Isaiah 61 – The Good Year Of The Lord’s Favor
The WWII Prison Camp At Dachau, Germany
In WWII, the Nazis imprisoned many Jews in concentration camps. One of these was Dachau, outside of Munich. It was a terrible place of decay and death. At the end of the war, there was no coal for heat. There was little food to eat. Disease, starvation, and cruel treatment were rampant. Corpses stacked up and were not even buried. More than 180,000 prisoners died there.
In the last days before the allied armies arrived, some prisoners attempted to revolt. They were shot. Hope was fading that they would even live long enough to be set free.
Finally, the day of freedom arrived. Allied soldiers came with tanks into the camp. They brought a message of good news. The prisoners were free!
Imagine the relief and joy of the prisoners. It was a new day. Their chains and cells were gone. Anything was possible. One of these survivors, Elly Gotz, would eventually migrate to Toronto and went skydiving in 2017 at the age of 89.
Today we will be studying Isaiah 61, especially the first three verses. In this passage, we will see that the Messiah’s mission is to proclaim liberty, set captives free, and declare God’s favor on any who will receive it.
In this passage, we are the captive and He is the liberator.
Isaiah 61:1-3 – The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
The Big Picture
This is a beautiful passage with so many beautiful thoughts. But before we get into the details of the passage, we need to step back to understand the passage as a whole. What is this chapter about? What is it telling us?
Firstly, this is a prophecy about the Messiah and His mission. The first sentence says that the “Lord God is upon me.” This person was anointed by the Lord. The meaning of “Messiah” is “anointed one.” Meshiach. A form of the word meshiach is used in the phrase “the Lord has anointed me.”
But the strongest evidence that this passage is a prophecy about the Messiah is that Jesus said it was. Jesus quoted this very passage and applied it to Himself. Let’s turn to Luke 4:16-21.
Luke 4:16-21 – And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
This is a very significant passage. Jesus had traveled back to his hometown, Nazareth. His relatives and his old friends would have been around. These were people that were familiar with his family and knew of Him. Later they would say, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”
They had probably heard about many of His miracles and teachings. Now they had a chance to hear from Jesus Himself. Who was He?
Jesus had every chance to deny that He was the Messiah. He didn’t. He simply stood up and read these beautiful verses from Isaiah 61. Then He sat down. All eyes were upon Him.
What was the meaning of this unorthodox Scripture reading? Why was it so short? How would Jesus expound on the Scripture?
Then Jesus calmly says something extremely simple but powerful and profound, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In other words, He says, “That is me.” The Messiah that you have been waiting for is here. It is me. It is now. It is happening. Throughout history, tens of thousands of priests, rabbis, and preachers have stood up and explained the Scriptures. This means this. That means that. This message from Jesus was one-of-a-kind. It was probably the shortest message ever preached but the most powerful.
If you compare the two passages carefully, you will notice that Jesus stopped in the middle of a sentence. He quoted the “good news” part, but He stopped right before the “day of vengeance” part. Why did He do that?
He had fulfilled the first part but not the second part. Jesus’ first coming was about good news and salvation, not judgment. In fact, Jesus even said that He did not come to judge.
John 12:47 – If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.
The prophecy was not wrong. It looks into the future to the coming of the Messiah and looks at all He will do. He would save and He would bring judgment. But He would not do them both at the same time. There would be a time gap between the two. We now clearly understand that Jesus is coming twice. The first time He came as a lamb and the second time He will come as a lion. In our study of Revelation, we saw about the vengeance of God in the last days. We saw that Jesus would come a second time to destroy and judge the wicked.
Jesus stopped in the middle of quoting this passage because He knew there was a time gap between the two.
Prophecy about the Messiah is often like this. That is one reason that some people were looking for a different type of Messiah. They were looking for a powerful political ruler who would come as a war hero.
We can understand prophecies about the Messiah to be like looking at mountain peaks in the distance. If you are approaching two mountain peaks from a distance, you will see them as one if they are aligned. Only when you get to the first one and climb up will you be able to discern that, in reality, there are two peaks with a large valley between.
