LORD, you will ordain peace for us: for you also have done all our works in us.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 26:12 Go To Isaiah 26
John Chrysostom
AD 407
But I say all this now, and select all the histories that contain trials and tribulations and the wrath of kings and their evil designs, in order that we may fear nothing except offending God. For then also was there a furnace burning; yet they derided it but feared sin. For they knew that if they were consumed in the fire, they should suffer nothing that was to be dreaded; but that if they were guilty of impiety, they should undergo the extremes of misery. It is the greatest punishment to commit sin, though we may remain unpunished; as on the other hand, it is the greatest honor and repose to live virtuously, though we may be punished. For sins separate us from God; as he himself speaks: “Have your sins separated between you and me?” But punishments lead us back to God. As one says, “Give peace; for you have recompensed us for all things.” Suppose anyone has a wound; which should we most deservedly fear, gangrene or the surgeon’s knife? The steel or the devouring progress of the ulcer? Sin is a gangrene; punishment is the surgeon’s knife. If someone has gangrene and does not have surgery, he does not merely remain ill, he gets worse. In the same way the sinner, though he is not punished, is the most wretched of people; and he is then especially wretched when he has no punishment and is suffering no distress.
