A King in Righteousness

A short study in the
Millennial Visions of Isaiah

Part 3

The latter part of Isaiah’s thirty‑second chapter seems to be a pen‑picture of one aspect of the transition from this age into the next, almost as though the prophet, after describing the general characteristics of the "reign of righteousness" as it is going to affect ordinary men, turns his eyes upon those who in this age have wielded authority and exercised power over those same ordinary folk and tells them in no unmeasured terms that the time of their luxurious indulgence is ended and that conditions will be very different in the Millennial Kingdom. His especial theme is the passing away of the works of man as exemplified in the cities and palaces and fortresses of this present order of things, and the coming into its own of that world of Nature, of mountains and valleys and fields and streams, which have been so cruelly despoiled by heedless and callous men but in that day is to become the environment in which redeemed mankind will live its life. "They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig‑tree; and none shall make them afraid." (Micah 4:4)

First of all, then, in this section of his thesis, Isaiah addresses the luxury‑loving, indolent, wealthy women of Jerusalem. "Rise up, ye women that are at ease;" he commands, and the scorn that is in his voice comes to us even in the printed words. "Hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Many days and years ("days above a year" is the Hebrew, an idiom meaning "soon" "imminent") shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come." (Isa.32:9‑10). In every age the "idle rich" have lived upon the industry of the poor; the abundant harvests of the land have yielded their quota to the luxurious living of the propertied classes, many of whom have been content to take, and live on, their gains without contributing any kind of work or labour themselves. These "careless daughters" of Jerusalem were parasites of this kind. There was plenty of refinement and luxury in Jerusalem in Isaiah’s day. The continued connection of Judah and Israel with the merchant nation of antiquity, the Phoenicians, whose capital city was Tyre, a connection that commenced in David’s day with his friendship with Hiram, king of Tyre (1 Kings 5:1) was continued by Solomon (1 Kings 5:10‑12) and later by Ahab the husband of Jezebel, daughter of the then king of Tyre, brought all of the world’s products into Jewish homes. Dwellers in Jerusalem could obtain for themselves—if they had the money—any and every article of ornament and luxury that the world afforded. The contrast between these plutocrats and the simple hardworking peasantry of the Judean highlands was very great, and Isaiah was not the only prophet who fearlessly denounced the indolence and the profligacy of the rich. That the judgment of God would one day come upon them he had no doubt. "There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction." (Isa.24:11‑12) Adroitly, he connects Jerusalem, the wicked city, with her daughters and the condemnation he pronounces is equally applicable to both. Jeremiah too is equally forthright. "I have likened the daughter of Zion" (Jerusalem), he says, "to a comely and delicate woman…Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up...For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; (with judgment) she is wholly oppression in the midst of her." (Jer.6:2‑6)

But Isaiah was seeing something more distant than the overthrow of Jerusalem that came in the days of Nebuchadnezzar; and the "idle rich" for whom his burning words of reproof were chiefly intended were those of this recent century A.D. rather than these of the eighth century B.C. Isaiah’s prophecy here had already passed into the sphere of the Millennial Age and he had already described some of the conditions of that rule of righteousness inaugurated by the king who is to reign in righteousness. So the condemnation of verses 9 to 12 of Chapter 32 is a condemnation of the idle and heedless materialists of this present time, when all their works and all their possessions and all their buildings and cities are crumbling before their eyes. They shall lament, he declares in verse 12, for the cattle‑clad hills, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Today we see that word fulfilled. "They that have" are lamenting as never before over the loss of their possessions and their privileges. Under this figure of a disintegrating city in which the buildings are falling down and Nature is moving in to cover the wreckage with quick growing undergrowth we have a vivid picture of the passing of current civilisation, and with that, the passing of the rule of man. "Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city; because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks." (Isa.32:13‑14). Those who live in the cities of England had good cause during the war to know how quickly the ragged ruins of man’s making become invested with the green of weeds and flowers and shrubs; in a matter of three or four years the derelict sites of bombed buildings in the heart of London became hidden beneath a tangle of self‑sown vegetation and on occasion quite sizeable trees. That is Nature’s return to the places from which man has ousted her to put up their own erections, erections which have no life in themselves and as soon as they crumble under the weight of man’s own evil forces must give place to the vigorous, irresistible tide of life that sweeps from the places of fields and trees. The thorns and briers come first, yes, but Isaiah goes on to show that after the thorns and briers come the fruitful fields and the quiet arts of agriculture, and then God’s earth will be as He intended from the first. But all that comes later on in the chapter.

