CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK ISAIAH DR. R. REED LESSING QUESTION NOS. 1 THROUGH 10 No. 1. >> Hello, Professor Lessing. It's great to be back in class with you. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to study the writing of Isaiah. All four of us are eager to begin. Would you be willing to help us get started by sharing the goal of our study of Isaiah? >> I would love to help you understand the overall goal of studying Isaiah, specifically as it relates to my assignment with you, the first 39 chapters. Let me break down these goals for you in four distinct categories. The first one simply put from Philippians Chapter 3 Verse 10: To know Christ. That's what Paul says, to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. The goal is to get a firmer understanding of who Jesus is. Not only for your ministry but all the more so for your life in Christ. Let me delineate several passages for you, will further this understanding of knowing Christ better through our study of the prophet, Isaiah. There are at least several texts here from the New Testament that enable us to see how thoroughly the Old Testament is as well as specifically the book of Isaiah with its message of Christ. For example, in Luke Chapter 24 Verse 44, Jesus is telling the disciples that everything in the law, the prophets, and the writings is concerning him and his suffering, his death and his resurrection. So wherever we look in the Old Testament, we see Christ. Christ in his servant role. We'll see that a lot in Isaiah. Christ reigning after his death on Good Friday. Another Scripture that points to Christ by means of the New Testament going back to the Old Testament would be in John Chapter 5 Verse 39 where Jesus says: You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that testify about me. Another very important verse, especially as it relates to Old Testament prophecy and its central focus on Jesus, is in Revelation Chapter 19 Verse 10 B, the second part, where John says: The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. So as we look at the prophet Isaiah, we will see over and over again that he witnesses to the coming and the ministry, life, death, resurrection, even the second coming of Christ. So that's the first goal of our course, to see the beauty, the richness of Christ through the prophet Isaiah. Let's move onto the second goal of our course. And that would be to gain a better understanding of Isaiah who is known as the fifth evangelist. What do we mean by that? We want to see how many prophesies Isaiah has that concern the life of Jesus. So not only do we want to know Christ in a deeper way, that's our first goal. But the second goal is to see how Isaiah points to so many prophesies about Christ and how they are fulfilled by means of Christ and the New Testament witness. For example, we will see in Isaiah Chapter 7 Verse 14 that a virgin will conceive and bear a son. And you are to give him the name Emmanouel. Those are three Hebrew words meaning God with us. We want to discover how Matthew in Matthew 1 Verse 23 takes this prophecy of Isaiah and uses that to point to the virgin birth of our Lord by means of a young woman named Mary. We also see in Isaiah this great missional thrust. This will be a very important idea that will weave itself through several of our questions during our time together. Isaiah Chapter 2:1 through 5 speaks about how all nations will stream to the mountain of the Lord. All nations, that's the idea. The missional thrust of this fifth evangelist. For example, in Acts Chapter 1 Verse 8, Saint Luke says that the disciples will be witnesses to Jesus in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. That last phrase, to the ends of the earth is an Isaianic phrase. Isaiah is a great missional prophet. And we will appreciate that, especially as Isaiah's writings and themes are fulfilled in New Testament documents. Also we will see by means of knowing Isaiah as this person who makes all of these prophesies that are fulfilled in the New Testament, we will see a beautiful connection between Isaiah's Servant Songs, which we will just touch on very slightly in Isaiah 1 to 39. But we will look at them a little bit in how the Servant Songs find their fulfillment in Christ. Specifically as you can look at this next slide or this first slide that I'm going to put up for you where we have the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. And we will see through our modest study of the Servant Songs because also in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah we have connecting links to these four songs how they point to the humiliation and the exaltation of Christ. Especially as they are related to Philippians 2 Verses 5 through 11. So that's our second goal. The first one being to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, Philippians 3 Verse 10. The second would be to see how much of Isaiah finds itself into the New Testament. Not only in terms of Christ's virgin birth, for example, the missional thrust of Isaiah finding itself in the New Testament but specifically the Servant Songs as they provide a background for the humiliation and the exaltation of Christ. Our third goal of our course is to simply understand the Old Testament better. We can't understand Isaiah without understanding and appreciating more of the Old Testament narrative. Israel's life with Yahweh, the Lord of Israel. That is to say more specifically that we in Chapter 6 of Isaiah will be able to understand more deeply the role and the prominence of Israel's great leader named Moses. So we'll get a better understanding of Moses. We'll certainly have a better understanding of the exodus. Because when we look at Isaiah Chapter 35, we will see that the exodus theme of the Lord bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt is a major idea that Isaiah reworks in Chapter 35 of his prophecy. And this really carries into the second half of the book. So we'll understand more about Moses and his leading Israel out of Egypt in the exodus. We'll also understand more about David. David is a prominent figure in the first half of Isaiah. Especially as we look at the messianic prophesies of Chapters 9 and 11. We will also along with David understand the role of Mt. Zion in a deeper way. So this is our third goal of the course, to gain a better appreciation of these people in the Old Testament, specifically Moses and David, as well as the great act of salvation, the exodus and God's choosing of Mt. Zion. Our fourth goal of the class, and the last goal, would be to understand how to preach from Isaiah. If someone would look at the new lectionary of Old Testament readings provided by Lutheran Service Book, that person would find, for example, taking just a 52-week slice out of the three-year lectionary cycle, Isaiah would appear on an average around 20 times a year in the Sunday and festival liturgical feast of the church. That would be roughly a little over a third of all Old Testament texts that you will see as pastors and as pastors in formation will be from Isaiah. So we want to look at ways and means in which we can preach from Isaiah. And we'll have some exciting and real hands-on workshop times in which we can take Isaianic texts and see how we might proclaim Christ through this marvelous prophet in the Old Testament.