Abstract
God’s Living Word
Isaiah 55, the last four verses of which formed our first reading today, is one of the great passages of the Old Testament. It certainly means a lot to me!
Very many biblical scholars see chapter 55 as the conclusion of the second main section of the Book of Isaiah. Starting at Chapter 40, this section is addressed to the Jews in Exile in Babylon in the second half of the sixth century before Christ, and—in God’s name—promises them release from captivity, return to Zion, renewed life in the land of Israel—in short, redemption or salvation, in an earthly sense.
This release, return, renewal, redemption is clearly described in Isaiah 40–55 as a mighty act of the
And chapter 55 is the climax, the culmination, the conclusion to the whole section. It emphasises how much greater God’s thoughts and ways are than human thoughts and ways, but also how, because of his majesty, he will send forth his ‘word’ from his mouth—which will accomplish what he desires and succeed in the task for which he sends it, so that the Jews may ‘go out with joy and be led forth with peace,’—from Babylon to Zion, with even the whole creation rejoicing in this salvation.
Quite rightly has verse 12 of Isaiah 55 been set to music as a popular Christian worship song. Quite rightly are verses 6–11 used as a canticle, a song of praise, in various modern Christian daily prayer books. It is as a canticle that those verses in particular have sunk into my memory, so that I now know and use them by heart quite frequently. It may sound a bit quirky, but I say them when I’m driving and the MPG counter starts telling me that I’m getting 55 miles to the gallon! I find it a good way of being reminded of God in my daily life.
But I find that I cannot on these occasions speak of God’s ‘word that goes forth from his mouth,’ accomplishing what he desires and succeeding in the task for which he sends it, without thinking of Jesus, even if he was not explicitly in the mind of the prophet when he was first inspired to utter these immortal words.
For in the New Testament, in the books named after John—the Fourth Gospel and the Letters of John—Jesus is clearly referred to as God’s living Word, sent to the earth for a definite divine purpose. 1 John 1, for instance, declares that the letter’s theme is ‘the Word of Life,’ which was there from the beginning, which our eyes have seen and our hands have touched.
The opening verses of John’s Gospel are even more explicit—and are, of course, so very, very famous: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning … And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth.’
For ‘John,’ God’s living Word sent to the earth for a purpose is none other than Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. And I am convinced that the description of God’s purposeful and successful word in Isaiah 55 is one of the passages that lie behind the portrayal of Jesus as the Word of God in the New Testament.
And as God’s word in Isaiah 55 is sent to the earth with a purpose and a task in which it will definitely succeed before returning to God again—the task of securing the release and salvation of the Jews in Exile—so God’s Word who is Jesus was sent to the earth with a task and a purpose from God, in which he definitely succeeded before he returned to God again—the purpose and the task of securing the eternal release and salvation of the whole world.
That purpose and task were accomplished by all that Jesus was and all that Jesus did on the earth—by his incarnation; by his birth, childhood and obedience; by his baptism, fasting and temptation; by his ministry in word and work; by his mighty acts of power and by his preaching of the Kingdom; by his agony and trial; by his cross and passion; by his precious death and burial; by his mighty resurrection, by his glorious ascension and by his sending of the Holy Spirit (to quote from a wonderful section of the Great Litany).
He did all of that—the Christian faith believes—in obedience to God, in fulfilment of God’s purposes and desires for the world, for us and for our salvation, so that we too might ‘go out with joy and be led forth in peace,’ in a true, heavenly and eternal sense.
Our salvation is achieved for us, not by us, but by God himself, sending forth his true and living Word, Jesus, to accomplish his desire and his purpose of redeeming us to himself. It’s an act of sheer unmerited grace and favour to us, not something that we can earn or deserve—just as the release of the Jews from Exile in Babylon was achieved by God through his word as an act of sheer unmerited grace and favour.
But, of course, we still have to receive and accept that free gift, so as to make it real for us, just as the Jews in Exile did. If you like, we have to unwrap and use the gift, the present, that is God’s salvation in his living Word, Jesus, otherwise it’s pretty well useless—as any unwrapped or unused gift is, of course.
And one way in which we can describe how we can receive and accept God’s grace is by using some words from earlier in Isaiah 55: ‘Seek the
If we truly seek to do these things—calling upon God, turning away from sin in action and thought and turning to God day by day, perhaps particularly in prayer, then, I believe, God’s grace—the free gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, God’s living Word—will start to be real in us, for us, through us and for the world. Thanks be to God for his living Word, which goes forth from him and does not return to him fruitless, but accomplishes that which he purposes and succeeds in the task for which he sent it—that task of achieving our eternal salvation!