 |  |
Used of the nations.
"All nations shall flow unto it" (2: 2).
"The nations are as a drop of a bucket" (40: 15).
"The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish" (60: 12).
Used of the Gentiles.
"To it shall the Gentiles seek" (11: 10).
"He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles" (42: 1).
"Declare My glory among the Gentiles" (66: 19).
These focal points in the structure prepare us for the revelation that is now made:
"It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that
Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isa. 49: 6).
Two phases of the Redeemer's work are brought before us in this passage and both
phases are amplified as the following arrangement will make clear:
A | a |
Tribes of Israel--raised up.
b
| Preserved of Israel--restored.
A | a |
To the Gentiles--light.
b
| To the end of the earth--salvation.
The restoration of Israel needs no expansion or emphasis to any reader who has so far
followed us through these studies, but as the reference to the Gentiles is of dispensational
importance, we give that theme, as here introduced, our attention.
The blessing of the Gentiles was never a `mystery' in the O.T. Scriptures, it was
incipient in the covenant with Abraham.
"The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached
before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed" (Gal. 3: 8).
Early in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, he saw that the failure of Israel to repent
and believe, with the blessing of the Gentile as a sequel, is implied in this prophecy of
Isa. 49::
"Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the Word of God
should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves
unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord
commanded us, saying, I have set Thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that Thou shouldest
be for salvation unto the ends of the earth" (Acts 13: 46, 47).
A careful examination of the quotation of Isa. 49: 6 in this chapter of the Acts, will
reveal one or two slight departures both from the Hebrew original and from the
Septuagint translation. The fact to be remembered is that Isa. 49: does not prophecy of
Barnabas or Paul, Isaiah did not say of either of these servants of the Lord "I will also
give thee for a light to the Gentiles". This is reserved in all its blessed fulness of Christ
Himself at His second coming, but Acts 13: has much in it of a typical character, as for