Posted: 10/26/06
Bible Studies for Life Series for November 5
Live in relationship, not rebellion
• Isaiah 1:2-4,10-20
By Kenneth Lyle
Logsdon School of Theology, Abilene
The goal of life in the western world is perhaps best expressed in over-used phrases like, “Get the most out of life …,” “Live life to the extreme …,” or “Realize your potential … .” Infomercials, self-help specialists and life coaches all claim to have the secret to living a full and important life.
But the desire to live an abundant life did not come late to the human experience, nor did the call to find abundant life in relationship and service to the living God.
Over the next four weeks, these lessons bid us to listen to the voice of an ancient prophet and heed his summons. The series of lessons, “Invitation to Maximum Living: Isaiah Speaks Today,” focuses on passages from the book of Isaiah that set stark choices before God’s people. The prophet Isaiah powerfully sets before God’s people clear choices—relationship or rebellion; light or darkness; reality or delusion; life or life abundant.
As one of the major prophets, Isaiah (along with Jeremiah and Ezekiel) constitutes a major portion of the Old Testament prophetic literature. The opening verse of the book gives some evidence of the identity and location of the prophet: “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (v. 1).
The historical books of the Old Testament provide information about these kings in Judah (2 Kings 15-20; 2 Chronicles 26-32). The early chapters of Isaiah (1-39) relate primarily to the circumstances surrounding these eighth-century-B.C. kings, and the prophetic word found there speaks to the rollercoaster ride of political and military events facing Judah.
The latter chapters of Isaiah (40-66) reflect the time of the exile, the Persian conquest of Babylon and the return from exile. For this reason, some scholars suggest another prophet or prophets, perhaps disciples of Isaiah (Second Isaiah, Third Isaiah), recorded a further word from God for a subsequent generation.
Regardless of compositional theories, the book of Isaiah represents an ongoing picture of God speaking to God’s people in the midst of their triumph and struggle.
What is lost matters (Isaiah 1:2-4)
The journey through Isaiah begins with the summons to choose relationship over rebellion. The first chapter of Isaiah presents a simulated courtroom experience. The heavens and the earth are called upon to sit in judgment, and the prosecutor-judge, God, voiced through the prophet, lays out the charges against the people.
God’s people have become rebellious children (v. 2). They are a “sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption” (v. 4). They willingly have turned away from their greatest advantage—a relationship with the living God: “They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him” (v. 4).
At the heart of the charge is the recognition that the essential problem is a lack of knowledge and understanding. Unlike an ox that knows its master or a donkey that recognizes its owner’s trough, God’s people refuse to hear God’s voice (v. 3).
When humanity rebels against God, something important is lost. The special relationship God desires to have with his people is severed—not from God’s side, but from the human side. When humanity turns away from God, it loses the ability to know God or to even understand God. Interestingly, the Apostle Paul reflects on this same truth in his letter to the Romans (1:18-32).
Why I worship matters (Isaiah 1:10-15)
In the subsequent verses, Isaiah continues to voice evidence of Judah’s wounded and desolate condition, the result of their rebellion against God. The crescendo of hardships heaped on the people peaks with the recognition that “unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah” (v. 9).
The shocking and unthinkable comparison of God’s people with the sinful, rebellious and condemned cities of Sodom and Gomorrah becomes a shocking and unthinkable identification of God’s people in verse 10.
Moreover, God’s people are identified with the quintessential rebellious people precisely at the level of their worship of God. What should have set them apart and made them special—their relationship to God expressed in sincere worship—has become the occasion for empty sacrifices (v. 11), “meaningless offerings” (v. 12), “evil assemblies” (v. 13), burdensome feasts (v. 14) and pointless prayers (v. 15).
The passage again invites comparison to Paul’s treatment of sinful rebellion in Romans 1 and 2. Rebellion against God is not just found among the irreverent Gentiles, but also among the Jews who should have known better. God desires and appreciates worship when it is offered in sincere and encompassing ways; however, when worship becomes just another “thing” we do, a duty to check off our list, or worse yet a means of manipulating God, then worship becomes detestable to God. Empty worship matters not to God; God requires more.
How I live matters (Isaiah 1:16-20)
The focal passage ends with a resounding prophetic call to pursue rigorously the things that matter to God. At the heart of the argument is God’s call to renew the broken relationship. In intimate relationship language, God calls out: “Come now, let us reason together … though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (v. 18). It is as if we have moved from the law court scene to the family living room, where God says to the estranged family members, “Come on now—let’s argue this thing out, let’s fix it.” God beseeches his people to “stop doing wrong” (v. 16) and lays before them the things that really matter—doing right, seeking justice, encouraging the oppressed, defending orphans, pleading for widows (v. 17).
God presents two choices—relationship, characterized by willing obedience, or rebellion, evidenced by resistance to God’s will. Relationship leads to blessing; rebellion ends in bitter failure (1:19-20).
Discussion questions
• In what ways do we fail to know God or to understand God? How does knowing God differ from acknowledging God?
• How does our worship of God set us apart and make us different? In what ways might our worship become like the empty worship described by Isaiah?
• How do we as reconciled members of God’s family “learn to do right”? How do we seek justice? Encourage the oppressed? Defend orphans? Plead for widows?
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