Isaiah 49:6
he says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my
servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.’
As we saw in verse 5, the job of the Servant is to
restore God’s people back into right relationship with him. This is not going to be an easy task – it requires the servant to die, taking the judgement that the people deserved upon himself. Yet, remarkably, God says that this is ‘too small a thing’. He can’t possibly mean “it’s not difficult enough, I’d better give you something harder!” Nothing could be more apparently impossible than
for the sinless son of the everlasting God to die bearing the penalty for sin.
Nor does he say “It isn’t really fair for non-Jews to miss out on this salvation. In the interests of equality, I think we’d better open this covenant up to everyone.”
I think that’s what we’d expect. What we’d insist on, even. “Come on God, of course you’ve got to let us in. It’s hardly my fault I was born into the wrong family!” Entirely forgetting that relationship with God has always
been about his gracious forgiveness being extended to the undeserving, rather than about what any of us might be entitled to.
No. The reason that we – the Gentiles – get to share in the benefits of being God’s people is nothing to do with us! It’s all about the glory of the Servant. He is so great that his light deserves to shine throughout the whole world, not just in one small corner of Palestine. His gracious love is so vast that it overflows national boundaries, to encompass all people everywhere. His sacrificial death is so precious that it saves a countless multitude. His majesty is so great that people from every tribe and
language and nation will sing about it for all eternity.
Why do we get to share in the promises first made
to Abraham? Not because we deserve to. But because the servant deserves the glory that comes from such a great salvation.
Let’s praise him for that today.
