Salvation and the eternal joy of those who are saved is nothing that human beings can boast of having accomplished for themselves. It is entirely the work of the Lord. Isaiah reminds us that salvation is by faith and not by works, for the works of mortal creatures are not powerful enough or perfect enough to earn salvation. This next segment paints a portrait of those who realized they could never be perfect and sinless, so they came to the Lord for Him to do what they could not do for themselves.
"Lord, they came to you in their distress; when You disciplined them, they could barely whisper a prayer. As a pregnant woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in Your presence, Lord. We were with child, we writhed in labor, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation on the earth, and the people of the world have not come to life." (Isaiah 26:16-18) We must trust in the Holy One to make us holy. We cannot do it ourselves. It is a painful thing when we realize we are lost in our sins. We may wrestle with this knowledge for a while, tossing and turning through many sleepless nights, until we surrender and lift our hands to the God who already has His hands outstretched toward us. Without Him, all our works are in vain because imperfection cannot bring about perfection.
But when we accept Him as our Savior and when we trust in Him to perfect that which is lacking in us, we receive the salvation of our souls. We receive the promise of a resurrected body like Christ's, and although in Isaiah's day the advent of the Messiah was still far off and the prophet did not clearly understand when and how the Lord was going to bring all these things about, he believed. He believed and he looked forward to the day when the saved of the Lord would be raised from the dead in incorruptible bodies.
Of that day he said, "But Your dead will live, Lord; their bodies will rise---let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy---Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead." (Isaiah 26:19) The Old Testament saints absolutely believed in and taught of a bodily resurrection from the dead. This is not new ideology that emerged in the Christian era. The belief in a bodily resurrection existed long before the church was born. This is clearly demonstrated throughout the Old Testament and also during the lifetime of Jesus before He ever went to the cross; Martha the sister of Lazarus proclaimed to Him that she believed her brother would rise from the dead in the resurrection. So we see that ever since the Lord created man and ever since man fell from grace and became subject to death, a bodily resurrection from the dead in an immortal body has been promised.
We previously discussed the fact that all who have ever lived will be resurrected, but that those who rejected the Lord will spend their eternity separated from His presence, so we will not delve back into that subject again at this time. Instead we will conclude our chapter with verses which demonstrate that Isaiah was aware that the resurrection was not about to occur very soon. He did not know when or how the Redeemer would come or in what manner the Redeemer would save mankind from sin. He did not know when or how the resurrection would take place, but the Lord had already revealed to him that the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah would endure hard times due to the widespread idolatry going on in those nations. Isaiah knows his people will fall to the enemy and be taken captive to foreign lands. By this he knows that the end of days is not yet, and that the final judgment is not yet, and that the resurrection of the dead is not at hand.
Knowing that hardships will come before the day dawns when believers will enjoy a glorious eternity with the Lord, Isaiah encourages his people to endure. Someday all evil will be judged. Someday God's people will be vindicated. "Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until His wrath has passed by. See, the Lord is coming out of His dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed on it; the earth will conceal its slain no longer." (Isaiah 26:20-21)
The Lord Jesus said something similar: "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open." (Luke 8:17) All wrongs will be righted someday. No crimes are hidden from God and no one will get away with the wrongs they have done to His children. When we begin our next chapter we find Isaiah speaking of the deliverance of his own people and of the way the Lord will judge all who have persecuted them.
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