The judgment that is proclaimed, then, is one that comes upon the world at the time of Christ’s taking his kingdom and commencing his reign. In symbolic imagery the cities are destroyed, their buildings broken down, the scenes of gaiety and debauchery in the "houses of joy" brought to an end. The palaces are forsaken—what a toppling of thrones and a losing of crowns there has been in these last days, the "Day of his Preparation!" The forts and towers shall be for dens of wild animals—what revelation of impotency of each military weapon is made almost as soon as it has been invented, counter‑weapon matched against each new device of military science. The whole world system is crumbling, and the world is becoming a place where thorns and briers are spreading quickly over the ruins that man has made himself. Even in a literal sense these things are true of the world’s cities and areas that people inhabit; how much more true it is in a symbolic or a spiritual sense of the world order that, as Peter says, is to pass away with a great noise! One of the finest passages in the whole of the Bible from a purely literary point of view is the one in which Isaiah’s brother‑prophet, Jeremiah, saw the same thing. "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger." (Jer.4:23‑26). "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness" (Rom.1:18) the Apostle tells us, and although this crowning disaster to the work of humankind and this irretrievable ruin of men’s systems of life and of government is entirely due to man’s fault and altogether to man’s adoption of the rule of selfishness it is nevertheless quite correctly described as a manifestation of the wrath of God—that God who loves the sinner while He hates the sin, and is working silently, patiently, and effectively to eliminate the sin so that He can receive the repentant and chastened sinner back into reconciliation with himself and give to him his eternal inheritance.

This is where Isaiah moves on into that position also. Like the God he served, this farsighted prophet of good tidings had no mind to proclaim woe and disaster without declaring the sequel. The thorns and briers were to come up, the palaces and fortresses to become ruins, the city to be abandoned and darkness cover the whole scene of desolation, but only for a time—"until"...

Until what?

"Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest." (Isa.32:15).

This is a "key" Scripture. The pouring out of the Spirit from on high, on all flesh, is pre‑eminently a sign of the inauguration of the Kingdom. The ruins of the Time of Trouble are to lie waste only until that glad day has dawned and then a breath of new life will come upon the world. Here is where the natural picture of the exuberant life of the countryside invading the ruined city and clothing its broken brickwork with Nature’s endless variety of form and colour has its application. The Millennial Age is essentially an age of verdant fields and fruitful trees and sparkling streams, and so soon as Armageddon is past, the sprawling ruins of man’s making will give place to the all‑conquering beauties of Divine creation. The wilderness shall become a fruitful field and the old broken‑down palaces and fortresses be seen no more. "Is it not yet a very little while," asks Isaiah again (29:17,18), "and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness."

This pouring out of the Spirit from on high, resulting in the vivifying of the very soil so that Nature herself responds, is probably literally as well as spiritually true. The power of the Holy Spirit will without doubt be exercised creatively as it was at the first in bringing the earth itself to that degree of fruitfulness which will make it a fitting and adequate abode for the millions of redeemed humanity. That the Spirit does exert such power in the material creation is evidenced by the noble words of Psalm 104:30, where, speaking of the living creatures of the earth, the animals and the birds and the fishes, the Psalmist says "thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth." If that is true in this age of the earth’s incompleteness, how much more in the day of its fulness!

Dr. Moffatt, in one of his rare flashes of insight, renders this passage in a very appealing manner. "Yet one day from the heights of heaven a spirit shall breathe into us, till the downs grow like an orchard, and the orchard like a forest." (v.15) The whole picture is that of fruit‑bearing trees rising up to take the places of the thorns and briers which at the first grew up over the ruins of the city, and then those fruitful trees growing so sturdy and luxuriant that they become as it were a veritable forest. This brings us very near to Ezekiel’s vision of the trees of life growing on both sides of the river of life, and the constantly ripening fruit and evergreen leaves that are to be for the food and for the healing of the nations. (Ezek.47:12)

This is where righteousness is triumphant. "Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall he peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (vv.16‑17). There is a contrast here. First there is the desolation of briers and thorns, the wreck of the old world, on which Divine judgment has come. Judgment is to remain on that wilderness. But that same wilderness is to give place to an orchard of fruit trees, a "fruitful field," and in that fruit‑bearing grove, that is the symbol of the new world, righteousness is to remain. The severity of God’s judgment remains on the "wilderness" until that wilderness is wholly swallowed up by the "fruitful field" which is to replace it. So, quite rapidly, the wreckage of the old world will be cleared up and the institutions of the Millennial Age take its place, institutions that are built on equity and inspired by righteousness. Here it is that Millennial blessings begin to come to humankind in consequence of the work of the glorified Church. This is the point at which the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father, and the beneficent influence of the reign of Christ begins to make itself felt in the earth, "The work of righteousness shall be peace." This word "work" is "maaseh," meaning the act of doing something. The ministrations of the "kings and priests" are here referred to; all that they do and all their activities are directed to the teaching and the education and the conversion to Christ of all who can be induced to repentance. "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." (Dan.12:3). The effect of their endeavours will be peace—peace on earth and peace in the hearts of men, a complete fulfilment of the angels’ Bethlehem song. That is stressed in the rest of the verse. "The effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." Peace and security! They are the two great blessings for which mankind is constantly yearning. The avowed object of the "Welfare State" is to secure these two things for all its citizens but it does not succeed in producing either. Only the kingdom of Christ can do that. And, once secured, it will be for all eternity. "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." (Rev.21:4).

