Isaiah 11-12, The End of Everything: Messiah's Singing Remnant
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What is the meaning of life? Where is everything going? How would you tell the human story? We believe the Bible is God’s telling of that story from His perspective. I’d like to tell that to you. Then show you what it means for your life.
If we start at the beginning, we see God creating the world
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
as a temple to His glory. His Holy Spirit is overshadowing creation.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then ten times, Genesis tell us, “And God said...” and everything was created. So we have God’s Spirit and God’s word, creating all things, giving life. And God creates a being to be His image in the world-temple: human beings placed in a garden exploding with life, with abundant fruit trees. And He breathes life into them.
The word for breath in Hebrew, ruach, is the same word for spirit. We are given a spirit to commune with the Holy Spirit. And then comes God’s word to us, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and have dominion (kingdom) over it.” God’s Spirit and God’s word, authorizing us to spread abundant life (the garden) across the world, caring for one another and all God’s creatures.
But in our sin, we stop listening to God’s word, we reject His Spirit, and we start dying. We take more than we give. Instead of spreading fruitful life, we create wastelands. When Adam and Eve listened to the voice of the serpent and sinned, they were exiled from the Garden of Eden into a wasteland with two curses. 1. God cursed the ground, and life would come through painful toil. 2. God cursed the serpent that tempted Eve, and created hatred between the offspring of the snake and the offspring of the woman.
One way the Bible develops the theme of God’s life-giving work through His Ruach/Spirit and the wasting work of sin is using the symbol of trees. A literal, physical tree, like a fig tree or a grape vine, can be a symbol of God’s blessing for a person, a family, or a community. But a “tree” in the Bible can also be a metaphor for God’s words to us.
A “tree” can also be a person, rooted in God and His word, living a fruitful life, caring for others and creation; or rootless in selfishness, withered and dying, or proud, going to be cut down. A nation can be a “tree” rooted in God, His word, and His Spirit, bearing the good fruit of justice and righteousness, or bearing bad fruit like violence and oppression when it is rooted in sin.
In the Old Testament prophets, a “tree” can also be a king and his kingdom, either flourishing and providing life to their people, or being cut down because of their wickedness.
Isaiah depicts the nation of Israel like a vineyard (tree-ish) in chapter 5. It has been bearing bad fruit, idolatry, in justice, violence, and oppression, so God is going to allow it to be cut down. And by chapter 11, the kingdom of David, the son of Jesse, has been cut down to a stump . In the chapters between 5 and 11, Isaiah tells us that the LORD God Almighty is moving world events to remove Israel as a nation. The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires will carry Israel into Exile for her sins. But the LORD also promises that He will not forget His covenant to Israel. He will restore a remnant, a small group of faithful people, to the promised land. They would not just return to the land of Israel, but they would return to the mighty God , and would learn to trust Him as YHWH, the Ever-living Holy One of Israel.
And in chapter 11, Isaiah picks up the theme he introduced in chapter 9. The remnant will be ruled by a new king. A child will be born as king, and He will be named for God Himself.
Isaiah 9:6–7 (ESV)
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
So the promise was that after judgment and punishment for sin, God would establish His remnant through a king, a ruler, who would fulfill the promise God made to David to establish His throne forever, and rule in justice and righteousness.
Isaiah says it will be like a branch sprouting new, fruitful life, out of the stump that once was the mighty house of David. The word used for “branch” in verse 1 is the Hebrew word nezer. The gospel writer Matthew, one of Jesus’ disciples, notices that this word looks something like the name of the town in which Jesus grew up, Nazareth. Matthew recognizes this little clue Isaiah left regarding the identity of Messiah (just one of many).
Isaiah prophecies the resurrection of the family tree of Jesse, the father of David. This will happen, according to verse 2 when the Spirit of the LORD rests upon him. When God’s Ruach/Spirit breathes on creation, dead things come alive. All the idolatry in our world has created vast wastelands of spiritual, economic, relational, racial, and political injustice. Who will bring justice and restore us to fruitfulness?
The coming of the Messiah is the remaking of the world, beginning in one group of people. The Messiah will be known by the “Seven-fold Spirit/Ruach” resting on Him.
Isaiah 11:2 (ESV)
And the Spirit of the Lord (1) shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom (2) and understanding (3), the Spirit of counsel (4) and might (5), the Spirit of knowledge (6) and the fear of the Lord (7).
