Isaiah 42:1-25 The False Comfort of Partiality
Isaiah 42 focuses on a comfort for which all victims of abuse and oppression cry out, and that is justice. But justice can be defined very differently depending on the eyes through which it is viewed. Justice should be blind in the sense of being impartial, and it is when it is administered according to God's truth. But the scales of judgment can lose their sense of balance when they deviate from truth and begin to judge from the eyes of the victim. Then another kind of blindness sets in, the blindness of partiality.
Isaiah 42:1-9
Isaiah 41 ended with a scathing rebuke to Israel concerning the futility of idolatry. It ended with the summary "Indeed [Hebrew: hen], they are worthless . . ." The Hebrew word, hen, can also be translated as behold, see, or look. Isaiah 42 now opens with the same word, hen or behold, only this time we are told to look at something opposite, someone who is a contrast to the idols of the previous chapter. The LORD now announces the coming of another Servant (not Cyrus this time).
While this Servant remains unnamed, His character and purpose are described in much more detail than Cyrus. He has the Spirit of God upon Him, and His overarching task is to bring justice and light to the Gentiles--and only the Gentiles. They are curiously singled out. If we filter that statement through the eyes of the victim, Israel, it would seem that this deliverer is coming to give her oppressors a serious comeuppance, and yet His manner and actions have none of the forcefulness that a conqueror would display. Quite the opposite. It is a bit of a conundrum.
So, we know that the Servant is Jesus (Matthew 12:15-21, Luke 2:25-32), but here, in Isaiah, Israel only has a picture without a name put to it. And in many respects, it describes her—maybe not the real her, but the ideal her. She has long been called God’s servant. We saw this in the last chapter, and it is repeated throughout Isaiah. And these are the same tasks with which she was originally commissioned. From her beginning, God called her out of all the nations to be the keeper and administrator of His Law and the intercessor for the people. So, she sees herself in this role. You might question me about that premise, but look at Paul’s words in Romans 2, which we will get to in a moment. This is her historical view of herself, as noted in my Jewish Tanahk (Study Bible). Jewish scholars who have rejected Jesus say that this “servant” is referring to corporate Israel. They imagine that this Servant is the embodiment of Israel—her ideal form (which He is in a way). So, when the LORD calls the “Servant” to be the light to the Gentiles, or when He says, “I have called you in righteousness and will give you as a covenant to the people,” it is tempting for Israel to cast herself into that self-righteous role.
This is the task of the Servant. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles (42:1). He will bring forth justice with firmness, faithfulness, and truth with the goal of establishing peace, security, and stability (that is the full meaning behind the Hebrew phrasing in 42:3). And He will not be discouraged (42:4). He can do this because He is invested with the authority of God Himself and is the embodiment of God's covenant to the people. He will be the light--a light to the Gentiles, the one who opens blind eyes and sets prisoners free from the bondage of their darkness (42:5-7).
Spiritually speaking, yes. So, we have now introduced the spiritual side of the Servant’s work. This isn’t just about releasing Israel from physical bondage. It is about releasing her from her blindness to her condition and realigning everyone equally under God’s law.
The Servant's task is to establish justice in the earth. Thinks about that for a moment. Think about the scope of that task, just within our own country. Here in the United States, we might not live under the brutality of an oppressive third-world regime or country beset by open warfare, but our justice system for all of its sophistication is broken. Do you feel that?
We see evidence of it on the news every day. Our societal values have so shifted that they have tipped the scales of justice unequally. Some people are victimized continually while other offenders are allowed to run rampant with impunity. Social movements have risen in response to unaddressed offenses, but freedom of speech is a right given to some but not others. Illegal immigrants have equal if not more rights than citizens, and corruption, fraud, trafficking, and all manner of crimes are rampant. The justice system turns a blind eye to this, and often shackles those who have the ability to do something about it. We are systemically broken. We are in a crooked place.
Straightening crooked places is one of the tasks of God’s Highway Project. So, what would it take to reestablish justice? I guess that depends on your definition of justice and on what you are basing it.
You cannot have balanced justice without a set of values for a guide. You need a universal law as mentioned in verse 4. In addition to a law, it would require a person with sufficient authority to enforce the law and remove the corrupted officials who refuse to administer the law rightly. Above all, it would require impartiality and the treatment of all people equally and all crimes with consistency and fair values.
The fact that the justice seems only for the Gentiles lays a foundation for some prejudice and self-righteousness here. As Israel sees it, this applies to them, not her. This kind of justice pits victim against oppressor with each side seeking to tip the scales in their favor. It doesn't end the fighting, which is God's overall goal, but rather promotes vengeance and punitive actions. It doesn't bring peace or security or stability. It doesn't heal anything for the victim. It can, in fact, turn the abused into the abusers by empowering them. I am going to come back to this in minute, but first let's finish the chapter.
The LORD has put this picture of His superior Servant and the sufficiency of His work up against the picture of Israel’s futile idols whose work is worthless. Here, in verse 8-9, the LORD wraps up the comparison with the summary statement about His own Godship in His ability to predict the future. He points to the former things, which are the events in history that bear witness of His works and provide proof of His Godship. And now the new things--the prophecies--will be fulfilled in the future.
Isaiah 42:10-12
The coming of this Servant is a reason for the Gentiles to sing. In verses 10-12, we see the anthem of praise begin at the ends of the earth, in the sea and all that is in it, then the coastlands, the desert wilderness (we are working our way inland), up to the tops of the mountains. The earth is filled with praise at the coming of the Servant and heralds His coming like the coming of a king. It is quite the opposite reaction from the fear expressed back in Isaiah 41:5-7, where the coastlands feared God. Now they sing.
Isaiah 42:13-25
Having summoned His Servant, the LORD embarks on His highway project with zeal. He paints two pictures of Himself: The mighty man of war and a woman in labor. So, here is a riddle for you . . .
The LORD begins His work by clearing the path of everything. He lays waste the mountains and hills. He clears the vegetation. He dries up the waters so there is dry ground. And then He leads out the blind.
Israel. Israel is the blind one who the LORD is leading in paths that they have not known. Israel is the one who needs the darkness made light for her. Those who had once been the enlightened Law-givers are the ones who need their crooked places (literally, perverse ways) straightened. Isn't that a slap up side the head! God singled out the oppressors as being the blind ones in need of law and light, but now it is the victim herself who God judges as being equally destitute. That's the thing about God's law. It is impartial. Both sides are judged and both are found lacking.
Verse 17 says that the ones who trusted in idols are turned back and ashamed. The Hebrew word for "turned back" doesn't mean repent in this case. It means to be driven back or to draw back in heart. They recoil at this judgment. They don't want to hear it.
Isaiah 42:18-25
God expands on Israel’s prejudicial self-righteousness with a sharp rebuke. He calls her the deaf and the blind. She has become as unresponsive to Him as the Gentiles at whose hand she suffers, and as a result, blind to her own condition. In a victim’s mind, the blame for their situation is very often laid solely on the oppressor. It is the other person’s fault. God corrects Israel’s thinking in verses 23-25.
Israel was supposed to be the Law-keepers who established His justice, but she is as much the backslider as the Gentiles. She has no reason to think herself better than the Gentiles. She is the one who is deaf and blind and needing to be led. This puts to rest the notion that corporate Israel is the Servant in verses 1-7. If she herself is blind and cannot break her own bondage, she is in no way capable of being a light and lawgiver to the Gentiles around her. The apostle Paul rebukes the Jews in his day with this same observation in Romans 2:17-24.
The Servant, who we know is Jesus Christ, is the individual who the LORD will raise up in the future to establish His law and His justice, but He will come to save all nations, Israel and the Gentiles together. And the fact that He will come not just to right things for Israel but for all the nations is cause to sing, at least from the nations' perspective. Back in verses 10-12, the Gentiles' reaction to the LORD shedding light on their condition was to sing and rejoice and embrace the coming Servant. Israel's reaction is a stark contrast. In verse 17, she recoils and is ashamed. In verse 25, she does not take the lesson to heart. She does no self-assessment.
Isn't it curious that while the coastlands--the Gentile world--rejoices at the Servant's law and justice, Israel herself recoils from it. She shuts her ears and eyes.
The Pursuit of Enlightenment
The establishment of justice begins with a foundation on a central, universal truth, the light which allows for clear sight, discernment, and right judgment. God's Servant and His word are true sources of light and enlightenment, but world, Israel included, has historically sought human sources of enlightenment apart from God.
In Isaiah's day, the Torah (Mosaic Law) was supposed to be the preeminent source of enlightenment for Israel, but she corrupted the administration of that justice. Her adminstrators believed that they were the superior "enlightened" ruling class that wielded the laws as they saw fit and could dictate their version of social norms even when they were opposed to God's rules and values. And the community followed them blindly and fearfully. As a result of having closed her eyes to God's "enlightenment," the nation of Israel found herself among the deaf and blind prisoners sitting in darkness.
The pursuit of enlightenment has long spurred the intellectual and philosophical movements on the Gentile side as well. History has seen the philosophy schools of early Greece, the Renaissance, and the "Age of Enlightenment" in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Age of Enlightenment, the ideas of tolerance, the superiority of science, and the separation of church and state got their foothold. These movements embraced knowledge and reason, education apart from God, as the power by which humans improve their own condition. In our own modern generation, we are seeing the pursuit of a new form of "enlightened" or "woke" thinking that is less about logic, reason, or even factual truth, and more about a adopting a set of social values that weigh justice in favor of the victim's "just claim." And justice is no longer something for just the courts to decide. Social media platforms increasingly serve as both judge and jury for justice issues.
The Injustice of Partiality
God has put Israel in prison is because she has perverted His justice and allowed herself to be blinded by bribery and partiality. The LORD commanded His people not to show partiality, and when they do, there are consequences. Here are a few verses:
What was true of Israel is true of us today. Justice should be blind, and yet we live in a culture where the blind eye of partiality and preferential treatment are becoming a common-place oppression. We have become very victim-centric in our worldview.
Equal opportunity quotas have long swayed public and employment policies, and now DEI requirements are starting to drive things. Partiality drives who gets a job, who gets a college degree, who gets a loan, or who gets into public or governmental offices. It is no longer an issue of who is most qualified but what marginalized people they represent. The "woke" culture sounds enlightened, when, in fact, its agenda is blinding our judgment. Like Israel, we are becoming blind and deaf (and mute) prisoners of the system.
Partiality is a form of oppression. It proposes to comfort victims by tipping the scales in their favor and thus empowering them over their oppressors. Social values become skewed which then impair our judgment and create a crooked place in which we are caught, and yet, like Israel, we fail to stop and consider how we got into our crooked place. To break this kind of oppression, the Servant who is coming to establish justice in the world must show no partiality when meting out that justice, which will seem exceedingly harsh in a culture that caters to victims. He is going to turn the world on end with His form of justice.
God's Highway Project: Being Light-bearers in Oppressive Times
Israel was called to be God's light-bearer, but by Isaiah's day, she was anything but that. Her leaders and judges were oppressive to their own people in dispensing justice and yet she maintained this skewed perception of herself as the "enlightened one." God tore that down. In truth, she was deaf and blind and caught in a crooked place by her own fault (42:16). The oppressive situation in which she found herself was less about what the Babylonians had done to her and more about what she had done to God.
We are called to be light-bearers in this world, but holding this line can be a struggle. Paul exhorts us:
The Servant, Christ, has given us a commission to be His light-bearers in our crooked and perverse generation. So, how do we work out our salvation as the His light-bearers? (Working out our salvation does not mean that we do these things to gain salvation, but as a response to the commission being given to us.) So, let's work it out . . .
