Isaiah 49

What’s Happening? 

Israel was meant to be light in a dark world. By the way they lived they would show God’s goodness and mercy to a world of evil and hate. But Israel became just as dark as the nations surrounding them. So God removed them from the land meant for light and exiled them to the darkness of the nations they had chosen. Nevertheless, Isaiah promised that through a chosen leader, called the Servant, God would rescue them from the darkness and bring them back to their Promised Land of light. 

Isaiah introduces us to this Servant. The Servant speaks to the people living in the dark nations at the ends of the earth. As Isaiah has emphasized all along, God would tell his people what will happen before it happens. Therefore, this Servant will be known and chosen long before he is born (Isaiah 49:1, 5). Just like God spoke light into being at the creation of the world, the Servant would pierce Israel’s darkness just by speaking (Isaiah 49:2). He would accomplish the purpose to the nations that Israel failed to fulfill (Isaiah 49:3). The Servant will also rescue Israel from the dark nations and bring them back to the land of light (Isaiah 49:6a). Yet, the way this Servant would rescue his people would seem like a defeat (Isaiah 49:4). By joining himself with Israel’s pain and exile, he would free them and reveal the light the dark world has always needed (Isaiah 49:6b). The Servant will rescue the most deeply dishonored and utterly lost among the dark nations, and turn them into kings and princes (Isaiah 49:7-12). This news will be so good that the only appropriate response would be for all the heavens to sing for joy and the earth itself to break into song (Isaiah 49:13). 

But Israel thinks that because God has abandoned them to exile, it is impossible for him to love them still. They think that their national death and humiliating exile proves that God had forgotten or abandoned them (Isaiah 49:14). But Isaiah says it’s not God saving them that would be impossible, it would be God restraining himself from saving them that would be impossible. God is like a nursing mother who can’t stop thinking about her hungry baby (Isaiah 49:15). He has bound himself to Israel in love, so much so that he has tattooed her name on the palm of his hands (Isaiah 49:16). Israel’s exile doesn’t make God’s salvation impossible, but all the more beautiful. God’s Servant will adorn Israel, his bride, with descendants beyond number (Isaiah 49:18). Through the Servant, children born in exile will fill Israel until it is overflowing (Isaiah 49:19-21). And no empire or army can keep the Servant from rescuing his people. God cannot restrain himself and no one can restrain God from bringing his people out of darkness and into the land of light (Isaiah 49:24-26). 

Where’s the Gospel? 

God’s unrestrainable love for his people sent his very Son to be the Servant Isaiah spoke of (Hebrews 10:5-7). Jesus is the Servant known by God and chosen to save Israel long before he was born on Earth. As the Word of God who created light in the beginning, Jesus told his people that he was the light of the world (John 8:12). Jesus would overcome the darkness and bring people from all over the world into his light (John 1:4-5). 

Yet, as Isaiah prophesied, the Servant would save his people in a way that looked like defeat.  Jesus joined himself to his people’s exile and suffering, because he could not restrain himself from loving his people to the point of death (John 15:13; Romans 5:8). He even let them engrave his hands with nails, forming the marks of everlasting love. But God did not abandon Jesus to the grave, just as he did not abandon Israel to exile (Acts 2:27). God raised Jesus from the grave, giving him life from a place that looked like death. So now, Jesus can take us who are full of death and turn us into his life-bearing bride (Romans 6:5,11). 

Even though he was dishonored and exiled, Jesus the Servant became the King of Kings. And now, Jesus is multiplying his children all over the world. As more and more people are joined to Jesus, nations are bursting at the seams with children of God (John 1:12; 1 John 3:1). Now, we who follow this Servant are being made into his very light. He feeds and sustains us like a mother to her child, giving us his very self (John 6:57; 1 Peter 2:2-3). With the Servant living in us through his Spirit, we are now the servants of God going to the darkest corners of the world to bring his light (1 Peter 2:9). And he is with us always in this mission (Mathew 28:20). We know God will not abandon us, because Jesus, our Servant and King, has entered into our exile to bring all nations into God’s land of light. 

See for Yourself 

I pray that the Holy Spirit would open your eyes to see the God who cannot restrain his love for his people. And may you see Jesus as the Servant who will never abandon us and the Light of the world who rescues us from darkness.