Isaiah 55:1, commentary and pictures

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money calls every thirsting person to come at once and receive freely without payment or price. Thirst is spiritual longing for life and peace in Christ, for righteousness and salvation and knowledge, with the weariness and dissatisfaction of a soul seeking happiness. Having no money means having no goodness or righteousness or merit or resources to recommend oneself to God, yet even the most destitute sinner is invited. What is offered is spiritual nourishment and life itself — Christ himself as the living Fountain and Bread and Water of Life, with healing and cleansing, forgiveness and righteousness and peace, and the riches of God's Word flowing freely into the soul. These goods cannot be earned by money or toil or sacrifice or penance, but are received as a free gift by coming just as one is and believing and trusting Christ, personally accepting and eating what is offered without delay while mercy lingers.

Call and Its Wording

The call is open and urgent to every person who thirsts to come and receive freely, even one who has no money, without payment or price. It invites all who long for spiritual life to come to life-giving provision pictured as water, wine and milk offered without cost, and to take it by coming and receiving. The invitation is part of the call to seek God wholeheartedly and receive salvation on His terms, to seek Him while He may be found, and to proclaim that message earnestly and without delay so people may seek to know Him. It stands in contrast to worldly investments and to spending effort on what cannot truly satisfy, calling people instead to what truly satisfies.

Thirst is spiritual longing: longing for spiritual life, for peace in Christ, for righteousness, for salvation, for knowledge, and the weariness, loneliness, dissatisfaction and sickness of soul that seek happiness in something new. It includes the sorrowful and weary whose search for satisfaction in things that cannot satisfy is like going to broken cisterns that can hold no water, and whose thirst cannot be found met in earthly things. The thirsty and hungry are souls sick with weariness, loneliness and dissatisfaction, suffering more from maladies of the soul than from diseases of the body. Having no money means having no goodness, no righteousness, no merit, no resources and nothing to recommend oneself to God, yet even such destitute sinners are invited to come without delay while mercy still lingers.

The command to buy and eat means each person must personally accept, believe, receive and do what is offered, for watching others receive cannot nourish the soul, and payment is not required. Buying does not mean payment is required and salvation cannot be earned or secured by money or arduous pilgrimages, but the invitation is answered by believing in Christ as a personal Saviour and living by His word. Receiving and believing in Christ satisfies the hungry soul and leads to eternal life, and means believing in Christ as the Bread of life, turning from selfishness and idolatry, and joining Him in showing mercy and teaching the way of life. Water, wine, milk, food and drink picture spiritual nourishment, strength, life and satisfaction, understood by the satisfaction felt in meeting temporal hunger and thirst, and received by taking in and doing Christ's word.

The waters are the truth old or new, the Word of God, Christ himself, and the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness and for Judah and Jerusalem, like cool refreshing streams. They are the rich graces and rich floods of light from heaven, the fountain of life opened for thirsty, bewildered, weary, wayworn souls, where searching God's word finds truth buried beneath error, human tradition and human opinions. Those waters have healing and medicinal power for spiritual and physical infirmities to wash away pollution, and those who drink deeply are to take the refreshing cup to parched, fainting souls. The verse belongs to the message of Isaiah 55 spoken by the mouth of the Lord, declaring His covenant, the terms of salvation, and the education of most value in the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ. That message was first teaching Israel in the wilderness for mental, physical and moral improvement of the whole being for present and eternal good, now declares God's covenant with the people He is seeking to save today, and rebukes pride and self-importance among those in responsible positions so that none considers himself above fellow workers but seeks power from God alone to represent truth in righteousness and present the character of Christ. The gracious call echoes through the ages to every thirsty, weary wanderer to come home to the living waters, obey the call, and receive grace and the water of life freely.

Gifts Freely Offered

The call offers without payment or price what truly satisfies the soul and gives life, and lack of money is no barrier to receiving it. The suffering, the wayward, and those who have spent themselves on what cannot satisfy are invited to healing, cleansing, salvation, and a place at the Lord's table, where God welcomes and restores them. Those who come find rest, their needs met, their hearts cleansed and their minds renewed.

