Isaiah 66 – Someday the Gentiles will learn about Jehovah

Look, you can make anything apply to Jesus if you try hard enough.

Isaiah is one of the Old Testament prophets most beloved by Christians. Mostly because he loved to talk about the future and Jesus and his followers liked to quote him to support the idea that Jesus was the Christ.

In Isaiah 66 the coming of the Lord is described like this: “For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and rebuke with flames of fire (KJV).” Because this isn’t the way Jesus showed up (he had to pass through Mary’s vagina to enter the world) his fans decided this chapter of Isaiah describes Jesus’ second coming when he will return with fire and glory and rain destruction upon the wicked.

Here is the thing though. According to Isaiah: after the Lord shows up with all that fire and glory the Nation of Israel will be born in a day and the gentiles will finally have an opportunity to learn about God and serve as priests.

I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of Christians do not claim to be Hebrew and are therefore gentiles. I am however certain that they claim to know about God and have the ability to serve as priests. Furthermore, Jesus allegedly authorized preaching the gospel to the gentiles shortly following his death (according to St. Peter). I’m also pretty confident that you could consider the Nation of Israel to have been born in a day on 14 May 1948.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If you ask any woman who delivered a baby naturally they can tell you about the “ring of fire.” When a baby’s head is pushed through the cervix it really hurts/burns; like, really bad. Isaiah wasn’t talking about a “second coming.” He was talking about how Mary felt while she was pushing out Jesus. This explains perfectly the bit about coming with fire, works with the timeframe for allowing the gentiles to worship, and the creation of the Nation of Israel. Even the bit about rendering anger with fury works. Jesus clearly had anger management issues as demonstrated by his eagerness to scour the temple, which he did twice.

Moral: natural childbirth really hurts.