ANNOUNCER: This is Grace in Focus, Welcome, friend. Today we are looking at Isaiah and the Messianic thread that weaves its way through the book. There is a picture that emerges beginning with His virgin birth. We will also see the Suffering Servant and the reigning King. Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We are located in North Texas and on the web you can find us at faithalone.org. There you will find many offerings, products, podcasts, ebooks, our magazine, and a bookstore, where among other things Bob Wilkin’s latest book can be found titled, “The Gospel is Still Under Siege.” That’s faithalone.org.
Now with today’s discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling.
BOB: Okay now, Philippe, we’re moving to Christ in the book of Isaiah, which is an important book.
PHILIPPE: And Isaiah covers, I think, everything concerning the incarnation of Christ going then all the way to the new heavens and the new earth and His reign over everything.
BOB: Yeah, in fact, the reference to His incarnation, Isaiah 7:14, is an extremely famous verse.
PHILIPPE: Yes, Isaiah 7:14, then he said, “Hear now, O house of David,” and then verse 14, “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel.” Of course, the angel Gabriel, directly speaking to Mary and Joseph, says this passage is indeed the fulfillment.
BOB: Yeah, and Immanuel, I remember when we took Hebrew, Immmanuel, Imanu is “with us,” and El is short for Elohim. So Immmanuel means God is with us, meaning that when Jesus was born, God was with us. God was present in bodily form.
PHILIPPE: Yes, and this is an angelic pronouncement of that fact, by Gabriel. And so in Isaiah, just as we were talking about the book of Psalms, the thread becomes a whole tapestry that produces a distinct image for us, concerning the Messiah that was to come and that came. In Isaiah 7:14, talking about His virginal conception, and that this is a direct prophecy concerning Christ. I think we picked that up in chapter 9, where it says in verse 6, “For unto us a Child is born.” So what child is this? Well, I think it’s the child going back to Isaiah 7:14.
BOB: And by the way, this is part of the famous Handel’s messianic chorus.
PHILIPPE: Yes, the Hallelujah Chorus, “And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” So there, in the opening chapters of Isaiah, are those two distinct prophecies concerning the incarnation of Christ, and ultimately of His reign, there will be no end to His government.
BOB: Yeah, it goes on to say, “Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end.” And some people have said that this refers to an ever-expanding kingdom. I believe it’s your view that, and it’s mine as well, that on the new earth, there will be people in natural bodies and both for the nations and for Israel. And so Israel and the nations will keep getting bigger.
PHILIPPE: Yes, that will be a fulfillment of that original creation purpose for man.
BOB: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. They didn’t do that. And we haven’t done that, but it probably will be done by the end of the Millennium. If not, it will be done sometime in the beginning of the new earth.
PHILIPPE: Yes, and it may continue not only to fill the earth, but to fill all of the new creation. The new heaven and the new earth. Perhaps a vast expansion to other planets, to other galaxies, but free of sin and fully fulfilling the creation purpose of a man.
BOB: So it’s not absolutely certain that there will be children born in eternity. The biggest verse against it, of course, is the verse where Jesus said, in the resurrection, men will not be given into marriage will be like the angels. However, the question is, will everybody be resurrected? We know during the Millennium, which is the beginning of the kingdom, the first thousand years of the eternal kingdom, there will be children born. And so it’s quite possible that at the end of the Millennium, what will happen is God will have at least one couple, if not many couples, to where they will not be passing on a sin nature to their children. And then the children who are born will be born innocent. They will be born with no sin nature. And if he will fix them in that state, they will remain like Adam and Eve would have been if Adam and Eve had never sinned and then God had at some point said, okay, you’re sealed in that state, so you will not be able to sin.
PHILIPPE: Yes, so we’ll have two distinct modes of humanity, one glorified, resurrected, one that is natural without sin, and continuing on generation after generation and expanding.
BOB: And if this is true, and I think it was Patterson in like 1898 who wrote a book called The Greater Life and Works of Jesus. And he cited this verse, “of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.” He said that the only way that could literally be true is if the kingdom is ever expanding. And by the way, this would also help us understand where Paul says that eye has not seen, nor ear heard all the wonderful things that God is going to do. We don’t even have a great understanding of it. All we know is it’s going to be magnificent.
