* The material for these studies is from Barry G. Webb’s “The Message of Isaiah”  by InterVarsity Press; and from J. Alec Motyer’s “The Prophecy of Isaiah” Commentary by InterVarsity Press.

I will comfort you (vv. 12-17): Isaiah is almost ready now to bring his grand vision to a close by drawing out its full missionary implications. But first he has some comforting words for the faithful within Israel. For them the prospect of Jerusalem’s coming destruction by God was exceedingly painful. They could not view it with the equanimity of which others might be capable. Did the sentence passed on Israel mean that Jerusalem had no further place in God’s purposes?, and what of their own place in the new order of things?

His first word for them picks up and confirms all that has been said about the future city of God in preceding chapters. The New Jerusalem will be everything that the old failed to be – a city of peace, rich to overflowing with the blessing of God (v. 12a). And those who grieved over the passing of the old will be comforted in the new (vv. 12b-13). The faithful need not fear that they will be discarded with apostate Israel; the New Jerusalem will be the home of all God’s faithful people, the old as well as the new. His second word answers the disquiet they feel at the severity of the sentence passed on Israel. Is it not unreasonably harsh? The answer is that it is no more so than the judgment He will visit on all His enemies everywhere, Jew and Gentile alike (vv. 14-17). The judgment that begins with the House of God has its significance not simply in itself but in what it points to. It is a sign of the final universal judgment to come. It puts the whole world on notice! If the whole world has been put on notice, what of those who remain ignorant? How is the revelation to be published? How are the nations to be apprised of the judgment to come and the means of escape from it?

To the ends of the earth (vv. 18-24): This last, tremendous paragraph contains God’s entire program for the evangelization of the world. It is summarized in verse 18. In a word, God’s fundamental response to the evil actions and imaginations of His creatures is one of grace. His gathering, rescuing activity, once restricted to the dispersed of Israel, is to be extended to all people. He will come and gather people of all nations and tongues so that they may see His glory (v. 18). The goal of mission is the glory of God, that God might be known and honored for who He really is. How this goal is to be achieved is spelled out in what follows.

God will set a sign in the midst of the nations (v. 19). In context this can surely be nothing other than the wondrous birth of verses 7-8. It is the whole miraculous complex of events which occurred when Israel was judged and the church was born, and the “survivors” are the faithful remnant of verses 12-16. The final proof that God has not rejected them is that they have been chosen to spearhead His mission to the nations. The mention of grain offerings in verse 20 introduces the figure of a great harvest, and with it what must have been one of the most startling and controversial aspects of Isaiah’s missionary vision. It is the nations that are harvested, and the converts from all nations that are presented to the Lord as holy offerings. Converted Jew and Gentile become covenant brothers (v. 20), united in a new kind of priestly ministry in which both alike, in due course, share in the privileges and responsibilities of leadership (v. 21). What a stunning accurate portrayal this is of things to come!

Only one reflection remains, and it has to do with the origin and outcome of God’s mission, its beginning and its end. Verse 22 contains one final word of assurance to faithful Israelites, the true children of Abraham of the Old Testament period. The promise of an enduring name and many descendants will not fail; they will have their perfect fulfillment in the new heavens and the new earth, where the redeemed of the entire human race will offer unending worship to their Creator. But the final verse contains a chilling reminder that those same promises to Abraham implied judgment. They confronted man and women with the unavoidable responsibility to respond: to bless or curse, and be blessed or cursed themselves. The last verse does not detract in any way from the victory of the previous verse, but rather testifies to the completeness of it. God will not stoop to conversion by force. He will give us what we choose, and be glorified as much by His righteous judgment as by His saving grace.

At its most fundamental level, this closing paragraph brings us back to the basic truth that God is Creator, and therefore Ruler, of His world. The book of Isaiah, like the Bible itself, moves from the heavens and the earth (v. 1:2) to the new heavens and the new earth (V. 66:22). God’s mission is simply the outworking of the intentions He had at the beginning, expressed in the blessing He pronounced on the first pair and confirmed in the promises He made to Abraham. And Isaiah leaves us in no doubt that the key to it all is God’s perfect Servant, our Lord Jesus Christ. How eloquently and simply the apostle John put it! Isaiah, he says, “saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about Him” (John 12:41). In the second half of the book the new creation unfolds from His saving work like a bud bursting into bloom, and the last verse challenges us never to take it lightly, but to ponder (as we shall for all eternity) the greatness of our redemption and the terrible fate from which we have been saved! What can we do, but worship Him?

Isaiah 66:1-24 Reflection Questions:

How are the questions in the second paragraph answered in the gospels? Where?

Are we any closer to spreading the Word today, if so, how?

How are verses 66:12-17 a comfort to you? Journal on it.

What are you doing to help with the “great harvest”?

Do you plan to be blessed or cursed? Are you for God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit or against them? Spiritually, it’s a matter of life or death! If you don’t have a relationship with Jesus, get with a pastor to walk you through on what to do!

