True Heart of Worship
Church of God (Seventh Day) Independent
Church of God (Seventh Day) Independent
Isaiah says something that doesn't seem to make sense. He is giving us a glimpse into what eternal life will be like on the New Earth. After Jesus comes, there will be a 1,000-year period called the Millennial rule. After that comes Judgment Day. After that, we live on the New Earth for eternity. Then there will be no suffering or death, no one will grow old, and there will be no marriages.
That's the time that Isaiah is describing, but he describes children growing up, growing old, and dying. That doesn't seem to make sense.
No longer will there be in it an infant who lives only a few days, or an old person who does not live out his days; for the youth will die at the age of a hundred, and the one who does not reach the age of a hundred will be thought accursed. (Isaiah 65:20)
How do we make sense of what Isaiah says? We will have spirit bodies at that time, not the physical bodies we now have. There will be no marriages. How would children be born? Who would raise them? How and why would they die? Why would you refer to a 100-year-old person as a youth?
Isaiah is thinking of children in a way that we don't - but should. These verses are part of a prophecy, which means the words are originating from God, not from Isaiah. As prophecies often do, this one is speaking figuratively, not literally.
To get to Isaiah's point of view, we need to ask some questions. The first is: Why do we have children? You might answer with the reasons you had for having children. That isn't what we're looking for. Better stated, the question is: What is the purpose of having children, as God sees it?
First we need to understand that we are creators, the creating children of a creating God. It is in our nature to create things. When we create, we mimic our God. And we mimic our God all the time. Most things that we do involve creating. Growing plants for food and growing plants for beauty are as much creating as building a home to live in. If we don't do those things directly, we go to work to create something for someone in order to have the money to pay someone else to do those things for us. Even me, now. Here I sit creating a study about the creative nature of mankind. Even our bodies are constantly creating new cells to replace the ones that die.
When we are living on the New Earth, that won't change. We will still have that nature that wants to create.
Some people have imagined us just wandering around all the time. That doesn't sound like us. In fact, having too much time on our hands has been the source of problems - though that wouldn't be the case on the New Earth. Isaiah is telling us what we will do. In turn, that tells us some things about who we are and how we should live.
Life on the new earth will be so different from our current lives that we have no understanding of what we might create or how we might create it.
When we create something now, we should glorify God for it and glorify God with it. We don't always do that. Instead we often glorify ourselves and worship what we have created. We do this by telling ourselves how wonderful and skillful we are for having created it. Everything that we are, including every skill that we have, comes from God. To glorify ourselves is to steal glory that belongs to God.
Though most people probably don't understand it, God's purpose for us having children is for us to create things that will glorify God. We give birth to them; we shape them as best we can as they grow. They are people, though, just as we are people. So we don't have complete control over what they will become, but we do the best we can, or that's what we should be doing.
Now we are ready to understand what Isaiah is saying. He is using raising children as a metaphor. We raise children now; on the New Earth, we will raise metaphorical children. While we can't understand the how and what of that, the people on the New Earth will be creating things that glorify God - but not literal children.
No longer will there be in it an infant who lives only a few days, Or an old person who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of a hundred, And the one who does not reach the age of a hundred Will be thought accursed (Isaiah 65:20)
Isaiah is saying that none of these creations will exist for only a short time - as children sometimes do. Before the advent of modern medicine, it was common for children to die young. Isaiah is saying that the things we create will not be like that. Each will exist as long as it should. If they come to an end after 100 years, they will be considered to have died young. Only the weakest will end younger than that.
What can we take home from this?
We previously discussed that we will have spiritual bodies at that time and be living on the New Earth. These verses give us a glimpse into what that life will be like. Now we have some insight into what we will do with our time.
We've also seen that prophecy often looks at things in ways we don't, but should. Through them, we sometimes see God's view of things.
Parents have a God given goal in raising their children. They are not only doing it to fulfill some biological or psychological need. They are doing it to create something that will glorify God. Of course the children get a say in what happens.
From that, we have an insight we can use in our daily lives. Everything we do should be done to glorify God.