Isaiah 56:1-12— Making Peace (pt 1)
In the last few chapters, we’ve been talking about the coming kingdom—its appearance and character, its values, and the new ruling class that emerges in it. As God presents Israel with these pictures of the kingdom, He challenges her ways of thinking. Her thought and ways are not His thoughts and ways. Her idolatry has skewed her perspective of abundant life—what it looks like and how it is achieved—and has sent her in pursuit of a counterfeit version. If she wants this kingdom and the abundant life that the LORD is promising her, she needs to wrap her head around God's vision of things. Today He is going to challenge more erroneous thinking, this time over who is kingdom-worthy and will enter into His peace and on what grounds.
We are going to talk about what it means to be a citizen of a kingdom. Our current culture has skewed the concept of what it means to be a citizen, so let’s define this using our own country's definition as an example.
Q: What does it mean to be a citizen in the U.S.?
Q: What benefits do citizens enjoy?
Q: What is demanded of them in return?
Q: What does it take for someone who is not a citizen by birth to become naturalized?
I looked up the answers to the questions on various government websites and found these answers. A citizen is one who is legally recognized as a subject of a kingdom, state, or city, who enjoys the rights, privileges, and protections of that community. In turn, a citizen must align themselves with the laws and values that govern that community and agree to live by them and uphold them, e.g., participating in civic and military duty. There are some additional requirements for a person wanting to naturalize as a U.S. citizen. They have to be of good moral character, that is, they are not engaged in criminal activity or have a criminal record. They must pass a test to see if they understand the language, know how the government and justice systems work, and what their civic responsibilities are.
As it is in our own country, so it is in God’s kingdom. Those who enter must understand and be aligned with its laws and values to enjoy the blessings of abundant life in that kingdom.
Isaiah 56:1-2
God prompts Israel to prepare herself for His salvation and His righteousness to come. This kingdom will be a kingdom of peace, and that peace will depend on a justice system that rules righteously, without bias, and according to the truth which stems from God's Word and His law. As incoming citizens Israel is called to ready herself for the new administration and its values--keep justice, do what is right and keep your hand from evil, and keep from profaning the Sabbath. (That last requirement is a little specific. We will talk about it in a minute.) Obedience to these laws will make peace in the kingdom.
The word “keep” is repeated three times. The act of “keeping” something can mean to observe the practice of it, to celebrate it, such as keeping the Law or the Sabbath. It can also mean to have charge of it, to keep watch over it, protect it, and preserve it. Thus, “keeping” something involves being a watchman or a shepherd.
Q: What does it mean to keep justice as a watchman or shepherd? What is required of the citizen in regard to himself? Does he/she have some responsibility to the greater community?
Q: Israel is specifically instructed not to profane the Sabbath. How does the Sabbath fit into the picture of the kingdom of peace?
At the beginning of this study, I pointed out that prophets like Isaiah never saw the valleys between peaks of time. The Church Age is the valley between the Suffering Servant’s death in Isaiah 53, and the kingdom pictures in Isaiah 54-66. The kingdom picture in Isaiah is not a picture of the Church Age. It is a picture of the fully-realized Millennial Kingdom. It is a spiritual kingdom with a physical presence on earth for that period of time.
The Old Covenant governed Israel’s community up to Christ’s first advent. It was the ruling authority in Isaiah’s day. It was the ruling authority after the Babylonian exile ended and Israel went back to her Land to rebuild her nation. It was the ruling authority until the day Christ died on the cross and the New Covenant was established. The Old Covenant governed the civic, judicial, and religious practices that made peace for the community in their relationship with each other and with God. It embodied God’s definitions of justice, righteousness, and holiness. That was its intent—to create a kingdom of peace.
Covenant creates community. That Old Covenant is what defined Israel as a community and separated her from all the other nations around her. The problem is that the future kingdom of peace would be a universal kingdom for all nations. In Isaiah 44-45, God told Israel that He is a universal God who intends to offer a universal salvation to all men. The Servant is sent as a light not just to Israel but the Gentiles who would embrace His justice and laws. This is the picture that has been painted in Isaiah—this universal kingdom.
Covenant creates community, and the community is gaining Gentile members who were not previously governed by that Old Covenant. So, this creates a dilemma. Either the whole Gentile world must be brought under the Old Covenant Law that defined Israel’s community, or a new covenant must be established that removes the need for separation of Jew from Gentile and rules both as one. God opted for the second. With His death on the cross, Christ fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law and paid the penalty for breaking that Law. The kingdom community no longer had to be divided down physical lines of flesh and blood and according to works (Jew vs. Gentile). It was now divided down spiritual lines based on faith alone according grace (believer vs. unbeliever). Thus, the kingdom opened up to include all men, because the separation that the Old Covenant commandments demanded was removed, as it says,
“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” - Ephesians 2:14-18 NKJV
Christ is the New Covenant that governs this new expanded community, but again, we run into a dilemma because those Old Covenant laws embodied the basic tenets for a peaceful kingdom. The Law's purpose was to govern a community according to God’s values of holiness, righteousness, and justice, and those values haven’t changed. They still define the character of a kingdom of peace, whether in time past, or in the kingdom future. The kingdom's character hasn’t changed. What makes for peace in the kingdom hasn’t changed. This is why, when Isaiah presents these citizenship requirements for the Millennial kingdom, they fall in line with the Mosaic Laws.
