No. 33. >> Isaiah 41:8 refers to Israel as: My servant. Why is this significant? And what does it tell us about the relationship of the nation to their God? >>DR. DANIEL L. GARD: The question of a relationship between the nation and their God is a profound question. Let me read to you a couple of verses from Isaiah 41 Verses 8 and 9. But you, O, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham, my friend. I took you from the ends of the earth. From its the farthest corners I called you. I said: You are my servant. I have chosen you and have not rejected you. One of the issues that pastors of the church must deal with is the issue of what we Lutherans call law and Gospel. In fact, debates among Christians in various communities over the relationship of the two, and particularly the nature of the law and the nature of the relationship between God and his people in the Old Testament, those debates are certainly as old as the church itself. In fact, you can read of them in Acts 15 at the very beginning of the church. And of course, among those Jewish folk and the Israelites much older going back into the very preexilic times and in fact into the postexilic period of early Judaism. From ancient times to modern, this debate has continued. The Lutheran theological tradition has attempted to find a balance between the two. In this way -- this way of finding a way of addressing the issue of the law within the context of the Gospel, the Lutherans of the 16th Century operated from a distinctly different perspective than did those Reformers from the Swiss Reformation. For Calvin of Switzerland, the third use of the law was as bright a light as possible. Because what it did in his theology is bring with it the sanification of Christianity. The Lutherans, on the other hand, feared that an overemphasis on that third use of the law would turn the Gospel itself into a new law. And so that debate has continued. And continues to be an important one in Lutheran theology. My purpose for talking about this is I think an understanding of the law and its relationship to our Christian life is one which can best be understood by examining the relationship of God to his people. In other words, to find the starting point for understanding who we are in it God himself. And then beginning a study of how then do we live out what we already are as God's people? And this is fundamental to what Isaiah is preaching. Because Isaiah reminds the people of Judah, the people of Israel, that they have that status in this world because God himself has called them and has made them his servant. So I think to understand the law in the Old Testament in general and what it means to be a servant of God as God's people on earth begins best with understanding who God himself is. In other words, the character of God becomes the paradigm. Francis Pieper in that classic work called: Christian Dogmatics, one that's been used in the seminaries for many decades to train pastors in the theology of the church, maintained that there are two points that have to be maintained in any discussion of the attributes and essence of God. First, he says: In God essence and attributes are not separate. But the divine essence and the divine attributes are absolutely identical. Because God is infinite and above space. Second, since infinite human reason cannot comprehend the infinite in absolute simplex, God condescends to our weakness and in his Word divides himself as it were into a number of attributes which our faith can grasp and to which it clings. Now if that sounds confusing in English, you should read it in Pieper's German. It gets only worse. Let me try to bring a little clarity to that. If we look at the attributes of God, who he is, what he is, what we can understand about him, we see some very clear characteristics. Let's look first at him. As I said, that's always the starting point. And this will help had us understand Isaiah's preaching to his servant -- to God's servant, Abraham. And God's servants today. First the holiness of God. We'll use three examples. First will be this: The holiness of God. We can begin with the assertion that God is holy. Now, by saying that, what we refer to both his supreme majesty and his absolute transcendence. As well as his -- what we would often think of his holiness, his ethical purity. In other words, in God can be found no sin. Nor can anything sinful ever be attributed to him. He's not a reflection of human culture. That is to say having this proclivity to everything that's evil. Some sort of a theological construction that each generation is somehow free to recreate for themselves. This is the God whom Isaiah when he was called into the office of prophet could only stand before and say: Woe is me for I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips. And I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Nothing that is unholy can stand before a holy God. Another attribute is the justice of God. You say that God is just. And it's impossible to charge God with any injustice because he himself is outside the law. And he himself is creator of the law. Moses in his great song in Deuteronomy 32 exalted this. He says of the Lord that: The rock, his work is perfect. For all his ways are justice. O, God of faithfulness and without inequity, just and right is he. God's