Isaiah, Prophet of Salvation, Book 9, part 23

Because the Israelites had revolted against God and refused to abide by His law, God became their enemy. He had raised up the Assyrians to deport the house of Israel and was soon to do so with the house of Judah as well. Yet this was not the end of the story, for Isaiah 63:11 prophesies,

¹¹ Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses…

God speaks of the future as if it were past in the same manner that He said to Abraham, “A father of many nations have I made you” (Romans 4:17). When God speaks, things come into existence, even if not immediately. Yet in God’s timeless realm, it already exists and therefore history has no choice but to bow to His will. God’s word destines all things.

So Isaiah tells us that the people will indeed remember Moses. This is confirmed in Malachi 4:4,

⁴ Remember the law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel.

From the perspective of the Old Covenant, this is a command, but from a New Covenant perspective, this is a promise and therefore a prophecy. They will indeed “remember the law of Moses” Their hearts will indeed be turned in the end. From God’s timeless point of view, it was already accomplished, but it would take thousands of years for history to catch up to reality.

So it has been with most of the promises of God. Because God Himself created Time, we must respect this truth and submit to it as being the word of God. Time was created when light was created. Light is not light unless it goes somewhere. Light is not suspended in a single point in space. The speed of light is distance divided by time. Hence, in practical terms, there is no light apart from time.

We know, then, that His people will certainly remember Moses. Not only will they abide by God’s law, but they will become the embodiment of His law and nature. The law will be written on their hearts, not only manifested in their behavior. This is the promise of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:33), and the Holy Spirit will continue to work through time until the promise is fully manifested throughout creation.

Where is He?

In typical Hebrew fashion, the prophet then asks rhetorically in Isaiah 63:11-13,

¹¹ … Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them, ¹² who caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for Himself an everlasting name, ¹³ who led them through the depths?...

In 2 Kings 2:14 Elisha asked, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah,” as he struck the waters of the Jordan with Elijah’s mantle. The prophet was not expressing doubt but confidence that the God of Elijah would manifest Himself because of Elisha’s act of faith. Hence, in Hebrew thought, such questions do not express doubt but faith.

Isaiah was alluding to the Red Sea crossing in the time of Moses, where the Holy Spirit was in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night to lead them out of Egypt. The Israelites were led by the Spirit from the first day of their departure (Exodus 13:20-22) on the day of Passover. The Holy Spirit came in a greater way at Sinai when God came down as fire to speak to the people, a day thereafter celebrated as Pentecost.

Isaiah says that the Holy Spirit was with them from the day they were justified by faith in the blood of the lamb and was there when the Israelites were being baptized in the sea (Exodus 14:19, 20; 1 Corinthians 10:1, 2).

Baptists say that we receive the Holy Spirit when we first believe in Christ—that is, at our Passover experience. The Church of Christ says we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism—that is, our Red Sea experience. The Pentecostals say we receive the Holy Spirit when we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit—that is, at Mount Sinai. All are correct in their own way, and each denomination ought to acknowledge the validity of the other viewpoints, according to the example of the church in the wilderness (Acts 7:38 KJV).

Isaiah 63:13, 14 continues,

¹³ … Like the horse in the wilderness, they [the Israelites] did not stumble; ¹⁴ as the cattle which go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So You led Your people to make for Yourself a glorious name.

When led by the Spirit, there is no stumbling. When we walk by the Spirit, we will not fulfill the unlawful desires of the flesh. Paul says that “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God” (Romans 8:7). On the other hand, the apostle says, “you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:9). Hence, those who walk by the Spirit are “serving the law of God” (Romans 7:25) and Isaiah says that they do not “stumble.”

The Spirit also leads us as a herdsman who leads “cattle which go down into the valley.” This metaphor pictured a grass valley, where they might eat and rest, happily chewing their cud. The Holy Spirit thus leads us into God’s rest, which is the true Sabbath. As we saw from Isaiah 58:13, 14, you enter God’s rest when you are “desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure, and speaking your own word.”

Jesus fulfilled this by speaking only what He heard His Father say and by doing only what He saw His Father do. All other forms of rest are, at best, only lesser fractals of God’s rest, types and shadows of the true Sabbath rest that God has promised to us.

