God’s Passionate Response to Sin Draws Forth Intercession

The Lord (or perhaps, the intercessor) remembered the days of the past. The dominating image of this section is the Red Sea crossing, the power of God in delivering his people from the Egyptians and from the sea. The crossing occurred at night, with the light of the pillar of fire the only illumination. The sea walled up to the left and to the right, a dark threatening corridor of imminent death. The people went down into the Red Sea as the dead go down into the grave. But the angel of the Lord who led them in the form of the pillar is the same Savior, Christ, who will lead all his people out of the grave into the light of resurrection. The dawn that ended that terrifying night saw God bringing them up from the sea to “make an eternal name for himself” (vv. 12,14). But the question the intercessor now presses to the unchanging God is, Where now is the God who did all these great things in the past (v. 11)? The intercessor is following God’s own command in Isaiah 62:7-8 to remind God of his past actions and to give him no rest until he saves his people. The intercessor calls on God to stir up his zeal and his might, to stop restraining his yearning and compassion for his people (v. 15). Despite the fact it seems God has forgotten his people, the intercessor reminds both himself and God that he is our Father by adoption (v. 16). And though perhaps Abraham and Israel may become so disgusted with their descendants that they would refuse to recognize them, God’s commitment to his sinful children is infinitely greater and will never fail (v. 16). So he calls on God, their ancient Father, to be their Redeemer.

These verses return to the theme of lamentation over Israel’s sin and, even more, over God’s disciplines for those sins. Verse 17 is perhaps a little surprising, for it seems like the intercessor is blaming God for Israel’s straying ways and hardened hearts. But God is perfectly holy and hates wickedness more than we can possibly imagine. The intercessor knows that our hearts naturally stray from God’s ways and become hardened in sin unless he intervenes with his sovereign grace. And if he fails to intervene, the straying and hardening is inevitable, though we are completely to blame for it. The whole ethos of this intercession in Isaiah 63–64 is asking God, Why do you apparently do nothing when we need you so desperately to save us from our sins and the sins of our enemies? So the intercessor pleads with God to stop his people’s straying, for it is this very thing that has led to God’s righteous judgments on Israel—the trampling of God’s sanctuary by Israel’s wicked enemies (v. 18). Isaiah the prophet, writing these words more than a century before the Babylonians would destroy the temple, gives future intercessors the words to say at that time—intercessors like Daniel, who would pray, confessing Israel’s sin and pleading with God for her restoration (Dan 9). So also Christians in every generation who are lamenting our sins and God’s righteous discipline should employ these concepts.

The intercessor continues with a plea for God to “tear the heavens open and come down.” He yearns for the omnipotent God to show up and make the mountains quake at his presence (v. 1). The Hebrew grammar actually reads in the past tense, as if to say, “If only you had already torn open the heavens and come down,” then none of this would have happened. But though it is past in grammar, the desire is for an immediate answer and action by almighty God. Perhaps the most perplexing quandary to a Bible-believing Christian is, “Lord, if you are omnipotent and if you tenderly love your children, then why do you seemingly do so little to rescue them from their vicious enemies?” The tearing open of the heavens is an awesome description of the rending of the God-appointed barrier that exists between the physical heavens (sky and outer space) and the “third heaven” (2 Cor 12:2) where God dwells in unapproachable light. This dramatic plea is fulfilled ultimately in Jesus Christ, in both his first and second advents. At his baptism the heavens were torn open (Mark 1:10), but amazingly instead of a God of terror throwing lightning bolts to ravage the wicked of the earth, a single dove descended peacefully and landed on Jesus, the Lamb of God! God did tear the heavens open, but instead of wrath for sin, the world received a dovelike Spirit and a lamblike Savior. The heavens were torn open again when a vicious group of unbelieving Jews were stoning Stephen to death. But instead of a wrath-filled God, Stephen saw Jesus standing to receive him into heaven, and filled with his dovelike Spirit, his dying words were, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:56-60). I believe the martyr Stephen’s prayer was partially answered in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who had abetted Stephen’s execution; however, God did not hold that sin against Saul but extended grace instead.

The desire for God to rend the heavens and come down is right and good, as long as we recognize that, were it not for the blood of Jesus, we would all be the brushwood that would be ignited, we would be the water that would boil. We would be God’s enemies and the nation that would tremble at God’s presence (Isa 64:2). Peter explains God’s seeming reluctance to “tear the heavens open and come down”: “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).

