The Call for Justice, and the Triumph of God’s Initiative

Listen as D. A. Carson speaks on The Call for Justice, and the Triumph of God’s Initiative from Isaiah 58-60.

Male Speaker: Someone explained to me that on Wednesday there is quite a number of day visitors. So, let me preface my reading of scripture and the exposition of the passage before us with a very brief review. We’re looking at the third section of Isaiah, the prophet, and the book itself is easily divided into three parts. And these three parts operate at two levels, an historical level and a christological level. So the first part, which runs from Chapter 1 through to Chapter 37, fastens on the experience of God’s covenant people as they suffer the blows of the Assyrian Empire, the regional superpower that was running things politically in the Middle East at the time of Isaiah the prophet. The northern tribes were captured and taken off into captivity and Jerusalem itself was attacked by sinacrab, but saved by God. Then from Chapters 38-55, the focus now is on the Babylonian Empire, which had taken over from the Assyrian Empire about 140 years later. And now Jerusalem itself is under attack, finally destroyed, the temple razed to the ground, the people taken off into captivity, and then the first exiles returning some decades later. That’s the second part.

Advertise on TGC

And the third part focuses on the experiences and failures and sins and triumphs of the people of God who have returned from exile or are still returning from exile and looks forward, in this respect, all the way to the end of the age of the dawning of the new heaven and the new earth. That’s the historical plane, but Christologically, the messianic figure in the first part is presented as the king, the Davidic king. And in the second part, he’s presented as the suffering servant. And in the third part, our part, he’s presented…it’ll be even clearer this afternoon, he’s presented as the conqueror, the one who triumphs over all enemies, who destroys the unjust, who intervenes to save poor, lost sinners and bring in the promised to new heaven and the new earth. Now we come to Chapters 58-60, and before I read them, let us pray. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Oh, Lord, our strengthen and our redeemer, grant that the words of the living God may burn on our minds and hearts. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

Here then the word of the Lord:

“Shout it aloud. Do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins for day after day they seek me out. They seem eager to know my ways as if they were a nation that does what is right and is not forsaken, the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed? You know on the day, if you’re fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I’ve chosen? Only a day for people to humble themselves. Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood, then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear, then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call and the Lord will answer. You’ll cry for help but He will say, ‘Here am I.’ If you do away with a yoke of oppression, with a pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will judge you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations. You’ll be called repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings.

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land into feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely and your tongue mutters wicked things.

No one calls for justice. No one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments. They utter lies. They conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die. And when one is broken, an adder is hatched, their cobwebs are useless for clothing. They cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin. They’re swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes, acts of violence mark their ways, the way of peace. They do not know there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads. No one who walks along them will know peace. So, justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness, for brightness but we walk in deep shadows.

Like the blind, we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday, we stumble as if it were twilight. Among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears. We moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice but find none for deliverance but it is far away. For our offenses are many in your sight and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities, rebellion, and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God. Inciting revolt and oppression. Uttering lies our hearts have conceived. So justice is driven back and righteousness stands at a distance. Truth has stumbled in the streets. Honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.

The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one. He was appalled that there was no one to intervene. So, His own arm achieved salvation for Him and his own righteousness sustained Him. He put on righteousness as His breastplate and the helmet of salvation on His head. He put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped Himself in zeal as in a cloak according to what they have done. So, will He repay wrath to His enemies and retribution to His foes? He will repay the islands their Jew. From the West, people will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along. The redeemer will come to Zion. To those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares the Lord.

‘As for me, this is my covenant with them,’ says the Lord. ‘My spirit who is on you will not depart from you. And my words that I have put on your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children, and on the lips of their descendants from this time on and forever,’ says the Lord. Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you all assemble and come to you. Your sons come from afar and your daughters are carried on the hip. Then you will look and be radiant. Your heart will throb and swell with joy. The wealth of the seas will be brought to you. To you, the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land. Young camels of Midian and Iffa and all from Sheba will come bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you. The rams of Nebaioth will serve you. They will be accepted as offerings on my altar and I will adorn my glorious temple.

Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me. In the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar with their silver and gold to the honor of the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you in favor, I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open. They will never be shut day or night so that the people may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings led in triumphal procession for the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish. It will be utterly ruined. The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the juniper, the fur, and the Cyprus together to adorn my sanctuary and I will glorify the place for my feet. The children of your oppressors will come bowing before you. All who despise you will bow down at your feet and will call you the city of the Lord, a Zion of the holy one of Israel.

Although you have been forsaken and hated with no one traveling through, I will make you the everlasting pride in the joy of all generations. You will drink the milk of nations and be nursed at royal breasts. Then you’ll know that I the Lord, I’m your Savior, your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. Instead of bronze, I will bring you gold and silver in place of iron. Instead of wood, I will bring you bronze and iron in place of stones. I will make peace your governor and well-being your ruler. No longer will violence be heard in your land nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls salvation and your gates praise. The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again and your moon will wane no more. The Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of sorrow will end then all your people will be righteous and they will possess the land forever. They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor. The least of you’ll become a thousand, the smallest of mighty nation. I am the Lord. In its time I will do this swiftly.”

This is the word of the Lord.

There are many forms of religious hypocrisy. When I was a graduate student at Cambridge many moons ago, I got to know a certain lecturer pretty well and was intrigued by him. He was Anglo-Catholic of the highest sort, but flat-out liberal. When I first arrived in Cambridge, I was, like, a nice little colonial boy, duly petrified, in awe of buildings that were a thousand years old when old for us meant about a hundred years. But gradually, I found my feet and began to query what I was seeing. This particular lecture was a single man. I was single. We’d eat together and eventually, I screwed up the courage to ask him some questions. I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a bit about your own spiritual pilgrimage?” He said, “Go ahead.” I said, “Liberal theology, I understand. It’s not mine, but I understand it. High church sacrament theology, I understand. It’s not mine, but I understand it. What I don’t understand is how you put ’em together.”

He said, “Well, it’s pretty straightforward. I can tell you I was brought up in a strong Anglo-Catholic tradition. My father was a bishop and I went to an Anglo-Catholic Anglican college, and then for a few years I worked with the poorest of the poor in London.” And he joined an Anglican order. And in due course, the order asked him when he was in his mid-30s to go to Cambridge to work with students. He came to Cambridge to the order, and he thought that the best way to work with students was by becoming a student. So, he registered for a degree in theology, came out with a first. He was doing so well, in fact, that the faculty asked him to become a lecturer. And he started publishing books and so on.

He says, “Now, during that period of time,” while he was studying, “I began to see how ignorant my background was in conservative high church theology.” He said, “I bought into a scientific scholarly way of reading the biblical texts.” And in consequence of all of this, he bought into the whole package documentary hypotheses in the Old Testament and many, many pseudonymous New Testament books, and so on, and so on, and so on. And even with respect to Christology, he was interested in tracking out historically how the man Jesus became, in popular imagination, the God figure, and so forth. And at the same time, his theology, if anything drove him toward more and more and more sacramentare in high church practice.

So, I thanked him for being so frank with me and explaining how he got there. I said, “I’m intrigued that you got there, but I still can’t figure out how you put it together.” I mean, I don’t hold the view that when the priest says, “This is my body,” somehow by transubstantiation, there is a mutation somehow at the level of something rather ill-defined called substance, and this becomes actually the body of Christ. I understand what’s being claimed and it’s not my theology, but I understand it. But how do you transmute by the priestly words, this piece of bread into the body of Christ with the full divinity of Christ when you’re not quite sure that the historical Christ was divine himself?

And so we began to argue back and forth. And then half an hour or so into the discussion, I saw that he was red in the face. I was just getting going. I was having fun. I have not always been known for perfect reticence in such matters. And so, I was enjoying an honest scrap. You know, I thought I was finally making my way in Cambridge, figuring out what side was up. And this chap was getting red in the face and beginning to sweat like a pig. And I thought, “Oh, Don, you’ve hit a live wire here, you better back off. It’s not your place to tear him down.” So, where was the religious integrity? Epistemologically, cerebrally, this was rank hypocrisy, hiding behind a form of sacramentarianism after the foundations had been destroyed.

