Isaiah 65:17

"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come to mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and there shall be heard in her no more the voice of weeping and the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit: they shall not plant and another eat: for as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity; for they are the seed of the blessed of Jehovah, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah."

What is the meaning of this remarkable paragraph? We know that it cannot refer to that New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God (Revelation 21-22), because sinners here are represented as living to be a hundred years old! There shall be no sinners in heaven. Moreover, "It is not eternal life which is envisaged here, but longevity."[18] Furthermore, the necessity of agricultural pursuits and for the continuation of the building industry for the purpose of feeding and housing mankind cannot be fitted into the picture of the New Jerusalem at the conclusion of the New Testament.

Many writers go overboard with their declarations that here is the promise of the Millennium. This can be true, only if the Millennium is properly understood as one of the names of the current Dispensation of the grace of God, not a literal thousand years, but embracing all of the time between the two advents of Jesus Christ.

Taking this chapter as a whole, the situation, first to last, must be identified with the current era of "the last times," as indicated by the apostle Peter on Pentecost (Acts 2:16); because it is the era in which the Gentiles are called to accept the gospel (cf. Romans 10:20), and it is the era when God's people are no longer Israelites but are called by "another name" (Isaiah 65:15). Therefore, we accept the designation of Douglas as correct. He designated these last nine verses as, "The Overflowing Blessings in the Messianic Age."[19]

The great difficulty of accepting this understanding of the passage lies in the first verse (Isaiah 65:17) where the "new heavens and the new earth" are promised; because the apostle Peter clearly identified this promise with the final judgment of mankind, the destruction of the earth with fire, in which "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:7-10).

Both sacred writers are obviously correct. The new heavens and the new earth mentioned by Isaiah here are indeed associated with the Messianic age, but coming at the end of it, its termination, rather than being identified with the period of probation, which constitutes the extended middle portion of the Messianic period, stretching from the first advent to the second advent. It will be remembered that Peter referred to the current dispensation as "the last days" (Acts 2:16,17); and it is a characteristic of all the prophets that events during the Messianic age are telescoped in the prophetic visions so that events, actually separated by millenniums of time, are often mentioned as if they occurred simultaneously. That is exactly what we believe to be evident here.

Another helpful factor in understanding what is written here is seen in the limitation of such promises as, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" (Isaiah 65:25), to conditions "within all God's holy mountain," that is, within the holy Church of Messiah, It is within that sacred fellowship that the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the wolf and the lamb shall lie down together, as stated in Isaiah's earlier reference to the Messianic Age (Isaiah 11:6-9). Of course, what is meant is that the changes in men's lives, due to their obedience of the gospel, will be "As great as if,"[20] the nature of fierce animals should be so changed.

This reference to the lion and the wolf, along with its counterpart, has a number of utilities: (1) again we have an instance of "here a little and there a little," so often seen in Isaiah; (2) it identifies this passage as pertaining to the age of Messiah, as is the case in Isaiah 11:6-9; (3) and it serves to illustrate the unity of the prophecy and its authorship by Isaiah. See our notes on Isaiah 11:6-9, above.

The wonderful blessings pertaining to God's people which are cited in these verses, along with Isaiah 65:10 (above) refer to spiritual privileges, despite their being expressed here in the terms of material prosperity. Quite obviously in the passage, the natural laws of birth and death, and other conditions of our earth-life still prevail during the age of Messiah, in which we most assuredly live.

Of course, death itself shall finally be conquered; but when this finally occurs, Christ will render back to the Father the kingdom of heaven; and such shall mark the termination and not the beginning of the Messianic Age (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

"The new heavens and the new earth," like many other prophecies has an immediate and a remote fulfillment, the first being the creation of "an utterly new environment" in the first advent of Christ and the preaching of the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles alike. The remote and final fulfillment is yet to occur when God will shake the earth the second time, signifying its "removal" (Hebrews 12:27), when the present earth and the works within it are "burned up" (2 Peter 3:7-10), when the "elements shall melt with fervent heat," and when has arrived that final "day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." It is freely admitted that these sensational promises could all be interpreted figuratively; but this writer, along with many others, clings to the conviction that cosmic disturbances of the most tremendous and far-reaching nature are most surely associated with the final Judgment Day in the Word of God.

The word "new" is significant in these chapters. There is to be a"new" heaven and earth, a "new" nature in the people of God, and a "new" name. Is not all of this what Paul spoke of? when he wrote: "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away. Behold, they are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

On Isaiah 65:20. here, Rawlinson noted that, "The remarkable thing in this paragraph is that death and sin are represented as continuing."[21] Nevertheless, "Death was spoken of as being `swallowed up in victory' in one of Isaiah's earlier descriptions of Messiah's kingdom."[22] (See Isaiah 25:8 and my comment there). This harmonizes with what we have written above, namely, that both are correct. Sin and death prevail throughout the period of probation (the present dispensation) until the end of it, at which time the judgment and the new heaven and the new earth will appear. Death will be swallowed up in victory when the dead of all generations arise in the judgment to confront the Son of God upon the throne of his glory (Matthew 25). All of these are associated with the Messianic Age.