The Final Triumph (Isaiah 66:22-24).
‘For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will remain before me, so will your seed and your name remain.'
Once again we are reminded that God has made all things new. And they are permanent and everlasting as He is everlasting (they ‘will remain before Him'). But equally everlasting are the seed of these whom Yahweh has gathered. The Abrahamic promise now belongs to them as well. And their name will remain (contrast Isaiah 65:15). This is the new name by which He has called His servants (Isaiah 65:15). There will be no danger of these proving false to Yahweh or turning back, for Yahweh guarantees their perseverance.
This is the second mention of the new heavens and the new earth (see Isaiah 65:17). And yet the whole concentration is on the new Jerusalem. In this we have further confirmation that the new Jerusalem in its final form is the representation of the new heavens and the new earth, of the final place of fulfilment (compare Revelation 21:1 to Revelation 22:5).
‘ “And it will come about that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before me,” says Yahweh.'
Now the whole world worships Yahweh. This is the final triumph. Month by month, and sabbath by sabbath, they observe His day, the sign that they are wholly His, and come to enjoy His feasts. It is a time of feasting and not of fasting, for those who rejected Him have been done away. All are in the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city. No earthly city could contain this number. Isaiah is describing a Jerusalem beyond his imagination, and beyond ours, which is why it has to be put in such terms. And yet there was a precursor of it in the earlier gathering of peoples from all nations to the feasts in Jerusalem (Acts 2:5).
‘And they will go forth and look on the carcasses of the men who have transgressed against me, for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be an abhorring to all flesh.'
This is not a picture of going there in order to obtain morbid pleasure. It is a solemn declaration that God has triumphed. His true people will enter Jerusalem to worship, and as they go out again they will pass the valley of judgment where the fires of judgment still burn. Many visitors to Jerusalem would remember the glory of the Temple and the vivid contrast of the Valley of Hinnom as they left Jerusalem after their worship.
The point being made here is that all who were against Yahweh are gone. There is no suggestion that they live. They are carcasses. What survives for ever are the means of judgment, the maggot and the fire which will never die. Nothing cast there will survive. The thought is that His own will worship Yahweh and be aware of His judgment on the wicked, and that his readers must be aware of it too. It is a vivid warning to his readers that they must choose whether they will be one or the other, the final evangelistic appeal. And it is on this warning that he signs off. It is his last appeal to the hearts of men. In the Garden the tempter questioned, ‘Did God say?' Here is the reply. ‘God did say'.
The picture is in terms of a rubbish dump where the fires continually burn to consume the waste, and the maggots continually do their work, and where the bodies of outcasts are tossed to demonstrate for them supreme everlasting contempt (compare Daniel 12:2). Certainly later the valley of Hinnom (Ge-hinnom) outside the walls of Jerusalem became such a rubbish dump, and its eerie fires at night seen over the walls of Jerusalem would present an aweinspiring sight. This would later result in the idea of Gehenna, the place of eternal punishment.
And thus in these final words Isaiah proclaims the triumph of Yahweh, the unrestricted worship of His people, and His final dealings with all who have rejected Him.