Change gears. Do you watch films? Old films? “The Godfather.” If you belong to a tradition that is too pious to watch “The Godfather,” let me tell you about it. It’s really a series of three films and in it, it’s following the family tradition of an Italian mafia figure in New York with roots in Sicily .One of the interesting things about those films is how all of these figures, these mafia figures are such faithful, pious Catholics. And it’s not just fake. Well, I’m sure there’s some fake, I mean, there’s a certain kind of honest piety, which from any scriptural point of view is a spectacular impiety as they’re bumping off the next dude. Of course, we don’t have to go quite so far away. We can be as orthodox as the Apostle Paul while nurturing bitterness while being singularly unloving to brothers and sisters in Christ. How on earth do you put that together? It’s ghastly. It’s of the same species, the same ugliness as mafioso hypocrisy.

Now, all of these examples, and it’s easy to think of many more, have one thing in common. They focus on religious hypocrisy. These are not the sins of public opponents of the Bible, but the sins of those who nominally protected, expounded, defended while nevertheless doing something different. And that is the way Isaiah 58 opens. The entire chapter is a call for true justice, but it begins by decrying false justice. So, the call for justice, Isaiah 58, begins with, number one, fake justice, verses 1-5. Isaiah is told to be indignant and he tells the people to shout aloud in denouncing the hypocrisy. What do we read? “Shout it aloud. Do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob, their sins.” He’s not exhorted to calmly consider and cerebrally analyze what’s going on or to hold some private counseling sessions with the worst offenders, but to denounce it publicly, loudly, who will strip away the falseness?

By itself, verse 1, might be thought to introduce a wide range of sins. But the next verse begins with “for” and narrows down the kinds of sins that are in view. “Declare to the people their rebellion to the descendants of Jacob their sins, for day after day they seek me out.” How is that a sin? They see meager to know my ways as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken me to forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions. They go to prayer meetings to seek God’s face. “What should we do here? I want some guidance, Lord.” They seem eager for God to come near them. “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you haven’t seen it?” This is a pretty serious religion. But what you get instead is fake religion. 3b, oppression of others. 4a, quarreling and strife. 4b, fighting. 4b and 5, fake empty religious practices. There’s the hypocrisy.

Second, by contrast, verses 6-7 give us a snapshot of true justice. “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen, to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with a hungry and so on?” In fact, there are some images here that sear your brain. Once you’ve seen them, you can’t ever forget them. Verse 7, “What’s the value of fasting,” in the previous verses, “if you don’t help those who are hungry?” It’s clever. It’s a searing image, isn’t it? The fasting itself is merely an external thing. It can be good or bad. And then in the third place, the result of true justice is spelled out in verses 8-14. First the display of God’s glory, verses 8 and 9a, “Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear, then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call and the Lord will answer. You’ll cry for help. And he will say, ‘Here am I.'”

We saw yesterday, it’s gonna come back and bite us again in Chapter 59 that the two righteous words or justice words in the book of Isaiah function a bit differently in the three parts. One word is usually rendered justice in Hebrew and the other word is regularly rendered righteousness. It’s from the tzedek word group in Hebrew. And in the first part of Isaiah 1-37, overwhelmingly these words talk about the righteous conduct that God’s people are supposed to display, often don’t, but that’s what they’re referring to. In the second part, the words more commonly, and especially the second word, the tzedek word group, talk really about God’s righteousness which he provides for his people. And that is bound up, of course, with a suffering servant who bears our sins in his own body on the tree. That’s part of review from yesterday.

The third part of the book, our part, uses these words, especially the second one, both ways. In passage after passage, there’s a built-in tension, which one is meant? We’ll see this, especially in Chapter 59, but here then your righteousness will go before you. That is if you are displaying the true righteousness of the previous verses. “And the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.” That’s what God himself provides is a kind of tension built right into the parallelism. Then you will call and the Lord will answer. It’s not yet worked out how these two components work together. They become clearer as Isaiah moves on. Then you find the reminder of the conditions of God’s blessing, 9b and 10, “If you do away with the yoke of oppression with a pointing finger and malicious talk.” You see, it’s not all public justice, it’s private relationships as well, getting rid of malicious talk and the pointing finger, wrong again. Oh, he might be orthodox, but he’s a bit of a hypocrite. You know, a bit upright and uptight, malicious talk.

