9-Blogging the New Testament. Lecture Two: John the Baptist

Part nine begins.

We continue with Lecture Two on the John the Baptist.

The last few posts have dealt with Malachi 3.1ff. and Malachi 4.5-6. We take up Isaiah 40.1-5 which appears in connection with the Baptist at Matthew 3.3, Mark 1.3 and Luke 3.4.

We bring the Hebrew, Latin and English versions. The commentary follows this posting of God’s Word. This is the Word of the LORD. Thanks be to God.

א נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ, עַמִּי--יֹאמַר, אֱלֹהֵיכֶם.
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.
consolamini consolamini populus meus dicit Deus vester

ב דַּבְּרוּ עַל-לֵב יְרוּשָׁלִַם, וְקִרְאוּ אֵלֶיהָ--כִּי מָלְאָה צְבָאָהּ, כִּי נִרְצָה עֲו‍ֹנָהּ: כִּי לָקְחָה מִיַּד יְהוָה, כִּפְלַיִם בְּכָל-חַטֹּאתֶיהָ.
2 Bid Jerusalem take heart, and proclaim unto her, that her time of service is accomplished, that her guilt is paid off; that she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.
loquimini ad cor Hierusalem et avocate eam quoniam conpleta est malitia eius dimissa est iniquitas illius suscepit de manu Domini duplicia pro omnibus peccatis suis

ג קוֹל קוֹרֵא--בַּמִּדְבָּר, פַּנּוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהוָה; יַשְּׁרוּ, בָּעֲרָבָה, מְסִלָּה, לֵאלֹהֵינוּ.
3 Hark! one calleth: 'Clear ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, make plain in the desert a highway for our God.
vox clamantis in deserto parate viam Domini rectas facite in solitudine semitas Dei nostri

ד כָּל-גֶּיא, יִנָּשֵׂא, וְכָל-הַר וְגִבְעָה, יִשְׁפָּלוּ; וְהָיָה הֶעָקֹב לְמִישׁוֹר, וְהָרְכָסִים לְבִקְעָה.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the rugged shall be made level, and the rough places a plain;
omnis vallis exaltabitur et omnis mons et collis humiliabitur et erunt prava in directa et aspera in vias planas

ה וְנִגְלָה, כְּבוֹד יְהוָה; וְרָאוּ כָל-בָּשָׂר יַחְדָּו, כִּי פִּי יְהוָה דִּבֵּר.
5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.'
et revelabitur gloria Domini et videbit omnis caro pariter quod os Domini locutum est

40.1-11, being a part of Isaiah 40.1-55.13, is an address to the future exiles of Babylon, an event that covers 100 to 150 years out from Isaiah’s time, that is, events to come in the far future. This will become clearer as we proceed.

Chapters 40-48 deal with the divine determination for destruction; chapters 49-57 deal with the expiation of guilt and continuing redemption of God’s Church; chapters 58-66 deals with the exaltation of the Church. As such, chapters 40-66 serves as a positive and encouraging word to exiles suffering under Babylonian captivity. As such, it speaks to our day. As such, it will stand to all time and to all cultures.

We may draw the same encouragement—those in the Anglican communion where the leadership has offered nothing but failure, despair, and bondage to the sinful, modern Zeitgeist, hope exists.
Isaiah, 150 years before the fulfillment, encourages the exiles in Babylon[1] to flee from Babylon and return to the promised land.

Here is but one example. Isaiah 48.20-21, Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With a voice of singing, Declare, proclaim this, utter it to the end of the earth; Say, `The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!’ And they did not thirst when He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them; He also split the rock and the waters gushed out. Such words would be promises of comfort to later prophets Haggai, Daniel, Zechariah, Ezra and Nehemiah—men who would stand on God’s infallible promises—men whose example of fidelity serve as signposts for our time.

The encouragement arises from their supernatural character of the Source, to wit, that the omnipotent God has foreordained and governs nations; it is a challenge to believe in His Majesty’s command and promise.

