Isaiah 55:7, commentary and pictures

The call is for the wicked to abandon sinful conduct and for the unrighteous to abandon sinful thinking, and to return to the Lord and to God, who will then show mercy and pardon abundantly. It is to be answered now, while the Lord may be found and is near and waiting to be gracious, because life is brief and the probationary time to change character is limited and passing rapidly. The certainty of that mercy rests on the fact that God's ways and thoughts are as far above human ways and thoughts as the heavens are above the earth, being full of mercy, love, compassion, tender pity and kindness far beyond human severity. Pardon is conditional and certain when the sinner humbles the heart, surrenders the will, confesses with broken contrition and turns from sin, yet it is received not by personal goodness, merits or feeling but by looking to Jesus and trusting fully in His merits and righteousness alone. Those who so return are completely forgiven, with sins blotted out and remembered no more, and are reclaimed, cleansed, healed and transformed to peace, joy and new life.

Words and Immediate Context

The call is to repentance: the wicked is to leave a sinful way, meaning sinful conduct and actions, and the unrighteous is to abandon his thoughts, meaning sinful, wrong and evil thinking, and both are to return to the Lord and to God, who will then show mercy and abundantly pardon. The compassion in that response shows divine thoughts toward the returning sinner full of pity rather than human harshness and severity. It is a call to conversion directed to God's people, ministers and lay members alike, when ministers and people are walking in strange paths away from humility and submission. It belongs to the invitation to seek freely offered spiritual blessing and to receive what gives life.

That return belongs to seeking the Lord while He may be found and calling upon Him while He is near, and therefore it must be made now. It is to be done in the present precious probationary time while He is waiting to be gracious, before the opportunity for a changed character is lost. The promise is offered on the condition of turning to Him, and healing and pardon come when that condition is promptly met. The urgency applies especially to people in responsible positions who must repent of pride, self-importance, harshness and oppression.

The certainty of mercy and abundant pardon rests on what follows, that God's thoughts are not human thoughts and His ways are not human ways, but as the heavens are higher than the earth so His ways and thoughts are higher than human ways and thoughts. His readiness to forgive those who have known His name but turned away rests on those higher thoughts and ways. Even when sins look too great to be forgiven, pardon reaches them for this reason. The pardon is therefore certain, and His word that goes forth to call sinners back will not return void but will accomplish what He pleases and prosper where He sent it.

The call stands within God's free invitation to every thirsty one to come and receive without money and without price what gives life, and to enter His everlasting covenant. His pardoning word does not return void but accomplishes His pleasure and prospers, like rain and snow that water the earth to bring forth seed and bread. When received it prospers in those who receive it, bringing His people out with joy and peace into everlasting restoration. It belongs to the offer of eternal truth and immortal life for those who give service to the Redeemer, prompting self-denial and the education of children for that life.

The verse lays down conditions in the Word that must be obeyed for future happiness and states the terms of salvation. It gives God's covenant with the people He is seeking to save today and supplies the education of most value today. It imparts the highest knowledge a human being can possess, the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, which strengthens the mental powers for right character and practical usefulness. It is part of the instruction given by Christ enshrouded in the pillar of cloud, the great I AM educating His church in the wilderness, teaching the laws of His kingdom and how to conduct as a citizen of heaven upon the highest principles for present and eternal good. That mercy comes to those who seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near, because His ways and thoughts are higher than human ways and thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth.

God's Pardoning Character

God's thoughts toward the one who returns are thoughts of mercy, love, compassion, tender pity, longsuffering and kindness, far above limited human thoughts and human severity and harshness. He is kind and merciful, longsuffering, of tender pity, merciful and gracious, forgiving transgression and sin, with a limit of forbearance far beyond that of humanity, for if He dealt with the human family as men deal with one another they would have been consumed. He hates sin but loves the sinner, hears every prayer, knows each sorrow and need, and continually gives grace, calling the wicked to abandon sinful conduct and the unrighteous to abandon wrong and evil thinking and to turn from Satan and come under Christ's banner. The call is to seek Him with the whole heart in repentance and confession unto cleansing from all unrighteousness, and even those fallen into grave and serious sin still have hope if they forsake sin and return.

