65:1
Some Christians place an awful lot of emphasis on human choice. In one sense at least, the Bible is far less prone to do this. “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me”. There was choice here. God sought them out, they did not seek God out. Indeed, God was found by those who weren’t seeking. “To a nation that did not call ..”. God announced Himself, He was not invited! And thank goodness that God does this, otherwise there would be no hope for any of us. At the same time we should remember that we all have human responsibility. How does this all work together? I haven’t got a clue, but I know that God’s sovereignty and human responsibility do go together. A key concept is that “human responsibility” is a far better way of looking at Scripture than “human freewill” or “human autonomy”. With either of the latter two concepts we are almost certainly going to go in the wrong direction, for it puts man first. “Human responsibility” deals with our responsibility towards God, it puts God first, and is therefore more likely to lead us in the right direction.
65:2
God had held out His hands to Israel, an obstinate nation. Their ways were not good, and they pursued their own imaginations. Now what have we got here? It is a foretelling of the gospel going out to the Gentile nations (ie everyone except Israel), but we need to remember that this is not the end of the story, just another (long) section in it. We can also say that our own nations are “pursuing their own imaginations”.
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