The Great Reversal: Gospel Comfort for a World at War Text: Isaiah 40:1-2
Introduction: The God of Abrupt Grace
We come now to the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, and the shift in tone is as abrupt and glorious as the sunrise. For thirty-nine chapters, we have been steeped in the language of judgment, of covenant lawsuits, of warnings against idolatry and political foolishness. The prophet has been an iron file against the hard hearts of Judah. He has pronounced woes and promised desolation. The nation is stiff-necked, and God has promised the stiff medicine of Babylonian exile. The final verses of chapter thirty-nine leave Hezekiah with the grim assurance that his own sons will be carried off to serve as eunuchs in a foreign court. And then, with no transition at all, the thunder stops, and a voice from heaven speaks a word that changes everything: "Comfort."
This is how our God operates. His grace is not a gentle, trickling stream that you can slowly get used to. It is a flash flood. It is an ambush. Just when the logic of sin and consequence has run its course to its bleak and inevitable conclusion, which is death, God interrupts the proceedings with a verdict of His own. This is not the comfort of a soft-headed deity who has decided to overlook sin. No, this is the comfort of a holy God who has decided to deal with sin, to exhaust it, to pay for it, and to remove it. This is not cheap grace; it is the most expensive thing in the universe.
We live in an age that is desperate for comfort, but it seeks comfort in all the wrong places. Our secular world offers the comfort of distraction, the comfort of self-medication, the comfort of therapeutic lies that tell you you're fine just the way you are. But this is like offering a cough drop to a man with terminal cancer. It is a damnable malpractice. The only true comfort, the only comfort that can reach the heart and not just the skin, is the comfort that comes from the God who has authoritatively dealt with the root of all our misery, which is our sin. Isaiah 40 is the beginning of the great gospel announcement that the war is over, the debt is paid, and the King is coming.
These first two verses are a command given to the prophets, to the preachers, to the church. We are commanded to be conduits of this divine comfort. And we must understand the basis of this comfort, or we will be peddling nothing more than sentimental hogwash. The comfort is grounded in the finished work of God. It is not grounded in our feelings, our circumstances, or our worthiness. It is grounded in three declarations: the warfare is over, the iniquity is pardoned, and the debt has been doubly paid. This is the bedrock of our faith and the only hope for a world drowning in its own despair.
The Text
"Comfort, O comfort My people," says your God.
"Speak to the heart of Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has been fulfilled, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received from the hand of Yahweh Double for all her sins."
(Isaiah 40:1-2 LSB)
A Command to Comfort (v. 1)
The chapter opens with a direct, repeated command from God Himself.
"'Comfort, O comfort My people,' says your God." (Isaiah 40:1)
Notice first who is speaking: "says your God." This is a covenantal declaration. The God who is about to offer this staggering comfort is not a generic, abstract deity. He is your God. He is the God who has bound Himself to this people by a covenant of blood. Despite their rebellion, despite the impending exile, He has not disowned them. The relationship, though strained by sin, is not broken. He still calls them "My people." This is the foundation of everything. Comfort is not possible apart from a covenant relationship with the living God. All other comforts are fleeting illusions.
The command is repeated: "Comfort, O comfort." This repetition is for emphasis. It is not a suggestion. It is an urgent, forceful command. God is not interested in His people remaining in a state of perpetual gloom and despair, even a despair brought on by their own sin. The time for mourning has a designated end. The goal of divine judgment is not ultimately punitive but restorative. God tears down in order to build up. He wounds in order to heal. And when the time for healing comes, He commands that the message of comfort be proclaimed insistently, relentlessly.
This is a standing order for the church in every age. We are in the business of comfort. But we must be clear about what this comfort is. It is not a pat on the back. It is not telling people what they want to hear. It is the declaration of what God has done. Our task is to take the objective, historical realities of the gospel and press them upon the hearts of God's people. We are to find the downcast, the guilt-ridden, the weary, and we are to say to them, on the authority of God Himself, "Your God commands you to be comforted."
The Content of Comfort (v. 2)
Verse 2 unpacks the basis for this comfort. It is not a vague feeling but a threefold declaration of fact.
"Speak to the heart of Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has been fulfilled, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received from the hand of Yahweh Double for all her sins." (Isaiah 40:2 LSB)
The command is to "speak to the heart." This is a Hebrew idiom that means to speak tenderly, persuasively, intimately. It's the language a man would use to win back his estranged wife (cf. Hosea 2:14). This is not a public harangue; it is a personal, wooing appeal. God wants this message to get past the ears and into the very center of Jerusalem's being. And what is the message? It is a threefold announcement of cosmic victory.
First, "her warfare has been fulfilled." The word for warfare can also mean "hard service" or "time of suffering." The period of judgment, the exile in Babylon, is a fixed term. God has set the boundaries of their suffering. It is not endless. This points to a great truth: for the people of God, all suffering is disciplinary, not punitive, and it is always temporary. But this has its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. Our great warfare is with sin, death, and the devil. On the cross, Jesus Christ fulfilled that warfare. He met the enemy in the open field and decisively conquered him. As He said from the cross, "It is finished!" The war has been won. We now fight in a mop-up operation, but the decisive victory is secured. This is our comfort.
Second, "her iniquity has been removed." The Hebrew word here is pardoned or paid off. This is the language of justification. The problem of Jerusalem's sin has not been ignored; it has been dealt with. The guilt has been expunged. How? Isaiah himself will tell us in chapter 53: "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities... and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6). The comfort we are to proclaim is the comfort of full and final atonement. God does not forgive by forgetting. He forgives by punishing our sin in the person of His Son. Therefore, He can be both "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). Our sin is not just covered; it is removed.
Third, "she has received from the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins." This is a phrase that has confused many, but it is a glorious declaration of grace. It does not mean she has been punished twice as much as she deserved. That would contradict the previous statement that her iniquity is pardoned. Rather, this is the language of ancient law and covenant. When a debt was paid in full, the scroll recording the debt would be folded over and nailed to the doorpost of the debtor, signifying that the account was settled "doubly," or completely. Paul picks up this very idea in Colossians 2:14, where Christ has "canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." The "double" is not double punishment, but double grace. It is the grace of full satisfaction. It is God saying, "Your debt is so completely paid in my Son that it is as though it has been paid twice over." It is the comfort of a canceled debt, displayed publicly for all to see at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: The End of the War
These two verses, spoken to a nation on the brink of exile, are a powerful summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are the foundation of all Christian hope and the antidote to all worldly despair. Our world is at war. People are at war with God, at war with each other, and at war within themselves. And the world's solutions are nothing but temporary cease-fires that are doomed to fail.
The gospel does not offer a cease-fire. It announces that the war is over. The decisive battle has been fought and won by a substitute champion. Jesus Christ has fulfilled the hard service. He has absorbed the punishment for our iniquity. He has paid the debt in full, and God the Father has publicly declared His satisfaction by raising Him from the dead.
Therefore, the command to us remains the same: "Comfort, O comfort My people." We are to speak to the heart of a broken and weary world. We are not to offer them cheap platitudes or psychological tricks. We are to announce the facts. The war is over. Your sin is pardoned. The debt is paid. This is not a message we whisper in a corner. We are to "call out to her." It is a proclamation. It is the announcement of the great reversal. The age of judgment has given way to the age of grace. The exile is ending, and the King is returning to build His kingdom. And because this is true, because God has said it, we can have a comfort that is as solid and immovable as the God who gives it.