The Millennial kingdom will be a kingdom of peace ruled by what God says makes for peace in a community, but this is not a peace that Israel (or we as Church Age believers) can fully realize while in exile. Israel was at the mercy of the Babylonians who were antagonists to God’s values and peace, and when you are a slave to a master who does not keep the Sabbath, then you don’t keep the Sabbath. So, while she is in exile, Israel really can’t keep the laws of peace except in a very limited way. Even so, she was called to do as much as she could within the strictures of Babylonian rule as a watchman, to keep the spirit and knowledge of the coming kingdom of peace alive until the day when the kingdom changed hands.
Isaiah envisioned the kingdom changing hands. He went from one peak to the next, but he didn’t see the long stretch of valley that separated those two peaks which is called the Church Age. The Church Age would be another age of exile for Israel because they didn’t accept their Messiah-King when He came the first time. The Church Age is its own unique community, governed by the New Covenant (which is really the Old Covenant way of peace fulfilled by Christ) and yet in a time of exile. Our righteousness is through Christ, and yet we keep a lot of the Old Covenant precepts in spirit because they are the way of peace. But we have limitations as to how far we can govern our community along these lines because this is an exile period. Covenant defines community, and in times of exile, we are subject to the laws of the lands in which we currently live, and we are networked to those communities for our livelihood. Like Israel, we do as much as we can while living under the authority of masters and governors and national laws that are antagonistic to God’s values of justice, righteousness, and holiness, even if it is just in the way we govern ourselves as small bodies of believers. We do this as watchmen, to keep the spirit and knowledge of God's way of peace alive until the day that the kingdom changes hands.
The Church Age is not the kingdom. It is an exile age. The Millennial Kingdom is coming, and when it is established, its governance will fall in line with God's laws for justice, righteousness, and holiness, of which the Old Testament laws bore witness. Here in Isaiah 56, the LORD lays down these requirements for citizenship in the kingdom, including keeping the Sabbath.
Keeping the Sabbath
We need to stop thinking of Sabbath-keeping as merely obeying an Old Testament law, and start thinking of how the Sabbath fits into the understanding of peace and what makes for peace.
Q: What was the purpose of the Sabbath?
The Sabbath reflects the rest that Israel would have in the kingdom--a rest she had not known as a slave in exile. The Sabbath was instituted when the Israelites came out of Egypt and is associated with being freed from bondage. Thus, keeping the Sabbath was meant to memorialize that release from servitude. In the Old Testament practice of the Sabbath, Israel was not to carry any burdens, do any customary work from which wages or profit were taken, or demand work of anyone else. Servants were allowed to sit down for day, and everyone enjoyed free provision and refreshment from the LORD's hand. The penalty for not keeping the Sabbath was death, according to the Law. (This penalty is a good example of why we do not keep the Old Covenant Laws. If we were to keep justice in this way, then we would be convicted of murder under the laws of our land. We are not under the Old Covenant in the Church Age.)
Thus, the keeping the Sabbath was meant to keep alive the picture of a future time of rest, a release from bondage (physical and spiritual), a release from work, and the experience of grace--an abundance of provision that is grant as a free gift and not by the work of man's hands. The grace aspect should not be overlooked because the physical experience translates into a spiritual truth. Those who would be citizens of God's kingdom will not come into that kingdom based on the merit of their works but by grace. When works enter into that Sabbath/kingdom picture, they profane it.
If the conditions laid out in verses 1-2 are the requirements for those who would be citizens in the kingdom, then citizenship is clearly not based on having blood ties to Israel. It is based on being aligned with spiritual character of the kingdom and that can apply to a person of any nation. God sets these requirements for this very purpose, that He might open the kingdom to more than just Israel. God wants citizens to be identified by the spirit and not the flesh.
Isaiah 56:3-8
Israel has been told to bring herself in line with the LORD's justice and righteousness, and immediately, a cry goes up from two classes of people who feel marginalized and cut off from the kingdom and its blessing. They are the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD and the eunuchs. The LORD addresses the eunuch’s first.
Q: Why would the eunuchs feel they didn’t have a place in the kingdom?
