In the last days the mountain of the Lord ’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. - Isaiah 2v2
Isaiah sees the destiny of his people beyond his own day - beyond their suffering in exile, beyond the cleansing of judgment, and beyond their desire to simply return to the past.
God is doing something bigger. Something more profound. Something that goes far beyond nation-building, political revolution, or a government overthrow.
When life’s problems get bigger our expectations of God often get smaller. “God, just get me out of this!” But Isaiah does the opposite. In the midst of suffering, he envisions a new kind of living on this earth that will change the world.
In Isaiah’s day the expectation was that God favored Israel, that his presence resided exclusively in Jerusalem, and that all other nations would be destroyed. But God never said he was only going to reconcile Israel. He didn’t say, “I am going to make a nation of you, and that nation alone is what I’m saving.”
No.
He said, “I am going to use you and your descendants to reconcile the entire world.”
So this is not only a prophecy of some supernatural act that God will do at some far future time. It speaks of what can happen if people respond now to God's Torah: Ό house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord" (Isaiah 2v5).
N.T. Wright says it this way:
“The Temple was never supposed to be a retreat away from the world, a safe holy place where one might stay secure in God’s presence, shut off from the wickedness outside. The Temple was an advance sign of what God intended to do with and for the whole creation. When God filled the house with his presence, that was a sign and a foretaste of his ultimate intention, which was to flood the whole world with his glory, presence, and love.”
In other words, those who receive God’s presence are now responsible to become the agents of mediating it to others.
Isaiah attempts to enliven the imagination. To point us beyond what we think is possible. To envision what could happen if people, even in difficult times, acted as God's partners in redemption.
This is a great post Paul! Thank you!
Posted by: Marty Holman | March 31, 2010 at 07:42 AM