justice is legal. Rewards the good and punishes the evil. But yet, God's justice is also evangelical. In that it's unilateral declaration of righteousness for the sinner is one given to all who fail to conform to God's absolute norms of perfection. The justice of God can never be viewed apart from his other attributes. His justice is perfect. But he's still the God of mercy and the God of grace. Israel in Psalm 130 could sing this: If you, O, Lord, should mark inequities, O, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. It's also the power of God. Where God's absolute power is nowhere more clearly demonstrated in my view than in the very opening verse of Scripture in Genesis 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It's out of divine fiat that all things come into existence. And nothing exists from his power. And in fact, that world that he has created remains under his eye and under his power. Israel was to be aware of that living out of God's power in their lives. Now, interestingly, these characteristics and other characteristics of God are to be also found among the people of God. Israel is to be holy, for example, just as the Lord is holy. This is the whole ancient sacrificial system of the temple. The Levites are sanctified to the Lord as those who are to represent all Israel within the sanctity of the cult. That Israel was to live a life of holiness. But again, not a life of holiness that began within Israel herself. But a life of holiness that is transmitted from the Holy One to his people through the cult of Israel. Israel was also called to be just. Just as God is just. The Old Testament provides a myriad of laws that sometimes get us lost and confused and, frankly, reading through sections like Leviticus and Numbers, one can easily find that to be a biblical cure for insomnia. But all of those laws are vital. Because they all require God's people to act as he acts. And in fact, they set the people of Israel in ancient times far and away apart from that which other nations experience. Every person in ancient Israel is loved by God and, thus, is to be protected and treated with equity. For example, women are treated with respect. And God provides legal protection from abuse. The betrayal of the marriage covenant is forbidden. Property rights are protected. Inheritances are secured. People are not to be exploited or oppressed. Every person, according to the Old Testament, is guaranteed a fair trial. And everyone, including the king, are equally subject to the laws. So we see that Israel is a nation which is to reflect that which God himself is both in terms of his holiness, in terms of his justice. And a third example of his attribute, his power. Here Israel is to be one that is a nation that lives not by its own power. But by relationship to God. A clear example of this is the law of war in Deuteronomy 20. There Israel is instructed about how to fight. Or more precisely, how to see the Lord fight for them. The priest is to instruct the people with these words: Hear, O, Israel, you are approaching the battle against your enemies today. Do not be faint hearted. Do not be afraid or panic or tremble before them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies and to save you. When Israel conquered the land after the -- after their time in Egypt and the exodus and the ultimate giving of the Promised Land, they were told to stand fearless. To know that God would fight for them. Isaiah speaks very similar words, as we'll see later, to those who would be facing the power of Assyria. Those who would be facing the power of Babylon. That the power of God is the power of his people. Just as his holiness is their holiness. And just as his justice is their justice. And so Isaiah addresses the servant of God, the people who are to be in relationship to him. They did not obtain that relationship because they did the things that God demanded of them. But they did those things that God demanded them at their best time because God himself had made that relationship, that covenant relationship, with them. As the New Testament people of God, the new Israel, the continuation of true Israel, the church also lives in exactly that relationship to our God. And our characteristics are to arise because of that relationship. Just as ancient Israel was to be holy, so the church is claimed -- or is called, rather, to be holy. Just as ancient Israel was to be just as the Lord their God was just, so the church is to have justice and to seek justice. Just as ancient Israel was not to fear because God would fight for them, so the church is called to live a life of fearlessness in a pagan world. Why? Because the Lord our God will fight for us. It all comes not from within ourselves. But it comes from a relationship with God. A relationship that's grounded in our baptism. A relationship that's grounded in his continuing nurturing and coming to us as his people in his precious Word, in his blessed sacrament at the altar. And just as his ancient people lived in that power, lived in that justice, that holiness, and all the other attributes of God, and by living within those attributes found peace and security, stepping outside of them forced them to become something that they, in fact, were not. And when they became something that they were not, then the problems began.