Morning Light – April 7th, 2017 – Isaiah 60: Arise, Shine for Thy Light is come

Morning Light – Isaiah 60
Today: [Isaiah 60] Arise, Shine for Thy Light is come. In Isaiah 60 the prophet looks down through time and sees the coming of Jesus as the light of the world. Out of 500 years of chaos and darkness, the gap between the Old and the New Testamental periods, Jesus comes forth into the earth and all of human history pivots on the brief 3 ½ years of His earthly ministry. His greatness not only manifests in the demonstration of God in Christ but in His sinless, pure humanity. As “very God” and “very man” He came and demonstrated to us the restoration of the dominion lost in the garden, restored in Christ and imputed to those of us who have been called to bear His name among the nations of the earth.
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[Isa 60:1-22 KJV] 1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. 2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. 4 Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at [thy] side. 5 Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. 6 The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD. 7 All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. 8 Who [are] these [that] fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows? 9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. 10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. 11 Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that [men] may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and [that] their kings [may be] brought.
Chapter 60 of Isaiah begins with a very familiar verse “Arise shine for the light is come nad the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee…” Who is Isaiah speaking to? The light of the Glory of God is correctly understood in a Messianic context. Imagine how Jesus might have read this passage. He understood the message of Isaiah and declared in the gospel of John:
[Jhn 8:12 KJV] 12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
And again, in John 9:5:
[Jhn 9:5 KJV] 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
100 years after the prophesying of Isaiah the line of the kings of David was veritably extinguished when Zedekiah is led to Babylon, blinded and in captivity. 400 years later Jesus is in the earth as a young man growing in stature, in wisdom and in favor with God and man. He wasn’t born in the manger with full knowledge or awareness of who He was. He found out who He was as He read the scriptures and communed with His Father. He sees the reality of His own destiny and the purpose for which the Father brought Him into the earth causing Him to respond to His parents “I must be about My Father’s business…” He knew and understood and the reading of Isaiah would have underscored the fact that He was in His person the light of the world and the salvation of mankind.
In Christ Jesus, the gross darkness and calamity that rests upon all humanity is broken with the coming of Christ. Jesus came not only as the son of God but by the more frequent title by which He referred to Himself as “the son of man”. This is the heart of the doctrine of Christ found in 1 Tim. 2:5:
[1Ti 2:5 KJV] 5 For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
The early centuries of the church accepted Jesus as a man – He had walked among them as a contemporary. They struggled however to accept Him as God. History records that many in the first centuries of the church accepted Jesus as the sinless lamb given for the transgressions of the world, but it took some time before the church formally accepted in its doctrine that Jesus was “very God” and “fully man”. For us today 2000 years later we accept Him unquestioningly as God but we struggle to see Him as man. We must make this connection for if He is not fully God and fully man then He is not completely our mediator. Because Jesus was to demonstrate His humanity, tempted in all points as we are is the reason why God allowed Jesus to live out a full life before being crucified.
As a man Jesus demonstrated the heart of God for the human condition as the Father intended it to be lived out. God wanted us to see in the life of Jesus dominion demonstrated as Jesus still the waves, raised the dead, cast out devils and cleansed the lepers. Romans 1:1 tells us that Jesus was declared or delineated as the son of God by the spirit of Holiness (or, the Holy Spirit). Jesus could have called 10,000 angels but He limited Himself in His earth walk to dependency on the Holy Spirit that He then sent to us as our Comforter that we might as John 14 tells us do the works that He did and greater works because He went to the Father.
12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, [those] nations shall be utterly wasted. 13 The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. 14 The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 15 Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through [thee], I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. 16 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the LORD [am] thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. 17 For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 18 Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. 19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 20 Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. 21 Thy people also [shall be] all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. 22 A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time.
Because of the work of Christ in the earth verse 7 tells us that the Father will glorify the house of His glory. What house is He talking about? He is speaking of the house or temple that you are. Your body is the temple of God. We together are built up a spiritual house according to 1 Peter 2:5, the habitation of God in the earth. Why does the world despise the Church? Because we are the dwelling place of God where He has set His glory and established His throne upon the earth – in us and through us and because of us. Thus, we understand much of the turmoil that is in the earth because verse 12 tells us that the nation and the kingdom that will not serve God’s people will perish. We can see this in the United States. As long as our country fostered faith and protected faith and facilitated faith and the spread of the gospel our nation endured and grew to become the unquestioned greatest nation on the face of the earth. When however, our nation turned against Christian values and in recent decades has even become averse to the faith of our fathers – we have been unable to stand before our enemies and we have been diminished as a nation.
Many people have a problem with what some call dominion or kingdom theology. When Jesus and the apostles quoted these verses in the New Testament – they applied them to the people of God and the church of God in the earth. What will those who object say to verses such as verse 14 that says those who have afflicted us will come to us and bow down and do homage to the God we serve who lives in us and makes Himself known through us. This people that Isaiah speaks of is far more than the institutional church or cultural Christianity. Paul speaks of a bride that is coming forth in the earth in the last days – without spot and without wrinkle. Revelations 12 describes the church as a sun-clothed woman who suddenly manifests in glory in the earth, crowned with honor and confronting the dragon, that old serpent the devil. As we have studied previously we are living in the generation that shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled. Regardless of the spiritual vacuum that seems to be so pervasive in the earth let us not forget that all history and its events past present and future are in the hands of God and He will break through in His sovereignty and bring about His righteous rule upon the earth of which you and I will be a part according to His divine plan set in motion before the foundation of the world.