Isaiah in the New Testament

After the Psalms, Isaiah is the most quoted book in the New Testament and underlies many of its key themes. Jesus used the book of Isaiah to explain why he was being misunderstood and opposed, even though he was fulfilling Isaiah vision of the blind receiving sight and the poor hearing good news. Paul used it to show that God always intended to include Gentiles in the promised salvation, and the author of Revelation derived much of his imagery of the New Jerusalem from it. The occurrence of quotations from Isaiah at key points in Luke-Acts has persuaded many that Isaiah’s vision of new exodus/new creation inspired the early Christians to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. With good reason, the book of Isaiah has been called the “Fifth Gospel.”