The Immensity of the Messiah - Isaiah 40:3-12

I was reading some excerpts from a book by the famous atheist Christopher Hitchens, the title of which is God Is Not Great.  The more I read, the more I felt sorry for him.  But I also felt angry against those who call themselves Christian who are not.  And those who are incredibly bad examples of such.  In Hitchens’ recounting of his so-called debates with so-called Christian leaders from so-called Christian colleges and seminaries, his ability to find people who have either denied the faith or were never in the faith, is uncanny.

It seems that Hitchens’ primary argument against all gods and all faiths everywhere is due to his relatively narrow experience of all things ungodly and hypocritical.  Christianity and the God of Christianity is evil because of the Crusades and American Christian Fundamentalism.  Islam and Allah are evil for very similar reasons.  All gods everywhere, and all faiths everywhere are evil because the adherents to all those gods and faiths constantly deny the faith they say they follow.

Because of hypocrisy, gods and faiths are easy targets for criticism.  The Christian God is declared to be wanting because Christians behave badly.  That is a poor argument for denying the existence of God.  But the majority of self-professed Christians do behave badly much of the time.  If we assess God by the holiness and righteousness of His people, it puts Him in a very, very bad light.  That seems to be the cornerstone of Hitchens’ main argument.  Christians definitely are the worst advertisements for Christianity, and we readily admit that.

It is very good to know, however, that God does not depend upon us and our performance as His disciples to establish His own reputation in the universe.  He has not saved us and made us His own because we are an asset to Him.  We are all individually and collectively a rather large liability as far as God’s reputation is concerned.  However, God can, and God will handle His reputation all by Himself.  He will vindicate His own name.

If we read the Scriptures, and more particularly, if we read Isaiah 40, we get one of the most glowing reports in all the Bible of just how great and awesome our God truly is, no thanks to us or Christopher Hitchens.  Our God is, according to the words of Isaiah, incomparably and incomprehensibly and infinitely great.  Let’s read chapter 40 together.

In verses 3, 6, and 9 there are three occasions for proclaiming the greatness of God.  The first is the proclamation of the coming Messiah and the one who will be His forerunner, John the Baptist.  When the Jewish leaders came to John and asked him about his ministry of calling men to repentance and baptism, John said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”  (John 1:23 ESV).

So Isaiah 40:3 is a prophecy about John the Baptist and his role as the herald of the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus.  But notice what this poetic language is saying.  It is about removing the obstacles for His arrival, namely sin.  Baptism was a picture of the removal of those things that stood in the way between Christ and His people.  The repudiation of sin by those John baptized should have been a signal to the people of Israel as to what kind of Messiah was coming.  John prepared the way for the Messiah by preparing the hearts of men.

But this is also, and probably more so, a prophecy concerning His second coming.  This is a statement regarding the exaltation of the Lord Jesus over all the earth.  When it says the valleys will be lifted, the mountains will be lowered, and all the rough places will be like a plain, what kind of picture Isaiah is painting?  

In that day, the only thing that will be in view is Christ.  All else will be flattened.  When Jesus Christ comes He will stand in high relief and everything else will be, in comparison to Him, unnoticeable.  Like a lone man standing in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats.  He alone will be seen, and all else will fade into flatness and nothing.  Christ alone will be exalted and mankind’s view of Him will be completely unobstructed!  Every eye will see Him when He comes.

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together,

for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:5 ESV)

Christ’s reputation will speak for itself in that day.  His glory will be manifested to all, and those who have made the fatal mistake of comparing God to His fallen and sinful people will suddenly see the grave error of their thinking.  Jesus Christ is not like us.  But praise God, one day, we will be like Him!  He will come in His inherent glory, and we will be changed from our inherent inglorious, corruptible state and be glorified!  The sons of God will be revealed and we will be made glorious like Him.

Then in verse 6, we see another voice crying out concerning the greatness of God.  Apparently it is the voice of the Lord or an angel calling upon Isaiah to shout.  So Isaiah says, “Shout what?”  The voice says, “Shout about the greatness of the word of God, and the smallness of men.”  

