Read Isaiah 9:6 and 11:1-11
Last week, we saw Jesus clearly in the Law (Genesis–Deuteronomy). We saw how God sovereignly wove characteristics of Christ into patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph to teach the Old Testament people to hope in the Messiah and to teach us to see Christ in all of scripture.
This week, we turn our focus to the prophets. Remember, we are using the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible: The Law, The Prophets, and the Writings. The Prophets include the following books: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and The Twelve (that is, the minor prophets). We will focus specifically on the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah this week.
The subject of misinformation has been especially relevant over the past two years. More than that, as a culture, we have become more prone to label people and immediately categorize them according to a narrow set of ideas and beliefs based on very little information.
You might say that we have never been more in need of a reliable source and standard of truth. In Isaiah's prophecy, we have that need fulfilled in Christ. In chapter 9, Isaiah called our Savior the "Wonderful Counselor," meaning that the Savior would be one who would lead his people knowledgeably. How does such leadership occur in our lives as Christians?
Isaiah tells us that Christ would in his person be the Wonderful Counselor. “Wonderful” refers to his being beyond our finite comprehension and marvelous beyond compare (Jg. 13:18; Is. 25:1). John Calvin says that “wonderful” communicates that the “grace of God, which will be exhibited in Christ, exceeds all miracles.”
[1] “Counselor” refers to the absolute wisdom that Christ possesses as our Prophet.
The fact that he would be “called” the Wonderful Counselor does not mean that he only became wise at his incarnation, but rather that he was given these particular gifts of wisdom to impart to us for our benefit (Jn. 1:18). In other words, he was endowed with wisdom to give away by his teaching.
He came as a well-supplied visitor to earth. The fact that Christ is an absolutely wise Savior is not revealed to us simply to wow us with how smart he is but rather to encourage us that all of his wisdom benefits us in our lives. He has not withheld anything from us that we need to know for life and salvation.
Remember, in promising to prepare a place for us in heaven he gave us those all-comforting words, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” That is why we are called friends and not slaves—one discloses everything to his friends while servants are kept in the dark (Jn. 15:14,15). Yes, his knowledge is beyond our comprehension, but it is for our benefit in correcting all our false notions and leading us into all truth.
The fact that Christ is an absolutely wise Savior is not revealed to us simply to wow us with how smart he is but rather to encourage us that all of his wisdom benefits us in our lives.
In chapter 10, Isaiah describes the destruction of the Assyrian “forest.” That is, Assyria, the tormentor of Judah and representative of all enemies of Christ’s Church, will be laid waste. He pictures God’s coming through the Assyrian forest with a mighty axe felling giant trees and laying waste forest thickets. Only stumps are left (10:33,34). But now Isaiah zooms his camera in on a stump that had been overgrown by this former forest.
It is the stump representing the nation of Judah. Though it had once been a mighty tree itself, the prosperous kingdom of David, it is now nothing more than a stump. In fact, the house of David had so degenerated morally and regally that it is not even referred to by David’s name but by his father Jesse’s name, a man who had been no more than a common sheep herder.
[2]But out of this seemingly insignificant stump represented by a couple of lowly people named Mary and Joseph, a shoot bursts forth. Interestingly what we have translated “shoot” is in Hebrew netzer, from natzer, from which Nazarene comes (Mt. 2:23). This apparently insignificant green shoot would come from the insignificant town of Nazareth, about which it was common to ask, “Can any good thing come from Nazareth?” (John 1:45-46).
Yes, something good came from Nazareth, something incomprehensibly good: the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ. It is important to begin with the person of Christ because it is only through him that we experience all blessings.
When we are saved, our lives are joined to his, such that all of his life flows into ours. Thus all of the benefits of his wise counsel flow progressively into us by being joined to him. Indeed, there is no blessing that we receive that does not come through Jesus himself.
[1] Calvin,
Commentary, 372.