Righteousness is freely given to everyone who hungers and thirsts for it, pictured by water, food, wine and milk without money and without price. Peace, forgiveness and love are likewise a free gift that cannot be earned or bought, received by reaching out and accepting what is offered. Having borne the sins of the whole world to take away sin, Christ gives in its place His righteousness, His salvation and His peace, and all may come and drink unto everlasting life in the kingdom of glory. The one great need of the sinner is righteousness, and Christ became the sin-bearer, being made sin for defiled souls that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, answering in His own person all the claims of the law, so that through His offering the human agent can have His purity imputed, keep the law of God, and stand before God as innocent, accepted in the Beloved.

The waters to which the thirsty are called are Christ Himself, the well-spring of life and the living Fountain. He left heaven and the bosom of His Father and the pure companionship of angels to come to a friendless, lost world of fallen humanity polluted with sin to save those who would be saved, and provided the bread and water of life for all who hunger and thirst. His invitation to the waters of life is for every soul that thirsts, without distinction of nationality, status, relationship, wealth, or longing, and what draws His heart is a person's need for that life. Coming to Him gives relief, makes complaint cease, and gives satisfying joys that bring vigor to mind and health and vital energy to body, while putting amusements where He should occupy leaves the hungry, thirsty soul still hungering and thirsting. Drinking the living water takes away thirst for frivolous, sensual and exciting amusements, strengthens the mental powers by ennobling principles of religion, and destroys taste for those gratifications. The call to come to the waters means to come to Christ to have life, to receive the soothing influence of His grace and His restoring power that saves and heals both soul and body.

Drink and food picture the satisfaction felt in meeting temporal hunger and thirst, and by that picture represent the satisfaction found in spiritual blessings, to be understood by studying the Word so its truth can be represented at all times and in all places, with blessing resting on everyone who will serve Him with all the heart and every soul taking, reading and following the Scriptures as a learner. The life and riches of God's Word flow freely into the soul, and Christ formed within is the hope of glory, for those who have sought satisfaction from sources that cannot sustain them must come to Christ and be born again. Hungering and thirsting for the bread and water of life is desire to have the Scriptures explained and the truth given to the people, and when that thirst appears labor to teach cannot be resisted but the way is opened to supply it. The waters are the water of salvation joined with the bread of life as gospel truth for people ready to perish, and getting that truth before thirsty, perishing people is the gospel work to be advanced first.

God is the Fountain of joy, peace and happiness, inviting those who are spiritually hungry and thirsty to come and receive what they need freely. The image of buying without payment applies also to pure water, fresh air and sunlight as valuable healing medicines provided freely by heaven to restore and strengthen the body, which the sick too often shut out as if air were a deadly enemy and cast aside as worthless and even dangerous when they were just the medicine needed to make them well, while in blind confidence taking poisons prescribed. Coming to the waters without money and without price is done when the sick poor are helped freely in physical necessities and temporal wants, with water used in a variety of ways and simple outward treatments given without drug medication and without charge, and this free medical missionary work prepares the way for reception of the truth.

Salvation through Christ is freely offered to everyone who needs it, so that even those with no means can receive it without payment or price, and children should be taught that He died for them and that this gift is available to them. The gift is for all who recognize their need and come, and coming makes a person's felt need plain. The gospel feast is free and costs those who come nothing, and all who come in humility are welcomed, with the invitation to go out into the highways and hedges to the halt, the poor and the maimed. Everyone who comes is feasted and receives the white garment, being clothed and adorned with righteousness from God's supply, because He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance and to seek and save what was lost, and those who believe must first receive from Him themselves and then give to others what they received. The rich stores from the treasury of God are presented to all freely without cost, and all who place themselves in the channel of light may receive them. These gifts cannot be purchased with riches or merit but are received through willing obedience and giving oneself wholly to Christ.

The water of life never dries up but flows constantly in richest streams, so those who drink never thirst, and whenever the soul is barren and thirsty it is because the living spring has been lost sight of. Thirst for the bread and water of salvation is met by God giving His Holy Spirit, touching hearts and giving freedom in speaking His word, leading to confession, however humiliating to the soul, as essential so that fruits appear unto righteousness.

Grace Without Price

Righteousness is freely given to everyone who hungers and thirsts for it, and the offer of water and food and wine and milk without money and without price means it cannot be earned by painful struggle and wearisome toil, by gifts or sacrifices. Salvation in Christ is freely offered to all who feel their need of it, and it cannot be earned or secured by money or by arduous pilgrimages, but is answered by believing in Christ as a personal Saviour and living by His word. Grace and salvation are a free gift to those who cannot earn them, not won through prayers and fasting and good deeds and self-denial, but received by trusting in Christ for salvation. It cannot be won by long years of wearisome and comfortless striving, by rigorous self-denial, prayers and fasts, almsdeeds and self-abnegation, by reproach and humiliation, even when steadfastly seeking God, but is found as a free gift. Salvation and heaven's blessings are freely available to all, including those with no worldly wealth, and they cannot be secured with money or education or other advantages.

Peace and forgiveness and love are offered as a free gift that cannot be earned or bought, and they are received by reaching out and accepting what is offered. All are welcome to the feast to receive rich blessings without being excluded for having nothing to offer, and those who come with a child's trusting love may share in the Father's bounty by trusting His promises rather than waiting for a joyful feeling as proof of acceptance. Eternal life is offered freely at no cost, and it is received by asking and by exercising faith in the Word of the living God, which brings the richest blessings prepared. Lack of faith dishonors God and leaves people unable to impart life to others by a living, uplifting testimony, because no one can give what he does not possess, while those who receive this life are alive unto God and their words and prayers give unmistakable evidence that they have spiritual life. Everyone who longs for saving gifts is invited to come and receive them freely, without payment or worthiness, for the compassionate Saviour has grace to give to all who ask in faith. Christ's righteousness is offered as a free gift without payment or price, because people have no virtue of their own with which to buy it, and it must be received by faith.

Salvation is free and yet is to be bought and sold, for in the market managed by divine mercy the precious pearl and the goods of heaven are offered to all at no cost, with the treasury of the jewels of truth open to everyone and no barrier guarding the way in. The only price is obedience to the will of the benefactor. These gifts cannot be purchased with riches or merit regardless of worldly wealth, but are received through willing obedience and giving oneself wholly to Christ.

A strict and self-denying life still continues, not now as the ground but the result of faith, not the root but the fruit of holiness. The grace of God in Christ is the foundation of the Christian's hope, and that grace is manifested in obedience, in justification through faith in the atoning blood and the renewing power of the Holy Spirit upon the heart bringing forth fruit in a life conformed to Christ's example, to be spread everywhere as the glorious gospel of God's free grace and the glad tidings of salvation.

Coming to Christ makes a person's felt need of Him plain. He calls every thirsty sinner to come to the waters just now just as he is, bringing no price in his hand and clinging simply to the cross, and instead of spending money for what is not bread and laboring for what does not satisfy, he is to listen diligently and eat what is good so his soul delights itself in fatness and lives, and God will make with him an everlasting covenant, even the sure mercies of David. The weary and heavy-laden are invited to come for rest just as they are, without first making an effort to fit themselves to come, poor and wretched and blind and naked and in want of all things, for He will give salvation but not sell it, and on no other terms can anyone be received.

Christ as Saviour and salvation of more value than gold and silver was offered to the rulers of Israel as a precious free gift in tender constraining love. They had the privilege of receiving Him at no cost, but they refused that gift and instead bought their Lord for thirty pieces of silver to have Him betrayed.

Seeking and Receiving Life

The call is urgent and open to every thirsty one, to come without delay while mercy still lingers, for the sinner's only hope stands ready to receive. It uses no force, but love and grace draw the thirsting to come and receive freely without payment. It is a call to seek the Lord in earnest while He may be found and to call upon Him while He is near, with assurance that He will be found, will teach the humble His way, will have mercy, and will abundantly pardon the wicked and unrighteous who forsake their way and thoughts and return to Him. That earnest seeking brings a deep experience able to stand the coming test.

The invitation belongs to God's everlasting covenant, even the sure mercies of David, made with those who seek Him wholeheartedly and meet the conditions of salvation. Having no money is no barrier, for water, wine and milk are gifts without price rather than goods bought with human resources or merit. The terms are made plain: come, listen diligently, eat what is good, and receive what truly satisfies, so the soul may live and delight itself in fatness.

