My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
HERALD OF GOOD NEWS
Isaiah 41:27 I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!” and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.
In the 41st chapter of his book, Isaiah is declaring the “I wills” of God, and by the time we get to verse 27, he has provided numerous promises of the future actions of God to the nation of Israel to be comforted by.
For our verse this morning, the “I will” of God is no longer a future promise but a present action, in that God gives to the nation, by using the capital city as it’s descriptor, a herald of good news.
The context demands this is Cyrus, the king of the Medo-Persians that would conquer Babylon, release the captives and assist those who sought to go home to the promised land.
Good news indeed!
Many of the captives took advantage of this great turn of events, yet not all. Some provided support for those leaving the Babylonian/Medo-Persian lands. Some stayed behind, continuing to live in the land they were taken captive to.
But all were provided the good news as Cyrus entered the vanquished city and eventually granted all the Jewish captives freedom.
Now I realize this series is on the Names of God, but the typology of Cyrus is ridiculous. He is in many ways become – for the time being – one of my favorite types in the Old Testament, providing a picture of the Lord Jesus. For some typological discussions on Cyrus, check out the 13 posts regarding Cyrus in the Jesus in the Old Testament series on this blog. We started with Jesus in the Old Testament – Cyrus – 01
Isaiah spoke of the HERALD OF GOOD NEWS, and the immediate reference was Cyrus, but we know in hindsight that Jesus is the greatest HERALD OF GOOD NEWS, and not only did He HERALD/PREACH the good news, He is the good news.
He is the HERALD OF GOOD NEWS.
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
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