Who Is Like God-Isaiah 40b

“Who will you compare Me to, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One. (Isaiah 40:25)

Some questions to ponder: Is your God weighty or light? How can you tell? How great is your God to you? How much sway/push does God have on your life? How great is God at West Loop Church? What is the direction of West Loop? Where are we going? What is your sense of the greatness of God?

Does God have weight in the church? The church has been called “the place where God is weightless” (opposite of glory). God has no impact in the lives of Christians. Why does our weighty (glorious) God sit so lightly on our church? The problem must be with preachers. They are not revealing God for who He is. They have changed the glory of God in sermons to tips, anecdotes, feel good emotions and how to quick fixes. Is God disappearing from the church? Einstein’s view of Christian preaching is that God is so small compared to what he witnessed regarding the vast greatness of the universe. Do we see and sense that God is weighty? That God is more glorious than anything else? (Adapted and paraphrased from Ray Ortland’s sermon.)

What might the problem be? Here are some quotes from various theologians and pastors:

• God is “weightless.”
• God’s purpose is to serve us.
• Trivializing God.
• A tame Christ.
• A God we can handle and manage.
• Cheap grace.

* God is weightless (David F. Wells) “It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God’s existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers’ sweet fog of flattery and lies. That is weightlessness.”

“The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.” David Wells.

* The God who serves us. “There are two Gods. There is the God that people generally believe in – a God who has to serve them. This God does not exist. But the God whom people forget – the God whom we all have to serve-exists, and is the prime cause of our existence and of all that we perceive.” Tolstoy.

* Trivializing God: “More than anything else, failing to take God seriously is the problem with the contemporary church. We trivialize the holiness of God, so we end up with a trivial view of sin. We trivialize the majesty of God, so we end up with trivial worship. We trivialize the truth of God, so we end up with a trivial grasp of his Word. We trivialize the judgment of God, so we end up with a trivial appreciation for the atonement of Jesus Christ.” Philip Graham Ryken on Jer 8:11.

Is there awe and mystery in the church? “Visit a church on Sunday morning – almost any will do . . . You will not likely find much awe and sense of mystery.” “…reverence and awe have been replaced by a yawn of familiarity.” Donald McCullough, The Trivialization of God (1995).

* A tame Christ: “The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore; on the contrary, they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.” Dorothy Sayers, 1949.

* A manageable God. “Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a God we can in some measure control.” A.W. Tozer.

* Cheap grace. “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Augustine’s prayer: “O God most high, most good, most powerful … most tender-hearted and most just, most remote and most present, most beautiful and most vigorous, stable and ungraspable, unchanging yet changing all things, never new yet never old, renewing all things … And what have we said, my God, my Life, my holy Delight? Or what can anyone say when he speaks of you? And alas for those who are silent about you … !”

How Augustine expresses his love: “But when I love you, what do I love? It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, nor the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odor of flowers and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God. Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God—a light, voice, odor, food, embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God.”

Review/Overview:

• The historical context of Isaiah 40-55 is ______________.
• The sentiment of the people is des____, hope________.
• 40:1-11 asks, Does God know? Does He care? God is the God of C______.
• 40:12-26 asks, Is God able to deliver? Who is He? God is the Inc________ God.
• 40:27-31 asks, How will I/we experience power? God is the God Who Makes M__ F__.
• 41:1-29 asks, How will God do it?
• A conqueror (Cyrus) will conquer Israel’s conqueror, Babylon (1-7).
• Strengthening his servant Israel (8-20).
• Not through idols (21-29).
• 42:1-8 Through the Servant of the Lord.

After expressing the tenderness of Yahweh’s shepherding care (1-11) Isaiah sets the magnificence of his sovereign power and executive rule as Creator (12-26). The former expresses the attractiveness and delightfulness of his promises; the latter his irresistible power to keep what he has promised.

40:1-11 verifies God’s desire/intention to deliver his people. But is God able to? Can He, since it seemed as though He was unable to prevent Babylon from capturing Judah and Jerusalem in the first place? Furthermore, there is no precedent /no evidence /no report in the long history of exile up until the fall of Babylon that any people have ever gone home from captivity before. Thus, for God to say that it is going to happen for the Israelites is to make a huge claim.

Isaiah’s asserts that God is unique and incomparable. God is able to not because he is greater than Babylon, but because he is the only God! 40:12-26 can be divided into two sections that parallel each other in general ways (12-20, 21-26).

• Each unit begins with an assertion in the form of rhetorical questions that the Lord is the sole Creator (12-14, 21).
• This is followed by an affirmation that the Lord is the Ruler of all nations and rulers (15-17, 22-24).
• Next is a rhetorical invitation to compare God with anything else (18a, 25).
• Finally, there is the claim of absolute superiority over the gods, whether conceived of as idols (18b-20) or as the heavenly host (26).

God is the sole Creator (40:12-17): God is transcendent; he is other than the world. Here are a series of rhetorical questions intended to bring the reader to conclude that Yahweh is the sole Creator. The doctrine of creation is important and crucial to this argument. The concept is not developed in logical proofs as much as it is assumed and built upon. Isaiah develops the point by insisting that God is other than creation. He is not the mountains / oceans / heavens, but he is other than all of these. He is not them but holds them in his hand. He originated the world, but he is not the world.

40:13-14 aims at polytheistic religions, where a counselor/magician among the gods assists the other gods in realizing their purposes. Isaiah asserts that there are no such beings; “understanding” (Isa 40:14) originated with the Originator of all things. To think otherwise gives up transcendence, leading to chaos where life comes from nowhere and goes nowhere.

