The prophet Isaiah was God's voice to Judah in the 8th century BC. Isaiah saw God (Isa 6:1), so Isaiah had a somewhat more personal and clearer perspective on God than many. It's interesting, then, that some of the most startling statements about God come from Isaiah's book.
Isaiah didn't believe in salvation by works. He believed, instead, in God's wrath ... and mercy. He wrote, "I will give thanks to You, O LORD, for though You were angry with me, Your anger turned away, that You might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation" (Isa 12:1-2). Further, Isaiah was a firm believer in the Suffering Servant Messiah. Any Jewish reader can see Jesus in Isaiah 53 with statements like, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa 53:3-6).
Even more striking is Isaiah's strong statements on the sovereignty of God. He quotes God as saying, "I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides Me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know Me" (Isa 45:5). God goes on to say, "I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things" (Isa 45:7). That may not be consistent with our popular perception, but God says it. God says, "Woe to him who strives with Him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, 'What are you making?' or 'Your work has no handles'?" (Isa 45:9). No, God, but we do. God repeatedly says, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me" (Isa 43:10-12; 44:6; 45:5; 46:9) followed with things like, "declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose'" (Isa 46:10). That's sovereignty, absolute and unassailable.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing (to our ears) attributes of God is found in the interaction God had with Isaiah after Isaiah repented of being a man of unclean lips (Isa 6:5-7). God asked, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" and Isaiah answered, "Here am I! Send me" (Isa 6:8). So God commissioned him to tell His people, "'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed" (Isa 6:9-10). "How long?" Isaiah asked (Isa 6:11) and God, essentially, told him "Until the end." That was God's plan. That was God's intent. Success for Isaiah's mission would be that he told them and they did not listen. John understood this text to say that God blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts "lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them" (John 12:39-40).
We're often ready and willing to speak for God. We're often misinformed when we do. Isaiah was God's mouthpiece to the people of his day and he had a different vision of God than most of us. God sent His Son to die for us. Sure, we like that. But in Isaiah's view God is thoroughly sovereign in all things even to not saving some. And he thought that was a good thing.
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