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Summary

Isaiah

Isaiah is the first of the major prophetic books, standing immediately after the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, and opening the section of Scripture devoted to the prophets. The book bears the name of the eighth-century prophet who ministered in Judah and whose words the Holy Spirit preserved as a sustained witness to God's holiness, His judgment against sin, and His promise of salvation through a coming Servant. Across sixty-six chapters, Isaiah holds together law and gospel, warning and comfort, in a way few other books of Scripture do.

At the heart of Isaiah stands the throne-room vision of chapter 6, where the prophet sees "the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple," while the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" Isaiah 6:1-3. Isaiah, undone by his own sinfulness, confesses, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips." Yet God Himself cleanses the prophet's lips with a coal from the altar and commissions him to speak. This pattern—God's overwhelming holiness, our unworthiness, His gracious cleansing, and His sending—runs through the whole book.

Isaiah is, above all, a book about the coming Christ. Chapter 53 describes the Suffering Servant with such precision that one Messianic Jewish teacher, on first reading it as an adult, concluded, "This is the Savior." There the prophet writes, "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities… and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" Isaiah 53:5-6. Holy Jesus alone was righteous, and yet the wrath for the sin of all was laid upon Him. This is divine wisdom that looked like foolishness to the world—the Holy One bearing the iniquity of us all—and it shows how unlike us God is in His mercy. The book also gives the great Christmas promise that "unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given" (Isaiah 9), the prophecy of the virgin who shall conceive and bear Immanuel (Isaiah 7), and the herald's voice in the wilderness of Isaiah 40 that John the Baptist would later fulfill.

Several refrains from Isaiah have become anchors of Christian teaching. "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever" Isaiah 40:8 confronts every notion that truth is a social construct or a matter of majority vote: God's word is the truth that endures when every cultural fashion has faded. "Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear" Isaiah 65:24 frees the believer's prayer life, because the answer precedes the petition and God Himself is the instigator, the inspiration, and the implementer of our prayer. And Isaiah's promise that God's word will not return to Him empty (Isaiah 55) gives every Christian witness courage: we plant the seed and trust the Lord with the harvest.

A verse-by-verse walk through the book is offered in the congregation's study series, beginning with Isaiah: Lesson 1 and continuing through later chapters in Isaiah: Lesson 17 and Isaiah: Lesson 18, with stops along the way that explore peace, pride, and planting in Exploring Isaiah Chapters 2-5: Peace, Pride, Picture, and Planting (Isaiah: Lesson 2) and the throne-room call of chapter 6 in Isaiah: Lesson 6. Whether read straight through or returned to one chapter at a time, Isaiah keeps drawing the reader back to the same confession: the Lord is holy, we are sinners, and God Himself is our salvation in Jesus Christ.

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