As we begin to focus on the last week of
Jesus’ earthly ministry, we begin with His significant triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This event is described in all four gospels [1]
and is specifically prophesied by the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 9:9) and in so many other indirect ways in the
Old Testament, such as this passage which we have just read in Isaiah, which precedes the
famous Isaiah 53 passage which we
shall consider on
Easter Friday and also on a special occasion on Saturday.
Today
we remember the occasion when Jesus, as
the chosen servant
of God[2]
came, riding on a humble donkey to
fulfil the work that the Father had given
Him to do in laying down His life for His people[3].
As He entered the city, He was most surprisingly received
in the manner of a conquering
King, although “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty
that we should desire him…” (53:2), and yet the crowd received Him
with these words, "Hosanna[4]
to the Son of David”. This was
tantamount to saying (and so it was
understood by the Pharisees e.g. in Lk 19:39) that He was the long expected
Messiah of Israel.
In
Luke’s account of the triumphal entry, Jesus following His entrance is deeply disturbed at what He sees. In fact
He weeps over Jerusalem (see Lk
19:41- 44 ; and see also Lk
13:34 – 35). This act is
followed by the famous temple cleansing (Lk. 19:45-48; Matt 21:12-17)
It
is particularly Lk 13:34 – 35 that gives us
an insight into the spiritual state of Jerusalem. It was this city
that had killed the prophets. It
was this city that would kill the Son of God, and amazingly, Jesus
knew that this was going to
happen! What was the purpose for which Jesus rode into Jerusalem to lay down
His life? It was to hand Himself over to wicked men to do what they had wanted to do all along,
BUT in this atrocious act
He would make atonement for sin! By His
death He would secure eternal life for all his own people, for all those “who did receive Him, who believed
in His Name” (John 1:12).
It was ultimately to secure for them a future, not in this earthly Jerusalem, but in the new, the heavenly Jerusalem, the home
of every true believer which Jesus went
to prepare in John 14:1-4 and of which we read in Revelation 21.
Now
we know from the history of Jerusalem
that she had been besieged and
captured many times. In the days of
Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem[5],
this city was sacked eventually by the Babylonians in around 586 BC. She
was burned and destroyed and her people taken into exile in Babylon, just as Isaiah and Jeremiah and others had said. But
before that, approximately 135
years earlier, in the days of Isaiah, this city
was also threatened by the Assyrians
who did in fact capture the northern territory of Israel and with it 10
tribes, who were sent into exile in 722
BC (2 Kings 17:5ff). All prophets, particularly the major
prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and later the Lord Jesus, God’s
final Revelation (Hebr. 1:1-3)
saw that the continued rebellion of this city
that had experienced so much of God’s favour, in terms of hosting the temple of God, and therefore the visible presence of God in Israel, that
this city would face the wrath of God. This leading city of
the Jews had lost the vision of God in her midst.
Now
Isaiah’s prophecy can be divided into two parts. The first part,
Chapters
1-35
focus on God’s judgement on Israel, the northern kingdom, by Assyria; then there is a ‘bridge’ in Chapters
36-39 before the prophecy closes with the second major part in chapters
40 – 66, where we find a vision of the return of the remnant from Babylon.
The
point is this. Isaiah’s vision is big!
Not only does he include future
events from his own perspective in about
722 BC; Isaiah sees the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian captivity, much later in
520 BC, when he was long dead. But more
than that, Isaiah’s prophecy anticipates the
ministry and mission of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ (whom we
shall meet as the suffering servant in
Isaiah 53) more than 700 years later! And from our perspective Isaiah
foresees even more than that. He
foresees the rule and restoration of all things under Christ in
days to come, which, from our perspective, is STILL
in the future!
Now
from the present perspective of Isaiah,
and from Christ’s perspective, when He rode into Jerusalem, and
also from our own perspective, this
earthly Jerusalem was and is anything but a holy city. But
Isaiah sees beyond that
and he like His Messiah, the Lord
Jesus look to the far future when things will look very different. And it
all began on that day when Jesus rode
into Jerusalem. On this day He came
to Jerusalem to
secure the future of the inhabitants of a far greater Jerusalem. He came to do this
in His death and
resurrection which is described in Isaiah 53. In preparation for that I want
you then to take a look with me at this text[6]
which precedes the phenomenal events of
Isaiah 53, just as the triumphal entry preceded the phenomenal events of the week
that lay ahead:
1.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.
Obviously, the prophet is not speaking here of a political
entity called Jerusalem. He is speaking of
that future city where there shall be no sin – the heavenly Jerusalem
of Revelation 21. That is the city that Jesus ultimately came to establish when He came riding
into this sinful Jerusalem, that killed
the prophets, and therefore the prophet continues …
2. Shake yourself from the dust and
arise; be seated, O Jerusalem; loose the bonds from your neck, O captive
daughter of Zion. What did the Lord
Jesus achieve in his death and resurrection? He
purchased freedom for a people in the dust, a people enslaved
by sin. He freed them for citizenship in
the new Jerusalem, by the shedding of
His blood.
3. For thus says the Lord: “You were sold for
nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.” What does this mean?
In context this would refer to the Babylonian captivity.
Babylon acquired Judah and paid nothing
for her when they took her captive in
586 BC. However, roughly 70 years later under
Cyrus the Persian and then Artaxerxes [7]
she was freed without the payment of money, when men like Ezra and Nehemiah led the
people back to Jerusalem from captivity,
being in fact supported by the Babylonians to rebuild Jerusalem[8].
