Isaiah 54:11-55:13 — Pursuing Abundant Life

The main goal of God's Highway Project is to return His people to Him. Accomplishing that requires a change of heart, but also a change in thinking and acting. In this phase of God’s Highway Project, God begins to straighten out the crooked places by challenging His people to consider His vision of ideal life and how to achieve it. What kind of salvation did they really need to release them from bondage? What kind of kingdom are they looking for in the future? Are their values based on the physical things that the world values or the eternal things that God values? What does God value? How does He see these things? Much of what is keeping them in oppression is a skewed view of what they should be pursuing, and He needs to bring those expectations back into alignment with His vision. Before we get into our verses for today, let me just ask you . . .


Isaiah 54:11-17
Notice how God describes Israel in verse 11. She is still afflicted and storm-tossed. After all of God’s promises, even the death of the Servant that released her from her spiritual bondage, she is still not comforted. I can appreciate her struggle, though. Even though we have the comfort of knowing Christ died for our sins and reconciled us with God, that does not mean our lives are free of antagonists and trials. We can still feel afflicted, tossed with tempest, and lacking in comfort during times of trial. It is part of the sanctification process. Part of the problem early on in the journey has to do with adjusting to a new vision of the future and learning how to take comfort from it.

God presents Israel with this picture of a glorious future kingdom that is coming. It is like something out of a storybook, a gorgeous city laid with colorful gems and precious stones. It is a kingdom that the world, and even Satan himself, would envy because it is rich the way the world reckons riches.


First, there are children, lots of children just as the LORD promised the barren woman earlier in our chapter, and these children will be taught by the LORD. The Hebrew word for children is used twice in verse 13, and it can refer to children as being literal progeny but also builders (of a house or kingdom) and disciples (those who are taught and understand). These are all "children," and all applications of this word fit the context here. The kingdom will be rebuilt and re-peopled by those with an understanding of the LORD. Imagine that for a moment. Why would being taught by the LORD top the list?


Peace, and not just peace but great peace. Is peace something that this world values? It pays lip service to it, certainly, but how many wars and protests are waged in the name of peace? And peace for whom and according to whose values?

Righteousness—that is a justice term. Justice is foundational to the peaceful running of a kingdom. Think of our own culture. How has a lack of godly teaching affected our justice system? What happens to a justice system when the citizens ignore godly teaching and use the system to pursue wealth and build their own little kingdoms? We get oppression. The Hebrew word for oppression in verse 14 specifically includes a sense of fraud and deceitful dealings—things that are opposite of truth. What would it be like to live in a kingdom where truth reigns and there aren’t scammers or hackers or fraud or identity theft or any of the abuses that we fear in our current culture? What if all that was gone? Wouldn’t that be heaven?


Oppression and fear are pushed back as God brings Israel into a wide, save space, but there are still antagonists in this place (v15). This may be referring to the experience that Israel had when she returned to Jerusalem after her release from Babylonian exile. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe how the returnees were beset by antagonists as they struggled to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. But there is a difference about these antagonists. Unlike Babylonia, these antagonist will not overcome her. God was the one who sent Babylonia after Israel in the beginning, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it or save herself. Her time in the furnace of affliction had been decreed by the LORD. But these new antagonists are not divinely commissioned. She will still face combatants and revilers, but their power over her is broken. She can overcome them. This new position of power and authority is the heritage of the servants of God, but it is a power and authority that is granted by Him and sourced in Him. One of the first promises God made back in Isaiah 40 was that He would empower the weak if they would wait on Him and He makes good on that promise in this future kingdom.

There is a reason why these particular promises and conditions are presented after the picture of the Suffering Servant’s death in Isaiah 53. All of this comfort springs from that source. Now that the penalty for sin is removed, whatever power these antagonist had over God’s children to hurt or condemn them is now broken, and this is a promise that extends to all God’s people, even us. As Paul says in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus . . .” The penalty has been paid. The wrath is appeased. Now every tongue that rises against us in judgment will be condemned because our righteousness is in Christ. That is as much our right and heritage as servants of God as it is for Israel, and a very great comfort.

