The Texture of Unmitigated Joy Text: Isaiah 65:17-25
Introduction: The Failure of Man's Utopias
Every godless political project of the last two centuries has been, at its heart, a pathetic attempt to replicate the promises of this chapter. The secularist wants to build the New Jerusalem, but he wants to do it without God, without the cross, and without forgiveness. He wants the fruit of cosmic peace without the root of the Prince of Peace. And so he promises a workers' paradise and delivers a gulag. He promises liberation and delivers license, which always ends in slavery. He promises a world without tears and delivers a world without meaning, which is the greatest reason for tears.
Man's utopian dreams are always a cheap knockoff of a biblical promise. They are a parody. They take the glorious vision that Isaiah lays out before us, a vision of a new heavens and a new earth, and they try to achieve it with legislation, or revolution, or education, or technology. But all they are doing is rearranging the furniture in a condemned building. The foundation is rotten. The problem is not with the environment; the problem is with the man. You cannot have a new world without a new man, and you cannot have a new man without the God-man, Jesus Christ.
This passage in Isaiah is not a vague, ethereal dream about floating on clouds. It is a robust, earthy, tangible description of the consummation of Christ's kingdom. It is the blueprint of the restoration of all things. And we must be careful not to treat it as such. Many Christians, particularly those of a dispensationalist bent, read this and immediately quarantine it to a far-off millennium that has little to do with us now. They see it as a description of the foyer of heaven, something to be enjoyed only after we escape this doomed and sinking world. But this is a profound misreading. These promises are the very substance of the gospel's power. The new creation did not begin in a vacuum; it broke into our history at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The kingdom is here, and it is growing, and this passage describes what that kingdom looks like when it finally comes to full flower.
The Text
"For behold, I am creating a new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart. But be joyful and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing And her people for joy. I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be joyful in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the voice of crying. No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not fulfill his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred, And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed. They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They will not build and another inhabit; They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, Or bear children for terror; For they are the seed of those blessed by Yahweh, And their offspring with them. And it will be that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil nor act corruptly in all My holy mountain," says Yahweh.
(Isaiah 65:17-25 LSB)
A World Rebooted (v. 17)
The vision begins with the most audacious promise imaginable.
"For behold, I am creating a new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart." (Isaiah 65:17)
God does not promise to patch up the old world. He is not a cosmic handyman with a roll of duct tape. The promise is for a new creation. This is not annihilation, but transformation. It is the same principle as our own resurrection. The body that is sown in corruption is raised in incorruption (1 Cor. 15:42). It is this body, but glorified. In the same way, this is our world, but glorified. The Apostle Peter tells us the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat, but we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:12-13). This is a refining fire, not a destroying one. It purges the cosmos of all the stain of sin and rebellion.
And the result is so glorious that "the former things will not be remembered." This is not a case of divine amnesia. It is the healing of all trauma. The memory of sin, pain, and loss will not be a source of present grief. It will be like a healed scar on a resurrected body, a testament to the power of the Healer. The glory of the redemption will be so overwhelming that it will completely eclipse the misery of the fall. The joy of the new creation will be so profound that the sorrows of the old will have no emotional power over us. They will be remembered only as the dark backdrop against which the brilliance of God's grace is displayed.
The Sound of Heaven (vv. 18-19)
The emotional texture of this new creation is one of pure, unadulterated joy.
"But be joyful and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing And her people for joy. I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be joyful in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the voice of crying." (Isaiah 65:18-19)
The central activity in the new creation is rejoicing. This is not a command to put on a happy face. It is the inevitable result of being in the presence of God's finished work. The New Jerusalem, which is the Church, the Bride of Christ, is created for the very purpose of rejoicing. Her people are created for joy.
But the most staggering part of this promise is that God Himself joins in the celebration. "I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be joyful in My people." This is the heart of the covenant. God does not save us and then tolerate us. He delights in us. Our joy is a participation in His joy. This is what the prophet Zephaniah meant when he said, "Yahweh your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy" (Zephaniah 3:17). The end of all things is a joyful God dwelling with a joyful people.
And because God is rejoicing, the sound of sorrow is banished forever. Weeping and crying are the soundtrack of the fallen world. They are the natural response to sin, death, and separation. But in the new creation, the reasons for those tears are removed. As John sees in his vision, God "will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4).
