Jesus sometimes describes the Kingdom in a completely astonishing, paradoxical way. What, for example, are we to make of a "good yoke" or a "light burden"! And yet such definitions very accurately describe what the Kingdom is for fallen humanity.
Jesus sometimes describes the Kingdom in a completely astonishing, paradoxical way. What, for example, are we to make of a "good yoke" or a "light burden"! And yet such definitions very accurately describe what the Kingdom is for fallen humanity.
For a normal person, hardly anything positive can be associated with a yoke: in the original sense of the word, a yoke is a collar symbolically placed on an enslaved person as a sign of the person's new condition. And a burden is more readily associated in our minds with a weight that must be carried simply because it cannot be thrown off, and certainly not with the lightness of being. Yet for fallen human nature the Kingdom really is a burden, just as the fallen person can walk the path into the Kingdom only by taking upon himself what the learned rabbis of those times called the "yoke of the Torah."
On Jesus' lips, the "yoke of the Torah" becomes the "yoke of the Kingdom," for the same inner struggle is in view, the struggle characteristic of every fallen person who wants to walk the way of righteousness. It is no accident that Paul also said that through the Torah comes the knowledge of sin: it is precisely the attempts to walk the way of righteousness, to follow the Torah, that reveal to a person his true sinful nature, and then the way of righteousness becomes hard, and the Torah becomes a yoke voluntarily taken upon oneself.
But Jesus speaks of more: He brought into the world not the Torah, which the world knew before His coming, but the Kingdom, where the one walking the way of righteousness could finally receive relief by reaching the goal. Now even the burden of one's own sinfulness, which begins to be felt only when one tries to keep the commandments, becomes light, for now not only the fallen world is real, but also the Kingdom with its life; and the heavier one's own sin becomes, the more one senses the breath of the Kingdom easing its weight. This duality is inevitable. It will remain until the end of time, until the complete transfiguration of human nature. But this duality itself inspires hope, for it testifies that the Kingdom entering the world is not fiction, but reality.
40 The prophet having now foretold the Babylonish captivity, chap.Isa 39:6-7,
does here arm his people against it by the consideration of their certain deliverance out of it, and their blessed condition after it, as in other things so especially in the coming of the Messiah, and the great and glorious privileges conferred upon God's church and people in his days. The preaching of the gospel by John the baptist and the apostles, Isa 40:1-11.
The power and wisdom of God in governing the world, Isa 40:12-17.
The folly of idolatry, Isa 40:18-26.
God knows the state of his people, and both can and will protect them, Isa 40:27-31.
40:26 Bringeth - That at first brought them out of nothing, and from day to day brings them forth, making them to rise and set in their appointed times. Faileth - Either to appear when he calls them; or to do the work to which he sends them.
40:27 What - Why dost thou give way to such jealousies concerning thy God, of whose infinite power and wisdom, and goodness, there are such evident demonstrations. Is hid - He takes no notice of my prayers and tears, and sufferings, but suffers mine enemies to abuse me at their pleasure. This complaint is uttered in the name of the people, being prophetically supposed to be in captivity. Judgment - My cause.God has neglected to plead my cause, and to give judgment for me against mine enemies.
40:30 The youths - The youngest and strongest men, left to themselves.
40:31 Wait - That rely upon him. Renew - Shall grow stronger and stronger.