Isaiah 27:4-5”…I would burn them up together. Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.”
YHWH will consume the “thorns” that oppose Him in the fires of His wrath—yet even as He threatens this reality, He calls the thorns to enter into His peace.
If you have any time, I’d suggest you read the passage that I quote in part above. Reading from verse 1 will give you the appropriate context. In it, the Lord foretells the day when He has finally redeemed His people and they are like a pleasant, guarded, forever-watered vineyard (forever watered because the spring of living water will be in their midst, John 4:14, 7:38-39, Revelation 22:1-2). There is no more wrath toward His people (because it is borne in full by the Beloved Son, 1 John 4:10, etc), but there is wrath toward the would-be assailants of His vineyard, the thorns. The way the verse is written it is ambiguous as to whether there actually are thorns or not….but what is clear is that if there are thorns, they have two options….be consumed on the Lord’s wrath OR lay hold of the His protection (in the person of the crucified and risen Son who bears their wrath) and so enter into the peace of his vineyard.
I considered this verse in today’s picture because it is awesome, intriguing, and disruptive to our comfortably held systems to see the Lord raging in wrath while simultaneously extending an offer of peace to the thorns….
