The Evangelical Universalist Forum

JRP's Exegetical Compilation: Isaiah 60

Evangelical Universalism
#1

This post is part of my Exegetical Compilation project, which can be found here.

Isaiah 60 has a number of interesting statements on God’s intentions for the goal of His punishments, and those goals being fulfilled sooner or later in the Day of YHWH to come.

In regard to rebel Israel, for example, verse 10; “For in My wrath I struck you, and in My favor I have had compassion on you.” Even more interesting at verse 15; “Whereas you have been forsaken and hated with no one passing through”, a condition thanks to God’s own punishment, which elsewhere God described in terms suggesting final permanence such as “everlasting” and “from generation to generation”, now instead God “will make you an everlasting pride, a joy from generation to generation”.

Also, this chapter is directly echoed at the end of Rev 21, thus confirming that the kings of the earth who are coming into the city in the latter text are the former rebels against God and persecutors of Israel who have renounced their rebellions and are reconciling in humility.

Members are invited to post further or alternate interpretations and observations on these verses below, including links to threads elsewhere. I’ve added some important qualifications to the exegesis in a comment below.

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#2

To my mind this shows (above else) that the Bible can be contradictory or very sloppy.

But I think that the universalist interpretation might not be worse than the Calvinist and Arminian ones.

Cheers.

#3

Eh. {shrug} :slight_smile:

To be fair, I wouldn’t push this particular chapter as explicitly teaching universal salvation. It includes some important testimony for adding up to that, but strictly speaking it might only be talking about penitent survivors of punitive action which killed a bunch of other rebels who won’t be given an opportunity to repent. Still, the switch in the application of terms, from describing Israel earlier and elsewhere as being desolate with terms commonly translated “everlasting”, to describing their blessing after their repentance after their “everlasting” punitive state, is at least curious. (I’m pretty sure I ran across this the first time while checking out a list of scriptures where OLAM or AHD in Hebrew, or “eonian” in the Greek LXX, cannot mean everlasting.)

#4

With all due respect, Jason, your exegesis on Isaiah 60 is questionable. I get the opposite from the chapter which you have adduced…

These Kings are spoken of as repenting and bowing their knee to Christ:

These same Kings are spoken of in relation to the Kingdom of Revelation - the repentant ones. Again, that alone does not negate universalism, but it does question some scriptures that are used to prove (or justify) universalism.

#5

Steve,

You did notice my followup post I added, where I said much the same thing as you did, right? :wink: Where I wrote “To be fair, I wouldn’t push this particular chapter as explicitly teaching universal salvation. It includes some important testimony for adding up to that, but strictly speaking it might only be talking about penitent survivors of punitive action which killed a bunch of other rebels who won’t be given an opportunity to repent.”

#6

Sorry, I Missed that… Thanks