Solus Christus: The Covenant of Promise

This week we began to look at God’s covenants and how they point us to Jesus during this Advent season. We first talked about the Old Testament covenants in general and how they all fall under the “umbrella” of the covenant of grace. We next looked at the covenant of commencement God made in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Then we looked at how God’s covenant with Noah fits into the context of the covenant of grace. Today for our Advent meditation we’re going to look at the Abrahamic Covenant or, as it is sometimes called, the “covenant of promise.” This covenant was given in separate portions and recorded for us in Ge. 12:1-9; 15:8-22; 17:1-14:

¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
⁴ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. ⁸ From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. ⁹ And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

⁸ But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, ² that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ⁴ “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. ⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
⁹ And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, ¹³ both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Now, there is so much in this covenant that I could spend dozens of posts talking about it. I don’t intend to go that far, but I do want to point some things out about the continuity of this covenant with the previous covenants and how it points us to Jesus. In His work of redemption in history, God covenants with Abraham to set aside a people for Himself through which the Messiah—Jesus—would come. In this covenant (like His covenant with Adam and Eve but with more detail) God gives His covenantal refrain and promises Abraham “to be God to [him] and to [his] offspring after [him].” (Ge. 17:7) This level of detail shows the settled character of God’s covenant of promise and guarantees an intimate relationship with Abraham and his offspring (i.e. greater fellowship). This covenant with Abraham must be in the context of the covenant of grace, for such an intimate relationship with a holy God presupposes the removal of sin and imputation of righteousness, which Abraham received through faith (Ge. 15:6; cf. Ro. 4:3) and had sealed in his circumcision (Ro. 4:11). God also promises that Abraham and his seed (alluding to Ge. 3:15) would be a channel of universal blessing (Ge. 12:2-3; 22:18). It’s through this promise that Paul says the Scriptures “preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham,” and it is this very promise that Peter says Jesus fulfilled (Ac. 3:25-26; cf. Ga. 3:16). Remember how we said that all the covenants are under the umbrella of the covenant of grace? Here, in the covenant of promise, God’s plan of salvation through the covenant of grace is further explained: the seed promised in Ge. 3:15 would come through Abraham’s offspring (Jesus), would be a blessing to all nations (salvation for Jews and Gentiles), and would make fellowship with God possible (“I will be your God...”). This pledge of a Redeemer would be realized through God’s other promises to Abraham given in the covenant of promise: land (Ge. 17:8) and numerous offspring (Ge. 15:5). The people and the land would provide the necessary environment (under the security of the covenant of preservation) from which the Messiah could come (what we celebrate at Christmas). They would also foreshadow the ultimate fulfillment of this covenant in a spiritual ancestry (cf. Ro. 4:16-17; Ga. 3:7, 16) and a heavenly land (cf. He. 11:10), which Jesus would accomplish in His work of redemption. Thus, God’s covenant with Abraham gives more information about the covenant of grace, and it does not replace the previous covenants but rather builds upon them.

God’s covenant with Abraham, like the promise of the seed in Ge. 3:15, is not some other way of salvation that has come and gone. It pointed them to Jesus and prepared God’s people for the advent of their Messiah. Now we—God’s people—celebrate that advent and look forward to the future, second advent of Christ (i.e. His second coming) when He will take His spiritual people into the new heavens and new earth—the ultimate fulfillment of the land God promised to Abraham.

On this day of Advent remember that God’s plan of salvation hasn’t changed but has always and ever been through faith in Jesus alone. Remember that we have fellowship with God in Christ, which is something we never could have achieved on our own. But, also remember that there is even greater fellowship to come: being in the very presence of God in the new heavens and new earth for all eternity. Jesus’ first advent guaranteed that for us, and His second advent will usher it in. Praise God today for sending Jesus to guarantee that we would be His people and He would be our God, and ask Him to “haste the day when [our] faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend” to bring us into the new heavens and new earth. Perhaps today could be the day.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Third Sunday of Advent

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, and it is time to start look at the Christmas story itself. We’ve looked at some of it in past posts in order to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, but this Sunday and the next we’ll look directly at the story itself:

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
²³ ”Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (Mt. 1:18-25)
¹ In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ And all went to be registered, each to his own town. ⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. ⁶ And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Lk. 2:1-7)