But in a greater sense it would mean that the sin which our first father Adam committed, and of which we
had borne the fruit, would now be
borne by Christ in His death, BUT
no one has to pay for their redemption. It was free for
those who would take it. This
was the purpose for which Jesus came to ride into the city!
4 For thus says the Lord God: “My people
went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian oppressed
them for nothing. Israel’s first
stint away from their earthly Jerusalem
in Canaan was experienced when they had lived for 430 years in Egypt, after which they returned under Moses
and Joshua to Canaan, their promised
land. Then David
established the physical Jerusalem for Israel, but under the often foolish rule of his grandsons, substantial chunks of the kingdom
were gradually lost – first under the
Assyrians, who claimed the northern
kingdom of Israel.
In
Christ’s day the Jews were
oppressed by the Romans, and the Jews hoped for their Messiah
to return to deliver them from
the Roman yoke. But was this ultimately
the yoke that they needed to be delivered from? Was not the yoke of sin their
ultimate problem? And who alone could
effectively deal with sin, if not the
Son of God? And so Jesus rode into Jerusalem …
5 Now therefore what have I here,”
declares the Lord, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Their
rulers wail,” declares the Lord, “and continually all the day my name is
despised. Many a time when Israel
was attacked by her enemies (no doubt,
due to their own foolishness, which resulted in the hand of God being lifted
from them), their enemies were
blaspheming the name of God when they
taunted Israel: “Where now is your God?” (e.g. Ps
42:10; 115:2; Joel 2:17). In truth,
this was also the general attitude of the Jews to Jesus. When he hung on the cross they
mocked Him, saying: “He saved others, let
him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One.”(Lk. 23:35). The truth was that in
continually mocking Christ they were
continually mocking the work of God. And so Christ rode into Jerusalem on this day
to make a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous!
6 Therefore my people shall know my
name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I
am.” In the historical context the
release from Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding of Jerusalem would
be a true testimony to the power of God. Nehemiah confirms this in Neh.6:15,16 when he says, “… all the nations around us …perceived that this work had been
accomplished with the help of our God !” But in a greater sense the greatest work would be the
establishment of the eternal city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, which would be populated by those who had been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. Jesus came riding into
Jerusalem to declare that He would do this ON THE CROSS! This is
therefore what gives rise to the next
verse! Here is the gospel of the good news for all the people… for all the nations !
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are
the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news
of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Paul quotes
this passage in Rom 10:15. The point is that whatever historical
situation brought the good news in Isaiah’s day, he was looking much further,
when our Messiah made the gospel terms
effective by His death and
resurrection .For this reason Jesus came riding into Jerusalem.
8 The voice of your watchmen—they lift
up their voice; together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. In the historical setting this was accomplished when God restore the Jews to liberty under
the leadership of men like Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Yet again, and in a greater sense, these things were
fulfilled in Christ’s coming into Jerusalem
for this purpose – that He might lay down His life for a great number of
people and to establish for them a city whose foundations cannot be
shaken.
9 Break forth together into singing, you
waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people; he has
redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of
all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God. Historical deliverance happened under Cyrus, (2 Chron. 36:22,23). The Lord displayed his power among the Medes and Persians,
but afterwards he made it visible to all the nations. But again, see the
ultimate fulfilment in this text. The Abrahamic covenant is being fulfilled, as not only Jews but gentiles were participating in the salvation of God in
Christ. All this began to be
fulfilled in Christ riding into
Jerusalem to lay down His life for Jews and gentiles.
11 Depart, depart, go out from there;
touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you
who bear the vessels of the Lord. 12 For you shall not go out in haste, and you
shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel
will be your rear guard. In context this was a call to all
the Jews to leave Babylon, and to leave the things of Babylon behind. Those
that were carrying the vessels of
the Lord ( i.e. the vessels for the
temple), the priests, these were to be
especially consecrated.
The
redeemed would not need to leave in
haste as they had done when they left Egypt in the Exodus. They were completely
free. God would go before to lead them and behind to protect them as they
journeyed to their Promised Land (cf. Exodus 13:21-22; Exodus 14:19-20). In our context, it is important that we need to leave the city of destruction and make sure that we are on the road to the heavenly Jerusalem. (Pilgrims Progress)
Here
then, in this part of
Isaiah’s prophecy the dual
implications of the prophet's promises are very clear. The Babylonian captivity formed the background to what Isaiah said, but Isaiah had the larger issue of slavery to sin in mind.
Return to the land was in view, but even
more so, the opportunity to return to the Lord through spiritual redemption
was his greater focus. God would deal with the result in Israel's case,
captivity, but He would also and more importantly deal with the great cause of every man's problem, namely sin !
All
this Jesus came to do when he rode on
that donkey into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday.
Hallelujah, what a Word!
Hallelujah, what a Saviour!
AMEN .
[2] Note the four servant passages in this regard : 42:1-9; 49:1-7 ; 50:4-11 ; 52:13-53:12
[3] i.e. as the Lamb of God for His sheep
[4] Lit. “save now”
[5] This city was captured by David from the Jebusites in 2
Samuel 5:6-10 , after which it was called “the city of David”
[6] The proper
parameters for this text is
Isaiah 51:1-52:12. The chapter division at 52:1 is unfortunate .
Similarly the chapter division should
not begin with 53:1, as it does, but should start at 52:13.
Outline of Ch. 51:1- 52:12 : 1. A threefold call to listen : i.e. 51 : 1; 4; 7 2. A
threefold exhortation to awake : 51:9;17 & 52:1
[7] Ezra 1:1; 4:7
[8] Ezra 1:2ff ;Neh.
2:8
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