Would I be too wrong in thinking that in the UK, in general, and not least in Scotland, it’s hard to get devout Christians together on the same page? I’m a foreigner. I have to be careful what I say. But there are certain countries where that’s really, really a strong phenomenon. It’s true in France, for example, where I’ve spent quite a lot of time. I don’t think it’s entirely a false analysis of Scotland. Pray that God will use the people in this room to lead in a different kind of way, a kind of righteousness where there’s no malicious talk. No pointing fingers. And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and the night will become like the noon day.

Verses 11-14 more results. The blessings of God’s guidance. Verse 11a, “The Lord will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.” The blessings of God’s nurture. 11b, “You’ll be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” The blessings of God’s new covenant people. Verse 12, “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations. You’ll be called repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings.” Of course, this is talking to the people who’ve come back at the end of the exile, but it takes a long time. A few decades before the temple is rebuilt, many decades before the city walls are restored, at the time of Nehemiah toward the end of the 5th century B.C.

And now we begin to see something we’ll explore in greater detail this afternoon and tomorrow morning. How the blessings that are promised intermingle with immediate consequence. That is what takes place in Israel with the restoration of the walls and the rebuilding of the city and that sort of thing. And what takes place finally, only at the end of history with the new heaven and the new earth in superlative, extravagant metaphors. We’ll come to them in due course and watch how the prophet puts them together. They make us a bit uncomfortable because they jump around in time, and we just think we understand the passage while this is talking about the restoration of Jerusalem, and suddenly you’re in the new heaven and the new earth. You think, okay, we’re really talking about not the historic Jerusalem, but the Jerusalem that is above and we’ve got that straight. And then suddenly you’re talking about camels from Kedar and you realize you’re still back in the first half millennium B.C. We’ll wrestle with some of those things a little later on.

But what is clear is that one of the marks of sustained revival, or the blessings on the covenant people of God as a whole and not just on individuals, blessings on individuals is what you find in oppressive and evil times. But when you find the blessing of God in revival dimensions coming upon a group of Christians or upon a culture, upon the covenant people, then you find the entire culture transformed.

So, I lived for nine years in England. You’ll forgive me if I draw more of my data from English history than Scottish history. Partly I’m being safe, partly I know it a little better. At least I’m a little less ignorant. In 1740, do you know how many people showed up at St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London on Easter Sunday for holy communion? Six. There were 280 crimes on the books where the prescription was capital punishment by hanging, 280, including stealing a loaf of bread. Slavery was on the rise in the fledgling empire. And of course, you’re at the height of the Industrial Revolution. So you find kids as young as 5 down in the coal mines. Religion was in such a sorry state that ignorance of scripture was beyond calculation. And in 1734, Howell Harris began to preach in Wales. 1738, George Whitfield began to preach to the coal miners outside of Bristol, 5:00 in the morning when the shift changed. 1740, the Wesley Brothers began to preach.

And in a movement of God that spanned six decades, the social face of England was transformed. Culminated in the abolition of the slave trade, the Great Reform Bill of 1832, introduction of prison reform. Before that you could get thrown into prison, a debtor’s prison, for owing a few pounds and starve to death because they didn’t feed you. The introduction of laws governing child labor and the whole social fabric of England, and in some measure of the empire, was touched not by people who are preaching social justice, but by people who are preaching the gospel and its entailments. Not a kind of privatized, individualized religion, a transformation of men and women before God such that there was a clear demand for justice.

But it goes beyond that, the blessing of simply delighting in God. Verse 13, “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath,” the test in this case and delighting of God begins with the Sabbath, “from doing as you please on my holy day. If you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord.” This is not religion by constraint, it’s by transformation. I know there are all kinds of sick jokes about doer Scots and Presbyterians who are sour-faced. I know an awful lot of that is simply the caricature of unbelievers who want to put down believers. But it’s not entirely without warrant.

