THE PURPOSES OF GOD lie beyond our comprehension. Like a waterfall cascading down a sheer cliff-face from a high and unseen source, his will to work through time, space, and history bursts into myriad streams of spray as the force of his intentions strike human culture in all of its manifestations. This is only a metaphor; he is not a force of nature, but the force of creation, and by his own word he establishes his sovereign credentials as creator. “I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself.” (Isa. 44:24b)
This self-evident claim gives us pause to stop the progression of our own thoughts and try to consider his. The ancients have struggled with this, considering the means by which our physical universe came into being. Our modern science, as incredibly astute as it has become, cannot decipher the origins of our universe, other than to point backwards in time to a unique event that started it all.
The Latin church fathers, over a period of centuries into the fourth century A.D., developed a variety of views of the term “ex nihilo,” meaning ‘out of nothing.’ Perhaps the clearest definition of “ex nihilo” is offered by a twentieth century British theologian: *“God is not to be likened, let us say, to a potter who makes a pot from the clay which is to hand; he is, rather, like one who makes both the clay and the pot. This teaching, which baffles understanding and is often rejected because there is no analogy to it in human experience, must be understood as an interpretation and summary of scripture’s witness to God as a whole.” In whatever way we may perceive the origin of the universe, as Christians we stand alongside Job in awe of God. “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6)
The testimony of both the history and the historicity of the bible validate the statements God makes of himself and his purposes and his power. He “foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense.” (Isa. 44:25) Paul, to the central issue of such things, says “Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:20) God shows many prophets that which is to come in all his purposes that surround his holy city and his promised land during a long arc of time. Here, during the time of Isaiah, he “fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’ of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’ and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them.’” (Isa. 44:25)
Isaiah is speaking of the return of the diasporic Jews from the Babylonian exile, which history records in many journals as having occurred during approximately a seventy-year period from 586 to 516 BC. Here, it is God whose force of will is seen carried out, recorded in history, and here in the bible stated about the powerful king Cyrus, “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt,’ and of the temple, ‘Let its foundations be laid.’” (Isa. 44:28) The Book of Nehemiah and the Book of Ezra together describe the rebuilding of Jerusalem, wherein the power and the specific prophecies of God are accomplished in a miraculous fashion.
Many younger Christians question why we should study the O.T. It is, in that view, only important to understand the personal soteriological relationship with Jesus found in the N.T. that is key. To some extent, that view is true; however, without knowing the background of God’s progressive self-revelation in the O.T., we cannot understand the depth, width, and breadth of the meaning of Jesus. The central figure in all the prophecies of the O.T., from Genesis to Malachi, is Jesus. Here in this short section from Isaiah there is no prophetic mention of him, but there is prophetic mention and historical fulfillment of the rebuilding of the holy city in which so much of the story of Jesus will be revealed. And here, we catch a brief glimpse of the God who created it all and sustains it all, the God who has purposes that cannot and will not be denied.
Father, we thank you so much for your most holy word. And we thank you for Jesus, the lover, redeemer, and sustainer of our souls. Thank you, Father, that in your word and in your world, we find evidence of your grand design everywhere. And thank you, Father, that the greatest evidence is within us, as your Holy Spirit imparted to us at our time of regeneration. May your will be fully and completely accomplished, in some way useful to you, in the life we live because of you in this world. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.” (Gal. 2:20)
Q. Is my faith shallow and wide, or both broad and deep?
* Colin Gunton, “The Christian Faith,” p. 17.
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