The Good News of God's Reign - Tabletalk for April 18

This is too good not to post.

We have often commented on how hard it must have been for the Jews in exile to believe that God would and could save them. (When chosen ones get removed from their land and surroundings, hard to believe restoration will occur.) If the Lord had let them go into the exile in the first place, how could they be sure that God would rescue them? Though we might sympathize with them to a point, we must not forget that this doubt was birthed in sin--the same sin of not believing God's warning that there would be dreadful consequences for idolatry, which prompted the exile in the first place.

2 Chronicles 36:15-21

The Lord sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

That salvation was long in coming for the exiles was not the Lord's fault but theirs. God had no need to believe His own words promising restoration for it to finally come, but the exiles did (need to believe God's words). Their lack of trust in His Word got them into their mess, so the only way they could get out was to believe the Lord. (Note how this historical reality pictures what it takes for us to be reconciled to our Creator. Our failure to believe God's Word in Adam got us into sin. Believing His Word for our justification is what gets us out (of sin))

Romans 5:12-21

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Consequently, Isaiah calls the exiles to faith in today's passage. His declaration that the people need to wake up and loosen their bonds is a metaphor for developing a strong belief in the Lord and His willingness to save

Isaiah 52:1-2

Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake yourself from the dust and arise; be seated, O Jerusalem; loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

After all, it took a particularly strong faith to persevere in believing that God could take that which was downtrodden and powerless--the exiles themselves--and effect restoration.

The persistent doubts of the exiles meant that the Lord would have to intervene despite their failures if they were ever to be rescued from exile. He would have to provide an atonement for their sin of unbelief so that His elect could be released from its bondage and be awakened to faith. He would have to establish His reign for all to see, His blessed presence among His people. The good news for the Jewish exiles and, indeed, for the whole world is that our Creator was willing to do this. Despite the unbelief of the people, Isaiah heard a voice crying, "God reigns" (v.7). The establishment of God's blessed kingdom was sure because it was grounded in the Lord's intent and actions, not the will of men. Faith gets a person into this kingdom, and even this faith is God's gift (Ephesians 2:8-10), but faith does not establish the kingdom. God establishes the kingdom, and in the results of this work He enables His elect to become kingdom citizens by faith alone.