Reading Isaiah

Isaiah is perhaps the most profound book of the Old Testament when it comes to revelation about Christ. Actually, much of the Old Testament contains prophecy or typology (types of people, institutions, sacrifices, e.t.c. that symbolized Jesus) regarding Christ, as the Messiah. The New Testament prophecy after Christ's ascension moves to revelation regarding Christ as a King, but that's a topic for a different post.

Isaiah is mainly a prophetic book that focuses on Christ's coming as the Messiah, but also the deliverance of Israel from slavery. The main idea is that the Messiah would release Israel from the bonds of sin, through salvation. In fact, the name Isaiah means Yahweh is Salvation. The book contains the word salvation 26 times, compared to 6 times in all the other prophetic books combined.

The book is also used to support the Substitutionary Atonement theory of salvation. Substitutionary Atonement states that Christ died as a substitute for others, instead of the people dying themselves. With the penalty of sin being death, Christ acted as our substitute and bore all of our sins, so that we wouldn't have to be punished. Isaiah tends to focus on the suffering of Christ in this act. His symbolism and imagery is piercing, and is commonly used in many Christology studies.

Interestingly, the book of Isaiah is structured much like the whole Bible is. The first 39 chapters can be compared with the first 39 books of the Bible, more commonly referred to as the Old Testament. Just like the Old Testament focused on judgement, so do these first 39 chapters, with judgement on immoral men the chosen focus. The next 27 chapters can be connected with the 27 books of the New Testament, which focus on a message of hope. Of course, that hope is Christ, our Messiah and King.

Royal Doors