Isaiah & the Violence of God

For a good discussion of the limits and context of the imagery of "warrior" and "destroyer" , see the opening chapters of  Pierre Gilbert:  The Violence of God: Investigations in the book of Isaiah The text is at:

http://www.mbherald.com/44/12/violence.en.html

The book of Isaiah: 66 chapters, 1292 verses. By all accounts, an exceedingly complex piece of literature. A masterpiece in its own right.  While scholars have long debated the authorship of the book and its date of composition,  the book has traditionally been associated with Isaiah of Jerusalem whose prophetic activity spanned a period of about 42 years (742-700 B.C.).

I would venture to say that for most Christians the book of Isaiah is probably the best known and most loved prophetic book of the Old Testament. When I was a young believer, Christians eagerly pointed out to me Isaianic passages that prophesied various aspects of the Messiah's life centuries before Christ even appeared in human history.

That He would be born of a virgin: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (7:14)."  That He would come from the lineage of Jesse (11:10a). That He would heal the blind, the deaf, and the lame (35:5-6). That He would be God (40:3). That He would grow up in humble circumstances (53:2). And that He would be despised and rejected (53:3).

As a young Christian, I was most touched by and drawn to those verses that spoke so vividly of Christ's sufferings and death for the sins of humanity (52:15; 53:4-7,10; 59:15-16). Isaiah 53:4-7 particularly stood out:

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed . . . like a lamb that is led to the slaughter . . . he did not open his mouth.

For me, at that time, the message of Isaiah focused on the announcement of a Messiah who would suffer and die to bring about the salvation of humanity. As important as this theme is, that impression began to change when I actually endeavoured to read the book from beginning to end. What I found shocked me! I discovered a book filled with dire warnings, ruthless judgments, and nasty curses.

Isaiah's call in chapter 6 caught my attention. While I was fascinated by the interaction of God with the great prophet, I could not help being disturbed by this encounter. Here was a man who was called by God, yet invited to take on a mission that was doomed to failure from the beginning. In fact, the net impression the text leaves is that God Himself would ensure that Isaiah would fail:

And he said, "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.' Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed" (6:9-10).

How could I reconcile such harshness with my perception of a loving God who allows His own son to suffer and die for us? Beyond the mere fact that here was a God who seemed bent on ensuring the downfall of His people by making sure they don't understand what's in store for them, how was I to interpret the violence of the judgments against Israel so often reiterated in the book?

Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them; the mountains quaked, and their corpses were like refuse in the streets (5:25).

Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts the land was burned, and the people became like fuel for the fire; no one spared another. They gorged on the right, but still were hungry, and they devoured on the left, but were not satisfied; they devoured the flesh of their own kindred (9:19-20).

While the book of Isaiah contains many promises of salvation, it also exudes a degree of divine violence that is virtually incomprehensible for Christians who have come to view and portray Jesus as the ultimate Prince of Peace.

Is it possible to make sense of the violence of God in the great prophetic message of Isaiah? Are we condemned to pretend it's not there, like the proverbial elephant in the living room?

My assumption is that there is an organic unity between the Old and the New Testaments, between the covenant God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Covenant. In this series of articles on Isaiah, I will explore this scandalous notion of the violence of God in an attempt to understand how it functions in the context of Isaiah, but also how it can be inserted into the history of salvation as it unfolds in the person of Jesus Christ.

Our investigation will focus particularly on Isaiah 1:10-20, which represents the very essence of Isaiah's prophetic message and Isaiah 6, which gives us an exceptional insight into the very heart of God and the mission of the prophet.

While the book of Isaiah is generally known for its predictions of a divine Messiah who would one day redeem humanity by taking its sin upon Himself (Isaiah 53:4–5), the reality is that there is also a dark side to the message of Isaiah. A harsh word of judgment and destruction courses through its pages. A terrible message couched in language that shocks and disturbs.

Who is this God who casts fire and brimstone against His own people and other nations as well? Is He really the Father to whom Jesus prayed or some primitive conceptual reconstruction that emerged out of the clouded minds of cave-dwelling theologians?

