Jesus, Our Lord
Picture an iceberg. A massive iceberg, with ice mountains rising from the sea in all directions, and ice roots stretching into the unseen depths of the ocean. Biblical revelation is like that iceberg. What we have in the Scriptures is the part of the iceberg that juts out of the water, but the fullness of God’s meaning plunges to the depths.
Thus, in seeking to know God through the Bible, we have to go deep and wide. We read biblical sentences and paragraphs and chapters and books, and we go deep, meditating on the word and drawing out implications as we seek to trace the depth of the iceberg. And we go wide, connecting biblical sentences and paragraphs and chapters and books to other biblical sentences and paragraphs and chapters and book, showing the connections between one part of Scripture and another as we seek to chart the breadth of the iceberg.
A few weeks ago, Pastor Jonathan went deep, exploring the meaning and implications of God’s name in Exodus 34. Last week Pastor Kenny went wide, connecting Exodus 35-40 back to Genesis 3 and forward to Revelation 20-21.
So here at Cities, we’re whole Bible people. We love the whole counsel of God. We ask questions like, “What must be the case, in order for everything in the Bible to be true?” That’s a systematic theology question; it goes deep into reality to make sense of biblical claims. And we ask questions like, “How does God progressively reveal himself over time?” That’s a biblical theology question; it goes wide into the Bible to trace themes from Genesis to Revelation.
In doing this, our aim is to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, both the breadth and the depth.
A fundamental conviction as we seek to go deep and wide is that we learn to read the Bible from the biblical authors. We learn to read the Torah by seeing how the prophets read the Torah. We learn to read the Old Testament by seeing how Jesus and the apostles read the Old Testament. We look for quotations and listen for echoes so that our minds begin to run in biblical ruts. We don’t merely accept Paul’s doctrine; we seek to imitate Paul’s method. We follow Paul’s train of thought and then seek to reproduce it elsewhere.
This brings us to Isaiah 45. This is Isaiah’s oracle concerning Cyrus, king of Persia. Isaiah wrote this 200 years before Cyrus appeared on the scene. Despite being a pagan ruler, Cyrus is the Lord’s anointed, his messiah, his Christ. Though Cyrus does not know Yahweh, Yahweh knows Cyrus, names Cyrus, calls Cyrus, and equips Cyrus to fulfill God’s purposes. God will go before Cyrus and subdue nations and open locked gates for him (45:1-3). He does this so that God through Cyrus will restore the fortunes of Israel following their exile to Babylon (Isaiah 45:4-5). And Yahweh acts in this way so that all people will know “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (45:5, 6).
In fact, the uniqueness of the Lord becomes the dominant theme of this entire chapter. Again and again, Yahweh asserts his unique divine prerogatives. Again and again, the Lord, through his prophet, shouts that he alone is God. Hear the trumpet blast of God’s absolute uniqueness sound seven times in this one chapter.
Isaiah 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
Isaiah 45:6 there is none besides me;
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:14 They will plead with you, saying:
‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other,
no god besides him.’”
Isaiah 45:18 “I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 45:21 Was it not I, the LORD?
And there is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none besides me.
Isaiah 45:22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 45:24 “Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me,
are righteousness and strength;”
I am the LORD. There is none besides me. I have no rival, no equal. I am God, and there is no other. This fundamental declaration of the Lord’s absolute uniqueness is an invitation to us to go deep, to explore the depths of the iceberg. We’re going to ask two questions.
According to this passage, what makes the Lord unique? What is the meaning of his uniqueness?
What else must be true, in order for that to be true? What are the implications of that meaning?
Almighty Maker
First, He alone is the Creator God. He forms light and creates darkness (45:7). He sends showers to the earth and causes plants to grow (45:8). He is the potter who forms the clay and the father who makes all mankind (45:9). Isaiah also goes wide, drawing our attention back to Genesis 1:
I made the earth
and created man on it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their host. (45:12)
For thus says the LORD,
who created the heavens
(he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
(he established it;
he did not create it empty,
he formed it to be inhabited!). (45:18)
The Lord is unique, because the Lord alone is the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, the one who both formed and filled the cosmos. There is only one Creator, and therefore he is God, and there is no other.
Let’s press deeper. What must be true for that to be true? Think about what goes into making a pot. Behind the finished pot, there are a number of other things. To make a pot, you have material and then the potter molds it into a particular shape or form for a particular purpose. And you could have different materials and different shapes and different purposes. The potter could shape clay into a tall skinny shape in order to hold flowers. Or the potter could shape ceramic into a wider shape in order to be a toilet. But to make a pot, you’ve got the stuff, you’ve got a potter, you’ve got a shape, and you’ve got a purpose. And here’s the point: there are things that are more ultimate than the pot that make the pot the pot. If you ask, “What is a pot?,” you can answer, “A pot is a molded object made out of clay by a potter for a purpose.” You can break the pot down into things more fundamental than the pot, and the pot is the combination of those things.
