Isaiah's prophecy is hardly lacking in names for God, so it's somewhat interesting he is unnamed in Isaiah 32:9-18, especially given he's obviously the agent both of blessing and curse in the passage. This may simply be a curiosity, or there may be theological and literary reasons for not mentioning God explicitly. Obviously, I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't think there was some merit to the latter possibility, so here are my two theories.
In the text's first stanza, Isaiah 32:9-14, a prophecy of exile and desolation is pronounced against complacent women. They are complacent because they believe their well-ordered world will continue as always, and so the Lord God of Israel, whether he blesses or curses, is irrelevant to them. Consequently, the Lord may be unnamed in these verses because the complacent women are unable to discern his presence.
In the text's second stanza, Isaiah 32:15-18, we have a prophecy of the Messianic, or Church, Age as a reversal of the previously mentioned desolation. The Spirit is explicitly mentioned, but not as, for example, "the Spirit of God" or "the Holy Spirit." One must have wisdom to notice the Spiritual blessings he is bringing and their divine origin. This is appropriate to the time in which we live, during which the Holy Spirit is the most active member of the Trinity in the world. His work of making the Cross and Scripture efficacious to convict and convert sinners is often ignored by the world's powerful and influential, since it's unaccompanied by fireworks or displays of power; for them, God need not be named because they think he is not present. For the discerning, however, the Holy Spirit is transforming individual lives constantly, and in the process transforming the world by expanding the boundaries of the Church, the Kingdom of Grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment