The prophet Isaiah wrote powerful prophecies not In his powerful prophecy, Isaiah ben-Amoz writes not only of the events of Jesus’ first advent, but also about the events of that day, the final day when the glorified Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the resurrected Lamb of God, returns from heaven on a white horse (Revelation 19:11ff) to judge all the earth. This is what I am calling “Isaiah’s Eschatology.”

As I was writing about Isaiah’s eschatology regarding the Resurrection on the last day as expressed in Isaiah 26:19 (posted December 1, 2019), my attention was drawn to the word “dust” in that verse: “You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy.” It turns out that the word dust appears in some very significant contexts in the Scriptures, so I have captured some random thoughts on dust in the ASIDE below.

ASIDE: A study on “dust.” The LORD God created man out of the DUST of the ground (Genesis 2:7). When Adam sinned, the LORD God said, “For you are DUST, and to DUST you shall return (Genesis 3:19).” In Psalm 103, David declares that the LORD “is mindful that we are but DUST.” This means that the LORD is aware that we are weak and sinful and are bent toward failure, and so the LORD has pity on His children because of their weakness. He has mercy on them, because though they are weak, yet their Savior is strong. In 1 Corinthians 15 (ESV), Paul reminds us that “as was the man of DUST, so also are those who are of the DUST.” We now have bodies that bear “the image of the man of DUST (v. 47-49).” Paul’s point is breathtaking: Every human being is born with a body that is made of DUST and that will certainly return to the DUST. As Adam, our first father, was made of DUST, so we, too, are made of DUST. As Adam must return to the DUST because of his sin, so our bodies, too, must return to the DUST of the earth because of our sin. Our first body is made of DUST, and to DUST it shall certainly return. But those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ will receive a new glorified body that is of the likeness of the Second Adam in His resurrection. We will lay into the DUST our body of DUST, but in the Resurrection, we will receive from heaven the glorified body of heaven. We will lay aside our body of DUST and receive our new body of GLORY. As Christ laid aside His earthly body and was raised with His glorious body, so we will lay down our body of DUST and will be raised with our body of GLORY. We now have a body that must die, but on that day, we will receive a body that will never die. The body of DUST must surely die, but the body of GLORY can never die.

SDG        rmb        12/2/2019