I said before I don't consider myself very educated or scholarly. I don't have any formal Biblical education nor am I a theologian of any sort, but I love God and I read the words of the Bible to know him better. The Bible is a collection of stories, poems and prophecies which all are written so we can learn about God's character and it all points to Jesus who is the hope for all of mankind. When I read the Bible I'm always asking God to show me himself and to show me Jesus through what the words are saying and to change me and make me more like him as I read it. Through this, God has revealed so much to me, not only how awful the sins I commit really are and how offensive they are to a Holy God, but also how beautiful and merciful it is that this Holy God loves me enough to have came up with a plan to save me from my self destruction long before I even existed.
As I read through a few different commentaries, the background on the book of Isaiah that I agree most readily with is explained here from the ESV study Bible that I read from pretty regularly as a means to know God better. I believe it is important as a Christian to believe that Isaiah was written entirely by the prophet Isaiah. I believe the main reason people are unwilling to accept this possibility is because it takes faith to do so. Faith in a God who is all-knowing and doesn't just "predict" the future but knows every detail of eternity and prepares his children accordingly. Please read the info from the link provided above, because it gives a solid explanation of how the book of Isaiah was written and inspired by God and how it fits quite beautifully into the story (God's story) of the entire Bible. It not only applies to the nation of Israel in the 8th century B.C., but can be applied to every single human being on the planet... even now.
The first two Chapters and God's grace through his righteous judgments...
The God I know, the God of the Bible, is both just and loving. At the core of Christian belief is the gospel. The Gospel is the good news that God became a man named Jesus and paid the price for the sin of all humanity. This sacrifice was the only way that sin could be dealt with once and for all. It was the exchange of sin for righteousness at no cost of the sinners who receive it. Jesus then rose from death therefore conquering it and therefore paving the way for anyone who believes in him to experience a new life free from death and now as an adopted child of God! It is important to know this is the core because it is out of that knowledge, the knowledge of a sacrificial, unconditional, void of manipulation, freeing and life-changing love, that all of life and information can be filtered through. If I read about God's judgement and wrath in the Bible and get discouraged or confused I filter it through the knowledge of His love, goodness and grace displayed in the Gospel and I understand that His love for us and desire to be with us causes Him to relent and be kind. And not only that but He unleashed the full extent of His wrath on Jesus so that we can be saved from it.
That said, the first few chapters of Isaiah God is revealing the conditions of the people's hearts to this prophet. He shows Isaiah clearly that he sees that they have stopped worshiping God in a way that is pleasing to him. The sacrifices and and practices that God had taught His people were meant to remind them that they worshipped a mighty God who would lead them, protect them and provide for them, but they had stopped believing this. They stopped believing in God's goodness and started looking instead to their fears and in their own abilities. They would perform rituals such as offering incense and raising their hands in prayer, but only as a means of begging God for things they wanted or needed. This lack of faith resulted also in even manufacturing pagan idols (man made statues and carved images) to pray to and also taking solace in turning to the armies of foreign nations who didn't believe in the one true God. These acts God compares to adultery and prostitution. Not only that but they were not even taking care of their own people. They were forgetting to look out for those who were weak and needed help, because of their blindness to the heart of God.
In a time when no one wanted to admit what was really going on, when the people wanted to believe they still were doing everything the way God wanted, and were still good people who deserved God's love and favor, Isaiah points out the truth. He sees what is really going on and he also sees God's anger and heartache over their pride and disillusionment. This man had a lot of courage.
The beauty of God showing us the truth of where we are really at is that his grace tastes that much sweeter. Imagine 2 men who are dying of a disease and don't yet know it. One man's doctor tells the man and says "Okay, this is really really bad. You are seriously ill. You have maybe a few months to live unless...". Then the other man's doctor is really nervous and doesn't want make his patient's cheerios soggy so he gives him some medicine and says with a big cheesy grin on his face, "Ok, well take this medicine and exercise a bit... eat a little healthier and you'll feel a lot better." The cure is the same for them both, but the first man is going to not only do everything his doctor says, knowing the condition of his health, but he's going to live each day knowing he's been given a second chance. God's heart for us is like this. With sin it's a bit trickier though. We see other people doing fine not living their lives for God. We see people succeeding and even relatively happy, so when someone tells us "you're living a lie and you need to turn away from these idols and turn to God" we may or may not believe. Despite whether we take these warnings seriously or not though, God will always keep giving them. Hearing that I'm prideful and wrong doesn't feel good... hearing the long term affects of this type of disobedience might even make me angry, but the reality is that if God wasn't good he wouldn't have wasted his time with us at all and he definitely wouldn't have tried to warn his people (the people who had turned their backs on him countless times) about what would happen if they would not repent.
One of the most wonderful parts of these first few chapters is in 1:18. "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet. they shall be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." Modern day diplomacy, I believe, takes after the heart of God, after all, we were all made in his image. The United Nations always tries to reason with a nation before it declares any sort of repercussions or consequences for evil. This happens even with the worst and most offensive dictators, but even in this, no fair governmental leader would say to an evil dictator "I will look upon you as clean and pure even though there is blood on your hands." The heart of a father can say this though, and that's who God is. He is the kind of dad who looks for every opportunity he can to reconcile. He has made every provision for us to humble ourselves and look to him. We can ignore his numerous attempts to save us from our certain destruction, or we can choose to only see with our physical eyes and only trust in what we make with our own hands. And time will tell all...
Isaiah 2:22 "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"
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