The Wonder of Repentance

You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?

Isaiah 64:5

The Necessity of Repentance

In the history of redemption, how many people have been saved without repentance? None! Repentance is the divinely given ability to see all reality from God’s perspective and be governed by that perspective, as revealed in the Scriptures. The wonder of repentance is the key teaching in Isaiah 63:7-64:12.

The Westminster Confession defines repentance as follows:

1. Repentance unto life is an evangelical grace, the doctrine whereof is to be preached by every minister of the gospel, as well as that of faith in Christ.
2. By it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature, and righteous law of God; and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments.
3. Although repentance be not to be rested in, as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ; yet it is of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it (WCF, Chapter 15, “Of Repentance unto Life,” sections 1-3).

God never rejects a sinner who truly repents; thus, the wonder of repentance is that it always works; David discovered this wonder (Psalms 32 and 51) as did Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33) and countless others throughout history. God will always embrace a prodigal who truly repents, no matter how wickedly he has sinned against God and man.

We too can experience the unspeakable joy of repentance. Peter instructs us, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19). When we do so, we can say with David, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him” (Psalm 32:1-2).

God spoke of this wonder in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.” Isaiah declares, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon” (55:6-7); “For this is what the high and lofty One says-he who lives forever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite'” (57:15); “Zion will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness” (1:27); and “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins” (59:20).

The same Redeemer who came to repenting sinners in Zion comes today to redeem, save, heal, forgive and comfort all who repent. Repentance is the sine qua non for salvation; we must repent to enter the kingdom of God.

Recalling Past Mercies

Isaiah was the first person in this prophecy to repent. When he saw the thrice-holy God, Isaiah cried, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). God cleansed Isaiah from his sin and commissioned him to prophesy.

In these latter chapters, Isaiah sees Israel in deep trouble, with her people in exile, the holy land deserted, and the temple ruined. This vision causes him to ask: Will God abandon Judah forever? Will he remain angry and silent because of his people’s sins? Or will God once again show mercy to his chosen people?

Gideon asked similar questions in Judges 6:13. The people of God were living in defeat in their own land, oppressed by their enemies so much that they could not even harvest their crops. Gideon asked, “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

When both of these men recalled God’s past mercies, it stirred them to ask, “Will not God show mercy to his people again?” The truth is, he will. Judges 8:28 tells us God subdued Midian and gave forty years of peace to the land. And in Isaiah 62:1 God promises, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.” Then God commissioned Isaiah to be a watchman and intercessor for Israel: “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth” (Isaiah 62:6-7).

Here, then, in Isaiah 63:7-64:12, the prophet is earnestly interceding with God to act savingly once again on behalf of his people. Isaiah begins by recalling God’s past mercies: “I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord” (63:7) and concludes: “according to his compassion and many kindnesses.” The Hebrew word for “kindnesses” ischesed, which means “covenant love.” Here it appears in the plural-“covenant loves.” It speaks of the abundance of God’s love, an inexhaustible, everlasting love that never fails, a love whose flame no sin of ours can extinguish or even diminish. When God chose us, he saw us in all our sinfulness. Yet he saves us, despite the utter heinousness of our sins. How great is his love and how rich his mercy!

Because of God’s kindnesses, we are now inspired to worship him. So Isaiah says, “I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised . . . .” (63:7). We are a praising people because God’s love is great and he performs mighty deeds for our salvation. Verse 7 continues, “According to all the Lord has done for us-yes, the many good things he has done.” God has done an infinite number of good things for us; thus, he deserves our highest praise and worship.

What are some of these deeds?

First, we are told that “he became their Savior” (v. 8). On the basis of his covenant love, God saves us. He alone is our Savior; there is no other.

Then Isaiah says, “In all their distress, he too was distressed” (v. 9). God feels our pain and identifies with us as our sympathizing high priest. The Scriptures are filled with examples of God taking our pain upon himself. For instance, Psalm 69:9, which is quoted in Romans 15:3, says, “Zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.” And Isaiah 53:4-5 says, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . . But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Jesus Christ experienced in his incarnate body the infinite degree of pain brought about by our sin.

When Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the church, the Lord appeared to him and asked, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). Note how the Lord identified himself with his people. Because we are united with him, when we are insulted, he is insulted; when we are persecuted, he is persecuted; and when we feel pain, he does too. Never think that God does not understand our problems.

Furthermore, God “set his Holy Spirit among [us]” (Isaiah 63:11) to guide us, bless us, and bring us to rest. Then he “sent his glorious arm of power to be at Moses’ right hand” (63:12). When Moses performed miracles, he did not do them by his own power; God himself enabled him. Even so, the arm of the Lord grasps us. Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). Finally, we are told that God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage, guided them through the Red Sea, led them through the desert, and brought them into Canaan to rest (vv. 13-14).

The same God who solved Israel’s problems will also give us rest, if we repent. Jesus said, “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). God intervened in the lives of his people in the past, and he will do so again. He is the God of the present as well as of the past.

Why did God perform all these deeds of kindness? “To gain for himself everlasting renown,” and “to make for [himself] a glorious name” (vv. 12, 14). And verse 9 says, “In his love and mercy he redeemed them.” This is the only time the word “love” appears in Isaiah as a noun. God performed all these deeds because of his eternal, unfailing, covenant love. Such love delights in the companionship of the loved one. It is not the love of those who come to God only to demand certain things so that they can go and do what they want. Eternal life is fellowship with God, and we are told that the infinite, personal, almighty, all-wise, all-holy God takes great delight in fellowshipping with his redeemed creatures.

What about you? When you are chastised by God, do you react by recalling God’s past mercies? Do you meditate on the Scriptures, which clearly reveal those mercies? Only in the Bible can we find the sure way out of our misery. Romans 15:4 says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. . . .” It is our responsibility to understand what God has done in redemptive history, “so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

If you are miserable, I counsel you to read the Bible and see God’s mercies shown to his sinful people in the past. That should give you hope to cry out, “God, have mercy upon me!” To those who repent and call upon God in faith, the answer is always, “Yes, I will have mercy.”

Recalling Past Rebellion and Divine Retribution

As their intercessor, Isaiah now recalls the past rebellion of God’s people. What does God expect in return for all he has done for us? Covenant love and loyalty. God says, “Surely they are my people, sons who will not be false to me” (63:8).

But what did the covenant Lord receive in return for the electing love and rich mercy he poured upon Israel? “Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit” (63:10). This is nothing new. Deuteronomy 32:15 tells us, “Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.” For all the love God expended, he received only stubbornness and rebellion. Through God’s provision, Israel prospered; yet they rejected their God in favor of worthless, impotent idols.

Rebellion is hostility to the transcendent power and moral perfection of God. Such rebellion is not unique to the Old Testament. Before the Sanhedrin, Stephen cried out, “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” (Acts 7:51). We are either regulated by the Holy Spirit, or we resist him.

Because the Holy Spirit is a person-the infinite third person of the Trinity-he grieves when we rebel. Thus Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 4:30: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Then he specifies: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” Why must we get rid of these things? Because the Spirit dwelling in us is the Spirit of holiness. Every time we think evil thoughts, speak unwholesome words, or perform wicked deeds, we are opposing the Holy Spirit.

There is only one person who never grieved the Holy Spirit. This One says in Isaiah 50:4-5, “The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious.” He is our Messiah/Savior, the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ; and because he was never rebellious, we can have hope.

The Consequences of Rebellion

But the people of Israel rebelled against their Lord, breaking his covenant and going after idols. What was the consequence of their rebellion? Divine retribution. God must act against sin and sinners because he is holy. So Isaiah 63:10 tells us: “He turned and became their enemy.” Because his people had turned against him, God turned against them. It was not that God had changed: his people did, and that changed his relationship with them. Instead of being their savior, he became their enemy and fought against them.

Who can win if God fights against him? Saul of Tarsus tried to fight God, but failed. God always prevails. When God fights against us, our health is affected, our economic situation is affected, our reputation is affected, our marriage is affected, our children are affected, and our community life is affected. We may even die, as 1 Corinthians 11:30 tells us: “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.” God may hand us over to Satan that our flesh may be destroyed, as he handed his people over to foreign powers, even allowing the temple to be burned down. We should tremble at the thought of sinning, for “it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

Part of divine retribution includes God refusing to help us: “Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us. . . . You have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins” (Isaiah 64:7, 63:17). “Why, O Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?”