Like the father welcoming the prodigal son, He eagerly receives the repentant, longs for and waits for the returning sinner with delight, and assures those who have wandered that they can return and be forgiven. There is no reproach, no taunting, no casting up of the evil course, no pardoning grudgingly, but the past is forgiven and forgotten and blotted out forever. His compassionate character stands in contrast to those who oppress, condemn or discourage others, for Christ's voice in this call expresses restorative work. Those who have entrusted themselves to His mercy and taken Him at His word need not despair of forgiveness, but can answer accusations about their faults by pointing to Jesus and repeating His promises and what He has done for them.

His abundant pardon is complete and free, more than release from condemnation, for redeeming love reclaims from sin and transforms the heart in ways and thoughts far beyond human understanding. He hides sins and blots out iniquities and transgressions so fully that they are forgiven and remembered no more. The call to return is a call to be converted, and when sinners come in contrition, confess their wrong and repent, forgiveness brings the blotting out of sins so that sins go beforehand to judgment. This return answers what must be done to be saved with repentance and conversion in brokenness of heart, with tears and confession to those bruised and wounded without maintaining dignity or concern for personal dignity, rebuking all spiritual pride as inconsistent with profession of faith. The promise is to be accepted personally with heart and soul and mind and strength and to be pointed out to others, bringing happiness to those in misery and distress when they accept and appropriate it to themselves.

His longsuffering gives opportunity to repent and is not permission to continue disobeying Him. Toward those who do evil, even apostates and rebels, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, His tender compassion still permits them to live and supplies their necessities while calling them to forsake wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts and return for mercy and abundant pardon. That patience and goodness extended even to rebels is the greatest encouragement to the sinner to surrender the will and profit by the Word of God.

Conditions for Receiving Pardon

Pardon is conditional and certain, and the conditions laid down must be obeyed for future happiness. God will not do for people what they can do for themselves, but when they promptly seek Him while He may be found and meet the conditions He keeps His promise to show mercy and pardon fully. Healing and comfort and peace are given not while rebellion is nursed but when the sinner is repentant, contrite, and sorry for working at cross purposes with God. While wickedness is continued there is no peace, and iniquities separate between the sinner and God and hide His face so He will not hear.

Returning means abandoning evil conduct and wrong thinking and turning back to the Lord in conversion, which brings the blotting out of sins. It requires humbling the heart as a little child under the hand of God, dying to self, surrendering the will fully to Him, and giving up self-esteem, self-sufficiency, self-righteousness and a self-exalted spirit that takes the place of teacher instead of learner. It means confessing sins to God and to one another and to those bruised and wounded, coming in contrition with broken and contrite heart and tears, and cleansing from all filthiness of flesh and spirit thoroughly and without leaving the work unfinished. Such humbling receives lessons of humility of mind, meekness and lowliness of heart and the transforming grace that alone fits a person to teach truth to others, and then love rises in the soul and obedience changes from restless toil without peace into rest, ease and pleasure.

Pardon is received not by doing something to become worthy and not by personal goodness, merits, grace, or feeling, but by looking away from self to Jesus as the living, sin-pardoning Saviour. Sinners do not need to wait until they have made themselves good enough but may come just as they are, casting the helpless soul upon Him, giving up all to become children of God, and relying on Him continually. It is in vain to think they can make themselves better first or promise to amend, for that will not remove one spot or stain of sin, and trying to overcome and earn assurance by personal goodness must be given up. The way is to believe the bare promise rather than taking feeling for faith, to trust God fully and rely on the merits of Jesus and His righteousness alone, whose righteousness alone entitles sinners to the blessings of the covenant of grace and whose grace is the only hope of salvation, bringing all the help desired. A sense of sin and true repentance is obtained by casting the soul upon the declared mercy and revealed love of God shown in Christ giving His life for the sins of the world, revealing a love that is measureless, while at the same time the awful guilt and grievous character of sin is urged home upon the soul.