Isaiah 41.21-27 continues his objection to any taker, any protester, `Present your case,’ says the LORD. `Bring forth your strong reasons,’ says the King of Jacob. Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them, or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter know that you are gods; yes, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and see it together. Indeed you are nothing, and your work is nothing; He who chooses is an abomination. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come; From the rising of the sun he shall call on My name; And he shall come against princes as though mortar, as the potter treads clay. Who has declared the beginning,that we may know? And former times, that we may say, `He is righteous’? Surely there is no one who shows; surely there is no one who declares; surely there is no one who hears your words. The first time I said to Zion, `Look, there they are!` And I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings.

The supernatural character, being infallibly predictive, is evinced by the inclusion of the promise of abandonment of Israel and Judah as recorded in Isaiah 1-35. In this section above God and Isaiah are using sarcasm and taunts against the false gods of Babylonia. God has promised deliverance and anything to the contrary is nonsense. We find here a useful tool in polemics, sarcasm and satire although Matthew 6 and the Proverbs must afford a tempering commentary; God's satire is suffused with blisterning judgment.

God also is demonstrating to us his sovereignty over the nations, replete with the prediction of Cyrus from Persian from the east…150 years beyond Isaiah’s time.[2] Cyrus will conquer Media in 549 B.C. and become the master of Babylonia and territories to the north.
As an aside, we also see a generational and centuries-long view of history that only God can provide.

In the larger context of chapters 40-55, we find the prediction of the coming of Messiah Jesus to save Israelites from their sins. This will follow the repatriation to the land. “The near, more remote, and most remote prophecies merge together on the canvas.”[3]

From Isaiah’s perspective, the repatriation under Cyrus is the new age and is a foretaste of the salvation brought by Christ.

א נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ, עַמִּי--יֹאמַר, אֱלֹהֵיכֶם.
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.
consolamini consolamini populus meus dicit Deus vester

The people of Israel had been obstinate, indifferent to God’s Word, unfeeling, and distracted by the world, the flesh and the devil. The threatening of God’s Law, e.g. Leviticus 27 and the varied prophets, had produced little effect. They were like the polluted parents in the Garden, Adam and Eve. They were like heretics and apostates.

Isaiah, however, turns to the future beyond his own eye with words (God’s Words) for the sake of the church and the elect of God who will hear.[4] Isaiah in his own day was mindful of the very real depradations of the Assyrians and their conquest of Israel with the captivity of the ten northern tribes. Isaiah realizes that his ministry would provide the substratum upon which the elect would hear and that the reprobates, many of them, would harden themselves in God’s presence and word...then as now. Then, as forever until all the elect are converted (2 Peter 3.9). With confidence in God’s promises, Isaiah looks forward to the continuing ministry of God with His Church, notwithstanding all outward appearances. Is there not the food of comfort here to faithful Pastors?

All that follows is the eschatology of hope, trust, and confidence in God’s Word. Isaiah 40.8: The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of God stands forever.[5] Isaiah was not milquetoast when it came to the Divine Word.

We will find in Isaiah 40-66, that his eschatology goes down to the end of the world. Isaiah’s purpose is to stir up believers, despite the adversities, fainting, despairing, and afflictions. The sense of it is: “Stand fast, be immoveable in the work of the LORD, knowing that your labours are not in vain.”

We will find that Jeremiah who follows Isaiah by a century plus will be an illustration of vexation, affliction and distress, yet trust in God’s promises. These words of comfort will come to Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and, for our present purposes in this New Testament Survey, to John the Baptist—the key fulfillment as the New Testament observes.

It is of note that the plural verb is used in 40.1. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. That is, there will be a stream of prophets to come. They will arise to repeat the message of solace and comfort for believers in their afflictions and sorrows. We refer to the prophets who followed Isaiah who exhorted to joy and believe contrary to visible circumstances. Hence, the command, then as now, is a duty for all ministers of the Word and Sacrament…the multitude of “comforters” who would and will arise through history from Isaiah to our own time.

Darkness may be predominant, as it was in Isaiah’s time. It may prevail as in Jeremiah’s day. It may conquer the majority and appear to rule over the light of day as during the Medieval times and as now continues in Rome. The lights may well be going out in the West, but Isaiah teaches us to measure matters by God’s Word.

