May 25, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Says the LORD. ‘Because they burned incense on the mountains and scorned Me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their former deeds.’” (Isaiah 65.7b)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

We might say that Isaiah, as was John the Baptizer in the days of Jesus, was a bridge between Old Testament prophecy and New Testament reality. Of course, for Isaiah, there was no “New Testament.” At least not in the sense by which we identify the gospel and its fruit of the Spirit bound in gospel community. These prophecies, as well as others like Daniel and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and the Minor Prophets were the foretaste of a glory humanly divine. They were the foreshadowing of the “New Testament” which was made by the blood of the Lamb in the name of Jesus the Christ. Mighty ones of God, God told the nation of Israel and by them (pro and con, willingly or unwillingly) how He was in control of their lives for redemption, reconciliation and restoration. He had no desire to “control their lives” because He had given them freewill. He warned them that seeking to “control their destiny” as a people of the world would result in a death which they would not be able to escape on their own effort. Only by honoring and serving Him as their God and one another as God’s people could they find the hope of authentic living and the joy of it. It was theirs to choose. But choosing themselves first, seeking their own will and not the will of God, would compromise their lives in disastrous ways. Choosing to walk by faith and not by sight, which is a good way of understanding “choosing your own will and not the will of God,” provides the means of their salvation. What would be required was repentance (a confession of guilt and the expression of the pain of fatal discovery that sin was the true enemy of God and person), sacrifice (humbling oneself before God and others in that confession and repentance) and providing a substitutionary sacrifice (which the Law prescribed and God commanded and modelled.) And here is the bridge in Isaiah between the Old Testament (the testimony of humanity’s former way of living according the passions of life bound in sin) and the New Testament (the testimony of humanity’s new way of living according to the passion of life bound in the Spirit of Christ.) It was and remains all about what God is doing and the sacrifice(s) He has made.

“I will measure into their laps full payment for their former deeds.” This is what God had promised to do, was doing and has done. What seemed to be lost in translation was the “measure” of measure. Why do we get so confused about what God is doing? Do we not see His benevolence, desire and compassion for humanity? It is a reality for all the people who on earth have dwelt, are dwelling and will dwell until the day of the return of His Ambassador and Viceroy (to use human terminology) to mete out justice upon those who accept and reject His promise, His blessing and His word. While so many people see a vengeful God (and yes, He promised that vengeance belonged solely/soul-ly to His providence and sovereignty) filled with malice, deceit, hatred, violence and self-serving manipulation, nothing could be further from the truth. We believe in and serve a loving God who has extended mercy and grace to all who would believe that He is a God of mercy and grace. Adam and Eve were not aware of it because they fortunately and then unfortunately had not experienced “the other side.” There was no reason for them to know the full measure of God’s justice which would include punishment and discipline. They acted, up to the point of being tempted, in faith and hope and love. Adam and Eve were helpmates and co-pastors, if you will, of the Garden. They called things by name. This mean they had some relationship established with the creation of which they were a part. They harvested fruit for which they did not labor. They managed their earthly kingdom and tended to it whatever that may have meant. Mostly, they loved one another and, it would seem, they loved God. They communed with God in the nature of the world as their very own nature. Until…. Then the day came to put Adam and Eve to the test just as Job was put to the test. Job had the benefit of experience which Adam and Eve did not: their story of defeat and shame as well as God’s decision to act redemptively. So what worked in the story of Adam and Eve who lived in the Garden with the experience of God in His fullness (or was it Christ in His glory body, the doxa soma, which walked and talked with them?…a curious thought.) What worked was the reality of sin bringing creation down, including the human creations, and the reality of God’s mercy redeeming creation and restoring it to a purpose for which it was designed but now in an environment far different from “heaven on earth.” God measured full payment for their deeds and put it on them, or “in their laps.” More aptly, God put it “on their laps” as a covering a grace and mercy with the skins of the lambs sacrificed on their behalf. We know the story Jesus told of “the ninety-nine and one” where the Good Shepherd goes out to find the one who was lost. There were no “ninety-nine” in the Garden, however, to be left behind in the trust of others. What did the Good Shepherd of Eden leave behind as “those ninety-nine”? It was all the future sheep of His hand, the people of His pastures. Imagine that Eden had not walls nor a gate when it was created. It was a Garden of goodness in the midst of darkness which would have been expanded as Adam and Eve (and their next generations) continued to abide with God as God abided with them. Until…. When they disobeyed and did not trust, the walls began to build up. It started in one place and moved out and around until it neared from the other direction. Perhaps it started where they had hid themselves. It was now drawing close and closing them in. They could have said God “did it” but it was their own sinfulness which built the wall of inevitability. And as in another parable of shepherding where Jesus declared “I am the sheep-gate,” we see that God stood the against the wall and would not allow it to be completely shut. If it had been, then Adam and Eve would have been closed in. Instead, the gate opened and into their new world they were introduced to live by faith and works. The gate then shut, and the glory of the Lord stood its guard so that they would remember the difference God made and makes.

We know the story of another shepherd who was called out. His name was Abram from the Ur of the Chaldees. His story speaks of a trust of one who did not know of the story of Adam and Eve. It had not been revealed to him as it would have been to Moses who recorded the stories of old to share as revelations to the “new” people of God’s pasture. Abram was called in a test of faith not by Satan the Deceiver but God the believer. Abram, Abraham now by virtue of God’s blessing, was called to sacrifice his begotten son with Sarah, the former Sarai, his wife. Abraham had showed his human nature on several occasions and it created problems. So great a problem did he create that he forced his wife to engage in a kind of “infidelity.” She allowed her husband to sleep with another woman to fulfill “his” destiny. Well, God had a different plan and His will is what usually wills out. God’s promise of a son between them came to fruition. Then God asked Abraham to trust Him and sacrifice that blessed son on Mount Mariah. Abraham complied this time realizing he may have been building a wall between himself and his wife. He would not build a wall between himself and God. He went to Moriah with Isaac and prepared to sacrifice his son there as God commanded. Cruel? Hateful? Self-serving God? Not at all. God intervened and offered a “lamb of God” sacrifice instead. He does not desire the death of any person. Death happens. It is a fact of the sinful life. But life happens. It is a fact of the spiritual life. God provided. He put Isaac back into Abraham’s lap and the promise God made of a bountiful future where the people of God would be as numerous as the stars in Heaven and the grains of sand by the sea moved forward. God put “full payment into his lap.”

Sin moved forward, too. To understand the light, there has to be dark. To understand death, there has to be life. To understand God, there has to be Satan. To understand righteousness, there had to be sin. It may seem extreme but the extremes are necessary. It does not mean we have to participate in them but we need to acknowledge they exist. That brings us to what Isaiah prophesied as he saw the revelation from God spill out before him. It was too easy to play the blame game and see God as uncaring and harsh to punish His people. And when Isaiah shared the word of God which is before us today, it was not justice on “us” but justice for us that was or would be laid on our laps. God was promising to do it again one last time to redeem, reconcile and restore the people of His creation. We know that sacrifice in Jesus as the Christ, the Lamb of God who was slain for our sin so that we might live in His righteousness. God did it…for us.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free. Hear our prayer, O Lord, and be gracious to us in the name of Jesus. AMEN.