The Final Chapter: Eternal Worship versus Eternal Torment

Isaiah 66:14b-21

It is also clear that the enemies of the gospel will fight Christ every step of the way. So God reminds his children that he will most certainly visit his wrath on all his enemies. Verses 15-16 give a powerful depiction of God’s judgment with a fiery sword, promising that the Lord will slay his enemies. Their repulsive worship habits are exposed in verse 17, those who “dedicate and purify themselves” by “eating meat from pigs, vermin, and rats.” The phrase “dedicate and purify” is strongly religious, implying that these actually believe that their religion has made them pure in God’s sight. Ironically, this might include “law-abiding” Jews, in their self-righteous, Christless worship (reestablishing animal sacrifice after the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; Matt 27:51), as well as pagans, who follow satanic rituals in their bizarre religions. As a matter of fact, Paul warned the Gentile Christians of Galatia that to embrace the false gospel of the Judaizers was to go back to “weak and worthless elements” and to be “enslaved to them all over again” (Gal 4:9). That is amazing! Legalistic, Christless Judaism is as demonic as overt paganism. So even the Jews who offered oxen, lambs, and sheep in the temple after Christ had abolished animal sacrifice were seeking to “dedicate and purify” themselves by effectively washing in pig’s blood and eating rat meat. God decrees in verse 17 that they are condemned to perish together.

Conversely, in verses 18-21 God reveals to his children his plan to gather true worshipers from every tribe, language, people, and nation. God promises to gather all nations and languages to come and see his glory (v. 18). He will dispatch some of his “survivors” (the remnant of the Jews chosen by grace; Rom 11:5) to the nations who had not yet heard his fame or seen his glory. A small sampling of those nations is listed in verse 19: Tarshish (distant Spain); Put and Lud (northern Africa); Tubal (north, in the Caucasus); Javan (Greece); and the Mediterranean maritime regions. The inhabitants of Put and Lud are described as archers, warlike, and terrifying, but some will be elect, ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. The missionaries will proclaim God’s glory in Christ to these nations, and many will begin spiritual pilgrimages to Zion (“my holy mountain,” the new Jerusalem) by Christ, who is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), the only pathway to heaven. The language is fascinating, for they will come “on horses and chariots, in litters, and on mules and camels” (Isa 66:20). People will “come” to the new Jerusalem in an amazingly wide variety of ways, but the destination is the same. And the elect from every nation are called “brothers” with the Jews who trusted in Christ (v. 20); not one of them will be missing, for “all” the brothers will come, and they will themselves become offerings to the Lord in his house. The apostle Paul’s ministry was a direct fulfillment of this, for he was called to a priestly ministry among the nations so the Gentiles might themselves be an offering acceptable to the Lord, sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Rom 15:16). And even these Gentile believers can immediately serve as “priests and Levites” to the Lord, for the old order of priestly divisions is superseded.

Isaiah 66:22-24

The final paragraph depicts the new heavens and new earth as the final destination of this amazing journey of missions. That new universe will endure forever and ever. And so will its holy inhabitants, the redeemed from every nation on earth. They will worship God in spirit and truth forever. Isaiah uses one final image from the old covenant and the old order of things: “from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another” (v. 23). But Revelation 21:23 tells us that the new Jerusalem will not need the light of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God will illuminate it.

The book of Isaiah ends with a clear view also of the fate of the rebels, those who worshiped created things and refused to repent and trust Christ. They will be burning in an eternal fire, tormented by eternal worms, a horror to all mankind. They will be in full view of the redeemed, for verse 24 tells us that the redeemed will be able to see their dead bodies as they leave the city. This verse was the basis of Jesus’s powerful warning about the eternal nature of hell’s torments in Mark 9:48. The fact that the redeemed can see the “smoke of their torment [going] up forever and ever” (Rev 14:11) shows us that God will not hide their fate from his children. Actually, their torment is a clear reminder of the grace God has shown to the elect, who deserved the exact same punishment and whose sins were propitiated only by the Lamb’s blood. God uses the righteous suffering of these rebels eternally to “make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy” (Rom 9:23). Only by the grace of God in Christ did any of us escape.

The first two verses of this chapter teach us to abase ourselves in humility before the infinite God of the universe. Heaven is his throne; the earth is his footstool. There is nothing that we can offer in worship that he did not first give us. And we could never erect a container, building, or structure that could hold such a God. So we must learn to be completely humble before him, falling on our faces, trembling at his word. We must learn to have absolute reverence for the Bible, the Word of God. We should despise nominal religion, no matter how “biblical” it is. Hypocritical Christians today can deceive themselves, following the outward worship patterns of the New Testament by going through the motions every Sunday at church.

We should also embrace the clear teaching of the terrifying fate of unbelievers and idolaters in this chapter. God is patently clear in this chapter that his wrath will burn for eternity against all false worshipers who do not find the truth in Christ. We should not shrink back from the doctrine of hell as a place of eternal, conscious torment but should clearly warn lost people as Jesus did in Mark 9.

We should also rededicate ourselves to the glorious work of worldwide evangelization in Jesus’s name. Isaiah 66:18-21 clearly predicts the spread of the gospel to the distant shores of this planet. Twenty centuries of fulfillment should give us a tremendous sense of confidence that God’s power is fulfilling this prophecy before our very eyes. So let all Christians have a passion for missions, displayed in prayer, effort, finances, and sacrifice. Many of our best and brightest will be called on to go to terrifying, warlike people (who maybe do not fight as archers but who are powerful with the weapons of our day) and win some of them to Christ.

Finally, let us long for the day when the new heavens and new earth will shine with the glory of God in Christ! Let us thank God for the blood of the Lamb, who purified us so that we may worship his name forever! To God alone be the glory!