Isaiah and other prophets were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. They were likely not aware that He would come twice with a large time gap between. Now we are in the valley and it is clear to us that there are two events, one in the past and one in the future.
Jesus had a high respect for Scripture. He did not interpret it in a loose way. He interpreted it carefully and accurately. He quoted it precisely. It reminds us that Scripture is inspired. It has one correct interpretation. We should respect it and strive to handle it accurately as Jesus did.
Coming back to Isaiah 61, that is what we see in this chapter. The first part of the chapter describes Jesus’ mission the first time He came. The second part of the chapter describes what will happen to those who believe His message. Those who listen and follow will be blessed.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He was, in essence, offering the blessing of Isaiah 61 to the nation of Israel. If they received Him, they would receive the joy, the salvation, the blessing, and the double portion offered to them. They rejected Him. Therefore as a group, they did not immediately receive these promises. These were delayed. They remain still future for them.
It is like a father who bought a car for his son. He tells the son, “When you are responsible, I will give you this car.” The son behaves irresponsibly and therefore the father does not give it to him. But neither does he sell it. It is still in his garage. He still has the keys. When the son is ready, he will present it to Him.
The promises are not nullified.
Romans 3:3 – What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?
Around the time of the second coming, these promises will be fulfilled when Israel as a nation accepts Jesus as the Messiah. In the meantime, they can still be fulfilled to some extent individually in the lives of Jew or Gentile who come to Christ now.
So to review.
1. This passage is about the Messiah.
2. Jesus applied it to Himself, claiming to be the Messiah.
3. Jesus fulfilled the first part at His first coming and the second part will be finally fulfilled in the last days.
4. Those who receive Him will receive the blessings in the second part.
5. Those who don’t receive Him will receive the vengeance.
Let’s look at the details of Jesus’ mission.
The Messiah’s Mission
He brings good news to the poor
The Messiah’s mission would be to bring good news. Prophets in the Old Testament were often sent with a dire message of judgment. The people would be punished for their sins. God was not happy with them. They would be conquered and exiled.
It was around 400 years from the time of Malachi to Jesus’ birth. During those 400 years, God was relatively silent. There is no account of prophetic or angelic messages during that time. The next supernatural message given to the Jews is seen in Luke.
Luke 2:10 – And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
To see an angel is a scary thing. What is the angel coming to do? In the Old Testament, an angel killed all of the firstborn in Egypt. Another time, one angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night.
Here God sent His angel to the world. The shepherds would have been terrified, expecting to be killed at any moment. The angel said, “Fear not…I bring you good news.” Wow. What a relief that message would be. God is not coming to destroy. There was no pronouncement of judgment.
Those of you who have kids have likely heard a frequent complaint, “It is not fair.” I often ask my kids, “Do you really want fairness?” Fairness means we keep our sins and their consequences. The flood was fair. The judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah was fair. Jesus, the only perfect man in history, taking our sins on the cross was not fair.
The Messiah wasn’t coming to execute fairness but to bring good news.
What is the good news?
Luke 2:11 – For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The good news is that God sent us a Savior. The entire Old Testament is the bad news. Sin. Death. Judgment. No means of escape. The good news is that God cares. He loves you. He is merciful. He is ready to forgive.
Who is the good news for?
It’s not just for the rich. The magi went to the palace, but Jesus wasn’t there. It is for the poor. It is not a coincidence that the good news of Jesus’ birth was announced to the poor, to shepherds. The good news is not something that you can buy (Isaiah 55). It is for everyone.
Jesus explained further what it means to be poor.
Matthew 5:3-4 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
A person who is poor in spirit is someone who is humble. It is someone who recognizes that he doesn’t have anything spiritually worthwhile to offer the Lord in exchange for entrance. It is someone who recognizes that he is spiritually bankrupt.
John Owen – He that thinks [little] of sin never had great thoughts of God.
The good news is for you if you are poor in spirit. Are you poor in spirit?