God does not wander from us. The truth is, it is we who wander from God. And when we choose to sin, he may permit us to continue in that sin until our hearts grow hard. People who were once soft and responsive become harder and harder, and God lets it happen. In the New American Standard Version, the latter part of Isaiah 64:7 reads, “and has delivered us into the power of our iniquities.” Literally, in Hebrew, it is “into the hand of our iniquities,” meaning the mighty power of our iniquities to destroy us. It is as if God were saying, “So you want to sin? Go ahead! But the sin will destroy you.” He commits us to the power of our own iniquity so that we self-destruct.

This principle is also revealed in Romans 1: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another . . . Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts . . . Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind” (vv. 24, 26, 28). If we reject God, he will reject us and abandon us to our destructive, sinful ways.

Isaiah 64:6 describes a people so abandoned: “We all shrivel up like a leaf.” When God abandons us to our sin, we cease to be fruitful trees planted by streams of water whose leaves shall never wither (Psalm 1); instead, our energy disappears and our life is sucked out. A person who sins against the knowledge of God is barren.

Isaiah 64:10-11 further describes the life of such a person: “Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and glorious [house] where our fathers praised you has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins.” This, in essence, was the commission God gave to Isaiah: “Go and prophesy until everything is ruined, destroyed, and devastated, because they will not listen to you. Hearing, they will not hear; seeing, they will not see, lest they turn to me and be healed” (cf. Isaiah 6:9-12).

But God knows how to deal with sinners. If we do not like it when those around us try to turn us from sin, God himself may deal with us by hiding his face and leaving us alone. Yes, there will be no one interfering, no one reproving, no one instructing, and no one correcting us, but, oh, what a terrible condition to be in-abandoned by God to our sin!

Isaiah 64:5 says, “When we continued to sin . . . you were angry.” God becomes angry when his people sin. And if God is angry with us, how can we be saved?

The Wonder of Present Repentance

I have good news for you: No matter how dark our past has been, if we repent, we shall be saved. That is the wonder of present repentance: God’s holy anger is removed from us and we are forgiven, healed, and brought into life and light.

May God grant us this evangelical grace of repentance. With it, the prodigal returned and was received with great joy. (PGM) Jesus said that when even one sinner repents, the angels in heaven rejoice, and I believe the triune God himself rejoices at our salvation.

In chapters 63 and 64 we read about three factors in godly repentance: recognition, confession, and petition.

1. Recognition

Isaiah expresses repentance on behalf of the people first by acknowledging certain arguments about himself and as well as about God:

1. You are our Father (63:16). Isaiah is saying, “We sought idols, but they cannot help us. You alone are our Father; we are still your children. You are the Sovereign Potter; we are the weak and lowly clay. We exist because of you, and only you can remake us.” In essence, he is telling God, “We are your responsibility, the work of your hands. Now we repent of our sins and turn to you.” This is true repentance.
2. You are our Redeemer (63:16). We are slaves, and have no way of redeeming ourselves. Here Isaiah is calling upon God as Kinsman-Redeemer. This is repentance. He is asking God, “Redeem us from our captivity to sin. We have no one else to redeem us. You alone are our Redeemer.”
3. We are your servants (63:17). Isaiah was telling God, “We are done serving the devil and demons and idols. We want to return to you. And having repented of our rebellion and turned our backs on our idols, we will serve you now and forevermore.”
4. We are your inheritance (63:17). This means, “We are your portion, O God. Yes, we are a ruined and broken portion, but you can make us whole again. Have mercy on us-restore us, establish us, and save us.”
5. We are yours from of old (63:16, 19). Isaiah used this powerful argument to remind God: “We are yours from the days of Abraham, yea, from before the creation of the world. You chose us from all eternity, O God; your love for us is ancient and everlasting. We are not Johnny-come-latelys. There was no time when you did not love us.”
6. You are our only true and living God (64:4). Isaiah 64:4 says, “No eye has seen any God besides you.” God himself declares in Isaiah 45:21, “There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me.” The Israelites ran after idols, only to find that they were impotent, destructive demons. Finally they came back to God, confessing, “We discovered our idols are worthless; we have abandoned them and turned back to you, the only true and living God.” That is repentance.
7. You are our only Savior (64:4-5). In essence, Isaiah is acknowledging in these verses that God does save those who wait for him, gladly remembering his ways and doing what is right. Waiting for the Lord is not a passive activity; it is actively doing the will of God for the rest of our lives, knowing for certain the Lord shall bless us. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31, KJV). If we wait for God, he will help us, save us, heal us, and restore us. In Isaiah 43:11 God himself declares, “I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.”
8. We are all your people (64:9). Isaiah here expresses a great hope, for he knows God will not forsake his elect.

