Isaiah 59:16, commentary and pictures

The Lord looked upon a world where justice had failed and truth had fallen, with humanity sunk in transgression and rebellion and no human able to plead for, ransom, or deliver the perishing. Seeing no one to help, He Himself in compassion took the work into His own hands and gave His only Son as substitute and surety, in whom alone there is hope of everlasting life. His own righteousness upheld Him as He freely surrendered His spotless life, bore the world's sin and the curse of the law, and suffered under divine justice. That saving arm includes His incarnation in lowly human life meeting every demand of the law and overcoming Satan, completed when He died in humanity's place on Calvary, bore the hiding of His Father's face, and by suffering and death broke Satan's power and purchased immortality for all who believe. The same condition pictures the world at His first appearing and again just before His second coming, when after His pleading in the sanctuary is finished there is no mediator left and His vengeance in the seven last plagues repays His adversaries.

World Without Justice

The verse belongs to a time when judgment is turned backward and justice stands far off, when truth has fallen in the street and fails, when equity cannot enter, and when one who departs from evil makes himself a prey. This absence of judgment displeases the Lord, and in that displeasure He sees that there is no man and wonders that there is no intercessor. That condition has been fulfilling since October 1844 and leads directly into His putting on garments of vengeance to repay fury to adversaries, which is the wrath of God in the seven last plagues. Acting by Himself, His own arm brings salvation and His own righteousness sustains Him, putting on righteousness as a breastplate and salvation as a helmet, with vengeance for clothing and zeal as a cloak, so that the name and glory of the Lord will be feared from the west to the rising of the sun when the enemy comes in like a flood and the Spirit lifts up a standard, and the Redeemer will come to Zion to those in Jacob who turn from transgression.

It describes the state of the world just prior to the second coming, when the end of all things is at hand and iniquity abounds. The abounding iniquity comes because people have transgressed the law and broken the everlasting covenant given on condition of obedience by continual transgression. The world comes more and more under the sway of seducing spirits as men turn away from God and His righteous government.

It is a time when Satan has taken the world captive, with nearly all mankind under his deceiving power. People are charmed by gold and silver and precious things and made greedy for more, counting riches as power and honor to be gained by any injustice or violence. Meanwhile the fear of the Lord is fast departing from the earth.

Fallen humanity is seen in wretchedness and sinfulness, with souls tainted by corruption, depraved and deformed. The fallen race tends more to evil than to good and practices hateful and most hateful vices. The heavenly host regards the world as undeserving of the sympathy and love of God, seeing no room for love, and angels marvel that Christ should undertake to save man in his lost and seemingly hopeless condition and that God can tolerate a race so foul with sin as to be a blot upon creation. Christ does not leave men to perish in degradation but sees that souls must perish unless an arm strong to deliver is reached forth to save, coming to bridge the gulf that transgression made separating man from God.

No Human Intercessor

To see that there is no man and to wonder that there is no intercessor is to see perishing humanity in sin with no human being able to plead for, defend, ransom, or deliver sinners from sin and death and the enemy's power. There was no human champion to bring justice and deliverance and no hope of rescue apart from God Himself. In compassion God took the work into His own hands and at infinite cost provided relief through His own action and power, giving Christ as the means of relief for the transgressor. His own arm brought salvation and His own righteousness sustained Him in accomplishing it.

Love for sinners led Him to pay the price of redemption, and Christ alone brought salvation through His own righteousness. Christ Himself became substitute and surety, freely surrendering His spotless life and bearing the world's sin and the law's curse, thereby upholding God's justice while suffering under divine justice. Coming in humanity and living out God's law, He showed that divine grace can redeem people and raise them to moral integrity.

