“The New Jerusalem”
[Isaiah 4:2-6]
April 22, 2018, Second Reformed
Church
Much of what Isaiah preaches only
begins to occur in his day and reaches its fruition some two hundred years
later in the Babylonian conquest of Judah.
As we saw last week, God judges a society that rejects Him by giving us
weak and ineffective leadership – and so forth.
Judah began to see that in the day that Isaiah preached, but the
fullness of it had yet to come. He was
warning them of what would happen if they didn’t repent and turn back to God.
Yet, in the midst of this dire
warning for Judah – and us – there is a promise – a hope: “Tell the righteous that it shall be well
with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds” (Isaiah 3:10, ESV). And we remember the purpose of discipline and
punishment is to generate repentance.
God is not some sadistic overload who enjoys hurting his people, no, our
God desires us to repent of our sin – to turn back to Him, to ask Him for
forgiveness, and to go forward, rejecting the sins of the past, and instead,
walking in faithfulness and obedience.
From this brief consolation in
chapter three, Isaiah now expands what he says in this morning’s fuller
consolation so the people of God – those who savingly believe in God – will not
lose hope as they suffer. And Isaiah directs
our focus to what will happen “in that day.”
And, again, we have to make sure of
where and when we are. When is “in that
day”?
This passage describes the period of
time from Christ’s first coming through His second – what some call the Church
Age. What John calls the millennium. The time we are in now.
And we see three things that will
occur “in that day” – three things meant to be a consolation and a hope for
Judah as she undergoes the fullness of her suffering for her sin.
First, in that day, the Branch of
the Lord will be glorified.
“In that day the branch of the LORD shall
be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and
honor of the survivors of Israel.”
The imagery should make sense to us – God
has just told Judah that He will take away all their food and water as part of
their punishment. Yet Isaiah is using
the imagery of fruit to talk about something more important than food, isn’t
he? He isn’t talking about God’s
favorite tree or vine.
Jeremiah says, “Behold, the days are
coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and
righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will
dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is
our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 23:5-6, ESV).
And, “In those days and at that time I
will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute
justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and
Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called:
‘The LORD is our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 33:15-16, ESV).
Isaiah and Jeremiah are preaching about
the coming of God the Son in the flesh, Jesus Christ.
The Glory of God will be manifested in the
coming of God the Son to earth. God the
Son will come in the person of Jesus to live and die and rise and ascend, so
the Church will be restored. Through the
work of Jesus on earth, the work of salvation for all of the elect of God – all
of the people of God – is completed and sealed.
God’s plan of salvation is revealed to us, and we see the Glory of God
revealed in it, and we are filled with hope and joy as part of the Church that
Jesus has restored and redeemed.
And the revelation of the Glory of God in
the salvation of His people is massive beyond our comprehension or ability to
receive, because God is the most glorious Being in existence, so, for each one
He has saved, the Glory is revealed, and is multiplied from one person to
another.
And the fruit that Christ bears in us and
the fruit that we bear for Him by God the Holy Spirit is our pride and our
honor – if we have anything to boast in, it is the Lord – who He is and what He
has done – the Gospel.
God glorifies His Son, Jesus, the true
heir to David’s throne, our God and Savior.
And we glorify God as we make Him known through our words and
deeds. As one catechism puts it, the
main purpose for human life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
When the air is heavy with sin and the
judgment of God, our hope, our comfort is that we belong – body and soul – to
our God and Savior – as The Heidelberg
Catechism reminds us.
God is glorified as Jesus is known to be
God the Savior, and God is glorified as we believe savingly, and tell others,
living lives of faith and obedience, and finding our purpose and hope and
comfort in Him.
And since God is glorified in the Church
that Jesus saves, we also have assurance that we will always be His. God will not allow another to take His glory,
and since we bring Him glory, He will not allow us to be taken – to be lost –
but we are forever in His mighty hands.
Second, in that day, those who have been
recorded for life will be called holy.
“And he who is left in Zion and remains in
Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in
Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of
Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of
judgment and by a spirit of burning.”
Notice the legal language being used – and
remember the courtroom scene we looked at last week. Here, all those who are left in Zion – that
is, all those who are in the house of God – in the habitation of God – in the
place where God lives, will be called holy.
They will not be holy – yet – not of their own doing, but they will be legally
seen – by God – as holy. They will be
accounted as holy.
Why?
Because Jesus stood in our place before
God, both as the keeper of the Law and as the sin of every believing
sinner.
In order for us to be legally declared
holy, Jesus took our place under the curse on the cross, having lived a perfect
life under the Law of God – which He credits to each one who believes, and
Jesus took our place before God and under God’s Wrath for the debt we owe God
for every sin we ever commit. Jesus
lived and suffered and died in our place – and Jesus asked the Father to credit
His righteousness – with the payment of our debt – to all we who believe – so
we are seen – we are credited – we called righteous – holy – though we are not
yet actually holy.
Peter writes, “He himself bore our sins in
his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By
his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now
returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (I Peter 2:24-25, ESV).
God makes a forensic declaration on our
behalf for Christ’s sake – He declares us holy.
And all we who have been saved by Jesus
have had our names recorded for life – written in the Lamb’s book of life, as
John writes of the coming Kingdom and its inhabitants, “But nothing unclean
will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only
those who are written in the Lamb's book of life” (Revelation 21:27, ESV).
God has a record of all those who will
ever believe – those He chose from before the foundation of the earth, and they
– and they alone – will inhabit the Kingdom – free from the inclination and the
ability to sin.
As we progress through this life until the
day we are changed and glorified on the day of Christ’s return, we are being
made into the Image of Jesus by the working of God the Holy Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit is cleansing us with water
and fire to purify us – to remove the dross – the impurities – from our gold,
and washing us clean with the Blood of Jesus so the stain of our sin and our
sin nature are washed away.
