God's Pagan Messiah Text: Isaiah 45:1-7
Introduction: The Untamed God of History
We modern Christians have a bad habit of trying to domesticate God. We want a God who fits neatly into our political theories, our therapeutic sensibilities, and our democratic assumptions. We want a God who is a gentleman, one who would never impose His will, who respects our autonomy, and who certainly wouldn't get His hands dirty by using a godless, pagan ruler to accomplish His most glorious redemptive purposes. Our God is respectable. He works through the proper channels. He would certainly never endorse a candidate we find morally distasteful.
Into this tidy, respectable, and utterly false little world, Isaiah 45 lands like a meteor. This passage is a direct assault on every attempt to put God in a box. It is a declaration that God is the absolute, untamed sovereign of history, and He is not the least bit embarrassed to use instruments that make us blush. He does not ask for our permission. He does not consult our voting guides. He raises up kings and He throws them down. He orchestrates the rise and fall of empires, not for their own sake, but for the sake of His tiny, often faithless, covenant people.
Here, God speaks directly to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, a man who did not know Yahweh. And He does so about 150 years before Cyrus was even born. This is not just prediction; this is predestination on a geopolitical scale. God announces His plan, names His instrument, and declares His ultimate purpose, which is nothing less than the global recognition of His own exclusive deity. This passage forces us to confront the raw, unfiltered sovereignty of God. It challenges us to ask whether we worship the God of the Bible, or a smaller, tamer god of our own making. For the God of Isaiah is the God who is actually in charge of everything.
The Text
Thus says Yahweh to Cyrus His anointed, Whom I have taken hold of by his right hand, To subdue nations before him And to loose the loins of kings, To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: "I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. For the sake of Jacob My servant, And Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor Though you have not known Me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, That they may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Producing peace and creating calamity; I am Yahweh who does all these."
(Isaiah 45:1-7 LSB)
The Scandal of the Anointed (v. 1)
We begin with a statement that should jolt us awake.
"Thus says Yahweh to Cyrus His anointed, Whom I have taken hold of by his right hand, To subdue nations before him And to loose the loins of kings, To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:" (Isaiah 45:1)
The word for "anointed" here is the Hebrew word mashiach. It is the word from which we get "Messiah." This is a title dripping with covenantal significance, reserved for Israel's kings, priests, and prophets. It is the ultimate title of the promised Son of David who would come to save His people. And God takes this sacred title and pins it on the chest of a pagan emperor from Persia. This is a deliberate theological scandal. It was designed to shock the Israelites out of their nationalistic pride and their small view of God.
God is declaring that He anoints whomever He pleases for His purposes. He does not need a believing instrument to accomplish His will. He takes Cyrus by the right hand, the place of power and authority, and uses him as His tool. God is the one who empowers Cyrus to conquer nations, to disarm kings (to "loose the loins" is to unbuckle their belts, a sign of utter defeat and humiliation), and to walk through gates that would be impregnable to any other force. Cyrus is the arrow, but God is the archer. History is not a random series of events; it is the unfolding of God's sovereign decree, and He is not limited to working through His own people.
The Divine Combat Engineer (vv. 2-3)
God then elaborates on His direct involvement. He is not a distant observer; He is the commanding officer on the ground.
"I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name." (Isaiah 45:2-3 LSB)
Notice the repetition of "I will." God is the primary actor. He is the divine combat engineer, going before Cyrus's army to level the terrain and demolish the defenses. The "doors of bronze" and "iron bars" refer to the legendary fortifications of Babylon, which were considered invincible. But to God, they are nothing. He shatters them. He is not picking a lock; He is blowing the door off its hinges.
And why does He do this? Why give this pagan king victory and the immense wealth of conquered Babylon? The purpose is explicitly evangelistic: "So that you may know that it is I, Yahweh." God is preaching a sermon to Cyrus, and the sermon is written in the language of collapsing empires and overflowing treasuries. God orchestrates history as a means of revelation. He is making His name, His power, and His identity known to a man who worships other gods. This is God's majestic, sovereign grace in action, revealing Himself through His powerful deeds.
