Declare and bring [them] near; yea, let them take counsel together who hath caused this to be heard from ancient time? [who] hath declared it long ago? Is it not I, Jehovah? And there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour, there is none besides me.
Here God speaks in the middle of a contest with the nations and their helpless idols. He points to prophecy as His evidence, then calls Himself both just and Saviour — which raises one question: how can the God who judges sin also save sinners?
The call goes out to survivors, and to people whose gods have already failed them.
Not only Israel is in view but Gentiles also, as verse 20 shows. The call is to those who have "escaped of the nations." This shows that judgment will fall on the nations. Only those who escape it will enter the blessing God promises, just as only the remnant of Israel will be saved. The nations had been full of idolatry, praying to "a god that cannot save," so they are called, that they may know a God who can save.
The question "Who declared it of old?" is not rhetoric. It is God offering proof no rival can match.
The passage contrasts Israel's God with the idols of the nations. The one great proof it brings forward is that the God of Israel has the power to predict future events. God says all this to encourage the faithful remnant of Israel to trust in Him.
The heart of the verse is one title made of two claims that pull against each other. Older translations read "a just God and a Saviour," where ESV has "a righteous God and a Savior."
God is presented as the only God – "A just God and a Saviour" – One who deals in righteousness with sins, and yet can save the sinner.
Isaiah states it; he does not say how. One writer presses the difficulty and points to where God settled it.
How is God to be a just God and a Saviour? The cross of Christ is the sole answer to that. There God executed righteousness. There sin came under His unsparing judgment. There He showed how He hates sin… God has carried out judgment, righteousness is complete, and God has been glorified. He has also glorified the One who submitted to that judgment. Now God can take the place of a just God and a Saviour.
The wording looks ahead to Romans 3, where God stays righteous in the very act of acquitting the guilty.
Verses 21-25 furnish a remarkable forecast of the Gospel, as it is unfolded in Romans 3. Against the dark background of idolatry the Lord presents Himself as "a just God and a Saviour." The law had revealed Him to Israel as a just God who judges all their ways. Only in the Gospel is He declared to be God, who saves in righteousness. Christ has been "put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith … to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
Isaiah never uses the word faith here, yet the call that follows names the way to be saved. (Writers quote it as "Look to Me"; ESV reads "Turn to me and be saved.")
Justice and salvation come together here, and faith is indicated too, though the word is never used. God states how this salvation becomes effective: "Look to Me." No works of law are demanded, only the look of faith. In an emergency we always look to someone we believe in, and so to someone we trust.
The phrase is not a passing remark. It repeats through these chapters until Israel herself can testify to it.
Over and over again the Holy Spirit repeats this all-important fact in chapters 43 to 46. No less than ten times it comes with force: There is none else! Israel's God is the only God! He "created" Jacob! He "formed" the nation! She would "deal treacherously" like her father, and "from before birth" she "was called a rebel" — yet He "redeemed" her! Yes, He "called" her by her name; "you are Mine!" She can therefore witness not only against idols, but to the only God.
The verse describes God, not the believer. Assurance therefore rests on what God is, not on what we find in ourselves.
Just grant me this: God has revealed Himself as a Saviour. From that I argue, with clear confidence and holy boldness, that I am, and must be, perfectly saved. It does not rest on anything in me, but simply and entirely on God's revelation of Himself. I know He is perfect in everything; and therefore perfect as my Saviour.
- Challenge. God calls in the survivors of the nations and asks who foretold the future — a question only He can answer.
- Proof. His proof is prediction. He alone tells what will happen before it happens.
- Title. The title holds two claims at once: He deals in righteousness with sins, and still saves the sinner.
- Cross. At the cross God judged sin and accomplished righteousness, so He can save without ceasing to be just.
- Look. No works are asked, only the look of trust — and there is no other God to look to.
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth for I [am] God, and there is none else.
After mocking the idols that people pray to, God turns and speaks to the whole human race. The command is one word — older translations render it "Look to Me" — and the reason for it is not the sinner's fitness but God's uniqueness: there is no other God, and so no other Saviour.
So who is being called? The answer reaches past Israel, and it comes with a warning.
Not only Israel is in view but Gentiles also, as verse 20 shows. The call goes to those who have escaped from the nations. This shows that judgment will fall on the nations. Only those who escape it will enter the promised blessing, just as only the remnant of Israel will be saved. The nations had been full of idolatry, praying to "a god that cannot save." God calls them so that they may know a God who can save.
In verse 21 God gives Himself a double title. The two halves look like opposites.
The passage presents God as the only God — "A just God and a Saviour" — One who deals in righteousness with sins, and yet can save the sinner.
The New Testament shows how He does both.
Verses 21-25 give a remarkable forecast of the Gospel, as Romans 3 unfolds it. The law had revealed Him to Israel as a just God who judges all their ways. Only the Gospel declares Him to be God, who saves in righteousness.
No prophet or teacher could stand where this verse puts God. That is why Paul's answer to the frightened jailer in Philippi, who asked what he must do to be saved, matters so much.
Suppose Paul had said, Believe in Adam, or Abraham, or Moses, or John the Baptist. What a mocker of the man's misery he would have been. Or suppose he had said, since he was a greater man than them all, Believe on me and you shall be saved. Would not the soul and conscience of the jailer have revolted against the outrage? … The whole gospel of God was involved in that answer. It put that seeking sinner into contact with Him who long ago had said, "Look to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth."
The word points back to the bronze serpent lifted on a pole in the wilderness. Dying Israelites were told to look at it and live.
The Israelite was not told to look at his wound, though it was the sense of his wound that made him look. The dead sinner is not told to look at his sins, though it is the sense of his sins that will make him look. It was not the way he looked, but the object he looked at, that healed the Israelite. It is not the way he looks, but the object he looks at, that saves the sinner.
Yet a glance of curiosity is not what the word means.
We may be so helpless that we can come only in a look. But not a mere look at Christ: men may look at Christ, and look long, and look with belief of a sort, and look with admiration, and find no salvation in all this. It is different when Christ is the need — the absolute need. Then the dying soul pours itself out at the eyes to find the Saviour, and that look pierces the clouds and darkness that seem to surround Him. This is "coming." It is the might of weakness laying hold of almighty strength.
God attaches His promise to the look, not to the feelings that follow. So assurance rests on what He said.
"Look to Me and be saved" are the Lord's own words. From the first moment that the eye looks to Christ as the Saviour, the soul is beyond all question saved. It may not believe it; it may be judging its state by its feelings; it may be miserable, even on the brink of despair. But the word of God must always be true, despite all that… Our unbelief cannot make the word of God untrue, but it hinders our enjoyment of Christ and salvation.
The chapter promises salvation to Israel first. Then the call widens.
"Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation" (v. 17). This would be for their nation, and it would be found "in the Lord"… So Israel was left with Him alone for salvation. But there followed a world-wide invitation… The world too is left with Him alone.
- None else. The idols people pray to cannot save. The call goes out to those praying to them, so they may know a God who can.
- Just and Saviour. He judges sin in righteousness, and He still saves the sinner. That is the gospel, forecast long before it came.
- Look, don't work. Like the bitten Israelite told to look at the pole, the sinner is not told to study his wound. The healing is in the object, not in the quality of the glance.
- One look. From the first moment the eye turns to Christ, the soul is saved; unbelief can spoil the joy of it, but not the truth of it.
- Ends of the earth. The invitation starts with Israel and stops nowhere — the whole world is shut up to this one Saviour.