For Isaiah the end would begin to arrive with the return from Babylon. That event was so significant for him because it was ripe with promise, like a woman large with child. The end would emerge from it like a birth. And when it came, it would come suddenly, like a premature baby bursting unexpectedly from the womb and announcing its arrival with loud cries. All that the faithful had longed for would be realized in one climatic moment (vv. 7-11). But for all the certainty and suddenness of its arrival, the end would not come easily. The pregnancy would be a difficult one.

Ecclesiasticism (vv.1-6): Ecclesiasticism is defined as especially excessive devotion to the practices of the church. Here in these verses we hear God’s call to rebuild the temple. However at the same time Isaiah was painfully aware of the capacity of human beings to misuse it; to focus on the temple itself instead of the God of the temple, to corrupt it with perfunctory and impure worship. Isaiah understood very well that physical restoration was not enough. Unless there was spiritual renewal the future would simply repeat the sins of the past. Isaiah was not against the temple, but against ecclesiasticism, that ugly distortion of true religion which inevitably reasserts itself where there is no recognition of the greatness of God or heartfelt contrition before Him (vv. 1-2). Where this is lacking, worship, in whatever building, becomes no better than pagan superstition, angering God and calling forth His righteous judgment (vv. 3-4). Ecclesiasticism bears even more bitter fruit than this. It breeds partisanship and power struggles, theological hatred and religious persecution. It turns brother against brother (v. 5). Isaiah saw that Jerusalem and its temple would be the scene of God’s final judgment on apostate Israel. It would begin when the Lord came personally to His temple and made war on His people who had become His enemies by rejecting His Word (v. 6).

Judgment would begin at the house of God. Jesus’ preaching, for the most part, was an urgent, eleventh-hour appeal to Israel to repent, and His cleansing of the temple a dramatic sign that the threatened judgment was beginning to take place. Sadly, however, even this did not elicit repentance, but bitter hatred and opposition. Israel’s response to God’s final warning was to kill the One who brought it, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple followed as a matter of course. But this brings us to the mystery which lies at the very heart of this chapter. What seems an end is also a beginning. The death-throes of Israel as it existed under the Old Covenant turn out to be the birth-pangs of the New Age. Mourning is suddenly turned into joy.

Zion’s newborn children (vv. 7-11): In Isaiah’s day Zion under judgment had given birth to a faithful remnant. The joyful news he now proclaims is that in the hour of her final judgment she will give birth again. Everything in this passage stresses the suddenness and miraculous nature of the event. This birth is, so to speak, already accomplished before she goes into labor (v. 7). And it is not the normal one or two who are born, but a whole new people of God (v. 8). It is so sudden and startling that it can only be a work of God Himself (v. 9).

There is profound prophetic insight here, for in the fullness of time the new age came to birth just as Isaiah predicted. Out of the Israel of the old covenant, judged and rejected by God, emerged the Church of Jesus Christ. It was already “born”, as it were, before Jerusalem’s destruction; that was simply the severing of the umbilical cord. Zion had given birth to a movement that could not be contained within ethnic, territorial, or political boundaries. It would spread to the ends of the earth, but always owe a debt to the mother who gave it birth. Zion’s children would always remember that they had been suckled at her breasts, and be thankful (vv. 10-11).

Isaiah 66:1-24 Reflection Questions:

Where in the gospel of Matthew does Jesus cleanse the temple?

How easy is it to focus on ceremony, building, church politics, etc. and lose focus on God?

Are you part of the “new people of God”; been born again? If so, how are you giving praise and thanks to God who adopted  you into His family?

If you have not been born again, decide now to be part of God’s family. Get with a pastor to walk you through the best decision you can ever make in your life!

In chapter 64 it seems that God is very far away, on the other side of a vast chasm (see 64:1). The silence of God is a terrible thing. But the truth is that God is not far away, and never has been. All through Israel’s history, even when they were too far gone in apostasy, or just sheer hopelessness, to seek Him, God has always been seeking them. If He had held back, it was only to spare them the full venting of the wrath they so richly deserved. But God never ceased to reveal Himself to them. Generation after generation He had sent His prophets to speak to them in His name, saying “here I am, here am I (v. 1). But they had obstinately chosen their own ways rather than His and had sunk deeper and deeper into pagan superstition and uncleanness (vv. 2-4), foolishly regarding them superior to the wholesome, simple trust in the Lord which should have marked them as His children (v. 5). If there was a chasm between God and them, it was of their own making not His.

There were however, those who did dare to pray – and went on praying – for the coming of God’s kingdom: not just Isaiah himself, but many who have followed in his steps. They are the focus of attention in the second part of the chapter (vv. 8-25). They are God’s servants (v. 9), people who seek Him (v. 10), His chosen ones (v. 22), and a people blessed by the Lord (v. 23). They are the faithful remnant, the prayer warriors who have stayed at their post through the long dark watches of salvation history, never abandoning their trust in God or their confidence that His promises would be fulfilled. The good news of this chapter is that the new world for which they have waited so long will surely come; God will bring it to pass for their sake (v. 8) and gather them into it (v. 9).

