Devotional
Commentary on Isaiah 54
Isaiah describes
in this chapter the role of the accumulated new remnant at the Latter Rain
added to the regular remnant through all the generations.
M. L. Andreasen
explained in his 1929 Sabbath School Quarterly that the chapter in the first
part is dealing with spiritual Israel as the wife of God. “This first part of
the lesson deals with the relation of God to His church under the symbol of
husband and wife…. Hence we need not apply these lessons to Israel only. They
have an application now. The second part of the lesson deals with God's
protecting care over His people. He created the smith who is forging the weapon
with intent to torture God's people. In other words, God knows. He is
responsible. Trust Him, and all will be well.”
The preterist
Delitzsch Vol. II 1890 page 314 explained the chapter as connected to 53:
“After the Servant of God has expiated the sin of his people by the sacrifice
of himself [chapter 53], and Israel has acknowledged its sin against him whom
it failed to recognise, and has entered into possession and enjoyment of the
salvation procured by him, the glory of the Church, which through repentance
and faith has become a partaker of salvation, is ready to burst forth.“
The character of
the hard-core preteristic commentaries on Isaiah is that they all want to
remain existential in these explanations of everything in the chapter.
Everything God does in this chapter, for them, is just for the people of
Isaiah’s day or shortly afterwards or before. They prune the eschatological
tree until there is not a single fruit or branches left.
The “barren one”
is probably the non-remnant ones that will be saved at the Latter Rain event
and “you have not born [someone]” (v. 1).
M. L. Andreasen in
1929 in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah page 3 also understood it as the
end-time increase of spiritual Israel: “This has reference to a great
ingathering of souls for Christ, and how God will greatly bless and prosper the
work of the gospel in the last day when He finishes His work in the earth.”
This is why Adventists can read Isaiah very easily.
The saved ones at
that time will “break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud” (v. 1b). “For
many are the sons of the desolate one [those who never had a chance to grow in
the gospel and evangelize]. They are more than the sons of the married one, the
regular remnant who is the Bride of Christ through all the ages (v. 1d). This
addition group to the longtime remnant must enlarge their tent (v. 2a-3a) since
“your seed shall possess nations”, they will come from many nations (v. 3b) and
what is desolate cities on a desolate earth after the Hell event, after the
Millennium will be recreated as a new earth for them to live in.
Ellen White is on
the same page as myself in 2017, Andreasen in 1929 [who spent 90 days with
Ellen White near her chair to spy whether she is Holy Spirit filled or not or a
fake, see Andreasen Testimony in the 1950’s on Youtube]. Adventists have no
problem reading Isaiah. She said according to M. L. Andreasen in 1929 page 3 of
verse 2: “The prophet [Isaiah] is here looking forward to the time when the
gospel shall be preached to the ends of the earth.” He refers to Ellen White, Prophets
and Kings, page 374, paragraph 1. In the repetition of M. L. Andreasen’s work
in the republication of it in 1956 Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah [if
Andreasen was bad, why was his work republished and distributed?] page 18 Ellen
White is cited here saying: “Looking on still farther through the ages, the
prophet beheld the literal fulfillment of these glorious promises. He saw the
bearers of the glad tidings of salvation going to the ends of the earth, to
every kindred and people. . . . “These prophecies of a great spiritual
awakening in a time of gross darkness, are today meeting fulfillment in the
advancing lines of mission stations that are reaching out into the benighted
regions of earth.“
Andreasen in 1929
page 4 in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah explained the subsequent
increase of end-time spiritual Israel of verse 3: “It is because of the great
increase that shall come to God's people that plans for enlargements are to be
made.”
They do not need
to fear or feel humiliated or disgraced “the reproach of your widowhood you
will remember no more”. The phrase “no more” put it in the Eschaton. Also Paul
understood this passage to be the New Jerusalem in Heaven in Galatians 4:27.
On verse 4
Andreasen summarized as follows in 1929 in his Sabbath School Quarterly page 4:
“The preceding verses [1-4] have mentioned the enlargement that shall come to
God's people. They shall inherit the Gentiles and spread forth right and left.
Does this seem too much, Fear not. They shall not be ashamed. The Lord is with
His people. Their plans may seem ambitious and incapable of fulfillment, but
the living God never fails.”
This “barren one”
husband is the Lord of Hosts (v. 5a). He is the Redeemer, the Holy One of
[spiritual] Israel (v. 5c). He will also be called the “God of all the earth”
(5d). This is also how M. L. Andreasen understood this verse in 1929 page 4.
“For a brief
moment I [the Lord] forsook you but with great compassion I will gather you”
(v. 7a-b). The Latter Rain is a gathering of the harvest of the Lord in the
end-time and Joel also outlined that as well as other prophets.
M. L. Andreasen
speaks of this wayward action of the church and return to the Lord as follows
in his 1929 Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah page 4: “The thought seems to be
that although the church has left her Lord, God calls her back again, once more
to resume her place as wife.”
