A testimony anchored in Isaiah 61
I have spent five years in a fearful captivity; one that crushed my soul to its core. My dearest joys were taken away, my dreams died, and every door of escape was barred against me. So, I did what all prisoners do, I counted time…endless time. I stopped living, I just survived. But God does not despise his prisoner: for Immanuel came to me in my sorrow, and lifted me from my despair. I write this to tell of what passed between he and I in the dark. Below are seven observations from my own encounter with Immanuel, and from the description of his working in Isaiah 61. May it whet your appetite, that you may seek him too.
- Immanuel has exclusive power to apply the gospel to my sin-oppressed soul. We have a diabolical tendency within our flesh to reduce the gospel until it can be completely contained and understood in human systems. But the true gospel is too big to ever be confined into our little systems. In fact, it can only be contained within the infinite person of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Our efforts at reduction effectively divorced the gospel from Him, making it a mere set of true doctrines and specific responses that can fit in a little pamphlet. But doctrines and works could not cure my broken spirit. I was too crushed by my own sin, the sins of others against me, and the sin-cursed world to find my way out. I binge read a significant portion of Christianity’s literary wealth, but there was no effect. But when I saw Immanuel with eyes of faith, true renewal began. When the doctrines were the sword coming from his own mouth, they truly were the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is not about Jesus Christ, it is Jesus Christ. And when I saw the gospel in his face, my heart leapt for joy.
- Immanuel’s gospel reaches to the very depths of my personality, and bestows my heavenly inheritance upon me from the inside out. That three-edged sword of sin not only affected my outward circumstances and my actions, it warped my very personality. I was in constant mourning, my inheritance as a child of God was far from me, and I suffered at the hands of my oppressors. I was chained by pathologies that I could not break. And at the core of my being, my heart was broken. Unfortunately, our Christ-less systems only treat the outer symptoms, not the inner problems; effectively becoming nothing more than “stop mourning.” But the spiritualized self-help slogans we plagiarize from the worldlings could not help me. I couldn’t get back on the horse, I couldn’t forget the past, I couldn’t believe and receive. Believe me, I tried. Our systems could only show me the way to Zion, but how was I to get there when I was bleeding, chained, and in the hands of my enemies? But when Immanuel applied his gospel to my soul, he started from the inside, and worked his way out. He bound up the broken pieces of my heart and made it whole again. He broke the chains of fear that had kept me bound. He restored my lost inheritance in Christ, taking back what I had lost and what others had stolen. Then, after restoring my personality to what he made it to be, he came and comforted me in my mourning. Immanuel did not show me the way to Zion, he picked up my ruined soul and led me there with his own hand.
- Immanuel has a personalized blessing with which to replace all the specific needs of my ruined soul. I never fit into our Christian systems, and I suspect I am not the only one. All of the one size fits most strategies and blessings never really did anything for me. I figured there must just be something wrong with me. I was right…everything was wrong with me. Sin had destroyed my soul in hauntingly specific ways. Even after He healed my soul, I was still lacking so many things from my long captivity to sin: important things, specific things. The problem is that our systems, however true, are as limited as we are. They cannot possibly contain the wherewithal to fill all of the gaping holes of my soul. But in my Immanuel dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily. And out of the vast reservoir of his person, he personally ordains and personally bestows blessings deliberately crafted for my ravaged soul. He gives me a beautiful headdress to replace the ashes which covered my dejected head. He who knows intimately what makes me mourn bestows what he knows will make me glad. He who carried me when I was too weary to walk knows just how to dress me when he has strengthened me. My captivity was a hidden one, and so was my restoration: for the things that brought me low and the things that lift me up were known only to God. Only Immanuel himself could bless me so.
- My sanctification is not my own; it is Immanuel’s great triumph. Truly, it is an amazing work that he did in my soul. If only you could see how he took my sin-cursed soul and made it something that grows up in him into all righteousness. After such an amazing work, one might expect me to come up with a new system of sanctification so others may follow in my footsteps. Perhaps I should give lectures on my walk with God, and how you can emulate it! I will not do so for one simple reason: you would be sorely disappointed. I have no special method, and if you could see the reality of my walk with God, you would be as horrified by it as I am. No, what God has done in my life and what he continues to do is his great work. Immanuel did it. He didn’t show me how and let me take it from there, he worked in me both to will and to do of his good pleasure. I am an oak of righteousness, a planting of Jehovah! The glory is not mine; it is his. He planted, he watered, he gave the increase, and he included me in his mighty vineyard that principalities and powers wonder at. Even if a man could show me the definitively perfect method of sanctification, I would never be able to do it. No, Immanuel must do it, and I will throw myself on him.