We have talked about the building and fabric of the kingdom. It is rich, but its riches are 1) in its people who understand God and embrace His values and 2) in its character of peace, truth, and righteousness. Now let’s look at life in the kingdom. Again, this is going to challenge Israel’s understanding of what is valuable.

Isaiah 55:1-3a
This kingdom offers a rich abundance of good living—water, wine, and milk. There is an everlasting fountain of these. Water is needful for sustaining life, particularly in desert places. Wine and milk are perhaps luxuries. But they are all things that the world values and on which it places a high price (similar to the costly gems of the previous verses). And yet, these things can be had for nothing in God’s kingdom. They are not considered valuable as the world values them. The LORD’s words challenge Israel to redefine her values. Why waste good money for what is not bread?


Bread represents food that sustains the body in our earthly life. It is needful, but it is a transient thing. A person buys it and eats it. It passes through their body with only fleeting benefit and comfort, and even though they eat it, they are hungry again afterwards. And so they go to work to earn money to buy more bread. Thus, their life becomes consumed with the pursuit of consumable things. Isn’t that an irony?

Let's compare the bread to the costly stones in Isaiah 54. The world sees only the precious gems that are of worldly value, but God sees those gems as people—living stones that are of eternal value. The wealth of His kingdom is embodied in His people, not material things.

Similarly, bread is of value in the world’s eyes because it sustains life, but it has little lasting benefit. To enjoy a lasting abundance of it becomes a pursuit that can consume a person. But this picture that God is painting for Israel is not of a fleeting, earthly kingdom but an eternal, spiritual one. The nature of this heavenly kingdom is different from the earthly one; therefore, what nourishes and gives life to it is also of a different nature. What sustains life in an eternal, spiritual kingdom? The Word of God. Israel needs to transform her thinking over what will give her an eternal kind of nourishment and what she needs to feed--body or soul.

"Listen to Me . . . Incline your ear . . . Hear and your soul shall live." (v2-3a) 
The abundance of the kingdom is not achieved in the pursuit of what satisfies the body, but what satisfies the soul, and the nourishment is received not by the mouth but by the ear. Hear, and you shall have all that is needful for living. But it is not enough to listen. We have to consider the source that is speaking to us. The world promotes the pursuit of the kind of wealth and abundance that God’s kingdom offers, but it does so by its own wisdom and its own definition. It craves the riches and abundance of God’s kingdom but will try to achieve them by deceit, fraud, fear, and oppression. Even in our Christian circles today, we find prosperity cults who twist the definition of abundant living into a worldly pursuit of wealth. Believers can stumble back into bondage when they do not have a clear picture of the kingdom, its abundance, and how that abundance is achieved.

Isaiah 55:3b-5
In almost the same breath, verse 3 segues from talking about being fed by the LORD (being taught by the LORD) to the practical application of running a kingdom. In verse 4, there is the mention of the covenant that was made with David--the promise of an eternal kingship. The covenant with David will come to fruition in this kingdom when the Messianic Davidic King takes the eternal throne--the same Messiah-king who was the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. Like His forefather, David, that Servant will divide His spoil with the strong, and surely, David himself is among those. I believe the LORD promises David not just an eternal kingship through his progeny, but also a personal place in the administration of that future kingdom under that Son. Christ will be King of all, and David will be a leader (prince) and commander of the people. But notice that this covenant isn't just made with David. The covenant is extended to "you." "I will make an everlasting covenant with you . . . you shall call a nation . . . nations who do not know you shall run to you . . . for He has glorified you." 


God has been speaking to the nation of Israel throughout this chapter. When her remnant comes into the kingdom, He will extend the same everlasting covenant of kingship--the sure mercies of David--to them as part of their glorification. Thus, the kingship is being democratized—ruling power is being extended to the people. Christ will be King over all. David will be given a high level of rulership in the kingdom under Christ. Beneath him are the people who are not just subjects but co-rulers. "You" will command and direct kingdoms, and "you" will know the abundance that is usually reserved for those of royal status.