Compared to the One who holds the oceans in his hand (Isa 40:12a), the nations of the earth are “as nothing” (Isa 40:17). Unlike the other gods, the God of Israel is not a personalization of his nation. He brought all the nations into existence, but he is not an extension of any of them. To God the most important of the nations does not weigh enough to even move a balance scale (Isa 40:12b). Babylon, Assyria, Egypt may be great in their own eyes and in the eyes of their neighbors, but in the eyes of the One who spoke light into existence (Gen 1:3), they mean little. Isa 40:16 is saying that no earthly sacrifice is sufficient to manipulate God in favor of earthly concerns. If all the forests of Lebanon were set on fire and all its animals burned on the fire, it would not affect him at all.

An idol is a no-god (40:18-20). If God is the sole Creator and the Lord of the nations, can we even say that an idol is comparable to him? The diatribe against the idols [no gods] is the first of several (Isa 41:6-7; 42:17; 44:9-20; 46:5-7; 48:5). This is Isaiah’s insistence on the transcendence of God. If God is not the world, then any attempt to represent him in the forms of this world has deadly consequences. It immediately links him to the world and begins the process of ultimately making God identical with the world. The emphasis on the making of the idol is intentional. How can something made by humans possibly be the maker of the humans who made it?

God is other than the heavens (40:21-24); he is not just other than the world. The cycle begins again. God is other than the heavens for “He stretches out the heavens like a canopy” (Isa 40:22). He is not overawed by the “rulers” (Isa 40:23) of this earth. In fact, their destiny (like Sennacherib’s) is in his hands (Dan 4:34-35). Isa 40:24 with its comparison of the kings of earth to plants seems to reflect Isa 40:6-8. Like plants, the kings grow up quickly and wither away. The tender plants of humanity are no match for the eternal judgments of God. God’s word can just blow them away (Isa 40:7).

No one is God’s equal (40:25-26). God asks the readers himself–if we know of anything that can compare to him. If it is not the gorgeous idols of the craftsman, perhaps it is the stars of heaven, the “starry host” that pagans believed were representations of the gods (2 Ki 17:16; 21:3). Isaiah retorts that God “created” them and brings them out night after night “by name,” like a shepherd calling his flock. Is the product on the same plane as the maker, or the sheep on the same plane as the shepherd? No, the stars only exist because of the “great power and mighty strength” of Judah’s God (Isa 40:26).

Both of the questions asked by the exiles have been fully answered in 40:1-26:

• 40:1-11 answers the question, “Does God care?” (Has our sins separated us from God forever?) God will come in glory to renew the whole world (Isa 40:5).
• 40:12-26 answers the question, “Is God able to deliver us?” (Was God not defeated by the gods of Babylon?)

How then should God’s people respond? This question is answered in 40:27-31.

1. Our despair (27).
2. God’s greatness (28).
3. Our renewal (29-31).

In 40:27 Isaiah anticipates the attitude of the exiles. They think that they are either now outside of God’s vision for them (“my way is hidden”) or that God has given up on them (“my cause is disregarded”). Their complaint is that God doesn’t know and/or God doesn’t care.

To this Isaiah responds that to think in this way is to have too low a view of God. It is to essentially not really know who God truly is. So Isaiah reminds them of who God is in 40:28-29, dealing with the Creator’s endless power and wisdom in the first verse (Isa 40:28) and his wonderful desire and ability to share that power with the “weak” and the “weary” in the second (Isa 40:29). So Isaiah speaks of both the being and the person of God.

The question in 40:28 is incredulous. How could they say such things about God when they know who he is and what he is like. God knows our situation perfectly, and he can and will do something about it. The fact is that the most vigorous things in creation (“young men”) cannot keep themselves going. They are not self-generating but are dependent on outside sources for their strength. God is not like that. God is self-generating. That means that he also has abundant strength to give away to those who will wait for (“hope in”) him.

The theme of trust from ch.1-39 continues in Isa 40:31. This concept of trust as waiting has already appeared three times previously (Isa 8:17; 25:9; 33:2) and will appear twice more (Isa 49:23; 64:4). To “wait” on God is not simply to mark time. Rather, it is to live in confident expectation of his action on our behalf. It is to refuse to run ahead of him in trying to solve our problems for ourselves.

Just as Isaiah called on the people of his own day to trust God to solve their problems, he calls on the exiles a century or so later to do the same thing. If they are worn out and weary, hardly daring to believe that there is any future for them, the God of all strength can give them exactly what they need at the right time, whether or “soar,” “run,” or “walk” (Isa 40:31).

Oswalt, John N. Isaiah, NIV Application Commentary. 2003.

None Like Him (There is no one like our God): Paul Nyquist, Moody Founder’s Week, 2016. There is no one like our God.

• Omnipotent Creator (12). Isaiah gives us/uses language of a craftsman.
• Omniscient Lord (13-14). Language of wisdom.
• Transcendent King (15-17). Language of insignificance. Nations like a drop in a bucket (15,17). No amount of burnt offering is adequate or sufficient (16). 196 nations in the world today. Add up GNP, power, prestige amounts to nothing.

3 facts about God.

1. Our God sovereignly rules over his creation (21-22). Language of comparison.
2. Our God sovereignly rules over all earthly powers, the rulers of the world (23-24). God is not amused by Nebuchadnezzer’s declaration of his own greatness. Word for meaningless (tohuw) is Gen 1:2 formless.
3. Our God sovereignly rules over the heavenly bodies (25-26). 10 billion galaxies in our observable universe. 100 billion stars per galaxies. God names each one.

The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer

“The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has not done deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic. The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.”

“The decline of the knowledge of the holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the majesty of God will go a long way toward curing them. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we must begin to think of God more nearly as He is.”

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.”

“A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”

“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him – and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.”