Isaiah 57

Wesley: God will raise up a man who shall say with authority and efficacy. Cast up—make causeways for safe passage, and remove all that may hinder their return.

The road home is commanded, not merely wished. Obstacles can be taken up. My people’s way is restoration language—return from exile, and, in the gospel’s width, a path cleared for whoever will walk it under grace.

Calvin: lest the land-promise of v. 13 look ridiculous once they are driven out, a second promise is added—they shall be brought back. He meets the doubt of a long banishment. The words agree with Isaiah 40:1–4. He addresses Cyrus and Darius, whose minds the Lord inspired to open the path.

If the Lord determines to bring back his people, there must be a road. Every bar is removed because he has promised the return and is their leader in the journey.

The High and Holy One is not too high for the crushed. He dwells in two places at once: eternity, and the lowly heart. Revival is the purpose—spirit and heart made alive again.

The passage carries a sincere nearness: whoever is contrite may find this Guest. Height does not nullify welcome. The same holiness that judged the high beds of vv. 7–8 now stoops to revive.

Calvin: God is actually in heaven, yet does not overlook human affairs. He is anxious about the salvation of men and dwells with the afflicted (Ps 138:6). He is unlike us—no shadow of change—and will perform what he promised. Wicked men, though oppressed, remain fierce; hearts must be lowly if they expect assistance.

He descends even to the lifeless to breathe new life. Twice the lowly spirit is named, so that the promises belong to the meek who lay aside haughtiness, not to the unbroken.

Wesley: I will not proceed to the utmost severity with sinful men. Anger has a term; the Maker remembers the breath he made.

Wrath is grave and so is its limit. Faintness of spirit is a reason God himself names. The door of healing (v. 18) is not slammed by an endless lawsuit. Sinners may still turn while he is not always angry.

Calvin: amidst captivity they thought God an enemy. He shows punishments will be short; he will make abatement of what he might demand. “Angry” is spoken according to our flesh, to lead to repentance, yet we must not be swallowed by despair as if he would never be reconciled.

He deals gently because he perceives our weakness (Ps 103:13–14; 78:38–39). He will not try his strength against breath that vanishes. The Church, not the reprobate in their hardness, is especially directed to this promise.

Wesley: covetousness, of which the Jews were eminently guilty, comprehends all the sins for which God contended. Yet he was not reformed, but trespassed more and more.

Hiding and striking did not create new holiness. Backsliding in the way of his heart is a chosen continuance. Discipline can be refused; that refusal is why healing in v. 18 is sheer mercy, not a wage for finally improving.

Calvin: obstinate wickedness; no complaint of immoderate cruelty. Lust or covetousness—the source of evils (1 Tim 6:10)—or every sinful desire. God punishes not only outward crimes but wicked dispositions. “I hid myself” is according to our opinion, when we imagine him an enemy.

The people were in no degree made better; violent remedies could not bring them back. They were desperate. The next verse will therefore magnify mercy, not their reform.

Wesley: mourners—those humbled under God’s hand, who mourn in Zion for their own and others’ sins. Healing is promised to seen ways, not hidden ones.

Classical Arminians: “I have seen” does not end in abandonment. Lead and restore are verbs of grace that meet the humbled. Comfort is for mourners, not for the still-defiant of vv. 3–13. The invitation to be among those mourners remains sincere.

Calvin magnifies mercy: gracious to a people obstinate and rebellious, he anticipates them by grace. Chastisements could not drive them to repentance without the Spirit; they would have grown harder. “I have seen his ways, and will heal him”—an image of mankind, diseased almost beyond hope, then healed and kept.

Healing comes first, then consolation. Those not dissatisfied with their vices can look for nothing but wrath. The mourners are the few good men who groaned under wrath while others indulged.

Wesley: I create—by my almighty power. Peace not wrought by men’s hands, but by God’s lips. Doubling signifies certainty and abundance. Far off—Gentiles far from God, as well as Jews near (Ps 148:14).

Peace is spoken to both distances. The house of prayer for all peoples (56:7) and this double peace belong together. Far and near may receive what God creates; healing is held out as a serious word, not a private code.

Calvin: he will cause them to hear glad tidings of peace; the ministry later belongs to apostles as ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:20). Repetition expresses certainty and continuance. Captives “far off” thought it belonged only to those at home; he says they shall share the grace.

Paul glances here when Christ “brought peace to them that are near, and to them that are far off” (Eph 2:17). Jews cast off resembled Gentiles; the gift of peace and healing is God’s, not the Church’s achievement.

Wesley: their minds are restless, hurried with lusts and passions, with guilt, and the dread of divine vengeance.

The sea’s tossing is the inner life of those who will not take the peace just offered. Quiet is possible in the healing of v. 18; remaining a tossing sea is not a fate assigned before the word is heard. Mire is what a refused peace leaves behind.

Calvin: good men shall have peace; the wicked continual war. They cannot share this promise by false use of God’s name. They wish ease and a lulled conscience, but until reconciled they are at war within. The sea is troubled even without a storm; billows fight each other.

Conscience is the most agonizing executioner. The wicked are terrified by their own guilt. No middle course: accept this peace or be miserably distressed.

Wesley: though they may have prosperity, they have no share in this inward, spiritual, everlasting peace.

“My God” still speaks a true no. Prosperity is not peace. The sentence is a warning meant to be heard in time—the God who heals mourners (v. 18) will not call unrest peace. Israel’s wicked, and every later reader who stays a tossing sea, stand under one word.

Calvin: in vain the reprobate seek peace; God threatens war. They cannot acknowledge him while they reject his prophet. The prophet declares he has a command to declare perpetual war against them.

God is the only author of peace. This threatening tears from them their dearest pleasures. Without reconciliation, conscience will never cease to annoy. The High and Holy One who dwells with the contrite is the very God who withholds peace from the wicked.