After the day of Christ’s vengeance, comfort will be given to restored Israel.
The setting up of the Kingdom in the earth will mean the repairing of all the waste places and all the ends of the earth shall see God’s great salvation.
Isaiah 1
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
4 ¶ And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.
6 But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.
7 ¶ For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.
8 For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed.
10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Isaiah 1 – J. Vernon McGee
Isaiah 61 – “The Acceptable Year of the LORD”
Messiah’s mission, Isaiah 61:1-3. At Nazareth our Lord applied these words to Himself. Let us care for the outcasts as He did; but to do so, we need to be anointed with the Holy Spirit, who rested so mightily on Him. The acceptable year is clearly that of Leviticus 25:8-13. Our Lord, when quoting this, stopped at the comma, Isaiah 61:2, because the day of vengeance is not yet. See Luke 4:19. Mark that it is only for a day! God not only delivers, but anoints and crowns.
Messiah’s kingdom, Isaiah 61:4-9. In days yet future, the ruined cities of Palestine shall be restored. In a spiritual sense, we also may appropriate this promise. When we receive the Pentecostal gift, we also witness the restoration of the wastes, which our sins have caused in our own lives and in the lives of others. Let us clasp to our hearts Isaiah 61:7-9.
Messiah’s joy, Isaiah 61:10-11. Jesus is the true bridegroom of the soul; and we may appropriate our side of these happy words. Note this combination of imputed and imparted righteousness. The one is put on as a garment, Isaiah 61:10; the other blossoms out from within, Isaiah 61:11. Oh, that from our lives God would cause righteousness and praise to spring forth! —Through the Bible Day by Day
Isaiah 61:1—The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me.
We can never disassociate those words from that memorable scene at the Jordan, when, after the Lord’s baptism, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit, like a dove, rested upon Him. Forty days of fierce temptation could not deprive Him of that holy anointing; and He came to Galilee, stood up in the synagogue of Nazareth, and announced the anointing He had received.
If the Master needed it, how much more do we! If He did not attempt to bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, or the opening of the prison to the bound; if He would not preach, or comfort, or communicate joy, until that memorable unction had been imparted—how absurd it is for us to attempt similar works without this anointing!
What a marvelous forecast is here of the mission of Christ through his Church to the world during the present age. She is sent to take up and pass on this blessed ministry. What a true forecast also of the needs of mankind! It is as though the Holy Spirit desired to reveal the salient characteristics of the great sad world, that it would be full of the broken-hearted, of captives, prisoners, and mourners, needing Divine assistance and ministration. Man is so fallen and helpless that he needs the entire Trinity: The Lord God, the Father; Me, the Son; and The Spirit, the Holy Ghost.
When Jesus quoted these words He stopped at the comma in the second verse, which stood therefore for at least nineteen hundred years which intervene between the proclamation of the year of mercy and of the day of vengeance. The time for repentance is lengthening out, since God desires not the sinner’s death, but that he should turn and live. —Our Daily Homily