mentioned, ‘almah is not used, but bətulah, the more precise Hebrew word for virgin.

Isaiah does use bətulah in 62:5, so he is familiar with the term, but apparently chose not to use it in 7:14.

John N. Oswalt (The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1–39, NICOT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986], 211) argues that Isaiah selected ‘almah instead of bətulah so as not to focus Ahaz’s attention on the virginity of the woman but on the sign of God’s presence.

Oswalt suggests that the slightly ambiguous term ‘almah is well-suited for its use since in Ahaz’s time it could refer to a young woman who was about to marry and give birth to a child within whose early life it would be proven that God was with his people (thus the name of the child would be Immanuel).

The term ‘almah could also have the more complete meaning of “virgin” in application to the immaculate conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary.

Thus, Oswalt suggests, ‘almah was chosen precisely because it could refer to two signs, one for Ahaz given through natural means, and one for the world given through supernatural means, Immanuel in the fullest sense, Jesus.

Further complicating the issue is the Hebrew word harah in v 14.

As the word is pointed, it is not a verb, but an adjective, “pregnant” (thus, “Behold, a pregnant ‘almah”).

If harah is to be a verb (“will become pregnant, will conceive”), then it must be admitted that the pointing is an anomaly (see the discussion in Oswalt, p 211, n 25, and in Young, I:285, n 33).

Even the reference in v 15 to eating “curds and honey” is controverted.

Some (see Concordia Self-Study Bible) regard this as a meager diet due to the desolation wrought on the land by the Assyrian attack.

Others (see Young) regard this diet as a sign of Immanuel’s royalty, as a sort of ambrosia.

The debate between the critical and conservative camps, and between the typological and rectilinear camps, will continue.

What is clear is this: Jesus has come as Immanuel, God with us, once for all, invading human history as the greatest sign of God’s grace.

Those who receive him in faith will watch as he drives the enemy of sin and death from the field.

Sermon Outline

Invasion . . . the very word itself causes us to pay attention.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, Invasion refers to an incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.

Or, the incoming or spread of something usually hurtful.

For example, in 1939 80-years ago, Poland was invaded by the Nazis, the beginning of World War II.