Christ Unveiled as Restorer of Israel and Light for the Nations

This “day of salvation” was pictured in history by God’s restoration of the exiles from Babylon back to the promised land. Jesus was made by God to be a “covenant for the people” (v. 8) with the result that “spiritual exiles” will return and again possess the desolate inheritances of the promised land. Christ will speak a sovereign word to the prisoners (exiles) and lead them from darkness to their inheritance. These exiles will come from far away, from the north and west, even from the “land of Sinim” (some scholars believe this might have been China; cf. Young, Isaiah Chs. 40–66, 294). The regathering of physical exiles to the promised land was a picture of the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth and of the spiritual pilgrimage that all disciples make in following Jesus from sin to heaven (Matt 7:13-14).

This “day of salvation” and the resulting pilgrimage of former exiles (both physical and spiritual) is worthy of exultant praise and worship by the heavens and the earth, set free at last from decay (v. 13; Rom 8:19).

Isaiah 49:14-21

We have already seen how the Suffering Servant could look around from the cross and see little evidence of the greatness of the kingdom of God; so also Zion (the City of God—Jerusalem) could look at her own rubble-filled and vacant streets during the exile to Babylon and say, “The Lord has abandoned me!” (v. 14). This is the way it is with the spiritual advance of Christ’s kingdom, with cities of teeming millions and only a handful of known Christians in each one meeting in secret. How could there ever really be a multitude greater than anyone could count from every nation on earth (Rev 7:9)? So if Zion only looks at the outward circumstances of a desolate condition during the exile to Babylon, she may well conclude that God has forgotten her.

But God swears by himself—“‘As I live’—this is the Lord’s declaration” (v. 18)—that a mother is more likely to forget her nursing child (v. 15) than that God will forget his covenant promise to Abraham. God also took a solemn oath when he made that promise (Gen 15:17), implying by the movement of the fire pot through the pieces of the sacrifice, “May I cease to exist if I fail to keep my promise to you.” God has inscribed his people on the palms of his hands, and he never forgets the walls of Jerusalem (v. 16). Despite all outward appearances, the exiles will return and the earthly Zion (Jerusalem) will be populated, so populated, in fact, that she will become too small for all her people (vv. 19-20). So also the heavenly Zion will look on all her children and wonder where they came from (v. 21; see Zech 8:5).

Isaiah 49:22-26

The chapter ends with both a promise and a warning to the Gentile nations on earth. God will lift up his hand to the nations and raise his banner, commanding the Gentiles (both rulers and people) to assist him in gathering his scattered people and returning them to Zion. The very ones who are journeying in pilgrimage to Zion will lift up and carry others along with them, so also here in verse 22 Gentiles will carry the sons and daughters of Zion from exile home to the promised land. Literally, Cyrus the Great and all the Persian sub-rulers and people are called on to aid the resettlement of Jerusalem by any means possible. In the same way, Gentile converts to Christ are called on to be involved in evangelizing unreached people groups, giving special focus to the lost among the Jews. Believing monarchs will aid in the spread of the gospel (v. 23).

Conversely, some Gentiles will use their positions of power to resist the streaming of exiles back to Zion. Verses 24-26 speak of tyrants who hold the exiles captive and have to be crushed in order to let the children of God go free. So either the Gentiles will aid the streaming of the exiles back to Zion (in which case they will be blessed), or they will resist it and be destroyed by an avenging God.

The driving force for missions is written in this chapter, namely, that Christ’s present glory is too small. “It is too light a thing” for Jesus to be worshiped at his present level; he is deprived of his glory when there is any unreached people group or any elect person who has not yet come to faith in Christ. A yearning that Christ receive all the glory he is due from all the people he has chosen should drive us in missions day after day. God the Father has ordained that Christ be a light for the Gentiles, bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. The apostles Paul and Barnabas took this statement (made from the Father to the Son) as their personal marching orders in Acts 13:47: “For this is what the Lord has commanded us [plural]: ‘I have made you [singular] a light for the Gentiles to bring salvation to the end of the earth.’” The Greek is ­singular—Jesus is the only light for the Gentiles. But because we are his body and he is our head, his commission from the Father moves us to action to make it come true.

Along with this, we should feel fully the weight of Christ’s apparent discouragement in verse 4 that gets resolved in that same verse by trusting in God’s final plan. The kingdom of God will always appear underwhelming and somewhat disappointing in this present age compared to the grandeur of the King and the perfection of the promises he has made to us. So pastors, missionaries, evangelists, parents, and Christian laborers of all types will have to battle discouragement constantly when the results are far less than we feel they should be. Adoniram Judson was so depressed in Burma that he dug his own grave and waited for God to kill him (Anderson, To the Golden Shore, 378). Martin Luther was so discouraged at the poor response to his preaching in Wittenberg that he gave up preaching for more than nine months in 1530 (Meuser, Luther, 27–34). The kingdom of God seems so unimpressive compared to current events and mighty world empires. But don’t be deceived. When we are finally in the heavenly Zion, we will be amazed at the stunning multitude of the redeemed there.

Finally, we should proclaim to the lost around us that today is the day of salvation, as Paul quotes in 2 Corinthians 6:2. We should be urgent in evangelism and not allow the unrepentant to comfort themselves that there’s “always tomorrow.” No, now is the season of God’s grace, today is the day of salvation.