When Wrath Turns to Song Text: Isaiah 12:1-3
Introduction: The Grammar of True Gratitude
We live in an age that is desperate for comfort but allergic to the diagnosis that makes comfort necessary. Our therapeutic culture wants to speak of healing without mentioning disease, of forgiveness without acknowledging sin, and of salvation without naming the wrath from which we must be saved. The result is a cheap, flimsy gratitude for nothing in particular. It is a thankfulness that has no weight because it has no cost. We want the song without the strength, and the strength without the salvation.
But the Bible does not trade in such shallow sentimentalities. The joy of the Scriptures is a robust and rugged thing, forged in the fires of divine judgment and grace. The song of the redeemed is not the happy tune of the innocent, but the thunderous anthem of the pardoned. It is a song that can only be sung on the other side of a great deliverance.
This short chapter in Isaiah is one of those songs. It is a hymn for "that day," the day of the Lord, when the Messiah, the Branch of Jesse described in the previous chapter, has come and established His kingdom. This is the songbook of the eschatological church. And what is the first note? It is a clear-eyed recognition of God's righteous anger. Before you can get to the comfort, you must first reckon with the wrath. This chapter teaches us the grammar of true gratitude, a grammar that our world has forgotten, and that the church must recover if her song is to have any meaning.
The Text
Then you will say in that day, "I will give thanks to You, O Yahweh; For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, And You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not dread; For Yah, Yahweh Himself, is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation." Therefore you will joyously draw water From the springs of salvation.
(Isaiah 12:1-3 LSB)
The Foundation of Comfort (v. 1)
The song begins not with a denial of God's anger, but with a confession of it, and a celebration of its removal.
"Then you will say in that day, 'I will give thanks to You, O Yahweh; For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, And You comfort me.'" (Isaiah 12:1)
Notice the sequence. The thanksgiving is not because God was never angry. The thanksgiving is precisely because He was angry, and that righteous anger has been propitiated. It has been turned away. This is the logic of the gospel. God's wrath against sin is not a celestial temper tantrum; it is the settled, holy, and necessary opposition of a perfectly just God to all rebellion and filth. To pretend this wrath does not exist is to create a god in our own image, a sentimental grandfather who would never punish anyone for anything, which is to say, a god who does not love justice and is therefore not good.
The modern church often tries to skip this verse. It wants to jump straight to the comfort without acknowledging the fury we deserved. But you cannot have the comfort of the gospel without the terror of the law. You cannot appreciate the shelter until you have felt the storm. The redeemed soul does not say, "I thank you, God, that you were never really mad." No, the redeemed soul says, "I thank you, God, that your fierce and holy anger, which I fully deserved, has been turned away from me."
And where was it turned? It was turned aside and poured out in full measure upon the head of Jesus Christ at Calvary. The cross is the place where the anger of God against His people was exhausted. Because He drank the cup of wrath, we are given the cup of comfort. This is not a mere mood swing on God's part. It is a legal, covenantal transaction. His anger is turned because His justice has been satisfied. Therefore, the comfort He gives is not a flimsy platitude; it is as solid as the righteousness of Christ.
The Personal Possession of God (v. 2)
From the action of God, the song moves to the identity of God. He is not just the one who saves; He is salvation.
"Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not dread; For Yah, Yahweh Himself, is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation." (Isaiah 12:2 LSB)
This is a profound declaration. Salvation is not an abstract force, a commodity, or a process. Salvation is a Person. "God is my salvation." The result of this realization is the death of fear. "I will trust and not dread." Trust is the active response to who God is, and the absence of dread is the emotional fruit. If God Himself is your salvation, then what is left to fear? If the sovereign Lord of the universe has taken up your cause, who can possibly stand against you?
And then Isaiah reaches back into Israel's history, into their foundational salvation story. He quotes directly from the Song of Moses, sung on the banks of the Red Sea after the destruction of Pharaoh's army. "For Yah, Yahweh Himself, is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation" (Exodus 15:2). This is not an accident. Isaiah is teaching us that God's character is consistent. The God who saved Israel from Egypt is the same God who will bring about the great, final salvation in "that day." The greater Exodus, accomplished by the Messiah, will rhyme with the first.
God is both the strength for the battle and the song after the victory. He is the power by which we are saved and the object of our praise once we are saved. He is the means and the end. He does not simply give us strength; He is our strength. He does not simply give us a reason to sing; He is our song. This is a radical God-centeredness that obliterates all forms of self-righteousness and man-centered religion. We contribute nothing to our salvation but the sin that made it necessary.
The Joyful Obligation (v. 3)
The first two verses are declarations of faith. This third verse is the "therefore" of the Christian life. It is the consequence and the continuing action.
"Therefore you will joyously draw water From the springs of salvation." (Isaiah 12:3 LSB)
Because God's anger is turned away, and because He Himself is our salvation, strength, and song, therefore a new reality is established. We are brought to the wells, the springs of salvation. Notice, it is not a stagnant pool. It is a spring, constantly flowing, fresh, and inexhaustible.
And what is our duty at these springs? We are to "joyously draw water." This is not a grim, dutiful march to the well. It is a delightful privilege. The bucket we carry is joy. This speaks of the means of grace that God has provided for His people. We draw this living water from the Scriptures, from prayer, from the fellowship of the saints, from the Lord's Table. These are the springs from which we drink deeply of the salvation God has become for us.
This imagery is picked up by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. To the woman at the well, He offered "living water" that would become in her "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). And on the last day of the feast, He stood and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:37-38). Jesus identifies Himself as the source, the very spring of salvation that Isaiah prophesied.
The Christian life is not one of sitting by the well, admiring it from a distance. It is a life of active, joyful, constant drawing. A dehydrated Christian is a contradiction in terms, for we have been given free and joyful access to an infinite spring. If you are spiritually parched, it is not because the well has run dry. It is because you have neglected to draw.
Conclusion: Drink Deeply
This short song contains the entire logic of our faith. We begin as objects of God's righteous wrath. Through the finished work of Christ, that wrath is turned away. We embrace God Himself as our salvation, our strength, and our song. And the result is a life of joyful, continual partaking of the grace He provides.
This is the pattern. It begins with a right understanding of who God is, holy and just. It moves to a right understanding of what He has done in Christ, satisfying that justice. And it results in a life of joyful obedience and communion. You cannot reverse the order. You cannot start with the joyful drawing if you have never acknowledged the wrath you deserved.
So the question for us is simple. Have you learned this song? Do you know the grammar of gratitude? Have you personally confessed that God's anger against you was just, and have you fled to Christ as the one who turned it away? Is God your salvation? Is He your strength and your song? If so, then take up your bucket of joy and come to the springs. The water is cool, it is life-giving, and it will never run dry. Therefore, with joy, you shall draw.