One way to evaluate ourselves is to ask how defensive we are. When someone corrects us do we argue? Defend ourselves? Make excuses?
Another way is to consider how judgmental we are. Do we compare ourselves to others favorably? Do we look down on others who do not do the things we do?
Let us pray that God will give us a heart of humility. We are poor. We just need to realize how poor we are.
He binds up the brokenhearted
Here we see the soft and compassionate nature of Christ. Jesus’ ministry was largely to the weak, outcasts of society. Whereas Darwin’s mantra is “survival of the fittest,” Jesus’ would be “love to the feeble. He is the shepherd who goes in search of the one little lamb who goes missing. He then carries that precious lamb back.
• Jesus wept when he saw Lazarus’ family mourning his death. Some are brokenhearted because of death. Jesus sees you. He knows. He cares for you.
• A blind man called out to him for help. The crowd silenced him. But Jesus stopped and helped him. (Luke 18:38). Some are brokenhearted because of chronic illness or pain. Jesus sees you. He can bind you up.
• Simon denied Jesus and wept bitterly. He was surely brokenhearted because of his sin. Jesus spoke tenderly to him and restored him. You may be brokenhearted because of sin or failure. Jesus sees. He is compassionate. He can heal you.
This character quality of Jesus is a very important one for me. By nature, I am not a very compassionate person. When someone falls and gets hurt, my natural reaction would probably be either, “Get up. Brush it off. You are fine,” or “You should have been more careful.”
Thank God that Jesus is not like that. He binds up the brokenhearted. He heals them even when it was their own foolishness which caused it in the first place.
I am learning and need to keep learning how to show compassion to those who are struggling.
Perhaps you are struggling today. Maybe it is loneliness, chronic pain, emotional hurt, raw grief, or shame because of sin.
Know this. The Messiah’s mission statement is you. He is compassionate. He is merciful. He wants what is best for you.
This is the invitation He gives.
Matthew 11:28-30 – Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Maybe the application for you today is to learn compassion for Jesus. Or maybe it is to respond to his invitation and come to him so that He can heal you. He offers not physical medicine but spiritual balm.
He proclaims liberty to captives (and opens the prison to those who are bound)
The Messiah’s mission was to proclaim liberty. This language is taken from the year of Jubilee, which was to be celebrated every fifty years (Leviticus 25:10). Every fifty years, debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, and a proper social order was restored.
The Messiah came to do this on a permanent basis.
But what kind of prison is being talked about? Is it a physical prison?
We can see that Jesus did not free Jerusalem from Roman rule. Sometimes He freed the wrongfully imprisoned. Peter was miraculously freed from prison. He was chained up between two guards, but an angel escorted him from the prison-like the chains and walls were nothing.
But He didn’t always set the prisoner free. John the Baptist, Jesus’ own cousin, remained imprisoned and was martyred there.
The liberty is a spiritual liberty, not a physical one. Jesus Himself said, “Render to Caeser the things that are Caeser’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
The people were slaves of the law. They were burdened with so many traditions which weighed on them like a heavy load. It wasn’t only the law. They were slaves of sin.
There are many different types of chains that bind people.
• Pharisees and the “good Jew”
• Romans (pantheistic)
• Hindu hook rituals and prostitute temple workers
• Monks in Tibet
• Amazonian tribes
• “Enlightened” and educated man
• Mr. Moneybags
• Mrs. Shopper
• Mr. Good Times (Sex)
• Mr. Anger
• Mrs. Fear
• The “good Christian”
What about YOU? Are you living in chains to something? Perhaps an addiction, a form of idolatry, or a sin that you can’t shake.
Jesus came to bring good news. He came to set you free. He can break those chains if you come to Him.
Colossians 1:13-14 – He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
John 8:36 – So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Illustration – There are countless stories of people who lived in darkness and are set free by the Son into the light. One is the story of Nicky Cruz. He was one of nineteen children born in Puerto Rico to parents who practiced witchcraft. As a child, he was regularly beaten and attempted suicide at age nine. His mother declared him to be the “son of Satan.” At 15 years old, his parents made him move to New York City. He was filled with rage and soon joined a violent gang called the Mau Maus. Within a year, he became their warlord enforcer.