There are two things I’d like to point out from these stories. First, I think it’s amazing that Joseph was unwilling to put Mary to shame even before he knew the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The passage says he did this because he was “a just man,” but in the Jewish culture of this time, justice would have meant putting Mary to death by stoning her, not protecting her. Joseph’s justice was foreign to the Jewish culture in which he lived. Thus, right from the beginning, we see that the story of Jesus is going to break the molds of our world’s cultures and that God is the God of grace. Joseph was declared “a just man” not because he was a stickler for (earthly) justice but because he showed (heavenly) grace and compassion to Mary. Second, I think it’s incredible to see how God used the most powerful man in the world at that time—Caesar Augustus—as a tool to fulfill a four-hundred-year-old prophecy. In Micah 5:2, the prophet Micah predicts that Bethlehem will be the birthplace of the “ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” Then, four hundred years later, Caesar decides to take a census, and Joseph and Mary must go to Bethlehem right when she is about to give birth to Jesus. Caesar may have thought he was ruling his empire but really he was just fulfilling part of God’s sovereign plan for redemption (cf. Pro. 21:1).

Take some time on this day of Advent (especially since it is the Lord’s Day—a day of rest) to meditate on God’s grace and compassion to you, as well as His sovereignty over your life. Remember that God’s justice demanded you be put to death, but God did something no culture in our world would’ve expected: He sent Jesus to take that justice so you could be justified and declared righteous before Him (Ro. 3:26). Remember that God is just as sovereign over your life—all of your life—as He was over Caesar Augustus. That’s why He can promise to work all things together for your good (Ro. 8:28), for He’s sovereign over them all. Pray to Him like you know He’s sovereign—expecting Him to do great and wondrous things in your life. Trust Him to work all things out for your good just like He did for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus by using Caesar as His tool. Ask Him to make His sovereignty and His grace your only comfort and to make them great comfort. Rest in Him today, for it is your Sabbath.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: Oaks of Righteousness

I know yesterday I said we would look at some of the prophecies about the Messiah that are in other books of the Old Testament besides Isaiah, but there is a prophecy in Isaiah which aptly follows yesterday’s subject: our righteousness coming from the Shoot of the stump (dead humanity). Unlike yesterday’s prophecy from Isaiah, however, today’s Scripture comes from the last section of Isaiah. Most of that last section of Isaiah (chapters 40-66) is made up of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Chapters 40-66 of Isaiah are often called the “comfort section” because this final section contains prophecies concerning God’s purpose of peace (ch. 40-48), His Prince of peace (ch. 49-55), and His program of peace (ch. 56-66), which would all be fulfilled in Jesus. In Is. 61:1-3 we read about the redemption that Jesus would bring:

¹ The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
    because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
³ to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. 

And, lest anyone try to convince you that this prophecy was not about Jesus, Jesus Himself says in Lk. 4:16-21 that He fulfills it:

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This prophecy reminds us of the grace that God has given us in Christ Jesus. In Christ, we have comfort instead of mourning, a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, gladness instead of sorrow, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, and we have become oaks of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Certainly not our own for there is none righteous (cf. Ro. 3:10). Jesus earned it, and we have received it by faith alone (cf. Ro. 1:17; 4:11; Php 3:9). That’s why this prophecy follows yesterday’s mediation so well. Jesus is the Shoot from the stump of Jesse who has become our righteousness. That righteous Shoot has changed dead stumps like us into living oaks of righteousness. Indeed, the Church is a forest full of oaks of righteousness that all come from the righteous Shoot that was born in stable in Bethlehem—our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is what Advent and Christmas declare to us. They declare the grace of God; the year of the Lord’s favor for the poor, the brokenhearted, and the captives of sin. What is this grace? Grace is not just God not giving us what we deserve—punishment for our sins—but God giving us the glorious opposite of what we deserve—peace with Him for our rebellion, Jesus’ righteousness for our sinfulness, adoption into His family for our alienation by our sin, and eternal life with Him for our fate of eternal punishment in hell. Grace is not simply unmerited favor, as if we were just neutral people, but it is demerited favor. We get in Christ the glorious opposite of what we deserve in ourselves. And, in this prophecy we see that in Christmas we celebrate God sending His Son and anointing Him for the task of freeing the captives to sin so that we could have this grace and be called “oaks of righteousness” in Jesus.

Today let Advent remind you that you are a living oak of righteousness but not because of anything you did. You’re an oak of righteousness only because the Shoot from the stump of Jesse became your righteousness and gave you new life. Remember you are righteous before God because Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, and took the punishment you deserved. Remember that since you are righteous before God in Christ, you can’t do anything to make God love you any more or any less. Bask in that free, unconditional love, and ask God to use that gospel truth to change more and more into likeness of Jesus so that you can die unto sin and live unto righteous.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: A Branch from the Stump

I know we’ve looked at a lot of prophecies from Isaiah. It may seem like he’s the only one through whom God spoke to the Israelite people about their Redeemer, but Isaiah was not the only prophet to prophesy about the coming Messiah. Prophecies of the coming Christ are all over the Old Testament. There are more than I can write about in these short devotions, but we have time to look at some of them. For today’s devotion we’re going to look at how both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a branch from the stump of Jesse—the house of David—and would be our righteousness before God:

¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins. (Is. 11:1-5)
⁵ ”Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’” (Je. 23:5-6)

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the Messiah would come from the line of Jesse (David’s father), and both likened him to a shoot or a branch. Both declared that He would save God’s people, and both proclaimed that He would be a man of righteousness. Then, of course, centuries later Jesus came and was exactly that. He’s the one through whom we have righteousness (cf. Ro. 5:12-21). Indeed, as Jeremiah prophesied (above) and Paul declared the Corinthian believers: Jesus is our righteousness (1 Co. 1:30). God demands righteousness from humanity and He provides it for His people in Jesus—the shoot and branch from the stump of Jesse. As the Westminster Confession of Faith states in 11.1:

Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. 

As Moses reminded the Israelite people, “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty.” To stand before God, we must be righteous. To be judged by Jesus in righteousness and not be sent to hell at the Final Judgment, we must be righteous. We can’t do that on our own, but God knew that and provided a Messiah whose is Yahweh Tsidkenu—the Lord is our righteousness (Je. 23:6). Thank God for that branch—that shoot from the stump of Jesse—for we have no righteousness of our own that would ever be acceptable to God.

By the way, did you notice the Messiah arose from the stump of Jesse? He didn’t come from a thriving tree or even from a sickly tree. He didn’t come from a people who just needed a little extra help to be acceptable to God. He came from the stump, i.e. spiritually dead humanity (Eph. 2:1). Indeed, He arose from the very same dead humanity that He came to save and give new life.

On this day of Advent remember where God found you, where God found all humanity when He sent His Son to be our sacrifice and our righteousness. We weren’t just sick in our sins. We weren’t just a “basically good” people who just needed a good example to follow. As Paul tells us in Eph. 2:1, we “were dead in the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked.” Dead men have no hope of life except by a miracle. Remember on this day of Advent that the Miracle was born two thousand years ago in the little town of Bethlehem from the stump—dead humanity. Praise Him for coming down to walk amongst those dead in their sins so that they might have life again in Him. Praise Him for giving you new life and for giving you righteousness when you deserved the exact opposite. Praise Him for being the Lord your righteousness.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Judge

Not only did God promise that His Redeemer would be a prophet like Moses, not only did He foreshadow Jesus’ priesthood in the high priests of the Old Testament, but He also told us through the prophet Isaiah that Jesus would be the righteous Judge of the world from the line of King David:

¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
    He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
    and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins. (Is. 11:1-5)

Our Redeemer is the Messiah who will one day judge the world in righteousness. But, what did Isaiah mean when he prophesied that the Messiah would judge the world “in righteousness”? Well, let’s turn to what Jesus Himself has to say about this judgment in Mt. 25:31-34, 41, 46:

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ³⁴ Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…. ⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…. ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

With His “wisdom and understanding,” “counsel and might,” and “knowledge and… fear of the LORD,” Jesus will separate the righteous from the unrighteous; those whose name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from those whose is not. Then He will judge them according to their righteousness. This is good news (indeed the gospel!) for believers because we’ve been given Christ’s righteousness and will be judged according to that imputed righteousness. But, Advent should remind us that for this to be good news, we must be in Christ—we must have His righteousness credited to our account. Those who are in Christ are the sheep who’ll be placed on His right and who will hear the words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Those who are outside of Christ will also be judged in righteousness, but since they are not righteous, the righteous judgment on them is condemnation and “eternal punishment” in hell. This should remind us that we need to spread the good news of Christmas to the world.

On this day of Advent, think about your non-Christian friends and family members. Jesus is the righteous Judge and He always judges in righteousness, but for that judgment to be “Well done, good and faithful servant,” one must accept Him as Lord and Savior in this life. This is a solemn reminder of Advent but a much-needed one for all of us (especially me). The Judge is coming, and we need to be spreading the good news of Christmas: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Promise

This week we began to look at God’s covenants and how they point us to Jesus during this Advent season. We first talked about the Old Testament covenants in general and how they all fall under the “umbrella” of the covenant of grace. We next looked at the covenant of commencement God made in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Then we looked at how God’s covenant with Noah fits into the context of the covenant of grace. Today for our Advent meditation we’re going to look at the Abrahamic Covenant or, as it is sometimes called, the “covenant of promise.” This covenant was given in separate portions and recorded for us in Ge. 12:1-9; 15:8-22; 17:1-14:

¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
⁴ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. ⁸ From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. ⁹ And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

⁸ But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, ² that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ⁴ “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. ⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
⁹ And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, ¹³ both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Now, there is so much in this covenant that I could spend dozens of posts talking about it. I don’t intend to go that far, but I do want to point some things out about the continuity of this covenant with the previous covenants and how it points us to Jesus. In His work of redemption in history, God covenants with Abraham to set aside a people for Himself through which the Messiah—Jesus—would come. In this covenant (like His covenant with Adam and Eve but with more detail) God gives His covenantal refrain and promises Abraham “to be God to [him] and to [his] offspring after [him].” (Ge. 17:7) This level of detail shows the settled character of God’s covenant of promise and guarantees an intimate relationship with Abraham and his offspring (i.e. greater fellowship). This covenant with Abraham must be in the context of the covenant of grace, for such an intimate relationship with a holy God presupposes the removal of sin and imputation of righteousness, which Abraham received through faith (Ge. 15:6; cf. Ro. 4:3) and had sealed in his circumcision (Ro. 4:11). God also promises that Abraham and his seed (alluding to Ge. 3:15) would be a channel of universal blessing (Ge. 12:2-3; 22:18). It’s through this promise that Paul says the Scriptures “preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham,” and it is this very promise that Peter says Jesus fulfilled (Ac. 3:25-26; cf. Ga. 3:16). Remember how we said that all the covenants are under the umbrella of the covenant of grace? Here, in the covenant of promise, God’s plan of salvation through the covenant of grace is further explained: the seed promised in Ge. 3:15 would come through Abraham’s offspring (Jesus), would be a blessing to all nations (salvation for Jews and Gentiles), and would make fellowship with God possible (“I will be your God...”). This pledge of a Redeemer would be realized through God’s other promises to Abraham given in the covenant of promise: land (Ge. 17:8) and numerous offspring (Ge. 15:5). The people and the land would provide the necessary environment (under the security of the covenant of preservation) from which the Messiah could come (what we celebrate at Christmas). They would also foreshadow the ultimate fulfillment of this covenant in a spiritual ancestry (cf. Ro. 4:16-17; Ga. 3:7, 16) and a heavenly land (cf. He. 11:10), which Jesus would accomplish in His work of redemption. Thus, God’s covenant with Abraham gives more information about the covenant of grace, and it does not replace the previous covenants but rather builds upon them.

God’s covenant with Abraham, like the promise of the seed in Ge. 3:15, is not some other way of salvation that has come and gone. It pointed them to Jesus and prepared God’s people for the advent of their Messiah. Now we—God’s people—celebrate that advent and look forward to the future, second advent of Christ (i.e. His second coming) when He will take His spiritual people into the new heavens and new earth—the ultimate fulfillment of the land God promised to Abraham.

