The Book of Isaiah
Chapter 1 V.4-6 Part 2
So whatever caused this turning away, nothing corrected it. Nothing stopped the slide, to the point that it completely pulled them away from God. So I had to back up a bit to verse two. Here, God says he reared children.
Gal 4:1 Now I say, [That] the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
Gal 4:2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
Gal 4:3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
Gal 4:5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
A few things I’ve noticed here. First, as a child, and I’m thinking of ‘child of God,’ we don’t differ from a servant. We should live to serve others. We are being trained and tutored until the appointed time of the father.
What I’m not clear on in looking at that is, are we talking about The appointed time of the return, or are we talking about a personal standard that God has for each of us to move us into whatever job/assignment he has for us? It could be a double entendre. It looks, at first glance, as if this is a more personal reference to being groomed for greatness.
However, this changes in the third verse where it references us as children in bondage to or under the elements of the world. So then our training ground is the world, and part of that training does involve the bondages we may find ourselves in.
At first I thought this was a reference to personal growth, but verse four shows me that it is a general reference to what God has done for us through his Son.
What I found interesting to note is first the reference to bondage under the elements of the world being our training ground, and at the same time, God sending forth his Son, made of a woman who is made under the law; the main element of the bondage of the world. It’s almost a weird conundrum if you look at it.
God births this world, with the knowledge that Satan’s removal from the heavenlies will permeate and corrupt it. Since God created all things and Satan was one of the things that He formed (note the difference in wording); it created a strange sort of paradox.
Love is destruction and destruction is love. So love creates a training ground of destruction that causes one to seek love. Then love destroys us to draw us to itself. If we love Him, we agree to this destruction, (dying daily) in order to get closer.
Some thing in us that must die will actually result in a true destruction of us or our lives, because it is a stronghold. If this is the case, then more than likely, it’s something we will have to walk through to get free.
But…in the fullness’ of time, (which again, is why I saw this on a more individual level) we that are suffering under the law, in the training ground of destruction get redeemed.
Not only are we redeemed to receive the adoption of sons, but we are redeemed to be restored as sons, because as the prodigal son clearly demonstrates, sometimes we can already have the blessing of the father, and for whatever reasons, stumble away thinking we are missing something.
Yet the good news is, the Father is always there waiting and hoping we will return. This brings me back to the factors that caused the ‘strickening” mentioned at the beginning of this section.
It is apparent that the lessons of the “destruction” phase of our training ground have escaped the attention of the people being referred to in this passage. Apparently, they were in sin, and completely gave themselves over to it, in whatever area or arena this was occurring in. They gave up completely, seeking God, and apparently began the idol worship of whatever the focus of their sin was.
Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head [there is] no soundness in it; [but] wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
Whatever they were involved in, there was no comfort in it.
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