By Dr. Scott Redd

This is the Lord speaking to the prophet Isaiah:

For I know their works and their thoughts. The time is coming to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them, and from them I will send survivors to the nations—to Tarshish, to Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard My fame or seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord—on horses and chariots and litters, on mules and on dromedaries—to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. And some of them also I will take for priests and Levites,” says the Lord. “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before Me,” declares the Lord, “so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship Me,” declares the Lord. “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who rebelled against Me, for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word—words that not only speak of You, but of the hope we have in You, and of the mission in which we participate. We pray, Lord, that You would bless us as we read the words of the prophet Isaiah. Give us wisdom to understand them. Give us insight, that we might absorb them. And through the power of Your Spirit, may we be transformed by them. We lift this up in the name of Jesus Christ, our King and our Savior. Amen.

As you, as students of RTS, are well aware, the Reformed faith—the Reformed approach to Scripture—has many strengths. One of those strengths, which I discovered early in life, is the way the Reformed tradition reads the Bible as a unified whole, drawing the Old Testament and the New Testament together. I remember a Bible teacher walking us through Genesis and the life of Joseph, showing how Joseph’s character anticipated the character of Jesus. The way he did it—it was like a light went on in my head and in my heart. It tied the Scriptures together in a way I had never experienced. That became an interest of mine in seminary, as I know it has for some of you. And to this day, I continue to find excitement and deep edification in returning to Scripture and seeing how certain themes are woven together—sometimes themes we typically associate with the New Testament—only to discover how they are anticipated, adumbrated, or foreshadowed in the Old.

One of those themes is mission. When we think about missions, people often go straight to Matthew 28—the Great Commission. Teaching on missions typically comes from the ministry of Jesus Christ, the apostles, the book of Acts, and Paul’s call to the people of God. And yet, if we fail to look back at the Old Testament with an ear tuned to mission, we miss how the Old Testament also develops that theme.

It is absolutely correct to say that the New Testament—and the witness of Christ in the New Testament—is the answer to the great problem, the great question of life. But we don’t have the question unless we go back to the Old Testament. To say that we understand Christ without understanding the Old Testament, or to say that we understand the mission to which He has called us without seeing how it is rooted in the Old Testament, is to miss the depth of the doctrine. It’s like having the answer key to a biology exam—just having the answers in front of you doesn’t mean you know biology. You need to know the questions those answers are addressing. And so I want to take you back to Isaiah—Isaiah 66—and show how he anticipates mission in the Old Testament.

This idea of mission goes all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis 1, Adam and Eve are made in the image of God and placed in the garden to fill and subdue the earth. God’s end goal is not the garden itself. The garden is the staging area—the beginning point—from which the whole earth is to be filled and subdued with image-bearers returning worship to their Lord.

We see hints of this in the Mosaic covenant. Much of Deuteronomy is a covenant-renewal pep rally as the people prepare to enter the land. The focus is on life within the land. But it’s striking that there are also laws for dealing with nations outside the land. When Israel goes out from the land, they are to begin not with warfare but with peaceful diplomatic relations. The implication is that God’s goal always extended beyond the boundaries promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Again, the land is the staging area. The ambition is global.

The psalmist gives voice to this: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell in it.” God’s reign is sovereign, and His goal has always been to cover the face of the earth.

And here in Isaiah, the prophet anticipates how that will happen. He sees the covenantal mandates placed on humanity—particularly on God’s redeemed people, Israel—and he foresees how they will find global fulfillment in the last days. The prophets call it “that day.”

A word about prophetic expectation: Isaiah and the other prophets anticipate the future glory of the Lord in a very two dimensional way. They speak of restoration from exile, the ingrafting of the nations, Israel’s victory, God’s justice and mercy, and the new heavens and new earth—all as though they occur on a single day. Isaiah even calls it that day. It’s as if he’s watching a movie on a flat screen, seeing restoration, renewal, resurrection, and new creation all compressed into one vivid scene.

Joel does the same: great victory, the nations streaming in, the outpouring of the Spirit—all on “that day.”

But when that day arrives, we discover it is not a flat, 24 hour day. It unfolds in phases. It is as though we walk toward the movie screen and realize it is not a movie at all—it is a play, unfolding in three-dimensional space and time.

So when Jesus is conceived and born, He fulfills Isaiah 7—the Immanuel child. When He is driven into Egypt and later brought out, He fulfills Isaiah 11: “Out of Egypt I have called My son.” When John the Baptist preaches by the Jordan, he fulfills Isaiah 40—“Prepare the way of the Lord.” Matthew tells us that John is the herald of the royal procession Isaiah foresaw.

When Jesus is baptized, goes into the wilderness, and returns to Galilee, He fulfills Isaiah 9: the people who walked in darkness—the northern kingdom—see a great light. He must go there first, because He is inaugurating that day. But it unfolds in stages: restoration, renewal, and ultimately resurrection.

That mission begins in Israel, begins in Jerusalem, and then spreads across the face of the earth.

How does Isaiah anticipate that? When we look at Isaiah 66, we see him drawing on an image that would have been very familiar to ancient Israelites. It’s a method of battle used by many great empires. You can imagine why: it’s far better to persuade people to surrender before you arrive than to fight every city you encounter. A well crafted campaign of psychological warfare is far more cost effective than constant military engagement.