2. Confession

Isaiah then expressed Israel’s repentance by openly confessing the nature of their transgressions:

1. We continued to sin (64:5). Isaiah here confesses not only that they sinned once, but that they continued to sin, thus deserving God’s anger. Then he asks, “How then can we be saved?” It seems impossible.
2. All of us are unclean (64:6). In Old Testament times, a leper was required to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” and to live outside of the community. Isaiah here acknowledges, “We are all unclean. There is not even one exception.”
3. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags (64:6). Literally, our Pharisaic self-righteousness is being compared to menstrual cloths. How could one impress God with such things? They are a stench in his very nostrils.
4. Our sins sweep us away (64:6-7). Isaiah compares us to a leaf that shrivels up, dies, and is blown away by the wind. In essence he is saying, “There is no life, no energy, no power. We are weak and abandoned to the power of sin.”

3. Petition

Having acknowledged the sovereignty of God and the utter sinfulness of himself and his people, Isaiah now makes certain specific petitions of God.

1. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down (64:1). It is good to look inside ourselves to see how wretched our situation is. When Abraham looked at himself, he discovered that he was as good as dead (Romans 4:19). But we cannot solve our problems by looking inward. Nor can we solve them only by looking outward to others. There is only one way to solve our problems-to look up to the One who dwells in his lofty palace, who is enthroned in heaven.

   So Isaiah, our representative intercessor, prays, “Look down from heaven and see from your lofty throne, holy and glorious” (63:15) and “As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!” (64:2). I am sure he was reminiscing about the thunder, lightning, fire, smoke, and quaking that occurred when God came down on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16-19).

   Then Isaiah says, “You come to the help of those who gladly do right” (64:5). Are you looking up to God and waiting for God by gladly doing his will?

2. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord (64:9). In verse 5 Isaiah says God was angry with his people. Let me tell you, God is angry every day against sinners (Psalm 7:11). Romans 1:18 says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.” God is angry because every time we sin, we are defying his holiness; it is as if we were spitting at the very face of God.

   But here Isaiah is petitioning God to restrain his anger. In Hebrew it says, “Do not be angry to the extreme.” If God were to pour out wrath to the full extent of what our sins deserved, we would be exterminated.

   But God cannot simply ignore our very real sin and guilt. God is love, but he is also holy. How, then, can his justice be satisfied? Isaiah 53 explains that the wrath of God was poured out on a substitute; thus, Isaiah 54:8 tells us, “‘In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord your Redeemer.”

3. Do not remember our sins forever (64:9). Here is another profound petition: how can God not remember our sins? Again, Isaiah 53 gives the explanation. God does not simply forget our sins; he deals with them by punishing another in our behalf.

   What does it mean for God to not remember our sins? In Isaiah 43:25 the Lord says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions . . . and remembers your sins no more.” This means God wipes the multitude of our sins fully away. Scholars of textual criticism know that when people wipe out what is written before to write new things, there is a way, especially using modern technology, to go behind the new text and read the original. But when God wipes out our sins, there is no way to recall them; they are gone forever. Why does God do this? In verse 25 he also gives the reason: “For my own sake.” So Isaiah is basing his petition on God’s own promise, not on any merit of God’s people. He is praying, “O God, you promised to not remember our sins; now do as you have promised.”

