How does Christ provide for his bride? When there is no comliness in him for the carnal eye, how does he make the church fruitful to behold him as excellent and comely? (Is 53: 3; 4: 2) It is by creating a new spirit within every chosen, redeemed sinner so that we behold all that Christ is and that he has done.

First, this spirit is called the spirit of judgment because it has to do with the law of God written on the newly created heart. The law of God commands righteous judgment. For example: Leviticus 19:15: Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour....35: Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Yet, in our sin, without him giving us this spirit of judgment we think it is righteousness to take Christ's name and attempt to provide our own life and righteousness--as the seven women did in verse 1. Therefore, this filth must be washed from the daughters of Zion. This polluted blood must be purged from Jerusalem, both at the cross and in the heart.

The Lord declares through Isaiah a great calamity, a stripping away of every false way and of all those things men looked to for their provision. We have seen prophesied here that by Christ's work the land shall be left desolate and barren. And so when Christ sends forth the Holy Spirit, in power and grace he makes the personal land of the sinner desolate and barren.

We behold that when on the cross he cried out, "It is finished!" the veil in the temple rent into two pieces from top to bottom, declaring that Christ has satisfied God's broken law in the place of his Bride. Christ has fulfilled the righteousness of God's holy law on behalf of particular sinners. As Paul said to the Colossians he, Blot[ed] out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it (Colossians 2: 14-15.)

There is now, no provision to be found in the "rudiments of the earth"-that is, in touch not, taste not, handle not--let us behold that the thought of providing any aspect of our standing with God is eating our own bread and clothing ourselves in our own raiment, it is the unrighteous judgment of looking to this barren land of our flesh for provisions. But the spirit of judgment is created within us when the Lord writes his law on the heart, then as the Psalmist said, 25:9: The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way. (Christ the Way.)

Secondly, the spirit of burning has to do with the newly created zeal which the Spirit gives for Christ. When the Lord shall have stripped his people so that their land is barren, when he shall have washed away the filth and the corruption of blood, he gives them not only the spirit of judgment written on their hearts but also the spirit of burning or zeal for Christ and in that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. 3: And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem (Isaiah 4: 2-3.)

Once the Lord has begun this work he never allows his bride to turn back to the barren land of the flesh and the corruption of this world. That is what the rest of the chapter declares. Isaiah 4: 5: And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, (upon each individual saint) and upon her assemblies, (upon every place where he has raised up a pastor after his own heart) a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. 6: And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.