John writes, “But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of
Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7, ESV).
The author of Hebrews writes, “how much
more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the
living God” (Hebrews 9:14, ESV).
And so, we are holy, and we are being made
holy, we are clean, and we are being made clean, and we are pure, and we are
being made pure – to the glory of our God and Father, Who gave a people to His
Son for Him to save – even we who believe.
Third, in that day, the Lord will protect
us and keep us safe.
“Then the LORD will create over the whole
site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the
shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a
canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge
and a shelter from the storm and rain.”
Again, Mount Zion – the dwelling of God – is
mentioned – and we are to understand it to be the fullness of the Kingdom into
which all believers will be received, based on the picture drawn for us. Just as Jesus is “God with us,” so God will
always be with us and we in His presence in the Kingdom.
And Isaiah tells us that God will envelope
the Kingdom with a cloud by day and fire by night – and I hope that sounds very
familiar to all of us – it would have been to Judah.
Hear the Word of God as recorded by Moses
of Israel moving from Egypt to the Red Sea, “And the LORD went before them by
day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar
of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The
pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from
before the people” (Exodus 13:21-22, ESV).
The Exodus, besides being history, is also
a foreshadowing of the salvation that God gives us through Jesus. Just as in the days of Moses, God protects
and guides His people in the Kingdom through the pillar of fire and the pillar
of smoke. Once we are received into the
fullness of the Kingdom on the last day, temptation and sin will never lead us
astray. Rather, we will be God’s holy
people and we will follow the fire and the smoke to increase our faithfulness
and obedience – our understanding and love of God – to the fullest extent that the
human mind can comprehend.
Then Isaiah tell us that the fire and the
smoke will be like a canopy over the Kingdom.
And the commentators explain that the canopy always refers to the
covering over the marriage bed. And we
are the Bride of Christ. As John the
Baptist notes about Jesus, “The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The
friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the
bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete” (John 3:29, ESV).
John writes about the unity of Jesus and
His Church on the last day, “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for
the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;” (Revelation
19:7, ESV).
We are united with Christ and will be
united in the fullest in the Kingdom.
Our desire and will will be the desire and will of Christ. While we struggle to be obedient and faithful
now – while we strive for holiness now – in that day, Christ will make us His
spotless Bride to be united with Him in marriage in a way we do not yet know or
fully understand.
Understand, we do not become gods, we are
not absorbed into God, we do not become God, but there is a unity among us and
Christ that is foreshadowed in the marriage union.
Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives,
as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify
her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he
might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27, ESV).
Christ is purifying the Church – all we
who believe – for that day when He will return and we will find like-wedded
union with Him for eternity.
Finally, we are given the image of the
booth in which we are saved from the heat of the sun and the rain and the
storm. And, again, this would have
immediately been understood by Judah, and perhaps by practicing Jews today, but
we may not understand.
As Israel wandered through the wilderness
for forty years, she lived in booths – structures of wood and cloth that protected
them from the elements.
Amos preaches, “In that day I will raise
up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its
ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old,” (Amos 9:11, ESV).
The Feast of Booths is one of the three
most important feasts of Israel, “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak
to the people of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and
for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the LORD. On the first day shall be a
holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. For seven days you shall
present food offerings to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall hold a holy
convocation and present a food offering to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly;
you shall not do any ordinary work’” (Leviticus, 23:33-36, ESV).
You may have seen wooden structures built
outside of modern synagogues for this feast – as a remembrance of the way that
they lived as they travelled through the wilderness. It is the most joyous of feasts – a feast of
the salvation of Israel by God – first from the hand of Egypt, and ultimately
from sin.
Another name for the Feast of Booths is
the Feast of Tabernacles.
John writes, “And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from
the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, ESV).
Another way to translate this is “And the
Word became flesh and tabernacled among us…”
And so, Jesus is the Tabernacle that saves us from everything that can
possibly do us harm.
Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t get sick
or die. What it means is that if we are
under Christ – if we are in Christ – He is our protector, our Savior – and our
ultimate state of glory is secure in Him – we cannot be lost or taken away from
Him.
And so He keeps us and preserves us, and
we know that whatever might happen in this world, we are His and He is holding
us with Him and He will not let go. In
the fiercest storm – when we are being thrown here and there – Christ is
holding us and He will never let go.
Beloved, we are living in a very strange
time – in the last days – in those days – days of hope and comfort – days when
we long for Christ’s return – days when Christ is here with us – days Isaiah
longed to see. Yet we are not done. We are waiting in hope for Christ’s return
and the restoration of the Creation.
With that hope, let us never lose sight of
the fact that we are untied with Christ and He is keeping and protecting us so
we can be assured that we are His forever.
Let us strive for holiness, even as Christ
lived a holy life and paid the debt for our sins, let us respond in thanks and
praise by obeying Christ and repenting of our sins.
And let us desire the Glory of God to be
in the Church. Let us pray for the
Church and pray for each other that we would open our mouths to tell others
about Jesus and the salvation He has accomplished for us. Let us go out from this place and talk to our
neighbors and the shopkeepers and the clerks and our children and nieces and
nephews….
Let us pray:
O God, our Father, we live in a time of
unparalleled knowledge and access to it, yet we are no different that the
saints of old in our need for salvation.
You have glorified Yourself and Your Son Jesus in the work of salvation
and You are glorifying Yourself in Your Church and we ask that You would glorify
Yourself through us. Use us to make Your
Name and the salvation of Jesus known.
Keep us from fear. Help us to
rest secure in the work and the promises of Christ that we have heard in
Isaiah’s preaching this morning. Let us
have a renewed sense of boldness going forth, for, in life, we live to glorify
You, and in death, we glorify You and are glorified by You. Use us explosively. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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