Here’s the implication: if the Lord is the Potter, then he is not a pot. If he is the Maker, he is not the made. If he is Creator, then he’s not a creature. If we’re grouping things into categories, pots go on one side of the line, and the Potter goes on the other side.
Which means that unlike pots, nothing and no one makes him who he is. You can’t get behind him to something more ultimate than him. You can’t break him down into more fundamental parts. No one formed him or shaped him. He just is. In fact, if you ask him, “Who are you, Lord?,” what’s the answer? “I Am Who I Am.” That’s his name. Yahweh, the One Who Simply Is. And he’s the only one.
Sovereign Sustainer and Governor of History
Second, not only is the Lord the Maker, he is the Sovereign Sustainer and Governor of the world. The Lord will go before Cyrus and prepare his way (45:1-3). He stirs Cyrus up in righteousness. He makes his way level. He ensures that Cyrus builds his city and sets the exiles of Israel free.
All of the events described in this chapter are known and declared by God before they happen.
[11] Thus says the LORD,
the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him [Cyrus]:
“Ask me of things to come;
will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?
[12] I made the earth
and created man on it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their host. (45:11-12)
Declare and present your case;
let them take counsel together!
Who told this long ago?
Who declared it of old?
Was it not I, the LORD? (45:21)
This theme continues in the next chapter.
Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9 remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
11 calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it. (46:8-11)
Thus the Lord is unique in sustaining the world and governing all of history. That’s what it means for him to be unique, for there to be “no other.” So what are the implications? What must be true for that to be true?
He is all-knowing--past, present, and future. He declares the end from the beginning.
He is all-wise. His counsel shall stand.
He is all-powerful. None of his purposes can be frustrated. All of them come to pass. He doesn’t just govern those who know and trust him. He governs those who don’t know him.
You and I and every creature have limits to our knowledge and power and sovereignty. But he has no limits; he is infinite in power and knowledge and majesty. You and I depend on lots of things to accomplish our purposes and we can be frustrated. But he depends on nothing and no one to accomplish his purposes. He uses means to accomplish his purposes; he does not depend upon them. And so we can’t be frustrated.
And thus we say that God is omniscient, omnipotent, infinite, independent, and free. And because of that, he is absolutely unique; there is none like him.
Living Righteous Savior
Finally, not only is Yahweh alone the Almighty Maker and Sovereign Sustainer and Governor, he alone is the living “righteous God and a Savior” (45:21). Yahweh is distinct from all the gods of the nations, since the pagans “carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save” (45:20). Isaiah 46 elaborates.
Bel bows down; Nebo stoops;
their idols are on beasts and livestock;
these things you carry are borne
as burdens on weary beasts.
2 They stoop; they bow down together;
they cannot save the burden,
but themselves go into captivity.
3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth,
carried from the womb;
4 even to your old age I am he,
and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
I will carry and will save.
Do you hear the contrast? Donkeys carry the idols of the nation. The Lord carries his people. Idols can’t even save themselves. The Lord saves his people.
5 “To whom will you liken me and make me equal,
and compare me, that we may be alike?
6 Those who lavish gold from the purse,
and weigh out silver in the scales,
hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
then they fall down and worship!
7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it,
they set it in its place, and it stands there;
it cannot move from its place.
If one cries to it, it does not answer
or save him from his trouble.
This is a fundamental difference between the Lord and the gods of the nations. The Lord is the living God. He’s not a statue. He’s not dead; he is alive. When Aslan is on the move, it’s not because someone put him on their shoulders. He comes and goes as he pleases;
The idols of the nations have unseeing eyes, unhearing ears, unsmelling noses, unspeaking mouths, and useless hands. But the Lord: he sees, he hears; he smells; he speaks; he carries. And he does so without a body. In fact, it’s because the Lord is a seeing God that he made creatures with eyes to reflect him. It’s because he is a hearing God that he made creatures with ears to hear him. It’s because he’s a speaking God, that he made creatures with mouths and tongues to speak back to him. These creaturely qualities dimly reflect something of what he is like. There is none like him, but everything is like him. There is none like him; he has no equal or rival. He’s in a class by himself. But because he is the Maker and Sustainer, everything is like him.
