9. How Is the Faithful City?

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Hymns: RHC 532 Saviour, Like a Shepherd Lead Us 526 There Is a City 538 In the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 1:21-31

21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. 24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: 25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: 26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. 27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. 28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. 29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. 30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. 31 And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them. (Isa. 1:21-31 KJV)

How Is the Faithful City?

OUTLINE

(1) Infiltrated and Wracked (v21-23)

(2) The LORD Shall Restore (v24-27)

(3) Evil Purged (v28-31)

INTRODUCTION

The city of God, Jerusalem its capital, has been infiltrated with evil. The unfaithful has taken over and the city cringe in the oppression. The prophet Isaiah asked “How is the faithful city?” After v20 when he extended the invitation, there seemed to be a pause, he received not promise and invitations.

Isaiah 1:18-20 (KJV) Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The destruction will come now to the infiltrators who pervert judgment and justice, put to silence the laws of God. The LORD Himself will arise and vindicate.

(1) Infiltrated and Wracked (v21-23)

(2) The LORD Shall Restore (v24-27)

(3) Evil Purged (v28-31)

(1) Infiltrated and Wracked (v21-23)

21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

He contrasts her former state, as the chaste bride of the LORD, with her present pollution, the ancient home of justice with the present haunt of cruelty and violence.

How has she become a harlot (faithless to her covenant with the LORD), the faithful city, the body politic, the church of which Jerusalem was the centre and metropolis) , full of justice (i.e. once full), righteousness lodged, (i.e. habitually, had its home, resided) in it, and now murderers, as the worst class of violent wrong-doers. How could she possibly become? How strange that she should become! 

The change, which had just been represented under the figure of adultery, is now expressed by that of adulteration, first of silver, then of wine. Thy silver (addressing the unfaithful church or city) becomes dross (alloy, base metal), thy wine weakened (literally cut, mutilated) with water. The essential idea seems to be that of impairing strength.  

The idea is now expressed in literal terms, and with special application to magistrates and rulers. They who were bound officially to suppress disorder and protest the helpless, were themselves greedy of gain rebellious against God and tyrannical towards man. Thy rulers are rebels and fellow thieves (partakers of the sin of thieves), everyone loving a bride. The fatherless (as being unable to reward them) they judge not, and the causes of the widows cometh not unto them, or before them, they will not hear it; they will not act as judges for their benefit. They are not simply unjust judges, they are no judges at all, they will. Not act as such, except when they can profit by it.

[David Addison]

(2) The LORD Shall Restore (v24-27)

24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: 25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: 26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. 27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness.

Here we see the LORD moving to act, purge the sins, and judge the guilty. 

A resolution is taken up to redress these grievances (v24): Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel–who has power to make good what he says, who has hosts at command for the executing of his purposes, and whose power is engaged for his Israel–Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries.

Wicked people, especially wicked rulers that are cruel and oppressive, are God’s enemies, his adversaries, and shall so be accounted for and so dealt with. If the holy seed corrupts themselves, they are the foes of his own house.

They are a burden to the God of heaven, which is implied in his easing himself of them. The Mighty One of Israel, that can bear anything, nay, that upholds all things, complains of his being wearied with men’s iniquities.

God will find out a time and a way to ease himself of this burden, by avenging himself on those that thus bear hard upon his patience. He here speaks as one triumphing in the foresight of it: Ah. I will ease me. He will ease the earth of the burden under which it groans (Romans 8:21-22), will ease his own name of the reproaches with which it is loaded. 

Romans 8:21-22 (KJV) Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

He will be eased of his adversaries, by taking vengeance on his enemies; he will spue them out of his mouth, and so be eased of them. 

Revelation 3:16 (KJV) So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

He speaks with pleasure of the day of vengeance being in his heart, (saiah 63:4)

Isaiah 63:4 (KJV) For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

If God’s professing people conform not to his image, as the Holy One of Israel (v4), they shall feel the weight of his hand as the Mighty One of Israel: his power, which was wont to be engaged for them, shall be armed against them.

Isaiah 1:4 (KJV) Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backwards. [Matthew Henry]

(3) Evil Purged (v28-31)

28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. 29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. 30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. 31And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

By cutting off those that hate to be reformed, they may not remain either as snares or as scandals to the faithful city. 

It is an utter ruin that is here threatened. They shall be destroyed and consumed, and not chastened and corrected only. Their extirpation of them will be necessary for the redemption of Zion. 

It is a universal ruin, which will involve the transgressors and the sinners together, that is, the openly profane that have quite cast of all religion, and the hypocrites that live wicked lives under the cloak of a religious profession–they shall both be destroyed together, for they are both alike an abomination to God, both those that contradict religion and those that contradict themselves in their pretensions to it. And those that forsake the Lord, to whom they had formerly joined themselves, shall be consumed, as the water in the conduit pipe is soon consumed when it is cut off from the fountain. It is an inevitable ruin; there is no escaping it. 

First, their idols shall not be able to help them, the oaks which they have desired, and the gardens which they have chosen; that is, the images, the dunghill-gods, which they had worshipped in their groves and under the green trees, which they were fond of and wedded to, for which they forsook the true God, and which they worshipped privately in their own garden even when idolatry was publicly discountenanced. “This was the practice of the transgressors and the sinners; but they shall be ashamed of it, not with a show of repentance, but of despair (v29). They shall have cause to be ashamed of their idols; for, after all the court they have made to them, they shall find no benefit by them; but the idols themselves shall go into captivity,” (Isaiah 46:1-2). Those that make creatures their confidence are but preparing confusion for themselves. 

You were fond of the oaks and the gardens, but you yourselves shall be, 

“Like an oak without leaves, withered and blasted, and stripped of all its ornaments.” Justly do those wear no leaves that bear no fruit; as the fig-tree that Christ cursed. 2. “Like a garden without water, that is neither rained upon nor watered with the foot (Deut. 11:10), that had no fountain (Song of Solomon 4:11), and consequently is parched, and all the fruits of it gone to decay.” Thus, shall those be that trust in idols, or in an arm of flesh (Jer. 17:5-6). But those that trust in God never find him as a wilderness, or as waters that fail (Jer. 2:31). 

Secondly, they shall not be able to help themselves (v31): “Even the strong man shall be as tow not only soon broken and pulled to pieces, but easily catching fire; and his work (so the margin reads it), that by which he hopes to fortify and secure himself, shall be as a spark to his own tow, shall set him on fire, and he and his work shall burn together. His counsels shall be his ruin; his own skin kindles the fire of God’s wrath, which shall burn to the lowest hell, and none shall quench it.” When the sinner has made himself as tow and stubble, and God makes himself to him as a consuming fore, what can prevent the utter ruin of the sinner?

To the blessed work of reformation which was wrought in Hezekiah’s time after the abominable corruptions of the reign of Ahaz. Then good men came to be preferred, and the faces of the wicked were filled with shame. To their return from their captivity in Babylon, which had thoroughly cured them of idolatry. To the gospel-kingdom and the pouring out of the Spirit, by which the New-Testament church should be made a new Jerusalem, a city of righteousness. To the second coming of Christ, when he shall thoroughly purge his floor, his field, shall gather the wheat into his barn, into his garner, and burn the chaff, the tares, with unquenchable fire. [Matthew Henry]