A VISION OF CREATION RENEWED

While warnings seemed to dominate Isaiah’s pronouncements, his messages also had a persistent note of hope. The people he was addressing were under threat, and he expected their circumstances to get worse. They had been attacked and would be attacked all the more. The nation would be largely destroyed; many of the people would be killed, and most of those who remained would be exiled. But, Isaiah insisted, that would not be the end of their story as a nation or as the people of God. Indeed, their future would be even brighter than the glories of their past. Isaiah pointed forward to One who would come.

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1)—One who would have world-changing significance and impact (see Isaiah 11:4).

He would change everything—all the way back to His original intention for all of creation. Today, we might read this as confusing the first and second comings of Jesus, but this was Isaiah’s expectation of the Messianic age, and it is helpful to consider his perspective that the transformation and re-creation resulting from these two comings should not be so isolated or distinct. There is important truth in understanding Jesus in His incarnation and Jesus in His promised return, but He is the same Jesus in both, and the effects are part of the same plan—the same redemption and restoration. So Isaiah’s descriptions of justice for the poor and judgment against those who oppress them (see Isaiah 11:3, 4), of unlikely animal companions (see Isaiah 11:6–8), and of a world of peace filled with the knowledge and glory of God can be read and celebrated as what God has done, is doing, and will do in the coming(s) of Jesus. In Jesus, these are a growing reality, a present task, and a certain hope.