   David understood about this aspect of God forgetting our sins when he wrote in Psalm 32, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him” (vv. 1-2). And in Psalm 51 he prayed, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (vv. 1-2).

   This is the gospel, the good news, for every fallen human being. There is no way we can blot out our sin. God himself must do it, and he does so through the blood of Christ.

   Micah 7:19 also speaks about this aspect of God not remembering our sins: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” If God has forgotten our sins, how can we bring them up again? They are gone for good. Yes, Satan will bring them to our minds, but we must resist him, saying, “No, they are thrown into the ocean of God’s own forgetfulness. If he does not remember them, neither should I.”

   In Isaiah 44:22 God declares, “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” As we said already, Isaiah 53 gives us the basis of this divine amnesia. Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross to wipe clean all the pain, guilt, and misery of every sin we ever committed. No wonder we are then exhorted, “Sing for joy. . . . Burst into song” (Isaiah 44:23). We could not rejoice when our spirit was weighed down with sin and guilt. But Christ has died for our sins, and now we can rejoice greatly.

4. Uphold your reputation (64:10-11). In these verses, Isaiah bases his petition on the reputation of God. In effect, he is saying, “O God, you must save us, for your reputation is at stake. You redeemed us, and if we are destroyed, the nations will say that you were not capable of saving us.”

   Moses used this profound argument in Exodus 32. After the people sinned grievously, God wanted to wipe out the entire nation and make a new nation out of Moses. A more egotistical person would have said, “Yes, by all means, do it!” But the meek Moses interceded, “O Lord . . . why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people” (vv. 11-12). Moses was telling God, “Your reputation is at stake! People will say that you could not do what you had promised.”

   Moses used the same argument in the book of Numbers. The Israelites sinned yet again, and God wanted to destroy them. But Moses said, “If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert'” (Numbers 14:15-16).

   Joshua used the same argument to intercede for the Israelites in Joshua 7:7-9: “Ah, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?” God had so identified with Israel that if he did not save them, his reputation would suffer.

   Isaiah now uses this same argument to petition God’s help. In Isaiah 64:10 he says, “Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and glorious [house]”-not temple, but house; it is speaking about where God dwelt-“where our fathers praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins.” Isaiah is saying, “O God, you have to do something to defend yourself. It is true that because of our sin, you became angry and destroyed this city, even allowing your temple to be burned. But now, rise up, O God! Rend the heavens and come down, for the sake of your name.”

   Remember, God had appointed Isaiah as a watchman and it was his duty to succeed. Isaiah 62:6-7 says, “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest. . . .” Isaiah was to continue to intercede, giving God no rest, “till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.” In due time, God will make his church the praise of the earth and glorify his name through his mighty salvation of his people.

5. Do not hold yourself back (64:12). Here we find Isaiah’s final petition: “After all this, O Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?” What is the expected answer? No, no, no-a thousand no’s! Isaiah is praying, “O God, you know we are destroyed, defeated, and broken. Your holy and beautiful house is burned down and all that we treasured lies in ruins. Now, O God, your glory is at stake. You chose us, you delivered us, and you brought us here. Your name is bound up with us, and we are bound up with you; how can our destruction bring glory to you? Therefore, rend the heavens and come down!”

   What is God’s response to these petitions? He responds in chapters 65 and 66, saying, “I will come and save you and destroy your enemies.”

Have You Repented?

Isaiah prayed that God would come down to help his people; the glorious truth is that, in the fullness of time, he did come in the person of Jesus Christ. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, died among us, and was raised up from the dead among us.

Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). Now, with perfect justice, God forgives the sins of all who repent and he remembers them no more. Oh, the wonder of this grace of repentance! God will never close the door to one who comes to him in repentance; rather, he will open the door wide and grant him a rich entrance into his kingdom.

God promises to save all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone. The moment we repent, he saves us, heals us, and gives us rest. God himself rejoices in our repentance, saying, “This, my son, was dead, but now he is alive. This, my daughter, was lost, but now she is found.”

It does not matter how terribly we have sinned or how ruined we have become. When we cry out to him, God will rend the heavens and come down. But the necessary condition is repentance. May God, therefore, grant us the gift of repentance.