Isn’t it the case for most of us that when we find Christians who really, really are happy in the Lord, it’s nice to be with them? It’s fun to find Christians who are happy about being Christians. What does Nehemiah say? Chapter 8:10, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” It’s really hard to be a contagious Christian when you’re cranky. You can denounce but you can’t attract. And now there’s a kind of righteousness, a shaped righteousness here that is happy to be righteous and to be flooded with the joy of the Lord. “You’ll find your joy in the Lord and I will cause you to rise and triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

In other words, all of this in a chapter that denounces hypocrisy, all of this presupposes the importance of integrity. What is integrity? Well, the root word, of course, is integer. An integer is a whole number. A person of integrity is a whole person, that is not two-faced, not facing one way in terms of conduct and speech and facing another way in terms of imagination and motivation. A double-minded person is unstable in all that they do. Doesn’t scripture teach us that? In some measure, that’s the problem we all face. You men, how would you like your mother or your wife or your sister or your daughter to know absolutely everything you think? You women, how would you like your father or your husband or your brother or your son to know absolutely everything you think? God help us. We’re not characterized by integrity. We’re two people, not one. But what the gospel is pushing us toward is such powerful transformation that we become integrated, people of integrity. It’s integrity which abolishes hypocrisy.

So, here’s the call for justice with a focus in Chapter 58 on the abolition of hypocrisy. Then before leaving this topic in the second heading, Isaiah depicts despair because of injustice, 59:1-15a. Of course, in one sense, hypocritical justice, fake justice is itself injustice. To put it differently, hypocritical justice is one form of injustice. It’s a form of injustice that masquerades as justice, but it is still injustice. And here the prophet now opens his lens to look at injustice more holistically than merely that form of injustice that masquerades as justice. The prophet depicts the injustices he sees so vividly is, does he describe them? So vivid is his description that it is couched in despair. This is made clear in the first place from the general stance of this section 59:1-2, “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear to dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear.”

And then look at the description in verses 3-8, “Your hands are stained with blood.” That can be by the manipulation of goods and products too, of course. It doesn’t have to be by a personal frontal attack. “Your lips have spoken falsely, your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice. The law itself becomes a bit of manipulation rather than a pursuit of what is just. No one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments. They utter lies, they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.” The next two verses embrace two brilliant metaphors. “They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web.” Now, in most homes what you do is hatch chicken eggs or duck eggs because you’re gonna eat them. And what you spin is wool or some other yarn so as to make clothes. But they’re busy hatching snake’s eggs, “Whoever eats their eggs will die. When one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing.” Try making yourself some clothes out of cobwebs. They cannot cover themselves with what they make.

In other words, with all of this injustice, what they’re really spinning, what they’re building in the culture doesn’t cover anything. It doesn’t feed anybody. It’s just poisonous. Like the bite of an adder. It’s killing and it’s embarrassing. Your shame is exposed. There’s nothing good that’s coming from it in the culture itself. “Their deeds are evil deeds. Acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin. They’re swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes, acts of violence mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know. There is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads. No one who walks along them will know peace.”

“So,” verse 9, “therefore, more despair because of all of this, justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us.” So, here again, you find these two words, [foreign language 00:41:54.398] and [inaudible 00:41:55] word group. “Justice is far from us,” probably means the kind of justice that we must practice, we’re not characterized by genuine justice stamped with integrity. It’s probably describing our conduct. But the next line, “And righteousness does not reach us.” It’s now not focusing exactly on what we do but does not reach us from God. Now it’s looking at righteousness as God provides it, which is such a major emphasis in the second part of Isaiah. I’ve told you before that in the third part of Isaiah, these two ideas come together in text after text after text with slightly different words. In 11b, “We look for justice, but find none, for deliverance.” Justice is what we should be pursuing, but we’re not finding it in the nation. We look for deliverance, salvation that actually gives us this justice and righteousness, but find none. Again, verse 14, the two words are back. “So justice is driven back and righteousness stands at a distance.” There’s no help in our conduct and God himself has turned away and is not providing the only righteousness that will save us.

