Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 18; 2 Kings 19; 2 Kings 20
The best reign of all the kings was that of Hezekiah over Judah. In this message we will first consider the reign of Hezekiah and then speak further concerning the intrinsic connection between the books of history in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the New Testament.
Hezekiah began to reign at the age of twenty-five, in the third year of Hoshea king of Israel, and reigned for twenty- nine years in Jerusalem (18:1-2).
Verses 3 through 6 show us that Hezekiah did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done. Hezekiah removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. Also, he broke in pieces the bronze serpent made by Moses which Hezekiah called Nehushtan (meaning "a piece of bronze") and to which the children of Israel burned incense. Moses, according to God's instructions, had made that bronze serpent in order to rescue the people from death. However, in their superstition they eventually regarded the bronze serpent as an idol, and for this reason Hezekiah broke it in pieces. Hezekiah clung to Jehovah and did not turn away from following Him but kept His commandments and trusted in Him, so that after him there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor anyone who was before him.
Jehovah was with Hezekiah, and everywhere he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and struck the Philistines (vv. 7-8).
In 18:9—19:37 we have an account of the invasion of the Assyrians.
In the fourth year of Hezekiah, the seventh year of Hoshea king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it (v. 9). At the end of three years, in the sixth year of Hezekiah and the ninth year of Hoshea, Shalmaneser took Samaria and carried Israel away captive (vv. 10-11; 17:3-6). This took place because Israel would not listen to the voice of Jehovah nor do it (18:12).
In 18:13—19:37 we read of the attacking and challenging of Sennacherib king of Assyria with insult and blasphemy.
Sennacherib went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them (18:13).
Hezekiah king of Judah subjected himself to Sennacherib. As Sennacherib imposed upon him, Hezekiah paid him quite a great amount of silver and gold from the temple of Jehovah and the treasuries of the king's house (vv. 14-16).
Sennacherib challenged Hezekiah with insult and blasphemy through Rab-shakeh with his army (vv. 17-37; 19:8-13).
Hezekiah appealed to Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah told him that Jehovah would cause the king of Assyria to return to his land and to fall by the sword in his own land (19:1-7).
Hezekiah went up to the temple of Jehovah, spread the challenging letter before Jehovah, and prayed to Jehovah, asking for salvation (vv. 14-19).
Jehovah answered Hezekiah through Isaiah the prophet, saying that He would turn the king of Assyria back by hooking him in his nose and bridling him in his lips and that Jerusalem would be preserved for His own sake and for the sake of David His servant (vv. 20-34).
In that night an angel of Jehovah went out and slaughtered the Assyrians' camp of 185,000, and Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went back to dwell in Nineveh. Eventually he was killed, probably by his sons, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place (vv. 35-37).
Second Kings 20:1-11 tells us about Jehovah's healing of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah became mortally ill, and Jehovah told him through Isaiah the prophet that he was about to die (v. 1).
Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah. Through Isaiah the prophet Jehovah told Hezekiah that He would heal him, add to his life fifteen years, and deliver him and Jerusalem from the king of Assyria for His own sake and for the sake of David His servant (vv. 2-6).
Isaiah recovered Hezekiah with a cake of figs (v. 7).
Hezekiah wanted a sign, and Jehovah gave him a sign — the shadow which had descended on the steps of Ahaz went backward ten steps (vv. 8-11).
In verses 12 through 19 we see the failure of Hezekiah.
The king of Babylon sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah because of his recovery (v. 12).
Hezekiah showed the ones from Babylon all his treasury and his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that he did not show them (v. 13). His wanting to make a show offended God. God hates man's pride. Thus, we should never try to glorify ourselves. In the Lord's work we need to learn the lesson of trying our best to hide ourselves, concealing our masterpieces from the eyes of man. This will please God.
Because of what Hezekiah did, he was condemned by God through His prophet Isaiah. Isaiah told him that the days were now coming when everything that was in his house and that his fathers had laid up as a treasure would be carried away to Babylon and nothing would be left. Isaiah went on to say that the Babylonians would take away some of Hezekiah's sons and make them eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (vv. 14-18).