Seeking means coming in sincerity and truth with open heart to receive grace, for God will be found by those who seek Him in sincerity and truth and reveals Himself as a Saviour who forgives sin. It means to stop looking at self and sin, to put away personal feelings and ideas about what condemns and what saves, to roll the burden of sins at the foot of the cross, and to look to the uplifted Saviour for life. It means seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, enlarging desire and being ready to receive the blessing God will bestow on those who seek Him with the whole heart, keeping the heart open so the grace of Christ may enter. It means putting thoughts to work on pure holy subjects, sending supplications to heaven in earnest contrition of soul, and keeping conversation, thoughts, and deportment in harmony with the holy faith professed. It means making straight paths for the feet, loving God and keeping His commandments so as not to be left to be spoiled by the enemy, bearing a decided testimony, and obtaining a deep experience that will stand the test.

True repentance is not outward show, ceremony, fasting, or bodily affliction while charging God with neglect, but putting away sins and seeking pardon and cleansing the heart from spiritual defilement and unjust, selfish traits. Returning to God involves humble repentance rather than self-justification, and reforming conduct, including ceasing to break His commandments and profane His Sabbath.

Urgency and Limited Opportunity

The call to forsake the wicked way of sinful conduct and the unrighteous thoughts of wrong thinking and to return for mercy and abundant pardon is urgent and present, for life is brief and time is passing rapidly with great need to understand what must be done in right lines. It is an assurance of grace to be answered while the Lord is near and waiting to be gracious in precious probationary time, and not to be delayed but met now with contrition before the opportunity for a changed character is lost and before it is too late. The gracious promise is available now to turn from evil while salvation is available, and to seek and consecrate the life before the eternal destiny is fixed.

Seeking must be now while mercy and pardon are available on the pardoning side before the time of judgment, humbling the heart and calling upon God while He may be found. Sins must go beforehand to judgment because the investigative judgment takes place before Christ comes, so that the person transformed in character during the probation given may be ready to enter the city of God. While today remains and His voice is heard there will be no second probation, no temporal millennium, and no opportunity to pass over the ground again for those who after conviction by the Holy Spirit resist the truth, turn to fables and block others from receiving it, for they will never be convinced.

Even when sins look too great to be forgiven, pardon reaches them because His thoughts and ways are not human thoughts and ways but as much higher than them as the heavens are higher than the earth. The promise is broad and deep and full, to be taken personally for courage by the sinner who doubts whether there is hope in his case, to be believed and received into the heart at once as blessed assurance. It is to be used right now by faith to erect a standard against the enemy when Satan tells the soul he is a sinner and tries to steal away hope and every glimmer of hope and ray of light, by fighting the good fight of faith, wrestling with doubts and becoming acquainted with the promises.

Delay is dangerous, for God requires immediate return without delay as the condition for fulfilling His promises, breaking off sins at once with true contrition and accepting Christ as Saviour. Those who refuse to obey for fear of displeasing earthly friends cannot be friends of God, and those who refuse this invitation to repentance and freedom from sin and neglect and despise salvation purchased at infinite cost by the agony and death of the Son of God will be found in the great day hopeless, shelterless, disobedient transgressors of His law with no place in His kingdom, becoming a channel of darkness bringing others into misery. Repentance must happen before it is everlastingly too late, for trifling with the soul's highest interests is fearful, and if hardness and impenitence continue the grieved Spirit remains hindered from coming in power and ruin will come, whereas all who repent at once and fall on the Rock broken, even one enslaved to passion and to Satan, will be pitied, forgiven completely and made a vessel unto honor.

History and Prophetic Setting

During His three years of public ministry Christ Himself called the Jewish nation to forsake wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts and to seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near. After more than a thousand years of blessings bestowed and withdrawn He came in person, veiling His divinity with humanity, and for three years waited and prayed and worked and wept, urging return with promise of mercy, healing of backsliding, and abundant pardon. The nation would not receive its Messiah but through those years sought to put Him to death, and that rejection proved its ruin.

God mercifully pleaded with wayward Jewish exiles in Babylon, including those who had remained there, to forsake sinful ways and thoughts and to leave their Babylonian surroundings and return to Jerusalem. Even those fallen into grave and serious sin still have hope if they humble themselves through confession and repentance, forsake sin, and return to God, for He hates sin but loves the sinner and responds with mercy and abundant pardon. David and Solomon are examples of this hope, for the one who humbles himself, accepts the promises in faith, and truly repents will not be cast away and need not despair.