There was no power in heaven or on earth but the power of Christ that could deliver fallen humanity from sin. He came to meet the difficulty of weak sinful nature and proneness to transgression and to remove it by giving moral power, sent in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh. Combining divinity with humanity with all the attributes of God and the excellencies of humanity, He took humanity as bone of bone and flesh of flesh, submitted to all the temptations besetting man, and as representative of the Father and representative of the human race met every demand of God's law. He overcame every objection of Satan against obedience and in the great controversy removed the stigma and degradation Satan placed on the human family, proving to heaven and to unfallen worlds and to the fallen world that through divine grace and partaking of the divine nature man need no longer stand under the curse of the law or remain in transgression. His salvation uplifts the depraved and forms in all who believe in Him as personal Saviour a character after His likeness, making them sons of God whose life and works are like Christ's, vitalized by His Spirit and power and qualified to be laborers together with God without failing or being discouraged.

There was no human eye to pity and no human hand stretched out to save, and no man to reach out an arm in tender pity and compassion. Those claiming to belong to God made no self-denying, self-sacrificing effort to seek the lost, but like the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side, disheartening and discouraging instead of sympathizing and restoring. When they so fail, God's own arm brings salvation and upholds the perishing, and God alone brings back His lost sheep. The call is to lean the whole weight upon Christ while on trial forming a character after the divine similitude, wearing His yoke and lifting His burden and learning meekness and lowliness of heart from Him to find rest unto the soul, instead of distrusting the Saviour when brethren fail to encourage and help. When Christ is working for a soul, not imputing his sins to him but imputing His righteousness to him, neglect or discouraging words and acts toward that soul will be required at the hands of those who do them and requited as injustice and un-Christlikeness.

Christ saw that no one would intercede in living faith for sinners, so His own arm brought salvation. His righteousness and integrity sustained Him, for His righteousness does not cover up wrongdoing but hates sin. He makes determined efforts to awaken transgressors to recognize the evil of sin in order to save them, and does not conceal their sins but leads them to recognize sin's evil. Urgent, faith-filled intercession for others can help save souls.

God Acts Alone

After the fall in Eden mankind became subject to death, and after Adam's transgression the ruin of the human race was complete, cut off from intercourse with God in a deplorable and hopeless state of rebellion. Satan designed man to remain in that condition without a gleam of hope, permanent like that of the fallen angels. From heaven God saw human beings perishing with no man able to help or plead for them.

In compassion stirred at infinite cost He Himself provided relief and took the work into His own hands by His own arm and power. His arm bringing salvation means He gave His only begotten Son, in whom alone transgressors have hope of everlasting life instead of perishing. God laid help upon the mighty Son, who willingly became humanity's substitute and surety, pledged to ransom people from Satan and restore them to original purity. Christ gave His life to atone for humanity, to meet sin's claims and bring life to those who believe, saving people from sin and calling them to obedience rather than to remain in sin, that they may be restored to know God and His government. God pitied and freed the person through His love, and gave him His word to share with others.

His own righteousness upheld Him in doing it and sustained Him in accomplishing salvation. His own arm brought salvation by freely surrendering His spotless life and bearing the world's sin and the law's curse, thereby upholding God's justice while He suffered under divine justice. His righteousness sustains Him as He brings salvation by His own power when no human intercessor can meet the need. The surrounding words describe God's judgment on His enemies, the Redeemer coming to Zion, and God's Spirit and words remaining with His people, which is fulfilled when God's people take the place Christ appoints and reveal God's love by reaching others.

No human being could save fallen humanity or intercede to restore it to God; the divine Son alone could bring salvation, and no arm but His own could save fallen man. He saw this and determined to help man, stretching forth His hand to rescue perishing man. While doing so He left the fallen angels to perish in their rebellion. Their guilt was unpardonable because of the light, experience, glory, goodness, mercy, wisdom, and majesty of God they had witnessed and enjoyed in heaven, with Satan himself once next in honor to Christ, leaving no greater power or glory left to impress or prove them.