The Curse in Full Retreat (vv. 20-23)
The next section gives us concrete, earthy examples of what this joy looks like. It is the systematic reversal of the curse of Genesis 3.
"No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not fulfill his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred, And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed." (Isaiah 65:20)
Death itself, the last enemy, is being disarmed and pushed to the absolute margins. The tragedy of infant mortality is gone. Everyone will live a full, long life. The language here is a form of sanctified hyperbole. Dying at a hundred years old will be like dying as a youth, and to fall short of that would be a sign of a curse, which in a world of pure blessing, is impossible. This is a poetic way of saying that the reign of death is over. Life flourishes. This is the opposite of the culture of death that surrounds us, which sees children as a burden and old age as a problem to be managed.
Next, the curse on labor is reversed.
"They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They will not build and another inhabit; They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands." (Isaiah 65:21-22)
In the fallen world, work is marked by futility and theft. The curse in Deuteronomy threatened that Israel would build houses and not live in them, plant vineyards and not enjoy the fruit, because of their disobedience (Deut. 28:30). Here, that curse is undone. There is economic security. There is stability. Your labor will be fruitful, and you will enjoy the fruit of it. This is not a promise of lazy leisure; it is a promise of satisfying, meaningful, and productive work. The phrase "wear out the work of their hands" means they will fully enjoy the things they have made for a long, long time.
And the curse on childbearing and generational continuity is also undone.
"They will not labor in vain, Or bear children for terror; For they are the seed of those blessed by Yahweh, And their offspring with them." (Isaiah 65:23)
The curse on Eve included pain in childbearing (Gen. 3:16), but the curse extends further. In a fallen world, parents often bear children only to see them fall into sin, or be taken by war, famine, or plague. They bear children "for terror" or "for calamity." But in the new creation, the covenant promises are fulfilled perfectly. The blessing of God flows down through the generations. Children are born into blessing, and they walk in that blessing. This is the ultimate fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Restored Fellowship and Cosmic Peace (vv. 24-25)
The final verses reveal the foundation for all this blessing: restored relationship with God and the resulting peace that flows out into all creation.
"And it will be that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear." (Isaiah 65:24)
This is a picture of perfect, unhindered communion. In our current state, prayer is often a struggle. We wonder if God hears. We wait for answers. But in the renewed world, the connection is seamless. Our desires will be so perfectly aligned with God's will that He answers before we even finish asking. This is the intimacy of the Garden, restored and made eternally secure in Christ.
And this restored relationship with the Creator results in a restored creation.
"The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil nor act corruptly in all My holy mountain," says Yahweh. (Isaiah 65:25)
This is not just a pretty allegory. It is a description of true cosmic shalom. The hostility and predation that entered the world with the fall are healed. The created order, which groans in bondage to decay, will be liberated into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:21). Nature itself is reconciled.
But notice the final, crucial clause: "and dust will be the serpent's food." This peace is not the result of a universal amnesty where everyone just decides to get along. This peace is established by conquest. The serpent, Satan, is not reconciled. He is judged. He is permanently humiliated, forced to eat dust in fulfillment of his curse from the very beginning (Genesis 3:14-15). The New Jerusalem is a city of perfect peace precisely because the enemy has been utterly and finally defeated. The lion lies down with the lamb because the serpent's head has been crushed under the heel of the Lion of Judah.
Conclusion: Building for a New World
So what do we do with such a staggering vision? We do not simply sit back and wait for it. We must understand that this new creation began its invasion of the old world on Easter morning. The resurrection of Jesus was the first day of the new creation. The Church is the colony of that new world, a beachhead established on enemy shores.
Therefore, everything we do in faith is a participation in this new creation work. When we proclaim the gospel, we are calling forth light into darkness. When we build families and raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, we are pushing back against the curse of bearing children for terror. When we work diligently and honestly, building businesses, creating art, and cultivating the earth, we are anticipating the day when we will build and inhabit, plant and eat. When we fight for justice and righteousness in the public square, we are extending the borders of God's holy mountain, where nothing evil or corrupt will finally remain.
We are not polishing brass on a sinking ship. We are building a cathedral. The work is slow, it is often difficult, and we may not see the final spire in our lifetime. But we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). Because the God who creates a new heavens and a new earth is the same God who is at work in us, and He will bring His work to its glorious, joyful completion.