Leviathan Revealed (Is 27-28)
Isaiah 27 speaks about a day when God slays Leviathan the sea monster and that day His
property yields as it should, the new wine. The Lord speaks to us from a deeper
level here about a problem that confronts this era of church and reform. This is a
most hopeful and timeless passage with undertones for the whole Church today.
Commentaries on this section of Isaiah haven’t really been able to identify this Leviathan except to say it is reptile or serpent like in nature. One might say it’s Satan and be done with it as I have in the past, yet I am shown an identity through Ezekiel 29:3 & 32:2 which names Pharaoh is a great monster who lives amongst waters and seas. It seems that Leviathan specifically has to do with Israel’s persecution in Egypt under Pharaoh and his armies holding 2-3million children of God.
Egypt is a type or symbol of pre-salvation slavery, as is the red sea crossing a type or symbol of baptism and Mt. Sinai coming of the Holy Spirit. The Israelites at this stage were awaiting God’s intervention to bring freedom from their unrighteous servitude. Moses was sent by God to say to Pharaoh, “Let My people go,” yet at the same time God hardened Pharaoh’s resolve to keep them as his slaves. Is 27:13 talks about people being gathered again from the river of Egypt.
The Church which Jesus started has waxed and waned through the ages and once again is losing ground in its institutionalism. There are forces over the Church today which seems to enslave God’s children rather than letting them go as Jesus commanded in the Great Commission. Much of the traditional Church doesn’t seem to know how or be able to respond to the shift in power that it finds itself having to deal with after decades of liberal training.
There is a message in Isaiah that the new wine is being kept at bay because of this great sea monster and grounds can be found in the language of Revelations to support this similarly in the Church. John speaking to the seven churches is standing beside the sea (13:1) and sees a beast coming up from the water which are said to be peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues (17:15). In other words this beast rises up from the people and speech restricting the true yield of wine.
Over years of studying this passage my sense is that revival or new wine is but a flicker away if the Church would only allow Jesus to be its head. The Church has been duped into believing less of Jesus than we were supposed to believe under the guise of “respectability” perhaps and the power of law and loyalty (written or unwritten) keeps us enslaved to this lessor form. The radicalism of the early apostles has been replaced by liberalism which allowed secularism to disease the body.
If we were looking for a key to the whole issue of the present sour grapes about the Church institution we need look no further than the severe sword of God to penetrate some prideful scales of this Leviathan and slay the serpent that is in the sea. This sword is that great and strong word of God to that prideful Egyptian monster by powerfully proclaiming, “Give My people freedom!” The sword of God was at one time said to be Babylon’s might returning Israel once again into captivity.
An often misquoted piece of Isaiah 28 concerns the institutional way of learning about the things of God, “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” Isaiah mocks this way of learning because it leaves the disciple bereft of full understanding, i.e. as Matthew Henry says, “it proves too little to convert them, and will prove enough to condemn them.” We cannot attain the truth of God by learnedness alone and God has made it so that the somewhat distant heart is required to fulfil true knowledge.
Every believer who has experienced the touch of God and the infilling of the Holy Spirit knows more than the learned alone. It is the finger of God that reveals knowledge and standing away from His finger leaves us only learned enough to condemn us. It is the touch of the real power of God’s love that assures anyone of eternity and it is only then learned knowledge may fit into its place. But how hard it is for that previous learning not to overtake the imprint of God’s touch?
This learnedness was indeed the power behind Saul of Tarsus as he rampaged towards Damascus and the persecution of every follower of Jesus Christ. Saul’s purpose was in the immaturity of the precept upon precept, doctrine upon doctrine scheme of the Pharisee. They had taught the law and yet missed the understanding of love within, which Jesus had revealed to their shame. The heart had become filled with judgement and associated vengence which leads to breaking that law itself.
However this love reveals itself in Saul’s physical blindness, befitting the spiritual blindness within his learnedness. This learnedness had become the beast, that Leviathan monster turned against its bearer to bring him down to destruction under the great and mighty sword of the Word of God as Jesus personally asked him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” He had been snared and caught by it as he reveals his lack of real knowledge by asking, “Lord, who are you?”
Saul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, by his own confession, a leading teacher in Israel. The captivity of which Saul had been lead into, precept upon precept, line upon line, a little here and a little there, was not in itself able to save him but indeed by a few simple words condemned him as a sinful man in need of a Saviour. Saul had indeed become intoxicated by learnedness, drunk on the pride of his achievement, wallowing his own vomit and filthiness so that nothing was clean (Is 28:8).
Today Christians are so well tutored week after week by the teachers that they can only focus on the knowledge of the moment and yet lack the timeless and simple message of Christ. Saul, later known as Paul, writes the essence he had learnt, “and now these three things endure: faith, hope and love.” (1Cor 13:13) Paul had by then knowledge of that trio of intangibles, those things not often quantified or obtained in youth or learnedness, knowledge of the heart that is above all else.
This is then that monster in the sea, that twisted and fleeing serpent that is in the people, nations, tribes and tongues, which would snare and catch up God’s children. Yet through His Son, the Father has made a crooked way straight, brought the high and mighty down and lifted up the lowly. Through the sword of the Word, through His Son Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life those sceptical, pessimistic, hatful Pharaoh and Pharisee hearts are, by the Holy Spirit, restored into that divine image of faith, hope, and love.
In the company of many others, I will be forever indebted to this knowledge of the loving touch in the peace of God that surpasses all understanding knowing He lives and displaces our ignorance by grace alone to forgive and set us straight in the truth about Jesus Christ. He is the greatest, the Lord of lords, the King of kings and the Prince of Peace. May this peace be with you in His vineyard!
