There Are Survivors and There Are SURVIVORS!
For some time, I questioned the line from A. W. Dicus’ hymn, Our God, He is Alive, “in Him we live, and we survive.” I was attracted to E. H. Ijams book, To Survive and to Surpass, especially when I took his course, Building Better Churches, at Harding Graduate School. Brother Ijams described the ministry of a store-front church in downtown Nashville which became the Central Church of Christ. In our ministry here in Storrs we learned from telling our story in ministry that we were a Servant-Survivor church. We resolved that we wanted to become more a Servant-Evangelist church in our ministry.
As a part of that study, I examined the theology of “survivors” in Isaiah. The book begins and ends with survivors. “If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah” (Isa, 1:9). And the ending – “I will send survivors to the nations . . . and they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations . . . to my holy mountain Jerusalem” (Isa.66:18-20). This is a prophetic “potent” of the New Heavens and the New Earth.
I believe that the teaching of the 8th century BC prophet and his successors well into the 6th century BC were put together (edited) by these survivors. As in the beginning, this community is described by “we-us” (1:9) in contrast to a “you-them” in the community (1:10-15). The survivors “seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless and widows” in contrast to numerous sacrifices, festivals, and prayers” of the rulers of Sodom. This contrast between a “we-us” and a “you-them” segment of the community occurs several times throughout Isaiah. [See Edgar Conrad, Reading Isaiah.] Note the contrast in chapters 65-66. The “we-us” are servants (65:8-9), the humble and contrite who tremble at God’s word (66:2) in sharp contrast to the rebellious, “too holy” group who set a table for Fortune and fill cups for Destiny. Yes, even in our humble situation, may we be SURVIVORS like these exiles.
—Tom Yoakum