Salvation Assured

Continuing from the chapter-by-chapter revelation of the Gospel from Isaiah 53 onward we come now to the place where God speaks to us of the assurance of His salvation for everyone who receives it. Isaiah 56 commands the new members of God's family to fully embrace the assurance of their salvation. 

Isaiah 56:3 (ESV) Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

God will not cast out the foreigner. Nor will God let the eunuch be defined by his physical inability to produce offspring. 

Isaiah 56:4–5 (ESV) For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

The interesting thing about this passage is that it follows Isaiah 53 which the Ethiopian Eunuch was reading as he was leaving Jerusalem in Acts 8. Philip presented the Gospel and baptized him and he "went on his way rejoicing." (Acts 8:39). Why? Because he would have kept reading from where he left off! He will not be a dry tree. He will have a "name better than sons and daughters." Today, that Eunuch is considered the Abraham of Africa and the founder of the world's most persecuted church - the Coptic Church of Egypt. 

God specializes in giving people a new identity that physical limitations do not hold back. David was not considered by Jesse to be kingly material, but God raised him to be the most powerful military leader and king in history. 

Isaiah 56:6–7 (ESV) “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Again the assurance of salvation is offered to foreigners. They will be those who act more like the Israelites than the Israelites - keeping the Sabbath and holding fast to His covenant. God will bring them to Himself. They will find joy in His presence and revel in times of prayer. The picture of the early church in Acts illustrates this well, they were constant in prayer as a body. 

In case you had doubts, foreigner, about whether this was about people beyond Israel, the next verse simplifies it:

Isaiah 56:8 (ESV) The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

When Jesus walks among the nation He basically lifts this promise out of Isaiah's text. 

John 10:16 (ESV) And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

The true shepherd was who Isaiah desperately hoped for. He saw the sordid conditions of Israel's leaders and called them out. 

Isaiah 56:10–11 (ESV) His watchmen are blind; they are all without knowledge; they are all silent dogs; they cannot bark, dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. 11 The dogs have a mighty appetite; they never have enough. But they are shepherds who have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all.

Jesus does for us what no other leader can. He gives His life, saves us to the uttermost, and guarantees our salvation in spite of our human frailties. Amen.