- The work Immanuel does in my soul is a central part of his universal purpose. Even as a child, I always wanted to change the world. I think on a grand scale, and nothing excites me more than being able to participate in a great purpose: even if my own contribution is small. We all think that way to one degree or another. Listen to me, and I will tell you a great secret, for I know how Immanuel advances his Kingdom. He advances it by his working in your soul. Verses 4-11 detail the mighty things that God will accomplish through renewed Israelites when he establishes his kingdom in its fullness. Just think, healing the broken heart of one timid Christian is his ordained method to shake heaven and earth. His great work is accomplished not through politics, church programs, missions’ strategies, or any of our earthly means; but by what he has done in my soul, and what he wants to do in yours. He sets the world aflame by lighting a fire in the hearts of his people, then losing them amongst the standing corn of this world. Mourners in Zion, hear me! do you want to see the glory of God spread? Do you want to see his gospel reach to the farthest shores? Do you want to see revival? Then seek the face of Immanuel, and your face will shine as Moses, reflecting Immanuel’s gospel throughout the world.
- The joy Immanuel brings is deeper and more pervasive than the pathologies of my ruined soul. As stated above, sin’s oppression changed me to the core of my being. Joy? That was a thing unknown. Oh, I could laugh and act happy to put you all at ease, and I could even find some real joys at times, but those were only skin deep. Beneath all attempts at joy were a deep set of pathologies that never really went away. They were the poisonous root in the depths of my soul that would quietly but efficiently contaminate the most joyous moments of life. But when Immanuel comes to the soul, he fills it with joy unspeakable, and full of glory! The joy spoken of in verse 10 is an intense explosion of joy that defies rational explanation. It is a joy that comes from the depths of the soul. This implanted joy is a reversal of my old adamic nature. Now, there is a reservoir of joy in the very depths of my soul that quietly but efficiently mollifies even the greatest sorrows of this earthly pilgrimage. Systems can list reasons to be joyful, but Immanuel can implant his joy into your soul so that it becomes a part of your core personality, replacing the pathologies of the past. I never thought this joy was possible, until I found it in Immanuel
- When I am clothed in Immanuel’s gospel, I really become an object of unique beauty to him. Christians are supposed to be Christlike, and our Christian systems have set before us an image of exactly how that should look. This image shapes our imagination of Christlikeness, and our corresponding ambitions. This is a problem for me, because I don’t look like what the systems say I should, and I never will. I always knew this, even when I couldn’t put it into words. I hated what God made me to be, because it forced me into choosing between two undesirable options. I could be myself and be despised my all (including myself), or I could make myself look like the picture our systems paint, and live a perpetual lie. But Immanuel showed me a better way. He dresses me in his garments of salvation and robes of righteousness. That’s it. The profound truth is that when I am dressed in his garments, he sees me as a bride on her wedding day. Our systems tell us that God plays little mind games with himself to convince himself to see us as beautiful when we really aren’t because of abstract theological reasons. But the reality is that when I am dressed in Immanuel’s gospel, God views me as beautiful because I really am beautiful. I will never need any other dress than this, for nothing in the vast wardrobe of Christian systems can compare with this. I am beautiful in ways you can never be, for the application of his righteousness and salvation to my personal sin and slavery creates a combination that displays his glory in unique ways. We are all rough and distorted stones, but when his light shines through us, it creates a prismatic effect that cannot be replicated in any other. I know this is so intellectually from scripture, but I know it in my bones because I have seen it in the eyes of my Beloved. Oh, how I long to be always so dressed, for I know that no one can display Immanuel’s beauty is just the same way I can. Look to Immanuel for dress, and look to his loving eyes for affirmation, and your soul will wonder that such beauty could exist.
