Self-Salvation versus Salvation in Christ

Isaiah 28

Therefore the L ord God said: “Look, I have laid a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will be unshakable.” (Isa 28:16)

Main Idea: People try to save themselves from death by their own efforts. But Christ alone is the rock of refuge, and whoever trusts in him will never be shaken.

1. A Fading Crown on a Drunkard versus a Glorious Crown on the Remnant (28:1-6)
   1. The warning to Judah: the fall of drunken Ephraim
   2. The impending judgment on Ephraim: a fading crown thrown down
   3. A glorious crown on the head of the remnant
2. God Speaking through the Prophets versus God Speaking through Judgment (28:7-13)
   1. The key moment: hearing the prophetic word of the Lord
   2. Mocking the word of God, then God speaking more clearly
3. The Shaky Foundation of Self-Salvation versus the Solid Rock of God’s Salvation (28:14-22)
   1. The “covenant with Death”: self-salvation
   2. God’s sure foundation: Christ, the Rock laid in Zion
   3. The final warning: catastrophe approaching
4. The Parable of the Farmer (28:23-29)
   1. The primary lesson: God knows what he’s doing.
   2. The secondary lesson: God teaches all science.

A Fading Crown on a Drunkard versus a Glorious Crown on the Remnant

Isaiah 28:1-6

Isaiah chapters 28, 29, 30, 31, and 33 all begin with “Woe,” the prophetic word of warning that God’s judgment is coming. In this chapter God cites the judgment about to fall on the northern kingdom of Israel, called “Ephraim.” He yearns that the southern kingdom of Judah would take to heart the lessons from that judgment. The Lord speaks of the pride of Ephraim, a crown of splendor on the heads of drunkards. The image is repulsive: Ephraim is like a drunkard, slumped in his banquet chair; he is sleeping, drooling, with a faded crown of past glory set crookedly on his head. God warns plainly: “Woe to those overcome with wine.” God lavished on the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey (Deut 11:9-12), but this rich fertility corrupted them. The people became gluttons, drunkards, and idolaters, forsaking the fear of the Lord. So the Lord was about to bring on Ephraim “a strong and mighty one” (the king of Assyria) like a devastating hail storm and a flood. Ephraim’s “majestic” drunkards would be thrown down by the judgment of God.

In stark contrast, God intends to lift up the godly among the remnant of his people and be for them a crown of eternal glory on their heads. God himself will be for them a source of strength to enable them by faith to turn back the battle—Assyria’s invasion—at the gates of Jerusalem.

God Speaking through the Prophets versus God Speaking through Judgment

Isaiah 28:7-13

The key moment in the life of any human being on earth is this: the hearing of God’s prophetic word. Faith comes by hearing the message (Rom 10:17), but if the message is not believed, it only hardens the heart of the one who hears. In Isaiah 28:7-13 the Lord exposes the wickedness of priests and prophets (probably in Jerusalem) who are themselves (like those in Ephraim) overcome by wine and reeling from beer. Though the lips of a priest ought to give godly instruction (Mal 2:7), the priests and prophets of Judah were drunkards who rejected the word of the Lord. What came out of their mouths was both literal and spiritual vomit.

Even worse, they openly mocked the word of the Lord coming from Isaiah. Arrogantly, when they heard Isaiah’s words, they asked, “Who is he trying to instruct? Infants just weaned from milk?” They actually took to mimicry: verse 10 comes across more powerfully in Hebrew: tsav latsav, tsav latsav, kav lakav, kav lakav. A literal translation is, “Law after law, law after law, line after line, line after line.” But in our expression perhaps it is more like, “Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.” Mockery.

What comes next is terrifying: God effectively says, “So . . . or All right, then . . . since you reject my plain speaking through Isaiah, I will speak to you in the tongues of foreigners. When the Assyrians are trampling your land and commanding in their language the slaughter of your people, you will understand what I’ve been trying to say to you through Isaiah’s ‘baby-talk.’ And decades later, when the Babylonians in their Chaldean tongue are commanding the temple to be set ablaze, you’ll ‘get it.’” Simple lesson: If you don’t listen to the verbal warning, you will get the real-life fulfillment. Then you’ll be drunk with terror, not with wine (v. 13). All of this because you rejected the sweet place of rest (salvation) God had established—simple faith in him (v. 12)!

