Eternal Judgment or Eternal Salvation (Isaiah 65:1-16)

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The previous oracle, Isaiah 63:7–64:12, was primarily addressed to the future generation of exiles from Judah, following Babylon’s destruction of Solomon’s temple in 586 BC. Isaiah prophesied a little over a hundred years before that date. Why was that prophecy for future exiles needed? Because God’s people weren’t responsive to Isaiah’s prophetic ministry, as God had forewarned Isaiah (Isa 6:9–12). Isaiah 65:1–16 further describes Israel’s habitual rejection of God’s warnings through His prophets and prophesies the eternal joy of the remnant God will save out of judgment, in contrast to the majority of Israel who will experience God’s judgment, not only temporally but also eternally. Even so, we today should accept God’s offer of forgiveness (vv. 1–5), so that we experience eternal salvation rather than eternal judgment (vv. 6–16).

God’s Readiness to Forgive Rebellious People Who Repent (vv. 1-5)

God opens this chapter by professing His willingness to forgive. He was willing to be sought by those who did not ask for Him; He was ready to be found by those who did not seek Him; and He said, “Here I am, here I am,” “to a nation that was not called by My name” (v. 1). At a surface level, God is referring to His offer of forgiveness to Gentiles, something that has been a major theme throughout Isaiah (Isa 2:2–3; 19:24–25; 42:1–6; 49:6; 55:1–7; 56:6–7). But at a deeper level, Israel in exile becomes like a Gentile nation (Isa 63:19). God affirms how devastating His judgment is against Israel. And He elaborates on Israel’s sins in the following verses. They were “a rebellious people” (v. 2). They did what was “not good” by “following their own devices” rather than the precepts of God’s word. Nevertheless, God “spread out His hands all the day” to them. He spread out His hands to them even while they provoked Him “continually” by their illegitimate sacrifices (v. 3). God abhorred these idolatrous sacrifices (Isa 57:4–5). The bricks were used for making sacrifices safely from atop houses (Jer 19:13). God spread out His hands to His people even as they made themselves impure through contact with the dead and through eating forbidden meat (v. 4). God held out His hands to His people even as they in their unholiness rebuffed God for being less holy than they were (v. 5)! The sacrifices God had prescribed for the temple were a pleasing aroma to Him, but these idolatrous sacrifices made throughout Israel were an abhorrent stench to Him, “smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.” All the day Israel provoked God, who all the day held out His hands to them.

We Gentiles are beneficiaries of God’s benevolent posture (v. 1, quoted in Rom 10:20). And Paul saw Israel continue to rebel against God 700 years after Isaiah (Rom 10:21). Paul told the Athenians that God can be found when He is sought (Acts 17:27); the problem is that the Athenians, like everyone else (even Israel! v. 2) seek a god of their own making, rather than the God who made them (Acts 17:16, 22–23). The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for us while we were His ungodly enemies (Rom 5:6–8)! And the great hope of salvation that we have to offer people is that God gladly forgives every sinner who repents (Matt 11:28–30; John 6:37).

God’s Coming Judgment on All the Unrepentant (vv. 6-7)

God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, but there comes a point when He will pour out His wrath on those who are unrepentant in sin (Exod 34:6–7). God has reached that point with His people Israel in this prophecy of Isaiah. God will repay into the lap of His people “both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together” (vv. 6–7). God was merciful and patient with past generations of Israelites, but now He will be just in punishing this generation, “because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted Me on the hills.”

As we tell people the good news of forgiveness of sins for the repentant, we must be honest about the bad news of judgment coming on the unrepentant. Anyone with a “hard and impenitent heart” is “storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom 2:5). Jude speaks of God’s eternal judgment in a particularly vivid way (Jude 14–15). We urge people to repent so that they will be spared this judgment and be able to live in a new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells (2 Pet 3:9–13).

Eternal Salvation or Eternal Judgment (vv. 8-16)

The remainder of our passage contrasts eternal salvation of the repentant with the eternal judgment of the unrepentant. When God executes judgment on His people Israel, He will preserve a remnant (v. 8). His chosen remnant will possess His mountain (Jerusalem, Mt. Zion) again (v. 9). They will live in the promised land and be able to be peaceable shepherds (v. 10). These verses contain a helpful expression of the compatibility of God’s sovereignty with human responsibility. God calls the remnant of Israel “My chosen” (v. 9). And His chosen are “My people who have sought Me” (v. 10). God has chosen His people, and His people seek Him. Or as the apostle John would later put it, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This helpful teaching about the compatibility of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility continues in the next verse: those who come under God’s judgment are those “who forsake the LORD” (v. 11). Those who choose to neglect the worship of God and instead worship false gods or even “forces” such as Fortune and Destiny deserve the judgment God decrees for them (v. 12). The eternal state of those who repent and those who do not repent gets contrasted in the rest of our passage. The repentant will eat and drink with joy, whereas the unrepentant will be hungry and thirsty with shame (v. 13). Hannah had sung about these reversals in 1 Sam 2:5. Jesus will echo these reversals in Luke 6:20–26. Furthermore, the repentant “shall sing for gladness of heart,” whereas the unrepentant “shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail” (v. 14). Even so, Jesus prophesied the weeping and gnashing of teeth of those who suffer eternal judgment, in contrast to the eternal joy of the repentant (Matt 13:41–43). The unrepentant will come under an eternal curse, whereas the repentant will enjoy eternal blessing (vv. 15–16). Revelation 21:1–8 describes the fulfillment of these verses.

As we’ve been learning from Ecclesiastes on Wednesdays, life in our fallen world can feel hopeless to all kinds of people. Both wealth and poverty pose problems to people. Everyone faces disappointment to varying degrees in different seasons of life. Paul warned that even we Christians are most to be pitied of all people if our hope in Christ is for this life only (1 Cor 15:19). The Bible’s teaching about life after death (and about life after life after death) is one of the things that distinguishes our believes from the various non-Christian worldviews on offer in our world today. And it’s one of the things that gives our worldview a unique hope, which we must be ready to share with others (1 Pet 3:15). We need to be ready to paint the Bible’s picture of eternal joy with God and eternal shame apart from God’s loving presence.

If you’re reading this as a non-Christian, we urge you to repent and believe in the gospel, so that you will experience eternal salvation rather than eternal judgment.

If you are a Christian in the Wilmington or Waynesville area looking for a church family, we’d love to worship the Lord together and fellowship with you sometime!