Second Quarter 2004 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
Isaiah "Comfort My People"

Insights to Lesson 12
Desire of Ages
June 12-18

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

Isaiah 59 is a continuation of chapter 58 where Isaiah detailed the nation’s hypocrisy and neglect of Sabbath observance (58:1-12, 13-14), her bloodshed, falsehood, and dishonesty (59:3-8), and consequently her deep need for repentance. What made the situation worse was that Israel, while separated from God, thought she was serving Him. In these chapters we read a description of the character of those who profess to serve God, but perform contrary to His principles of life and peace. This was Israel’s condition in Isaiah’s day and later in Christ’s day while He lived on earth. What about today?

Woven within the chapters for consideration this week are God’s willingness and initiative to save. At times God is pictured as clothed in garments of vengeance; at other times He is portrayed as the Redeemer of Zion. Isaiah writes of the Gentiles coming to the light that shines within Zion and blessing her with their presence and presents. He writes of God as the glory that rises upon His people. Isaiah also paints word pictures of the good news of salvation to those separated from God because of sin.

Where does the sin that separates from God begin? In Isaiah 59, and several other passages in both the Old and the New Testaments, sin is pictured as beginning in the mind (see Isa. 59:4, 13; Job 15: 34-35; Acts 5:1-4; James 1:14-15). In these passages the mind is compared to a womb that conceives and brings forth sin in a birthing process. Concepts are to the mind what conceptions are to the womb. (Both English words, concept and conceive, come from the same Latin root concipere.) The mind becomes pregnant with thoughts and choices that lead to consequent behaviors.

All manner of evil is conceived in the mind and may, or may not, be carried out in the life. James outlines the pathology of sin of which Isaiah and the others wrote. Temptations to sin arise from without and from within—from our tendencies (James 1:14). Temptation to sin is inevitable. James does not say “if” but “when” we are tempted. No one ever reaches a point of escape from the danger of temptation.

Temptations are tailor-made to every person’s “own desires.” Each of us has areas of vulnerability. Thus Satan works on each individual’s own area of weakness. The process of temptation involves the dropping of bait that appeals to our own weaknesses. The word “enticed,” use by James, is a fishing term meaning “to lure by bait.”

If the bait is taken we are hooked. James follows with another metaphor: the conceiving-birthing metaphor: “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” This process progresses not only within individuals, but also corporately, within nations and churches which are made up of individuals. This process occurred in Isaiah’s day.

There is likewise a pathology of righteousness. It too begins in the mind. The same law of conceiving and birthing is followed. Although we have been separated from God because of sin, He begins the process of reconciliation. He sends messages announcing the good news of salvation (Isa. 61:1-3). In response to the gospel there is created within the heart an appreciation for the goodness of God that brings forth repentance and the other fruits of the Spirit. This is the result of letting in the “mind. . . which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).

Isaiah 63:1-3 was the passage Jesus quoted when He began His public ministry in Nazareth (see Luke 4:17-21). Isaiah prophesied that Christ was to do the very work He did. He is both the Subject and the Preacher of righteousness.

In Isaiah 61:1-3 there is interwoven two things: proclamation and performance. The proclamation is the preaching of the gospel of liberty to captives. The healing of the brokenhearted is the performance Jesus was to do. He preached “the acceptable year of the Lord” but left out “the day of vengeance of God.” This day of vengeance is not against the believer. Following this phrase and connected with that day, along with the rest of the context, is the comforting of those who mourn and the exchange of the fruit of sin, our sin, for the fruit of Christ’s righteousness. The gifts of beauty, the oil of joy, and the garments of praise are given in place of (and to take the place of) the ashes of sin, and of mourning, and of the spirit of heaviness.

Isaiah brings in another analogy of fruit-bearing trees and gardening (verses 3 and 11) to illustrate the righteousness of Christ. Not only righteousness but praise is the fruit exhibited for the world to see. The nations of the world have fruit inspectors. The fruit they look for ordinarily is the rotten kind. However, when they observe the fruit of the Spirit cultivated in God’s garden, His church, they are drawn to His people and to the Heavenly Gardener.

Rooted and grounded in the chapters of Isaiah 59 through 61, which we are studying this week, is the message of Revelation 18:1-4, the last day message of Christ and His righteousness. The glory that is to illuminate the earth (verse1) in these last days is the message of the righteousness of Christ summed up in the message of Isaiah 60:1-5:

Arise, shine;

For your light has come!

And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,

And deep darkness the people;

But the Lord will arise over you,

And His glory will be seen upon you.

The Gentiles shall come to your light,

And kings to the brightness of your rising. . . .

Then you shall see and become radiant,

And your heart shall swell with joy.

Thus Christ and His righteousness, the Desire of Nations, is revealed in proclamation by His church to, and in their behavior before, the world.

Ellen G. White is clear that the message of Revelation 18 began with the 1888 message, but in a great degree it was rejected and “kept away” from both the church and from the world—the same unbelief that Isaiah met in his generation.

—Gerald L. Finneman

Read the study notes for Lesson 13