Within three weeks of the publication of Christopher Hitchens’ book, it reached the number two spot on Amazon (Harry Potter was #1), and hit number one on the New York Times Bestseller list.   So there is no shortage of people who are sympathetic with Hitchens that God and His people aren’t so great.  Well, we aren’t.  In fact we are incredibly not great.  God and the Bible and Isaiah and we all agree with that.  That is exactly what God told Isaiah to shout out loud.

[6] A voice says, “Cry!”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

 [7] The grass withers, the flower fade,

when the breath of the LORD blows on it;

surely the people are grass.  (Isaiah 40:6-7 ESV)

That’s worse than saying we’re like sheep!  When Isaiah tells the people they are grass, it doesn’t stir up feelings of pride and invincibility.  It is almost like saying all men are nothing.  And in comparison to God, that is true.  We are totally insignificant in comparison to this great God of Israel.  We are temporary, we are fleeting, we are vulnerable, we are entirely dependent upon God to sustain our lives.  This kind of talk does not promote a healthy self-image, but it does promote and accurate one.

Then Isaiah says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”  (Isaiah 40:8 ESV)  

This is meant to humble man and exalt God.  God’s words have an infinite life expectancy.  Our shelf life, by comparison, is laughable.  God’s word cannot and will not ever fail because it is an infallible, glorious God who has spoken it.  We, on the other hand, are grass.  Here today, blown away by the breath of God tomorrow.  It’s hard to imagine proud grass, and that is the point.

Then in verse 9, a third voice is to be raised in the praises of God.  Jerusalem, the city of God, is to raise her voice.  This is an anthropomorphism.  Isaiah is speaking to Jerusalem as thought the city were a person.  

[9] Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good news;

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

lift it up, fear not;

say to the cities of Judah,

“Behold your God!”  (Isaiah 40:9 ESV)

The God whose effulgent glory caused Moses’ face to shine, look at Him!  See Him in the flesh!  Exalted above all creation!  He who dwells in the heavens, “he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.” (1 Tim 6:15-16a ESV)  Behold Him!  The Man, the God whose word stands forever!  Gaze upon Him!  Behold your God!

And notice the text says, say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”  This will be the second time the cities of Judah will have seen their God.  The first time, no one knew.  When Christ came to Bethlehem, when Jesus walked from town to town throughout Judah and Galilee, no one was aware that God in the flesh had arrived.  Certainly Jerusalem did not shout it from the mountaintops.  But the day is coming when even Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets, will acknowledge that Jesus is God over all flesh and over all the earth.

This is not the lowly Jesus, meek and mild.  Verse 10 says:

Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.  (Isaiah 40:10 ESV)

This is the Messiah in all His might and power and authority coming to establish His kingdom over all the earth to rule over all men everywhere.  This is Christ coming in great glory with His holy angels.  He brings with Him both reward for the faithful and recompense for the lawless.  This is what a righteous government does: rewards those who keep the law with peace and safety, while punishing evildoers.  And the government of the entire world will be upon His shoulders and His alone.  There will be no successful rebellions or uprisings against His rule.  He will reign over all!

But at the same time, as the Lord Jesus comes to establish His glorious, absolute rule over the nations, He also comes as the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep.  Verse 11.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms;

he will carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead those that are with young.  (Isaiah 40:11 ESV)

Not only does the Messiah govern in power and righteousness and justice, He also personally cares for the needs of His people.  His government is not a cold, disconnected, distant institution.  His rule over his flock is merciful and compassionate, and He ministers to each one according to their needs.  The very young He carries in His arms, while the pregnant (according to the LXX) He leads gently.

It would be difficult to paint a more sensitive and loving picture than this.  How is it that the infinitely glorious Omnipotent One gently leads and carries those who are fragile and weak in His arms?  A smoldering wick He will not quench, and a bruised reed He will not break.  (Isaiah 42:1-3)  The Lord Jesus delights in showing His people love and mercy.

I find it difficult to read the criticisms of my Savior from those who obviously don’t know Him, and don’t care to know Him.  It is understandable that people would think less of Christ because of us.  Surely, from time to time we all bring reproach upon the name of Christ through our sinful behavior.  But our behavior is not His behavior.  In fact, God promises to deal with His children when they misbehave.  It causes us to wonder whether some who claim to be believers really are.  They don’t seem to get much correction from our, and presumably their Heavenly Father.