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BOB: Paul says, eye has not seen nor ear heard all the wonderful things that God is going to do. We don’t even have a great understanding of it. All we know is it’s going to be magnificent.
PHILIPPE: And there’s two views of the eternal state. There’s one that it’s a fixed group, static, and unclear what is done even in Dante’s Paradise. It’s just the choirs around the throne of God forever and ever just singing and, I guess, playing instruments and everything.
BOB: That would be great if that’s what God wanted for us. But frankly, I’d kind of like to be doing something more than singing. I mean, singing can be something we do some of the time. But what else are we doing?
PHILIPPE: So it could be as a glorified mode of humanity, with those who rule and reign with Christ working with all of the humanity, without sin, but working with them to forever expand the government of Christ throughout the new earth and ultimately, I think, throughout the heavens.
BOB: Well, if you, if you all want to read about this, go to our website, faithalone.org. I believe we have a couple of articles.
PHILIPPE: Actually a series of three articles, I think they’re going back to 2011, 2012, 13. First of all, it’s a surprising number of commentators, and you mentioned Patterson going to the late 1800s. Actually, I was able to trace it back to the 1850s, and perhaps even a little bit further, of some others that seem to imply it, and going into a lot of current, very well known current commentators, including Tony Evans too, that has a couple of chapters in a book devoted to this as well.
BOB: Right. So I’d encourage you to think about it, meditate on it, pray about it. Whether this is true or not, the kingdom is going to be marvelous, but it seems the Scriptures do teach that the descendants of Abraham are going to be like the stars of the sky, and like the sands of the seashore. And if that’s not just hyperbole, we know there’s something like 100 billion stars, and that much in grains of sand as well. So the new earth is probably not going to be able to accommodate hundreds of billions of Jewish people, as well as all the other, the people from the nations, and as well as the people from the Church.
PHILIPPE: That emerging picture of Christ in the book of Isaiah, beginning with His virginal conception to the Child whose government will expand forever and then we come to, there’s many other places, certainly in Isaiah, but some of the more prominent ones are the servant songs that we have in the second half of Isaiah.
BOB: Like chapters, especially 52 and 53?
PHILIPPE: 52 and 53 will be the complete suffering Messiah that emerges, picture of the suffering Messiah, but begins with His call and commission in chapter 42 of Isaiah. Continues on with his steadfastness, his compassion, in Isaiah 49, and in verses 1 to 13, and then again in Isaiah 50:4-11. There’s four servant songs that are recognized as clearly being messianic. But it builds up till we come to chapter 52:13, through chapter 53:12.
BOB: Which is called the suffering servant.
PHILIPPE: The suffering servant there. And talking about His being basically the Lamb of God, who goes to take away the sin of the world, who dies, but then who is resurrected also, and who will reign forever. So all of this in Isaiah.
BOB: Right. That’s fantastic. So anything else in Isaiah? Next time we’re going to be talking about Zechariah and then conclusion, we’ll kind of wrap up the Messianic thread in the Old Testament, but anything else about Isaiah?
PHILIPPE: We just barely touched everything it says about Christ in Isaiah, but Isaiah 11:1-10 does encapsulate for us the entire view.
BOB: Okay, let’s end there then.
PHILIPPE: Okay. And Isaiah 11 is all about the reign of, it says, Jesse’s offspring, the title that I have here for the chapter in the NK JV. But says, “There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” And then it talks about the millennial period in verse 6, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,: and it all will “come to pass in that day,” verse 11, “that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left,” and he will bring them all back in, establish the millennial kingdom as we learn also then in Revelation.
BOB: That’s fantastic. Well, I think it’s important for all of us to recognize that we really don’t understand the New Testament fully if we don’t understand the Old Testament, and the opposite is also true. We don’t understand the Old Testament fully if we don’t understand the New. They go together. It’s important for us to recognize that Christ is not only found in the New Testament, but He’s also active in the Old Testament. And Isaiah is one of the beautiful places where we find many messianic references. So we’d encourage you to do that study, and in the meantime, let us keep grace in focus.
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And on our next episode: the Messianic Thread in Zechariah. Please join us. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.
