Isaiah 56:1-8

Isaiah 56:1-8 NIV

This is what the Lord says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed. Blessed is the one who does this— the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.” For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant— to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The Sovereign Lord declares— he who gathers the exiles of Israel: “I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.”

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Isaiah 56 begins the third part of the book. This material, scholars say, was written after the exile in the restoration period of Old Testament history. The message is to those whom the law excluded from entry to the temple, eunuchs and gentiles. While they were free to worship outside the temple's inner courts, they were not allowed to come inside with the Israelites. You might remember the ruckus at Saint Paul's arrest in Jerusalem was around the issue of a Greek in the temple.

Acts 21:27-29a NIV

Some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.”

The law of Moses restricts temple worship to the physically and religiously clean. A leper could not enter the temple. A person with a rash could not enter. A eunuch, whose testicles were crushed or cut off, would never be allowed to enter the temple. No person with blemishes or injury could enter and defile the holy place.

Deuteronomy 23:1 NIV

No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.

In Jesus' day the temple had signs warning foreigners that they can not enter the inner courts of the temple. Trespassing meant a penalty of death!

Here in Isaiah 55 God is overturning His own law. He is promising eunuchs and gentiles total inclusion in the life of God's holy people. Not only will the returning exiles worship and serve the Lord at His temple, so will all those who keep the law and love the Lord. At least this is how I am reading Isaiah.

Isaiah could be using hyperbole, for clearly the Jews leading Israel's religion in the first century did not abandon the legal restrictions on who could enter the temple. I read Isaiah 56 more radically. I believe God is throwing open wide the doors God's house to any who keep Sabbath and observe the laws of the covenant through Moses. To have a memorial in the temple walls is an incredible claim! For only the Lord is exalted in the temple, and yet God promises eunuchs who keep wholly the religious code to have such an honor.

In the time after the exile God is gathering a true Israel, a nation not defined strictly by bloodlines to Jacob's 12 sons, but defined by holiness and godliness. Here in Isaiah 56 I see the church of Jesus Christ foreshadowed. For the apostle Paul was a devout Jew, a Pharisee, a teacher of the law of Moses, yet he understood that through the blood of Christ all are made holy, all who are in Christ are included in God's people.

Ephesians 2:19-22 NIV

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

In Christ the dividing wall that stands between The Jew and gentiles, between clean and unclean, is demolished. God is making a new man, one filled with the Spirit of Christ. It is Christ alone who makes us holy.

What are the blemishes that stand between you and God? What keeps you from drawing near to the Lord and joining in celebration with God's people? Remember that your sins are washed away in the atoning blood of Christ. Do not think yourself unclean or unfit to stand before the Lord. Remember the word of the Lord to Peter as he struggled with the notion of accepting gentiles and their unclean foods.

Acts 10:15 NIV

The voice (from heaven) spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise! You are welcome at the Lord's table!