For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain.
Isaiah's book closes by tying the future of God's people to something larger: the new heavens and new earth God will make. That raises two questions — what are these new heavens and earth, and why does God measure Israel's offspring and name against them?
This promise stands at the very end of Isaiah's prophecy. One writer traces how far the prophet's eye has travelled.
Looking on then to the new heavens and the new earth, we cast our eyes across all the changes this universe will witness, until the changeless state begins. God alone has spoken of that time. Then the restless activity of men will cease, and the calming quiet of a settled and everlasting order of things will start. Blessed, unspeakably blessed, is this prospect for all who will share in it. They will land out of the troubled sea of shifting circumstances onto the solid ground of an unchanging and holy condition. This is God's last promise by Isaiah to His people Israel.
Isaiah uses two different verbs. Chapter 65 says "I create"; this verse says "I make." One writer ties each word to a different kind of change.
The Lord will bring about a moral change when He appears on His people's behalf, and a physical change after the close of the thousand years. Isaiah 65 speaks of the first; Isaiah 66 only notices the second. The context makes plain that the first belongs to the thousand years. It is a moral change that opens an era of blessing never yet seen, and so we find the term create applied to it. But where the prophet notices the physical change... we meet with the word make.
Not everyone reads the phrase the same way. One writer holds that Isaiah's new heavens and earth are not yet the final state, but a world made morally new during the thousand years.
While the words "new heavens and new earth" appear in the prophecy, the context of the passages quoted makes clear that they do not carry the same meaning as in Revelation 21. In Isaiah, hardly more is meant than that the heavens and the earth will be morally new during the thousand years. The heavens will be cleared of Satan and Satan's power, and the earth will be freed in large measure from the effects of the curse. In this sense they will be new.
Another writer reads the promise as reaching on into eternity, and admits that how God will do it is beyond him.
Israel's calling, blessings, and destinies are earthly, and, it seems, forever. I do not know how that people will be preserved when the earth is burned up, and brought into the new earth; but it appears that they will have a place in the new earth... The people of Israel and their name are, therefore, to be as enduring as the new heaven and earth.
God guarantees two things: offspring (older translations say "seed") and name — a distinct identity. One writer draws out what that promise protects.
Isaiah 65 and 66 announce the new heavens and new earth twice. The second announcement links them directly to the continuance of Israel's "seed" and "name." So even in the new earth there will be no merging of Israel into the general mass of the nations. The first-born people written on earth will still show how "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." So will the "church of the firstborn who are written in heaven." These different circles of blessing... fit what we see everywhere of God's varied ways and ranks in creation.
God speaks this promise over a particular group. Men who claimed to be holier had thrown His servants out.
The oppressing hypocrites say they are holier than the others; but God says they are a smoke in His nose... these men cast out the real servants here (Isaiah 66:5); but the Lord is at hand with judgment for the wicked and with full blessing for His servants. "The former troubles" will be forgotten; they will be blessed in the God of truth. He then says to them, "Be glad and rejoice forever;" "I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." It will be like a new creation, for He says again that as the new heavens and the new earth He makes will remain before Him, so their seed and their name will remain.
- Remain — the verse uses this word twice. What remains before God sets the measure for what remains of His people.
- Create, then make — Isaiah 65 uses "create" for a moral renewal; Isaiah 66 uses "make" for a change in the physical order. Commentators differ on how far Isaiah's view reaches.
- Seed and name — God guarantees descendants and identity. Israel is never lost among the nations, even on the new earth.
- Without repentance — God never takes back His gifts and calling. The promise rests on His character, not on the people's record.
- To the cast out — God speaks it over servants that men threw out. Their former troubles will be forgotten.
And it shall come to pass from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, saith Jehovah.
Isaiah ends with worship that never stops: month after month, week after week, all humanity before the Lord. Is this literal? Who counts as "all flesh"? And where does this worship happen?
Commentators take the promise literally. Israel's old calendar markers return. But the circle drawn around them is far wider than before.
Israel will be established forever before Jehovah… There is no solid reason to doubt that the prediction means what it says. New moons and sabbaths will once more have a place in the worship of Jehovah. But the outward form will no longer hide Christ, and the circle will no longer be as narrow as of old. For "all flesh" will share in it — though other scriptures show that the nations will not stand on such high ground, or be given such nearness to the King, as His chosen people.
The promise reaches past one nation. Other prophets fill in how the nations arrive.
Jehovah will bring in that day by pleading in word and fire with "all flesh," which mankind has never yet seen. In the same way He will gather all nations and languages, and they will come and see His glory as never before… Zechariah 14 declares that the survivors of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year by year to worship the King, Jehovah of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. Malachi 1:11 provides for Jehovah's name to be honoured always and everywhere among the nations, with the worship due to Him offered in every place.
Worship "before me" points to a place — God's house in Jerusalem. The nations will not be free to stay away.
If God's house will be there, Jerusalem will be the centre of the world's worship. So Isaiah 66:23 says that "all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD." It is the house of prayer for all nations (Isa. 56:7; see Ps. 22:27 and Ps. 86:9). And judgment will enforce it (Zech. 14:16-21). Jeremiah testifies that at that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations will gather to it, to the name of the Lord, and will no longer follow the plans of their own evil heart (Jer. 3:17).
Some raise John 4:21 as an objection.
Any supposed difficulty in reconciling John 4:21 with Jerusalem becoming a centre for all nations is imaginary. It comes from confusing "the hour that now is" with the day that will be. Our Lord was thinking of the time of His rejection and His coming absence in heaven. The prophet had in view the day of His glory for the earth, which is still future. Tell the two times apart, and the objection disappears. Jerusalem has no place in Christianity; in the coming day of Jehovah it will have a greater and holier place than it ever had of old.
Worship by all is not love from all. One writer separates homage that comes from feeling God's power from the adoration of the heart.
To worship God is the duty of every intelligent creature. The angels worship Him. His saints too worship Him. One day all on earth will worship Him (Zeph. 2:11; Isa. 66:23)… Angels give Him homage in truth for what He is. But men whose hearts are not renewed will worship Him one day only because they have learned His power in judgment, or because they want to enjoy life on earth under the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such outward homage, however, is not all that God would receive from men, for He accepts the adoration of the heart.
This is God's first plan reaching its goal.
It will prove to be a kingdom in which Jehovah at last takes His rightful place as the Object of worship. What He first intended for Israel, His people, will be fully carried out. His glory will be among them. They will surround His house as a kingdom of priests. They will give Him the worship due to Him from one sabbath and new moon to another.
The same writer marks out a different portion for believers now. Their calling is not to that mountain.
We are not called to find our part in "My holy mountain Jerusalem," because our calling is a heavenly one. But we can be sure that God will reach His original purpose for the church, as truly and as fully as He will for Israel. Not one detail of His good pleasure toward us will fail… The saints in their heavenly places will offer a worship that no sabbaths or new moons need to govern.
- Literal. New moons and sabbaths return as real markers of worship in a coming age. This is no picture of religion slowly spreading — and the old forms will no longer hide Christ.
- Wider. The circle once drawn around one nation opens to "all flesh," though the nations will not stand as near the King as His chosen people.
- Centred. That worship has an address: God's house at Jerusalem, a house of prayer for all nations. Judgment will make the nations come.
- Uneven. Homage from those who have only felt God's power in judgment is not the heart's adoration He accepts.
- Fulfilled. God reaches His first design for Israel at last, while those with a heavenly calling worship with no need of sabbaths or new moons.
And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorrence unto all flesh.
Isaiah ends his book not with a song but with a valley full of dead bodies. His last sentence raises three hard questions: what is this scene, why does God keep it in view, and how far does it reach?
Isaiah's last twenty-seven chapters follow a deliberate pattern. This verse is the third of three closing warnings.
These 27 chapters fall into three groups of nine. Each group ends with a solemn statement that there is no peace for the wicked. (See Isa. 48:22; Isa. 57:21; Isa. 66:24). So the middle group is chapters 49-57, and the middle chapter of that middle group is Isa. 53... The prophecy of the Lord's Servant lies at the heart of everything. He goes even into death for the sins of God's people, and He rises again.
Isaiah's picture is not imaginary. It comes from a real place outside Jerusalem.
About Isaiah 66, there is no doubt that the Lord's words point to Hinnom, where they burned the filth of Jerusalem. Isaiah 66 means the same place. Gehenna is the valley of Hinnom. I take the passage as simply as possible. The Jews who turned away from God will be judged at the coming of the Lord. They will then be a reminder of their own folly and of the Lord's judgment to those who come up. I take their dead bodies simply as dead bodies... left there as an instructive sight of God's judgment, terrible to look at.
Why would God keep such a sight in view during an age of blessing?
God will carry out His wrath as a solemn public sight, always before people's eyes (Isa. 66:24). It will be sterner in that day, because from then on there will be no temptation to evil. So He will visit the rebels under His curse at once. This keeps a healthy horror of sin in people's hearts.
This is God's habit, not a one-off.
Clearly God's way is to keep a memorial of sin's effects, even when those effects can no longer be seen... Those blessed in that happy age will gain from having reminders in front of them of the ruin sin once caused, both in nature and among people.
Some read the undying worm and unquenched fire as pictures of something burned up and gone. Commentators here argue the opposite.
Now about an undying worm and fire that cannot be quenched: they are pictures, you say, borrowed from Isaiah. But pictures of what? Of being wiped out and ceasing to exist! Far from it. The very opposite. It is a lasting shame and judgment kept up, still there before other people's eyes, as a warning about the effects of sin and a solemn witness to God's judgment... Does this passage teach that their state goes on, or that they are suddenly consumed? It carefully teaches that it goes on and lasts. That is exactly what it is for.
The point turns on one small word: not a worm, but their worm.
In neither passage is there any thought that their worm will ever stop gnawing, or that the fire will run out of what it feeds on. The solemn warning is lost if we imagine that the punished are wiped out. For how is it "their" worm, and why is the fire unending? We must not trifle with God's word and man's doom.
Jesus took up this language in Mark 9. He did not leave it where Isaiah left it.
When the Lord Jesus spoke of "the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dies not" (Mark 9:43-44), He seems to have pointed back to this verse. He gave it a reach far beyond the millennial age. In "the lake of fire," which is "the second death" (Rev. 20:14), there will be an eternal witness to the terrible effects of sin.
Hole quotes an older translation. The ESV of Mark 9:48 reads, "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." So the earthly scene becomes the language for something far larger.
We must look elsewhere to find the still more terrible eternal judgement that awaits those who will not repent and will not believe, in the resurrection of judgement... The Lord had already shown this in Mark 9:43-48. There He gave everlasting force to language drawn from the earthly judgement of Isa. 66:24.
- Place. The scene is the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, where the city burned its waste. The New Testament calls it Gehenna.
- Purpose. God leaves a standing marker of what sin cost, even in an age of blessing. He keeps the sight before people's eyes rather than hiding it.
- Pronoun. One word carries the argument. A worm that stays theirs rules out the idea that the punished simply cease to exist.
- Permanence. The undying worm and unquenched fire picture judgment kept up, not a quick burning out.
- Reach. Christ took this earthly picture and gave it everlasting force, stretching it past the age of blessing to the second death.