Listen and Wake Up! (3): Fear Not the Reproach of Men! (Isaiah 51:7-8) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. The Beautiful Address
II. The Crucial Command
III. The Two Reasons
E. J. Young on Isaiah 51:7: “The profundity of this teaching is not to be overlooked. Men are afraid of many things, mostly of what man can do to them. There is but one way in which such fear can be overcome, and that is to know righteousness and to possess the law in one’s heart. This way, despised by men, is nevertheless the only way to true security; and those who possess it need not fear the rebukes and reproaches that an unbelieving world and church may heap upon them.”
John Calvin on Isaiah 51:8: “Because salvation is founded on the goodness of God, Isaiah reminds us of it, that men may be reduced to nothing, and that confidence may be placed in God alone. The meaning may be thus summed up, ‘Salvation is in God, that by it he may preserve, not himself, but us; righteousness is in God, that he may display it for our defence and preservation.’ Accordingly, from the eternity of God’s ‘salvation and righteousness’ we ought to infer that the servants of God cannot possibly perish ... Thus we see how he applies this eternity to the children of God, who do not subsist in themselves, but in God, and have the foundation of their salvation in him.”