Isaiah 54:1

In this chapter, our sacred author turns from the atoning sufferings and death of the Son of God which won at awful and agonizing cost the hope of eternal life for the sinful race of Adam, giving every man ever born the possibility of renewing the lost fellowship with the Creator that was lost in the disaster in Eden; from all this, so magnificently presented in the previous chapter, he here turns to give us a glance of the future glories of God's kingdom under Messiah.

This chapter is not a dissertation on God's remarriage to the old whore Racial Israel, as some have vainly supposed, but an outline of the marvelous blessings in the Kingdom of Heaven, under the rule of Messiah. Kelley alleged that, "An appropriate title for this section would be `the return of the prodigal wife.' In language strongly reminiscent of Hosea, the prophet describes the restoration of Israel to God's favor."[1] Many people simply need to read the Book of Hosea again. Gomer was indeed brought back home, but no longer as the wife of Hosea. At the time of her return, her husband said to Gomer, "Thou shalt not be wife to any man, and so will I also be toward thee" (Hosea 3:3). The declaration of this passage is that "Never again shall racial Israel be the "wife" of Jehovah. Four times the Word of God emphatically declares that there is "No distinction" between Jews and Gentiles. Race has no significance whatever in God's holy religion. Despite this, the commentaries are full of the very type of inaccuracy and misunderstanding just cited.

As Barnes noted:

"This chapter contains a promise of the enlargement, moral renovation, and the future glory of the kingdom of God, especially under the Messiah. Although designed to give comfort to the captives in Babylon, it was a consolation to be derived from what would occur in distant times under the Messiah ... The design of the whole chapter is consolatory, and is a promise of what would certainly result from God's purpose of sending the Messiah into the world."[2]

"All attempts to interpret this chapter as a prophecy of the exiles' return from Babylon and the rebuilding of physical Israel as a nation and of physical Jerusalem as a city are extremely weak. Rather, the subject here is the glorious results of the Servant's sacrificial work in redeeming a spiritual people."[3]

The interpretation given by Hailey, above, harmonizes perfectly with all of the Old Testament prophecies, with all of the teachings of Jesus Christ and his apostles, and with all of the facts of human history. The church was in God's plans from the beginning, "before the world was," being definitely a part of "God's eternal purpose"; and it is no accident, makeshift, or accommodation to the rebellions and iniquities of men (Ephesians 3:9-11). Therefore the Church is prophesied in Isaiah, this very chapter being an instance of such prophecies.

The contrast that looms in this chapter "is not the state of the Gentile world contrasted with that of the Jews."[4] It is a contrast between the status of Racial Israel throughout her history as slaves in Egypt, captives in Babylon, depicted in Isaiah 52 as a wretched drunken woman with none to help her, neglected, forsaken, divorced, cast out and abandoned, a contrast between all of that and the glorious estate of the New Israel, a legitimate child of the Old Israel, now married to the Son of God Himself in the Kingdom of the Messiah.

For extensive discussion of the marriage state of the two Israel's, the Old, and the New, see our studies in the Book of Hosea, Vol. 2, in our series of commentaries on the minor prophets, pp. 53-67.

Isaiah 54:1-3

THE GREAT GROWTH OF GOD'S KINGDOM UNDER MESSIAH

"Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith Jehovah. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall possess the nations, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited."

Fortunately, we do not need to rely upon merely human opinion as to what is meant here. The inspired apostle Paul quoted this passage (Galatians 4:26,27) and applied it to the Church of Jesus Christ. The Jerusalem in view here is not literal Jerusalem at all, but "The Jerusalem that is above, which is free, which is our mother."

Thus, the metaphor of enlarging the dwelling places and of "spreading abroad" in all directions is a reference to the great growth and prosperity of the Christian faith. "Thy seed shall possess the nations" is a promise that the great heart of all the Gentile nations shall accept the principles of Christianity; and thus, in the sense of the value-judgments and guiding principles that shall control those nations, these shall be derived from the Judaic faith, as interpreted and extended in Christianity.