Comfort and assurance can and is shaken when the forces of hell appear to rule the day and night. Yet, like Isaiah, and as our Sovereign Redeemer iterated, And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this Rock[6] I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16.18)

Psalm 11.3 envisions the fear of the faithful, If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 79.4, We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those who are around us.

But Isaiah, by his use of the plural, Comfort ye, comfort ye, counsels that there will be a host of manly leaders who will comfort Christ’s people. Despite Israel’s ingratitude and neglects, God will raise up warriors who bring the Gospel of comfort and salvation to the distressed, downcast and mourners. They will hear the Good News of salvation and will be called from death to life.

It is of note that Isaiah says “your God.” The elect persist in calling him “our God.” They understand that God cannot forget His promises to Abraham. Genesis 17.7, And I will establish My covenant between Me and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.[7]

Of further note is the word “Elohim,” or אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, a focus that stresses God’s utter power to bring things to pass of nothing and to so handle nature as He pleases; while God normally, usually and historically works through secondary law, yet He is free to work without, above, and against the very laws he created.

This point needs repeated stress amongst the charisphiles; God in the Bible normally does not work through miracles. That is what the Bible teaches. It also teaches that He can operate miraculously. The charisphons would be far better served by focusing on the "ordinary" and "standard" means of grace.

Even the elect fall from grace, not finally, but during life. They trip, stumble, grumble, err and are afflicted with residual depravity, but they are ever renewed and are ever upheld by His gracious and omnipotent Hand. The real probates reveal themselves quite sufficiently and quite freely on their own. But God brings consolation and comfort to the elect.

Although we are dilating on Isaiah 40.2, our subject continues to be John the Baptist.

ב דַּבְּרוּ עַל-לֵב יְרוּשָׁלִַם, וְקִרְאוּ אֵלֶיהָ--כִּי מָלְאָה צְבָאָהּ, כִּי נִרְצָה עֲו‍ֹנָהּ: כִּי לָקְחָה מִיַּד יְהוָה, כִּפְלַיִם בְּכָל-חַטֹּאתֶיהָ.
2 Bid Jerusalem take heart, and proclaim unto her, that her time of service is accomplished, that her guilt is paid off; that she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.
loquimini ad cor Hierusalem et avocate eam quoniam conpleta est malitia eius dimissa est iniquitas illius suscepit de manu Domini duplicia pro omnibus peccatis suis

This public message will be auditory, visual and literary. It is a public message. The Hebrew and Latin are clearer than the English. The external word should be taken ad cor or should be taken to heart. Speak “heartiness” and “courage” is the sense. Not far off, however, and in the same semantic field is the good translation “comfort.” Here the external word, heard or read, must be internalized.

We hate bad news and prefer good news, but as noted earlier, the bad news dominates the landscape of Isaiah’s time as well as the days of the Babylonian Captivity. And who wants to hear the bad news? Nothing appears positive, but only war, trouble, death and retrogression. Yet, speak comfort, heart, courage and fidelity.

Speak comfort to Jerusalem. Jerusalem refers to the Church, although it was confined to genetic Israelites and in-grafted believers, e.g. Ruth and others. Jersualem now refers to the Church and Churches of faithful believers throughout the world, descendants of Abraham (Romans 2.29; 9-11; Galatians 3.6-8, 26, 29).

And cry out to her. A public cry, open and available to anyone who will listen and read. It is a call, bidding, and command. There are no Mumble-Matins of a high and dry clerk. There is no muttering of Charisphilic yapperies, false tongueries, and gullibe hordes...that unique, individualistic hype from cowboy-Americans exporting TV-barkers worldwide.

There is no obscurantism of the Gospel like Joel Osteen. There are no Latin Masses as was legislated and imposed on the “masses of people” during the Medieval period down to the 1970’s. There are no repressors and murderers of heralds of the Word like John Wycliffe, Jan Huss and William Tyndale—facts yet to be repented of by that Antichrist in Rome.

