God Glorifies Himself by Working a New Salvation

Isaiah 43:16-21

This section contains the interpretive key to the chapter. The Lord calls to their remembrance the mighty deliverance he worked over Egypt at the Red Sea (v. 17). But then God commands them to forget the former things (v. 18) as he unveils amazing news with the word “Look” (v. 19). He is going to work a far greater salvation in the future, something that will cause the exodus to shrink in memory. He will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, even causing the wild animals to honor him. He will give refreshing drink to his chosen people, whom he formed for himself to declare his praise (vv. 20-21).

Though this event could be understood as the journey of the Jews from Babylon back to the promised land, it seems difficult to fathom how a walk of forty thousand on a dusty road could be greater than what God did in bringing several million Israelites through the Red Sea. Therefore, the restoration of the Jews to Jerusalem must be seen as a type or shadow of a far more glorious journey home—the salvation worked among all nations by Christ, bringing them to the Father (John 14:6). That awesome work of God will be so great that it will make the redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt shrink in comparison.

The rivers flowing in the desert (vv. 19-20) speak of the gift of the Holy Spirit, as in Isaiah 44:3. The Spirit is often spoken of as if he were a liquid, “poured out” on God’s people (Isa 32:15; Ezek 39:29; Acts 2:33; John 7:38-39). So these verses predict the blessings of the new covenant. And they go beyond present spiritual salvation to speak of the redemption of nature as well because the desert and the wild creatures are included in the celebration (Rom 8:19-23).

Isaiah 43:22-28

The chapter ends with a snap back to reality. In Isaiah’s day the wicked idolatry that would result in the exile to Babylon had yet to take place. And even if one takes verses 22-28 to be God’s message to the exiled Jews right before their restoration, their grievous neglect of godly duties convicts us all. God’s commands are not a burden (1 John 5:3) in any case. But Judah had not called on God in prayer because they had become weary of God. They had not wearied themselves in their religious services to God, but rather they had wearied him with their sins (v. 24). “Aromatic cane with silver” represents costly sacrifice, and while God had not required that of them, they should have been cheerfully willing to give far more. But so often, instead of laying it all on the line for Christ, we are lazy and hold back and actually weary God with our sins, grieving the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30).

Because of these sins, God would soon be judging Judah and Jerusalem (v. 28). Sin had been woven through the tapestry of every generation of Israel’s history, and this holy God would soon be handing the sanctuary and Jacob over to total destruction. But we know that God’s final word for his chosen people is not judgment but grace. So God reminds them that he is the one who sweeps our transgressions away and remembers our sins no more (v. 25). God will do all this “for [his] own sake,” that is, “for the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph 1:6). We were created for his glory (Isa 43:7), and so we will be redeemed for his glory.

The wisest way for twenty-first-century Christians to begin to apply this marvelous chapter is to take the advice given in verse 18: “Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old.” This doesn’t mean to disregard past successes in redemptive history entirely. But some commentators on Isaiah 43 focus exclusively on the author’s original intent (the author being Isaiah) and speak only about the restoration of the Jews after the exile. Yet the chapter points to a far greater achievement, that worked by Jesus Christ at the cross and by the Holy Spirit in spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. Therefore, while we Christians should respect the historical setting for this chapter, within it we see clues that God meant to speak a word of great encouragement to every generation of his chosen people.

So, we should begin by personally treasuring the words God speaks to his chosen people in verses 1-7. We should hold up each phrase like a rare gemstone and press it to our hearts in delight. We should bask in the electing love of God, that God has both created us and redeemed us for his glory. We should feel the intense power of God’s cry, “I have called you by your name; you are mine!” We should heed his command not to fear the fire or the water, realizing that God does not mean to condemn us by them but rather to purify us. We should memorize verse 2 for the next “fiery ordeal” (1 Pet 4:12) God chooses to bring us through and say those words to our souls when the fire of the ordeal seems to burn our earthly hopes to ashes. Perhaps we have heard the worst possible result from the cancer test; perhaps the same has happened to our spouse; perhaps we must attend the funeral for our toddler this afternoon, and our hearts are screaming to a sullen sky for some reason why; perhaps we have been unemployed for months, and no prospects are on the horizon; perhaps we are elderly, in an assisted living center, and no one ever seems to call. Whatever the fire or water through which we are passing, we should cling to the faith Isaiah 43 was written to give us.

We must also embrace the challenge in the chapter to be God’s witnesses in an idol-saturated world. We should prove to the idolaters that only the God of the Bible has “declared, saved, and proclaimed” (v. 12). We should learn to marshal the evidence of fulfilled prophecies to prove that God alone is powerful over human history. There are no fulfilled prophecies in any other world religion.

Finally, we should humbly realize that nothing within us compelled God to choose us; it was merely because he loved us that we are precious in his sight (v. 4). We should realize that God does all of this mighty work on our behalf for his own sake, for his own glory. We were created for his glory (v. 7) and redeemed to praise his glory (v. 21).