Receiving depends on trusting the promises with a child's trusting love, not on waiting for joyful feeling as proof of acceptance. It means shaking off every human prop, refusing to appeal to feeling or to mistake sentimentalism for religion, and leaning heavily upon Christ through the open door to receive all He will bestow. Entering in to meet God and find comfort when discouraged requires controlling the thoughts, humbling the heart before Him, standing in right relation to Him, and having the meekness Christ showed in life and character. Those who answer in this way receive sanctification of mind and character by the Holy Spirit, a sanctified influence, and words brought under Christ's control, while a close, painful struggle to overcome sin and self goes on by ceasing to look at deformities of character, looking to Jesus, and putting on the robe of His righteousness, until the greatest conquest, conquest of self, is won.

Coming and drinking means continuing to receive Christ's love and fullness, experiencing personally what it means to belong to Christ and to have Christ as one's own. It means receiving and believing in Christ as the Bread of life unto eternal life, turning from selfishness and idolatry to show mercy and teach the way of life to sinners, backsliders, and those whose faith is mixed with error. Drinking this living water takes away thirst for frivolous, sensual and exciting amusements, for Christ Himself is the well-spring of life and the living Fountain who alone satisfies souls sick with weariness, loneliness and dissatisfaction. Such drinking gives relief, makes complaint cease, gives satisfying joys that bring vigor to mind and health and vital energy to body, strengthens the mental powers by the ennobling principles of religion, and destroys taste for those gratifications, whereas putting a round of amusements where Christ should occupy leaves the hungry, thirsty soul still hungering and thirsting.

The same message rebukes pride and self-importance among all in responsible positions. No one is to consider himself above fellow workers because greater responsibilities rest on his branch of the work, but like Daniel is to seek power from God alone, that he may represent not himself and his imperfections in selfish practices but the truth in righteousness, weighed with the Spirit of wisdom, magnifying the truth and presenting the holy perfume of Christ's character, which is the sacred fire of God's own kindling.

Empty Sources and Misuses

Careworn, sorrowful faces reveal a thirst of the soul, a longing for peace in Christ and for the life only the water of life can give, which sad, weary, oppressed and thirsting people try to quench at broken cisterns that can hold no water and at futile substitutes that cannot satisfy. The call to every thirsty soul to come to the waters is the voice inviting them away from those empty sources to the true supply where thirsting souls find life. Coming to the waters means coming to Christ to have life, to receive the soothing influence of His grace and His restoring power that saves and heals both soul and body.

Spending money for what is not bread and laboring for what does not satisfy is warned against, for worldly pursuits and investments cannot nourish the soul, while spiritual good is freely available and its offer is a sure investment in God's kingdom that nourishes and satisfies without payment. The same warning applies to harmful indulgences, for spending on tobacco and intoxicating liquor and on alcohol and tobacco instead of truth creates appetite, poisons the body, weakens the mind, hinders discernment of sacred things and harms people, while truth can save and sanctify. People should therefore follow God's instruction for body and soul, reject such indulgences, refuse to spend on what harms while refusing truth, and not blame God for suffering caused by their own choices.

The thirsty and hungry are souls sick with weariness, loneliness and dissatisfaction, suffering more from maladies of the soul than from diseases of the body and seeking happiness in something new and exciting, and the waters to which they are called are Christ Himself, the well-spring of life, the living Fountain, and the Fountain of joy, peace and happiness. Coming to Him gives relief, makes complaint cease, and gives satisfying joys that bring vigor to mind and health and vital energy to body. Putting a round of amusements in the place Christ should occupy, amusements like those that have been the curse of life, leaves the hungry, thirsty soul still hungering and thirsting as long as unsatisfying pleasures are partaken, whereas drinking His living water takes away thirst for frivolous, sensual and exciting amusements, strengthens the mental powers by the ennobling principles of religion, and destroys taste for those gratifications. Those who bear responsibility for such souls should therefore seek wisdom from God to lead them to that Fountain rather than lowering the standard of Christianity and weakening true godliness by giving them worldly or theatrical entertainments.

Souls both near and afar off are perishing for lack of the waters of salvation and the bread of life, yet schemes that appear attractive and needful absorb money and thought in selfish indulgence and strife and hinder missionary work for want of money and workers to lift the truth where the warning has never been heard. Spending God's money to gratify self while souls perish contradicts profession of faith, is idolatry and an offense to God, and gives no evidence of genuineness in proclaiming the last solemn warning on the verge of the eternal world. The free offer of food without money and without price does not require erecting buildings in cities to invite the most depraved class to receive free food, beds and treatment supported by charity, for the special work is to reach every class with the truth and to bear an unpopular message to all nations. Nor does it authorize using large means to feed, clothe and house men free in a way that only consumes and produces nothing, encouraging laziness and intemperate practices or dependence by those who spend all their earnings to gratify intemperate appetite and then live dependent on others, for God never encourages such dependence and to use His money in mercy for the shiftless class who would live on food provided free makes mercy and compassion foolishness.