In Isaiah 39:7, Israel was warned that some of her own sons would become eunuchs (Hebrew: sarise) in the palace of the king of Babylon. The Hebrew, sarise, primarily refers to a man who is castrated in the sense of being cut off physically, and thus left without seed or progeny by which he will be remembered. But sarise can also describe officers of a high or honored rank in a king's service--captains of his bodyguard or military men (Genesis 37:36, 2 Kings 25:16), chief cupbearers and bakers (Genesis 40:2), and stewards of the royal family (Esther 2:3, 14). Not all of these influential officials were castrated, although many were, mainly to prevent them from establishing a dynasty of their own which would threaten the king.
The eunuchs here are the ones who have been cut off and made servants in the king’s court. They are the male counterpart to the barren women in Isaiah 54. The LORD had previously promised the barren women that they would have many children in the kingdom once their relationship with their spiritual Husband was restored, but the eunuchs point out that they themselves are “dry trees.” They will have no children with which to rebuild their house and be remembered, even after their relationship with the LORD is reestablished. In addition to that, these eunuchs also enjoyed a place of royal privilege and honor in the foreign king's administration--a place that would be lost when they returned to their own land and people. Instead of enjoying privilege, their condition would stigmatize them in their community and deny them an experience of abundance that others enjoyed.
This is the issue for the eunuchs, but it is really an issue that extends to anyone who faces a life of celibacy and singleness, whether by choice or circumstance, and feel oppressed and despairing because they lack the "abundance" that married people have.
Q: What comforts those who face celibacy? How does the LORD comfort the single, celibate person?
To those eunuchs who transfer their allegiance to the King—who cling to the LORD and His covenant, who choose what pleases Him and keep His Sabbaths—the King gives a place and name in His house greater than those of sons or daughters. The position of honor and royal rank that they once enjoyed in the earthly king's court would be carried into the eternal King's court and even amplified. It is an everlasting name.
This is not just a promise to the men of Israel who suffered castration at the hands of the Babylonians. Jesus once said,
“. . . All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.” - Matthew 19:11-12 NKJV
Q: Who are the ones who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom’s sake?
Having answered the eunuchs, the LORD then answers the Gentiles who have joined themselves to the LORD, but still believe they have been separated from His people.
Q: Could sons of the foreigner be joined to Israel?
Yes, so long as they were not Canaanites, they could convert by placing themselves under the Old Covenant laws. Some were brought into Israel when they were bought as servants. These had to be brought under the Old Covenant, which means they had to be circumcised. Otherwise, they could not partake of the Passover (Exodus 12:43) or be allowed to present offerings. But they were always treated as second-class citizens and servants among those of native blood. This is true even today. The nation of Israel currently living in the Land maintains the Old Covenant laws, including keeping the Sabbath, and yet they get around the prohibition against work on the Sabbath by giving tasks to a foreigner in their community—an Arab, or Palestinian, or Syrian. Thus, while Israel gets to rest, the sons of the foreigners do not (even though they may be part of the community of believers).
The LORD assures the sons of the foreigners that heart-driven service to the LORD and keeping the Sabbath qualifies them for full inclusion in the kingdom, including the right to that day of grace and rest afforded by His Sabbath. Being able to fully enter into that Sabbath changes their status. The stigma will be removed and they will enjoy full rights within the assembly. The LORD wants His house to be a house of prayer—a place for praise and intercession and supplication—for all people.
This is God’s DEI policy in regard to foreigners and eunuchs, people who Israel herself marginalizes and oppresses, and it challenges Israel’s thinking in regard to citizenship in the kingdom.
Q: What are some issues that Paul had to address in reconciling Jews and Gentiles into one body in the Church Age?
Isaiah 56:11-12
The chapter opened with the picture of law-abiding people who felt cut off from the kingdom and its abundant life but, in fact, were not because they kept the LORD's justice and laws. Now we are given a contrasting picture. The LORD addresses those who have long been considered keepers of His justice and laws—the watchmen and shepherds—but are, in fact, lawless and enjoying abundant life in kingdoms of their own making. There is a scathing rebuke in how He describes them. They are dumb dogs, greedy dogs. A watchman should watch for danger, but these watchmen are blind. They don’t see danger. They are even ignorant of the danger. They don’t say anything to warn or protect the people. They are lazy and love to sleep. They are also greedy. They seek an abundant life that doesn’t come from keeping the LORD’s ways, but look to their own way for gain and pleasure. In the same way, the shepherds have pastured themselves on their sheep. They have carved out their own little kingdoms and have achieved a version of abundant life, but in the most disgusting fashion and in a way that brings them into bondage.
These are the ones against whom the LORD sends the beasts of the field and the forest—the Gentile nations. He says, come and devour them. They have no place in my kingdom of peace.
In Mark 11:15-18, Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 about the LORD’s house being called a house of prayer.
Q: How do Jesus’ actions in Mark 11:15-18 fit with this chapter in Isaiah?
Q: What is the final end for the irresponsible and unrepentant watchmen and shepherds?
The next blog is a continuation of this theme.
No Comments