Today’s reading: Isaiah 5; Hebrews 10
For those of you following along with the reading plan, I’ve missed posting about the reading the last couple days. If you know me personally, you probably already know that my family has spent the last month out of the country completing an adoption. We just got home and between the long day of travel and trying to get the house and life back in order after a month away, I just haven’t had the time or energy to write posts the last couple days. But I am expecting to be back to daily (or mostly daily) posts again now that we are getting back into routine!
What I wanted to talk about today is the vineyard analogy Isaiah uses here in Isaiah 5 because this is an analogy that is not only used by Isaiah and some of the other prophets, but quite a bit by Jesus Himself as well. This becomes extra important then in that when Jesus starts talking about a vineyard in His own teaching, He is not speaking into a theological vacuum, and His listeners, at least the scribes and Pharisees, would have understood the subtleties of Jesus’ teaching in light of the Old Testament vineyard oracles.
God, through Isaiah, describes Israel as His beloved vineyard that He personally prepared in every way. He cleared it of stones, so the vines would have the best conditions for growth, and planted the best vines, and He built a watchtower in the midst of the vineyard to protect and defend His precious vines. But when the vineyard began to produce fruit, rather than the good fruit He rightly expected from his choice vines, He only found wild grapes; a useless harvest, and a complete waste of His land and His efforts.
The result of the vineyard’s yield is the destruction of the vineyard, just as God warned Israel before they ever entered the promised land, would be the result of faithlessness to Him.
But before God declares the vineyard’s destruction, He asks a really poignant question, “What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?”
People today love to call God vindictive, evil, ill-tempered, etc. in the Old Testament for the judgement that He brings upon Israel, but isn’t He exactly right here in asking this? What more could He have possibly done for Israel? He rescued them from slavery in Egypt, brought them through the wilderness, drove out the Canaanites before them and gave them their land, protected them from the surrounding nations, gave them wealth, stability, and security, etc. What else could He have done for them? And isn’t what He did already enough to warrant their faithfulness? What did Baal, Asherah, Molech, Chemosh, Dagon, Remphan, or any other God do for them? And if they did anything at all, was it more than all that Yahweh did? Could they possibly have done more for Israel than Yahweh did? And on top of that, didn’t Yahweh promise to do even more for them if they stayed faithful? And didn’t He already demonstrate that He was good for those promises in the days of David and Solomon, when Israel was faithfully pursuing Him, and He lavished blessing upon blessing upon Israel until it overflowed with tremendous prosperity in every way???
What more could He have done for Israel? Nothing. God did everything for Israel and fully deserved their faithfulness, so when the vineyard is destroyed for producing wild grapes, there is truly no one to blame but the vineyard itself.
I also couldn’t help but think this morning about how much this applies to us today as well. God has done everything, in Christ, that is needed to reconcile us to Himself and to give us eternal life, but how many people today want to slander God for His judgment rather than praise Him for His mercy? How many people want to scoff at His morality rather than marvel at the lengths He went to to redeem us? How many people would rather go to Hell than follow a God that would allow Hell to exist in the first place, when that same God is the one who took their punishment upon Himself so that they could be set free from it? What more could He have possibly done for His vineyard? Nothing. He has done everything for us.
I only wish more people would recognize the lengths God has gone to to rescue us, and would lay down their pride before our gracious and merciful savior, so that they might know the fullness of the goodness God has made available to us in Christ.
Father, you are better to us than we will ever fully know. Thank you.
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