One commentary writes these words, “More clearly than before in the book, the prophet links salvation and behavior. If the people are not experiencing the righteousness of God, it is because they’re not behaving in a righteous manner. But by the same token, they are recognizing the frightening truth. That apart from the gracious righteousness of God being worked out amongst them, it is not possible for them to behave righteously.” Hence the gloom and despair, verses 10-15a, “Like the blind, we grope along the wall. Feeling our way like people without eyes.” This addressed prophetically to the people who’ve escaped the exile and are back in the land. And you realize that historically this is realistic.

Think of the condition that Nehemiah found the people in his book. They’ve returned to the land and they’re groping along the way and are frightened and terrified and insecure. And even when they have got the wall built again and the repopulation program reinstituted. Nehemiah 11. He goes away for 12 years and when he comes back he finds corruption everywhere. “Like the blind, we grope along the wall. Feeling our way like people without eyes. We all growl like bears.” I’ve done enough hill walking in the mountains to have come across bears. To hear an angry bear growl is something you never forget or a hungry bear growl. Or to change the metaphor, “We moan mournfully like doves,” disgusting little coo, coo, coo, coo. Talk about the joy of the Lord. Morning dove doesn’t have it as far as his voice goes. “We look for justice but find none for deliverance. But it is far away.” Isn’t that pretty much a depiction of where Western culture is today?

And then the third and final section of our three chapters, God’s stunning initiative.

His cascading intervention, His response to his people’s injustice. So, you begin with a description of injustice, especially hypocritical injustice. You move to the entailed despair and from there, the only way out is God intervening. That’s the logic of these three chapters. Do you see? So, now we’re looking at 15b, 59:15b, all the way to the end of 60:22. Well, first of all, the intervention itself, 15b-21, “The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one. He was appalled that there was no one to intervene.” Now you’re talking about justice of a very high order here, justice marked by integrity, not just following some rules. So, He broke out on wrath and destroyed them. Isn’t that what you’d expect? But what we read instead is, “So, His own arm achieved salvation and His own righteousness sustained Him.” He provides the salvation. He provides the righteousness.

And It is impossible not to read this, if you’re reading the book of Isaiah as a whole, in the light of the depictions of the messianic king, who is also the suffering servant and as we’ll see developed in the next chapters, who comes now as a conquering hero. God visits his people and he comes, as we’ll see, with both transforming salvation and terrifying judgment. Righteous salvation. 16b and 17a, “He put on righteousness as his breastplate, the helmet of salvation on his head.” But on the other hand, He also comes with vengeance and retribution. 17b and 18, is also part of his display of righteousness meeting this world. “He put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. According to what they have done,” excuse me, “so will He repay wrath to His enemies and retribution to His foes. He will repay the islands their due.” The islands is a way of talking about the gentile world. So, the justice is cascading down now not only on his covenant people in the land of Israel but cascading on the islands as well. He’s the God of the entire universe.

So, here messianic blessings, pour on the repentant, verse 20, cast in old covenant categories. “The redeemer will come to Zion to those in Jacob who repent of their sins.” Indeed, to put it into broader sweep, this is the promise of the coming new covenant. “As for me,” verse 21, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit who is on you will not depart from you. And my words that I have put on your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children, and on the lips of their descendants.”

For those who read the Old Testament prophets, you cannot help but remember other new covenant passages. The last chapter of the second section of Isaiah, Chapter 55, the third section begins with 56, which we began to study yesterday, opens this way, 55:1-3, “Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. You who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me. Listen and that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” Promised to David, the first section. In terms of a new covenant, an everlasting covenant worked out in Christ’s blood on the cross, second section. Now in the transformation of the people, third section. Do you see how the book is held together?

But of course, Ezekiel 36:25-27 promises new covenants too, characterized by two things. He will wash his people with pure water and he will pour out his spirit upon them. That is number one, He will clean them up. Number two, He will transform them. There’s the new covenant passage of Jeremiah, 31:31 and following, “It will not be like the old covenant,” He says, “but He will write His law on their hearts and their sins He will remember no more.”

