Isaiah saw that the Israelites had become like the other religiously idolatrous nations, so he prayed that the Holy Spirit would fall upon the nation. He then delivers a pessimistic view of man’s nature in Isaiah 64:5-7,

⁵ … Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved? ⁶ For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment, and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. ⁷ There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face [paniym] from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.

This is similar to Paul’s assessment of human nature in Rom. 3:10-18. The entire world finds itself condemned and under divine judgment as the result of Adam’s sin. Man’s inability to keep the law and to conform to the nature of God made it impossible for him to be saved by the Old Covenant. Hence, Paul says, we are in need of New Covenant grace, wherein God fulfills His vow to save us.

Isaiah’s question, “shall we be saved?” can thus be answered, YES, not because of any righteousness in men, but because God is righteous and keeps His promises. He has begun by calling out the remnant of grace and will ultimately reveal Himself to all at the last resurrection (Rev. 20:12), where every tongue will swear allegiance to Him (Isaiah 45:23). After their time of spiritual growth, these will be set free at the great Creation Jubilee.

The hopeless condition of mankind under the Old Covenant is thus offset fully by the inevitable salvation of all mankind through the promise of God.

The Old Covenant Veil

Meanwhile, Isaiah acknowledges that God has hidden His face (presence) from us. When God replaced the angel Peniel with Michael, He hid His face from Israel. Only the New Covenant had the power to change this, for when we behold Christ with unveiled faces, we are changed into His image (2 Cor. 3:18) in the final stage of our salvation. Old Covenant believers view God through the veil of the Old Covenant (2 Cor. 3:14-16).

In the story of Moses, we see that Moses put a veil over his face to hide the glory of God. But this veil did not hinder Moses from seeing God’s glory. The purpose of the veil was to hide the glory from others, so that they would not be frightened. So Paul says in 2 Cor. 3:15,

¹⁵ But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over THEIR heart.

Only when the Old Covenant veil is removed will Peniel be authorized to manifest himself and his glory in our own face. In other words, no Old Covenant minded believer, though he may profess Christ, is yet eligible to manifest the glory of God. As long as a believer has faith in his own vow, he wears an Old Covenant veil. New Covenant faith believes that God—not man—is able to keep His vow.

Just as Peniel was replaced and hidden from the Israelites after they worshiped the golden calf, so also has God hidden His face from the whole world. The Israelites simply repeated the pattern set by Adam, when God drove them out of the garden for their sin (Gen. 3:24). Even as God subjected Adam, his family, and his estate to the “slavery to corruption” (Rom. 8:21), so also did God subject Israel to the same slavery inherent in the Old Covenant.

Isaiah 64:7 says that God “delivered us into the power of our iniquities.” The Hebrew word avon, rendered “iniquities,” is from avah, “to distort, pervert, twist.” Adam’s sin has twisted our very nature so that it no longer reflects the image of God. While sin is an overt act, iniquity is the perversion of our very nature.

Iniquity is the cause of sin and is thus identifiable with mortality, which Paul says is the cause of sin. He writes in Rom. 5:12 (NASB),

¹² Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death [mortality] through sin, and so death spread to all men, because [eph ho, “upon which”] all sinned—

Most versions misunderstand Paul and hence, they try to correct the apostle’s language. The original Greek reads, eph ho, “upon which,” not hoti, “because” (as seen, for example, in 2 Thess. 2:13). The word because means that something was caused by the preceding condition. Note the contrast between these two statements:

Death spread to all men because all sinned.

Death spread to all men upon which all sinned.

Which was the cause? Which was the effect? Did all men become death-ridden (mortal) because all sinned, or did men’s death condition (mortality) cause them to sin?

Paul says that the latter is true. We received mortality on account of Adam’s sin; and having this inherent weakness is the cause of our own sin. Death causes corruption.

The Concordant Version reads correctly, “thus death passed through into all mankind, on which all sinned.”

The bottom line is that we have a death-ridden nature that sins, not a sinful nature that brings about mortality. Paul says that it was death that was passed down to all mankind, not sin. The root of iniquity in our nature is death, and for this reason, “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23).

Therefore, when the prophet lamented that God had “delivered us into the power of our iniquities,” he understood that our mortal nature had caused all men to sin, and that we were then sold into bondage according to the law (Exodus 22:3; Judges 3:8; 4:2; 10:7, etc.).

Hence, the justice of God was the lawful cause of slavery. The prophet knew, then, that he had to appeal to the same Judge to find release. The same court of law that condemned Israel was the court that must justify them or set them free by grace alone. Faith in the promise of God gives us imputed righteousness; and later, when the promise of God is fulfilled, we receive an infusion of righteousness that actually changes our nature.

Hope Beyond Slavery

Isaiah 64:8, 9 says,

⁸ But now, O Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, and You our Potter; and all of us are the works of Your hand. ⁹ Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord, nor remember iniquity forever; behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

Here the prophet returns to his familiar theme of the potter and clay, which we have seen also in Isaiah 29:16; 41:25; and 45:9. It is a reference to the formation of Adam from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7). Isaiah appeals to the Judge on the grounds that the Creator owns what He creates and is responsible for it, according to the laws of liability (Exodus 21:32-34; 22:5, 6).

Hence, if a Potter makes a clay jar, the jar is not responsible if it is cracked or faulty. Even if the jar is somehow able to crack itself or to fall on a neighbor’s head, the Potter is still liable because He owns what He creates. The right of ownership also carries the responsibility for what is His. Hence, the prophet appeals to God, saying (in effect), “Lord, You own us as clay vessels, and also “You are our Father.” On both of these grounds, we recognize Your lawful right and responsibility to rectify the situation, to turn our hearts, and to repair our clay pots.

Isaiah also knew the law of Jubilee, wherein all debts are cancelled in the end. This is the law of grace, based on the Love-nature of God, which limits all judgment for sin-debt to a specified amount of time. In the law of God there is no such thing as unending punishment. The word translated “everlasting” is olam, which means “a hidden, indefinite, or unknown period of time.” The root word is alam, “to hide.”

Isaiah’s Appeal to the Divine Court

Knowing this, the prophet asks the Lord not to be “angry beyond measure.” In other words, do not judge finite sin with an infinite punishment (as the Church so often demands, in its ignorance of the law). Isaiah’s appeal was in accordance with God’s nature, as expressed in the law. Hence, he could expect to be heard and to receive his request, for he asked according to God’s will.

Isaiah 64:10, 11 says,

¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. ¹¹ Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised You, has been burned by fire; and all our precious things have become a ruin.

Such desolation would not occur for another century, of course, but Isaiah foresaw what Jeremiah would see later with his own eyes. It is clear that Isaiah knew that the deliverance of Jerusalem from the hand of Assyria (Isaiah 37:36, 37) was only a temporary reprieve from the destruction that was to come through the Babylonians (Isaiah 39:6, 7).

Isaiah 64:12 concludes,

¹² Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

The prophet understood the law and its principle of limited liability. Not only did the Jubilee limit the liability for more serious crimes, but also the law of flogging limited less serious crimes to forty lashes, so that “your brother is not degraded in your eyes” (Deut. 25:3).

Further, the laws of restitution demand that the judgment always fits the crime and never “afflict us beyond measure.” This is set forth in Exodus 22:1, 3, and 4.

We may safely say, then, that Isaiah’s prayer and appeal in the divine court will be successful. This success will not come as the result of the Old Covenant, which is by the will of man, but as the result of the New Covenant, which is by the will of God. Although God appears to be “silent” for a very long time, our patience will be rewarded in the end.