Isaiah 66:1-6 – Ritual vs. Relationship

Translation and sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS 10 Aug. 2008

Translation

1. Thus says Jehovah, “The heavens are my throne, and the earth is a stool for my feet.

What is this house which y’all will build for me?

And what is this place of my rest?

2. Yet, all these my hand has made, and all these came into being,” declares Jehovah.

“But to this one will I look: to the lowly and stricken of spirit, who trembles over my word.

3. One who sacrificially-slaughters the ox is a man-striker;

one who sacrifices the lamb is one who breaks the neck of a dog,

one who offers up a grain offering – pig-blood;

one who makes a memorial offering of frankincense is one who blesses iniquity.

As surely as these have chosen in their ways and delighted in their abominations,

4. so also I myself will chose among their caprices and what they dread I will bring to them ,

because I called and there was none answering;

I spoke but they did not hear,

and they did the evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I did not delight.”

5. Hear the word of Jehovah, those who tremble at His word!

Your brothers, who hate you and who exclude you because of my name, said,

“Jehovah will be glorified, and we will see into your joy!”

But they? They will be shamed.

6. A voice of an uproar from the city,

a voice from the temple,

the voice of Jehovah completing payback to His enemies.

7. Before she went into labor she gave birth;

before pain came to her she had already delivered a man!

8. Whoever heard of [anything] like this?

Whoever saw [things] like these?

Can the earth be induced to go into labor in one day?

Can a nation be birthed in one step?

For Zion has gone into labor and simultaneously given birth to her children!

9. “Do I myself cause a breakthrough and not bring to birth?” says Jehovah.

“Would I, the one who brings to birth, just shut [things] up?” says your God.

10. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad in her, all who love her!

Celebrate with her out of joy, all who mourn over her,

11. because you will nurse and be satisfied from the breast of her comforts,

because you will suck and indulge yourself from the abundance of her glory!

12. For thus says Jehovah, “Look at me,

extending peace to her like a river,

and the glory of nations like an overflowing stream,

and you will nurse upon the side,

you will be carried,

and upon the knees you will play peek-a-boo.

Introduction – Missing the Point while paying attention to details

My kids enjoy reading Amelia Bedelia books. They are easy reading, and in every episode, Amelia Bedelia misunderstands figures of speech and makes a mess of things by following directions literally. In the latest book my kids checked out from the library, Amelia Bedelia goes to Miss Emma’s house and is told to weed the garden before the sun gets hot. Upon seeing the garden overgrown with weeds, Amelia remarks, “She said to weed the garden, not unweed… I wonder why she wants more weeds? Those weeds are little,” she said. “Maybe vegetables get hot just like people. They need big weeds to shade them. That’s why Miss Emma told us to weed before the sun gets hot…” Soon that garden was weeded.

She managed to miss the whole point of her instructions! The rich young ruler that met Jesus missed the point too:

Mark 10:17-22  … A man ran to Him, and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” 18  And Jesus said to Him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good save one, even God.  19  You know the commandments, ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor thy father and mother.’”  20  And he said unto Him, “Teacher, all these things have I observed from my youth!”  21  And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, “One thing you’re lacking: go, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.  22  But his countenance fell at the saying, and he went away sorrowful: for he was one that had great possessions.

The man was paying attention to all the laws in great detail. But Jesus’ bottom line was, “Follow me.” Jesus wasn’t looking for a bunch of outward religious rituals in the man but rather for a relationship with that man as a follower of Him. It is all too easy for us to get wrapped up in the rituals and miss the call of Christ to a personal relationship with Him. Our passage in Isaiah 66 opens right away with one of these misunderstandings:

The Change in Worship from Temple and Ritual to Word and Relationship

• Jews considered the temple to be God’s footstool (1 Chron. 28:2, Psalm 99:5, 132:7), but God says in v.1 that the whole world is His footstool
• Apparently some Jews had absorbed pagan ideas about God that limited Him to being a divinity that needed a place to rest. But you can’t shut God up into any place that He created. He made heaven and earth; they cannot contain Him, much less any temple. “If men think to do Him a service by building Him a temple and forget His infinite majesty in their concern for their own contemptible fabrication, He wants no temple at all,” commented Delitzsch.
• Perhaps the Jews in captivity in Babylon began to think of rebuilding the temple destroyed by the Babylonians as an end in itself rather than a means for worshipping God. Solomon himself said, after building the first temple, “But will God in deed dwell on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Ki. 8:27)
• This scripture is quoted by both Steven and Paul in the New Testament:
• Acts 17:24 – Paul quotes Isaiah saying that the one true God doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. He said this in Athens to counteract the pagan Greek ideas of finite gods that needed things from people.
• Steven quoted this passage more directly from Isaiah as he needled the religious leaders of his day about the ways they and their forefathers had missed the point of God’s messages. (Acts 7)
• Are there ways that we are like those Jewish religious leaders who were so obsessed with their temple and religious traditions that they missed out on God’s good news?
• Hebrews 10:5ff says that a “body” was prepared for God, however. The maker of the universe who cannot be contained by the heavens and earth nevertheless chose to live in a human body – in Jesus, and His Holy Spirit has chosen to reside in every one of us who believe in Jesus.
• v.2 God promises to “look to those who are humble/lowly/poor and stricken/contrite in spirit and who tremble over His word.”
• The word “this” may refer back to the word “house” in v.1. In other words, even though God cannot be contained by all the heavens, He will still make a home in certain people.
• “When a man has seen God as the truly infinite One, then his own heart is abased,” wrote E.J. Young.
• A contrite heart is sensitive to sin and is full of remorse when it does sin. “A humble and contrite heart the Lord will not despise” (Ps. 51:19) Do we take sin lightly? Or do we tremble at God’s word?
• This trembling originated at Mt. Sinai, when God gave the 10 commandments, and the people trembled as they heard the thunder and felt the earth quake. (Exodus 19:16).
• The people who preserve that kind of properly-placed fear and awe over God’s power to punish sin are people who tremble at His word. The phrase is used again in Ezra 9:4 to describe true believers after the exile.
• Do you want God to pay attention to you? Do you want Him to answer your prayers? Cultivate a respect for His word!
• v.3 goes on to describe the false servants of God as they were coming to worship:
• It could be a comparison, saying that there will come a time when these worship practices of sacrificing animals will become obsolete. “He who kills an ox/bull as a sacrifice will be like one who slays/kills a man.”
• 22:12 Yet in that day the Lord Jehovah of Hosts called for: tears and for mourning, and for baldness and for wearing sackcloth; 13 but look: joy and gladness, killing an ox and slaughtering a lamb, eating meat and drinking wine. "To eat and to drink, for tomorrow we die!"
• They were doing the outward motions of worship, but were doing it with the wrong attitude. The desire for salvation was symbolized in all the sacrifices, yet they did not see their need for salvation. “It is not an act of faith when the spirit of devotion is absent” (E.J. Young)
• This offense reached its height when the Jews continued to offer sacrifices after Jesus made the final sacrifice for sin and tore the veil of the temple in two.
• There would be a major shift in the worship of God from an orientation toward the temple and its animal sacrifice rituals and an orientation towards God’s word and direct relationship with God. As Jesus said to the woman at the well, “…the hour is coming, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father…  23  But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such the Father seeks to be His worshippers.  24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24)
• Going to church doesn’t save you any more than going into a garage makes you a car. If you ARE a car – if that’s what your inner nature is – then sure, the garage is the place for you. Likewise, going to church should be the outflow of an inner nature of knowing and loving and worshipping God.
• However, v. 3 could instead be addressing the problem of idolatry in God’s people:
• The word “like/as” does not appear in the Hebrew text, although it does appear once in one DSS manuscript, so the text could just as well read “He who slaughters and ox is a man-slayer” – in other words, people are coming to church but aren’t repenting of their sin. They remain murderers and idolaters.
• Isa 58:4 indicates that these Jews really were “murderers/strikers,” and in 57:5, they were slaughtering children as sacrifices to idols.
• Every other mention of “sacrifices” in Isaiah is speaking of sacrifices to idols, so perhaps it’s speaking of idol-worship sacrifices here also. Slaughtering of the oxen outside God’s temple to worship other gods was a problem, according to Lev. 17:3-4, and was punishable by being cut off from God’s people.
• What was wrong with breaking the dog’s neck? The dog was used to protect sheep (56:10-11), so, according to Abarbanel, they were killing the sheepdogs in order to steal other people’s sheep without getting caught by the watchdog!
• 57:6 tells us that people were offering grain offerings to idols and 65:4 that they were eating pigs in secret ceremonies.
• 2 Kings 23:13 lists the “abominations” that these idol-worshippers delighted in, namely, “Ashtoreth the abomination from Sidon, Chemosh the abomination from Moab, and Milcom/Molech the abomination from Ammon…” These were the names of idols.
• 1:11. “To what [purpose] of mine is the multitude of your sacrifices?” says Jehovah, “I have had-my-fill of whole-burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of feed-lot-animals; and in blood of bulls and lambs and goats I do not delight. 12. When you come to see my face, who seeks this from your hand, to trample my courts? 13. Do not continue to bring vain grain-offerings; Incense? It is an abomination to me. New moon, Sabbath, and calling of a convocation, I am not able [to brook] iniquity and solemn assembly. 14. Your new moons and your meetings my soul hates. They have become for me a burden I am tired of bearing.15. And when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from them; and although you multiply prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood.