Let me be blunt! I believe in the intrinsic unity of the entire Bible. Not only do I maintain that there is an organic principle that gives coherence to the Old Testament, I am also convinced this principle reaches into the very core of the New Testament. The “violent” God of Isaiah and the loving Father of Jesus are one and the same. The purpose of this series of articles is to show how these seemingly contradictory images can be kept together.

Our investigation into Isaiah will first take us to chapter 1. Why? Because this chapter represents both an introduction and a sweeping summary of the entire book as well as the challenges Isaiah faces as a prophet.

Chapter 1 begins with a word that leaves no doubt as to what this book is about. This is no novel. Nor is it an editorial. It is not political commentary, nor is it a simple opinion. This is a Hazon. A prophetic vision. A Word from God.

The true prophet never appears on the scene for trivial reasons. His are no empty words. No hot wind mercilessly blistering the brains of his audience, as is so often the case when some of our own politicians start blabbering. His words are life and death. Those who ignore the word of the true prophet of the Lord do so at the risk of their own lives.

The reason for the prophet’s emergence is thrown on the table in the very opening verses of the book. Verse 2 begins with a thunderous declaration: “Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth . . ."  Yahweh is not playing some secretive and devious game. The God of Israel summons the heavens and the earth to witness His people’s indictment.

God explains

The storm God is brewing is not without cause. Verse 2 brutally clarifies the issue: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.” What we have here is what scholars refer to as a judgment speech. Its main purpose is to establish the guilt of the accused and the legitimacy of the judgment that will be brought against the guilty party.

The case against Judah is extremely serious. Words such as rebellion, ignorance, sin, guilt, evildoers and corruption punctuate verses 2–4. This legal rationale is then followed by a description of the disaster that has already struck the land. An unexpected storm has broken upon the people and now the prophet is telling them where it is coming from and why it is striking.

The explanation provided in verses 2–4 is remarkable. In the context of the ancient world, it is simply astounding. The gods of Egypt and Mesopotamia were not in the habit of explaining their actions to humans. In fact, they were as eager to explain themselves to human beings as I am concerned about dialoguing with the ants I set out to destroy in my backyard every spring. For these ancient gods, the human race was utterly inconsequential. The notion that gods should justify their actions would never have occurred to them.

And yet, here it is in bold and underlined characters! The majestic Creator, the God of the universe humbly explains Himself. He does not leave His people in the dark in regards to the lethal storm that has begun to blow over the land.

Why is Yahweh so different from the slew of gods that populated the Ancient Near East? Why does He bother at all?

God has a project

Yahweh stoops down for two reasons. The first part of the answer has something to do with the fact that this God has a project.  The entire Old Testament is wrapped around one fundamental idea: God is in the business of creating a people comprised of individuals endowed with free will, who will choose to love and serve Him.

The genesis of that project can be traced back to the Garden of Eden. There, a man and a woman, the glorious first, untainted by sin and free from the seeds of corruption that have come to affect us so tragically. There, something went wrong. The first children of God distrusted their creator and rebelled against Him. Invited to embrace the God of the universe and His project for them, they tragically folded back on themselves. There, sin erupted. The age of misery, fear and violence was ushered in.

That’s the problem with creatures endowed with free will. They can go either way. In that early stage of history, the human species was irremediably damaged, not destroyed mind you, but infected by a rot that would increasingly become visible over time.

Why didn’t God scrap the entire project in the infancy of humankind? Imagine the grief, the pain, the misery that would never have seen the light of day. Why didn’t God nip the cancer in the bud? The solution to the dilemma of God’s violence in Isaiah is intimately linked to the resolution of this question.

Go to Part 1

In the previous article in this series, we saw that there was nothing random or arbitrary about the hurricane of destruction that was blowing over Judah and Israel at the time of Isaiah. The first few verses of the book of Isaiah vigorously connect the dots between God’s judgment and the people’s reprehensible moral behaviour.

The most astounding thing about this public indictment is that Yahweh bothers explaining at all why He is moving against His people. God’s insistence on justifying His actions clashed with the normal behaviour of the ancient gods, who never felt any compulsion to explain anything at all to human beings.

Why does God, against normal divine convention, stoop down to justify His actions?