Proclaiming the Invitation Widely

The invitation is to be proclaimed earnestly and without delay to people everywhere and to all nations throughout the world. It is the last note of warning to save a perishing world, to be given before the coming time of worldwide trouble. It invites everyone who longs for spiritual life to come and receive what God provides freely, without money, merit or price, and calls people to seek to know God. It gives wonderful encouragement to everyone who hungers and thirsts after God to seek the Lord in earnest while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near, with assurance He will be found, will teach the humble His way, will have mercy and will abundantly pardon the wicked and unrighteous who forsake their way and thoughts and return to Him. It is to be read and studied and brought to God's people to give church members a deep experience that will stand the test before them.

God's people must extend their work beyond their homes and churches, laboring for the world and helping those ignorant of the truth. Each person is to be a minister of righteousness and not merely a churchgoer who listens to preaching, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, putting away distractions, and serving God by influencing those around them through the Spirit. Those who have received the Bread and Water of Life, drunk of the fountain, and possess spiritual life are to show others where to obtain it and give to hungry souls what they received. The gift is received by asking and by exercising faith in the Word of the living God, which brings the richest blessings God has prepared, while lack of faith dishonors God and leaves people unable to impart life to others by a living, uplifting testimony, because no one can give what he does not possess. Those who receive this life are alive unto God, and their words to the people and their prayers give unmistakable evidence that they have spiritual life.

Those who drink deeply from the fountain opened for Judah and Jerusalem are then to take the refreshing cup to parched, fainting souls. The invitation is the voice of mercy beckoning thirsty, bewildered, weary, wayworn souls to come to the fountain of life opened for them, whose waters have medicinal properties that heal spiritual and physical infirmities and wash away pollution, and all are invited to drink deeply. Lifting up Christ and helping them take hold of eternal realities is how this invitation is carried to others. Even a worker without thorough education who falls into errors of grammar or pronunciation and lacks eloquent expressions and beautiful imagery can feed hungry souls if he has himself drunk of the fountain of life and eaten of the bread of life. When he does this his defects will be forgiven and forgotten, his hearers will not become weary or disgusted, and they will thank God for the message of grace sent them through His servant.

Leading thirsting souls to the living water of Christ is the purpose for sanitariums, winning souls to Christ through compassionate care for the sick as soul-saving work. This is done not by extensive, expensive mammoth institutions but by many small, homelike institutions in pleasant places that shine as lights in a dark place. Their workers reflect the sunlight of Christ's face like salt that has not lost its savor, extending the influence of true pure religion to many souls.

The gospel invitation is to be met by giving appropriate reading matter on the important points of truth for the present time freely to all who will accept it, without charge, sowing beside all waters. This free circulation will eventually bring a hundredfold return to the treasury. God's saving truth is freely available to those who need it, whether they can pay or not, so people may pay if they choose, but access to publications explaining Scripture should not depend on payment. What satisfies thus contrasts with spending on alcohol and tobacco, which harm people, while refusing to spend on truth that can save and sanctify them.

Pastors and people must diligently study this precious light of the gospel message to arouse from spiritual stupidity. Those in the cities who profess the truth for this time are to wake up and give to others what the Lord has given them, to arise and shine, seeing the glory of God as they give. They go forth with full assurance that angels of God will make impressions upon the minds of those for whom they labor. The missionary invitation is to be sounded with glad thankfulness and tact by ministers, pastors, and all who stand in responsible positions. The waters are the truth, old or new, the rich graces God longs to bestow and the rich floods of light He has opened heaven to send, and crying the call means welcoming that light, making room to receive it, and urging every thirsty soul to come and receive it freely.

God longs to reveal His salvation, and when His people remove the obstructions, He pours its waters out abundantly through human channels who serve Him. The waters are the water of salvation, joined with the bread of life as the gospel truth for people ready to perish. Thirsty, perishing people need this bread and water brought before them, and getting the truth to them is the gospel work to be advanced first.