Isaiah 63-64, "Wrath and Love"

This was one of those weeks that left me feeling like we are surrounded by problems that no one can fix. Everything is broken and you could run around all day trying to avenge every injustice and rescue all the lost people and wear yourself out trying to show others how to live right. And maybe accomplish nothing.

Our passage today is all about the fact that only God can save us. His wrath for injustice is redemptive. His love has the power to save. And His Spirit guides us into rest.

We should begin by recognizing the fact that God is not like us. He doesn’t do things the way we do them. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways. His wrath is more pure, His love more powerful, and His Spirit is the perfect guide.

We are in Advent. We celebrate the fact that the Messiah has come. Jesus was God in the flesh, God with us. We have seen many ways Jesus fulfilled the promises of Isaiah’s prophecies of a coming Messiah, the Servant of the LORD who would suffer for His people to save them from their sins. He would also be filled with God’s Spirit to bring good news, healing, freedom, and true judgment. But Isaiah also promised a Messiah who would be the righteous judge, victorious in judgment over the enemies of God and Israel. When do we get that Messiah?

Advent is also the season to anticipate the return of Jesus Christ who is coming to judge the living and the dead. Jesus taught us that His first advent was a demonstration of God’s deliverance from the wages of sin through suffering and sacrifice. His second advent will include a judgment of all people, based on their fear of the LORD and the degree to which they listened to His voice.

Our passage today begins with that second advent promise. The LORD will come to earth through the Messiah to bring a day of wrath. We will see the wrath of God is redemptive.

Redemptive Wrath

Isaiah 63:1-8 paints a graphic portrait of the Messiah at the end of time, bringing a final judgment upon the nations that opposed God. The nation that is named specifically is Edom. These were Israel’s cousins to the east. They shared a heritage, but Edom had betrayed Israel when trouble came.

The embodiment of the LORD that brings vengeance upon the treacherous enemies of God and His people is the Messiah, or as He will be described in verse 9, the angel of His presence. This is the person that the LORD sends to accomplish redemption for His people.

The Messiah is portrayed as having robes dripping red. This image of treading a winepress is euphemistic of warfare. This winepress is for the grapes of wrath.

The Messiah comes, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save (verse 1). His judgment comes by His word. All His words are righteous. And they are mighty to save. Jesus’ disciples said that He alone had words of life (as we sang about last week). Paul said that the gospel Jesus preached was the power of God for salvation. For those that will listen to His voice, there is eternal life.

But there is bad news in the good news. For those that hear God’s words but will not repent, they remain in their sin. Their fate is seen in verse 3,

Isaiah 63:3 (ESV)

“I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me;

I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath;

their lifeblood (lit. “juice”) spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel.

But verse 4 helps us see that God’s wrath, which is vengeance, is also redemptive.

Isaiah 63:4 (ESV)

For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come.

The LORD uses two different but related words here. The word for “redemption” has two meanings. A redeemer was a family member with two responsibilities. The first would be to purchase back people or property that had been taken by someone else, either a debtor or a captor. The other responsibility was related, and it was avenge the unjust death of a family member. For a redeemer, redemption was directly connected to vengeance. They are two sides of the same coin.

What can we say about the redemptive, avenging wrath of the LORD God? It isn’t like our wrath. It isn’t fly-off-the-handle because I’ve been wronged wrath. It isn’t passionate, mercurial wrath that rises and falls as circumstances change. It takes a long time to build. It is a last resort. It is purposeful and redemptive.

The LORD will once and for all redeem His people from their unjust, wicked, treacherous enemies. He is the only one who can save(see verse 5). When the final salvation for the world comes, Messiah Jesus, God the Son, who shed His blood to redeem repentant, believing sinners will bring a mighty, deadly, judgment upon the unrepentant idolaters who remain in their sins and treacherously oppress the righteous.

John 3:36 (ESV)

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Matthew 16:27 (ESV)

For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

So, as Isaiah reflects on the coming day of vengeance/redemption salvation, he launches into a song about God’s love in verses 7-9.

Saving Love

If we were to recount all the steadfast love of the LORD, His praise would go on forever. The word in verse 7 is “hesed”. It’s one of those words that doesn’t have one English word to translate it. It is love shown through kindness or mercy. It is connected to God’s covenant promises to Israel. He has demonstrated His love through great goodness coming from compassion to the house of Israel.

He feels for His people. If they are afflicted, it isn’t coming from Him. His feelings toward them are described in a variety of ways: hesed (covenant love), compassion (love you feel in your guts), love (v 9 “ahav”, endearing, gift-giving, or flirtatious love), pity (forgiving compassion). The people of Israel are God’s children. Even though He knows they will be false to Him, He chooses to see them as better than that (verse 8).

God’s love is different than ours. He sees through faults. He finds lots of ways to show His love. He is good to them. He saves them. He is present with them. He forgives them. He pays the price to restore them from their captors.

If you were to describe God’s love, what words could you use? How would you describe the kind of love that sees you in your weakness and failure and faithlessness and calls you His true, faithful child?

The final demonstration of love Isaiah points out is “he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” This brings us to rest in the guiding arms of the Holy Spirit.

Gracious Guiding

When you were a child, did you ever go with your parents to swim at the beach, or in a river, or a deep lake? What warnings did they give you? Did you listen to all of those warnings? Did you ever get yourself into trouble?

When I was ten or eleven, I went on a river walk with a church youth group run by some friends of ours. At the time I didn’t know to swim. The walk ended at a waterfall, and at the bottom of the waterfall was a deep pool. Many people were swimming and diving into the pool and may not have noticed little Kenny MacLeod who had not been paying attention to where he was walking, and who had walked right into the bottom of that pool and could not get out.

This is the image of the children of God in Isaiah’s vision. Though they are true children, they are still rebellious. Though God dwells with them and Has sent His Holy Spirit into their midst to guide them and empower their obedience to His words, they have grieved the Holy Spirit with their disobedience. God has turned away to let them bear the consequences of that choice.

But verse 11 tells us at the same time, He remembers His salvation for them at the Red Sea. Even after He delivered them from the sea, they still rebelled against Him over and over again. But He was faithful to His promise, He graciously guided them by His Spirit to rest in the Promised Land.

This is the result of redemptive wrath working itself out in saving love. God powerfully delivers His people from their enemies and grants them His Spirit to guide them into fruitfulness for His name’s sake.

Maybe you feel over your head with the dangers and troubles of life. If you have a guide, filled with grace, who knows the way to safety and restoration, you can rest in Him. Jesus, the wrath and love-filled redeemer who saves sinners invited anyone who felt like life was overwhelming, laborious and burdensome to come to Him and He would give us rest for our souls. And He promised to send us the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth strengthen us.

When we truly understand the wrath of God is His redemption working for those that will repent and trust in Him, when we truly understand the radical nature of His love, the gracious guiding of His Spirit that is available to all of His people, it should produce rest for your soul.

And it should lead us to the cross. The cross was God’s wrath for sin, paying the price of redemption for sinners. Because Jesus was obedient to die on the cross for us, Go raised Him from the dead and has given Him authority for all judgment. Now, before the second Advent when Jesus will repay everyone according to what they have done, the invitation stands open to enter His rest by believing the good news. Whenever we repent and believe in Jesus, He sends the Holy Spirit to empower our good work for the sake of His name. And when He returns, He will say, “well done, enter your rest”.