On this day of Advent remember that God’s plan of salvation hasn’t changed but has always and ever been through faith in Jesus alone. Remember that we have fellowship with God in Christ, which is something we never could have achieved on our own. But, also remember that there is even greater fellowship to come: being in the very presence of God in the new heavens and new earth for all eternity. Jesus’ first advent guaranteed that for us, and His second advent will usher it in. Praise God today for sending Jesus to guarantee that we would be His people and He would be our God, and ask Him to “haste the day when [our] faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend” to bring us into the new heavens and new earth. Perhaps today could be the day.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Third Sunday of Advent

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, and it is time to start look at the Christmas story itself. We’ve looked at some of it in past posts in order to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, but this Sunday and the next we’ll look directly at the story itself:

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
²³ ”Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (Mt. 1:18-25)
¹ In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ And all went to be registered, each to his own town. ⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. ⁶ And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Lk. 2:1-7)

There are two things I’d like to point out from these stories. First, I think it’s amazing that Joseph was unwilling to put Mary to shame even before he knew the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The passage says he did this because he was “a just man,” but in the Jewish culture of this time, justice would have meant putting Mary to death by stoning her, not protecting her. Joseph’s justice was foreign to the Jewish culture in which he lived. Thus, right from the beginning, we see that the story of Jesus is going to break the molds of our world’s cultures and that God is the God of grace. Joseph was declared “a just man” not because he was a stickler for (earthly) justice but because he showed (heavenly) grace and compassion to Mary. Second, I think it’s incredible to see how God used the most powerful man in the world at that time—Caesar Augustus—as a tool to fulfill a four-hundred-year-old prophecy. In Micah 5:2, the prophet Micah predicts that Bethlehem will be the birthplace of the “ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” Then, four hundred years later, Caesar decides to take a census, and Joseph and Mary must go to Bethlehem right when she is about to give birth to Jesus. Caesar may have thought he was ruling his empire but really he was just fulfilling part of God’s sovereign plan for redemption (cf. Pro. 21:1).

Take some time on this day of Advent (especially since it is the Lord’s Day—a day of rest) to meditate on God’s grace and compassion to you, as well as His sovereignty over your life. Remember that God’s justice demanded you be put to death, but God did something no culture in our world would’ve expected: He sent Jesus to take that justice so you could be justified and declared righteous before Him (Ro. 3:26). Remember that God is just as sovereign over your life—all of your life—as He was over Caesar Augustus. That’s why He can promise to work all things together for your good (Ro. 8:28), for He’s sovereign over them all. Pray to Him like you know He’s sovereign—expecting Him to do great and wondrous things in your life. Trust Him to work all things out for your good just like He did for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus by using Caesar as His tool. Ask Him to make His sovereignty and His grace your only comfort and to make them great comfort. Rest in Him today, for it is your Sabbath.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: Oaks of Righteousness

I know yesterday I said we would look at some of the prophecies about the Messiah that are in other books of the Old Testament besides Isaiah, but there is a prophecy in Isaiah which aptly follows yesterday’s subject: our righteousness coming from the Shoot of the stump (dead humanity). Unlike yesterday’s prophecy from Isaiah, however, today’s Scripture comes from the last section of Isaiah. Most of that last section of Isaiah (chapters 40-66) is made up of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Chapters 40-66 of Isaiah are often called the “comfort section” because this final section contains prophecies concerning God’s purpose of peace (ch. 40-48), His Prince of peace (ch. 49-55), and His program of peace (ch. 56-66), which would all be fulfilled in Jesus. In Is. 61:1-3 we read about the redemption that Jesus would bring:

¹ The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
    because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
³ to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. 

And, lest anyone try to convince you that this prophecy was not about Jesus, Jesus Himself says in Lk. 4:16-21 that He fulfills it:

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This prophecy reminds us of the grace that God has given us in Christ Jesus. In Christ, we have comfort instead of mourning, a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, gladness instead of sorrow, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, and we have become oaks of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Certainly not our own for there is none righteous (cf. Ro. 3:10). Jesus earned it, and we have received it by faith alone (cf. Ro. 1:17; 4:11; Php 3:9). That’s why this prophecy follows yesterday’s mediation so well. Jesus is the Shoot from the stump of Jesse who has become our righteousness. That righteous Shoot has changed dead stumps like us into living oaks of righteousness. Indeed, the Church is a forest full of oaks of righteousness that all come from the righteous Shoot that was born in stable in Bethlehem—our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is what Advent and Christmas declare to us. They declare the grace of God; the year of the Lord’s favor for the poor, the brokenhearted, and the captives of sin. What is this grace? Grace is not just God not giving us what we deserve—punishment for our sins—but God giving us the glorious opposite of what we deserve—peace with Him for our rebellion, Jesus’ righteousness for our sinfulness, adoption into His family for our alienation by our sin, and eternal life with Him for our fate of eternal punishment in hell. Grace is not simply unmerited favor, as if we were just neutral people, but it is demerited favor. We get in Christ the glorious opposite of what we deserve in ourselves. And, in this prophecy we see that in Christmas we celebrate God sending His Son and anointing Him for the task of freeing the captives to sin so that we could have this grace and be called “oaks of righteousness” in Jesus.

