In part, the purpose for writing this piece is to affirm the importance of intellectual life, of intellectuals in the church. A good intellectual is one whose academic work is matched by their engagement with the world.
This will become evident as I move through some pieces in Isaiah to establish the role of Jesus as Israel, connect the disciples to a lament in Isaiah 49, followed by the obvious models of service by the first deacons who excelled the disciples in modeling Christ, concluding with thoughts on why Jesus’ chose Paul.
The suffering servant songs of Isaiah 42:1–9; 49:1–7; 50:4–9; and 52:13–53:12 all carry the importance of being identified in the NT as portrayals of the coming messiah. I will focus briefly on Isaiah 49 and its ramifications for understanding the relationship of Jesus to his disciples.
It is easily derived from scripture that Jesus fulfills the role of Israel (as in the poem below). This is an important piece of theological reality. Yet, we benefit from Paul’s admonishment in Romans 11:1-10. Paul asserts there is always a remnant who are faithful. Paul uses the metaphor for the nations (gentiles) or peoples who are in Christ to be ‘grafted in’. God has not abandoned Israel but expanded the meaning to be inclusive of all who receive the Messiah who surprisingly is the Lord incarnate. Although the OT is rich with allusions of God joining humanity whether in the richness of God’s appearance in a theophany (human form) or in the need of Job for God to experience the human condition.
I will focus on one aspect of the following suffering servant piece in verse 4.
49 Listen to me, O coastlands;
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born;
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
3 And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord
and my reward with my God.”
The speaker is the suffering servant, in the writing is the voice of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 4 there is a moment in the life of the Lord, when in reflection, he views his life’s work as a failure. I understand that the work specifically is the effort Jesus put into teaching his disciples; the twelve. For this reason, Jesus seeks out a man who will do what the disciples cannot. If you will let your thought consider the many failures of the disciples in relation to understanding Jesus’ teaching you will be busy for a while. This group of uneducated men (who Jesus surely taught to read as part of his work) constantly failed to understand Jesus’ teaching. Only John the lover showed up at the crucifixion. John is not an intellectual, his writings reflect the character of a man who did grasp one thing clearly ‘God is love’. John is a community builder, but Paul is a world changer.
Jesus’ needed a global denizen, a cross cultural, well-traveled, multilingual, intellectual with a zeal born of gratefulness for the grace that became the driving conscience of his obedience to the Lord’s calling. The intellectual pursuit of Paul for understanding his revelation of Christ Jesus is first developed over a three-year period in Arabia. It took awhile for Paul to assimilate his knowledge of scripture in the light of the revelation of Christ he received.
Galatians 1: 11,12
For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
I entertain the thought that Jesus’ disappointment in his disciples and their lack of understanding led to Jesus (whose life was cut short see Isaiah 53:8c,d) to choose Paul. In Paul, Jesus finds his, if you will, replacement. Jesus’ life was cut short, and he needed a man to do what the disciples could not. Paul understands his status as an apostle to be validated by his sufferings. Paul understands his revelation of Christ to be validated by his conviction lived out for all the world to see.
Interestingly in the early chapters of Acts, two deacons willing to serve widows surpass the disciples who are too important and have no time for widows. Their excuse is a need to study, yet they have just spent three years with Jesus. First is Stephen the first Christian martyr whose sermon is the longest of all recorded sermons in the book of Acts. Stephen sees the risen Lord standing rather than sitting at the right hand of God as Jesus rises to honor the first Christian martyr. Phillip is so caught up in the Spirit he is led to influential people to teach Jesus from the OT. In particular, the instance with the Ethiopian eunuch; an educated man sent as an envoy to learn the Hebrew’s writings.
Paul, appropriates Isaiah 49:6 to be descriptive of his ministry, of the words he had just spoken (see Acts 13:44-47). He includes Barnabus who is with him. Paul is continuing the work of the suffering servant, the Messiah, and Isaiah 49:6 is inclusive of Pual.
Jesus needed an educated, world traveler, a multilingual, global denizen whose intellect would match his revelation in both thought and everyday living.