It is fine to sympathize with victims, even advocate on their behalf, but the one thing we cannot do is let ourselves be sucked into that victim identity--that view of ourselves or others as perpetual victims of injustice. Like Israel, it is less about what the oppressors have done to them as what they have done to God. That statement might not go over so well today, but perhaps that is the light we need to shed on their situation. We cannot join them in that victim mentality because it will ultimately undermine an identity with God and keep us from aligning with His view of justice and values.
Isaiah 42:1-9
Isaiah 41 ended with a scathing rebuke to Israel concerning the futility of idolatry. It ended with the summary "Indeed [Hebrew: hen], they are worthless . . ." The Hebrew word, hen, can also be translated as behold, see, or look. Isaiah 42 now opens with the same word, hen or behold, only this time we are told to look at something opposite, someone who is a contrast to the idols of the previous chapter. The LORD now announces the coming of another Servant (not Cyrus this time).
While this Servant remains unnamed, His character and purpose are described in much more detail than Cyrus. He has the Spirit of God upon Him, and His overarching task is to bring justice and light to the Gentiles--and only the Gentiles. They are curiously singled out. If we filter that statement through the eyes of the victim, Israel, it would seem that this deliverer is coming to give her oppressors a serious comeuppance, and yet His manner and actions have none of the forcefulness that a conqueror would display. Quite the opposite. It is a bit of a conundrum.
So, we know that the Servant is Jesus (Matthew 12:15-21, Luke 2:25-32), but here, in Isaiah, Israel only has a picture without a name put to it. And in many respects, it describes her—maybe not the real her, but the ideal her. She has long been called God’s servant. We saw this in the last chapter, and it is repeated throughout Isaiah. And these are the same tasks with which she was originally commissioned. From her beginning, God called her out of all the nations to be the keeper and administrator of His Law and the intercessor for the people. So, she sees herself in this role. You might question me about that premise, but look at Paul’s words in Romans 2, which we will get to in a moment. This is her historical view of herself, as noted in my Jewish Tanahk (Study Bible). Jewish scholars who have rejected Jesus say that this “servant” is referring to corporate Israel. They imagine that this Servant is the embodiment of Israel—her ideal form (which He is in a way). So, when the LORD calls the “Servant” to be the light to the Gentiles, or when He says, “I have called you in righteousness and will give you as a covenant to the people,” it is tempting for Israel to cast herself into that self-righteous role.
This is the task of the Servant. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles (42:1). He will bring forth justice with firmness, faithfulness, and truth with the goal of establishing peace, security, and stability (that is the full meaning behind the Hebrew phrasing in 42:3). And He will not be discouraged (42:4). He can do this because He is invested with the authority of God Himself and is the embodiment of God's covenant to the people. He will be the light--a light to the Gentiles, the one who opens blind eyes and sets prisoners free from the bondage of their darkness (42:5-7).
Q: What does it mean to be a light?
Q: The Servant will come specifically as a light to the Gentiles--the oppressors. Why single out the Gentiles?
Q: Who has blind eyes--Israel or the Gentiles?
Q: Who are the prisoners sitting in darkness--Israel or the Gentiles?
If we were to look at the Servant's tasking from captive Israel's perspective, I imagine she would see herself as the literal prisoner, but not necessarily the blind, since the light is for the Gentiles and not herself. In spite of her current circumstances, she still considers herself the "enlightened" one because of her calling. There is comfort for her in that identity. Regardless of how bad off she is, she is still superior to the Gentiles. You can categorize people by how you perceive them in comparison to yourself.
Q: Can oppressors be equally in bondage with their victims?
Q: Can a victim be as blind as her oppressor?
Spiritually speaking, yes. So, we have now introduced the spiritual side of the Servant’s work. This isn’t just about releasing Israel from physical bondage. It is about releasing her from her blindness to her condition and realigning everyone equally under God’s law.
The Servant's task is to establish justice in the earth. Thinks about that for a moment. Think about the scope of that task, just within our own country. Here in the United States, we might not live under the brutality of an oppressive third-world regime or country beset by open warfare, but our justice system for all of its sophistication is broken. Do you feel that?
