Conditioned

I know all things are possible with God, but really?

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. - Isaiah 11:1-9

Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would come to judge the people of the earth.  We can say that he did come and his words did judge those who were not treating the poor with compassion, but what about the peace that is to come?

Is what Isaiah says about the wolf and the lamb to be taken literally?

If not, who is the wolf and who is the lamb?  And what about the calf and the lion?

Is the nursing child the baby Jesus?  And is the weaned child Jesus as a young boy?

Commentators talk about these events as though they should be taken literally.  There will come a time, they say, when all of God's creation will be able to live together in peace.

There will be no poison in the snakes, no threat of being eaten by the predators.

Could this possibly happen?

How will they survive?  Doesn't nature require a food chain?

I guess if God can do anything, He can make the world behave any way He wants.

Is this what Eden was like?

Maybe that is the vision Isaiah has, that we will return to Eden where all of God's creatures lived in harmony.

Hard to imagine?

Maybe we have just been too conditioned.

More to come...