June 4, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“They will build houses and dwell in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.” (Isaiah 65.21-22)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

An enduring legacy. In yesterday’s reflection, I compared and contrasted the Old and New Testament propositions of “a new Heaven, a new Earth and a new Jerusalem.” Holding the “Revelations” to Isaiah the Prophet and to John the Elder against each other, we saw there was a fundamental difference in the promise of “eternal life.” In Isaiah, the word suggested a limited lifetime of 100 years. We know that before the flood, people lived hundreds of years. Methusaleh is recorded to have lived 969 years (by reckoning, he died in the year of the great flood.) We know from the Creation Story that Adam and Eve were promised to “never die” as long as they did not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life was its counterpart which was not forbidden to them. Following the flood, the promise of longevity was limited to 120 years. Sin certainly seems to have taken its toll! So, what of “eternal life,” the life of the soul (and body) after death? This is a question of no small debate. By the time we get to the days of Jesus of Nazareth, the “eternal life” camps were fairly well defined. The Sadducees did not believe in “life after death” nor an “eternal soul.” This world was certainly “all that they had.” Their vision of eternal life was captured in the “enduring legacy” of their next generations. Within that context, a generational curse as well as a generational blessing was passed down from “father to son, etc.” We read of “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” (Jeremiah 31.29) However, we read in Ezekiel 18 that God no longer operated under this premise and held each person accountable for their own actions, their own sins. In essence, “let it no more be said among you ‘the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’” Interesting, however, that in John 9, the disciples seeing a man born blind asked Jesus “Rabbi, who sinned that this man be born blind- the man or the parents?” A strange question in that the man born blind certainly had not committed any sin. The onus was thus placed on the parents and their sins which caused their son to be born blind. To the contrary, the Pharisees did believe in life after death and an immortal soul. The quality of that afterlife was totally dependent upon the kind of life which was lived before death. Riches, prominence, power, affluence, etc. were then understood to be elements both in Heaven and on Earth. They certainly promoted themselves and their chosen lifestyle as the blessing of heaven to which every person should attain. Of course, they didn’t believe everyone could be like them. They certainly believed everyone should be like them and their “enduring legacy.” Of course, the New Testament consideration was far different as Jesus declared “I AM the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me, though he will die a physical death, shall live.” (John 11.25 in the dialogue between Jesus and Mary concerning the death of Lazarus.) Regardless of the age of years lived on earth, dying in faith to Jesus Christ, warranted the blessing of eternal life with Him after death in the New Heaven, Earth and Jerusalem. What of those who didn’t? They, too, received the promise of an “eternal life” bound in the chains of their sins to the pit of Hell to live forever in the torment of their souls. This, too, was an enduring legacy which we see is suggested in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31).

Such an enduring legacy of God’s blessing is presented in Isaiah 65. In today’s verses we see mention of “a tree” and “the work of their hands.” Both point in the direction of sin and salvation and the mortal condition of the human heart and soul. Blessings come from the Tree of Life as God ordained it from the beginning. However, as we know from the failure of Adam and Eve to “choose wisely,” they were destined to work all the days of their lives from the soil out of which they had been created (Adam from the ground and Eve from the grounded Adam.) They would experience the pain of labor as well as the joy of the fruit of their labor. It was not a sentence which defined them by works righteousness (a false premise which Paul addressed in the early Church) but one which promoted works which they were able to do because God had saved them from a “fate worse than death.” What could be worse than death? In death, “ashes to ashes and dust to dust; no immortality of the soul anticipated.” In a fate worse than death, “the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in eternal torment.” Yes, God saved Adam and Eve by the blood of the Lamb. It was an eternal testimony of God’s mercy and grace giving them what He desired (the right and privilege to live) instead of what they deserved (death and a fate worse than death which their tempter was already living out having been cast out of Heaven and all its blessings.) It would do us well to consider the depth of what is presented in Isaiah 65. There is more!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free in Jesus’ name. AMEN.