God not only will be faithful to His promises in spite of Israel's unfaithfulness (63:1-65:16), but He will demonstrate His ability and desire to provide righteousness for sinful humankind by creating new heavens and a new earth. Most of this section describes God's renovation of creation during the Millennium.
65:17 This verse is an overview of what follows. God announced, in substantiation of everything He had said since 56:1, that He would create a restored and renovated universe. Things will be so much better than they are now that people then will not even think about things as they used to be (cf. Rom. 6:14; Rev. 21:4). This should motivate God's people to obey Him in the present. Not only would God perform another Exodus, bringing Israel out of Babylon and into the Promised Land, but He would also create another Creation.
Isaiah described the future generally as a new heaven and a new earth. In the New Testament, we have further particularization of what this will involve: the making of all things new for those in Christ presently (Gal. 2:20), the millennial kingdom (Rev. 20:4-6), and the "eternal state"(2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1). Thus Isaiah's use of "new heavens and a new earth"is not identical with the Apostle John's (Rev. 21:1). What Isaiah wrote about this new creation is true of various segments of it at various stages in the future; it is not all a description of what John identified as "new heavens and a new earth,"namely, the eternal state.
"The designation new heavens and a new earthis applied to the Millennial kingdom only as a stage preliminary to the eternal glories of heaven (the New Jerusalem of Rev 21; 22)--just as Pentecost was to be regarded (Acts 2:17) as ushering in the last days,' although it occurred at least nineteen centuries before the Second Advent."721
65:18 This new creation is a cause for ceaseless hope and rejoicing among God's people. The new Jerusalem would be a place of rejoicing in contrast to present mourning, and its people would be eternally happy (cf. Rev. 21:9-22:5).
65:19 God Himself would also rejoice in the new city and in the new people in that new city. Isaiah wrote many times that God presently lamented over old Jerusalem and her inhabitants (e.g., 24:7-12). Weeping and crying would end in that new city (Rev. 21:4).
65:20 Specifically, death will not have the power that it has had. Infant mortality will be virtually unknown, and people's life spans will be much longer. This seems to describe a return to conditions before the Flood, when people lived hundreds of years (Gen. 5). In short, one of the sources of sorrow and weeping, namely, death, will suffer defeat. Christians need not fear the second death even now. Believers alive in the Millennium will live longer on this earth than they do now, but they will die.722And in the eternal state even physical death will be gone.
". . . verse 20 expresses a double thought: death will have no more power and sin no more presence."723
"This prediction requires the conditions of an earthly city, where babies are born and older people die (even though the average lifespan [sic] is to be much prolonged)."724
65:21-22 Likewise there will be abundant safety and plenty when God brings new life to the world (cf. 17:11; Lev. 26:16; Deut. 28:15-46; Amos 5:11; Zeph. 1:13). Again, people will live longer, longer than other of God's creations such as trees and their own "creations"such as buildings and bridges that normally outlive them (cf. 40:6-8).
"What a promise, to have the time to do something right and then the opportunity to enjoy it to the full!"725
Note that people will continue to work. The blessing of work will characterize the messianic age, though people will not have to labor as they did under the curse (Gen. 3:17-19).
65:23 Life will not be futile or frustrating, labor will amount to something, and children will be born for productive lives rather than for tragedy. This is true in one sense for the Christian now (cf. Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 15:58), but it will be true in a larger sense for all the redeemed in the future. Isaiah identified three generations of the blessed of the Lord in this glorious future state. This reflects the truth that the basic unit of society is the male and female couple, not the individual (cf. Gen. 2:18, 23-24).
65:24 Perfect communication with God will be another blessing of this peaceable kingdom. Christians already enjoy good communication with Him (Matt. 6:8; 1 John 5:14-15), but in the future it will be even better.
"What greater privilege than to have a God whose love is so great that He answers before one calls to Him!"726
65:25 Another cause of present weeping that will end is nature, which is sometimes harmful. In the future it will not be harmful because the effects of the Fall will have been erased. Nature will no longer be man's enemy. The Lord's curse on the snake, which has only been fulfilled figuratively so far--snakes do not literally feed on dust now but on plants and animals--, will find complete fulfillment (cf. Gen. 3:14).727This is a hint that the change will come because of the "seed of the woman"described earlier in Isaiah as the Servant, Messiah (cf. 11:6-9).
"The only point in the whole of the new creation where there is no change (cf. verse 20fg [sic]) is in the curse pronounced on sin, which still stands (cf. Gn. 3:14)."728
No evil or harm will come to anyone or anything in all God's holy kingdom (cf. 66:22).
Isaiah revealed several new things for Jerusalem in this section. Joy would replace weeping and crying (vv. 18-19). Longevity would replace sorrow and death (vv. 20-23). Answered prayer would replace God's previous silence (v. 24). And universal peace would replace violence (v. 25).729
The kingdom in view in this passage, and in chapter 66, is not just the millennial kingdom. It is the kingdom that God will bring into existence through the redemptive work of His Servant. Since the King has come, some features of this kingdom are present in the world today. But since the King has yet to come to accomplish fully His work of redemption, many features described here will be seen after His second advent. Part of these changes will take place on this earth during the Millennium. Other changes will happen when the Lord creates completely new heavens and a new earth (Rev. 21:1). How do we know that all that Isaiah predicted is not fulfilled in the present age through the church, or in the Millennium, or in the eternal state? The New Testament provides a more specific description of which of these promises will be fulfilled when and in what ways.