What are the implications? What must be true for that to be true? Well, how do we make sense of the statement in 45:24: “Only in the LORD...are righteousness and strength”? Throughout the Bible, lots of human beings are said to have righteousness and strength too. So what is the word “only” doing?
The word “only” means that righteousness is in the Lord in a unique way. Creatures are said to have righteousness when they meet the standard of righteousness. But the Lord is the standard.
Think about it this way. The Lord is not merely righteous. He is righteousness. Note the adjective and the noun. He is not merely good. He is goodness itself. He is the Good that makes all other goods good. He is not merely strong; he is strength itself. He is the Strong that makes all things strong. He is not merely wise; he is wisdom itself, in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The Lord is not merely righteous, good, strong, and wise. He is The Righteous, The Good, The Strong, and The Wise.
God’s attributes aren’t merely qualities that he happens to have. They are essential to him. They are our descriptions of his being, his essence, his very nature, his God-ness. Because he simply is who he is. God is light--pure, simple white light. And these attributes--righteousness, wisdom, strength, goodness--are what happens when he shines through the prism of creation. The white light is refracted into all the colors of the rainbow, so that clay pots can have some idea of what the Potter is like. Like Moses, we see the glory of God “from the back.” We grope and we strain and we labor to find words to describe the Lord, who is God and there is no other.
Every Tongue and Every Knee
Again and again and again in this chapter, the Lord, through his prophet, shouts that he alone is God. “I am the LORD, and there is no other. I am the LORD, and there is none besides me.” He is the Almighty Creator, the Sovereign Sustainer, and the Living and Righteous Savior.
And that is why it is no surprise in this great monotheistic passage when Yahweh declares,
By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
‘To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear allegiance.’ (Isaiah 45:23)
As the only true and living God, he has no one greater by whom he can swear (cf. Heb. 6:13; there’s his supremacy and independence again), and his sure and certain word establishes that all shall bow to him and him alone. Every tongue will confess that Yahweh alone is Lord.
Paul’s Shocking Words
Now, having gone deep in Isaiah 45, we need to go wide. We need to learn to read Isaiah with the apostles. And when we do, we discover something shocking. Listen to Philippians 2.
[5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Like Isaiah, Paul is celebrating the anointed of the Lord, Christ Jesus himself. Whereas Cyrus did not know the Lord, Jesus does, and his humility and obedience is the model for our own. Jesus humbled himself, and his obedience extended all the way to death, even death on a cross.
And then the turn.
[9] Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (ESV)
Paul knows what he is doing. He knows that this fundamental Christian confession—Jesus Christ is Lord—does not merely declare him to be a human ruler like Herod or Caesar or Cyrus. He knows that he is echoing the words of Isaiah in that great monotheistic chapter. The chapter that rang with “there is no other” is now shockingly, surprisingly, incredibly redeployed to declare that Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself--full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. He is Yahweh himself, come in the flesh to rescue and redeem, to suffer and to save.
Cyrus was the Lord’s anointed; so is Jesus. The nations declared to Cyrus, “Surely God is in you”; Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. The wealth of Egypt and Cush was given to Cyrus; Jesus receives all nations as his inheritance, the ends of the earth as his possession. With God’s help, Cyrus broke through the gates of fortified cities and tore down the doors of bronze; Jesus ripped the doors off the City of Death and burst the bonds of Sin’s Prison. Cyrus was the Lord’s Messiah. But Jesus the Messiah is the Lord himself.
And because we’ve gone deep in Isaiah, because we’ve explored the meaning and implications of “there is no other,” we understand what an unbelievable claim is being made here. To confess that Jesus is Lord is to confess that he is the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, the Sovereign Sustainer and Governor of history, and the Living and Righteous Savior. It is to confess that he is the Potter, not a pot; that he is the infinite, independent, unchanging, absolutely simple, omniscient, omnipotent and supreme God. He is goodness himself, righteousness himself, strength himself, and wisdom himself. To confess that Jesus is Lord is to confess that he doesn’t simply meet the standard as a perfect man; he is the standard as the living God.
The Table
Yes, Paul knows what he is doing. And he knows that he’s not the first to do so. The shepherds heard it first, declared by angel tongues on bended knees on the night of Jesus’s birth. The good news of great joy for all people shockingly brought together Isaiah’s words into a simple sentence. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Not merely the Lord’s Christ (like David or Cyrus). This Christ is the Lord himself, now laying aside his divine privileges and emptying himself, humbling himself, taking on the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of men.
Now when the ends of the earth turn to be saved, they don’t merely turn to the living God. They turn to the God-man from Nazareth, the boy from Bethlehem. Jesus is Lord, and there is no other. Jesus is Lord, and there is none like him.