“The Dragon Is Slain”
[Isaiah 27:1-13]
May 5, 2019, Second Reformed Church
For a third chapter, Isaiah takes up the eschatological theme – the end of the age when all is restored by Messiah, Jesus Christ, as He brings the Kingdom to earth.
He begins by stating “in that day,” God will slay the sea dragon.
“In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
The first question we need to ask is, “who is Leviathan?”
In God’s rebuke of Job, He talks about Leviathan – the fire-breathing sea serpent, and, in part, says:
“I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame. Who can strip off his outer garment? Who would come near him with a bridle? Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror. His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal. One is so near to another that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. In his neck abides strength, and terror dances before him. The folds of his flesh stick together, firmly cast on him and immovable. His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone. When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves. Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; for him, sling stones are turned to stubble. Clubs are counted as stubble; he laughs at the rattle of javelins. His underparts are like sharp potsherds; he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired. On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride” (Job 41:12-34, ESV).
Leviathan is a mammoth, fire-breathing sea serpent or sea-dragon. Probably a cousin to the fire-breathing dragons that walked on earth.
Is God talking about killing this creature? No, God is not talking about killing the actual animal, Leviathan. God is talking about putting an end to those things that Leviathan can represent. He is a serpent – like the serpent in the Garden of Eden who tempted our representatives, Adam and Eve, into sinning and bringing the fall of all of humanity to pass. And Leviathan lives and rules in the sea. The sea was consider the place of danger, death, fury, and so forth.
We know God is not talking about the animal but about things the animal can represent because of the sword that God uses to kill “him.” God, Who is a Spirit, does not wield any physical sword, but as we see in Revelation the sword is the Word of God.
“Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:12-16, ESV).
As Paul, writes, “and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” (Ephesians 6:17, ESV).
On that day – at the end of the age – when Jesus returns – He will come as the Word of God and with the Word of God to finally and eternally punish evil and death and hell and the devil. As John writes, “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10, ESV).
Tremendous news! All evil and sin will be taken away and eternally tormented – they will not plague the people of God forever. On that day, the “dragon” will be slain.
Second, there shall be a worldwide vineyard.
“In that day, ‘A pleasant vineyard, sing of it! I, the LORD, am its keeper; every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day; I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together. Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.’ In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.”
The Lord God will grow a vineyard on the last day. All thorn and briers will be gone – the vineyard shall grow without weeds to choke it. God will keep the vineyard night and day. It will not be possible for anyone to make war against it. The vineyard will be at peace. God will keep it and water it. And the vineyard is Jacob and Israel who will root and blossom and put forth shoots and fill the entire world bearing fruit.
The vineyard is the new Garden of Eden. Humans no longer work it, but God works it and grows it. And it is a vineyard – and do we remember this imagery, fellow believers?
Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:1-11, ESV).
Jesus is the vine, all we believers are the branches, and Jesus bears fruit through us as we obey Him – especially as we proclaim the Gospel to the world – and the vine and the branches grow throughout the entire world and bear fruit throughout the entire world, because the elect of God – all those who will ever believe in Jesus – come from every tribe and nation and tongue on earth.
Third, Jacob has been disciplined to the fullest.
“Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain? Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them; he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.”
Jacob – all we who ever believe – have received the fullness of discipline. God will not allow us to continue in sin, and He will teach us, even through the pains of being struck, or slain, or sent into exile. God disciplines His people because He loves them. God would not discipline a people He did not care for or did not have a future for.
“Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing. For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf grazes; there it lies down and strips its branches. When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them. For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favor.”
Besides discipline, there is atonement. God makes His people right with Himself. In this the full fruit of the atonement will be the removal of sin – the sin of the people of God will be paid for in full. This is what Jesus did. As Paul writes:
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:18-21, ESV).
This is seen – in part – in the fall of Jerusalem some thirty-five years after the crucifixion, in 70 A.D., when God did away with the sacrificial system because of the work Jesus did and for the sake of the idolatry that Israel was engaging in.
The author of Hebrews explains:
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 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 9:11-14, ESV).
Jesus offered the final and perfect sacrifice that pays the debt for all of our sins and puts an end to the sacrificial system – it is unneeded and an affront to the work of Christ to engage in it.
The Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and the sacrificial system came to a permanent end. The Temple was reduced to rubble, the weeds grew up among the rubble and the animals sought food and shelter in its remains.
We are disciplined until Jesus returns, but He took on the full Wrath of God for each of us that we would be forgiven and made right with God eternally.
Finally, there is a threshing.
“In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.”
God told Abram that he would give the Promised Land to him if he would obey:
“On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:18-21, ESV).
Isaiah uses the familiar promise of the boundaries of the Promised Land and says that on the last day, God will thresh out all the people of Israel and gather His elect out of the Promised Land.
What do we make of this since the Promised Land was never fully received by Israel and God has just said Jesus will bear fruit through us throughout the world?
Whereas the boundaries of the Promised Land were from the Nile River to the Euphrates River, the bounds are now described as Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5, ESV).
The Promised Land is now the entire earth – everyone who ever believes inherits the entire planet! And God will not miss one of the elect. Every person that Jesus died for – throughout the Promised Land – even as captives in Assyria and Egypt – all will be brought into the everlasting Kingdom on earth.
Brothers and sisters, all sin and death and hell and evil and suffering have been slain by Christ through the Word of God. God will cause us to flourish and mature in the faith, bearing good fruit to His glory. God the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us is transforming us into the Image of Jesus Christ through discipline and through the maturing of us in faith and obedience. And we have this dual promise: the entire planet belongs to all of the people of God – every one for whom Christ died – and not one that Christ died for will be lost, but found and brought into the everlasting Kingdom with Jesus.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for this Good News through the mouth of Isaiah. We thank You that this message has encouraged believers for almost three thousand years, and we believe that Jesus is coming. In the meantime, help us to grow in faith and obedience, use us to Your glory, fill the world with the Gospel and draw Your people to Yourself. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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