Q: How is it broken?
We see evidence of it on the news every day. Our societal values have so shifted that they have tipped the scales of justice unequally. Some people are victimized continually while other offenders are allowed to run rampant with impunity. Social movements have risen in response to unaddressed offenses, but freedom of speech is a right given to some but not others. Illegal immigrants have equal if not more rights than citizens, and corruption, fraud, trafficking, and all manner of crimes are rampant. The justice system turns a blind eye to this, and often shackles those who have the ability to do something about it. We are systemically broken. We are in a crooked place.
Straightening crooked places is one of the tasks of God’s Highway Project. So, what would it take to reestablish justice? I guess that depends on your definition of justice and on what you are basing it.
Q: Is justice accomplished simply by lifting up the victims and treading down oppressors or does that just tip the scales in the other direction?
Q: What is involved in reestablishing a balanced justice system?
You cannot have balanced justice without a set of values for a guide. You need a universal law as mentioned in verse 4. In addition to a law, it would require a person with sufficient authority to enforce the law and remove the corrupted officials who refuse to administer the law rightly. Above all, it would require impartiality and the treatment of all people equally and all crimes with consistency and fair values.
The fact that the justice seems only for the Gentiles lays a foundation for some prejudice and self-righteousness here. As Israel sees it, this applies to them, not her. This kind of justice pits victim against oppressor with each side seeking to tip the scales in their favor. It doesn't end the fighting, which is God's overall goal, but rather promotes vengeance and punitive actions. It doesn't bring peace or security or stability. It doesn't heal anything for the victim. It can, in fact, turn the abused into the abusers by empowering them. I am going to come back to this in minute, but first let's finish the chapter.
The LORD has put this picture of His superior Servant and the sufficiency of His work up against the picture of Israel’s futile idols whose work is worthless. Here, in verse 8-9, the LORD wraps up the comparison with the summary statement about His own Godship in His ability to predict the future. He points to the former things, which are the events in history that bear witness of His works and provide proof of His Godship. And now the new things--the prophecies--will be fulfilled in the future.
Isaiah 42:10-12
The coming of this Servant is a reason for the Gentiles to sing. In verses 10-12, we see the anthem of praise begin at the ends of the earth, in the sea and all that is in it, then the coastlands, the desert wilderness (we are working our way inland), up to the tops of the mountains. The earth is filled with praise at the coming of the Servant and heralds His coming like the coming of a king. It is quite the opposite reaction from the fear expressed back in Isaiah 41:5-7, where the coastlands feared God. Now they sing.
Isaiah 42:13-25
Having summoned His Servant, the LORD embarks on His highway project with zeal. He paints two pictures of Himself: The mighty man of war and a woman in labor. So, here is a riddle for you . . .
Q: How is a woman in labor like a mighty man of war? (Any woman who has borne children will chuckle at that.) It's a bloody effort for both, but to what end?
The LORD begins His work by clearing the path of everything. He lays waste the mountains and hills. He clears the vegetation. He dries up the waters so there is dry ground. And then He leads out the blind.
Q: In verses 6-7, the Gentiles were the blind ones. Who are the blind now in verse 16?
Israel. Israel is the blind one who the LORD is leading in paths that they have not known. Israel is the one who needs the darkness made light for her. Those who had once been the enlightened Law-givers are the ones who need their crooked places (literally, perverse ways) straightened. Isn't that a slap up side the head! God singled out the oppressors as being the blind ones in need of law and light, but now it is the victim herself who God judges as being equally destitute. That's the thing about God's law. It is impartial. Both sides are judged and both are found lacking.
Verse 17 says that the ones who trusted in idols are turned back and ashamed. The Hebrew word for "turned back" doesn't mean repent in this case. It means to be driven back or to draw back in heart. They recoil at this judgment. They don't want to hear it.
