#231: A New Thing

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"Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert" Isaiah 43:19

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus. We welcome you to another month on the blog. Through the weeks of this month, we will be studying the theme "A New Thing". This would be a great expository follow-up to the theme of the previous month. May the entrance of His Word bring light and understanding to us. Amen.

Today will serve as an introduction to the theme and in the coming days, we will expand on some key facets of the theme in the bible.

The book of the prophet Isaiah can be divided into 2 broad sections (Judgement and Hope) Chapters 1-39 contain a lot of woes for Israel because of their covenant rebellion and their foreign allies with the nations instead of trusting God. But exile would not be the end of Israel's story, and that is the hope that Chapters 40-66 brings. Chapter 40 begins with the famous "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people..." And it is in this second section that Isaiah 43 is situated. As mentioned earlier, we can only talk about a new thing if we emphasise the theme of last month - hope. These prophecies of hope in the second section of Isaiah's prophecies are interwoven and centred on a coming messiah - a coming King from the line of David; earlier introduced in Isaiah 11 as the branch of Jesse.

Isaiah 43 is a great prophetic piece that draws imagery from the Exodus narrative. The message from God was that Israel should look back on the Exodus of their ancestors from Egypt in order to hope for their deliverance. In God's mighty deliverance of Israel from exile, He was setting in motion a new thing.

A way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert - it definitely did not make sense to the first receivers of this glad tiding. But this was how God was going to solve Israel's problem which led them to exile. Today when we look back, we know that the classic fulfilment of this promise from God was in the coming of Jesus. It was through Him that Israel and indeed, the rest of mankind began the true exodus. Exodus from sin's captivity to righteousness and bliss with God. Just like the first exodus, God would make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

This description only makes so much sense because, with Jesus in the scene, a highway was created. The hopelessness of mankind was solved once and for all. Through Him, man could have a meaningful and constructive, productive relationship with God.

In what way did Jesus fulfil this precious promise?

Join us next week and every other week of this month as we explore further this theme in answering the question concerning the new thing that Jesus' arrival on the scene brought about. Below are the topics to look forward to:

A New Creation

A New Family


Shalom

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