We see something like this in Assyria. When the Assyrian army approached Jerusalem, they had already sent ahead survivors from the towns they conquered to spread the news of Assyria’s terrifying power. By the time they reached Jerusalem, the psychological battle was already underway.

Isaiah seems to say that when the Lord returns—when He places His judgment on the earth and calls the nations to Himself—He will do something similar. He will send out survivors from the nations He has conquered, and they will go to the farthest reaches of the earth. Isaiah lists Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, Javan, and the coastlands. Some of these are difficult to pinpoint. Tarshish, for example, functions much like the name “Carthage”—there were many of them. To go to Tarshish simply meant to go to the far frontier. Javan is related to the word Ionian, referring to the Greeks. Tubal may point to an ancient people near the Caucasus. The point is clear: these are the far corners of the earth. And to those far corners the survivors will go, proclaiming the power and might of the reigning God who has won His great victory.

Notice, too, that the focus here is not Israel. These survivors are not sent to gather scattered Israelites. Isaiah says plainly: all flesh—the whole world—is being summoned to worship. And they come not empty handed but bringing offerings—horses, mules, camels—as if on pilgrimage to the Lord’s holy mountain, called back by the testimony of these survivors.

So when does this happen? Many interpreters argue that this battle will occur just before Jesus returns—a final, literal, militaristic conflict. But if we follow the Reformed reading, which I believe is the New Testament’s own reading of the Old, the apostles saw this battle beginning in the ministry of Jesus Christ Himself. You can argue that the great victory Isaiah describes is the victory Jesus wins on the cross—victory over Satan, sin, and death.

Even Peter expected a militaristic expansion. He brought a sword to Gethsemane. But Jesus made it unmistakably clear: this kingdom will not advance by force. It will advance by persuasion. You will be like those survivors Isaiah describes—sent out to proclaim the victory of the King and the expansion of His reign.

Paul puts it this way: you have been turned from your former allegiances. It is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you. You are the survivors. You are the ones sent to the nations to proclaim the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over sin and death.

And that victory unfolds in phases. It is happening now. We get to participate in it. Tarshish—the Mediterranean world—has long since been evangelized. Now the gospel goes to lands Paul never imagined. It moves westward, eastward, through China, through the global South. The Chinese church grows. The African church grows. More and more “survivors” proclaim the victory of Christ. That is who you are. You are the turned ones—turncoats from your former allegiances. You have been conquered, captured, even “brainwashed” by the gospel, and now you are sent out by the King to proclaim His message.

So how do we think about that practically?

Let me give you three points of application. As survivors sent to the nations, we are called to reach the lost, train the found, and support the work.

We are called to reach the lost. We are to be at the table when people ask questions about Jesus Christ. We are to go—and we are to send others—to places where the gospel has never been proclaimed. Some of you know I work with pastors in the Middle East and North Africa. Churches are emerging in remarkable ways. Many pastors there are converts from Islam—clear leaders in their communities, yet never trained in Scripture. When I meet with them, it is striking how many describe dreams in which they encounter the gospel. They wake up, seek out a Christian they know, and ask, “Tell me about this. How should I understand this Jesus Christ?” Reaching the lost means being present when those questions arise, and going where the gospel has not yet gone.

Peter says in 2 Peter 3:9 that the Lord is not slow in returning. His “delay” is grace. He will return when all His sheep have been gathered—when all who bear His name have repented. He is waiting for the survivors of Isaiah 66 to proclaim the victory of the King across the earth. We are called to be part of that.

But we are also called to train the found. That is much of what we do here—training pastors and leaders to disciple God’s people. Jesus commands us not only to baptize the nations but to teach them to obey all He has commanded. Discipleship is the ongoing work of survivors applying the implications of Christ’s victory to the lives of His people.

And finally, we are called to support the work—through prayer, through mindful engagement, and through giving. Jesus draws on Deuteronomy 6 when He says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Those redeemed by the covenant Lord are called to love Him with heart, soul, and strength—with their inward devotion and their outward resources. Supporting mission is one way we express that love.

You may one day serve in churches where you help shape missions budgets. Be deliberate. Be generous. Remember who you are: once adversaries, now ambassadors; once enemies, now emissaries—sent in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to proclaim His victory.

As we said, the new creation Isaiah describes in verse 22 is not something merely out ahead of us. Jesus has already begun it. He began it in His earthly ministry. When He calms the sea—that is new creation breaking in. When He raises Lazarus from the dead, when He Himself is raised—new creation is happening. It is inaugurated on earth in Him.

And we see it now. As Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” New creation happens now through the ministry of the church, through the proclamation of the gospel. And we anticipate the day when that new creation will be consummated in full.

This is the ministry you are part of: the expansion of the kingdom of God, the proclamation of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this work to which You have called us. We thank You for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which gives us the answer to the great question the Old Testament raises. We thank You that You have been so gracious, so mindful of us, to give us such a rich and multifaceted Word—a revelation of Yourself whose depths we can never exhaust. I pray, Lord, that as we are reminded of the fulfillment Jesus brings to the Old Testament prophecies, we would be encouraged in our role as His body, as those sent out to declare His glory and His gospel. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

Dr. Scott Redd Jr. (Ph.D., The Catholic University of America) is the President and Stephen B. Elmer Professor of Old Testament at the Washington, D.C. campus of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS).

This article is based on a verbatim transcript of a message given by Dr. Redd at RTS Orlando. It has been lightly edited by Copilot, as well as the theological staff at Third Millennium Ministries.