Summary: 1 Peter 1:22-2:10
I want to pause here and do a quick summary of this picture being laid out for us, because this promise of abundant life and even rulership is not just for Israel. It is for us as well. It is for everyone who has identified with the death of the suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 and has endured suffering even as He endured suffering in pursuit of God’s righteousness and His kingdom.

In his first letter, Peter explains how we fit into this picture of a kingdom built of living stones. He begins by talking about the salvation and heavenly inheritance of which the prophets prophesied (1 Peter 1:3-12). He then talks about the transformation that comes out of that salvation. We now have new life and are nourished by the enduring word of God. He quotes Isaiah 40 to make his comparison between the fleetingness of corruptible life versus the incorruptible life we have through the Word (1 Peter 1:22-2:3). And then he speaks about us being the living stones in a spiritual house.


Just as the LORD exhorted the barren woman to embrace the promise and not to be ashamed of the reproach and rejection she might suffer for her hope—the hope that the death of the Suffering Servant obtained for her, Peter exhorts us not to regard the world’s rejection but embrace our new identity and calling.

The children of the barren woman are the builders of the kingdom who have been taught by the LORD. Hearing and obeying the Word is the basis for our inclusion in the kingdom. People who see only a kingdom built of costly gems but without an understanding of God’s word and the saving knowledge of Christ’s death stumble over the foundational cornerstone that is Christ Himself. He will become a stumbling block to them because of their resistance to godly teaching.

The sure mercies of David are now extended to a people who had not obtained mercy before, and a new class distinction described as a royal priesthood emerges in this coming kingdom. (Just as the kingship is democratized here in Isaiah 55, we will see the priesthood democratized as well in Isaiah 61:6.) Peter gets this understanding from the kingdom pictures in Isaiah, and he applies these pictures to us as believers in this age--an understanding he will also get from Isaiah which we will discuss in next week's blog.

Back to Isaiah . . .
The LORD seeks to comfort Israel with this picture of the kingdom and all its benefits--its material richness, its peace, its righteousness that brings safety and security, its abundance, and all the benefits of royalty. The question remains: How do you enter this kingdom?

Isaiah 55:6-13
We are moving away from a simple, passive belief in God that was demanded in Chapters 40-53, and into an actual practice of faith that will be the theme going forward. The way out of the crooked place has been made by the Suffering Servant. God has laid the kingdom before Israel and is pushing her forward. A response is now demanded of her if she wishes to enter into this abundant life. "Seek the LORD . . . Call upon Him . . . Let the wicked forsake His ways . . . the unrighteous man his thoughts."

Seeking the LORD is a new kind of pursuit and very different from the old earthly pursuit of consumable things like wealth and bread. What are you seeking? An understanding of Him, how He sees things, and how He works. Where do you seek Him? In His Word.
 
Calling upon Him is a step of faith. It means you believe He has the power to deliver and comfort you, and that He will answer your call.
 
Returning to Him involves forsaking old ways and old ways of thinking and turning back to God's ways and thoughts. It requires letting go of the earthly perspective and pursuits and pursuing life on an eternal, heavenly plane. The LORD offers abundant mercy and forgiveness to those who return to Him. This is the ultimate goal in God's Highway Project.
 
In verses 10-11, the LORD draws a parallel between an earthly experience of rain coming down from heaven to replenish the earth and the heavenly act of sending forth His Word to accomplish its task. Neither effort returns void and without fruit. Those who hear and receive this life-giving word will enter into abundant life. The chapter ends with the promise of a restored Eden, where the brier and thorns associated with the curse of sin are replaced with beautiful, aromatic trees and the sweet smell of eternal peace.

God’s Highway Project: Straightening the Crooked Places
This vision of the kingdom seems like a very glowy, almost storybook future that God is presenting Israel, but it is a distant future. This heavenly kingdom hasn’t yet been established, even in our day. It is a comfort to those who are suffering, particularly under severe affliction to the point of death. And yet, we must be careful when presenting this kind of comfort to a beleaguered sufferer or even an unbeliever in this age because this is not a picture for this age. Setting false expectations of the Christian life can send a person back into bondage again, and we need to be realistic when we talk about having abundant life in this age.