When justice and truth have failed and no human defender, champion, or intercessor is found amid widespread injustice and sin, the Lord Himself brings salvation by His own power, upheld by His righteousness. God alone is His people's hope and strength. The following image of righteousness as a breastplate continues the picture of God acting to deliver His people. This describes the world at Christ's first appearing and presents its condition as a picture of the world before His second advent.

How Christ Saved

His own arm bringing salvation includes the incarnation and a whole life spent in the lowly walks of life, where He placed Himself in service to His family without shirking responsibility and worked with cheerfulness and tact. In that life He restored every department of human industry as part of His commission, brought Bible religion into home life and workshop, kept His eye single to the glory of God, and lived out God's law as a perfect pattern with the law of wisdom on His lips. Combining divinity with humanity as bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, He submitted to all the temptations besetting man, met every temptation and every demand of the law, overcame every objection of Satan against obedience, and removed the stigma Satan placed on the human family. By coming in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh and to give moral power against weak sinful nature and proneness to transgression, He proved to heaven, to unfallen worlds, and to the fallen world that through divine grace and partaking of the divine nature man need no longer stand under the curse of the law or remain in transgression.

At His baptism He entered the wider conflict of His life to save the fallen race by His own arm because no one on earth understood Him or could help Him. He must walk alone through His ministry and bear alone the burden of human guilt and woe, with His purpose remaining steadfast on which the redemption of the world rested. The Sinless One must feel the shame of sin while dwelling with strife, falsehood and vileness that tortured His spirit, laying off His glory to accept the weakness of humanity and reaching out to grasp the hand of Omnipotent Love.

His arm bringing salvation was accomplished when with no man to save perishing sinners He died in man's stead on Calvary. There He fought the powers of darkness through fearful conflict, endured the hiding of His Father's countenance, and in immeasurable infinite love stronger than death bore the sins of the guilty world. He paid the price to purchase man's redemption, completed in the last soul-struggle when the words It is finished resounded through creation.

He measured weapons with Satan in the wilderness and in Gethsemane and on the cross, where He received His death wound. That wound is the trophy of His victory and of the victory of all who believe in Him. By His suffering and death He annihilated Satan's power over every loyal believing subject, purchased immortality for every son and daughter of Adam who will have living working faith, threw open the gates of heavenly Paradise to this fallen world, and through acceptance of Him and faith in His righteousness elevates those fallen by Adam's sin to become heirs of immortality and partakers of everlasting life.

As substitute and surety He freely surrendered His spotless life, bore the world's sin and the law's curse, upheld divine justice, and was sustained by His own righteousness while suffering under divine justice. In that work He Himself experienced what it means to stand before God without an intercessor.

He is the Restorer against Satan the destroyer, restoring God's moral image in all who connect with God. Hereditary peculiarities, deficiencies of character, and severe temptations can be overcome through faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ in the new birth, and human head-reading by phrenology cannot decide fitness or limit grace. Those whom human counsel rejects God Himself fits through grace to do the work He chose for them as successful agents cooperating with divine agencies. This salvation is given in Christ made like His brethren as a merciful and faithful high priest and captain of salvation perfect through sufferings, who suffered being tempted and is able to succor the tempted, inviting the heavy laden to come to Him for rest instead of unloading burdens on human agents.

He saves people from sin and calls them to obedience rather than leaving them in sin, giving His life to atone, to meet sin's claims, and to bring life to those who believe. His salvation uplifts the depraved and forms in all who believe a character after His likeness, making them sons of God whose life and works are like Christ's, vitalized by His Spirit and qualified to be laborers together with God without failing. Through Him people may be restored to know God and His government, pitied and freed by love, and given His word to share with others.

