For Unto Us A Child Is Born

For Unto Us a Child is Born

Isaiah 9:1-7

There is a lot of good music sung at Christmas time. One of my favorites is Handel’s Messiah. Even though it isn’t only about Christmas, there is much glorious Christmas music in it. Several of the most memorable come from the Book of Isaiah. Comfort Ye My People, Every Valley and Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion come from the 40th chapter. Darkness Shall cover the Earth comes from the 60th chapter. A Virgin Shall Conceive comes from the seventh chapter. In this text we have Isaiah 9:1 quoted in “The People who sat in Darkness have seen a Great Light. Also the chorus. For Unto Us a Child is Born comes from this morning’s text. There are many others taken from Isaiah as well from the Easter portion. Even though Isaiah lived some 725 years before the birth of Christ, it almost can be seen as being a prophecy about Jesus

Even though there are so many prophecies in the Book of Isaiah about our Lord, we must first take a look at Isaiah and his times. The Bible does say in Peter that the prophets spoke of later times and not just their own. This is right, but the prophets addressed issues in their own days. Isaiah, at the first at least, lived in fairly prosperous times, at least if one was wealthy. Uzziah reigned for 52 years, which was considerable longer than the average lifespan of his day. Few could remember the king before him. So when Uzziah died, it was an unsettled time. It was in this year that Isaiah had his magnificent vision of the LORD in the Temple. From this incident in chapter 6, the LORD commissioned Isaiah to preach to the people. All was not well in Judah. The people had grown spiritually blind and deaf. Prosperity has a way of making one careless in the things of God. In Chapter 1, we learn that the people had become dumber than donkeys and oxen. At least the donkey knew his master, and the ox knew where his feeding trough was. But God’s people had become lazy concerning the things of God. They also became careless about caring for the poor and widow. The LORD was not pleased. Judgment was coming.

The lack of spiritual attention bore bitter fruit. Uzziah’s son, Jotham, was said to have been a good king. Part of his reign may have overlapped Uzziah’s as Uzziah had leprosy as a result od disobeying the LORD. Uzziah tried to offer incense on the altar which was reserved as the prerogative of the priests alone. Uzziah should have known better. He was a good king, but not good enough. Jotham wasn’t either. Then came Ahaz who was one of the most wicked kings in Judah’s history. God sent Israel and Syria as raiders into his territory as punishment, and they vexed the people sorely. Ahaz did not have the means to overcome them. But God sent the prophet Isaiah to him anyway. Isaiah came with a message of deliverance from the LORD and asked Ahaz for what kind of sign he wanted to see as proof. The wicked king asked for none. He said he did not want to tempt the LORD. But he got a sign anyway. A virgin would conceive and bear a son, Immanuel, whose name means “God is with us.” This is one of those verses which speak of times much later than Isaiah’s. We see it as a prophecy that the Virgin Mary would have a son. Jesus, who would be the great deliverer. But there was still a son to be born in Isaiah’s time which would serve as the type of the birth of Jesus. This was needed to verify that Isaiah had truly been sent by God. So prophecy often has a double fulfillment. The first is a type of the second greater fulfillment.

The child in Isaiah’s time seems to be the birth of his own son Maher-Halal-Hash-Baz, who was conceived by his marriage to a prophetess. Before the child was weaned, the kings of Syria and Israel who had plagued Israel were dead, just as Isaiah had said. Ahaz and Judah did not deserve this deliverance, but for the sake of the remnant, he spared them. From this remnant, Christ would be born hundreds of years later. Assyria came and took away Israel. Israel was even more careless and treacherous than Judah was. They did not want to retain the LORD in their knowledge and, thus, lost their identity. They melted into all the other nations and became just like everyone else. This is the worst of judgments that can befall a nation. A country that forgets the LORD is cursed.

Having set the background of the ninth chapter of Isaiah, let us now take a look at it. Isaiah’s day would not have seen this light as the light of deliverance. In fact, it is set in the context of the severe judgment of the LORD upon Israel and Syria. The light that arises is the light that exposed the gross sin of these people. There was no joy in the regions of Galilee. These words are the words of battle in which the LORD would lead His army in judgment.