First of all, the God of the Old Testament has a project for humanity: the creation of a people composed of men and women who will freely choose to love and serve God. The entire Old Testament is about that one single idea and how it works itself out in history.

The project was first introduced in the creation account in Genesis 1–3. The first glorious children of God were invited to embrace their creator, but tragically chose Self rather than God – an action that resulted in the ushering of the Age of Misery into human history.

Logic dictates that God would have been well advised to quit while everyone was ahead. How hard would it have been to sterilize Adam? A strategic exposure to radioactive material would have fixed the problem. Adam and Eve would have grown old, died peacefully, and no other human would have been exposed to sin and its ravaging effects on our species.

Why didn’t God do the “logical” thing? The answer is surprisingly simple: commitment. Once God decided to initiate the Great Project, there was no turning back. God would see it to the end.

No turning back.

At this point, God now needed to put into motion the plan of redemption. In time, it would necessitate the formation of a specific people, an ethnic group that would be called to form a nation, a distinct political reality: Israel.

One cannot begin to comprehend the “violence” of Yahweh in Isaiah without carefully considering this point. Once God was committed to working with humanity in its damaged state, it became imperative to set into motion the process that would bring about the ultimate redemption of the human race. The creation of a political entity called Israel was a necessary step in that process.

Why does God intervene in Judah’s history? Why does He allow the winds of judgment to blow over Israel? Why does He bother telling His people why He is doing all this? Simple. The people of Israel were called to become a certain kind of people.

In order for the plan of redemption to unfold successfully, Israel had to become a community that reflected the holy character of God. By the middle of the 8th century BC, neither Israel nor Judah mirrored Yahweh. By 750 BC, the Israelites had embraced the odious Baal and were rushing headlong towards self-destruction!

The second reason that accounts for Yahweh’s humble self-disclosure to His people directly derives from His love for them. God does not stick with His people simply for utilitarian reasons. Unlike the gods of the Ancient Near East, who created humans to meet their needs, Yahweh created men and women to enter into a relationship with Him: to love them and to be the object of their love!

Reasons to intervene.

God has two reasons, therefore, to “violently” intervene in the life of His people. First, because of the special role it was to play in the plan of redemption, Israel had to become a distinct kind of community. Second, God loved His people. And love, as C. S. Lewis points out in his Problem of Pain, seeks the well-being of the loved one.

In the 8th century BC, Judah has committed itself to self-destruction. If God does not intervene, the only outcome possible is the utter and complete destruction of His people and the failure of His plan of redemption for humanity.

The “violence” of God has nothing to do with the violence of those who seek their own advantage by trampling others. It has nothing to do with destructive actions committed without meaning or simply to arouse and satisfy one’s pleasure centres.

The problem with the use of the word violence has to do with the meaning most dictionaries assign to it. “Violence"  is generally understood as the “exercise of physical force so as to inflict injury on or damage to persons or property; . . ."  The unspoken assumption in this definition is that this is force used for personal gain or in the service of evil.

This is not, however, the only meaning of the word. As the renowned French historian Pierre Chaunu points out, the old Latin word violentia also referred to the notion of acting, intervening vigorously or forcefully.

This is the true significance of the “violence” of God in Isaiah. It’s the “violence” of the dentist who extracts a bad molar. It’s the “violence” of the birthing process that literally pushes the infant out of the womb. It’s the “violence” of the brain surgeon who purposely and without hesitation slices into the skull to get at a tumour.

The curse language is not simply the violent expression of a frustrated God who randomly inflicts destruction upon His people to satisfy His lust for blood. The curses found throughout the book of Isaiah are much more akin to the actions of a loving and dedicated doctor who is struggling to calibrate the treatment that will kill the disease without destroying the patient. It is God pleading with His people to move away from the path of self-destruction.

Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 1:18–20).

Warnings and threats are one thing, but what kind of transformation is Yahweh really after? Is He just looking for some kind of political reform? How will the transformation occur?

In the next articles, we will look at a passage – Isaiah 6 – specifically written to answer this question.

Go to Part 1

The numerous judgments pronounced against Judah in the book of Isaiah do not represent the violent outbursts of a frustrated God who inflicts destruction simply to satisfy His lust for blood. A careful study of these oracles of judgment demonstrates exactly the opposite, in fact.

