The Psalmist tells us, ‘Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints’. Here Isaiah contrasts the attitude of the wicked, perhaps thinking especially of the blind watchmen and ignorant shepherds of the previous chapter. They have no sense of the value lost to the church and the world by the death of those who lived uprightly, prayed for their brothers and sisters, and daily witnessed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unbelievers do not realise the benefits they receive from the presence of the church in the world. The blessings of death Those who die in the Lord are triply blessed. They are evermore preserved and protected from the evil of this world. Their souls are carried into the presence…

For all the comfort and encouragement granted to the Old Testament saints by Isaiah’s prophecies concerning the Messiah, the remnant people were not to imagine that the coming gospel age would be a time of blessing without trial. The gospel must go to all nations, and the Lord’s elect will be gathered from the ends of the earth, but the growth of the church would not be trouble-free. Each generation of God’s people have their peculiar blessings and their distinctive difficulties as we shall see in this and the coming chapters. When God speaks Isaiah opens this prophecy with a ‘Thus saith the LORD’. It is our privilege to be always listening for the word of the Lord God while seeking opportunity to follow in…

In chapter 53 we were taught about the person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and how He represented, suffered and died for His people. In Ch. 54 we learned that Christ’s reward was His Bride and of the success and enlargement of the church of whom it had been said, in Ch. 52, ‘all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’. In today’s passage we have the unfolding of Christ’s gifts to His church under the gospel call and the Lord’s encouragement to His people to partake, eat and be satisfied with His goodness. How to holler! The word ‘Ho’ is a public shout to gain attention, it carries a sense of pity, concern, even danger…

Seven hundred years before Christ’s incarnation Isaiah wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost concerning things to come and blessings to be fulfilled. He wrote to encourage and comfort the hard pressed people of His own age and did so by telling them beforehand of the Messiah’s success and how this success would be measured. Having spoken of God’s righteous servant being sacrificed for the sins of His people the prophet goes on to describe the fruit of Christ’s suffering and the harvest He achieved. Prepare to go big The Old Testament remnant was by definition small. Even the number of Christ’s followers in His own lifetime was not large. He called them His ‘little flock’ and they seem to have numbered only one…

Our studies in Isaiah now bring us to Chapter 53, surely the Mt Everest of Old Testament Christology. Isaiah has been comforting the Lord’s remnant people with views of deliverance by the Messiah. Here, the representative nature and saving purpose of Jesus’ death to redeem His people from the captivity of sin is plainly laid out. Our Old Testament brothers and sisters are shown the circumstances of Christ’s passion, the meaning of His suffering and the glory that should follow. These verses might have been written by an eyewitness. A restricted revelation The Lord Jesus told His followers ‘strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’. Isaiah was aware of this phenomenon. The…

It is very suitable for us to apply this prophecy to gospel times, as Isaiah’s readers surely did. Zion putting on strength may be likened to the worldwide conversion of the Gentiles to salvation. Jerusalem putting on her beautiful garments symbolises the gift of justifying righteousness given to Christ’s Bride. Paul describes believers as those who have ‘put on Christ’. Here, the Old Testament church is called to rise from sleep to ‘put on’ and wear the divine redemption promised by the coming Messiah’s success. Garments washed in blood The beautiful garments of Christ’s church are robes of holiness and truth; washed robes, made white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14). They speak of the covering of grace by which God’s elect are…