Spoiler Alert!

Whore. 

The word offends our sensibilities. 

No matter your era, it just sounds filthy.

Sodom.  Gomorrah. 

Infamous cities. 

Debauchery untold.

Why such seedy terms when describing the people of God? 

Isaiah wastes little time setting his agenda: Judah was lost in her sin.  Amid layers of base indulgence, political jockeying, and competing ideologies she had repeatedly prostituted herself with surrounding deities and pagan practices (1:10-17, 21-31; 2:6-4:1; 5:1-30).

Against such betrayal the central tension of Isaiah emerges: had Israel blown it for everybody?  Would God’s plan for redemptive history be chucked because His chosen nation kept turning tricks?

Spoiler Alert.  I love spoilers.  I try to keep from reading below the bold, italicized lettering but I can't help myself.  A well-constructed story creates a tension far too much for me to bear.  Hunger Games.  Saw the movie.  Janna wanted to purchase the next book and slowly digest the plot.  I, on the other hand, went straight home and devoured spoilers.  

Till 1:30 am.     

Knowing how the story of redemption unfolds often keeps us from sensing the many facets of narrative tension in the OT.  Understanding God did uphold the covenant and redeem the nations through Christ far too often leads us to presume He would.  We then tend to read the OT without detecting the accumulative tension within redemption’s story. 

For sure, Israel had royally blown it.  Her unique heritage as a kingdom of priests had been marred by her repeated harlotry.  The very nation charged with bringing divine truth to the world had been charged with adultery.1  They’d stooped to an all time low.  Sodom and Gomorrah low.  Israel had now become the very enemy of God (1:24-26; 5:24-25).

Tension mounts.  How would God respond to the crisis?  Would He uphold His plan to redeem the world through Israel or would God choose to simply abandon mankind to their mess?  

Isaiah doesn’t resolve this conflict quickly, in fact with 66 chapters the prophet meanders towards a conclusion.  Still yet, the reader encounters unmistaken cues along the way.  Road marks that allow us to understand where Isaiah is taking us, reassurance that there is still hope for the nations.  Somehow, in spite of Israel, God will still work to make all things new.

As an outline nerd, I have to see the book in order to get a feel for it:

1. Hope in peril: will the covenant hold? (1:1-6:13)
2. Hope through the fire: God will both judge and restore David’s house (7:1-39:8)
3. Hope found in ransom: God will bring salvation to the nations (40:1-55:13)
4. Hope fulfilled in future glory: God will establish Mount Zion (56:1-66:24)

Certainly judgment would come upon Judah.  She was due.  Even so, God’s plan to shower His grace upon all peoples had not been thwarted.  Even in the opening chapters when Isaiah is announcing judgment, listen closely and you’ll catch encouraging cues.  Indeed, the prophet foretells of a day when God’s grace is experientially evident as the nations encounter the fullness of Zion (2:1-5):

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be establish as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”  For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.  He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.  O house of Jacob, come, let us walk I the light of the Lord.

While all men of all places and times are repeatedly making a royal mess of things, there is still hope.  God has not abandoned us.  Put simply, God extends a call to come walk in the light of the Lord.  In heeding Him, we find immeasurable hope because God's love has been poured into our hearts and we know that in Christ our hope for eternity will not disappoint (Romans 5:1-5).  

Blessings!  

1. It is essential to note that at every major covenant God made with Israel, there was a focus upon outreach.  Israel was to stand as a beacon of divine truth and opportunity for all peoples and the covenants with her forefathers clearly stated as much.  Abraham was promised that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed (Gen 12:3).  At Mount Sinai the people understood that they were to be a kingdom of priests, mediating revelation to all peoples (Ex 19:6).  David saw the succession of his throne to be divine instruction for all mankind, for through his throne all the nations would find peace (2 Sam 7:19ff).  With each major covenant the nation of Israel understood her role as the divinely appointed dispenser of revelation.  The scope of which would reach the entire world.