These words and acts of “violence” reflect a profound expression of divine love. They are like the actions of a dedicated cancer specialist who seeks to calibrate a course of treatment that will best deal with the illness without killing the patient.

Most fundamentally, the declarations of judgment attested in Isaiah are the expressions of a God who is pleading with His people to turn away from the path of destruction.

But is it all only about warnings and threats? Is Yahweh exclusively after a change of behaviour? A careful reading of Isaiah suggests that there is much more going on here. The critical clue to God’s intention is found in the account of Isaiah’s call.

Isaiah 6 represents the centre of the section comprised by chapters 1–12. On the one hand, this chapter seeks to establish the authority and credibility of the prophet. Isaiah does not speak out of his own authority. He speaks on behalf of God and by God’s authority. This is one of the critical objectives of this vivid description of Isaiah’s call.

But that is not the only purpose of this remarkable account. This chapter is strategically positioned to respond to the twofold question that screams out of chapters 1–5: What will national redemption ultimately look like? And what needs to happen to take the people of God off the path of self-destruction?

It is imperative to obtain a concrete answer to this question, for if silence is the only answer, there is then no hope for Israel but terror at the hands of God. And that is bad news, not only for Israel, but also for the rest of humanity.

A plan for all humanity.

The fate of the human race is intimately linked to the fate of Israel. When the Age of Misery emerged (Genesis 3), God implemented a plan to redeem humanity. The creation of a distinct people, Israel, became an intrinsic part of that plan and a necessary link in the unfolding of the plan of redemption.

God’s plan to redeem Israel was not only for the benefit of Israel but also for the benefit of all men and women. It was imperative for God to do the utmost to ensure Israel would survive as the people of God, both to be a light for all the nations, but also to provide the setting in which Jesus would appear in human history.

Clearly then, Isaiah 6 is more than an account of Isaiah’s call to establish his authority. The account provides the blueprint for national redemption. Isaiah’s experience becomes a model, as it were, a conversion paradigm, for the entire nation.

Chapter 6 can be divided into four sections. The first strophe (6:1–4) sets the stage. In it, Isaiah presents a dramatic description of the throne of God, the seraphim and their activities.

The second strophe (6:5–7) describes Isaiah’s distress at the sight of God’s throne and his cleansing following one of the seraphim’s intervention. The third strophe (6:8) focuses on Isaiah’s commissioning.

The fourth section (6:8–10) provides the message Isaiah is to communicate to the people. Finally, the fifth strophe (6:11–13), signalled by Isaiah’s query in response to the message uttered by Yahweh, specifies both the extent and the ultimate limits of the judgment that will be inflicted on the people of Israel.

Time for conversion.

The description of the throne of God found in verses 1–4 begins with a historical notation: “In the year that king Uzziah died."  The death of a king, any king, is always the source of much anxiety. In the case of Uzziah, who had reigned over 52 years and is said to have done “what was right in the sight of the Lord,” it would prove to be a national catastrophe. In the face of an increasingly dangerous and unstable international situation, the death of Uzziah could not come at a worse time. The subtleties of this situation would not be lost on Isaiah’s audience.

In such situations, the natural response is to look frantically for some way out. For someone or something to hang on to. To a people who would soon be faced with possible annihilation at the hands of the Assyrians, the vision of Isaiah provides a way out – the only way out. “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted . . . Above him were seraphs . . . And they were calling to one another: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”

It was imperative for the people of Judah to change course. They needed to experience a radical conversion. While judgments and curses function well in terms of catching an audience’s attention, they remain relatively blunt instruments. Verses 1–4 spell out the first step in the long process of conversion. True conversion begins by a correct assessment of reality. The reality in this case is a bleak future that offers precious little hope.

Isaiah is well aware of that. This is why he contrasts the death of the king to a vision of God seated on a throne, high and exalted.

The king may be dead. The future may be uncertain. But there is one king who will not die. Ever! Whose power and authority remain forever and extend throughout all the earth. His name is Yahweh!

Go to Part 1

The call of Isaiah found in chapter 6 plays a twofold function. It establishes the prophet’s authority – his right to announce the imminent destruction of his people. But that is not all.

