Intro: St. Augustine prayed, “Oh Lord, give what you command, and command what you will.” He prayed that God would exercise His divine grace to grant his salvation. Isaiah reflects the same grace of God in Isaiah 26:12, “for indeed all our works you have done for us.” In this song of praise, Isaiah experientially lays out the doctrine of salvation by grace alone.
The passage has something of a parallel development to it, as Motyer (The Prophecy of Isaiah) points out. You can divide it into seven sections where 1 and 7 relate, 2 and 6, 3 and 5, and 4 stands alone in the center. I'll follow this pattern, drawing together the parallel thoughts under 4 sections, summarizing each with one word. 1. Security. 2. Dust. 3. Peace. 4. Blindness.
4. Blindness - vss. 10-11. Total depravity.
3. Peace – vss. 7-9, 12-15. Salvation by God's grace alone.
2. Dust vss. 5-6, 16-19. God brings down the city of man to the dust (5-6). But God brings up His people out of the dust (19).
1. Security, vss. 1-4, 20-21. The bookends of this song of praise to God are the security that his salvation bring us.
Conc. God confronts mankind as completely blind and dead in sin. commands us to repent and believe, but we cannot do even this in our own strength. But God is gracious. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, we have been dead in sin, but God has made us alive by His grace through faith in Christ. Because of this, we have reason to be glad! God graciously gives what He commands and commands what He wills. We look to Him as the author of our faith and the one who perfects it. |
