A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 57: The Heir of the World

From Genesis chapter 12 and the initial promises to Abraham, and throughout the Bible to the very end of the Book of Revelation, the entirety of Scripture may be summarized in one simple declaration: on account of the Word of God, the seed of Abraham through Jacob were given promises that they would ultimately inherit and inhabit the entire earth. There are more general promises to the entire race of Adam, and the Adamic man was created to be immortal, as the Scripture inform us, however these issues are peripheral to the more immediate promises made to this one man and his family, as we shall also see here in Isaiah chapter 54, and the the focal point of the apostles of Christ is the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 

Here in Isaiah, as well as in the other books of the prophets, it is evident that these promises were never retracted or nullified, and they were never transferred to any other people. In their captivity, the children of Israel would become those many nations which had been promised to Abraham as well as in subsequent promises made to his wife Sarah, and to Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob. As Paul had written in Romans chapter 9, the children of Isaac through Jacob are counted as the seed of Abraham which is destined to inherit the promises. There Paul had repeated the promise to Abraham that “In Isaac shall thy seed be called” and then he attested that “the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” So the seed of the inheritance which is in Christ was determined in the promises to Abraham in Genesis, which Christ had come to fulfill. 

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 56: The Suffering Servant

The figure who is described here in Isaiah chapters 52 and 53 is commonly called the Suffering Servant by Christians in general, and they correctly and appropriately identify that servant with Yahshua Christ, as the apostles of Christ had also done in their epistles and Gospel accounts. Many of the longstanding, traditional interpretations of the words of the prophets are correct, however quite sadly they are only correct in relation to certain aspects of those prophecies, and then they have accepted a false narrative of the consequences of their fulfillment in other aspects.

This prophecy of the suffering servant cannot be separated from its context within a prophesy of the announcement of the Gospel of Christ, but it also cannot be separated from the call which we had seen in Isaiah chapter 52, for the people of the captivities of Israel to touch not the unclean, and to come out from among them, which is evidently a reference to the people of the nations to where they had been scattered. We had seen that in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul of Tarsus had interpreted that passage and beckoned Christians of his time to separate themselves from all those who did not have and follow the calling of Christ, to be separate from all of those who had not been cleansed on the cross of Christ. This is how the ancient Israelites spread abroad, the true children of God, were separated from His enemies and from all the bastards in the ancient Roman world in the early centuries of Christianity.

As a digression, the acceptance and organization of the churches in the councils of the time of Constantine and subsequent emperors, which resulted in the emergence of the later Roman Catholic Church in the 6th century and with the laws of Justinian, of which the eastern Orthodox churches had also been a part, was a vastly different, imperial form of Christianity which is contrary to Christ, which redefined the meanings of many Biblical terms, and which ignored or dismissed the meanings of most of the words of the prophets. So neither Roman Catholicism nor modern Orthodoxy have ever truly been Christian.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 55: The Report of the Gospel

In our last presentation, Behold, it is I!, we focused on statements found in Isaiah chapter 51, where the Word of Yahweh had said “I, even I, am he that comforteth you” (51:12) and here in Isaiah chapter 52 where He said: “Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I” (52:6). These passages we sought to cross-reference to many similar statements which are found elsewhere here in Isaiah, and in the words of Christ in the accounts of the Gospel, which together serve to establish the fact that Yahshua Christ is indeed Yahweh God incarnate. In support of these assertions, in 1 Timothy chapter 3 we read:

14 These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: 15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. 16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the [Nations], believed on in the world, received up into glory.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 54: Behold, it is I! 

Here we are only about halfway into Isaiah chapter 51, and we tarried for two weeks on the first half of the chapter, because we find it necessary to properly correlate these promises which had been made to the children of Israel in captivity, after they had been divorced and alienated from Yahweh their God, to the messages of redemption, salvation and reconciliation which are found in the Gospel of Christ. As Paul of Tarsus had written in Ephesians chapter 2, the Church of God is “20 … built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”, and speaking of a mystery in Ephesians chapter 3, he declared:

5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; 6 That the [Nations] should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.

This is where we differ from all denominational Christians and from the eighteen-hundred-year-old interpretations of the traditional churches, which do not agree with the writings of the apostles. The promises to Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob all indicate that only the seed of Jacob would inherit the promises and blessings of Abraham, and that through Jacob the seed of Abraham found in the later twelve tribes of Israel would become a great nation, and a company of nations, which would be eternally blessed by God. In Luke chapter 11, Christ Himself expressed the Divine commission of both prophets and apostles alike, implying that the messages of both groups would be harmonious, where He said “49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute”, so they would both be equally hated for their common message. Therefore, we cannot interpret the words of the apostles in any manner which is contrary to the words of the prophets, and if there is an alternate, harmonious interpretation, that is the only interpretation which we may accept, so long as we are honest and seek truth.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 53: The Redeemed of Yahweh

In Isaiah chapter 41 the Word of Yahweh turned from the events surrounding Judah and Jerusalem, and began to address the isles and coastlands, which are the places where the children of Israel would be found after the time of the Assyrian captivities. Many had also escaped Palestine by sea, and others had settled the Mediterranean coasts much sooner, which we had discussed in relation to The Burden of Tyre much earlier in Isaiah’s writing, where Yahweh had also admonished them, that they would not be forgotten. However, from that chapter forward, the context in the narrative of Isaiah really has no clear break until the opening verse of chapter 49, where the Word of Yahweh once again begins to addresses the same people and says “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far,” so even that is not really a break in the context at all but seems to be more of a reminder of who it is that He is addressing. Then, while He had addressed the isles and coastlands, at the same time Yahweh continually addressed Jacob and Israel, so they remain His subject and concern throughout Isaiah, and it cannot be imagined that He is speaking to any people other than Israel in captivity. None of the promises found throughout these chapters of Isaiah are relevant to any other people. The isles or coastlands who would await His law and His light are the places where He had expected to find the children of Israel. 

This is illustrated even further where chapter 50 opens, and the children of Israel in captivity are challenged to produce their mother’s bill of divorcement, their mother being an allegory for their nation, and again here in chapter 51 where in the opening verses they are told to look to their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. So nearly eight hundred years after the time of Isaiah, when Paul of Tarsus had written his epistle to the Romans, he explained in Romans chapter 4 that the promise the Abraham’s seed had already become many nations by his time was fulfilled “as it is written”, and he told his readers that Abraham was their forefather, according to the older Greek manuscripts, or their father, in the medieval Byzantine manuscripts, “as pertaining to the flesh”, so Abraham was their natural, genetic forefather, as well as the forefather of the remnant of Judah in Judaea. The Israelites of the captivity who had forsaken the law, for which reason they were sent into captivity, had become the “uncircumcision” of Paul’s epistles, while the Israelites of Judaea who had aspired to keep the law were the “circumcision” of his epistles.