Isaiah 66:1 - Meaning and Application

Here, the temple is set in a lower place than a gracious soul, in Isaiah 66:1-2. The Jews in Isaiah’s day, and later in Christ’s day, took great pride in the temple and expected much from it. To humble them and break their false confidence, both the prophets and Christ foretold the temple’s ruin. God would leave it, and then it would soon become desolate.

After the temple was destroyed by the Chaldeans, it was rebuilt, and the ceremonial worship began again. But when the Romans destroyed it, it was made permanently desolate, and the ceremonial law was abolished with it. To prepare the world for this, they were often told, as here, that the temple meant very little to God.

First, God did not need the temple. Heaven is the throne of his glory and rule. There he sits, infinitely high in majesty and authority, above all blessing and praise. The earth is his footstool, where he rules every event according to his will. If God already has such a throne and such a footstool, where is the house that people can build for him? Where could it be the place of his rest? What could the Eternal Mind gain from a house made by human hands?

What need does he have, as we do, for a place to rest? He does not faint or grow weary. He does not sleep or slumber. If he needed a house, he would not have to ask us, for his hand made all things (Psalm 50:12). He made heaven and all its courts, earth and all its borders, and all their hosts. Since he existed in perfect happiness before anything was made, nothing he created could add to him.

Some understand the verse to mean, “All these things are still here.” They continue because the same power that made them still upholds them. So our goodness does not add anything to him. If he had wanted a house to dwell in, he would have made one himself when he made the world. And if he had made one, it would have remained to this day, as the rest of creation does according to his order. So he had no need of a temple made with hands.

Second, God does not regard the temple as he regards a humble, penitent, gracious heart. He has heaven and earth as his own making, and the temple as man’s making, but he passes by them all to look with favor on the person who is poor in spirit. That person is humble, serious, self-abasing, and self-denying. Their heart is truly broken for sin, sorry for it, and eager for forgiveness. They tremble at God’s word, not with a passing fear like Felix (Acts 24:25), but with a steady reverence for God’s holiness and an ongoing dread of his justice and wrath.

Such a heart is a living temple for God. He dwells there, and that is the place of his rest. It is like heaven and earth, his throne and his footstool. The temple may be glorious in human eyes, but a contrite heart is far more precious to God.

Sacrifices are also despised when they come from ungodly hands. The sacrifice of the wicked is not only unacceptable, it is hateful to the Lord (Proverbs 15:8). That truth is shown strongly in verses 3 and 4. After returning from captivity, the carnal Jews did not go back to idolatry, but they became careless and loose in God’s service. They brought torn, lame, and sick animals for sacrifice (Malachi 1:8, 13), and that made their worship hateful to God.

They gave no honor to their sacrifices, so why should they think God would honor them? The unbelieving Jews, after the gospel had been preached and after the great sacrifice of Christ had been announced, kept on offering sacrifices as if Moses’ law were still binding and could make worshipers perfect. That was an abomination. A person may kill an ox for his own table, and that is acceptable. But if he kills it for God’s altar in that way, it is as though he had killed a man. It is as offensive to God as murder.

By doing so, he sets aside Christ’s sacrifice, tramples on the blood of the covenant, and makes himself share in the guilt of rejecting the Lord’s body and blood. He is setting up again what Christ died to remove. If a person offers a lamb that is defective, instead of the best male from the flock, he is trying to give God a poor gift. That is an insult, not worship. It is as if he cut off a dog’s neck, since the law treated a dog as so vile that its price could not be brought into the treasury, while even an ass could be redeemed (Deuteronomy 23:18).

If he offers a grain offering or drink offering in that spirit, it is as if he tried to make atonement with swine’s blood, which was unclean and abhorrent (Isaiah 65:4). If he burns incense to God, while despising the incense of Christ’s intercession, it is as though he blessed an idol. That is as great an offense as if he were worshiping a false god. Hypocrisy and open ungodliness are just as provoking to God as idolatry.

The reason their sacrifices were so hateful was their wicked way of life. They had chosen their own ways, the ways their own sinful hearts preferred, and their souls delighted in their abominations. They lived immoral lives and chose the way of sin instead of God’s commandments. They took pleasure in what offended God, and that made their sacrifices so offensive to him (Isaiah 1:11-15).

Those who claim to honor God with religion, yet live wickedly, insult him as if he supported sin. Their guilt grew worse because they kept doing this even after many calls to repent and reform. They ignored every warning of divine justice and every offer of divine grace. “When I called, no one answered,” as in Isaiah 65:12. The same charge follows here: They did evil before my eyes. Since they would not listen to what he said, they did not care what he saw. They chose what they knew did not please him.

How could such people expect to please God in worship when they took no care to please him in daily life? They did not even try to avoid what they knew would provoke him. So God pronounces their sentence. They chose their own ways, so God says, “I also will choose their delusions.” They have made their choice, and now he will make his. They took whatever course they pleased with him, and he will take whatever course he pleases with them.

He will choose their illusions, or mockeries, as some explain it. Since they mocked God and dishonored him by their wickedness, he will give them over to their enemies to be trampled and insulted. Or else they will be deceived by the false hopes they trusted in. God will make their sin their punishment. They will be beaten with their own rod and driven into ruin by their own false confidence.

God will bring their fears upon them. That is, he will send on them the very thing that fills them with dread, or the very thing they hoped to avoid by sinful tricks. Unbelieving hearts, and consciences that are not cleansed or at peace, need nothing more to make them miserable than to see their own fears come true.