Context for Isaiah 2-4
Isaiah 2-4 are a continuation of the pronouncement of judgment against Judah and Jerusalem for the apostasy of the people’s apostasy of faith and idolatry. These passages, however, contain not just the judgment against the wrongdoer, but the proclamation in favor of the righteous.
These verses serve as a warning for Judah and Jerusalem that its time of defiance against God is over. God intends to judge the people and the nation and restore the order of law and righteousness He always indented for His people.
The verses of Isaiah 2:1-5 are often viewed as an idyllic utopian future promised by God to His faithful. While that vision is true to some extent, it is not true in the way many would like to believe that truth to be. Consider the context of these verses: God has just pronounced judgment against Judah in Isaiah 1 and proceeds to describe the downfall of Jerusalem in the rest of Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 3-4.
In this context, the idyllic vision of God’s rule over Jerusalem and Judah did not come about by peace, but by war. Jerusalem was defeated by God’s judgment, and the citizens of Jerusalem are beating their plowshares into swords not because of joy but because they have been defeated by the almighty King of the universe who has established His throne in their defeated city.
Why is this context important? Because it reminds us that our relationship with God, outside of our faith that He has give us, is adversarial and subject to His judgment. When God establishes His new kingdom on the last day, it will not be by pacification, but by conquest. The question we must ask ourselves is whether we will be counted among the victorious army of God or among the defeated begging for mercy.
What does this mean for us as Christians? Simply that we should heed Jesus’ warning to His apostles in Matthew 26:41 to watch and pray against temptation because that is the way we strengthen ourselves against the apostasy and idolatry that lead the people of Judah and Jerusalem away from their own faith. And if we withstand, by God’s grace, the devil, the world, and our own sinfulness, then we too will be counted among those who remain, as described in Isaiah 4:2-6, living under God’s glory in His new kingdom.
DLH