• Is there any sin that you are tolerating? Are you trying to serve two masters? You may not be sacrificing children to Molech, but do you reserve room in your life for lust, pornography, the fear or praise of men, selfishness, self-pity, self-indulgence, lying, stealing, coveting (which might be synonymous with shopping)? God wants people who “tremble at His word” and will repent and no longer make room in their life for these idolatries.
• v.4 tells us that there is a cost for choosing our own ways in rebellion against God: God says He will “chose” from among their harsh treatment/punishments/delusions/vexations/caprices – the word is the same one used in 3:4 to describe God’s punishment (“capricious children will rule over them”)
• For those who chose their own way instead of God’s way, let this be a wake-up call! “What you fear/dread will come upon you.”
• This is true no matter where you are spiritually. Jesus is coming back, and if you fear Him, He will come upon you, but it will be for joy and goodness. If you fear anything or anyone else, then every bad thing you are afraid of happening will happen when Jesus comes back.
• The last half of v.4 is a repeat of 65:12 – using 3^rd person pronouns, but notice. What is God emphasizing in this repetition? Is it the temple and the sacrificial rituals? No, it is listening to God’s word (“I spoke but they did not listen”) and relating to Him in terms of what He does and does not delight in.
• Esther provides an example of how this works in human relationships. The scriptures tells us that Esther was among a bunch of women who were competing to be queen of Persia. Each woman could spend one night with the king and could bring one thing with them to please the king. Rather than imagining for herself what the king might like or asking the other women to find out what was the most popular item to bring, she took a relational approach. She asked the king’s close friend for advice as to what to bring with her to please king Ahasuerus. The Bible doesn’t tell us what that was, but whatever it was worked because she was chosen to be queen! God is the same way; He wants us to look to Him relationally and choose what He delights in rather than continue in sin and chose whatever we want.
• v.5 What if you have not been an idolater? What if you have been one of those who comes to church because you really are in awe of God. What if you love to read God’s word and hear it taught? Well, if that’s the case, you have probably experienced some persecution, and v.5 is for you. Here we are reassured that even if our “brothers hate us and exclude us” and mock at us, “it is they who will be put to shame” in the end.
• Notice that it is for the sake of “my name” that these who tremble at God’s word are hated and cast out.
• This is “the word of the Lord/Jehovah” speaking – Jesus is the “word” of God made flesh (John 1:1,17).
• The personal pronoun switches from “His word” referring to the Lord Jehovah at the beginning of the verse to “my” name in the middle of the verse. Could this be the name of Jesus?
• In Amos 9:12 this phrase occurs as the name through which the nations would be called to God. James interpreted that passage in Acts 15:17 as the coming of the Gentiles to faith in Jesus. “I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen… And I will set it up: That the remnant of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called.”
• The phrase “my name” is used only of the name of Jesus in the New Testament.
• We can expect that we will be “hated and excluded” over our relationship with Jesus:
• This taunt by those who have just excluded you, “Let the LORD be glorified and let us see your joy” is much like Isa 5:18 “Woe to those who draw iniquity, with cords of vanity and sin, with cart ropes, 19. who say, ‘Let Him speed, let Him hasten His deed, in order that we may see!…’” It is an insincere platitude meant to sound like they are right religiously when they are not.
• Matthew 10:21-22  And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.  22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.
• Luke 6:22-23  You are blessed, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.  23  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for in the same manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
• John 16:2-3  They shall put you out of the synagogues: yes, the hour is coming, that whoever kills you shall think that he is offering a service unto God.  3  And these things will they do, because they have neither known the Father, nor me.
• Matthew 24:9-14  Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name's sake… 11  And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray.  12  And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall grow cold.  13  But he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.  14  And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.
• Take comfort; Jesus will come soon enough and complete your joy and “all who hated Him will be put to shame” (45:24) but “Those who will not be ashamed wait for me!” says the LORD (49:23).
• v.6 tells us that the LORD will “completely pay back/render recompense/fully repay what they deserve” to His enemies (cf. 59:18). The scary thing is that his enemies are the religious people described in vs. 3-5. The key to not being on the wrong side of this recompense is orienting your spiritual life around God’s word and a personal relationship with Him:
• Move away from rituals and busy-ness that keep you from God’s word and a personal relationship with Him. This might be Internet tools or music or games or social events that are not harmful in themselves but distract you from Bible reading and prayer.
• Develop spiritual disciplines such as quiet times and going to church - not as a means of looking like a good Christian but - as tools to maintain the faith in Jesus which God has given you.
• Don’t be an Amelia Bedelia or a Rich Young Ruler who is watching out for the wrong set of details. Take the time to understand and follow Jesus.
• Do not take sin lightly. Allow yourself to tremble in horror over the grievousness of your sin and tremble at God’s word.
• Stop tolerating sin; repent of whatever vies for your allegiance to God and don’t leave any door open to go back to that sin.
• God gives us three motivations for doing these hard things:

1. Justice will be done. Faith is a path that will result in persecution, just as Jesus promised, but persevere to the end and take comfort in the fact that God will reward our faith in Him and will punish all the fake Christians.
2. “What you fear/dread will come upon you.” But if you fear God alone, then it will be a welcome occasion for Him to come back and complete your joy.
3. You can expect God to pay attention to you and answer your prayers, because He says He “will look to the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at His word.”

• I have to stop here, but next time, we can look more at what that recompense looks like as it is described in vs. 7-12 as a birth of a child.

Nate Wilson’s website – Isaiah Sermon Expositions

Christ the Redeemer Church website - Sermons