The call of Isaiah is an explosive answer to the question that urgently emerges out of the first part of the book, namely, what kind of response does God expect? Is God simply looking for a change of behaviour or is there more involved?

In that respect, chapter 6 is not exclusively about Isaiah’s conversion experience. Ultimately, it represents a model of conversion for the entire nation. Curses and judgments are very blunt instruments. They are “extreme” attention grabbers. To those who get the significance of the judgments, to those who see the invisible hand of God at work, a further word is needed. Isaiah 6 is the counterpoint to the word of judgment.

The first step in the process of conversion is a correct assessment of reality. Chapter 6 opens with a historical and political marker. Isaiah begins his ministry “in the year that King Uzziah died” (v. 1). The death of a long-reigning king, particularly in the context of the rise of the formidable Assyrians in the second half of the 8th century B.C., would no doubt strike fear in the weak and the stout alike. The most perceptive would have guessed that the days of the great nation of Judah were counted.

When disaster looms, it is imperative that we face reality in all of its rawness. To wallow in illusions is lethal. For true conversion to occur, there must be an honest appraisal of one’s situation.

The second step in the process of conversion is as critical. Yahweh must be recognized as the only source of help and the only hope. Anything else is useless idolatry, a death sentence.

Why turn to Yahweh?

But why should anyone turn to Yahweh? This is indeed the one million dollar question! Getting this one right is critical, for the future of Judah depends on a correct assessment of Yahweh’s power. There is no room for error.

If Judah bets on the wrong “horse,” Judah will be swept away by the political hurricane looming on the horizon. It is imperative that the people throw their lot with the “strong horse.”

Verse 3 presents Yahweh as the “strong horse”: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” It is often stated that the triple allusion to the holiness of God is for emphasis’ sake, but does that have anything to do with Yahweh being the “strong horse”?

Holiness alludes to the awesome nature of God. In the ancient Near East, the word denotes absolute power and demands unconditional respect for the deity and all objects of worship associated with it. But in the Old Testament, the notion of holiness is more than just awful, fear-demanding power.

Here bubbles an unexpected and joyful revolution. The holiness of God also alludes to the infinitely distinct nature of His character. In contrast with the ancient Near East, in the Old Testament the terrorizing power of the divine is fused with morality.

For the first time in history, the awful majesty of the divine is intrinsically linked to morality. Not only is Yahweh perfectly powerful, He is also perfectly moral. This is the wonderful genius and revolutionary character of the Israelite faith: perfect power framed by perfect goodness.

Perfect power, perfect goodness.

There are three reasons for the vision’s emphasis on God’s holiness:

·                     An issue of power. There must remain no doubt as to God’s ability to carry through on the judgment announced in Isaiah’s prophecies.

·                     An ethical concern. There must remain no doubt as to the moral character of these oracles of doom. The destruction God will inflict on His people is fully justified and not the outcome of an unreasonable divine temper tantrum.

·                     An issue of trust and hope. There must remain no doubt as to the trustworthiness of God. If conversion involves a turning away from something, it also involves a turning to something else. Because Yahweh is three times “holy,” He can be trusted to be a perfect refuge. The word of judgment is not final. He will not fail to save. Case closed! Or is it?

Not quite. A true conversion involves more than the recognition that Yahweh can save us from peril, whether it be political danger or threat to life. It involves more than a simple decision to be on the right side or betting on the “strong horse.” If that were the case, chapter 6 would end with the symbolic affirmation of God’s awesome power at the end of verse 4: “At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”

If only the process of conversion were so straightforward. But it isn’t quite so. There is a terrible paradox involved in the act of conversion to God. It is both the simplest and yet most arduous of processes. Why were the Israelites so reluctant to embrace God at the exclusion of all others? Why are so many today so reluctant to hear the call of God? Why are so many hostile to Jesus Christ and the true church?

All kinds of reasons can be put forward, but I believe our text provides the clearest hint as to the real reason behind the near-constant resistance humans throughout the ages have shown to turning to the true God. It is found in the very opening of verse 5. They represent the most dramatic words Isaiah or anyone will ever utter: “Woe to me!”

