Scripture Reading: Isa. 22:19-25; Rom. 6:6; 11:17; John 15:5; Gal. 2:20; Col. 2:16-17
In this message I would like to give a word concerning a very crucial matter — the vision of the economy of God hidden in the first twenty-three chapters of Isaiah's prophecy. Now that we have covered twenty-three chapters of Isaiah, I would like to ask a question: What is the main thing covered in these chapters? Putting the question another way, I would ask: Have you seen the vision of God's economy concealed in these chapters? My burden in this message is that we would all see this vision.
A number of important matters are covered in Isaiah 1—23. For instance, 1:18 speaks concerning our being cleansed from our sins: "Come now and let us reason together,/Says Jehovah./Though your sins are like scarlet,/They will be as white as snow;/Though they are as red as crimson,/They will be like wool." This word is related to the word in 38:17: "You have cast behind Your back/All my sins." God has forgiven our sins and has cast them behind His back. Although the forgiveness of sins is wonderful, it is not the economy of God hidden in the prophecy of Isaiah.
Another matter of great importance is the sign in 7:14 of the virgin conceiving and bearing a son. This verse says, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel." This sign covers not only the past and the present but also eternity. The Bible of sixty-six books consummates in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21—22), and the New Jerusalem is the aggregate of Immanuel. The sign of Immanuel consummates in the New Jerusalem — the totality of God being with us.
A third important matter is found in chapter twelve of Isaiah. This chapter shows us how to receive God Himself as our salvation and enjoy Him as salvation. We enjoy God as our salvation, drawing water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation, by praising the Lord, calling upon His name, crying out, and giving a ringing shout (vv. 3-4, 6). However, we may enjoy God as our salvation but still not see the vision of the economy of God hidden in the first twenty-three chapters of the book of Isaiah.
The content of chapters one through twelve of Isaiah is the all-inclusive Christ. This section of Isaiah begins with the degradation of God's people and ends with the enjoyment of God as our salvation. If Isaiah's prophecy ended with chapter twelve, we might feel that it was sufficient. Of course, the book is much longer, and the next eleven chapters deal with God's judgment.
Isaiah 13—23 covers the judgment of Jehovah upon the nations, including Jerusalem, and its issue. Here God considered Israel the same as the nations. The key to this section of Isaiah is God's "firing" and Christ's replacing. In His judgment God discharged, or "fired," everyone and everything. According to Isaiah, all of God's chastising and judging is a firing. All the kings of the nations, including the kings of Babylon and Assyria, were raised up by God. He appointed them, or hired them, and eventually He also fired them. They were appointed by Him, but they proved to be unqualified and made many mistakes. Thus, the time came when God intervened to fire them. After this hiring and firing, there is the replacing. Who is the replacement? The replacement is Christ, Immanuel.
God not only fired the kings of the nations, but He also fired Shebna, a steward in the house of the king (22:15), and replaced him with Eliakim, a type of Christ (vv. 20-24; Rev. 3:7). God also fired all the utensils and vessels, all the bowls and jars (Isa. 22:25).
What we have here is a picture showing us that in the entire universe everything in God's house and outside God's house should be fired and replaced with Christ. The nations, the steward, and all the bowls and jars in the king's house needed to be replaced. God replaced all of them with Immanuel. He replaced everyone and everything with Christ. This is the reason Christ is unveiled as a Father, a Steward, a throne of glory, and a peg (a nail) driven into a sure place (a wall), on which hang all the utensils and vessels — all the things that belong to God for His people to enjoy Him. Here we see that whatever or whoever is not Christ, God fires.
In these messages on Isaiah, we need to see not only the way to enjoy God as our salvation, but also see that we have been fired by God and replaced with Christ. God created us to be a man, but He has fired us, discharged us, from being a man. Although we have been fired, we may still keep our post as a man and go on trying to be a man. We need to see that when God created us, He hired us, and that when He put us on the cross, crucifying us with Christ, He fired us. We all have been fired by God. Concerning this, Galatians 2:20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." God fired everyone on the cross, and He is replacing everyone with Christ.
After God's firing and replacing of everyone and everything with Christ, there will first be the restoration for the kingdom, and then there will be the restoration for the new heaven and new earth for the New Jerusalem. That will be the real church life. The real church life is a life in which all the saints are fired and replaced with Christ. This will make Christ everything in the church. This is the vision of God's economy hidden in Isaiah 1—23, and I hope that we will all see it.
In Christianity it is stressed very much that Christ is our substitute, who died a substitutionary death for us on the cross, bearing the judgment that we should have received. Although it is true that in the divine revelation concerning God's salvation Christ is our substitute, He is more than our substitute. Christ unites Himself with us and replaces us. This is something which goes further than the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross. Because Christ joined Himself to us, uniting Himself with us, when He died on the cross, we died with Him and were terminated (Rom. 6:6).
Regarding this matter, the inner-life Christians use the term exchanged instead of replaced, saying that Christ's life is exchanged for our life. However, if one thing is exchanged for another, there is no uniting of the two. The teaching concerning an exchanged life is not accurate according to the truth. Replacing demands union, whereas exchanging annuls union with Christ.
In the New Testament, Christ's replacing of us is altogether a matter of a grafted life. This grafted life is the highlight of God's salvation in John 15. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches (v. 5). As wild olive branches, we have been grafted into Christ (Rom. 11:17). Thus, we are united with Christ, and in this union Christ replaces us. He replaces us by living in us, with us, by us, and through us. We live, yet not we, but Christ lives in us, and we live by the faith of the Son of God. This indicates a union with Christ.
In the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, there is a struggle between God and man. Man likes to replace God. In his reaction to God, man tries to replace God, to put God aside, to expel God. But in His reaction to man, God does not put man aside or expel man; rather, He puts man in a terminated position so that man can live by another person, Christ.
Although God desires to replace man, man does not agree with this, because Satan is behind man. According to Isaiah 14:12-14, Satan was the first one to attempt to replace God, to expel God and take God's place, by uplifting his throne and making himself like the Most High. Now Satan is behind man, trying to do away with God and expel God. Even when man wants to do something for God, he does it by putting God aside. This is a crucial matter that we all need to realize.
Because of man's reaction, God, who had hired everyone, eventually fired everyone that He might replace everyone with Christ. When everyone and everything is replaced with Christ, Christ becomes everything. For example, He becomes to us both the Shoot of Jehovah and the Fruit of the earth.
In Isaiah, everything is fired, discharged by God, and then the discharging God comes in to replace everything with Christ. This is Paul's concept in Colossians 2:16 and 17: "Let no one therefore judge you in eating and in drinking or in respect of a feast or of a new moon or of Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." Here Paul is telling us that our food and drink, feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths are all shadows of Christ. Christ, therefore, is the replacement of all the things in God's Old Testament economy.
God put all things in place, and then He fired them all. He put all the kings in place, and then He fired them all and made Christ the unique King. However, the kingship of Christ is a corporate kingship; it includes Christ and those who are one with Him. In the same way, the priesthood is a corporate matter: Christ is the High Priest, and we are one with Him. In this way God replaces everything with Christ, and we are joined to Christ. On the one hand, we are fired, and on the other hand, we are not expelled; for Christ comes to live in us, with us, by us, and through us. This is Immanuel replacing everything and being everything in God's economy.