The Covenant at the Center (v. 4)
But Cyrus's enlightenment is not the ultimate goal. There is a deeper, more central purpose to all this geopolitical upheaval.
"For the sake of Jacob My servant, And Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor Though you have not known Me." (Isaiah 45:4 LSB)
This is the heart of the matter. The entire Persian conquest of Babylon, a world-changing event, is undertaken by God for one reason: "For the sake of Jacob." God is not doing this for Cyrus. He is doing this for His covenant people, who are in exile in Babylon. He is raising up an empire and tearing down another in order to keep His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. World history revolves around the Church.
God emphasizes again that He is doing this for Cyrus, giving him a name and a title of honor, even though Cyrus is ignorant of Him. God's plans are not contingent on the faith or piety of His instruments. He can use a willing vessel or an unwilling one. He can use a believing king or a pagan one. His purpose is what is decisive, and His purpose here is the preservation of His chosen people, through whom the true Messiah, Jesus, would one day come.
The Great Exclusive (vv. 5-6)
From this specific action, God zooms out to the grand theological principle that governs all reality.
"I am Yahweh, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, That they may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other," (Isaiah 45:5-6 LSB)
This is the bedrock, the absolute presupposition of all things. "I am Yahweh, and there is no other." This is a declaration of war against every idol, every other god, every other claim to ultimate authority. The gods of Babylon are nothing. The gods of Persia are nothing. The gods of modern secularism, be they the state, the self, or science, are nothing. There is one God, Yahweh, and He alone is God.
And the purpose of His mighty acts in history is to make this truth known globally. He girds Cyrus, equipping him for battle, so that the whole world, "from the rising to the setting of the sun," will come to know this exclusive truth. God's particular love for Israel has a universal missionary goal. He saves His people in such a way that the whole world is put on notice that Yahweh is God and there is no other. The goal of history is universal doxology.
The Author of the Story (v. 7)
The passage culminates in one of the most stark and challenging declarations of divine sovereignty in all of Scripture.
"The One forming light and creating darkness, Producing peace and creating calamity; I am Yahweh who does all these." (Isaiah 45:7 LSB)
If the previous verses made us uncomfortable, this one should leave us speechless. God claims authorship not only over the good things, the light and the peace (shalom), but also over the hard things, the darkness and the calamity (ra). This is the absolute repudiation of any form of dualism. God is not in a cosmic struggle with an equal and opposite evil force. He is the sovereign Creator of all circumstances.
The word for calamity, ra, is the general Hebrew word for disaster, trouble, or what we might call evil in a non-moral sense. This does not make God the author of sin. We are responsible for our sin. But it does mean that God is sovereign over the consequences of sin, over judgment, over famine, over war, over every form of hardship. He is the one who sends the storm as well as the sunshine. He is the author of the entire story, with all its tensions, conflicts, and resolutions. He is Yahweh, who does all these things. A God who is only in charge of the happy things is not the God of the Bible, and He is not a God who can be trusted when the darkness falls.
From Cyrus to Christ
This entire astounding episode is a magnificent type, a foreshadowing of a greater work of salvation. Cyrus was God's pagan mashiach, anointed to deliver Israel from physical bondage in Babylon. He was an unknowing instrument, accomplishing a salvation far greater than he could comprehend.
But he points us to the true Mashiach, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God, the Anointed One, who came not as an unknowing instrument, but in full, conscious, loving obedience to His Father. He came to deliver His people, the true Israel, not from a Babylonian exile, but from the bondage of sin and death. God took hold of Jesus' right hand, not to conquer nations, but to be nailed to a cross. God shattered the gates of bronze and iron, not of a pagan city, but of death and hell itself.
The sovereignty God flexed in the life of Cyrus is the same sovereignty He exercises in our salvation. He calls us by name when we have not known Him. He girds us for a life of faith, for the sake of His eternal purpose. And He does it all so that we might know that He is Yahweh, and there is no other. The God who forms light and creates darkness is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," and shone into our dead hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. He is the God who is in charge. He is the God who saves. He is Yahweh, and there is no other.