ISAIAH’S END-TIME TIMELINE

Isaiah’s End-time Timeline Chapter 54

THE HEAVENLY CITY / NEW JERUSALEM

Galatians 4:22-27, Hebrews 3:1, 11:10,16, 12:22, Revelation 21-22

Isaiah 54 opens with the prophetic result of Isaiah 53:10,11 wherein the Father was pleased in the offering of the Soul of His Servant/Son. That is to say the “seed” of His Servant will be His justified many for whom He died.

Thus the Words following, “Sing, o barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.” [Isaiah 54:1]

This verse, and this chapter’s prophetic intent, has in view “Jerusalem which is above”. We have Paul’s Spirit inspired word’s of Galatians 4:22-27 wherein he quotes Isaiah 54:1 as the basis for his allegorical teaching on the 2 covenants: Hagar answering to Mount Sinai and the earthly Jerusalem; and Sarah to Mount Zion, and the heavenly Jerusalem.

As Hagar, a bond woman, brought forth a son to Abraham, and yet not an heir, but a servant; so Sinai, the allegorical Hagar, brought forth to God a son, that is a servant, that is a carnal people. The children of Hagar, that is to say the children of the Mosaic Law, answer to earthly Jerusalem, whose children always are in bondage under the curse of God. But Sarah, being the mother of the child of promise, answers to the New Testament Gospel, and the heavenly Jerusalem. Which is the abode of the overcoming son of God. [Described in the Book of Revelation; last 2 Chapters]

The seed of promise was announced, but for a long time she was barren.

SO the Messiah was promised, but for a long time He did not appear. Instead of Him came the Law and her children. This allegorically then answers to Hagar the bondwoman being given to Abraham. Which corresponds to Paul’s statement about the question of, “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” So it is then understood that all the Law’s children were Hagar’s; children of the fleshly kind, born under the yoke of the bondage of the Mosaic Law, unable to be the heirs of God. (As Paul describes that marriage elsewhere. “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in the newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Romans 7:5-6)

These children, bound to the Law, can only answer to earthly Jerusalem, and its material blessings of promise, as the Law could afford nothing more as heirs of the flesh. Now in God’s appointed time, “Sarah” brought forth the Seed, who obtained the promises. Through whom the good news proclaims one may die, and be freed from the bondage of the curse of the Law. And be born again; not after the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by the Spirit of God unto son-ship, joint heirs and co-rulers with Jesus Christ. This is the prophesied reality of the inheritance proclaimed in Isaiah 54. Also, Paul’s revealed “Jerusalem which is above” in Galatians 4 & Hebrews 12:22 and depicted by John in Revelation 21 and 22. “….the holy city new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

This city now being present with God, and presently being prepared by Jesus Christ, answers to the living faith of God’s true sons of the promise. “But now they desire a better (inheritance, a better city), that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” [Hebrews 11:16] And again, “For he looked for the city that hath the foundations (those described in Isaiah 54 and Revelation) whose builder and maker is God.” [Hebrews 11:10] It is to this future fulfillment the prophet looks, and calls its heirs to rejoice. A long time she is barren, now her numbers are more than the children of the Law. Now her Seed is innumerable. “After this (a period of time after the numbering of Israel), I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, with white robes and palms in their hands.” [Revelation 7:9]

And as in the allegory, the children of the bondwoman are “cast out”.  In reality, the distinction being that in the blessedness of the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the comparative few children married then to the Law of their new Covenant, and subjects of it, will have the earthly security, rest and preeminence but none of the Millennial inheritance in being raised up into heavenly places with Jesus. That is to say none of the first-borns’ reward of co-ruling from this world’s heavenly realm initially for a thousand years. (Many of those first born whose names were long since written in heaven, who had suffered for Christ, and have not yet obtained unto the promise, as they wait in Hades/the intermediate place of the dead, for the call upwards.) [Hebrews 6:17-20, Ephesians 2:6,7, Revelation 20:4-6]

The eternal abode of promised inheritance is as sure to the faithful church of God, though it may linger, as His is oath to Noah to not destroy the earth by flood again.

The  remaining Words of Isaiah 54:13-17 continue the theme of the prophecy to the seed of the promised Seed. “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord…” This the Lord references in regard to the new man in John 6:44, as there is no way unto Jesus Christ save the Father draw him. So all that will be found in Him in the resurrection of the just, (those who He will raise up at the last day/ the first resurrection) first must be drawn and then taught by Him in this present life. That is to say, they must “…mind the the things of the Spirit”, not the things of the flesh. [This is so vitally expounded in Galatians and Romans 6-8]

Isaiah 54:16,17 Those who gather against you will not do so at my initiation. So the great destroyer, the anti-Christ will gather and destroy, and when My indignation is accomplished, he himself shall be destroyed. In that he says, “….they shall fall for thy sake.…No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper…”  This is the heritage of the Lord and His overcoming seed…. “Who shall (successfully) lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect (people). It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who ALSO maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long: we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:33-39]

Jesus Christ, having fulfilled the Law, and kept it for those who would be born of the Spirit/spirit and overcoming sons of God, are loosed from its curse, by the minding of the Spirit/spirit. His first reward for doers of righteousness then is millennial. But these look yet beyond the Millennium for the fullness of their inheritance; the eternal reward. In that they look forward to the new heavens and the new earth, unto the promise of inhabiting the New Jerusalem. (Now “desolate” indeed.) And rejoice in the sharing in its glory, and the promised immortality manifest; the waters of the river of life being their drink and the fruits of the tree of Life being their food. Therein, they will abide forever.

It is to this City the prophet speaks: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left: and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.” Then shall the Scripture be fulfilled: “Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.” (The type being seen in Matthew 27:52,53 “….and went into the holy city…”)

This great general assembly being that of Revelation 7:9-17 seen at the Mount. Revelation 21 and 22 sets before us the fuller understanding of that which is set before us, in that Holy City is described as the Lamb’s Bride, the residence of God and the Lamb, and the Garden of perfection. It is in these chapters that we discover that the nations eternally reside upon the new earth, in the blessings of Abraham’s Seed/seed, as they bring their glory and honor into that great City. [Revelation 21:24-26] Where the resident servant sons of God are the priests in service. (Typed in Isaiah 61:5,6) That they shall rule and reign for ever and ever, (Revelation 22:5) declares a distinction between men: rulers and subjects. The residents of the City are the rulers of the nations transferred from the old earth to the new earth. Albeit there will be kings of the nations upon the new earth, (Revelation 21:24) but they will be subjects of the kings of the New Jerusalem, far inferior then are they to these kings of kings. These kings of kings reign over all others as they have in a peculiar way been made in the resurrection into a more intimate likeness of Christ. So as the seed of Abraham ruled over the Gentile nations in the Millennial age from earthly Jerusalem, so does New Jerusalem rule over the nations of the new earth. [Hebrews 2:5]

The Millennium answers to the earth while the great judgement flood waters abate, while Noah and family abode in the Ark. The new heavens and earth speak/answers to God bidding them come forth as they now step into the eternal creation. The Tabernacle and Temple of the heavens is not needed anymore. The offering for the clean and unclean is eternal. The City and its inhabitants is to Jesus, the 2^nd Adam, what Eve was to the first Adam. Having had all mankind pass before Jesus, He discerns the hearts of each, and gives each worthy one their suitable new name. Only those fit as His companion will reside with Him. The Grace of Jesus embraces both classes of people. The City set before us is the final resting place of men of faith. [See Hebrews 11]  Only the sanctified will be found to be inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem. And although the Law was not of faith, but of works, yet there will be those who obtained a good report under it who obtained it by faith.

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