But the intercessor should pray, indeed he must pray, for God to tear open the heavens and come down in the power of his Holy Spirit to do more saving acts, “awesome works that we did not expect” (Isa 64:3). In light of the Great Commission, this is a prayer for revival, for God to transform them from seething enemies to delightful children of God. Verse 4 is a powerful reminder of the special privilege of prayer to the only living God: “From ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for him.” This is the patient intercessor’s greatest hope, which alone can spur him on in prayer. God answers the prayer of the godly who delight in his ways (v. 5a).

But the problem is, no intercessor on earth is sinless, always doing what pleases God. So the intercessor must confess his sins and the sins of his people honestly to God (v. 5b). In fact, when seen in the light of God’s holy and perfect standard, it becomes clear that even our most righteous people are “unclean” and our most righteous acts are “like a polluted garment” (v. 6). All of God’s people on earth “wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind” (v. 6). That is why Jesus Christ, our Mediator, must ultimately be the intercessor whose prayer alone God the Father will answer. His righteous acts are alone perfect in God’s sight. Then, in Jesus’s name alone can we fulfill the role of intercessor. Apart from the work of the Spirit, none of us intercedes, none of us strives to take hold of God. Apart from the work of the Redeemer, God would most certainly hide his face from the most righteous intercessor we would choose from our number (v. 7). So the faithful prayer warriors among the church must intercede for God’s elect with humility and total reliance on the finished work of Christ (Heb 10:20).

This paragraph completes the entire section, the ministry of the intercessor on behalf of his people. The focus of the entire prayer has been, “O Lord, we, your sinful people, desperately need you to cover our sins and act on our behalf! Please, O Lord, tear open the heavens and come down to destroy our enemies, despite the fact that we deserve all the judgments you have wisely meted out to us! Please, O Lord, no longer be silent or restrain your affections for us. Act, O Lord!” So the intercessor turns again to God the Father (who has adopted us), to God the potter (who has shaped us), to act on behalf of his sinful people (v. 9).

What is fascinating about this entire intercession, beginning in 63:7 and through to this section, is how the intercessor in effect wants God to have a selective memory, remembering his mighty acts in the past for his people, remembering the covenant he made with Abraham, remembering the salvation he worked at the Red Sea through Moses, remembering that he has adopted them to be his children and that he formed them like a potter does the clay, but to forget their sins that caused all these judgments! Their cities have become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. It is especially poignant that after the image of a glorious heavenly Zion in Isaiah 62, here we are told that the earthly Zion has “become a wilderness” (64:10). The beautiful temple where their fathers praised God has been burned down. Again, Isaiah as the intercessor is supernaturally empowered to drop himself more than a century and a half ahead in time into the moment in redemptive history when he could pray for the remnant to be restored to the promised land, to rebuild the rubble-filled city of Jerusalem and reestablish a holy temple where his people can again praise God. So the intercessor pleads with God to stop restraining himself, to stop being silent. Amazingly, this is the very Hebrew word used in Isaiah 62:1 in which Christ said, “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent!” In effect, the intercessor is showing him his writing and urging him to keep his promise!

The first application of these chapters is to stand in awe and trembling at the wrath of God against his enemies. The image of a blood-soaked warrior is terrifying when we realize that we all deserve to be included in the slaughter. Furthermore, we must embrace that this is very much the purpose of the second coming of Christ, for he will come to “trample the winepress of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty” (Rev 19:15). We should never be ashamed of the clear warning of the wrath of God and the future trampling of the godless. Rather, we should plead with sinners to repent while there’s time, to flee the wrath to come.

The remainder of the two chapters form the basis of a pattern of intercession in the light of the watchmen on the walls of Zion who are charged to remind God and to give themselves no rest or him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem as the praise of the whole earth.

A Christian may well take up this challenge but may say, “Lord, I don’t know what to pray for.” Isaiah 63:7–64:12 gives a wonderful answer to that uncertainty. Pray like this! But pray from a new-covenant perspective, based on Christ’s finished work. Pray based on God’s history of love toward his church, especially now in light of Christ’s saving acts toward the church (63:7-9); pray with genuine and humble confession of sin, that our sins have grieved the Holy Spirit (63:10); pray based on Christ’s resurrection from the dead as the fulfillment of the pattern of the Red Sea crossing (63:11-16); pray with a deep lament for our wandering ways and our hardened hearts, knowing that only in the new covenant and by the ministry of the Holy Spirit can the heart of stone be removed and the heart of flesh given (63:17-19); pray for God to tear open the heavens and come down—in gentle, saving love toward his elect now (revival!) and in wrath toward his enemies at the second coming (64:1-5a); acknowledge that even our best acts would be unclean apart from the blood of Christ and that we are pathetically weak in intercession (64:5b-7); and ask God to move out powerfully on behalf of his elect people, saving the unconverted and transforming the converted from often sinful to increasingly holy people (64:8-12).