Your God Reigns!

 If you have been a Christian for a while, or have been exposed to Christians, certain Bible references will be familiar to you. For example, you would be hard-pushed to find someone who gives you a blank stare when you ask them whether or not they know John 3:16. Many scriptural passages are simply very familiar to us and that's a good thing.

Since I've spent a couple of posts spelling out what I think the overall story of the Bible is, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to take a couple of “well known” passages and see if putting them in the framework of the grand narrative of Scripture adds any depth to them. I am convinced that it does and I want to show you how. Hopefully this will model a way of approaching many more familiar passages in a fresh way. For this post I've decided to go for Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53, whilst not as well known as, say, John 3:16, is nonetheless a very familiar passage. You will have heard from it even if you don't recognise the reference. Here is a sample:

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and Yahweh has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:5-6)

Those are probably fairly familiar verses to most of us. Isaiah is prophesying about a person who would carry the sins of his people in their place – exactly what Jesus did for us. Thus far we are on familiar territory. Now what happens when, instead of viewing this as an isolated prophecy about Jesus in a sea of Old Testament Scriptures, we insert it into the Biblical narrative?

Isaiah 40-55 is addressed to God's people during the Babylonian exile (approx. 586-540 BC). The prophet encourages God's people to return to their land because their time in exile is up. Not only that, but Isaiah promises a restoration which surpasses anything they had seen before. The kingdoms of David and Solomon, in Isaiah's view, were nothing compared to what would happen when Israel returned from exile. Check out the colossal promises in chapter 52 (which interestingly is just before chapter 53):

Awake, awake,

put on your strength, O Zion;

put on your beautiful garments,

O Jerusalem, the holy city;

for there shall no more come into you

the uncircumcised and the unclean.

Shake yourself from the dust and arise;

be seated, O Jerusalem;

loose the bonds from your neck,

O captive daughter of Zion.

How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of him who brings good news,

who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,

who publishes salvation,

who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;

together they sing for joy;

for eye to eye they see

the return of Yahweh to Zion.

Break forth together into singing,

you waste places of Jerusalem,

for Yahweh has comforted his people;

he has redeemed Jerusalem.

Yahweh has bared his holy arm

before the eyes of all the nations,

and all the ends of the earth shall see

the salvation of our God.

(Isaiah 52:1-2, 7-10)

Imagine being an insignificant people in exile and hearing those promises: return, restoration, salvation and most importantly, the declaration: “your God reigns!” (v.7). Needless to say, the sense of anticipation would be palpable. The promise was clear, Israel would come out of exile and their restoration would be so impressive that all the ends of the earth would see God's salvation (v.10).

Now fast-forward a few years and imagine standing in a rebuilt Jerusalem under Persian rule. Imagine looking at the new foundations of a Temple which looked nothing like the one Solomon built. Imagine hearing old men who had seen the first Temple weeping because they remembered what the old one was like (Ezra 3:12). Imagine the sense of confusion. Had God broken his promises? What about the prophecies in Isaiah 52 and other places? To all appearances, God had not yet fulfilled his promises.

In fact it seems like the Jews expected these promises were still awaiting fulfilment because when they translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek a few hundred years later, they translated Isaiah 52:7 (Hebrew: “your God reigns”) as a future (Greek: “your God will reign”). Restoration had not happened the way they had expected it. The exile was not truly over. Where was God's return as king to his people?

Enter Isaiah 53. God did return to his people as king! God did fulfil his word, but it didn't happen the way Israel thought it would. 500 years after the physical return from exile, the true return from exile happened as a wreck of a man was beaten, whipped, and crucified on a Roman cross outside the city of Jerusalem. Little did the onlookers know that this man was embodying Isaiah 53. He was being crushed by his God; He was being punished for our transgressions! Three days later he conquered the very power of death and burst forth from the grave (Isaiah 53:10: “he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days”)

God truly did return to his people, but this took place in a way that no-one had expected! As Isaiah cried out in 53:1 “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?” The end of exile and the return of God to his people promised in Isaiah 52 happened definitively in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah!

That is the reason Paul can quote Isaiah 52:7 and apply it to us: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15). Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, the exile is over! Because of his death and resurrection, God has returned to his people! Because of his death and resurrection, we become the messenger of Isaiah 52 running over the mountains preaching good news to the lost and shouting to the distressed and depressed watchmen: “your God reigns!”