The Fatherhood of God

Isaiah 63:15 says,

¹⁵ Look down from heaven and see from Your holy and glorious habitation; where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds? The stirrings of Your heart [me’ah, “internal organs, inward parts, generative organs”] and Your compassion are restrained toward me.

The prophet asks again, “where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds?” not from doubt but from faith and expectation that He will indeed fulfill His word in time. Time is thus pictured as God’s restraint, not an impediment, but as a means of teaching us patience. If time did not exist, everything would happen all at once, and we could hardly learn this fruit of the Spirit.

The prophet’s use of the term me’ah, which is rendered “heart” in the NASB, sets the stage for the next verse, where the prophet speaks of God being our Father. Hence, he does not use the term leb, “heart,” but me’ah, “generative organs.” Isaiah 63:16 says,

¹⁶ For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know [yada] us, and Israel does not recognize us; You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is Your name.

Abraham was considered to be the father of the Israelites. But the prophet claims God as his Father, in essence claiming to be a son of God. Here we find a distinction between the children of the flesh and the children of God, which is later developed more fully in the revelation of the apostles. The word yada has sexual connotations when applied to fleshly begetting.

Isaiah was thus saying, in effect, that Abraham did not really beget us, for our Father is in heaven. In saying this, he essentially repudiates what Paul calls the “old man” (Colossians 3:9 KJV) in favor of the “new man” (Colossians 3:10 KJV) that was begotten by God. This can be said of all the sons of God who identify with the spiritual man and repudiate the identity of our fleshly forefathers.

Our flesh is the source of bondage that was imposed upon us through Adam’s sin. It is our “Egypt,” from which our Redeemer has delivered us, calling us His firstborn sons (Exodus 4:22). Hence, the “old man” of flesh is our Pharaoh, the taskmaster and slave-driver, while God is “our Father, our Redeemer.”

In Isaiah 63:17 the prophet asks the difficult question that is derived from this,

¹⁷ “Why, O Lord, do You cause us to stray from Your ways and harden our hearts from fearing You?”...

The prophet was contemplating how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 4:21) so that he would “stray” from God’s commands. God has done the same with our own inner Pharaoh, the old man of flesh, not so that we would be lost but that we would see that the man of flesh cannot achieve “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). We must seek to become a new creature, another being.

To be truly free we must be begotten by God and then transfer our identity to that new man, no longer claiming to be flesh and blood that cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). If we claim to be of Adam or Israel or the son of any fleshly parent, we will be treated accordingly in the divine court. God will honor our claim, and we will be judged by our works.

Most of the Israelites in Isaiah’s day were children of the flesh. Isaiah 63:17-19 says,

¹⁷ … “Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage. ¹⁸ Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while, our adversaries have trodden it down. ¹⁹ We have become like those over whom You have never ruled, like those who were not called by Your name.”

Seeing the distinction between the children of the flesh and the sons of God, the prophet asks God to “return” (that is, to turn the hearts of) “the tribes of Your heritage.” The sanctuary (temple) had been possessed by godly priests of Israel “for a little while,” until “our adversaries have trodden it down.”

Isaiah did not live to see the temple destroyed by the Babylonians, so he may have been prophesying its destruction. Yet on a deeper level, the “little while” that the “holy people possessed Your sanctuary” seems to refer to the time of Moses and Aaron and perhaps Eliezer, after which time, carnal priests ruled the temple as “our adversaries.” For most of Israel’s history, the priesthood of Levi, dependent upon fleshly genealogy for its calling, established religion through Old Covenant faith. True sons of God did not normally rule the temple.

Paul tells us that “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God” (Romans 8:7). The old man and the new man are enemies, each seeking to obtain the inheritance by different claims.

Isaiah says in verse 19 that “we” (meaning the Israelites in general) “have become like those over whom You have never ruled.” In other words, the Israelites had become like the other nations who did not acknowledge Yahweh as their King. They established laws according to the mind of the flesh to please their false gods.

In other words, the majority of Israelites, who did not share Isaiah’s knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, claimed to be God’s people by virtue of their physical descent from Abraham. Their religion was carnal, feeding the flesh, which was hostile to God Himself.

This condition then set up the prophet’s appeal to God in the next chapter of Isaiah.