Commentaries on this section of Isaiah haven’t really been able to identify this Leviathan except to say it is reptile or serpent like in nature. One might say it’s Satan and be done with it as I have in the past, yet I am shown an identity through Ezekiel 29:3 & 32:2 which names Pharaoh is a great monster who lives amongst waters and seas. It seems that Leviathan specifically has to do with Israel’s persecution in Egypt under Pharaoh and his armies holding 2-3million children of God.
Egypt is a type or symbol of pre-salvation slavery, as is the red sea crossing a type or symbol of baptism and Mt. Sinai coming of the Holy Spirit. The Israelites at this stage were awaiting God’s intervention to bring freedom from their unrighteous servitude. Moses was sent by God to say to Pharaoh, “Let My people go,” yet at the same time God hardened Pharaoh’s resolve to keep them as his slaves. Is 27:13 talks about people being gathered again from the river of Egypt.
The Church which Jesus started has waxed and waned through the ages and once again is losing ground in its institutionalism. There are forces over the Church today which seems to enslave God’s children rather than letting them go as Jesus commanded in the Great Commission. Much of the traditional Church doesn’t seem to know how or be able to respond to the shift in power that it finds itself having to deal with after decades of liberal training.
There is a message in Isaiah that the new wine is being kept at bay because of this great sea monster and grounds can be found in the language of Revelations to support this similarly in the Church. John speaking to the seven churches is standing beside the sea (13:1) and sees a beast coming up from the water which are said to be peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues (17:15). In other words this beast rises up from the people and speech restricting the true yield of wine.
Over years of studying this passage my sense is that revival or new wine is but a flicker away if the Church would only allow Jesus to be its head. The Church has been duped into believing less of Jesus than we were supposed to believe under the guise of “respectability” perhaps and the power of law and loyalty (written or unwritten) keeps us enslaved to this lessor form. The radicalism of the early apostles has been replaced by liberalism which allowed secularism to disease the body.
If we were looking for a key to the whole issue of the present sour grapes about the Church institution we need look no further than the severe sword of God to penetrate some prideful scales of this Leviathan and slay the serpent that is in the sea. This sword is that great and strong word of God to that prideful Egyptian monster by powerfully proclaiming, “Give My people freedom!” The sword of God was at one time said to be Babylon’s might returning Israel once again into captivity.
An often misquoted piece of Isaiah 28 concerns the institutional way of learning about the things of God, “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” Isaiah mocks this way of learning because it leaves the disciple bereft of full understanding, i.e. as Matthew Henry says, “it proves too little to convert them, and will prove enough to condemn them.” We cannot attain the truth of God by learnedness alone and God has made it so that the somewhat distant heart is required to fulfil true knowledge.
Every believer who has experienced the touch of God and the infilling of the Holy Spirit knows more than the learned alone. It is the finger of God that reveals knowledge and standing away from His finger leaves us only learned enough to condemn us. It is the touch of the real power of God’s love that assures anyone of eternity and it is only then learned knowledge may fit into its place. But how hard it is for that previous learning not to overtake the imprint of God’s touch?
This learnedness was indeed the power behind Saul of Tarsus as he rampaged towards Damascus and the persecution of every follower of Jesus Christ. Saul’s purpose was in the immaturity of the precept upon precept, doctrine upon doctrine scheme of the Pharisee. They had taught the law and yet missed the understanding of love within, which Jesus had revealed to their shame. The heart had become filled with judgement and associated vengence which leads to breaking that law itself.
However this love reveals itself in Saul’s physical blindness, befitting the spiritual blindness within his learnedness. This learnedness had become the beast, that Leviathan monster turned against its bearer to bring him down to destruction under the great and mighty sword of the Word of God as Jesus personally asked him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” He had been snared and caught by it as he reveals his lack of real knowledge by asking, “Lord, who are you?”
Saul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, by his own confession, a leading teacher in Israel. The captivity of which Saul had been lead into, precept upon precept, line upon line, a little here and a little there, was not in itself able to save him but indeed by a few simple words condemned him as a sinful man in need of a Saviour. Saul had indeed become intoxicated by learnedness, drunk on the pride of his achievement, wallowing his own vomit and filthiness so that nothing was clean (Is 28:8).
Today Christians are so well tutored week after week by the teachers that they can only focus on the knowledge of the moment and yet lack the timeless and simple message of Christ. Saul, later known as Paul, writes the essence he had learnt, “and now these three things endure: faith, hope and love.” (1Cor 13:13) Paul had by then knowledge of that trio of intangibles, those things not often quantified or obtained in youth or learnedness, knowledge of the heart that is above all else.
This is then that monster in the sea, that twisted and fleeing serpent that is in the people, nations, tribes and tongues, which would snare and catch up God’s children. Yet through His Son, the Father has made a crooked way straight, brought the high and mighty down and lifted up the lowly. Through the sword of the Word, through His Son Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life those sceptical, pessimistic, hatful Pharaoh and Pharisee hearts are, by the Holy Spirit, restored into that divine image of faith, hope, and love.
In the company of many others, I will be forever indebted to this knowledge of the loving touch in the peace of God that surpasses all understanding knowing He lives and displaces our ignorance by grace alone to forgive and set us straight in the truth about Jesus Christ. He is the greatest, the Lord of lords, the King of kings and the Prince of Peace. May this peace be with you in His vineyard!
Comments