Isaiah 42:18-25
God expands on Israel’s prejudicial self-righteousness with a sharp rebuke. He calls her the deaf and the blind. She has become as unresponsive to Him as the Gentiles at whose hand she suffers, and as a result, blind to her own condition. In a victim’s mind, the blame for their situation is very often laid solely on the oppressor. It is the other person’s fault. God corrects Israel’s thinking in verses 23-25.
Q: Yes, she has been robbed and plundered, imprisoned with little hope of deliverance, but at whose instigation? Who gave her over to the Babylonians?
Q: Why did He give her to the plunderers?
Israel was supposed to be the Law-keepers who established His justice, but she is as much the backslider as the Gentiles. She has no reason to think herself better than the Gentiles. She is the one who is deaf and blind and needing to be led. This puts to rest the notion that corporate Israel is the Servant in verses 1-7. If she herself is blind and cannot break her own bondage, she is in no way capable of being a light and lawgiver to the Gentiles around her. The apostle Paul rebukes the Jews in his day with this same observation in Romans 2:17-24.
The Servant, who we know is Jesus Christ, is the individual who the LORD will raise up in the future to establish His law and His justice, but He will come to save all nations, Israel and the Gentiles together. And the fact that He will come not just to right things for Israel but for all the nations is cause to sing, at least from the nations' perspective. Back in verses 10-12, the Gentiles' reaction to the LORD shedding light on their condition was to sing and rejoice and embrace the coming Servant. Israel's reaction is a stark contrast. In verse 17, she recoils and is ashamed. In verse 25, she does not take the lesson to heart. She does no self-assessment.
Isn't it curious that while the coastlands--the Gentile world--rejoices at the Servant's law and justice, Israel herself recoils from it. She shuts her ears and eyes.
The Pursuit of Enlightenment
The establishment of justice begins with a foundation on a central, universal truth, the light which allows for clear sight, discernment, and right judgment. God's Servant and His word are true sources of light and enlightenment, but world, Israel included, has historically sought human sources of enlightenment apart from God.
In Isaiah's day, the Torah (Mosaic Law) was supposed to be the preeminent source of enlightenment for Israel, but she corrupted the administration of that justice. Her adminstrators believed that they were the superior "enlightened" ruling class that wielded the laws as they saw fit and could dictate their version of social norms even when they were opposed to God's rules and values. And the community followed them blindly and fearfully. As a result of having closed her eyes to God's "enlightenment," the nation of Israel found herself among the deaf and blind prisoners sitting in darkness.
The pursuit of enlightenment has long spurred the intellectual and philosophical movements on the Gentile side as well. History has seen the philosophy schools of early Greece, the Renaissance, and the "Age of Enlightenment" in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Age of Enlightenment, the ideas of tolerance, the superiority of science, and the separation of church and state got their foothold. These movements embraced knowledge and reason, education apart from God, as the power by which humans improve their own condition. In our own modern generation, we are seeing the pursuit of a new form of "enlightened" or "woke" thinking that is less about logic, reason, or even factual truth, and more about a adopting a set of social values that weigh justice in favor of the victim's "just claim." And justice is no longer something for just the courts to decide. Social media platforms increasingly serve as both judge and jury for justice issues.
Q: How do the proponents of "woke" ideology see themselves as enlightened?
Q: How has it created a kind of blindness and deafness in society?
The Injustice of Partiality
God has put Israel in prison is because she has perverted His justice and allowed herself to be blinded by bribery and partiality. The LORD commanded His people not to show partiality, and when they do, there are consequences. Here are a few verses:
- "You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute." (Exodus 23:3 NKJV)
- "You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man's presence, for the judgment is God's . . ." (Deuteronomy 1:17 NKJV)
- "You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous." (Deuteronomy 16:19 NKJV)
- "Therefore I also have made you [Israel] contemptible and base before all the people, because you have not kept My ways but have shown partiality in the law." (Malachi 2:9 NKJV)
What was true of Israel is true of us today. Justice should be blind, and yet we live in a culture where the blind eye of partiality and preferential treatment are becoming a common-place oppression. We have become very victim-centric in our worldview.
