Isaiah was continuing to build on what he was saying.
- Because our sins have been paid for by the Servant Messiah, by the breathtaking sacrifice of His own life;
- Because we have been made a new creation, and now have God’s Holy Spirit;
- Because we have the very words of life in our hands, access to God’s thoughts and ways flowing onto us and into us with the power to bring forth fruit,
Then,
Thus says the Lord:
Maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come
and my deliverance be revealed.Happy is the mortal who does this,
Isaiah 56:1-2 (NRSVUE)
the one who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,
and refrains from doing any evil.
πίστις | pistis, Belief and Faith
This is the true essence of faith, the truth about faith. A mistake is often made about what belief and faith really are. Many think that if we make a decision for Christ, have a salvation experience, an altar call, we have been baptized and gone to catechism, or however you want to say it, that we can just leave it at that. But such thinking misunderstands the full, polyvalent meaning of the Greek word πίστις | pistis, which includes trust, confidence, assurance, and also good faith, trustworthiness, honesty, and also a pledge of good faith, guarantee, and also faithfulness and dependability, loyalty, reliability, and commitment.
Pistis is mental, emotional, spiritual, and volitional. It is being so confident in a matter that a commitment is made to live by it, and a pledge of faithfulness, of loyalty, is given that becomes so unshakeable, it goes without saying. People with pistis stand firm no matter what, they do not pay lip service to the matter, they are all in.
True conversion involves a transformation that goes beyond a superficial emotional experience that lacks repentance, embracing and living by God’s words and God’s ways. A superficial nod to belief does not forsake itself, or really does anything that raises much of a mental, spiritual, or emotional sweat for God.
Is that really what faith in God is all about?
The community that Isaiah spoke of here was a strange turnaround for the people of his day to hear about. In the era Isaiah described, being born into Jewish faith and heritage, even becoming a leader, would be no guarantee of God’s favor. In this strange new era, even those who had been traditionally barred from the temple would now be invited in with open arms!
How could this be?
Eunuchs and Foreigners
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people,”
and do not let the eunuch say,
“I am just a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it
and hold fast my covenant—
Isaiah 56:3-6 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
The Foreigner
The foreigner was anyone who was not Jewish. Foreigners could be proselytes of Judaism and they could worship in the outer court of the temple, but they could not go in. According to the Law of Moses, some foreigners were not even allowed in the outer court because of how terribly their nation had treated God’s people.
But now God would welcome any foreigner who joined with God—a new relationship, regeneration, who ministered to God, who loved the Lord and was God’s servant.
The Eunuch
A eunuch was a man either born with this disability, or rendered so. The Levitical law forbade eunuchs from entering the temple because their bodies were considered mutilated. But in this new era, God would welcome every eunuch who, like the foreigner, held fast to God’s everlasting covenant of love and peace, and who kept the Sabbath.
these I will bring to my holy mountain
Isaiah 56:7-8 (NRSV)
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar,
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.
Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel:
I will gather others to them
besides those already gathered.
This had to have sounded like a shocking reversal of scripture to Isaiah’s listeners.
But it is exactly this aspect of the Gospel that Paul talked about again and again in his letters, the inclusion of all people, all nations, into the community of believers.
The contrast leans into the irony of these last verses in Isaiah 56.
The Erstwhile Leaders
Those who thought they were the insiders, the elite, the crème de la crème, Israel’s spiritual and political leaders, were actually the ones who would be devoured.
- Instead of keeping justice and doing righteousness, they were blind and silent, without knowledge or understanding.
- Instead of keeping the Sabbath, they turned to their own way.
- Instead of holding fast to God’s covenant, they indulged in their own laziness and base appetites.
Zeal for God’s House
This makes Jesus’s dramatic cleansing of the temple all the more meaningful, when He quoted this passage.
The outer court was the only place that the Gentiles could worship God. There was a death penalty for a Gentile to cross into the inner courts reserved for Jews only.
Yet it was here that the vendors had set up their money changing booths and their animal market. Imagine the hawking and stench, the straw and manure, the droves of animals, cages full of birds and all the haggling over the money exchange. How could any Gentile worship in that din?
All throughout Jerusalem, every household was cleansing the yeast from every room, according to God’s Law concerning Passover. Every household had to be clean.
Ironically, at every Passover, only God’s house was left unclean.
Jesus had been going to the temple every year since He was a boy. He was not suddenly offended. Instead, He had been holding in His offense until His time had come.
When He quoted this passage, He was denouncing the unfaithful leaders of Israel. They were using God’s house as a coverup for their sin and making it impossible for the foreigner to keep the Sabbath.
God’s free gift of salvation is offered to all
As one author put it, “To God, insider-ness is no guarantee, and outsider-ness is no problem!”
If you are feeling like an outsider, or someone who is too damaged to be loved by God, this passage is God’s personal word to you.
The Lord is saying to you: Come, eat and drink, seek Me while I can be found, call upon Me while I am near. No one is to far out, or too strange, or too damaged for God to love, and to heal. That is God’s specialty! God loves to forgive and heal, and God loves to love.
The religious leaders of Isaiah’s day thought they were untouchable, so they used their religion to allow themselves sin. May that be a warning to you and me today, to be sure we do not trade spiritual values in worship and service to God for the material values of gain, personal selfishness, and indifference to the things of God.