Now, it has often been pointed out by conservative and liberal alike that just about everything in Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant is already found in the old covenant. And so, they prefer to think of the new covenant as a renewing of the covenant. That’s a very common argument. “After all, I will write my law in their hearts. They will all know me from the least of the greatest.” Those words are first depicted in the Pentateuch. “I will be their God and they will be my people.” That’s in Leviticus. So, when it’s attached to the words of the promise of the new covenant, what’s new? Same words, same formula. Yet the fact of the matter is that the new covenant promise of Jeremiah explicitly says, “It will not be like the covenant I made with your fathers. I’ll make a new covenant.” So what’s new about the new covenant as opposed to merely being a renewal?

And if that were not enough, you can turn to Hebrews 8, which quotes Jeremiah’s new covenant passage and then concludes at the end by talking about this covenant as new, “He has made the old one old and that which is old and obsolete is passing away.” Hebrews 8:13. So, the New Testament declares, God Himself declares in the writings of the Second Testament that the old covenant is obsolete, principally done. Its continuity continues precisely in that to which it points not simply as an independent covenant. So what then is new about it?

As far as I can see, what you are dealing with is, is something like a ratcheting up of things. When God says in Leviticus, “I will be their God and they will be my people. They will all know me from the least to the greatest,” and so on, He’s thinking in terms of the tabernacle in the wilderness, God manifesting Himself in the glory that rests on the tabernacle that becomes home base until the glory lifts and moves off and then the Levites can move in and help the priest to wrap up the tent and put it on their shoulders and carry it off. If they tried to do that when the glory was present, they’d be killed. You can’t mess with the veil, you can’t enter the presence of God that way. Only the high priest only once a year on the day of atonement. But now you just wrap it up. That’s the structure, the focus, the means by which people know God.

But now with the coming of the new covenant, now it’s different as is made clear by the words of Jesus connected with his own passion. “This is the cup of the new covenant shed for many for the remission of sins. This is the new covenant in my blood.” No longer the blood of bull and goat. And now you are into the Epistle or the Hebrews. Now you’re into Romans 3. So the words are used, the themes are similar, but there’s a ratcheting up in intensity and experience in transformation until you finally come to the book of Revelation.

And in the final vision, Revelation 21 and 22, again, the same words are used. “I will be their God and they will be my people.” But now God as it were, is so much their God, and the people as it were, are so much the people of God that there’s no more sin or darkness or despair. “For the old order of things has passed away,” we read. Same words, same domain of thought, but there’s a ratcheting up and a ratcheting up. So much of a ratcheting up that what comes is not merely a renewing of the old, but a transformation of the old, the fulfillment of the old, the climax of the old. And you’re getting tastes of that already in the promises of Isaiah the prophet, eight centuries before the coming of Christ.

Eternal blessing is ultimately envisaged here and the results of God’s initiative, 60:1-22. Had we time, we would meditate at length on a handful of the spectacular and evocative blessings. In Chapter 61 and 62, look at the contrast of the language. “A rise, shine for your lightest come and the glory of the Lord rises upon. You see darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but…” one of those divine buts. “But the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Israel now is clearly mediating the light of God. Verse 3, “Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” After all, all the first Christian evangelists were Jews. Second generation, there were more Gentiles. Of the New Testament writers, the only one who has a good chance of being a Gentile is Luke. He’s not certain, but perhaps.

So who has brought light to the Gentiles? Wasn’t the Scots. Certainly wasn’t the Canadians. You might have quite a remarkable missionary heritage largely dissipated now, but you didn’t bring the gospel to the Gentiles, the Jews did. And that was an important thing for Jews to hear at the time of the return in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. You may be a despised people and still a vassal state in a tiny little nation at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and under the regional superpowers of the day. But don’t you understand, “Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” The conquerer is coming.

Then return from exile, both physical and spiritual. Verse 4, “Lift up your eyes and look about you all assemble and come to you. Your sons come from afar. Your daughters are carried on the hip.” Then there’s a sense in which the prosperity that they lost by being cast off and becoming dirt-poor farmers at the time of the exile all over again. The prosperity returns with a return of the exile, verses 5-9. There’s a recognition of God’s protection, verse 10. Promised security, verse 11. The oneness and exclusiveness of the people of God, verse 12. And vindication, verses 13-17a. Peace not violence, 17b and 18. You can track those themes out yourselves. They’re pretty straightforward but above all, in verses 19-22, there is transcendent God-centeredness.