It is a public Word with recognizable words, known syntax, and a rational, intelligent, and understandable message. One wonders what Calvin, Luther, and the English Reformers would say to these barking dogs.

And cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sin. The sense of it is that following the war, the military officers and enlisted can stand down. When the Persian Gulf War ended, we sailed out of the Gulf into the Indian Ocean. The war had ended. That is, the day of the Babylonian Captivity will end. As a doctor must cure diagnose and cure the disease, so the Judge must acquit the defendant before any striking with penalties. Acquitted, God is willing to draw the exiles back to Israel.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness. This has figurative and literal aspects. The wilderness well describes the spiritual desolation of Isaiah’s time, the times of the Babylonian exile, the days Christ and the rest of history. It has a more literal aspect also. Jerusalem laid in literal ruins in the wilderness. The way back from Babylon to Israel would be through wilderness territories of vast stretches. John the Baptist himself would conduct his ministry from the wilderness, literally as well as illustratively of the spiritual deprivations.

To whom is the voice speaking?

First, the voice speaks to Cyrus, the Persians and Medes. The sense is: “Let my people go! Make a way for the LORD! Do it!” The external bidding-external call is made an internal call-internal response. Only God can reach inside the brain and heart. Make the way passable and clear away all obstacles to repatriation. This major player in international life in ancient near eastern history, yet this ant, this speck of dust, King Cyrus, responds.

Ezra 1.1-4 speaks of the end of the Babylonian Captivity:

1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, 2 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. 3 Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem. 4 And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.

Concerning international leaders, then as now, Proverbs 20.1, The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.

The Westminster Confession of Faith ably grasps and expresses the doctrine of divine providence. Chapter Five, paragraph one, “God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”

These ruthless Babylonian, Persian and Median invaders with their addictions to power, self-aggrandizement, plunder, and cultural hegemony are governed by God and nothing and no one can hide from His commands.

This is a solid ground for praise and adoration. This is a sound reason for comfort, assurance, trust and faith, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary—we reassert this given Isaiah’s perspective as well as similar situations that recur in the Church’s history. We reassert this given the abominable views of God on the ground...on the ground where the Church Militant must fight.

Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. This is not just a highway for returning exiles, but for God Himself. God doesn't have feet and walk on macadam byways and asphalt roads. However, while God doesn’t travel on highways and roads, as it were, this demonstrates the intimate communion and the divine closeness, covenantal closeness, the Divine Presence, with the believing and returning Israelites. God is walking with them in the desert and it is a highway for our God.

As for structural overview and the applications to biblical history from Isaiah, we now pause.

Next time, we will take up the specific application and fulfillment in the life of John the Baptist.

Here ends Part Nine, Lecture Two: John the Baptist.

Footnotes:
[1] A series of deportations from Israel began in 609 B.C. and continued through 587 B.C.
[2] Well we might taunt the modern liberals. “What kind of God do you offer, but a weakling, a god not worth worshipping?” I once did this with the Pastor of First Congregational Church, Newport, Rhode Island, a Yale Divinity graduate, an older man, while I was a student at Chaplaincy School in Newport visiting the historic church. He was quite disturbed and protested with some vehemence; it moved me little other than to note his hostility to the sovereign God of Scripture in general and Isaiah in particular. At the rear after the service, I noted that "The God on offer this morning was not the God of Scripture."
[3] New Geneva Study Bible (Atlanta: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), 1090.
[4] Isaiah 6 provides an insight on Isaiah, to wit, that he understood his words would fall on deaf ears and hard hearts, people who would be pruned from His Majesty’s Church by judgment. But Isaiah was reassured that the stump would grow and that there would be willing people who would listen, believe and embrace the promises of God.
[5] This was the very first Bible verse my parents made me memorize.
[6] We will address the Papist fiction of locating authority in one apostle in subsequent lectures. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of early Churchmen never held Peter as the Rock. The Rock is God, His Work and the results of that work, confession of faith.
[7] This is why we take extremely low views of Baptists and other anti-paedobaptists, calling on them to repent.