By Editor Bob Terry
Evangelical Christians love the Old Testament Book of Isaiah. They love the emphasis on personal faith that the prophet stressed. Though decades apart, Isaiah advised both King Ahaz (735 B.C.) and King Hezekiah (701 B.C.) that only faith in God could save Jerusalem from the threat of foreign invaders (Isa. 7:9; 28:16; 30:15). Perhaps more than any other writer, Isaiah presented personal faith as the only appropriate response to God.
And what Christian’s heart does not soar while reading Isaiah’s foretelling of a coming Messiah? The prophet wrote of the Messiah’s birth in Chapter 7, His taking the throne in Chapter 9 and His rule in Chapter 11.
Isaiah 53 reads more like a news report of events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion — Isaiah’s long-promised Messiah — rather than words penned almost 800 years before His death. Stated simply, Isaiah played a key role in developing the Jewish people’s Messianic hope.
Isaiah developed another major theme, which is not as popular with many evangelical Christians today as his emphasis on personal faith and the coming Messiah. That theme is what makes up true service to God. Truthfully the people of Isaiah’s day did not like that part of his message either.
Page Kelley made the point clearly in his book “Discovering Isaiah.” He wrote, “Isaiah’s contemporaries believed that the true service of God consisted of acts or worship performed at a central sanctuary with a duly ordained priesthood offering the prescribed sacrifices. They believed they were fully accepted by God because they participated in such services of worship.”
For those who do not know, Kelley was a native Alabamian and longtime professor of Old Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Isaiah had a different view. To him, true service to God applied to acts of justice and mercy performed in behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the homeless, widows and orphans.
The tensions between popular religious understandings of Isaiah’s day and his message are described graphically in the book’s opening chapter. There the Lord recounted the “multitude of … sacrifices” and “burnt offerings” (v. 11). God noted the people tried to worship Him through burning incense, keeping the feast days on the Jewish calendar and praying. God even acknowledged the frequent worship services and holidays marked by New Moon festivals, Sabbaths and solemn assemblies.
The Jews of Judah were religious. Of that, there is no doubt. Like many Christians today, they attended worship. They prayed. They gave. They read the Scripture. Their personal piety was strong as they went through the rituals of the faith. These acts constituted true service to God, the people believed. And like many today, “they believed they were fully accepted by God because they participated in such services of worship.”
Yet the first chapter of Isaiah is filled with denunciations of those in Judah and Jerusalem. Of their sacrifices, God asked, “What are they to me?,” and of their offerings, He said, “I have no pleasure” in them (v. 11).
God called their worship through incense “detestable” and declared, “My soul hates” your festivals and feasts (v. 14). God even said He could not bear the people’s solemn assemblies (v. 13) and warned that He would hide His eyes from their prayers (v. 15).
God lumped all these acts of personal piety together in verse 16 and practically screamed from the pages of Scripture, “Take your evil deeds out of my sight.”
What God demanded, according to Isaiah, was for the people to “stop doing wrong, learn to do right” (v. 17). It was not participation in worship rituals, not sacrifices or offerings, not prayers or special services that God desired as true service.
Instead God commanded, “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (v. 17).
Later in the chapter, Isaiah wrote, “The faithful city (Jerusalem) has become a harlot” because “your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them” (v. 23).
Because the people and their leaders did not offer true service to God through justice and righteousness, He decreed, “I will turn my hand against you” (v. 25).
It was not because of idolatry that God threatened to punish Judah. It was not because it abandoned worship or religious rituals. God turned His hand against Judah and Jerusalem because the people failed to live in justice and righteousness. This is what Isaiah taught was true service to God.
The theme of justice and righteousness being true service to God is not limited to the first chapter. The book’s final section (Chapters 56–66) sees the nation restored following the Babylonian Captivity. As this great book neared its end, the writer returned to the first chapter’s theme.
In Isaiah 58:5, God again pointed out the difference between a personally pious religious act and what He considers true service. This time, the topic was fasting. Beginning in verse 6, God outlined what He considers a true fast. God said, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loosen the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”
“Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
When this kind of true service was offered to God, the restored nation would see “your light break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear” (v. 8).
From this great book’s beginning to its end, Isaiah’s hope was always in a coming Messiah. The prophet taught the only way to be rightly related to God is through personal faith. And for those who know God, the only way to offer Him true service is through deeds of justice and righteousness.
That is a lesson that must not be forgotten by Christians today.
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