Today let Advent remind you that you are a living oak of righteousness but not because of anything you did. You’re an oak of righteousness only because the Shoot from the stump of Jesse became your righteousness and gave you new life. Remember you are righteous before God because Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, and took the punishment you deserved. Remember that since you are righteous before God in Christ, you can’t do anything to make God love you any more or any less. Bask in that free, unconditional love, and ask God to use that gospel truth to change more and more into likeness of Jesus so that you can die unto sin and live unto righteous.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: A Branch from the Stump

I know we’ve looked at a lot of prophecies from Isaiah. It may seem like he’s the only one through whom God spoke to the Israelite people about their Redeemer, but Isaiah was not the only prophet to prophesy about the coming Messiah. Prophecies of the coming Christ are all over the Old Testament. There are more than I can write about in these short devotions, but we have time to look at some of them. For today’s devotion we’re going to look at how both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a branch from the stump of Jesse—the house of David—and would be our righteousness before God:

¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins. (Is. 11:1-5)
⁵ ”Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’” (Je. 23:5-6)

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the Messiah would come from the line of Jesse (David’s father), and both likened him to a shoot or a branch. Both declared that He would save God’s people, and both proclaimed that He would be a man of righteousness. Then, of course, centuries later Jesus came and was exactly that. He’s the one through whom we have righteousness (cf. Ro. 5:12-21). Indeed, as Jeremiah prophesied (above) and Paul declared the Corinthian believers: Jesus is our righteousness (1 Co. 1:30). God demands righteousness from humanity and He provides it for His people in Jesus—the shoot and branch from the stump of Jesse. As the Westminster Confession of Faith states in 11.1:

Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. 

As Moses reminded the Israelite people, “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty.” To stand before God, we must be righteous. To be judged by Jesus in righteousness and not be sent to hell at the Final Judgment, we must be righteous. We can’t do that on our own, but God knew that and provided a Messiah whose is Yahweh Tsidkenu—the Lord is our righteousness (Je. 23:6). Thank God for that branch—that shoot from the stump of Jesse—for we have no righteousness of our own that would ever be acceptable to God.

By the way, did you notice the Messiah arose from the stump of Jesse? He didn’t come from a thriving tree or even from a sickly tree. He didn’t come from a people who just needed a little extra help to be acceptable to God. He came from the stump, i.e. spiritually dead humanity (Eph. 2:1). Indeed, He arose from the very same dead humanity that He came to save and give new life.

On this day of Advent remember where God found you, where God found all humanity when He sent His Son to be our sacrifice and our righteousness. We weren’t just sick in our sins. We weren’t just a “basically good” people who just needed a good example to follow. As Paul tells us in Eph. 2:1, we “were dead in the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked.” Dead men have no hope of life except by a miracle. Remember on this day of Advent that the Miracle was born two thousand years ago in the little town of Bethlehem from the stump—dead humanity. Praise Him for coming down to walk amongst those dead in their sins so that they might have life again in Him. Praise Him for giving you new life and for giving you righteousness when you deserved the exact opposite. Praise Him for being the Lord your righteousness.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Judge

Not only did God promise that His Redeemer would be a prophet like Moses, not only did He foreshadow Jesus’ priesthood in the high priests of the Old Testament, but He also told us through the prophet Isaiah that Jesus would be the righteous Judge of the world from the line of King David:

¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
    He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
    and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins. (Is. 11:1-5)

Our Redeemer is the Messiah who will one day judge the world in righteousness. But, what did Isaiah mean when he prophesied that the Messiah would judge the world “in righteousness”? Well, let’s turn to what Jesus Himself has to say about this judgment in Mt. 25:31-34, 41, 46:

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ³⁴ Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…. ⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…. ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

With His “wisdom and understanding,” “counsel and might,” and “knowledge and… fear of the LORD,” Jesus will separate the righteous from the unrighteous; those whose name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from those whose is not. Then He will judge them according to their righteousness. This is good news (indeed the gospel!) for believers because we’ve been given Christ’s righteousness and will be judged according to that imputed righteousness. But, Advent should remind us that for this to be good news, we must be in Christ—we must have His righteousness credited to our account. Those who are in Christ are the sheep who’ll be placed on His right and who will hear the words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Those who are outside of Christ will also be judged in righteousness, but since they are not righteous, the righteous judgment on them is condemnation and “eternal punishment” in hell. This should remind us that we need to spread the good news of Christmas to the world.

