Prophecy is man's thing, not God's thing. Prophecy is the English word by which man attempts to understand what God already is by eternal attribute. History then is man's view of Sovereign events and solely determined by where a man stands along God's timetable. In point of fact, the word timetable is simply a meager effort to explain God's eternal attribute a feeble human attempt to understand God. However, whatever God is in this facet of His Being, He has deemed that both Himself and humankind involve a time perspective. And so it was with two men of God; Isaiah the prophet and Paul the apostle, each seeing the same; one viewing Messiah from what humans know as prophecy and his counterpart seeing Messiah known to man as present. That is, two men saw God in that which is known to man as an epoch of time, and that as he understands it, grew into fulfillment of prophecy.
Isaiah, the prophetic sage, who seeing vision of the holiness of God and by Holy Spirit signifying wrote; "So shall he [coming Messiah] sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider" (Isa 52:15). Paul, being least of the apostles, called as preacher to Gentiles, by Holy Spirit direction reiterated the identical to the Romans, chapter 15 verse 21; . . . "as is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand." Isaiah's prophetic statement and his repeated statement (its translated equal) by Paul prove that the word prophecy is an expression of mere human sphere. More than seven centuries separated the lives of Paul the apostle and Isaiah the prophet representing sheer human point of view concerning Messiah.
What Isaiah saw "as future" was a Messiah touching sundry, Gentile, people groups. What Paul saw "in the present" was Messiah sprinkling nations of his own recognized secular world. What modern-day Christian's sing is "red, brown, yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." Albeit in the year 700 BC, Messiah from human eyes had not yet begun sprinkling people groups by human understanding. Nevertheless, God's Messiah would indeed sprinkle nations. This sprinkling of nations is as equally sure as was His prophesied incarnate advent as a crucified, dying, resurrected, advocate for all sinners of all ages as foretold by Isaiah, in chapter fifty-three. God's eternal attribute renders it so!
This humanly incomprehensible future act of God in Isaiah's day concerning His Messiah sprinkling the nations therefore takes on vast ramifications for would be discipleship with this Christ. God's Messiah, "as God is" would touch many nations just as Isaiah penned. However, man would yet wait to see what God already was! Therefore, according to God Himself, someone presently preaches this Messiah to the nations; for God is not mocked! All around the world, Christ is sprinkling nations. Isaiah prophesied it, Paul saw it, and men yet sing it. Since God is who He is and He will yet be what the prophetic word has spoken that He will be someone is preaching His name to the nations. As Jesus ascended above the olive orchards outside Jerusalem's city walls, He imposed upon every single disciple the mandate of ministering to the nations. The word "nations" in original plural form as Jesus used it was "ethnos", meaning tribes, races, heathen, and Gentiles, especially foreign. His additional usage of the adjective "all" to nations meaning "the whole of" must certainly suggest more than one, or even two. So then, colossal confronting questions for the people of God surface. How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And in how many nations have we sprinkled Christ?
The question remaining is not; is God sprinkling nations by His Christ, or is the pure gospel of God's Christ currently preached in cross-cultural settings, or even does God crave kingdom building efforts of such massive duty, but rather who will be part of what already "is", as God goes?
— Chambersburg PA