Day 23
Monday, December 21
Isaiah 51:6
Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
….and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
….the earth will wear out like a garment,
….and those who live on it will die like gnats;
but my salvation will be forever,
….and my deliverance will never be ended.
Our translation misses the nature of the metaphor employed by the prophet. It is not a prophecy that the heavens will vanish; it’s a statement of something impossible. Even if the heavens were as insubstantial as smoke, even if the earth could wear out like a garment and all its creatures perish, even if the impossible could happen, it is not possible for God’s salvation to perish. God’s deliverance can never end.
Jesus employs the same manner of speech when he says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Mark 13:31
The “end of the age” is not the end of the world, but the end of an era when the human heart is alienated from God and sin and sorrows prevail. But this was not the world of Eden, and it shall not be the world of the age to come.
The era of deliverance is not frail and passing. It will endure like the heavens. For billions of years God has been a God of mercy. And for every billion yet to come mercy shall abide. It is only our brokenness that shall perish.
God eternal, Love unending
fill us with your boundless life.
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Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Ninan.jpg; Madhav Rajesh, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
© David K Bonde, 2020, All rights reserved