Thoughts on The Suffering Servant, Isaac, and Job

Random combination, right? I'll try to link them clearly.

Last week (and the week before), our BSF study focused on chapters 52 an 53 of Isaiah, which describe the Suffering Servant. Sometimes this passage is controversial because scholars debate who it's actually about. Most people assume it's about Jesus, as does BSF. But I don't think the Servant's true identity and prophetic fulfillment are relevant to this post, although my BSF notes point out that if this passage was missing from the Bible, most of it could be reconstructed from its citations in other sources (other Jewish and Christian writings).

But back to Isaac. A while back, I posted about my struggles with Isaac, with understanding the "why" of his father being told to sacrifice him, only to be stopped by God. Toward the end of that post, I mentioned what Christians would probably think if the story came from another religion. And our BSF notes from last week pointed out how frequently child sacrifices were made to appease angry gods in order to spare people the consequences of their sins. It occurred to me when I read this that when God told Abraham to kill his son, he was doing something Abraham was familiar with because of the times during which he lived. Though Abraham was probably perplexed and heavy-hearted, he could also have somewhat expected God to demand such a sacrifice - everybody else's god did, so... But then God stopped Abraham. What other god had ever done that? God was completely turning the idea of human sacrifice for sin on its head so that Abraham would know who He was. He wasn't one of those wooden idol-type gods that some man had fashioned after his own whims. Yahweh was The One True God. Only He would rescind His own command to sacrifice one's child. And then there's Jesus: the ultimate child sacrifice, if you'll accept the analogy. God took the idea of child sacrifice - that people of Jesus' day would have been extremely familiar with, and turned it upside down. How could His people doubt any longer the truth of who He is - His supreme authority over the universe and superiority to any other god - in the face of such an upside-down demonstration of His love for them?

Now Job. He's a horse of a different color. He came into my line of vision around verse 16 of chapter 54 in Isaiah:

¹⁶ “See, it is I who created the blacksmith

who fans the coals into flame

and forges a weapon fit for its work.

And it is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc;

¹⁷ no weapon forged against you will prevail,

and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.

This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,

and this is their vindication from me,”

declares the LORD.

Verse 16 points out that God created the blacksmith. The blacksmith may forge weapons that can be used against us, but those weapons cannot prevail. I thought of Job and of God giving Satan authority to destroy everything in Job's life but the man himself. God created the blacksmith and Satan, and neither has power to do anything that God did not give them the authority to do.

All of these thoughts occurred to me at once, and I felt like I realized for the first time - in my heart - that maybe the Bible stories that confuse us so frequently aren't meant to be understood in isolation from the completeness of God's Word.