Audio Transcript
I don’t know about you and your life, but right now, mine is full of couples who are struggling with miscarriages or infertility like I’ve never seen before. It is a heavy burden. And yet we find hope in Scripture for such sorrowing couples, and we find it in Isaiah 56. Listeners to the podcast might immediately know this as a chapter we return to a lot on lifelong singles and on infertility — specifically, Isaiah 56:4–5. We read this today in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan, so it’s a good day to take this question from a woman who cannot have children and who often ministers to other women in the same situation.
“Pastor John, at your prompting years ago I have connected Isaiah 56 to infertility. But I would love for you to focus more time and attention on it, specifically for couples who are unable to have children. How should we understand this promise for eunuchs in light of today’s struggles with infertility and childlessness? How does God’s declaration that he will give them a better name than sons and daughters speak to those who long for children but are unable to conceive? What does this passage reveal about God’s perspective on family and legacy?
“Additionally, how can we apply these verses practically to our understanding of God’s faithfulness and provision? Does this passage suggest that a fruitful life in God’s kingdom can look very different from the cultural expectation of having children, and how can we encourage those who are grieving the inability to have children? I would greatly appreciate your insight into these verses and how they might speak to those experiencing heartache or disappointment in their desire for children. Thank you for your thoughtful guidance.”
It is a very, very precious thing to hear the all-wise, all-good, all-powerful Creator of the universe say to you personally, “No good thing do I withhold from those who walk up rightly” (see Psalm 84:11), or “I pursue you relentlessly with goodness and mercy all your days” (see Psalm 23:6), or “I cause every circumstance in your life to work for your good” (see Romans 8:28) — knowing all the while that he also said, “I have made you see many troubles and calamities” (see Psalm 71:20).
It is a precious thing to hear God say (and to know it deep in your soul), “I am good; I am wise; I am strong. Nothing happens to you, my child, but what I plan for your good.” That is a precious word from God, but it is even more precious when God picks out a specific, peculiar trouble or calamity that he brought into our lives and then tells us again specifically this very truth as it relates to that trouble. And our friend who’s experiencing infertility has directed our attention to one of those precious, specific words of God — namely, a word about childlessness.
Precious, Specific Promise
So, here’s what Isaiah 56:3–5 says specifically — not just generally; specifically — to that issue.
Let not the eunuch say,
“Behold, I am a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.”
Now, the immediate meaning of eunuch in this text is a man who is unable to father children. He may have been forced to be a eunuch by castration, or there may have been some natural or accidental reason that he couldn’t father children. In any case, the point is this: There were two painful consequences connected with being a eunuch under the law in the Old Testament. One was that he was excluded from the Lord’s assembly, from the Lord’s house (Deuteronomy 23:1). The other is that he could not raise up offspring to continue his name. This is doubly bleak. He was cut off from the sense of communion with God and with his people, and his legacy was cut off from any future among men.
I think it is legitimate to apply this text to both men and women in our day who are infertile and who are believers in Christ. I think it’s legitimate to say that, in Christ, all the promises of God (including these verses) are yes (2 Corinthians 1:20: all the promises yes in Christ) — and to say that, not only are they yes for those in Christ, but also the blessings promised in the Old Testament are wonderfully exceeded in Christ.
“The blessings promised in the Old Testament are wonderfully exceeded in Christ.”
There’s more, there’s better, because the Old Testament prophets did not yet know Christ; they didn’t know him. They didn’t know the Messiah, the Son of God. But now our fellowship with Christ attends every one of the promises, so every promise gets a booster. It gets a vast increase of significance because not only are they all bought by Jesus; they’re all accompanied by Jesus, and we enjoy fellowship with him in every fulfillment of every promise.
Three Gifts for the Childless
So, yes, this text is a gift; it’s a promise to the Christian man or woman who is not able to bear or father children. I think there are at least three implications of this text for those who are called to live with the sorrow and the disappointment of not being able to give birth or beget children.
1. In God’s House
In verse 5, it says, “I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name” to the believing eunuchs, the childless. And the reason “in my house” and “within my walls” is important is because of that Old Testament exclusion from the house of God. And here we have a reversal of what the law held out temporarily. “You will not be excluded from the family, from the house of God, from the presence of the living God.”
And the New Testament carries this promise to an almost unbelievable height when it says that we will not only be in the house of God, but we will be the house, the household, of God. We will be the children of God in the house of God. In other words, the Bible reminds us that being unable to bear or father children is not a punishment or a curse, since Christ has borne our punishment, borne our curse, become our curse. Rather, God says, “Not only are you not cursed: You are adopted; you are in the walls; you are in the house; you are in the family. There is no severing me from my childless children.” That’s number one.
2. Bearing God’s Name
Verse 5 says, “I will give [them] a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” It may be true that your last name will not be perpetuated on earth. That kind of legacy may be withheld from you. But Revelation 3:12 says God will give you his own name. That is better than the name Piper or any other name that you could possibly think of, infinitely better than any name on earth.
Jesus said there will be no marriage or giving in marriage in heaven (Matthew 22:30), and I think, by implication, there will be no parenting and no comparing of genealogical legacies. There will be one great legacy, one great name: the name of God, the name of Jesus. We will be his children and bear his name — and his name and our adoption and our inheritance will be a monument better than sons and daughters, infinitely better.
3. A Planting of the Lord
Lastly, verse 3 says, “Let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’” In other words, this text is not only concerned with the objective reality that in Christ there is a better name and a better legacy for Christians than sons and daughters. This text is also concerned with how we think about ourselves, how we feel about ourselves in this regard, how we speak about ourselves in this regard. Let not the infertile Christians say, “I am a dry tree.” Don’t say that. Why? Because you’re not; you’re not a dry tree. You’re a green tree, a fruitful tree.
Do you know how many of the trees in Psalm 1, who delight in the law of the Lord day and night, have been infertile? Tens of thousands, maybe millions. “He [or she] is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he [or she] does, he [or she] prospers.” That’s Psalm 1:3. Do not say, “I am a dry tree.” Say rather, “I am a green tree, a planting of the Lord, beside streams of truth and grace, and my life is going to bear eternal fruit.”
