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.
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in] righteousness and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
At the end of Isaiah 45, God sets Himself against every idol and calls the whole earth to turn to Him. He seals that call with an oath on His own name, so the question is not whether people will bow, but when.
God speaks these words as a decree, not a hope. One writer sets them beside the invitation just before: refuse the call, and the day still comes when you must own God's rights.
If man will not look to God and be saved, the warning stands: the time is coming when judgment will compel him to own the rights of God. The word has gone out from God's mouth in righteousness, and God will not recall it: "To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance."
The order in the chapter matters. Grace speaks first: the invitation comes, and the sworn declaration follows.
Unlike idols, the LORD alone is God: "There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me." After that statement, verse 22 gives the universal invitation of grace: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth." Then comes the solemn declaration, backed by a divine oath: "To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance." That is, the LORD, the Creator-God, has decreed it.
The New Testament applies this oath to Christ. Two things then become clear that the prophet's words alone would not have told us.
Turning now to Philippians 2, we find these words applied to the One who humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Two notable explanations are added there, and no one could have discovered them unless God had given them. The first is that "every knee" applies to all in heaven, to all on earth, and to all under the earth. That means every intelligent being, whether in heaven, on earth, or in hell — all demons, as well as all angels, saints, and men. Secondly, "every tongue shall swear allegiance" means the confession, to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus is Lord. All alike own the exaltation of Jesus as Lord, and the name given to Him which is above every name, because of His death on the cross.
after
In Isaiah the LORD says the knee will bow to Him. When the New Testament quotes the verse, the "me" is Christ.
When the prophet Isaiah refers to this time, he says, "I am God, and there is no other... To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance." But when an apostle brings it before us, he applies it to Christ. That is another example of Scripture's teaching on the deity of the Son. He says, "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." To prove it, he quotes this passage from Isaiah: "For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God."
The chapter closes with Israel justified and glorying in the LORD. The bowing knee reaches further than Israel.
Our prophet widens the salvation in these closing verses: "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth." The next verse adds, "To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance." This extends beyond "all the offspring of Israel who shall be justified and shall glory in the LORD."
The verse does not speak of a crowd. It counts each person one by one, including those who refuse Him now.
I am writing in a Muslim land. All around me are people who put the name "Mohammed" above the Name JESUS. They will not bow to that worthy Name, because they will not acknowledge Him as GOD. But the day is coming when every one of them will bow the knee, because of the Name JESUS... Notice, it does not lump them together and say "all the knees shall bow." It looks at them each individually, "every knee shall bow."
Since God has fixed the outcome, only the manner is still open. One writer puts it to the reader directly.
Yes, dear reader, willingly or unwillingly, your knee must bow with the rest, and your tongue must confess. But how dreadful the thought! The iron rod of judgment would force you, however unwilling, to confess the glories of the Saviour in whom you have no part. It would make you bow to Him whom you once rejected!
And bowing early is not the same as saying the right words early.
To do this now brings blessing for evermore. But this bowing to Christ must not be merely an outward profession; there must be a bowing of the heart.
- Sworn — God backs this by an oath on Himself; the word has gone out in righteousness, and He will not take it back.
- Offered — the decree follows an invitation: turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.
- Named — what the LORD claims for Himself here, the New Testament applies to Jesus, which is a witness to the deity of the Son.
- Universal — every knee means beings in heaven, on earth and under the earth, counted one by one, not lumped together.
- Timed — the only open question is willingly now, or under judgment then.