Isaiah recorded
God’s word by using a poetic phrase which rhymes “In the reception [Egyptian
šsp meaning receive] of anger [from the not yet remnant ones] I [God] hid My
face from you” (v. 8a-b). God’s compassion and everlasting lovingkindness made
Him to have compassion over them (v. 8d). We know it is the end of time for
Christ said that just as it was in the days of Noah before the Flood so shall
it be in the end time. God said in Isaiah 54:9 “for this is like the days of
Noah to Me”. Before mentioning what Andreasen said about this verse, take note
of the utter confusion that is in the so-called Greek Septuagint on this verse
in the same phrase: Instead of “like the days of Noah to Me” as in the Hebrew,
Symmachus Greek private text of 170 A.D.; Latin Vulgate of Jerome in 389 A.D.;
Aramaic Targum Jonathan to the Prophets; the Syriac translation of Isaiah after
380 A.D. and the Middle Age commentator Saadya Gaon, the Greek of the
Septuagint had problems with the orthography of his text: Instead of kymy = כימי like these texts, the Septuagint read mmy
= ממי. Of course
in Hebrew. Of course in Hebrew. It was a slip of hand with bad
orthography in the text used by the Greek and then a slip of the eye misreading
a /k/ as an /m/, an error that was very common also at Qumran. After Antiochus
Epiphanes in 164 BCE, to which most of the texts of Qumran is dating, the texts
copiers worked very sloppy. (See Nägelsbach 1878 page 587). Qumran is a mirror
of degenerative scribal-workmanship. Slips of all kinds are found in
multiplication including the Isaiah scrolls. The intent was to be faithful to
the text but the result was not always that successful probably due to the
method and times they were living in.
M. L. Andreasen in
1929 in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah page 5 dealt with the skepticism
of those who accuse God of not keeping His promises to spiritual Israel because
of all the disasters: Some have thought that God has not kept this promise. Did
He not more than a hundred years later permit Judah to be carried into captivity
in the time of Daniel? And did He not finally in A. D. 70 reject the whole
Jewish nation? Note this: The captivity of the ten tribes in 721 B. C. was
final. There was no return. The captivity in the time of Daniel was not final.
There was a return. God rejected the Jewish nation and permitted Jerusalem to
be destroyed in A. D. 70; but before that time, He had already established His
New Testament church composed of such as should be saved in Israel, together
with the Gentiles, and this constituted the true church, the continuation of
the church of Isaiah's day. Hence God has kept His promise. The rejection of
the nation did not mean the rejection of individuals.”
Delitzsch Vol. II
1890 page 319 as preterist wants to apply it to the last days, contrary to his
model but he also wants to cling to his preteristic model so he adds a
preteristic principle that is really an extra-biblical principle common among
preterists: “The promise, confirmed by oath, applies to the converted Israel of
the last days, whose Jerusalem will not be destroyed again: but, in accordance
with the character of all prophecy, these last days are viewed by the prophet
in connection with the close of the Exile.“ Prophets can thus only see on their
own horizon not further! But, he admitted the last days.
There will be a
shaking of mountains in the eschaton but “My covenant of peace will not be
shaken” (v. 10c). Both the regular remnant and the joined remnant will be
afflicted “o afflicted one, storm tossed and not comforted” (v. 11a). In the
Time of Jacob’s Trouble God will have “compassion on you” (v. 8c).
Then follows a
description of the New Jerusalem build by God for the remnant saved at the
Second Coming of Christ “your foundations I will lay in sapphires” (v. 11c);
“your gates of crystal” (v. 12b); “your entire wall of precious stones” (v.
12c). The saints have beautiful apartments and houses in the New Jerusalem
which cannot be compared to present earthly conditions.
The Lord will be
their teacher (v. 13a) and their “well-being of your sons will be great” (v.
13b).
M. L. Andreasen
pointed out in 1929 in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah page 5 on verse
13 that Christ has cited this verse and that it refers to the last days: “In
John 6:45 Christ quotes this text. (See also 1 Thess. 4:9.) ‘Great shall be the
peace.’ In a world of tumult, God's people will have peace. Serene, confident,
unperturbed, God's own will pass through the perils of the last days. (See John
14:27; Ps. 119:165.)“
Ellen White
indicated that 54:9-13 is all eschatological: “All the fifty-fourth chapter of
Isaiah is applicable to the people of God, and every specification of the
prophecy will be fulfilled. The Lord will not forsake His people in their time
of trial. …The promise is for those who amid general apostasy, keep the
commandments of God, and lift up the moral standard before the eyes of the
world who have forsaken the ordinance, and broken the everlasting covenant. She
cited Isaiah 54:9-11 in Review and Herald August 20, 1895).
God says to the
remnant that they will be established “in righteousness” (v. 14a). “You will be
far from oppression for you will not fear” (v. 14b) meaning that safely in the
New Jerusalem after the Second Coming the remnant is safe. “From terror for it
will not come near you” (v. 14c).
Verse 15 cancels
any form of antagonism from an enemy. The Lord is the creator just like a iron
smith who blows the fire of coals to make a weapon is a creator and the Lord
has originally created Lucifer who became Satan “the destroyer” but God planned
his “ruin” (v. 16c).
M. L. Andreasen
said in 1929 in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah on page 5: “God's people
need not fear any danger. The furnace may be heated seven times hotter than
usual, but God has created both the fireman and the fuel he uses. These are in
God's hands.”
During the Time of
Trouble “no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper” (v. 17b). Every
accusation against a remnant member in earthly courts of law will be judged
during the millennium by the remnant in heaven reopening the books to verify
why certain people were not saved “every tongue that accuses you in judgment
you will condemn” (v. 17b).
God says that this
safety and these beautiful apartments in the New Jerusalem is the “heritage of
the servants of the Lord” (v. 17c). Their vindication is from the Lord (v.
17d).
Dear God Enlarging your remnant in the End Time is the
constant yearning of the present remnant. Come quickly Lord Holy Spirit to
gather them in globally and prepare the remnant for the arrival of Christ at
the Second Coming. Amen.