“The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you. For the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory.” What New Testament passage does that remind you of? Revelation 21. After the spectacular apocalyptic vision of the new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, we are then told that there’s certain things that aren’t there. I saw no temple in that city for the Lord God Almighty and the lamb are its temple. I saw no sun in that city because the Lord God is the light of the people forever and there is no more night. That’s not talking about the astronomy of the new heaven and the new earth any more than the abolition of water. In the first verse, “I saw no more sea,” is talking about the hydrological arrangements. It’s symbol aid in language that’s looking beyond our conceptuality lost as we are in this fallen, broken, dark world. But it’s a powerful way of saying there is no darkness anymore, for God Himself is the light.

And the climax is in verse 21, “Then all your people will be righteous and they will possess the land forever.” Well, the land of Israel, the land of the new heaven and the new earth, we’ll worry about those tensions later. “They are the shoot I have planted the work of my hands for the display of my splendor. I am the Lord and it is time. I will do this swiftly.” Most of us have taken our share of funerals. It’s not uncommon when we talk to the bereaved…especially when the person who has just gone on as a Christian and is surrounded by a Christian family, it’s not uncommon for the bereaved to say things like, “I can hardly wait to get to heaven myself and see the one I’ve lost.” Or a baby who comes to term and dies just before birth, a stillborn baby, and the parents say, “One day I’ll meet him.” It’s not bad to think like that, but if I’m allowed to say so, it’s second-tier. By and large, that’s not what the Bible holds forth. What the Bible holds forth is seeing the splendor of God. No, it’s not wrong to recognize the second tier, but the second tier is not the first tier.

I like listening to the folk music of different cultures and countries. Roger Whittaker sings a lot of this stuff and one of the songs he sings is a Canadian one, which I may be forgiven for liking. I was listening in the car a few years ago to one of the tapes then, not CDs, of Roger Whitaker singing a song of Cape Breton. Sing me a song of Cape Breton. And eventually, he got to the third verse, “If my life could end perfectly, I know how I’d like it to be. God’s gift of heaven would be made up of three. My love, Cape Breton, and me.” And I thought to myself, my dear Roger, you just about defined hell because no doubt Roger Whittaker and his love will multiply like rabbits, still a bunch of sinners, and pretty soon they’ll have nuclear weapons. God’s gift of heaven will be made up of…No God, just three. Isaiah’s vision is a lot more expansive. Yes, righteousness. The nations bringing in the wealth of the nations to the people of God. Yes, yes, yes. But this is for the display of my splendor.

Have you ever had Christians come to you and say one of the hardest things they struggle with in their faith is how to conceive of a lost beloved parent, a father, a mother, a cherished aunt who’s not a Christian? How to conceive of them as in hell forever. How is that right or fair? I know that the Bible does seem to talk along those lines. They say, but how do I come to terms with that? How do I come to think of my mother in hell? There are no formulaic answers. There are long theological answers that you can give, but I am sure of one part of it. It is so far beyond our [inaudible 01:06:01] that when you first articulate it, it seems too easy until you see how utterly central it is. The new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness, resurrection existence on the last day, is not primarily about you and your mom. You’ll be awash in the splendor of the Lord and all else will be clarified by that clarity. “I am the Lord, and it’s time, I will do this swiftly.” Let us pray.

Have mercy upon us. Heavenly Father, even at our best, we remain unprofitable servants. In our contrition and brokenness, hear us Lord God, and have mercy. Meet us in our needs. Provide us, clothe us with the righteousness that only you can provide Through the plan of redemption, determine an eternity past brought about in the fullness of time. There is a redeemer, God’s own son, the Davidic king, the suffering servant, the conquering hero. And here alone is our hope and expectation. Open our eyes. We beg of you that we may see, and in seeing believe, and in believing experience the joy of the Lord, which is our strength in anticipation of the glory yet to come. In Jesus’ name, amen.