And now Isaiah looks out across the sunlit Millennial landscape and he sees a people, dwelling safely, and happy at last. The city has gone, utterly destroyed in that last time of human madness and Divine retribution, but "my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." (v.18). Says Moffatt again "my people shall have homes of peace, resting in houses undisturbed." The promise elsewhere is that "they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shalt not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree" (of the tree of life—Septuagint) "are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." (Isa.65:21‑22). The picture is one of complete and unalloyed contentment.

It does seem as if the prophet is at pains to indicate the forsaking of city life for something far more closely in tune with Nature as the normal way of life in the Millennial Age. Here in this thirty‑second chapter he sees the city destroyed and no indication of its resurrection; the redeemed multitudes are cultivating the arts of husbandry in a purely rural and agricultural setting. Somehow that seems appropriate: God surely never meant men to live crowded together in massed blocks of dwellings far from the fields and streams and flowers and trees. The Millennial Age must surely include among its many benefits a mighty "back to the land" movement. Instead of less than ten per cent of the world’s population working the land and growing the food that everyone must eat, as at present, all earth’s citizens will most probably take their share in co‑operating with Nature for the provision of all that is needful. The promise that every man will plant his own vine and fig‑tree, and sit under them and himself eat the fruit of them, is most likely to have a truly literal fulfilment. The evils of modern industrial and commercial life have created the world’s great cities; the end of that kind of life might well sound the death‑knell of such creations and all the earth be made, as it was at the first, a garden.

Isaiah’s story is nearly told. The Holy Spirit has but one further scene to show him, a scene that seems to be intended more particularly for those who, as faithful and devoted footstep followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, follow these visions with an eager desire to find their own position and duty clearly indicated. The prophet now sees a fierce storm of destroying hail coming down upon the earth, pattering upon the trees of the forest with a great noise, and finally crushing the ruined city, and such of its inhabitants as still remain, to the ground. At the same time—or, is it immediately the hailstorm has done its work, and ceased, and the sun is shining again—he beholds sowers, industriously scattering their seed in the water‑sodden ground that has been softened by the storm waters, their oxen and asses treading the ground into soft mud in which the seed may quickly take root and germinate. "When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be utterly abased. (margin) Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass." (vv.19‑20).

That was a familiar sight in Israel. So soon as the winter storms of hail and rain had temporarily water‑logged and softened the ground the oxen and asses were quickly sent out to trample the soil, and the seed was quickly sown. What did the picture mean to Isaiah? It could only mean that the crushing hail of Divine judgment upon the city was in God’s economy a means of preparing the soil for a new sowing, and that the sowers would be ready. In his zeal and joy at the prospect Isaiah pronounced a blessing upon the sowers. But what does it mean in the reality? Nothing less than that in the outworking of the Divine plans, this tremendous judgment upon the nations which forms the prelude to the Millennial kingdom will itself be a means of preparing men’s hearts for the ministry of the Word in the next Age, for that Millennial sowing that is to yield so glorious a harvest. And the sowers will be ready. They are waiting, even now, but the time for sowing is not yet. The ground has yet to be softened by the down‑rushing hail, but so soon as that has been accomplished the word will go forth "blessed are ye that sow beside all waters."

The sowers will go forth. They will then have been gathered to be with their Lord and Head and be made like him, to see him as He is. They will have been presented faultless before the presence of the Father with exceeding joy. They will have participated in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Armed then with abundant power, enriched and fortified by their lives’ experiences, by virtue of patient endurance having been made merciful and faithful and sympathetic "priests," they will come forth to commence the work of writing God’s laws in the hearts of men, and converting them to turn from sin to serve the living God. That is the great object of the Millennial reign, to reconcile to God as many as will be reconciled, to save for his eternal kingdom on earth so many as will be saved, to fulfil, at last, the plan that started its slow but sure development so many thousands of years ago in Eden. Isaiah saw, plainly, the end of the story; he saw the "afterward of peace" which God has known all along He would achieve at last; it is a source of rare inspiration to us that he also was led to declare the blessedness of those who in this day and Age have been privileged beyond all measure in receiving the call to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. (Rom.12:2) Having been thus called, justified, sanctified, glorified, they will come forth in the end of days to sow beside all waters, and long enjoy the ultimate fruitage of their works in the sight of God’s human sons dwelling in quietness and assurance for ever.

AOH