“Behold, Me!” and My New Creation

Therefore, verses 13-16 describe the contrasting outcomes for God’s servants and God’s enemies. Each of these contrasts is introduced with the word behold, although it doesn’t generally show up in English translations: “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry! Behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty! Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame!” The ultimate end of this is the difference between heaven and hell: in heaven the redeemed will spend eternity feasting at Christ’s table, drinking freely from the river of the water of life, and shouting for joy from a glad heart; in hell the damned will be tormented by thirst, weeping and gnashing their teeth, and crying out from an anguished heart (v. 14).

These sins in verses 2-5 and 11-12 are part of this present order, the world as it now is. Soon, God will change everything; then the former things will be forgotten in the light of the coming world.

Isaiah 65:17-25

This astonishing section opens with the amazing words, “For [behold!] I will create a new heaven and a new earth.” God uses the same Hebrew word for “create” that he used in Genesis 1:1; it is a work of sovereign power no less awesome than the original creation. The opening word “for” explains why the former troubles will be forgotten and hidden from sight (v. 16). The new heaven and new earth that God will create will be so glorious that the former world will shrink into insignificance. Isaiah 65:17-25 pictures a vastly improved earthly experience in terms with which his old-covenant audience would have been very familiar: the city of Jerusalem a place of great rejoicing, free from weeping (v. 19); amazing longevity (v. 20); houses built and vineyards planted, and their blessings enjoyed by those who built and planted, not by invading enemies (vv. 21-22); rich blessings on the labors of their hands (v. 23); children born into prosperity, not calamity (v. 23); and intimacy with God in prayer (v. 24). It concludes with promises of harmony even in the animal world—the wolf and the lamb feeding together, and the lion eating straw like the ox, just as was said of the world when the Messiah would come (Isa 11:6-9); even the serpent is completely humbled and eats dust for food; there will be no evil or destruction on God’s holy mountain (v. 25).

All of this amazing peace and prosperity is common in the language of prophetic writing. Yet these words are among the most controversial in the book of Isaiah. The difficulty lies in trying to harmonize the images in these nine verses with other passages of Scripture, most especially the teaching about the new heaven and new earth in 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21–22. John’s vision in Revelation of the new heaven and new earth includes the death of death. But in Isaiah 65:20 we have merely the deferral of death, resulting in remarkably long life:

In [Jerusalem], a nursing infant will no longer live only a few days, or an old man not live out his days. Indeed, the one who dies at a hundred years old will be mourned as a young man, and the one who misses a hundred years will be considered cursed.

To make matters more confusing, that verse contains two other things we would not expect in the eternal state: infants born and people being accursed. No one will suffer under a curse in heaven, and heavenly marriage and procreation are ruled out by Jesus’s statement to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:30.

These problems are significant for any evangelical, no matter what their eschatological system, whether premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial; there is just no easy way to harmonize Isaiah 65:17-20 with Revelation 21:1 and 4. Some amillennial commentators argue that “the sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in” Jerusalem means that whatever verse 20 is talking about, there is no more death in that glorious place (Storms, Kingdom Come, 166–69). They say that verse 20 is speaking in language we would understand of the complete destruction of death from the beginning of life to the end. But that seems forced to me. Isaiah 25:7-8 had no problem describing clearly the total end of death. These verses seem to be speaking of a lessening but not removal of the curse of death, resulting in remarkable longevity. Indeed, verse 22 implies this when it says, “My people’s lives will be like the lifetime of a tree.”

The task of explanation is easier for millennial interpreters, for this passage seems very much to describe the vast improvement of earthly life in a millennial kingdom with Christ reigning on earth, as described in Revelation 20:1-6. According to premillennial theology, the millennium comes after the second coming of Christ and has these features: (1) peace on earth among all nations; (2) material prosperity, free from famines and poverty, with rich harvests; (3) longevity restored but death still in existence; (4) creation largely delivered from its curse, with humanity living in harmony with other creatures; and (5) King Jesus and his people visibly running the kingdom, centered in Jerusalem (Boettner, Millennium, 290–92). It is not difficult to see that many of those wonderful aspects are culled right from Isaiah 65. I tend to lean in this direction based on this very chapter. But it is easy for me to respect evangelicals who have other ways of explaining the graphic imagery of prophetic literature while still honoring the inspiration of every word of the Bible.

Whether the Lord Jesus returns and reigns on earth in a millennial kingdom or immediately sets up the eternal state with no more death, either will be such a display of his grace and power as to make our present sufferings seem unworthy of comparison. God is wise. He will do what seems best to him!

First, the unifying word of this chapter is “Behold” (Hb hinneh, “Look”), as though God were standing before us in the text revealing some vital truths that we can “see” only by faith. Therefore, we must see by faith God’s amazing grace in holding out his willing hands for repentant sinners through Christ. Second, we must discern and reject the weird “holiness” of bizarre spirituality that will become more and more appealing in a post-Christian world. People are essentially spiritual, and we are likely to see more and more witchcraft and wickedness. It is vital for us to define holiness as God does: conformity to his character as his Word defines. Third, we need to see ahead of time the zeal of God to separate the wheat from the weeds of the human race (Matt 3:12). Finally, we need to see the glory of God in the coming kingdom—millennial (possibly), then eternal—in which Christ will finally triumph completely over sin and death. The more we see by faith these various things, the more zealous we will be to purify ourselves from all wickedness and to spread the gospel of Christ, which is the only hope of salvation from the coming wrath.