This fall I am studying through the book of Isaiah. What an amazing book! (I can’t imagine what Isaiah thought about writing all that he did!) Anyway, through it, God has shown me his providence and glory as a beyond-infinite, perfect God who shakes the earth with his power and might.. a God deserving of a perfect people who delight in Him. However, in reality, his people the Israelites, in whom I see a lot of myself and humanity, trade living in the splendor of God’s presence for living in the instant gratification of their pride. As I’ve read, the Israelites’ need for a savior from their self-destruction has become overwhelmingly clear and has made Isaiah’s words of future glory jump off the pages. I’ve begun to see Jesus and the hope of Him entangled in each line and it has been blowing me away! So I would love to share with you what has impacted me this week.
Lately I’ve been trying to understand what it means that God is my Father, an intimate, protective and tenderly loving parent to me just because I am his child (no more, no less than his child). This is the language so often used by the writers in the New Testament and throughout the book of Psalms. What a contrast it is with Isaiah’s declarations of God as one who has much authority, judgment and wrath toward his people because of their sin! As I was trying to reconcile these two views, I came upon a verse in the book of John where Mary Magdalene is at Jesus’ tomb. Jesus had just risen from the dead and in these verses, Mary sees him for the first time. He quickly commands her to go to the disciples and “…say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17) And here, in Jesus and in his words, I was amazed to see the reconciliation of God as both my intimate Father and my holy Authority.
1) Jesus calls the Lord ‘Father’ and implies that God is an Almighty Father to all who believe. By trusting in Jesus’ work (not our own), his life, death and resurrection, God is no longer a God of wrath towards us, but a God of fatherly, tender, eternally persistent love. Jesus’ atonement for sins satisfied God and, by God working belief in our hearts, God smiles upon us as a perfect Father who has limitless love and forgiveness. Jesus’ statement here in John 20:17 is a recognition of this amazing reality for those who trust in HIM! As a believer that Jesus’ work is enough, David’s words in Psalm 103:13 ring so true! “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”
2) Jesus also calls the Lord “my God and your God”. The same God that is our Father is still a God of justice and power and might. However, because of Jesus, the object of God’s wrath is no longer us, but our sin. Without Christ, sinners and their sin are one-in-the-same and need to be held accountable. But because Christ took our sin upon himself and gave us his perfection (the great substitute), we can stand blameless and righteous before a terrifying, powerful God such as Isaiah proclaims!
3) Jesus is the Rock upon which both the above paragraphs are true. He is distinct from us. He could have so easily said “Our Father and Our God”, but instead he said “My Father and your Father, my God and your God”. Unlike us whose hearts are often dull, our ears heavy, and our eyes blind (Isaiah 6:10), Jesus stands alone because the Spirit of the Lord rests upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2). He is God and the only one who is divine and human, infinite and personal, just and merciful. By being perfect and yet paying for our sins himself, he upholds God’s justice and yet has compassion on us. Ephesians 2:12-17, 19-21 says “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ …having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near … For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that he might .. reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross …through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” Here, in Jesus, is a full picture of God, both Lord of the Universe and a Father who knows our each and every thought. What a foundation!
I am praying that as the fall continues, I would more clearly see that Christ is my only claim to righteousness before God and that because of Him alone, I have the sweet, freeing peace of a Lord who is My Father, My God and My Rock of Salvation! (Psalm 89:26).
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