What does God mean when He says that "my thoughts are higher than your thoughts" in Isaiah 55:9?

Crucified and risen, Christ is the attractive object for all indiscriminately. And the spirit of this wide grace breathes fragrantly through this chapter. "Behold, thou shalt call a nation thou knowest not, and a nation [that] knew not thee shall run to thee, because of Jehovah thy God and the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified thee. Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, says Jehovah. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and returns not thither, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall accomplish that for which I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap [their] hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting sign [that] shall not be cut off" (vv. 5-13).

But it is true at all times that the soul returning in repentance finds mercy, and the offer here is not only of mercy but of pardon in abundant measure. As the margin tells us the Hebrew is that He will "multiply to pardon." Such is the freeness and the fulness of the Divine mercy to the truly repentant.

Now all this is not according to the thoughts and the ways of men, as was well known to God. Hence what we have in verses 8 and 9. Indeed the whole of this magnificent prophecy concerning the death and resurrection of Christ, and the glorious results flowing therefrom, is totally opposed to human thoughts and ways. Christ, when He came, had nothing about Him that appealed to human thoughts and ways, as is stated in the opening verses of chapter 53, and what was true in Him personally is equally true of all God's ways and of His thoughts expressed in those ways.

(Vv. 8–11). God’s thoughts and God’s ways are far above man’s legal thoughts and ways, even as the heavens are higher than the earth. God’s blessing, like the rain, comes down from heaven; as with the rain, so with His word, it accomplishes the end for which it is sent.

16 Isaiah 55 is the call to repentance, but an invitation in grace, so that in principle whoever thirst can come. Promises are established in resurrection. Christ is witness to, and a leader of the various peoples. Pardon is abundant, for God's thoughts are above ours, and His Word is infallible in producing its results.

In vers. 1-5 is the introduction: the God-fearing wait on Jehovah, in contrast with the deceitful who shall know shame and everlasting contempt. Then follows the plea of mercy to ver. 11. Can anything surpass this in the confidence of divine peace? It is the prospect by faith of Messiah suffering for sin that casts wholly on God's mercy; and the very greatness of the sin is openly urged as the reason for His pardon Whose thoughts are not ours, any more than our ways are His. He can well afford through that cross which emboldens the believer. Man's sin is too great for any one but the God that saves through Christ dead and risen.

It was a tremendous set back for Naaman when the prophet sent a messenger out to him, saying "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." This was more than flesh and blood could bear. The Syrian was deeply affronted. As he turned away in rage, he said, "Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the Name of Jehovah his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." We all have our own ideas as to how God should work. But He has said, "MY thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways" (Isa. 55:8). How blessed to come to the end of ourselves, and give up "I thought" once and for ever! The soul only then begins to truly learn.

Sin having come in, the value of the thoughts of man (spoilt as to everything concerning God, and himself too) comes before us very early in the history of this world. We hear it in Genesis 6 from the mouth of God Himself. Let us notice it well. 'Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil,' and that continually. Nor did man change after the judgment of the flood, as the ages rolled away; for we read again God's mind unaltered as to him in Isaiah 55:8-11, recorded long after by that prophet. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Then He brings in (as in the Psalms) the word of God as corrective, and as that which replaces these thoughts of man. "For as the rain from heaven waters and refreshes the earth, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth." The word of God is given instead of the thoughts of men.

In speaking of the alternatives of God there is no suggestion that God was forced, through existing circumstances, to bring in His own thoughts. On the contrary, all that we refer to was in the mind of God before the failing ways of man were ever seen, And we see how true the word is, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts," (Isaiah 55:8-9). This must ever be so, for man's thoughts centre around himself, whereas the thoughts of God are centred in Christ, the Son of His bosom. The prophet could say of the "many nations," "They know not the thoughts of the LORD, neither understand they His counsel," (Micah 4:12). From the earliest days God proclaimed against the thoughts of man, that they were "only evil continually," (Genesis 6:5); whereas we read that God's thoughts towards us are abundant and wonderful (Psalm 40:5); and in Psalm 139 we are told again of their abundance and preciousness (vv. 17, 18). Again the Psalmist says, "Thy thoughts are very deep", (Psalm 92:5); they are eternal in their conception, and their full display will involve an eternal day; but they have been expressed in a blessed Man.

'And Saul', it is added quietly, 'was consenting to the making him away' (Acts 8:1). He was not there accidentally, nor without full participation in the bloody business of that never-to-be-forgotten day. It is not so that man would have chosen him who was to be the most self-denying, laborious, and effective workman the Lord ever raised up in the gospel; the most comprehensive, profound, and elevated of apostles in leading the church into the hitherto unrevealed mystery of its union with Christ the Head over all things. A darker page, we know, has yet to be traced, and never more than the day which dawned on his conversion. But how often it is so in the ways of sovereign grace! 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts' (Isaiah. 55:8-9). It is ordered thus that no flesh should glory before God; but he that glories let him glory in the Lord. So it is written (1 Cor. 1:29-31).

Humbled for the moment by his subjects and a check put upon his will, his day of probation is prolonged, and gleams of sunshine pierce through the gathering clouds. The people share in the blessing; for the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. Their brave stand also for the servant of God is not forgotten. Saul is strengthened to deliver Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them. "He fought against them on every side … and whithersoever he turned himself, he vexed them." We have here a lesson that the natural mind fails to understand. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord." Whenever manifest blessing attends a work, the natural conclusion is that the doer of it is approved of the Lord. Facts ought to make us slow in coining to a judgment. The Lord delivered Israel twice out of the hands of the Syrians by Ahab after he had driven out Elijah at the instigation of his wife Jezebel; and Saul here gained victories over his enemies after his evil course with Samuel and Jonathan. While thankful for blessing, the lord in these cases takes us behind the scenes, to teach us that we must fail if we judge after the sight of our eyes or the hearing of our ears. Nothing relieves us from judging everything by the word of God and the Spirit.