The Shaky Foundation of Self-Salvation versus the Solid Rock of God’s Salvation

Isaiah 28:14-22

Having rejected God’s place of rest, they had no choice but to craft their own refuge for the coming storm of Assyria. The mocking leaders of Jerusalem claim to have “made a covenant with Death” (v. 15), crafting a refuge that will protect them from the imminent “overwhelming catastrophe.” This covenant probably refers to the alliance with Egypt, which Isaiah will attack in chapters 30–31. Isaiah calls this self-salvation “falsehood” and “treachery.” God will sweep away their false refuge and dissolve their covenant with Death (vv. 17-20). There is no possible refuge from the judgment of God other than the grace of God.

Instead of self-salvation by a false refuge, God established a genuine salvation by a stone he lays in Zion. Isaiah 28:16 is quoted three times in the New Testament to refer to Jesus Christ: Romans 9:30-33 and 10:9-13 and 1 Peter 2:6-8. Jesus Christ is a “tested stone,” a “precious” stone, a “cornerstone.” He is infinitely valuable, absolutely secure, a perfectly righteous stone worthy of being the foundation of your life. Whoever trusts in this precious, tested cornerstone will be “unshakable” and will survive the storm of God’s wrath.

And that storm is coming! Isaiah says God is going to rise and do an “unexpected work” (v. 21), as he did at Mount Perazim and at the valley of Gibeon (two places where David defeated the Philistines with God’s direct intervention). Strangely, now God will directly intervene to destroy his people in judgment rather than to save them. The only possible refuge is to stop mocking the word of God (v. 22) and to trust in the tested, precious stone God lays in Zion.

The Parable of the Farmer

Isaiah 28:23-29

The chapter ends with a parable about a farmer. It teaches the same lesson in two phases: In phase 1 (plowing and planting), the farmer knows when to stop plowing and start planting; one doesn’t go on plowing forever. In phase 2 (harvesting and threshing), the farmer knows when to stop threshing the grain and to start grinding it to make bread. In both cases, all of his knowledge has come from almighty God (vv. 26,29). It was God who taught the farmer his agricultural skills, and by that knowledge he knows when “enough is enough.” How much more does God know what he’s doing when it comes to judging his people. When it is time for the judgment to come, it will come; when it is time for the judgment to end, it will end.

We should also embrace a rich secondary lesson here concerning God’s mysterious activity in the development of all human science. Just as God teaches farmers the science of agriculture, so the God who made the universe secretly teaches the human race all branches of science, especially in its “Eureka!” moments of discovery. This is true whether the scientist acknowledges God or not.^[9] (See Isa 45:5, where God leads Cyrus even though he does not know God is doing it.)

Applications

First, in our day of affluence, when our soil keeps producing rich crops and our businesses keep turning handsome profits, we must guard our hearts against not only drunkenness but also against overindulgence of every kind. Second, we must see that the most crucial moment in any person’s life is at the hearing of any word from Scripture. If we hear and obey, we will be blessed. But if we hear and mock, God may well speak to us more plainly in his providential judgments in life. Heed the word, or live the judgments!

The centerpiece of all prophetic words is Christ. The “overwhelming scourge” that sweeps through human history is death itself. If we think we can rely on some self-salvation, some “covenant with Death,” to escape, we are deluded. This includes good works, foreign religions, and atheistic rationalization (“Death is just the biological end of life”). Jesus Christ is the refuge, the place of repose (v. 12) and the precious, tested cornerstone (v. 16). If we trust in him, we will never be shaken—not by any trial in life and not even by death itself.

Finally, we must see the hand of God in all human knowledge—all science (agricultural and otherwise) comes ultimately from God (vv. 26,29). To him alone be the glory for physics, mathematics, chemistry, cosmology, biology, and every branch of knowledge.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How does the drunkenness of Israel stand as a timeless warning to a wealthy nation of the dangers of overindulgence in the blessings of God?
2. How is Israel’s “fading crown” a warning of the fleeting nature of all human achievements? How is God a “crown of glory” to all true believers in Christ?
3. How does the mocking of the Word of God in this chapter still go on in our day?
4. What is the significance of this statement: “If we don’t learn from verbal warnings, God will speak to us in daily life”?
5. How does verse 12 relate to Matthew 11:28-30?
6. What are some ways that people in our age try to “make a covenant with Death”?
7. Why is it impossible to escape the judgments of God except by the grace of God in Christ?
8. What does verse 16 teach us about Jesus Christ?
9. What is God’s “unexpected work” in verse 21?
10. How do verses 26 and 29 prove that all human knowledge, all branches of science, come from God’s secret instruction, whether we acknowledge him or not?