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

—C.S. Lewis

To a nation on the path to self-destruction, to a nation that turned its back on God, eaten away by moral cancer, God spoke. Through the prophet Isaiah, He spoke words of warning and unimaginable destruction.

God did not hate His people. It’s just that He loved them too much to let them wallow in their cesspool of moral decay forever. As I have repeatedly written throughout this series on Isaiah, God’s words of destruction are intended to save and redeem. They are words to provoke a radical turnabout.

If Isaiah relentlessly announces Israel’s imminent destruction, it’s because the people refuse to listen and to see! Sustained human rebellion is the root cause of God’s judgment.

But why were the Israelites so reluctant to embrace God at the exclusion of all others? And for that matter, why stop at ancient Israel? Why are so many today reluctant to hear God’s invitation? Why are so many hostile to Jesus Christ and the true church? Isaiah 6:5 provides the clearest hint as to the real reason behind the near-constant resistance humans have shown throughout the ages to turning to the true God.

“Woe is me!”² cries the prophet. These represent the most dramatic words Isaiah or any person will ever utter. This expression denotes Isaiah’s dismay at the realization of his true condition in the presence of the holy God. The prophet entertains no illusions about himself: “I am ruined,” he adds. The New Living Translation puts it even more dramatically: “My destruction is sealed.”

Isaiah contemplates the glory of God but there is no praise coming from His mouth. Instead, he recoils in horror, not at God, but at himself. There is something frightfully wrong with him. He comes face to face with the beast within.

Isaiah’s words point to the painful reality of the human condition. There is something broken in the deepest recesses of the human soul. Regardless of the moral standards anyone may hold, the reality is that every single human being is fatally marred by that brokenness the Bible calls sin. Conversion assumes a basic recognition of a fundamental “wrongness” in every one of us.

A vulnerable process

Turning to the living God involves a most intimate and vulnerable process. It demands complete honesty about oneself and a sincere surrender to the person of God.

This recognition of a fundamental “wrongness” in us is what makes it so difficult to turn to Christ. This is particularly so for those who are very religious or those who have high moral standards. Their natural goodness is their greatest weakness, for it provides a shield of delusion in respect to their true nature and their desperate need for God. In the end, turning to God represents the most difficult decision we will ever make, for it implies a conscious decision to make God, rather than self, the centre of reality.

Isaiah’s encounter with God leaves no room for self-delusion. In the presence of God, the reality of his corruption bursts through. This is a disaster, for it does not only signal his own demise. Ultimately, it also signals the demise of his people, for the condition that plagues him, he shares with his people: “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (6:5).

Isaiah’s predicament is enormous, but not all is lost. God has a solution for Isaiah, but not only for Isaiah. “Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out’ ” (6:6–7).

An act of utter mercy

The live coal is a symbol of purification. It denotes God’s redemptive action towards Isaiah and represents a concrete manifestation of forgiveness and cleansing. It is portrayed as an act of utter mercy. A contrite heart is all that is required from Isaiah.

The forgiveness extended to the prophet is life-transforming. He is now free to hear God’s invitation to partner with him (6:8). While there is precious little hope that the people will hear (6:9–10), Isaiah’s experience is the proof that there is hope of forgiveness and transformation for all those who will listen (6:13). The promise of forgiveness and radical transformation is more than a shimmering mirage. It is there simply for the asking.

As difficult as it is for many of us to understand and accept, there is no contradiction between the portrait of God in the Old Testament and the God revealed in the person of Jesus. They are one and the same: merciful beyond human understanding, loving, grieving for those who are in the throes of self-destruction, relentlessly pleading with all men and women to turn away from their sins.

There is no theological rupture between the Old and the New. The reality of sin, our propensity to rebel against God, the reality of judgment, the offer of forgiveness and salvation, and the invitation to partner with God is the story of the Old and the New Testament. How that story is told may vary, but in the end, the message remains the same.

Whether we experience God’s forgiveness or Jesus’ judgment is something that God the Father and God the Son ultimately leave to us. It is, for better or for worse, the “awe-full” burden of human free will and the inevitable corollary of human dignity.

In John 12:38–41 (NIV), the Gospel writer says,

This was to fulfill the word spoken by Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn – and I would heal them.

Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.