Hezekiah answered that the word of Jehovah was good and that it was good that there would be peace and truth (stability) in his days (v. 19). I am bothered by Hezekiah's answer, for it indicates that he was somewhat selfish, caring for himself but not for his descendants. This indicates that he was not that weighty in the matter of spirituality.
At this juncture we should note that the portion from 18:13—20:19 is similar to Isaiah 36:1—39:8, with the omission of the song of Hezekiah recorded in Isaiah 38:9-20. Concerning this I would ask you to consult messages nineteen and twenty in the Life-study of Isaiah, given from the angle of Hezekiah's spirituality.
Hezekiah made the pool and the conduit and brought the water into the city. He slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place (2 Kings 20:20-21).
Let us now turn to the matter of God's economy. God's economy is centered in Christ with His organic Body, the church, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Regarding God's economy, the intrinsic connection between the books of history in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the New Testament is in Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6. These verses indicate that God would put humanity upon Himself, mingling His divinity with humanity. Through His incarnation Christ became the God-man, a person both divine and human, having His divinity mingled with His humanity. The incarnation was, therefore, a great event in the universe.
The New Testament clearly reveals that Christ's ministry has two sections. The first section, from His incarnation to His death to accomplish God's eternal redemption, is in the four Gospels. The second section is presented in Acts through Revelation.
After accomplishing God's redemption through His death, Christ entered into resurrection. In resurrection Christ's humanity was uplifted into divinity and Christ was "designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead" (Rom. 1:4). His humanity was regenerated, and in resurrection He was born as God's firstborn Son. As the only begotten Son of God in eternity, Christ had only divinity without humanity. But in His economy God intends to join Himself to man and mingle Himself with man. Thus, when Christ was resurrected, He was begotten to be God's firstborn Son in His humanity (Acts 13:33). At the same time He regenerated all the believers in a single, great corporate birth (1 Pet. 1:3). In His resurrection Christ, as a man in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Whereas He redeemed us by His death, He regenerated us by the life-giving Spirit.
God's economy is to make all the redeemed ones, all the believers in Christ, God-men. God's desire is not to have good men — God's desire is to have God-men. Christ, the unique God-man, is the model, the prototype, used by God to have a "mass production" of millions of God-men. Regeneration brings God into us, making us God-men. As God-men we should have a God-man's living, continually rejecting our natural man and living by the very God who is life in us. As God-men we should deny our natural life and apply the divine life in our daily life.
After regeneration the life-giving Spirit, the consummation and totality of the processed Triune God, first sanctifies us; second, renews us (Titus 3:5); third, transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18); and fourth, conforms us to God's image (Rom. 8:29), making us the same as God in appearance, element, and essence. Eventually, when the Lord Jesus comes back, He will glorify us, saturating our entire being with His glory. Hence, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification are the steps of Christ's ministry in resurrection.
After Christ entered into resurrection, becoming the life-giving Spirit and the Firstborn of many sons, He ascended to the heavens and was assigned by God to be the Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) and was exalted to be the Leader and the Savior (5:31). He is also our High Priest, interceding for us before God (Heb. 8:1; 7:25-26), the Mediator and Executor of the new covenant (8:6; 9:16-17), and a Minister in the heavens (8:1-2), ministering all the heavenly things into us in the steps mentioned above.
If we would understand the second section of Christ's ministry and know what Christ is doing now in the heavens, we need all the Epistles from Romans through Revelation. In his fourteen Epistles Paul did a wonderful job of unveiling how Christ as the ascended One in the heavens ministers Himself as the life-giving Spirit, as the pneumatic Christ, as the embodiment of the processed Triune God in His resurrection, to transform us from clay into something precious, making us the same as He, not in the Godhead but in His essence, in His element, in His nature, in His life, and in His appearance. This is the economy of God, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem.
