Impressive images of mankind's great future in Isaiah, the chapters 45 to 66

Isaiah 45: 12-18. JHWH points out that He is the creator of everything and everybody and that in the last instance, He also controls everything and everybody. A very important verse is Isaiah 45:18 where God says literally that He has not created the earth for nothing. He has created the earth to be inhabited.

In short: the kind of earth that God had in mind when He created it, a paradise-like earth, will become a reality. This kind of earth, which will become a reality, will also be inhabited by the kind of people that God had in mind when He created man.

The chapters 52 and 53 of Isaiah give a highly detailed and extremely vivid vision of the Messiah. The chapters give a very clear picture of both the personality of the Messiah, His life and His crucial meaning in God’s plan of salvation.

Mind: in the chapters mentioned, we can see something that is a characteristic of Biblical visions: it is not clear in what time-period the visions are placed. It seems as if the visions do not distinguish past, present, and future. In fact, chapters 52 and 53 present the Messianic visions as images that belong to the past. These are images of things that have already happened.

When we read these visions in the 21st century, we know that Isaiah wrote them down in about 730 B.C. This means that when Isaiah wrote the visions down, the realization of these images was to take place more than 700 years later. This is from Isaiah’s point of view in a distant future. In fact, he should have used the future tense instead of the past tense.

The reason why Isaiah used the past tense is probably because he draws an image of a reality which has nothing to do with time as we experience it: God has a plan of salvation for the earth and for mankind. He had this plan of salvation. He will always have this plan of salvation.

God made the earth and man, God makes the earth and man, God will make the earth and man with a clear purpose in mind. This purpose was achieved, is achieved and will be achieved. Time and the way people experience time have no influence on this.

Let us have a closer look at some of the verses.

Isaiah 52:7. There is an image of a messenger with good news: there will be salvation and peace for all people: Israel’s God has become king.

The meaning is clear: the words refer to the fact that on the coming paradise-earth, all people will recognize God’s authority and sovereignty. The consequences of the misstep of Satan, Adam and Eve will be done away with.

Isaiah 52:13, 14, 15. It is clear that in these verses, God calls the coming Messiah His servant: someone who will do exactly what He asks him to do. This servant will act with insight and wisdom.

In spite of this, people will despise Him. They will be horrified when they see the suffering He will have to endure and the death He will have to go through.

Isaiah 53:1. The Messiah will not be accepted by many people.

Isaiah 53:3. The Messiah will be despised and people will avoid Him. During his life He will be confronted with great grief and with illness.

Isaiah 53:4. The forms of suffering and illness should actually strike sinful mankind, but the Messiah is willing to bear these things for them. He voluntarily takes upon Himself the punishment that people should undergo as a retribution for their sins.

Isaiah, 53:5. Literally, He is pierced through for our sins. He is crushed for our transgressions.

Also: His wounds mean healing for mankind.

Isaiah 53:7 The Messiah is given a hard time. He allows Himself to be tortured, to be slaughtered as a sacrificial lamb. He is silent before His accusers, the people who sentence him to death and the people who execute Him.

Isaiah 53:8. The Messiah is brought to trial, condemned to death, and executed.

Isaiah 53:9. The Messiah is buried at a place where rich people are buried.

Isaiah 53:10. People can now present the Messiah’s soul (soul means life here) as a sin offering to JHWH and thereby acquire forgiveness of their sins and a right to eternal life.

If you put the verses 5, 8, 11 and 12 of chapter 53 together, you will clearly see the first contours of a vision of the future that will be worked out further by the authors of the holy Greek Scriptures a few decades after the death of the Messiah. It is the vision of the future which now forms the essence of Christianity: Jesus Christ has offered His life to JHWH as a sin offering for mankind. By doing this, Jesus offered people an opportunity to acquire forgiveness of their sins and remission of the punishment that should follow their sins.

Isaiah 60:1. The splendor of JHWH has begun to shine over Israel. This is one of the many verses in the Bible in which Israel is presented as God’s wife.

The fact that Israel is called God’s wife is of great importance for a clear understanding of one of the most crucial verses of the entire Bible: Genesis 3:15. This verse tells us what JHWH said to Satan, Adam and Eve after the Fall of the first human couple: I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will crush you in the head and you will crush him in the heel.

Who is the woman mentioned in Genesis, chapter 3 verse 15?

Who is her seed?

How will this seed crush Satan in the head?

The sentence of Genesis 3:15 was spoken by JHWH to Satan, Adam, and Eve in the year 4026 B.C., or perhaps one or more years later, depending on the question how long Adam and Eve lived in paradise before they sinned and were driven away from paradise.

It is good to realize that it took many centuries before God began to answer the questions mentioned above (Who is the woman? Who is her seed? How will this seed crush Satan in the head?).

Only Bible-books that were written thousands of years after 4026 B.C. tell us how we can identify the woman and her seed and make it clear how this seed will crush Satan in the head.

The woman is God’s people: the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: the people of Israel.

The seed is the Messiah who was born from this people: Jesus Christ.

He will crush Satan in the head by putting and end to his life and by undoing all his work. The seed will do all this at the end of mankind’s history when He will claim the throne of King David and will begin to reign as king of a human race that will for ever be obedient to JHWH.

Isaiah, chapter 60. The entire chapter is one grand and crystal clear vision of the future splendor and glory of God’s people Israel. This splendor and this glory will become visible for everybody after Israel’s seed, Jesus Christ, will have crushed Satan in the head and will begin to reign as king for ever.

Isaiah, chapter 65. The entire chapter is one grand and crystal clear vision of what heaven and earth will be like when JHWH and His son Jesus Christ will have completed the history of human salvation and the end for which the earth and man were created will have been achieved.

Isaiah, chapter 66. The entire chapter is one grand and crystal clear vision of what heaven and earth will be like when JHWH and His son Jesus Christ will have completed the history of human salvation and the end for which the earth and man were created will have been achieved.