September 17, 2023 – Isaiah in the New Testament – Children of God

Children of God

Isaiah 8:16-9:2 - New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ Bind up this testimony of warning
    and seal up God’s instruction among my disciples.
¹⁷ I will wait for the Lord,
    who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.

¹⁸ Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.

¹⁹ When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰ Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. ²¹ Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. ²² Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

9¹Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

² The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.

What is Isaiah to “bind up” (verse 16)?

Who will Isaiah put his trust in (verse 17)?

Who is with Isaiah (verse 18)?

Who should we inquire of when “someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter” (verse 19)?

Who has “no light of dawn” (verse 20)?

What do those who have “no light of dawn” do when they “become enraged” (verses 20 and 21)?

What will they see when they “look toward the earth” (verse 22)?

What will He do in the future (verse 1)?

What have the “people walking in darkness” seen (verse 2)?

Where has “a light dawned” (verse 2)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage help us understand about the way people react to God?

John 1:9-18 - New International Version (NIV)

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

What was “coming into the world” (verse 9)?

How did the world respond (verse 10)?

Who did not receive Him (verse 11)?

What happened to “all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name” (verse 12)?

How were these children born (verse 13)?

Who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (verse 14)?

Who testified and said “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me” (verse 15)?

What have we all received “out of his fullness” (verse 16)?

What came through Jesus Christ (verse 17)?

Who has made God known (verse 18)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage help us understand about the way people react to God?

In your opinion, how are the children that Isaiah says the Lord gave him in Isaiah 8:16-9:2 like the children that John 1:9-18 discusses?

Matthew 11:25-30 – New International Version (NIV)

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶ Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

²⁷ “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Who had the Father “hidden these things” from (verse 25)?

Who had the Father revealed them to (verse 25)?

What has been committed to Jesus (verse 27)?

Who knows the Father (verse 27)?

What will Jesus give to those “who are weary and burdened” (verse 28)?

Why should we take Jesus’s yoke (verse 29)?

What will we find in we take Jesus’s yoke (verse 29)?

What is easy (verse 30)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage help us understand about the way people react to God?

In your opinion, would both Isaiah and the children that are with him in Isaiah 8:16-9:2 fit into the description of little children as Jesus uses it in Matthew 11:25-30?

In your opinion, what does John 1:9-18 help us understand about the little children that the Father reveals the hidden things to in Matthew 11:25-30?

Hebrews 2:10-18 – New International Version (NIV)

¹⁰ In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. ¹¹ Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. ¹² He says,

“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
    in the assembly I will sing your praises.”

¹³ And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again he says,

“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”

¹⁴ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶ For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷ For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

How was the pioneer of the salvation of the “many sons and daughters” made perfect (verse 10)?

Who are “of the same family” (verse 11)?

What is Jesus not ashamed to call them (verse 11)?

Where will Jesus sing praises to His “brothers and sisters” (verse 12)?

Who does Jesus say is with Him (verse 13)?

Why did Jesus share the “flesh and blood” of the children (verse 14)?

Who did Jesus free (verse 15)?

Who doesn’t Jesus help (verse 16)?

In your opinion, who are “Abraham’s descendants” (see Galatians 3:7) (verse 16)?

Why did Jesus have to “be made like them, fully human in every way” (verse 17)?

Why is Jesus “able to help those who are being tempted” (verse 18)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage help us understand about the way people react to God?

In your opinion, what does Hebrews 2:10-18 reveal about why it was necessary for Isaiah to say that he would “wait for the Lord” in Isaiah 8:16-9:2?

In your opinion, how does Jesus being with “the children God has given me” in Hebrews 2:10-18 deepen and enrich the promise that “to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” found in John 1:9-18?

In your opinion, how does Hebrews 2:10-18 help us understand why Jesus in Matthew 11:25-30 can say that His yoke is easy and His burden is light? 

In your opinion, what do these passages from Isaiah, John, Matthew, and Hebrews teach us about how the children of God respond to Jesus?

In your opinion, how can we release our weariness and burdens today to become children in the presence of Jesus?

 

(sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)