Q: Who gets preferential treatment these days?
Q: When there is a conflict between what is "woke" and what is just, which one wins?
Equal opportunity quotas have long swayed public and employment policies, and now DEI requirements are starting to drive things. Partiality drives who gets a job, who gets a college degree, who gets a loan, or who gets into public or governmental offices. It is no longer an issue of who is most qualified but what marginalized people they represent. The "woke" culture sounds enlightened, when, in fact, its agenda is blinding our judgment. Like Israel, we are becoming blind and deaf (and mute) prisoners of the system.
Partiality is a form of oppression. It proposes to comfort victims by tipping the scales in their favor and thus empowering them over their oppressors. Social values become skewed which then impair our judgment and create a crooked place in which we are caught, and yet, like Israel, we fail to stop and consider how we got into our crooked place. To break this kind of oppression, the Servant who is coming to establish justice in the world must show no partiality when meting out that justice, which will seem exceedingly harsh in a culture that caters to victims. He is going to turn the world on end with His form of justice.
God's Highway Project: Being Light-bearers in Oppressive Times
Israel was called to be God's light-bearer, but by Isaiah's day, she was anything but that. Her leaders and judges were oppressive to their own people in dispensing justice and yet she maintained this skewed perception of herself as the "enlightened one." God tore that down. In truth, she was deaf and blind and caught in a crooked place by her own fault (42:16). The oppressive situation in which she found herself was less about what the Babylonians had done to her and more about what she had done to God.
Q: What has our current culture done to God?
We are called to be light-bearers in this world, but holding this line can be a struggle. Paul exhorts us:
". . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life . . ." (Philippians 2:12-16 NKJV)
The Servant, Christ, has given us a commission to be His light-bearers in our crooked and perverse generation. So, how do we work out our salvation as the His light-bearers? (Working out our salvation does not mean that we do these things to gain salvation, but as a response to the commission being given to us.) So, let's work it out . . .
In Romans 2:17-24, Paul draws from Isaiah's imagery in this chapter when he rebukes the Jews for lifting themselves up as lights to the degenerate world and yet practicing all the things they self-righteously condemn. So, how about some self-reflection as a first step?
Q: God's goals are to comfort and end the fighting. Are you provoking fights in your family or community of friends by showing partiality or favoritism?
Q: Do you always side with the one you perceive is the victim and turn a deaf ear to the other without listening to both sides equally?
Q: In 2 Corinthians 6:14, Paul exhorts us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, saying ". . . what communion has light with darkness?" There are a lot of people professing to be "enlightened" in our world, and yet they are willfully blind to the LORD and in darkness. And yet they come to us, demanding we join them in their fight against injustice. In regard to these people, what does Paul mean to not be unequally yoked?
Q: In Ephesians 5:8-17, Paul talks about the need for light-bearers to know what is acceptable to the LORD and walk in that righteousness and truth. What are God's "woke" values for treating people?
Q: Paul goes on to say (Ephesians 5:8-17) that we are not to have fellowship with "unfruitful works of darkness," but rather expose them. Part of the job of a light-bearer is to expose injustice, but also to be circumspect about how we do it because we live in evil days. In our current culture, we are caught in the pendulum swing between a broken justice system on side and an equally extreme and unjust reaction to it on the other. How do we strike a godly balance between the two sides?
It is fine to sympathize with victims, even advocate on their behalf, but the one thing we cannot do is let ourselves be sucked into that victim identity--that view of ourselves or others as perpetual victims of injustice. Like Israel, it is less about what the oppressors have done to them as what they have done to God. That statement might not go over so well today, but perhaps that is the light we need to shed on their situation. We cannot join them in that victim mentality because it will ultimately undermine an identity with God and keep us from aligning with His view of justice and values.
Q: Is there comfort in knowing that Christ, when He comes, will establish true justice and show no partiality in dispensing it?
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