Tuesday: The Song of My Beloved
Daily Lesson for Tuesday 11th of March 2025
In amazing ways, God has manifested His love and righteousness amid the cosmic conflict. Yet, some might ask, Should God have done more than He has done to prevent and/or remove evil? We have seen a cosmic conflict framework that indicates that God has acted in order to respect the free will necessary for the maximal flourishing of love relationships between Him and humanity. Further, He has apparently acted within moral constraints, or rules of engagement, within the context of a cosmic dispute over His character, which can be settled only by the demonstration of His love.
Read Isaiah 5:1-4. Who is speaking in these verses? Whom is Isaiah speaking about? Whom do the vineyard and vineyard owner represent? What is the significance of the actions of the vineyard owner on behalf of the vineyard? What is the result?
Image © John Clement Collection at Goodsalt.com
In these verses, Isaiah sings a song of his beloved, a vineyard. The vineyard owner is God Himself, and the vineyard represents God’s people (see, for example, Isaiah 1:8, Jeremiah 2:21). But the implications here can also be expanded relative to God’s broader work in this world. According to these verses, the vineyard owner (God) did everything that reasonably could be expected to ensure the flourishing of His vineyard. The vineyard should have produced good grapes, but it produced only “wild grapes,” which other translations refer to as “worthless.” Indeed, the Hebrew wording here literally could be translated stink-fruit. God’s vineyard brings forth rotten grapes.
Isaiah 5:3 shifts to God Himself speaking, inviting people to “judge” between Him and His vineyard. And, in Isaiah 5:4, God Himself sets forth the all-important question: “ ‘What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?’ ” (NKJV). What more could He do? How fascinating that He even asks others to judge what He has done.
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When you look at the cross, where God offered Himself as a sacrifice for all our sin, how do His words—“ ‘What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it?’ ”—take on an utterly amazing significance? |
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Christianity is the only major religion where God Himself (Jesus) dies as an atonement for humanity. Christianity is unique indeed! Jesus who is God in every measure willingly sacrificed Himself to save humanity (John 3:16, Philippians 2:6-8). In Hinduism, gods are seen offering sacrifices but not sacrificing themselves. In Buddhism, the greatest sacrifice Buddha offered was to abandon the royal life to seek enlightenment. Islam strongly disagrees that Allah (God) would die for the sake of mankind. Yes, Allah (God) is merciful and forgives sin but there is no need for himself to die for humanity. In Judaism, Jesus is not God, animal sacrifice (Leviticus 16) is enough. The death of Jesus is not necessary, repentance and good deeds are the ways to atone for sin. How can anyone fathom the kind of love demonstrated by God in the Bible?
“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13, NLT).
The Christian faith that we have been called into by God’s great mercies is a calling for love. Christianity will never be worth anything if we who have accepted the calling fail to show the love that has been shown to us. Possibly, we may not die for someone, but we can show the love of God to someone. This is our calling.
“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God” – (Romans 5:6-11, NLT)
We are very good at thinking up ideas about what other people or organisations should do. How many of us have been involved with a discussion where we hear the words: "What they should do is ...". In church cirles I often hear people say, "What the church should really be doing is ...", and then the speaker will give his often ill-informed expert opinion on what they think the church should be doing in a particular situation. We are all experts when it comes to describing what others should be doing.
Some of that arrogance creeps into our discussions about what God should be doing or not doing. We are experts in reading the Bible and bending the interpretation to the way we would like God to work. Consequently, among believers we have a spectrum of from the theists to the predestinationalists. The theists believe that God created and then let creation look after itself. On the other hand the predestinationalists believe that everything that happens is according to a preset plan.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. I think most of us believe that the Bible records an interaction of the creator with his creation within the bounds (or freedom if you prefer) of free will. And embedded in that interaction is the amazing story of God himself becoming human in order to save us. If you look at the great world religions you will get lots of advice on how to be a good person in order to reach a better state. But, the Christian story is that God became one of us to save us.
Someone made the comparison like this: Suppose we picture humanity living at the bottom of a big pit and salvation is about getting out of the pit. Most religions picture their supreme being as standing at the top of the pit telling humanity to climb out of the pit to be with him. Christianity is unique in that our God gets down in the pit with us and lifts us up.
What more could he do?
This is how Paul tells the story: