GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ISAIAH 3:8-11
Click to listen to this devotion.
8 For Jerusalem has stumbled, Judah has fallen, because their speech and their actions are against the LORD. They defy his glorious presence. 9 The look on their faces testifies against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t even hide it. Woe to them! See: they have brought disaster upon themselves. 10 Tell the righteous that it will go well for them, for they will eat the fruit of their labors. 11 How terrible it will be for the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what they have done with their own hands.
Judah will be judged on account of her deeds, and Judah is guilty of sinning in both words and actions. In the Bible, “guilt” is not a feeling as it is often understood in English. In the Bible and whenever we talk about sin, we don’t mean guilty feelings. A person who is actually guilty may not have any guilty feelings, just as a person who is not actually guilty of anything might be terribly beset with feelings of guilt. But true guilt is a debt, a liability to punishment. Judah the Patriarch said, “God has uncovered your servants’ guilt” (Genesis 44:16). He understood this to be an actual sin with criminal consequences. If a priest sinned, he brought guilt upon all of the people (Leviticus 4:3), a guilt that required a sacrifice to atone, a bull to be slaughtered so that its blood could be spattered in the tabernacle, and its flesh and hide were not to profit anyone, but had to be completely burned in a ceremonially clean place, but outside the camp (Leviticus 4:3-12). For a priest to loose a bull calf was an expensive and serious debt. The essence of sin, which is lawlessness, incurs and causes the guilt, which is owing a debt that must be repaid.
The prophet shows that Judah has fallen into sin and the true guilt, the debt of sinfulness. But what is their response? They don’t care. They “defy his glorious presence.” They aren’t even acting like hypocrites. Hypocrites hide their sin with a false front, but here, the sinning people of Judah wear their sins boldly and proudly. “They parade their sin like Sodom,” the prophet says, and it is not without irony that in our time, we are forced to endure so-called Pride Parades when people blatantly and ceremoniously display their pride in their sin, exactly the same sin as Sodom, for everyone to witness. The prophet laments: “They don’t even hide it.” Isaiah shows that the people were in effect slapping God in the face with their sins. Do they think God will change his mind about what sin is, if they vote against his judgment? What about thieves? What about murderers? What about idolaters? What about gossips and coveters? Don’t they get a vote, too, O Sodom, O Judah, O Los Angeles, O Ottawa? Are the old crone’s words in Chris Boucher’s “Image of the Fendahl” taken as the gospel truth: “If most people believe, that do make it true”? Not at all. What is sin, is sin, and when man sins, he incurs guilt that must be punished. When it gets out of control in a nation, the whole nation may be brought down. God permits this to happen so that people will be led to repent.
But what about the innocent? Isaiah answers this in verse 10, where the Lord gives him a message for the righteous: “It will go well for them, for they will eat the fruit of their labors.” This is evidence of a theme that runs throughout the Scriptures, that the true Church will never be destroyed, even when things are at their darkest. Jesus said about the church: “The gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18). And Paul says: “To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:21). Therefore there will always be those who believe, who gather around the Word and the Sacraments, and who trust in Christ for salvation. About them the Lord says, “They will eat the fruit of their labors.” This means that they will enjoy nothing but good things; they will be blessed in Paradise. For even though we do not labor for the Lord with any reward in mind, but do things out of thanks, still “the Lord gladdens the righteous with the promise of a reward” (Luther, LW 23:45). He rescues his beloved children “from the men of this world, whose reward is only in this life” (Psalm 17:14).
But for the wicked! “How terrible it will be for the wicked!” The prophet turns from the gospel immediately to the law for those who despise God and his holy Word. How terrible it will be for them, because the only joy they will ever have is the miserable and temporary thrills they have in this life. They will pay for it for all eternity. Their punishment will truly be in hell. And yet even their happiness in this lifetime is a kind of punishment. We have a saying, “He gives them just enough rope to hang themselves.” That means that they have the opportunity to sin even more, so that their punishment will be even more severe as they are hardened into not caring so that their wickedness will rise up to the top, like the sin of the Amorites in the days of Abraham (Genesis 15:16).
I think we have discussed this enough for the present verse. But it is also good to remind ourselves: Why does the Holy Spirit include so many references to punishment and hell in the Holy Scriptures? He does this for training and for consoling. Considering the punishments of hell trains and hardens us to want to avoid the desires and the pleasures of the flesh. “At one time we too were foolish… enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures” (Titus 3:3). Also, to avoid self-indulgence. “Many people,” Gerhard says, “are devouring things there that they are cooking on an eternal fire.” “Therefore hell enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit. Into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers” (Isaiah 5:14).
And again, to warn us to avoid greed. “After all,” Jesus said, “what does a person gain if he gets the whole world but forfeits his soul? And what can a person give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Besides greed, there is an inexhaustible list of sins and temptation that the recollection of hell should recall us from (Matthew 15:19; Romans 1:29-31; Hosea 7:1-4; Malachi 3:5, and so on).
Finally, preaching about hell will also free us from an unnecessary and inordinate fear of men. “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
So when someone is faced with a terrible human punishment, such as imprisonment, banishment, or execution, there is still the fear of hell’s punishment that keeps him from committing further sins, but draws him back even more closely to Christ. As St. Ambrose said: “All punishments are surpassed by the dread of even greater punishments” (De Officiis Book 1).
Even the preaching of hell can therefore be a great benefit and blessing to God’s holy people. We should not withdraw from this or cower from it, but talk about it just as we talk about Baptism, the Creed, and other doctrines that are vitally important. Not only is the doctrine of hell and eternal punishment commonly found throughout the Word of God, but echoes of it are scattered throughout our lives, from the appearance of something as ordinary as a police car to the simple act of blowing out a candle or a match and seeing the smoke that remains hanging in the air with the simple message: “Remember: It is Christ who truly blows out the flame, and saves.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Listen or watch Bible classes online.
Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel:
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Isaiah 3:8-11 The blessings of preaching hell