Isaiah 61

Wesley: though the prophet may speak of himself, yet it is principally to be understood of Christ. Anointed—gifts, commission, and a power to make all effectual. Liberty belongs to Christ’s kingly office: he proclaims liberty from the dominion of sin, and from the fear of hell.

Luke 4:16–21 is the key. Jesus reads this as himself. The King actually proclaims liberty—sincerely held out to captives. Poor, brokenhearted, and bound may still come. Both camps take the Speaker as Christ.

Calvin: Christ explains this of himself (Luke 4:18). The Head of the prophets holds the chief place. Anointing is the Spirit’s power and gifts, not an empty title. The word is a powerful medicine for wounded consciences, not for the hard-hearted. We are captives till set free through the grace of Christ.

The Spirit upon the Messiah is not a mere announcement. Gospel liberty is Christ’s actual release of the humbled elect. Shared christology with Wesley: this is the anointed Lord at Nazareth. The fork is how the liberty lands, not who speaks.

Wesley: vengeance is necessary where God delivers his people—principally on the church’s enemies, and the spiritual ones chiefly: Satan, sin, and death. Favor and vengeance are gospel and judgment, not a chart.

The acceptable year is sincerely proclaimed. Comfort is held out to all who mourn. Delay is unbelief, not a locked timetable.

Calvin: the year of good-pleasure is God’s chosen time, with a Jubilee hint (Lev 25:10). Day of vengeance meets persecutors when the Church is delivered. Salvation lies in his gracious will, not our merits. If we miss the benefit, it is unbelief that refuses God, who freely offers himself.

Paul calls it the fullness (Gal 4:4; 2 Cor 6:2). The door is open in the gospel. Comfort for mourners is not imaginary; vengeance is the just Judge.

Wesley: ashes for mourning, oil of joy, a festival garment of praise. Trees of righteousness—firm, well rooted, by faith engrafted into Christ, and bringing forth fruit suitable to the soil.

Mourners in Zion can still be granted beauty. Engrafting is by faith. Oaks are a people who actually praise, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified—not a later forest of politics.

Calvin: he gives beauty for ashes by an elegant inversion. Trees of righteousness are planted by the Lord. We are by nature a dry stock. First planting is election (Eph 1:4); then calling, ingrafted through faith by the gospel. God alone gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7).

True righteousness must reign in us. End: that he may be glorified. This is the same planting as in 60:21.

Wesley does not pause here; the restoration of 58:12 still governs. Ancient ruins rebuilt are the same mercy: Zion first, then the gospel people raised.

Devastations of many generations do not cancel the invitation to build. Cities ruined by unbelief can still be repaired under the Servant’s year of favor. Not a later temple timetable.

Calvin: long ruins shall not prevent a new rising. Deserts of the age, wildernesses of many ages—Athens may stay down; Jerusalem will not. It is God’s peculiar office to raise what was devoted to eternal rottenness.

First the return from exile, then the Church under the cross, till the last day.

Wesley: strangers are Gentiles, not of the Jews’ natural race—converts, or at most an outward profession. They stand ready. Flocks are churches fed with the word; plowmen manage God’s spiritual husbandry.

Nations still may tend and plow. This is gospel help, as in 60:10. The flocks remain the Lord’s people.

Calvin: foreigners stand ready to assist. Sheep, fields, and vines are figures of Christ’s spiritual kingdom, that we may understand its happiness from things we know.

We are truly happy when Christ exercises his dominion. Advantages the children of Adam justly lose are restored beyond expectation under his rule.

Wesley: the whole body shall now be as near to God as the priests were formerly—a royal priesthood. This is most certainly true of all the faithful under the gospel.

The church is a spiritual priesthood now. Wealth of nations is consecration, as in 60:5–11. Ministers of our God is the gospel people, Jew and Gentile.

Calvin: not a license to seize the nations’ gold. All things come under Christ’s dominion, and so are called ours because he has nothing separate from his Church. All the saints are consecrated; Peter’s royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). Papists abuse this to re-sacrifice Christ.

Offer yourselves (Rom 12:1). Ministers slay men with the word that they may obey the Lord (Rom 15:16). Earthly beasts are done. This is the gospel church.

Wesley: double means honour; the portion is the honour God will give. Shame is not the last word over the people he comforts.

Everlasting joy is held out to the restored. Zion’s disgrace turns; the church may still rejoice in her lot. Double is mercy’s measure.

Calvin: the Church’s prosperity shall far exceed her present afflictions—an eternal weight of glory against a momentary lightness (2 Cor 4:17). Wicked men vaunt now; the earth is not finally theirs.

Everlasting joy is the Spirit’s, the peace that surpasses understanding (Phil 4:7). It differs from the wicked’s brief glee, which turns to gnashing of teeth.

Wesley: I will do them right, for I love justice in myself and in them that practise it. Robbery even for sacrifice is hated. He will lead them to sincerity. Though you have broken covenant, he renews the ancient one, confirmed with the blood of Christ, never to be abrogated.

The everlasting covenant is sincerely made. Justice is to be practised, not only credited. Robbery dressed as worship still stinks. The blood of Christ confirms a covenant people may still keep in truth.

Calvin: he reasons from God’s nature. Judgment is true equity, not masks. Robbery in the burnt-offering is hypocritical worship—lies mixed with sacrifice. He demands mercy rather than sacrifice (Hos 6:6; Matt 9:13). He will establish their work in truth and make an everlasting covenant, freely making himself their debtor.

Prosperity is his blessing, not fortune. The covenant is everlasting because he is the guide of the journey, owing us nothing, giving all.

Wesley: a promise of the church’s increase. The church shall have a seed of the Gentiles; confined to one corner no more, it shall fill the nations. There shall be visible characters of God’s love to them, and of his grace in them.

The blessed offspring is a people known by grace, not a racial timetable. Nations still may acknowledge them. Increase is missionary, already under the gospel.

Calvin: the Church, once a narrow corner and then diminished, shall be visible among all nations. The return sparked it; full brightness shone in Christ, when foreigners were ingrafted by faith. Jews go first by mercy, not merit (Rom 3:2).

All who see them will acknowledge a seed the Lord has blessed. This is fulfilled every day as nations join the same confession.

Wesley: spoken in the person of the church. Clothed with salvation as with a garment, and with righteousness as with a robe. Bridegroom and bride language is the people’s joy, not a private mystic.

The church actually wears what she is given—salvation and righteousness put on as holiness, a people decked for praise (v. 3). Rejoicing is sincere. The robe is not postponed to a later wedding only.

Calvin: righteousness and salvation bestowed; from him alone we seek them. The Church lay in filth and rags; received into favor with her husband, she shines. Accomplished at Christ’s coming, bestowed daily, completed at his last coming.

The covering is justifying righteousness and salvation given, not earned jewelry. Faith sees what sense cannot, while the church still wears the cross’s revolting dress in the world’s eyes.

Wesley: righteousness is his great work of salvation breaking out and appearing. Praise is the natural product and fruit of it.

As a garden sprouts what is sown, so the Lord causes righteousness and praise before the nations. The fruit is holiness and thanks, already. Nations still see it.

Calvin: the earth every year puts forth her bud. Will he who gave that power fail to make the elect seed bud? Righteousness is his, chiefly seen when Christ was manifested. Praise must accompany the benefit; it is base to be dumb.

He will cause it before all the nations. The Church’s bounds are no longer a corner. Firstfruits now; fullness when the last praise is public.