The Awesome Display of the Glory of God Saves Sinners

Therefore, Isaiah speaks next of the infinite depths of God’s mind. The universe testifies powerfully to the mind of the Lord: its complexity, immensity, power, balance, beauty, order. God uses this to challenge the human race: “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or who gave him counsel? Who did he consult?” (vv. 13–14). I once heard Pastor Erwin Lutzer say, “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God?” God has never learned anything, and he never will. So no human being can teach God a single thing.

This is especially poignant in verse 14 when it says, “Who . . . taught him the paths of justice?” So often, the twists and turns of God’s paths in redemptive history are difficult to follow. As Paul said, “How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!” (Rom 11:33). That literally means God’s footsteps cannot be tracked by human reason—we can’t follow his train of thought. So, God’s orchestrating the slaughter by the Babylonians of all but a small remnant of his people might seem to some unjust and incomprehensible. The suffering of God’s missionaries to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth seems harsh, and the eternity of the torments of the damned has been called unjust by many. How much more the death of Jesus on the cross under the wrath of God made no sense to those who had hoped he would be the Redeemer of Israel. But no one can teach God the paths of justice, for his commitment to justice is displayed by the cross (Rom 3:25-26).

The immensity of God is also proclaimed specifically over the nations, which are merely a drop from a bucket and dust on the scales compared to him (Isa 40:15). If a man were carrying a bucket of water to a garden and a drop spilled on the way, would he try to reclaim that drop from the ground? That’s what the nations are in God’s sight. That means two things: (1) the combined power of the nations will not be able to stop God’s plan of redeeming his chosen people; (2) the combined wealth of the nations is not sufficient to honor God with a suitable offering (v. 16). Only the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ can equal the worth of God himself or cover the multitude of the sins of God’s people.

Despite this greatness of God, arrogant people have consistently rebelled and made their own gods to worship. There is nothing in the universe to which God can be compared, but the puny minds and limited powers of craftsmen make “gods” that steal the affections of people away from God who deserves them (vv. 18-20). God lines up these pathetic idols alongside himself, the God who rules the universe. How laughable that these lifeless idols must be nailed down so they won’t fall over (cf. 1 Sam 5:1-5)!

The true and living God needs no such help. Surely we have heard of him from the beginning of the world—his eternal power and divine nature are seen daily in creation (v. 22; Rom 1:20). This majestic God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and all its people are like grasshoppers before him. The combined power of the grasshoppers would not be enough to turn him aside for an instant, but rather he would just laugh at their feeble rebellion (Ps 2:4). The heavens themselves are dynamic, being stretched out continually by God, for science reveals that the cosmos is expanding. If God can do that, then the princes and the rulers of the earth are as nothing to him! He is the very one who knit these people in their mothers’ wombs, and it is he who will take their final breaths from their mouths whenever he chooses. Their reign, however terrifying and seemingly powerful, is like a blink of an eye to him. As soon as they are planted, they wither and die (Isa 40:24). To the Judahites living in Babylon, they could read this and not tremble at the power of their Gentile captors.

So who can even remotely be compared to God? The gap between God and all created beings is infinite! God’s power and knowledge absolutely dwarf anything the human race can muster. God gave to Adam the task of naming the animals, but he alone can name all the stars, and by his power alone not one of them is missing from the night sky. Cosmologists tell us hundreds of billions of galaxies are in outer space, each with billions of stars. God has named each star, able to tell the difference from one to another, and by Christ he keeps each one burning (Heb 1:3).

Isaiah 40:27-31

The culmination of this stunning meditation on the greatness of God is provided to renew his weak, weary, and dejected people. God has already told them these things before (v. 28). But just as faith comes initially by hearing, so it is strengthened and nourished by hearing again. God’s chosen people throughout history (“Jacob” and “Israel”) have been tempted to think that their sufferings were hidden from God and their legal claim is passed over by God who has not noticed them, such as the unjust judge and the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). Ultimately, God will see that they get justice. In the meantime, however, God has promised to give strength to his weak and weary people as they endure the sufferings of sanctification and gospel advance in this world. The Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, never grows weary for an instant—he is the everlasting God! He perfectly understands the needs of his people and of the hour. He gives strength to the weary and strengthens the powerless at every moment (v. 29). God’s people on earth need constant strengthening, whether we are elite soldiers or frail elderly people in a nursing home. God’s words recorded in this chapter convince us that this incomprehensibly majestic God is bending all the powers of his might and his mind toward our final salvation. By hearing him speak, we find our hearts strengthened in amazing ways, and we will resume our journey for his glory: we will soar on wings as eagles, we will run and not become weary, we will walk and not faint.

The central application of this chapter is to trust in Christ, the Redeemer, whose blood alone can atone for our sins. In Christ God has provided double for all our sins (Rom 3:24-26).

Second, we should expect the need for daily strengthening of our faith. At the end of the chapter the Lord speaks to us a humbling word, saying that everyone should expect to grow weak and weary in the Christian life. It is only as we listen to God’s messengers proclaiming the words “Here is your God!” that we will run and not become weary, we will walk and not faint. So we must be daily in the Word of God, and weekly under the hearing of faithful exposition of the Scriptures so our faith may be renewed.

Soaring above all this, however, is the simple concept that “God is the gospel!” The staggering majesty of God so unforgettably described in this chapter is the treasure we will be gazing at and gloating over in heaven forever. How rich we are to have this God—the God of Isaiah 40—as our eternal inheritance! We should be constantly meditating on the themes of God’s majesty described here: his immensity compared to heaven and earth; his awesome power and sovereign control over the nations; his direct power over the princes of the earth; his inscrutable wisdom and the fact that no human being can ever be God’s counselor. The greater God appears to us, the smaller our afflictions will seem.

This should also affect our prayer lives. We should pray all the more confidently to such a God as this because we know he can do anything. We should also pray all the more humbly knowing he can learn nothing from us.

Next, we should be reminded constantly of our mortality. Psalm 90:12 says we should number our days to gain a heart of wisdom. We are like grass, and all our glory is like the flowers of the field. We should not be dismayed at the ravages of aging—the mind’s diminished powers, the face’s fading beauty, the body’s decreased powers. We should not seek to stem this inevitable tide by surgery or Botox treatments. Rather, we should set our hope fully on the grace to be given us when Jesus Christ returns.

Finally, we should seek to embrace the entire range of the personhood of God in this chapter: both his terrifying immensity and power and his astonishing gentleness to his weak sheep.