Isaiah 40: A Thematic Analysis

tired or weary” (vv. 28). Similar to Genesis 1, the text of Isaiah 40 uses ‘create’ a number of times. Isaiah reflects God as the Creator, but also as the Lord and King, powerful and strong, who protects His creation, and who gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak (vs. 29). Wilkinson says that Isaiah 40 is written to people who felt God betrayed them and question if they can trust God again (195). Wilkinson goes on to say that God has power over the cosmos, the nations, our imagination and that His creation can trust Him (199).

The Latter Prophets also reveal the theme of new creation. In Isaiah 65, the Sovereign Lord says that He will create the new heavens and a new earth (vs. 17a) and that the former things will

Mark 10: 6 records, “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” The theme of the Creator God’s continuing concern for His creation continues in the Gospel. During His ministry, Jesus shows great compassion towards all humans – the blind, the lame, the rich or poor. Not just humans, Jesus’ care and concern are extended to the birds, the lilies, and the grass of the field (Mt. 6: 25 ff). God does not forget even one sparrow (Lk. 12: 6). He is the God from the beginning and who lives among His creation and give new life.

Mark and Luke record a historical event where Jesus and His disciples were on a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee (Mk. 4: 35-41; Lk. 8: 22-25). A furious squall came and they were about to drown but Jesus calmed the storm. Jesus saved the disciples. The disciples were amazed and exclaimed a historic statement about Jesus, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him” (Lk. 8: 25b). The disciples see Jesus as God who has control over creation and who non-human creation obeys. Childs comments that in here God’s creative activity is depicted in Jesus’ power (Biblical Theology 392). Wilkinson also says that “Jesus is God himself as human form with God’s freedom to exercise his power over the wind and the waves” (123). The God who has control over creation in the OT now is applied to Jesus in the

21: 1). He continues to say that he saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God (vs. 2). In the vision, John heard that a loud voice was saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev. 21: 3). The new Jerusalem John saw in his vision in the book of Revelation is much like the one in the Old Testament (Ps. 122; Jer. 3: 17; Zech. 8: 3-8). The old becomes the new. Wilkinson says that “the risen Jesus is the beginning of the new creation” (261). Goldsworthy also asserts, “The new creation is first and foremost found in Jesus Christ whose life, death and resurrection are the redemptive means of that which belongs initially to Christ becoming also the possession of all God’s people” (Goldsworthy 169). However, Christopher C. Rowland says that “the new creation is not merely something to look forward to. In Christ there is already the possibility, in the power of God’s Spirit, to bring about that new creation in individual lives” (729). Rowland adds, “humans can be the means of channeling God’s grace into it…human agents infused with the Spirit of the new