Scripture Reading: Isa. 4:1-2, 4-6
Isaiah is a rich person. He is rich not only in description but is particularly rich in Christ. Many points regarding Christ are raised by Isaiah. In this message I want to give a further word concerning Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah, the Fruit of the earth, and the canopy.
In the previous message, I used the expression the ushering in of the God-man, Christ, and now I would like to explain why I use the term ushering in with respect to Christ. In order to understand this, we need to consider Isaiah 4:1 and 2 and the connection between these verses. Verse 1 says, "Seven women will grasp/One man in that day,/Saying, We will eat our own bread/And wear our own clothes;/Just let us bear your name;/Take our reproach away." These women are in reproach because they do not have a husband. They do not have a man to lead them, and they want to bear the name of a man so that their reproach might be taken away. When I read this verse in my early days, I wondered about its meaning. What is the significance of this word? Its significance is that it is a link between God's judgment and Christ. As verse 2 indicates, the lack with these women is not that they are short of a leader but that they are short of Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah and as the Fruit of the earth. Verse 2 reveals that to these women who have escaped, Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah will be beauty and glory and Christ as the Fruit of the earth will be excellence and splendor. This is the ushering in of Christ.
Now I would like to go on to give a further explanation of the Shoot of Jehovah and the Fruit of the earth.
According to 4:2, Christ is first the Shoot of Jehovah. The term the Shoot of Jehovah, which refers to Christ's deity, denotes the riches and the refreshing of life. A shoot out of any plant indicates that the life of that plant is vigorous, growing, and productive. The principle is the same with Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah. As such a Shoot, He embodies the riches, the refreshing, the vigor, the growth, and the productive power of the divine life.
The term the Fruit of the earth, which refers to Christ's humanity and indicates that He grew up out of the earth, denotes the produce brought forth, carried out, and expressed in Christ's humanity. Of course, in order for this reproduction to take place, there must be the divine life. However, humanity is also needed. Suppose our Lord did not become a man through incarnation but remained simply in His divinity. What could have been produced out of Him as a fruit? The answer is that there could not have been any fruit. I would emphasize the fact that all of Christ's different kinds of fruits come out of the divine life, which is signified by the Shoot of Jehovah. But without Christ's humanity, it would have been impossible for the divine life to be productive in bringing forth fruit. The four Gospels show us that all the fruit born by Christ came out of the divine life, but it was produced in Christ's humanity. Therefore, the Shoot of Jehovah denotes the divine life in its riches, and the Fruit of the earth denotes the fruit produced by this life in humanity.
For Christ to be both the Shoot of Jehovah and the Fruit of the earth indicates that He is the God-man. In Him God and man live together as one. The New Testament is a revelation of this very thing: it shows us God and man living together, with God as the life inwardly and man as the fruit outwardly.
As believers in Christ today, we need both the divine life and the human life. If we do not have the divine life, we do not have life. But if we do not have the proper human life to match the divine life, we will have no fruit. The New Testament reveals that, as those chosen and predestinated by God, we need to have the divine life expressed in our human living. If we have this, then in our experience we will have Christ both as the Shoot of Jehovah and as the Fruit of the earth.
In chapter four, after speaking of Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah and the Fruit of the earth, Isaiah goes on to refer to this One as a canopy and a tabernacle. "Jehovah will create over the entire region of Mount Zion and over all her convocations a cloud of smoke by day, and the brightness of a fiery flame by night; for over all, the glory will be a canopy. And there will be a tabernacle as a daytime shade from the heat and as a refuge and a cover from storm and rain" (vv. 5-6). Christ is not only the Shoot and the Fruit — He is also the canopy to cover us and to cover God's move and everything related to it.
God has a great move on earth, and this move involves many things. As we have pointed out, Christ is the centrality and the universality of the great wheel of the move of the Divine Trinity. The Christ who is the centrality and universality of God's move is also the canopy to cover the totality of this move. The crucial point is that in addition to being the reality of the great move of God on earth, Christ is also the canopy to cover God's move and all that is involved with it.
In verse 5 Isaiah speaks of the canopy, and in verse 6 he speaks of a tabernacle. Christ is not only the canopy to cover all the things in God's move but also a tabernacle to overshadow God's chosen people. The God-man, Christ, who is our canopy, is also a tabernacle as a shade in the day to keep us from the heat and a refuge and a cover to keep us from any kind of storm and rain.
I can testify in the two months prior to the time I began to give these messages on the life-study of Isaiah, I experienced Christ as my canopy. These two months were months of fighting — fighting to be able to carry out this life-study. I realized that the enemy, Satan, was not happy to see that, at the end of this age, the Christ revealed in Isaiah would be unveiled to God's children. Therefore, I began to fight concerning this. During this time of fighting, I took the Lord Jesus as my covering. I prayed, saying, "Lord, hide me under Your precious blood. I hide myself in You. I ask You, Lord, to cover me and everything related to me." Today we all need Christ as such a canopy, and we need Christ also as the overshadowing tabernacle to shade us from the heat and as a refuge and cover to protect us from any storm and rain.
The Christ revealed in the book of Isaiah is exceedingly rich. We need to see this rich Christ and know Him as the Shoot of Jehovah, the Fruit of the earth, the canopy, and the tabernacle. Perhaps you have been a Christian for many years, but before now you had not seen Christ in these items of what He is to us. Had you ever seen that Christ, the God-man, is the Shoot of Jehovah in His divinity and the Fruit of the earth in His humanity? Had you ever heard that Christ is the canopy that covers all God's interests on the earth and a tabernacle that overshadows God's people from everything that could bother them? Christians know that because God loved the world He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16), but few, if any, see Christ and know Christ as He is revealed in Isaiah. Therefore, I urge you to spend your time, ability, and energy to study this book in order to see and know the wonderful Christ revealed in it.