The promise belongs to the solemn perils of the last days when important and fearful events are ahead, and to the short work the Lord will do upon the earth when He stirs His people mightily. Those who fear God and love His law are to return as individuals as their first business by humbling themselves, being afflicted and mourning, confessing the sins that have separated God from His people, fleeing to the Word and to prayer, and seeking Him earnestly while He may be found and is near. That returning means making straight paths for the feet, loving God and keeping His commandments so as not to be left to be spoiled by the enemy, bearing decided testimony, receiving wisdom and being taught His way, and obtaining a deep experience that will stand the test, bringing wonderful encouragement and uplifting. The greatest alarm is not feeling and understanding the low condition but being satisfied to remain as is.

The call is pressed home on churches in the Laodicean condition, whose true love for God and unselfish love for neighbor have almost died and whose hearts are degraded by perverted piety and virtue, urging conversion through abandoning wrong conduct and wrong thinking and returning while He may be found and is near to receive full mercy and pardon. It is a message to be pressed on churches everywhere so they heed the warning and practice a faith that elevates, ennobles, and sanctifies. Isaiah 55 to 58 is therefore to be diligently studied by pastors and people to arouse from spiritual stupidity, that those in the cities professing present truth may wake up, arise and shine because their light is come, give to others the precious gospel light they have received, and go forth with full assurance that angels will impress minds.

The fulfillment of the Scripture is advanced by supporting the work that sends out the gospel, giving reason to deny self and to direct oneself and one’s means toward that service rather than toward self-indulgence such as a costly church organ. When the word is received it prospers in those who receive it and does its sanctifying work, helping them understand the Word and reach others. It belongs to the offer of eternal truth, immortal life, and a place in the kingdom beyond Satan’s temptations, and it prompts parents to educate their children for that life and all who serve the Redeemer to give themselves in service.

Call to Church Leaders

Isaiah 55 is a message to people in responsible positions, to ministers high and low, to conference presidents, and to every minister and lay member, calling them to seek God personally now while He may be found and while He is near. The call comes because many ministers and people are walking in strange paths away from humility and submission to Christ, and it means the wicked must forsake sinful conduct and actions and the unrighteous must forsake sinful, wrong thinking and return to the Lord, who will then have mercy and abundantly pardon. It is addressed to professing believers who are unconverted, who know little of what is comprehended in the third angel's message, who have not followed the straight pathway of truth and have not purified their souls by obeying the Word. It applies especially to ministers whose feet are standing in slippery places and who slip one way and then another, who must place their feet in the footprints of Jesus. The return requires constant alertness and loyalty, because a hidden adversary is tracking each soul with concealed snares and ingenious temptations to draw them from allegiance, and carelessness leaves people blinded and bewildered, turned from the narrow road to the city of God and unready for the sudden coming of the day of the Lord.

Those in responsible positions must not consider themselves above their fellow workers because of their responsibilities, but must seek power, wisdom and righteousness from God so they represent truth in righteousness rather than themselves. They must give up pride, self-importance, self-exaltation, spiritual pride, concern for personal dignity, a self-exalted spirit that takes the place of teacher instead of learner, and too great desire for the praise of men, which has gone with unsuccessful labor. Returning means humbling the heart as a little child under the hand of God, drawing nigh to Him, looking unto Jesus, taking hold of His strength by living faith, making peace with God, praying for divine guidance, depending on God, and receiving lessons of humility of mind, meekness and lowliness of heart. Only the transforming grace of Christ so received fits a person to teach the truth to others and to see the kingdom of God and come to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. The return that answers what must be done to be saved is repentance and conversion in brokenness of heart, with tears and confession to God and to those bruised and wounded without maintaining dignity, so that sins may go beforehand to judgment and be blotted out.