On this day of Advent, think about your non-Christian friends and family members. Jesus is the righteous Judge and He always judges in righteousness, but for that judgment to be “Well done, good and faithful servant,” one must accept Him as Lord and Savior in this life. This is a solemn reminder of Advent but a much-needed one for all of us (especially me). The Judge is coming, and we need to be spreading the good news of Christmas: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

By His Grace,

Taylor

Advent: Day 14

Isaiah was not the only prophet to prophesy about the coming Messiah. Prophecies of the coming Christ are all over the Old Testament. There are more than I have time to blog about. But, we have time to look at some, and today we are going to look at how both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the Messiah would be a branch from the stump of Jesse, the house of David:

¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins. (Is. 11:1-5)
⁵ "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The Lord is our righteousness.'" (Je. 23:5-6)

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the Messiah would come from the line of Jesse (David's father). Both likened him to a shoot or a branch. Both declared that He will save God's people. And, both declared that He will be a man of righteousness. And, of course, centuries later we see that Jesus was exactly that. He is the one through whom we have righteousness (Ro. 5:12-21). Indeed, as Paul declared, Jesus is our righteousness (1 Co. 1:30). As the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) states it:

Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. (WCF 11.1, emphasis added)

Thank God for that branch, that shoot from the stump of Jesse, for we have no righteousness of our own that would ever be acceptable to God (cf. Mt. 5:20). By the way, did you notice the Messiah arose from the stump of Jesse? It was not from the thriving tree or even from the sickly tree. It was from the stump, i.e. dead humanity (Eph. 2:1). He arose from the same dead humanity that He came to save. This Christmas season, remember where God found you, where God found all humanity when He sent His Son to be our sacrifice so He could be our righteousness.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Advent: Day 13

Today we continue reading through some of Isaiah's prophecies of the Messiah by looking at chapter 61. As we mentioned a few days ago, chapter 61 is part of the "comfort section" of Isaiah in which Isaiah prophesies to the Jews in exile the deliverance that God will bring from Babylon and ultimately in the Messiah. In Isaiah 61:1-3 we read about the redemption the Messiah, Jesus, would bring:

¹ The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
³ to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

With this particular prophecy, Jesus Himself says in Lk. 4:16-21 that He fulfills it:

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This prophecy reminds us of the grace that God has given us in Christ Jesus. In Christ we have comfort instead of mourning, a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, gladness instead of sorrow, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, and we have become oaks of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Certainly not our own for Jesus earned it and we received it by faith (Ro. 1:17; 4:11; Php. 3:9).

This is what Christmas declares to us. It declares the grace of God, the year of the Lord's favor for the poor, the brokenhearted, and the captives of sin. What is grace? Grace is not just God not giving us what we deserve—punishment for our sins—but God giving us the glorious opposite of what we deserve—peace with Him for our rebellion, Jesus' righteousness for our sinfulness, adoption into His family for our alienation by our sin, and eternal life with Him for our fate of eternal punishment in hell. Grace is not just unmerited favor, as if we were simply neutral people, but demerited favor. We get the glorious opposite of what we deserve. And, in this prophecy we see that in Christmas we celebrate God sending His Son and anointing Him for the task of freeing the captives to sin so that we could have this grace and be called "oaks of righteousness" in Jesus.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Advent: Day 7

Not only did God promise that His Messiah would be a prophet like Moses, but that He would also be a righteous Judge of the world, from the line of King David: 

1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins. (Is. 11:1-5)

Our Savior is the Messiah who will Judge the world in righteousness. This is good news to the believer because we have been given His righteousness (Ro. 4:1ff) and are judged on the basis of that imputed righteousness (Ro. 5:12-21). Advent should remind us that for this to be good news, we must be in Christ. Those outside of Christ are also judged in righteousness, but since they are not righteous (Ro. 3:10-13), the righteous judgment on them is condemnation. It should remind us that we need to spread the good news of Christmas to the world.

By His Grace,
Taylor