Prophecy and Fulfillment

The fallen condition of turned-back judgment, distant justice, truth collapsed in the street, failing truth, blocked equity, and the one departing from evil becoming prey, displeasing the Lord because judgment is absent, has been fulfilling since October 1844. In that condition the absence of any man and any intercessor leads directly into the Lord clothing Himself with garments of vengeance to repay fury upon adversaries, which is the wrath of God poured out in the seven last plagues. The time of no intercessor marks the point after Jesus finishes His work in the sanctuary and ceases pleading for Israel, when no mediator remains and the plagues can no longer be withheld. Those covered by God's protection live through those plagues, while those without that shelter suffer them.

The verse describes the world as it stood at Christ's first appearing, and presents that condition as a picture of the world before His second advent. It identifies the coming Messiah as the One whose own righteousness brings and sustains salvation when no human intercessor is found. That prophecy was proclaimed by John the Baptist in trumpet tones as a prophecy of the Messiah, proving that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the Lamb who takes away sin. It was attested at His baptism by the Spirit descending like a dove and the Father's voice, so that the rulers had no excuse for denying John's baptism or questioning Christ's authority.

The following words clothe Him with righteousness as a breastplate and salvation as a helmet, and with vengeance and zeal as a cloak to find a ransom for prisoners of hope. They describe Him repaying fury to adversaries and recompense to enemies even to the islands, so that the Lord's name and glory are feared from the west to the rising of the sun. When the enemy comes in like a flood, He raises a standard by His Spirit and protects His people, acting with zeal and judgment against His enemies. The Redeemer comes to Zion and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, with His Spirit and words remaining with His people.

This saving work is the work His people are to do by faith in preaching good tidings, binding up broken hearts, proclaiming liberty to captives, and comforting mourners. It is fulfilled when they take the appointed place Christ assigns and reveal God's love by reaching others. It was applied to the Lord's work among His people at the General Conference, where the deliverance described as armed with righteousness and salvation, repaying adversaries, and raising a standard against the enemy through His Spirit was seen in operation.

Living the Intercession

Christ seeing that none would intercede for and rescue sinners and bringing salvation by His own arm and His own righteousness is both example and call to urgent, faith-filled intercession for others that can help save souls. His righteousness does not cover up the sinner's wrongdoing, but His integrity and hatred of sin move Him to make a determined effort to awaken sinners to the evil of sin in order to save them. The Lord Jesus Himself seeks souls and by His own arm brings salvation, without men interposing themselves between souls and God to guide His arm and hand. He saves directly in order to educate those He saves to have confidence in Him as a child has confidence in a parent.

When there is no human eye to pity and no human hand stretched out to save, God's own arm brings salvation and upholds the perishing. God alone brings back His lost sheep when those who claim to be His children make no self-denying, self-sacrificing effort to seek the lost, but like the priest and the Levite pass by on the other side, disheartening and discouraging instead of sympathizing and restoring. When Christ is working for a soul, not imputing his sins to him but imputing His righteousness to him, neglect or discouraging words and acts toward that soul will be required at the hands of those who do them and requited as injustice and un-Christlikeness. When there is no man to reach out an arm in tender Christlike pity and compassion, Christ's own arm brings salvation, and the lesson is to lean the whole weight upon Christ while on trial forming a character after the divine similitude. That leaning means wearing His yoke and lifting His burden and learning meekness and lowliness of heart from Him to find rest unto the soul, instead of distrusting the Saviour when brethren fail to encourage and help.

Christ, one with the Father and the brightness of His glory, beheld humanity in wretchedness and sinfulness, souls tainted with corruption, depraved and deformed, knowing the fallen race tends more to evil than to good and practices hateful vices. The heavenly host looked upon the world as undeserving of the sympathy and love of God, and angels marveled that Christ should undertake to save man in his lost and hopeless condition and that God could tolerate a race so foul with sin as to be a blot upon creation, seeing no room for love. Christ does not leave men to perish in degradation but sees that souls must perish unless an arm strong to deliver is reached forth to save, and He comes to bridge the gulf that transgression made separating man from God. That same sight requires decided efforts to save the neglected rather than leaving them to perish by the wayside, including decided efforts to save the neglected colored race.