The wicked way and unrighteous thoughts to be forsaken by leaders are pride, harshness, oppression, injustice, selfish and dishonest conduct, indifference to neglected ones who cry to the Lord, a hard iron-like spirit toward fallen brethren, and a closed heart toward appeals for help from fields where truth has never been presented. To return means to ask Christ to subdue and soften the heart and fill it with His love, and to repent of hardness and impenitence, trusting that His mercy and pitying tenderness overcome human severity because His thoughts and ways are as much higher than human thoughts and ways as the heavens are higher than the earth. The warning presses specifically upon men in Battle Creek, especially men in responsible positions in the offices of publication who talk of religious liberty while practicing injustice and oppression at the heart of the work, to abandon their oppressive ways and thoughts and return to God for pardon without delay. It likewise calls those who have left their first love and are opposing the work centering in Nashville, including those at Nashville and at Graysville, to discern their spiritual condition and return while He may be found. This repentance must happen before it is everlastingly too late, or the grieved Spirit will remain hindered from coming in power and ruin will come.

For conference presidents the call means to earnestly seek the Lord, pray for divine guidance, accept their own responsibilities rather than shift them onto another leader, and learn and teach God's Word instead of their own plans, ideas, ways and counsel. For all leaders returning means a present change of attitude and life direction away from hereditary and cultivated tendencies, worldly customs and criterion, pleasing worldlings, and making a show for influence and success. In its place they are to build on solid rock on Jesus Christ, denying self, taking up the cross and following Him, trusting in God heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder, so as to become physicians of souls as well as bodies with a faith that works by love and purifies the soul. The word that calls them to return will accomplish its work like rain and snow that water the earth to bring forth seed and bread, for God's thoughts and ways are higher than human thoughts and ways as the heavens are higher than the earth.

Personal Application and Results

Forsaking the way and the thoughts means a present change of attitude and life direction away from hereditary and cultivated tendencies, worldly customs and criterion, pleasing worldlings, and making a show for influence and success, to building on Jesus Christ, denying self, taking up the cross and following Him, trusting God heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder, so as to become physicians of souls as well as bodies with a faith that works by love and purifies the soul. It means abandoning cherished faults including jealousy and evil suspicion, and ceasing faithlessness, complaining, faultfinding and murmuring, seeking the Lord in unfeigned gratitude for the light of His Word received into heart and mind and reflected to souls in darkness. It means the one guilty of transgressing the holy law through lustful practice comes with a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart to be healed, urgently seeking the Lord while He may be found and is near because His pardoning thoughts and ways are as much higher than human thoughts and ways as the heavens are higher than the earth. It means those who have followed their own way for a time still return and get into line while opportunity to harmonize lasts, forsaking their own way and thoughts and yielding a wilful spirit that goes as it pleases and refuses to unite with brethren who view matters differently, to come into harmony with God's way and with brethren. Those who do not respond but prefer to keep walking in their own unconsecrated way of choosing are allowed to do so, but the end of that way is sorrow and destruction.

The invitation is without qualification even to those who have sinned throughout life and withheld due service, calling the wicked to abandon conduct and the unrighteous to turn from thoughts and return to live while opportunity remains. It is for sinners and not only for the already perfect, so that those who have wandered and been polluted by sin may come with contrition and be accepted, and no sinner should conclude it does not apply or remain away. It gives hope to the ashamed, discouraged soul struggling with lack of self-control and temptation, to every sin-sick soul oppressed under sin, to the burdened who feel greatest, to the backslidden, to the unconverted and to those seeking deeper connection, to the tempted overcome in weakness, to those entrapped and unable to free themselves, and to the most hopeless cases. Those who come are to cast the helpless soul upon Christ, give up all to become children of God, rely on His Word rather than feeling, hide with Christ in God, accept Him with heart and soul and mind and strength, and seek Him and prepare without delay. The promise is to be accepted personally, pointed out to others, and trusted for pardon, bringing happiness to those in misery and distress when they appropriate it, for the Lord will hide sins and blot out iniquities.

Christ speaks the call in yearning tenderness, entreaty and love to sinners of every race and clime, especially the most hopeless entrapped by deceiving power, having paid the ransom with His own blood, reading hearts as an open book and judging righteously, knowing the atmosphere surrounding every soul and how many and fierce are the struggles against natural hereditary tendencies and sins made common by habit, and long bearing with discourteous ungrateful behavior in hope of bringing repentance through living colaborers. Pardon was made possible by His death on the cross and belongs to the plan of redemption by which God seeks to restore humanity to original perfection and give strength to climb upward, expressing the delight of the eternal mind to manifest grace, with salvation as the everlasting object of heaven secured in the covenant of mercy made before the foundation of the world. It is offered now, just now, while as sin-pardoning Saviour He offers within the veil the blood of atonement and pleads in behalf of sinners to forgive and remove transgressions, and the gift of His Son is the pledge of willingness to receive those who return and obey the laws of His kingdom. It is in vain to think of becoming better first or promising to amend, for that will not remove one spot or stain, but casting upon declared mercy and revealed love shown in giving His life for the sins of the world brings a sense of sin and true repentance while urging home the awful guilt and grievous character of sin. Full and free salvation purchased at infinite cost by agony and death to draw men to a pure and holy life is offered to all on terms of repentance with true contrition, forsaking and breaking off sins at once and accepting Christ as Saviour, to whom He becomes very precious, while those who neglect and despise it lose much daily, become a channel of darkness bringing others into misery, and make their case hopeless, so immediate action is required to leave the ranks of Satan and come under His banner.

Those who return and die to self receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and a greater understanding of the joys of salvation than known before, with compassion, complete forgiveness, grace, righteousness, peace and joy, healing and cleansing in His blood, freedom from the tempter, and transforming grace. Pardon is conditional and certain, requiring confessing sins to God and to one another with broken and contrite heart, giving up self-esteem, self-sufficiency, self-righteousness and trying to overcome and earn assurance by personal goodness, humbling self, surrendering the will fully and relying on Him continually while believing Jesus accepts repentance and contrition. God will not do for people what they can do for themselves, but when they seek promptly while He may be found and meet the conditions He keeps His promise to show mercy and pardon fully, because His thoughts and ways are higher than human thoughts so people must not judge themselves by themselves. Then love rises in the soul and obedience changes from restless toil without peace into rest, ease and pleasure, and the surrendered needy and dependent one, even whose selfish choices caused harm, is received, pardoned, given peace and made a force for truth and righteousness. When the lost sinner surrenders, Christ heals and washes and cleanses him and makes him a polished instrument whose great love moves him to pity and labor for others as incorrigible as himself with the same patience and perseverance he was labored with, causing joy and rejoicing in the whole universe of heaven.

The encouragement of abundant pardon to everyone who repents and turns to Him, calling for humbling the heart and loathing self for hindering His work, is misunderstood when twisted to justify continuing in unrighteousness, and those who so twist it while mistreating workers put their Master to open shame. Those who recognize sin should not wait for every wrong to be named personally, but when they see the same condemned conduct in a warning given to another they are to apply it to themselves, forsake what displeases God, confess with humble repentance, and return. Whatever previous failures have been, repentance brings pardon of transgressions and calls for rising to a higher standard, and those who earnestly seek Him humble themselves, forsake sins, and through conversion and sanctifying truth are prepared to join His people and see Christ when He returns, while those who do not seek wholeheartedly remain in danger of perishing.

Even one who by cherishing worldly ambition and turning from God to human beings has become an instrument of deception and one of the chief of sinners will be fully forgiven through Jesus Christ if he repents and returns with full purpose of heart, for God's thoughts toward the sinner are merciful. Even a man who has broken chastity, corrupted his ways, violated conscience, blunted sensibility, repeated evil until passion rules reason and he is enslaved and tempts others, is still pitied by Jesus and has hope if he returns at once, with immediate repentance and confession as his only hope unto complete forgiveness. He must not delay but fall on the Rock and be broken now, and then Jesus will make him a vessel unto honor, able to form habits of purity and steadfast principle instead of habits of sin that form character.

As a heavenly Parent God gives love and is still giving love even while children wound and bruise His heart by sin no less than an erring child wounds an earthly parent, inviting sinners to return and repent of sins and iniquities, and He will pardon transgression freely and fully and abundantly, covering disgrace with pitying love. Fathers and mothers whose children fall into sin should copy this pardon, showing remarkable tenderness that does not make sin appear less grievous and abhorrent but helps inexperienced youth recover and encourages him that returning and confessing brings free and full pardon. The gospel deals with individuals because each person is of more value in God's sight than gold or silver with more to lose or win than angels can estimate, and the Lord calls each individual soul personally to seek Him while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near by forsaking wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts and returning for mercy and abundant pardon.