The contours of that new world open up here in ever-widening circles (vv. 9-10, 17-18). There is something much more here than the mere realization of a utopian dream, a glorified Israel that would be the wonder and envy of the world again, as in the days of Solomon. It is a whole new order of things in which all political structures are transcended. It will be so new that the past will be forgotten entirely (v. 17). The Promised Land will no longer be Canaan of Israel but the whole earth. As we saw in chapter 62, the New Jerusalem will be so different from the old that it will require a new name. The servants of God will be all who have found mercy and free pardon through the work of the perfect Servant; they will be all of God’s faithful people in every age. The chapter ends with an unmistakable allusion to the final undoing of the work of the serpent who brought sin and death into the world in the first place (v. 25). The new world will be history perfected and paradise regained, and it will be full of the modest and simple delights that God always intended us to have: joy (v. 18, fullness of life (v. 20), security (vv. 21-23a), and rewarding work (v. 22b), fellowship with God (vv. 23b-24), and peace (v. 25).

Isaiah’s vision is breathtaking in its scope: new heavens and a new earth. But for all that, he is not a universalist. He does not believe that all will be saved. From verse 8 onwards the contrast between those who are God’s servants and those who are not is drawn ever more starkly. There are those who seek Him and those who do not (vv. 10-11), and their destinies are as different as light and darkness (vv. 13-15). There are the saved and the lost in this chapter, there is heaven and hell. And again we note that the demarcation line is not ethnic or political, but personal and confessional. This chapter speaks of the final and irrevocable separation that will be made on the last day between them and God’s servants. But before then, the choice that the people have made becomes clear from the way they live. God calls, but they do not answer, He speaks, but they do not listen (v. 12). They forsake their Maker and choose fortune and destiny (v. 11), and reap anguish and brokenness (v. 14). Hell, in the end, is God simply giving us what we have chosen. Isaiah is quite clear about this. To be servants of God or not is a personal decision that none of us can avoid, and the consequences are eternal. There will be a new world, but God will not force us into it. The choice is ours!

Isaiah 65:1-25 Reflection Questions:

How is your personal relationship with Jesus doing?

Do you see the Old Testament and the New Testament coming together here?

Are you one of God’s servants and prayer warriors?

There have been plenty of incentives for intercession since the beginning of chapter 62, not least the promise of decisive intervention by God in the vision we have just been considering. But so far, intercession has been talked about rather than actually done. Now, however, we move from declarations of intent and exhortation to prayer itself. And what a prayer! There are many fine intercessory prayers in Scripture, the greatest of all, of course, is our Lord’s high-priestly prayer (see John 17) in which He interceded for us all. The present prayer is less well known, but has the same stamp of greatness on it.

The voice we hear in 63:7 is Isaiah himself. He stands in the prophetic tradition of intercessory prayer which goes right back to Moses. And like Jesus he prays with prophetic vision, not just for himself and his own generation, but for future generations as well. Intercession glorifies God because it is an expression of utter dependence upon Him. It recognizes that we need to be delivered as much from ourselves as from our enemies, and that deliverance of this radical kind can be found only in God. It is His gift, not our achievement.

The prayer begins as all prayer should, with an acknowledgment of the sheer goodness of God (63:7-9). Isaiah recalls the days of old, the acts of God that called Israel into existence, and sees that they were marked by grace from the beginning to end. God felt their distress, saved them from the perils of the way, lifted them up and carried them when they were weak, and rightly expected that they would return His love by being true to Him. But sadly it was not so. They rebelled against Him, and grieved His Holy Spirit (v. 10a). So in order to preserve His holiness, the Father had to become an Enemy and judge those He loved (v. 10b). The days of old were days of immense grace on the Lord’s part, and immense ingratitude on the part of His people.

The second part of the prayer (63:11-14) is about how “recalling the days of old” has been central to the relationship between God and His people from generation to generation. The memory of former things has brought assurance of God’s power and faithfulness, but also of their own deeply ingrained sinfulness, and has raised painful uncertainties in their minds. True prayer, however, must rise above such thoughts. It is not enough to look back or look within. The intercessor must look up, for all true intercession is founded on the conviction that, however we feel, God is sovereign, and deliverance can be found in Him alone. That truth had been embedded deeply in Isaiah’s soul by the vision of God that had inaugurated his ministry. Now it injects fresh confidence into his praying. He lifts his eyes to the God whose throne is lofty…holy and glorious (63:15), and calls on Him to intervene (64:1).

Isaiah has become so identified with those for whom he prays that, as far as his language is concerned, there is no difference between him and them. Their Father is his Father, their sins are his sins, and so are their doubts and perplexities and hard questions. By his praying he brings them to the Father when they are too weak or proud to come themselves. He acts as a true intercessor. It is likely that later generations of Israelites used this very prayer to lament the destruction of the temple and seek God’s forgiveness. If so, it did double duty; it lived on after Isaiah himself had died, and became the prayer of the very ones for whom he had interceded. It gave them voice in one of the darkest moments of their history.

Isaiah 63:7-64:12 Reflection Questions:

What are some other intercessory prayers found in Scripture?

Do you see yourself like Isaiah, as a true intercessor?

Where do you look when you pray?