Week 25 Isaiah
When I started reading Isaiah this month I was impressed by the critical shots he took at Moses’ laws. He really blasted them.
It left me wondering: what’s Isaiah’s take on formal religious law and ritual?
Now that I’m almost finished the book my impression is that Isaiah didn’t affirm Moses’ law, and he also did affirm it.
For example, real fasting meant: to let the oppressed go free. So he didn’t.
But he said the Lord’s law was: great and glorious. So he did.
The law is a tricky thing because it seems to have an outside and an inside.
If the law that materializes on the outside isn’t propelled from the inside then it’s flawed.
Law that shows up on the outside and has been animated from the inside? That’s good.
So…comprehensive-law is: Law 1 (Outside) plus Law 2 (Inside).
Classic example: Cain and Abel both did Law 1. But only Abel managed Law 2. They were bros when it came to ritual; strangers otherwise.
I guess a huge temptation for an OT-guy would be to go through the ceremonials and check-off the Law 1 box. Which had benefits because who, other than the Lord, would ever know the condition of his Law 2?
Law 2 would complicate things, make them more intrusive, elusive, personal, interior.
My sense is that what Isaiah didn’t care for was an independent Law 1.
Note: quotes from Isaiah 58:6; 42:21 (NASB version)