His life was filled with violence and alcohol. His best friend, Manny, was killed by stabbing and died in his arms. Nicky was arrested many times and judges felt his future was hopeless.
But Jesus came to set the prisoners free. David Wilkerson was a preacher whom God sent into the inner city of New York. Through his preaching and love, Nicky was touched.
Nicky describes his transformation as having been admitted to a Holy Ghost hospital. Lying there, Jesus walked to his side, opens Nicky’s chest, takes out his heart and puts it to his lips to kiss it. The Lord then placed the transformed heart back into his chest and raises him up as a brand new creation.”
In the decades since, Cruz has been a follower of Jesus. He is out of the prison of anger, hate, gang, and alcohol. He preaches the good news to others so they can be set free as he was.
You can watch this story unfold in the movie The Cross and the Switchblade.
If you have been set free, tell your testimony! If you still are in chains, come to Jesus. Tell Him you want the freedom He gives.
He proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor
In the historical context, Isaiah was speaking to people who had been afflicted with suffering from the Babylonian exile. It had been a tough time, to say the least. Isaiah shares with them the good news of an anointed one, the Messiah, who will proclaim God’s blessings.
When Jesus came and fulfilled these words, it was also a challenging time for Judah. They were now subjects of Rome. Rome occupied their cities, taxed them, punished dissenters, and ruled with a firm grip.
Into this context, Jesus came and proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor.
We see this good news even at the announcement of the birth of Christ.
Luke 2:14 – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
God chose to extend favor to the world by an act of will. The word “pleased” means that He purposed to do this.
Jesus came to bring in a new era, an era of grace. He came to fix the problem of sin. He came to restore those cursed by the fall to himself. He came to seek after the lost, to forgive sins, to shine the light, and to reveal the love of God.
We are now living in this “year of favor.” It is often called the “age of grace.” This period of history is typified by the Lord’s patience and kindness with us. Verses 3-11 describe what this year of favor is like.
Again, Israel as a nation hasn’t yet experienced this because they did not receive what was offered. One day, they will.
However, any individual who comes to the Lord can receive many of the blessings described.
Isaiah 61:3-11 – To grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
and in their glory you shall boast.
Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
they shall have everlasting joy.
For I the Lord love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.
Conclusion
Let’s make this personal. Are you experiencing the year of the Lord’s favor? Do you feel that your life is being blessed by God? Or do you feel that you are cursed, that everything is against you, that there is no joy or peace?
God’s favor is available for all. But not all receive it. To live in God’s favor, you need to have a close relationship with God. The closer you get to God, the more joy and peace you have. To put it simply, the more blessed your life. Going farther from God means less joy, less peace, more sin, etc.
So then, the Lord’s favor means that we have a way to get close to God. That is through Christ.
John 14:6 – Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father [no one receives the Father’s favor] apart from Him.
At the beginning of this sharing, we saw that Jesus quoted this passage from Isaiah 61 and in front of an entire synagogue in His hometown declared that He was the fulfillment of this prophesy. Jesus proclaimed liberty to them. He offered to set them free from the bondage of sin. He proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor.
But we didn’t look at the conclusion. How did they respond?
Luke 4:28-30 – When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.
They tried to kill Him. They rejected Him and His message. He was the way to the Father and to the divine blessings the Father had in store for them. They didn’t come through Him so they couldn’t receive His blessings.
This tells us that we have a choice. He offers liberty. He offers to break our chains. He offers a life filled with favor: joy, blessings, productivity, meaning, stability, and security.
These are all available, but you must place your faith in Him.
Isaiah 55:6-7 – “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Seek the Lord while He may be found. Come to Him and He will welcome you. It is called the “year” of the Lord’s favor, implying that the offer is not available forever. Today He is calling you.
Come. Receive healing for your broken heart. Receive freedom. Receive the Lord’s favor. He can do all of this for you. He has the answers. Come to Him and receive.
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