Isaiah 60 – Light and Glory
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
2See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.”
First look at Prophecy and then Fulfilment
1. The prophecy
Concentrating on first two verses – the whole of the rest of the chapter flow out from there.
First of all we need to find out – Who is God speaking to? The answer is in verse 14. He is talking to a city – Jerusalem, Zion – the people of God. Jerusalem and Zion are often used interchangeably.
Isaiah is prophesying to the people of God, corporately. Sometimes we need to make sure that we are not too quick to make it individual (what God is saying to me) before we’ve got the bigger purpose behind the scripture.
Eg Prov 5:15 – drink water from your own cistern – not designed to be taken literally in 21st century Britain. Extreme example!
The first thing he says is – Arise – get up out of the dust – literally stand up – earlier in Isaiah 52 Wake Up – shake off the chains of captivity and oppression.
Get up out of your despair, your disgrace, your self pity. He is speaking to them at a time of desperation and despair with a magnificent promise that salvation will come.
So now he is looking into the future.
Get up and shine. Why? Because your light has come.
Isaiah would have been familiar with seeing the sun rise over Jerusalem. Darkness then getting a little grey and then the first shafts of sunlight shining out over the city.
This is the picture. But it’s not just light shining – it’s the Lord. The glory of the Lord shining. Lit appearing. Harking back to the previous chapter – 59:8 The promise of a redeemer who will come to Zion.
Steps back. Verse 2 See – there is dark everywhere, but here over Jerusalem the redeemer, the messiah appears. You’re down and out, but the lord, the messiah, the redeemer is going to come and shine on you with his glory
Remember -He is not just talking about individual blessing – he is talking to the corporate people of God
Isaiah looking forward to when the people of God shine out because the Lord is shining on them
What is the result of the coming of the messiah, the redeemer – the result is this – BLESSING – the whole of the rest of the chapter is an unfolding of what that blessing looks like. Not necessarily literalistically but symbolically. People will be attracted and more blessing will come.
So, the result is the coming messiah is massive, unprecedented blessing for the people of god
The messiah will shine on you and you will shine out into this dark world and the nations will come to you. Just like the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon because she heard of his renown.
But it’s not just light – it is glory
His glory appears over you – glory = weight. It is tangible. You can feel it. Just like there is weight of oppression, of disappointment – you feel heavy, there is a weight of glory.
The weight of the Lord appears over you.
So we have this Old testament expectation for a messiah, a saviour who will bring amazing blessing.
2. The fulfilment
1. Jesus – we know he is this Messiah, this redeemer, this saviour
John 8:12 – I am the light of the world.
To a Jew who knew his scriptures this would clearly have been a claim to be the fulfilment of Is 60. Anyone claiming to be light of the world was clearly claiming to be the messiah.
But the fulfilment is even bigger – he has not just come to shine on a small city in the middle east, but to be the light of the world.
Shine- for your light has come – primarily this is looking forward TO JESUS – the light of the world
The people of god together shine because jesus has come.
2. Mat 5:14 – you are the light of the world – a city on a hill cannot be hidden.
This links back to Isaiah 60 – Jerusalem is a city on a hill (cities aren’t normally on hills). Jesus listeners would have understood the reference
This is a picture of a city, shining in the middle of darkness. It’s not just that a city shines light to the surrounding area and lights up what is hidden, but that people are attracted to the light. That’s where you go for safety, for protection. If you are in trouble you got to the city.
The prophet says – Nations will come to your light – they are attracted. Just as the Queen of Sheba was attracted to come to visit Solomons temple
So prophetically this is looking at the church. The new testament writers frequently interpret the promises to Israel and Jerusalem to apply to the whole church. All who have faith are sons of Abraham – not just those of natural descent. – all who have accepted Christ as their saviour and redeemer, the people of God. Wwhen Gods light is shining into and through the church, when his glory is on the church people are attracted. Not because of a good performance but because of the presence and blessing of God. The church should be a blessing to everyone around. These are the promises for the church.
There is more to come! Old Testament prophecy does not necessarily have one fulfilment and one point in history.
We are just in the middle of this – there is greater fulfilment yet to come – it talks in verse 19 of their being no more sun because the Lord will be your everlasting light – this is an end times theme – Revelation 22
What does this mean for us?
God wants to shine his light on us, to allow his glory to be on us, so that we can both be blessed but even more be a blessing to others.
BLESSING – what does it look like for you?
God wants to take our ordinary things and BLESS them abundantly.