The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture

by Brevard S. Childs

When discussing his interpretation of Isa. 7:14, Skinner concludes that the sign given Ahaz was, in short, the actual birth of the Messiah. Then he writes, "It is no objection to this view to note that the sign did not come to pass. Unfulfilled predictions are a standing phenomenon of the Old Testament. If the sign had been merely a particular event in history, it would have been rendered invalid by its failure to realise itself ... [but] it retains its religious value as long as the ideal to which it points remains an object of faith and aspiration" (vol. 1, p. 67). Driver's view regarding Isa. 7:14 is somewhat more traditional. He conceives of the focus of Immanuel as "an ideal one, projected by him upon the shifting future" (p. 42).