7 is the number of perfection or completion. The Ruach resting on Messiah has the perfect fullness of both power and wisdom. It’s the Spirit of the Ever-Living One, YHWH, the LORD God. That 7th quality, the fear of YHWH, guides His knowledge and understanding, so righteousness and faithfulness guide His reign.
In fact, He will judge all disputes and injustice, not by examining what he sees or by what he hears, both of which senses were used to tempt human beings into sin in the Garden, along with touch and taste, leaving one sense pure enough to judge rightly. A literal rendering of verse 3 would be
Isaiah 11:3 (ESV)
And his smell (delight) shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
The root word for smell in Hebrew is the same root word for breath or spirit, ruach. His spirit will resonate with the fear of the LORD. He can sniff it out. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, of fruitful living, of righteousness, and every other good thing. The lack of fear of the LORD is the beginning of folly, injustice, and a wasted life.
So, putting the pieces of these verses together, the Messiah will be the One who can take a wasted life, or a dead nation, and guide us into fruitfulness, righteousness, and faithfulness in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.
He will bring true justice.
Isaiah 11:4 (ESV)
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
He doesn’t judge the poor and humble differently than everyone else. But He also will make sure that the wicked are truly punished. Think about all the ways these have gotten turned upside down in our world. The poor are disproportionately arrested, judged, and convicted. The wicked often seem to prosper, let alone receive justice.
We hope in a Messiah who understands true justice and righteousness and will judge all of us justly. He will breathe in to determine if the fear of the LORD is in us. But He will also breathe out to kill the wicked.
We all want this. We want to know that the injustices that go unanswered in this world will one day be made right. But while everyone was expecting a Messiah who would judge the wicked, as in “all those sinners in the world, everyone else but me”, Jesus breathed out words like,
Matthew 5:21–22 (ESV)
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
And this kills us all. When we understand true justice requires a pure heart, who can stand? But then, He breathes again, and the Holy Spirit gives us life through words like,
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus is the Messiah, and God’s Spirit rests on Him, and He brings life to dead wastelands. Like the life of a sinner who is condemned by the words of Jesus who teaches us the pure righteousness required by God’s law, and who also receives the word of life from Jesus in the gospel, “Come to me and live”.
Isaiah’s promise is that the Messiah will restore the world to a garden of Eden state, in 11:6-9. This time period, still to come according to the prophets, is called “the Messianic Age”. We will experience peace, life, and the overthrow of the curse. The offspring of the woman, a child, playing with the offspring of the serpent.
When all the world is remade by Messiah, the earth will no longer be a wasteland in which God is not known, but a lush garden, secure and fruitful,
Isaiah 11:9 (ESV)
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Creation itself will be restored. The presence of Yahweh, the Ever-Living God will be known everywhere.
Isaiah goes on to promise restoration in four aspects, in 11:10-12:6. Each of these is introduced with the phrase, “in that day”.
11:10 - restoration of the Kingdom of God over all nations
11:11 - restoration of the remnant of His people from exile
12:1 - restoration of peace for the redeemed
12:3 - restoration of pure worship
This ends the first major movement of Isaiah’s prophecy. Each movement ends the same way, the redeemed remnant of the people of the LORD singing His praises in His restored kingdom.
In this case, Isaiah tells us, this will come when Messiah establishes the kingdom among us by the Spirit of the Lord. The redeemed will draw water from the wells of salvation He provides, because, “righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins (Isaiah 11:5).”
While we may not yet see all nations inquiring of the Lord and the redeemed people secure in Zion, we do see Jesus. He has not yet established this promise in its fullness, but He has established it within us. Jesus came filled with the Spirit of the Lord, taught us the fear of the LORD, in obedience to death on a cross, establishing peace between us and God, and teaching us peace between each other. He overcame the curse and the serpent who deceived us. And He fills us with the knowledge of the LORD.
Communion
What does this mean? We may not be living in the Messianic Age. But we live in the Messiah. He has called us to these four restorations. We are the signal for the peoples, we preach the gospel to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit. Come to Jesus, trust in Him, and you will enter the kingdom of God. We are calling exiles and sinners to return to God. It’s a message of peace, established in the cross of Christ.
Until the Messianic Age comes in its fullness, where is this restoration not yet known among the nations? Where is His justice and righteousness and faithfulness and steadfast love not yet established? This is where we are called to go.
And we live lives of pure worship. Everything we are and have belongs to our Lord Jesus. We worship God in spirit in and in truth, singing His praises as we go.