What is the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8)?

Verse 8 emphasises holiness, which must ever mark the presence of God, and the way of holiness may be trodden by the humblest of men, who would be accounted a fool by worldly standards. We may thank God that it is so.

And assuredly man's deeper wants are not forgotten. "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the tottering knees. Say to them [that are] of a fearful (hasty) heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God! vengeance will come, of God the recompense! He will come himself and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped. Then shall the lame [man] leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the glowing sand (or, mirage) shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of jackals, where they lay, [shall be] grass with reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; but it [shall be] for these. They that go the way, even fools, shall not err [therein]. No lion shall be there, nor shall ravenous beast go up thereon nor be found there; but the redeemed shall walk [there]. And the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (vv. 3-10).

But, however they failed in it, God's people were chosen to be a holy nation. "Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever." (Ps. 93:5.) And when the Prophet Isaiah (Isa. 1) addresses them later, when they were on the eve of "Lo-ammi," "not my people," being written upon them, he says: "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity … the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint: from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it." What, then, is the remedy - GOD'S remedy which he proposes? It is separation from evil. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; CEASE TO DO EVIL." (v. 16.) But all exhortation was in vain. (See 2 Chron. 36:16.) They "sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel." (2 Kings 17:17-20.) And Lo-ammi, therefore, "not my people," (Hosea 1) "Was written upon the nation. But the way they will tread in a future day when, as the ransomed of the Lord, they shall return and come to Zion with songs, bears witness to the never setting aside but final accomplishment of God's first primary purpose for them; viz., their separation from evil, which their sin has only marred for the time. It is thus that we read of their future: "And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, for He shall be with them (but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isaiah 35:8-10.)

The present normal walk of the heavenly saints is given to us in the Colossian epistle, while the character of this walk is stated in 1 John 2:6, to “walk even as He walked.” The standard for the walk of all God’s children is as Christ walked here, and such a Father as God is could not have given to His family any less a standard. But our subject is the highway in which we are to walk rather than the standard. “An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness … the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads” (Isa. 35). In such beautiful language the prophet describes the highway in which Israel will yet walk when they see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of their God. It will be sight with them, but in our case, who have not yet seen the Lord whom we love, it is by faith, for we walk not by sight but by faith, and without faith we cannot take one step on the saints’ highway, without faith we cannot “walk in Him.”

Why should one wait for the time when the wilderness shall be gladdened by His presence and power? Then doubtless "the mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water"; "and a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for these: the wayfaring men, even fools, shall not err [therein]. (Isa. 35:8.) But He is this and more now to all that believe in Him; and faith delights to own, as God to make known, all He is, when unbelief disowns and slights and casts Him out. He is accordingly the one Divine Way; and as there is none other, so is He all-sufficing for him who has no strength of wisdom or worth in any sort. But Christ is the way now for the steps of such as know Him, the wisdom of God in an evil world — Himself the highest and perfect expression of that wisdom, and thus open to the babe in faith no less than to an Apostle.

And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isa. 35:8-10).

"And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

And you will notice that at the close we have a song. Everything he takes up he develops into a song of praise, whatever it may be. So here, when the theme has been a gloomy one, — so that you might well say the prophet has done his duty, he has accomplished his mission, and has caused God's people to know their sin and that is all. Nay, when it is all gone over, he begins then to praise and worship. The flower of the song of triumph can grow in that dark sombre soil of conviction of sin. See the thirty-fifth chapter, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose, it shall blossom abundantly." And so on down to the eighth verse, "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called," (that is what we have been speaking of) "the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those: the way-faring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Welcome the holy dealings of God, welcome that which makes me see my sinful nature as well as my transgressions, when His searching leads to that happy burst of song, which we have been looking at; the barren wilderness turned into a fruitful land, where all the blessed fruits of the Lord grow up to His glory!

How blessed is the thought that our whole pathway is a blood-sprinkled one — that is, a way of holiness; a redeemed way for a redeemed people (Isa. 35:8-10). Just as really as we are redeemed from the guilt of sin, so really are we marked for obedience to God. And this, we may gather, was typified by the law — an obedience which it could not produce, but which God desired for His people. This we have in the 8th of Romans: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law (the righteous requirements of the law) might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3-4). For those who have been redeemed from it, the law becomes the badge of the very obedience which it failed to secure. Thus our fifth scripture reminds us that God dwells among an obedient people.

It is just here that Israel failed, and where the church has failed. Is it not where every movement fails? But God never lowers His standard. If Israel broke down, yet the word to the remnant is "that He would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life." And to Nathanael—one surely typical of Israel in the future—Christ says "behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." Yes, God not only never lowers His standard, but He is ever seeking to bring His people back to it, and in the end He will do so. At last with Israel God will achieve His purpose, for "a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it … but the redeemed shall walk there." It is the same to-day. If the church fails, if it joins with the world, if it becomes polluted, the word at the end is the same as at the beginning; "these things says He that is holy, He that is true." As if He said "You must answer to Me, if you want to please Me."