We closed our sermon last week by looking at Isaiah 59 and God’s declaration that He was going to bring about the deliverance and salvation of His people. God looked around and no one else was able to save, so His own arm brought deliverance. He declared that He Himself would save His people. This declaration gives us some hint of the identity of the coming Servant, this Servant would be in some mysterious way not yet fully revealed the Lord Himself.

Immediately following that declaration we have a call issued, a call to Arise and Shine! As we study the passage, we find that Isaiah is telling us that simultaneously with the arrival of the Servant of the Lord will come the exaltation of Zion. Zion shall be lifted up and be glorious. Zion will be a city on a hill; Zion will be the light of the nations. This leads us to a bit of a perplexing problem – at least it has become perplexing in the last 150 years or so of church history. Who is this Zion? Who is Jerusalem? And how is it that she is called the light of the world?