The Cursed Universe Restored to God’s Original Purposes

Isaiah 35:4

These words so obviously go infinitely beyond anything that happened in the Old Testament that they must refer to the salvation God wrought in Jesus Christ. The actual physical restoration of the remnant to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah comes vastly short of the promises here. Actually, it was bitterly disappointing to them in many ways (Ezra 3:12-13; Neh 1:3-4). The words of Isaiah 35:1-7 were looking ahead to a transformation that had not yet occurred. And verse 4 points plainly to the transforming event: “Here is your God; . . . he will save you.”

This can be none other than the work of God in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. In Christ alone are the promises of Isaiah 35, “Yes!” and “Amen!” (2 Cor 1:20). Our God has come to save us in Christ’s incarnation, sinless life, wonder-working ministry, perfect teachings, atoning death, and bodily resurrection. So will our God come to finish this saving work in us and for us by the second coming of Christ and the new heaven and new earth. At that time Christ will raise our bodies from the dead (1 Cor 15:21-58), completing his triumph over every curse mentioned in this chapter. Only then will these promises find their fulfillment.

The miracles of Christ’s first coming were merely signs pointing to this glorious consummation. A sign is not the reality, just as a highway sign declaring how many miles it is to New York City shows you haven’t yet arrived there. Every healing Jesus ever did in his life has been in some way reversed by death. The eyes of the man born blind that Jesus healed in John 9 are presently closed by death. The ears of the deaf man that Jesus opened by sighing and saying, “Ephphatha!” (Mark 7:34) are presently closed by death. The legs of the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof that were strengthened by Jesus’s power (Mark 2:12) are now made motionless by death. So also the tongues of every mute person that Jesus healed are now stilled by death. Those miracles did not solve the true problem of the human race—death. But they were infallible signs of a total healing that God intends to give every believer in the resurrection! Then alone will the glories of Isaiah 35 be fulfilled. Death is “the last enemy to be abolished” (1 Cor 15:26). And when death is abolished by the full redemption of our bodies at resurrection, then creation itself will forever be liberated from its bondage to decay and be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Rom 8:21-23).

But Isaiah 35:4 also speaks of vengeance and retribution, for these will also be consummated at the second coming of Christ, as Isaiah 34 has made plain. The wicked will be winnowed out of God’s glorious kingdom, and only the redeemed will be there.

Isaiah 35:8-10

But we are not there yet! We still groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:23). In the meantime, we must travel a Holy Way in order to arrive at that glorious destination. This picks up on the glorious theme of holy pilgrimage that would have been so familiar to Judah. Three times a year God’s people were required to travel from their homes to Jerusalem for national worship. The pilgrimage of Isaiah 35 is far more significant, however, for it ends in heaven.

The descriptions of the highway in verses 8-10 are very significant. First, the name—the “Holy Way” or “Highway of Holiness”—implies the need for absolute purity from sin. The central command concerning this is found in Leviticus 11:44 (and many other places): “Be holy because I am holy.” As 1 John 1:5 says plainly, “God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.” So the Highway of Holiness is characterized by people who “walk in the light as he himself is in the light” (1 John 5:7), loving righteousness and hating wickedness.

The Highway of Holiness is an exclusive way, and only the righteous may travel on it. The unclean cannot travel on it. This exclusive way refers to the atoning work of Jesus Christ, for only faith in the blood of Christ shed on the cross can cleanse a guilty soul from sins. The positional cleansing of the soul from sin by faith in Christ is called justification. The Highway of Holiness follows this cleansing; it is the journey of sanctification—of progressive growth in practical righteousness—that inevitably follows justification. As Romans 6:19 says, “Just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.”

The Highway of Holiness is also a protected and secure way: Even if people are occasionally foolish, they will not wander off it; no lion will travel there, nor will any vicious beast; only the “redeemed” (Isa 35:9-10) will travel on it. This term clearly points to the purchase made by Christ in blood for each of the pilgrims who travel the Highway of Holiness, and everyone who begins the journey will most certainly finish it (cf. Rom 8:29-39).

Isaiah 35:10

The final destination of those traveling the Holy Way is Zion, the City of God, where God and man will dwell together. The thrice-annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem in Israel’s spiritual calendar were shadows and prophetic foretastes of the journey that all the redeemed must travel to enter the true Zion, the new Jerusalem, where they will at last enjoy the full salvation purchased for them by the blood of Christ (Rev 21:4).

See in the person and work of Jesus Christ the fulfillment of this chapter. It is in Christ that God’s original intention for the universe and for human beings will at last be realized after the long nightmare of sin’s curse has ended. By Christ will the deserts literally flow with water and spring to life with vegetation. So also through Christ will the human body lose all weakness, disease, and death, and Christians will live forever in perfect happiness. In Christ is the “Holy Way,” for as he said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Christ’s miracles were literal fulfillments of this chapter but also mere signs of a reality not yet ours, a reality only consummated when all the redeemed will receive their resurrection bodies. So see all of these promises in Christ alone, and walk every day in the hope and holiness that are ours in Christ.