But Jesus is not merely the good shepherd.  He is the Great Shepherd of His sheep.  Micah 5.

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from of old,

from ancient days.

[4] And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD,

in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.

And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great

to the ends of the earth.

  [5] And he shall be their peace.  (Micah 5:2,4-5a ESV)

Then we come to verses 12 through 17, and it is as though Isaiah is asking the question, “Well, just how great and glorious and big is our God?”  Here, we make the transition from Jesus leading His sheep gently and carrying the lambs in His bosom, to measuring the oceans with His hand!  What an astounding contrast!  This series of questions is all rhetorical.  

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

and weighed the mountains in scales

and the hills in a balance?   (Isaiah 40:12 ESV)

This poetry is meant to portray in human terms the immensity of God.  That is the only way His immensity can be portrayed: in poetic terms.  What we mean by immensity is that God cannot be measured in terms of space.  In regard to time, we say that God is eternal so He has no age.  God transcends time, lives outside the boundaries of time.  In regard to space, we understand He is infinite so that He has no spacial boundaries.  

Here in these verses, He is pictured as standing outside of His creation, measuring and weighing it in containers and scales.  He can measure what He has made, but He Himself cannot be measured because He is immense.  He is separate from and other than, and He stands outside all He has created.  He is larger, in some inexplicable sense, than the entire universe He has made.  

This also speaks to God’s omnipresence.  God can’t go anywhere.  God can’t “show up.”  Wherever God is (which is everywhere), all of Him is there, not just a part of Him.  God hasn’t sent a part of Himself everywhere in the universe so that He is infinitely divided and separated into infinitely small segments.  God is fully and entirely everywhere, all the time, and even prior to time (which doesn’t even make logical sense to us).  

Here we get into thoughts about God that present Him in such magnificent terms that we are incapable of explaining Him.  Listen to what one theologian said:

“Where there is no creation, there can be no space or time.  But creation cannot be infinite, but must have its bounds, impossible as it may be for us to imagine the non-existence of space.  In our own mode of existence, space and time are so necessary that we cannot even deny their existence without using words which involve that existence.  Thus if we say, ‘Where there is no universe, there is no space,” the very words ’where’ and ‘there’ involve the notion of space.  But not withstanding this, we know that, just as time is the period, so is space the location, in which creation exists.  When, therefore, we speak of God’s immensity, we mean more than His filling all space, just as when we speak of His eternity, we mean more than His existing throughout all time.” 

In other words, God fills all time and all space.  And then some, what ever you want to call whatever there is beyond time and space. Eternity and Infinity.  Solomon put it this way in his dedicatory prayer at the completion of the Temple:

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!  (1 Kings 8:27 ESV)

Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD.  Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.  (Jeremiah 23:24 ESV)

Of the Lord Jesus Himself, Paul says, 

He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. (Ephesians 4:10 ESV)

This is why God asks the people of Judah this question in verse 18: “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?”  (Isaiah 40:18 ESV)  God is entirely incomparable to anything we are capable of experiencing in this life.  We certainly shouldn’t compare Him to ourselves!  We have no means of accurately describing God to any great depth, much less understand and comprehend Him!  And for a man, any man, to write a book and sell millions of copies of it, in which he encourages people to believe God is not great, is a fool of the highest order.  Or the lowest order.  Take your pick.

Who has measured the Spirit of God?  No one.  God is so far beyond us in His greatness and His glory . . . it is frightening.  No wonder Isaiah falls down like a dead man when He sees the Lord high and lifted up.  No wonder Moses face shone so brightly after seeing a glimpse of the back side of God that he frightened the children of Israel.  No wonder Peter, James, and John were practically speechless when they saw Jesus on the mount of transfiguration and His face shone like the sun!  

If angels cause men to quake with fear at the sight of them, what must it be like to behold the eternal and infinite and totally incomparable and incomprehensible God?

Whatever our thoughts are about the Lord Jesus Christ, however high we may exalt Him in our own hearts and minds, regardless of what terms we use to describe Him, . . . it all falls infinitely short.  Our best thoughts of God are far too small.  I am sure we will never be closer to death and simultaneously more alive, than when we behold our God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in all of His glory with our own eyes.  

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.