Isaiah is – to my mind! – the great old testament prophet. So there’s an obvious question: with what particularly vital teachings does he, or rather God, bring this magnificent book to culmination for us? That’ll be chapters 65 and 66 then…
Let’s remember that, from ch40 onwards, God was inspiring Isaiah with the insights and visions that would be needed for surviving the time of exile and darkness that lay ahead. And so in these closing chapters He explains again (to people willing to face and confess their failures, 64:6-7; there’s not too much point in explaining to anyone else) just why they’re in this mess; just why disaster will have befallen Jerusalem (64:11), even though God is a God who `acts on behalf of those who wait for Him` (64:4). To do that He takes them back through the catastrophic idolatries of the pre-exile period that brought judgment on Israel (65:3-7,11): `when I called, no one answered; when I spoke, no one listened` (66:4). (Lord, please help me listen!!)
But also God reminds them – and us, me! – that He is a God who `all day long… held out my hands to an obstinate people`; and because of that, we’re reminded also of a theme that’s run through the whole book: 65:8-9 – there will be a `remnant` who will be delivered from judgment, and not just delivered but brought into incredible glory. And each of us can be part of that `remnant`, of `my servants`; or we can be part of the majority who in the end will `wail in brokenness of spirit` (65:14). There is a serious cost to belonging to the remnant: `Your brothers…hate you, and exclude you because of My name` (66:5); but as we’ll see, it is massively worth it…
So in these last chapters there are two ways and two destinations, 65:13-16; this stupendous prophetic book will end up showing us both real blessing and real judgment. As the cross shows us so forcibly, God’s `fury` against sin (cf 66:14), and His judgment on sin, are a reality. Isaiah concludes this amazing book proclaiming `the day of vengeance of our God`, as he puts it in that wonderful, life-giving chapter 61. The cross happened so that none of us might ever have to face God’s judgment; but we have to take His forgiveness for ourselves – or we can stay rebels, and refuse. But then the final verse of this magnificent book states the consequences quite unflinchingly: `They will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against Me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.’ And we can’t evade this verse if we are followers of Jesus; because He quotes it unashamedly about hell, not watering it down one iota, in Mark 9:43-48. (Incidentally, my personal opinion is that great evangelical leaders like John Stott and Michael Green are right and this verse need not be read as teaching eternal conscious punishment; but, it is teaching a catastrophic consequence for rejection of God’s mercy and salvation nonetheless.) That hell is the theme of the very last verse of this colossal book should underline its significance; teaching us, if we’re not sure we’re `saved` (Jesus’ word), to make it an absolute priority to talk to someone we trust ASAP, so that we can become sure; and if we are `saved`, not forgetting or evading this reality, indeed perhaps even practising with a friend how we communicate it to others – gently, and when appropriate, and alongside the rest of the gospel. And, making it fuel our prayers for people we know!
But alongside the judgment, Isaiah closes his wonderful book with visions of glory. Glory for Israel (65:18-25,66:7-13,20), because, as we saw a month ago from Isaiah 60, God’s old testament purpose will come successfully to glorious completion, with Israel as the centre of His wondrous plans for the world. But joy for all nations too, because there’s an unmistakable missionary thrust in the book’s last seven verses: the Lord `will gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see My glory`! And it will be wonderful: not quite God’s ultimate yet (this renewed earthly paradise is yet one where sin and death are rare but possible (65:20), unlike the eternal, fully-renewed heavens and earth of Revelation 21), but nevertheless utterly fantastic:
`Be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people as a joy…
Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear` [God immediately present now; the years of training in faith where God sometimes seems absent and prayer unanswered will be over forever!]-
` The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD!` (NIV)
It’s certainly worth letting our imaginations run free as to how marvellous God’s world will be once all this is fulfilled, when Christ is `King over the whole earth` (Zec 14:9), and all the results of our idiotic rebellions are reversed. `Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths”… They will beat their swords into ploughshares!` (Isaiah 2:3). And, wonderfully, much more: as Paul exults, the very creation, which for so long has been ‘subjected to frustration’ and ‘groaning as in the pains of childbirth’, will be joyfully ‘liberated from its bondage to decay’ (Romans 8:20-22)! Satan won’t win even in this world; on this planet, and not only by the coming of a new earth, God’s triumph will be made fully manifest. `God didn’t create the earth to simply screw it up like a piece of paper and throw it away’, writes Roger Forster; Satan will never be able to say to Christ, `But that beautiful world, at least, I ruined permanently; you never got it back.` (So I do take Isaiah 65 to be the Satan-free golden age of Revelation 20, because the following fantastic stage of God’s purposes, Revelation 21’s totally new cosmos where ‘the mortal’ has finally been ‘clothed . . . with immortality’, gloriously ‘swallowed up by life’ (1 Cor 15:53; 2 Cor 5:4) will clearly be radically different from what we either have now, or will have as here in Isaiah 65, and in ways we can’t imagine (see Matt 22:30, 2 Cor 12:4).) After Jesus returns as King, then, this earth will become an unimaginably transformed paradise where death may happen but is a rarity (65:20), a paradise amazing beyond our wildest dreams; because `the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea` (reread Isaiah 11:6-9)! I seriously look forward to seeing it with my own eyes! When Jesus comes back as King, all heaven will break loose!
So then: as Isaiah climaxes in visions of judgment and visions of colossal glory – so what? Here’s the first verse of this final chapter: `This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?”` And the longterm answer, staggeringly, as we know if we know our new testaments, is – us! `Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?… Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit!… In Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit!` (1 Cor 3:16,6:19, Eph 2:22). But what an awesome thing to be in – indeed, to be – the presence of the Lord!
So what? So this: `This is the one I esteem`, says God in 66:2: `he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at My Word`. So, centrally, to be `esteemed by God` is to be someone who takes His Word slowly, thoughtfully, seriously, reverently; as Motyer says, with a deep, sensitive longing to please God, repentantly aware of the huge damage caused by my/our sin, and not just slipping into sin through thoughtless carelessness, like the people in 66:3-4 who indeed sacrificed to God but didn’t listen to Him. All in all, not `choosing our own ways` (66:3) (even in `religion` [that’s the context] – not just following our own preferences for worship styles or doctrinal beliefs!); above all, humbly following (`trembling at`) His Word, and in every respect submitting all our ways to Him… This `fear [awe] of the Lord’, as Proverbs tells us, is the beginning of wisdom. And it’s the beginning also, as Isaiah shows us here, of stupendous glory!
What an – in more ways than one – awe-inspiring, but challenging, place to end this magnificent book!
