Isaiah’s lament over Israel’s failure to attain the true status of sonship draws from the prophet a cry that God would intervene by sending His Holy Spirit to change the hearts of the people. We read in Isaiah 64:1-3,

¹ Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence— ² as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence! ³ When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.

The prophet was alluding to the presence of God at Mount Horeb, when He came down in the appearance of fire and shook the mountain “violently” (Exodus 19:18). The prophet understood that mountains symbolize kingdoms, as we see in Isaiah 2:2-4. So he equates the shaking of Mount Horeb to the nations trembling at God’s presence. Thus, he prays for a greater shaking.

Two Earthquakes

Isaiah’s prayer became a prophecy in Haggai 2:6, 7,

⁶ For thus says the Lord of hosts, “Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land. ⁷ I will shake all the nations, and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of hosts.

Heb. 12:18-29 explains that this prophecy will not be fulfilled in the same manner as seen on Mount Horeb, drawing both a comparison and a contrast between Horeb and Hermon (Sion). God will indeed answer the prayer of Isaiah, for He will again come down upon the Mount with fire and quake. However, He will not return to Horeb, for that mountain represents the Old Covenant. Instead, He will return spiritually to the New Covenant mountain called Mount Sion, the place where Jesus was transfigured.

Deut. 4:48 says,

⁴⁸ from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, even as far as Mount Sion (that is, Hermon).

This greater shaking will “fill this house with glory,” says Haggai. Hence, it will answer Isaiah’s prayer that God would come down once again to speak to the people directly and to write His law in their hearts. The event at Mount Horeb occurred on the day that was later known as Pentecost, but the latter-day event will be greater than Pentecost.

Under Moses, the people withdrew in fear (Exodus 20:18, 19), thus refusing to hear and to have the law written on their hearts. But when the presence of God comes down upon Mount Sion, all nations will see it and will be shaken. Heb. 12:27 tells us that the purpose of this shaking “denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

The physical earthquake at Mount Horeb only brought fear to the people, but the spiritual earthquake at Mount Sion will cast down fear itself, because fear must be replaced by love. We read in 1 John 4:18,

¹⁸ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment [kolasis, “correction, penal infliction”], and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

No doubt the nations will fear while their kingdoms are being shaken, but the purpose of God is not to leave them in fear but to remove the obstructions to “perfect love.” The Israelites under Moses experienced fear but did not graduate to love. Fear is all that the Old Covenant had to offer. In the second outpouring of the Spirit on Mount Sion, there will be fear at the start, but in the end, the nations will love God, for that is the promise of the New Covenant.

In other words, the nations as a whole will be delivered from their bondage to sin, and the people will see their inner “Pharaoh” overthrown, even as God delivered Israel from Egypt. By extension, just as Israel was brought out by “the angel of His presence” (Isaiah 63:9), so also will Peniel deliver the nations, allowing them to manifest the glory of God in their faces.

The prayer of Isaiah will indeed be answered. He did not pray that the fire of God would burn up the nations. He pointed out that the purpose of God’s “fire” was to “make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence” (Isaiah 64:2). Those who read this with Old Covenant eyes see only divine wrath and destruction of His adversaries. But the apostles, having New Covenant eyes, saw the love of God overcoming His enemies.

Romans 5:8-10 says,

⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

The apostle set forth the love of God as the foundation of his New Covenant teaching on the “justification of life to all men” (Rom. 5:18). Hence, when Isaiah prayed that God’s “adversaries” (or enemies) would “tremble” at the presence of God, he was not seeking their destruction but their repentance and reconciliation. After all, the Israelites in his day were no better than the idolatrous foreigners (Isaiah 63:19). The God of Impartiality must treat all sinners and enemies with equal justice. The justice of God’s law was designed to correct, not to destroy.

The prophet took note of the “awesome things” that God had done unexpectedly at Mount Horeb. They had not petitioned God to come down as fire, nor did they expect to hear His voice. God intervened directly by the counsel of His own will. Obviously, the prophet expected God to intervene unexpectedly once again in order to fulfill His New Covenant vows to save all of mankind.

Perceiving with Spiritual Eyes

Isaiah 64:4 continues,

⁵ For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, not has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

The prophet says that their physical ears and eyes had not perceived a God like this. Paul explained this verse in 1 Cor. 2:9-11,

⁹ Just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. ¹⁰ For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except by the Spirit of God.

Paul says that physical ears and eyes, utilizing the soulish mind of man, cannot even imagine what God has planned for those who love Him. To know God is a revelatory process that only “the spirit of the man which is in him” can discern and comprehend. Hence, mere Bible study is insufficient, for that is a soulish exercise. One must hear the word, utilizing one’s spirit, which then conveys the truth to the soul—if, indeed, one’s soul is subject to the spirit.

Isaiah and Paul say that only spiritual revelation can reveal the depths of God’s nature. The soul is very limited, because it is carnal, not spiritual. The soulish “man” within “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him” (1 Cor. 2:14).

It is obvious that the Israelites at Mount Horeb were seeing the fire of God and hearing His voice through their soulish capacity of their carnal minds. Physical eyes and ears cannot perceive spiritual truth. Hence, instead of it being a revelation to them, what they saw and heard frightened them. We fear the unknown, and it is certain that what they saw and heard with the carnal mind only brought confusion and fear.

Those who hear the word through their spiritual ears will have the law written on their hearts, for this is the provision of the New Covenant. The soul receives facts; the spirit receives revelation.

But to what sort of man or woman does God reveal Himself? Isaiah 64:5 says,

⁵ You meet [pagah, “to strike upon, rush upon, fall upon”] him who rejoices in doing righteousness [tsedek], who remembers You in Your ways…

The Spirit of God falls upon those who rejoice in doing righteousness, that which is right, that which conforms to the principles of justice and mercy set forth in the law (nature) of God. Righteousness is measured by our level of rejoicing in doing righteousness. Many are obedient only because they fear divine retribution, and this exposes their Old Covenant mindset.

But those who are in agreement with God’s law, knowing that it defines His nature, those who put to death the old man which so often disagrees with God, are the ones who are truly able to conform to His nature without grumbling. These are able to “rejoice always” (1 Thess. 5:16) and “in everything give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:18).