Just like the song says, “Be specific for reality / And be done with generality / if we’ll just apply Him, we will see / He’s everything to us” – Christ in Isaiah is so much, but we can experience Him so specifically for our present situation, our specific need! He’s our drink, He is Emmanuel, He is the shoot of David, He is a branch from the root of Jesse, He is the foundation stone, He is the corner stone, He’s a peg driven into a sure place – and on Him we all hang as vesels, Christ is the Steward in the Father’s house, He’s the one who holds the key of David, etc. In any kind of situation, we can come to Him and enjoy Him & experience Him as the One who meets our need and God’s need. And besides all these, He is so much more. Here’s what Isa. 32:1-2 says,
Indeed a King will reign according to righteousness, and the rulers will rule according to justice. And a man will be like a refuge from the wind and a covering from the tempest, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shadow of a massive rock in a wasted land.
Here we see some more specific items that Christ is to His people:
- Christ as Jehovah and also a man is a King for supplying, caring for, and covering God’s people! On the one hand, He is the King ruling over His people in righteousness, and on the other hand, He is a man protecting, covering, supplying, and overshadowing! He is a glorious King, but also a lowly man – so human and lowly, approachable.
- Christ is a King reigning in Righteousness and ruling through His rulers in justice – He judges His people according to justice. There’s no righteousness among men today, and there is very little justice being done by the rulers today. But when Christ exercises His judgement, it brings in justice! Christ brings in justice on the earth!
- Christ as a Man-King is also a refuge for us from the wind! There are many things that happen in our life that are like a “wind”, testing us and trying to shake us. In the family life, work life, social life, and even in the church life, there is “wind” blowing – so we personally and corporately need to take Christ as our refuge from the wind. Run to Christ as the best refuge when the wind blows, and you will be protected!
- Christ as a man is a covering from the tempest – the tempest is much stronger and more troublesome than the wind, and it is harder to face. There’s inward and outward turmoils & storms, not-so-pleasant-things that happen to us and around us – but we can run to the man Jesus to be covered! When we are in Him, when we turn to Him to specifically experience Him as such a One, Christ as a Man is our covering from any turmoil or tempest – nothing can bother us or trouble us!
- Christ as a Man is also streams of water in a dry place! The human life is so dry without the Lord. It’s almost as if our job, our married life, our family life, our relationships, our chores and the things we need to take care of – are designed in such a way to leave us “DRY”. In these dry places, when we become dry in our situation, we can come to the Lord to “take a cup of Jesus” – take a drink from the Lord! These streams of water are our supply, comfort, and satisfaction – and there are STREAMS(many streams) of water for us to drink!
- Christ is the shadow of a massive rock in a wasted land – He is the real air conditioning when it’s so hot and dry. A wasted land – implies that the land was touched/made waste by someone / some people / something. The world is like a wasted land, and as we walk through it, there’s nothing there but the scorching sun, lots of hot sand, and a wasted land in front of us. But when we come to Christ, He’s the canopy that covers us – As the man Jesus, Christ is our real air conditioning, overshadowing us and cooling us down… Wonderful!
What a wonderful Christ we have! Christ as a man is our King and our refuge, He is our covering and our streams of water, and He is our shadow in a wasted land…. He is indeed so practical, available, and ready to meet our need in our daily life. Lord, we want learn to experience You as such a One. We want to come to You, Lord, in the midst of all our situations, to take You as the One who meets all our needs! [enjoyment from the life-study of Isaiah, as quoted in the Crystallization-study of Isaiah(1)]
