Articles
Did Isaiah Prophesy About Our Future?
The careless Bible student indiscriminately searches scripture for proof texts and literary similarities that seem to support his arguments. Premillennial theologians and authors often do this with OT prophecy. They appeal without warrant to ancient prophecy and apply it out of context to contemporary politics and world events or those of the future.
But scores of OT passages are cited by inspired NT authors as fulfillments of events in their own day. Consider, for example, the prophet Isaiah, ca. 740 B.C., who is sometimes called “the Messianic prophet” (and for good reason):
Is 40:3/Mt 3:3 – “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.’” Matthew specifies John the Baptist as the subject of this prophecy.
Is 9:1-2/Mt 4:14 – “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: The people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” This prophecy indicates that Jesus’ work would concentrate on Galilee, which occurred due to the danger posed to Jesus by the Jewish leadership in Judea.
Is 53:4/Mt 8:17 – “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” This suffering servant prophecy refers to Jesus’ work of compassion and healing of the sick and demon possessed before His ultimate redemptive work at the cross.
Is 42:1-4/Mt 12:17-21 – “Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased; I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to victory, and in His name Gentiles will trust.” This elaborates on the previous point, that when Jesus knew the Pharisees were now plotting His death He withdrew and avoided unnecessary publicity (cf. Mt 12:14-15).
Is 6:9-10/Mt 13:14-15 – “Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn, so that I should heal them.” This explains why Jesus spoke in parables to a dense, carnal people who had no true spiritual interest or discernment (cf. Mt 13:10-13).
Is 29:13/Mt 15:7-9 – “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is fare from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” This voices Jesus’ exasperation with the Pharisees who criticized the apostles for rejecting purification traditions while they themselves defrauded and neglected their aging parents.
Is 61:1-2/Lk 4:17-19 – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Jesus reads this in the synagogue at Nazareth and explicitly declares, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21).
Is 53:1/Jn 12:38 – “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” This refers to the fact that “although He had done many signs before them, they did not believe in Him” (Jn 12: 37). John then quotes Is 6:9-10, as Matthew did previously, to explain their hardness of heart that could not be softened even by miracles being done before their eyes.
Is 53:7-8/Ac 8:32-33 – “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away. And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” This is the passage being read by the Ethiopian treasurer in his chariot on his return home. He, too, had questions about the application of the prophecy which opened the door for Philip to expound its application to Jesus (Ac 8:34-35).
Is 10:22-23; 1:9/Rom 9:27-29 – “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth … Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.” Paul cites Isaiah to deny that the smaller proportion of Jews in the first century church somehow suggested that God had been unfaithful to His covenant with them. Throughout the history of the nation only a remnant of Abraham’s genetic posterity had ever been faithful to God. So it is in the spiritual kingdom as well.
Is 65:1-2/Rom 10:20-21 – “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me. But to Israel he says: ‘All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’” Again, Paul absolves God for Israel’s unfaithfulness. He places the blame squarely on the shoulders of those who had Isaiah prophecy at their fingertips but unwittingly fulfilled it in their blindness.
This is not an exhaustive list of NT citations of Isaiah, but these are all summed up in John’s comment on Isaiah’s prophetic work: “These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him” (Jn 12:41). Isaiah’s focus is on the first coming of Christ, not His second coming. This is important to remember when we read other prophecies like, “For behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind …” or, “For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine … Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger” (Is 12:10, 13).
We must always account for the context of a passage and, when dealing with prophecy, let the Holy Spirit make His own applications.
