It's very encouraging to note the context of these two verses. These words given by God through Isaiah the prophet, were being spoken to a rebellious and sinful people. God was speaking to His own children, in Judah, before they went into captivity by the Babylonians.
And, it seems that the main point God was trying to get across had to do with how gracious and loving, and forgiving He is, towards sinful and rebellious man. In other words, the way we would think and the way we would act towards someone, is not necessarily the way the Lord would think and act.
So, here's what the Lord says.......
First of all, He has thoughts, Just like we do. Within Himself, He thinks with His mind. But, His thoughts are not like ours. They are infinitely different then ours.
If you were to take how we might think about a person who is very sinful, very rebellious, very given over to idolatry, and extremely wicked, and cruel, and then compare those thoughts with God's thoughts, we could see the difference.
For example, it seems to me, that the average person would not think to be so gracious towards a very wicked person. Wouldn't you agree. Not only would we not think to be gracious, but I don't believe we would be inclined then to give great blessings to that person. In fact, in Isaiah, there is a promise from God, where He says that He will give blessings in such abundance, that they will be greater then what He would give to His own sons and daughters. ( See Isa 56:5 )
So, His thoughts are not like ours. They are so much different.
Secondly, His ways are not like ours. God has ways, just like we do. We often speak of the ways in which a person acts. Or how we act, or the way that anyone acts. The activities and things that people do. God's acts and activities are infinitely different then ours.
What the Lord says in Isa 55:9, is to help us understand the difference between His thoughts, His ways, and our thoughts and ways. He does so by stating that "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
So, what happens in these verses, ( 55:8-9 ) is to state that there is a difference, and then gives us a simple picture of how great that difference is, by using distance to show the difference.
The specific example He gives is that the heavens are higher than the earth, and just like they are higher, or a great distance, so my ways are higher, and my thoughts are higher than ours.
So, the distance between the heaven and the earth is great, and that great distance is how different His and our thoughts and ways are.
Below is my own attempt ( I'm not a scientist ) to try and explain using what we are standing on, i.e the earth, and then some of what is above us, the sun in particular, to help us understand this great difference between God and us.
We have all heard of the speed of light, and of light years, and of how far various planets are from the earth. These are incredible numbers, and are awesomely greater than anything we know down on earth in our day to day lives and use of distance and time to measure things.
The speed of light, the fact of what we call light years, and the various stellar bodies, planets, stars, and such are what I'm talking about. In other words, using those things to try and envision what the Lord is saying about the differences between Himself and us.
Below is a brief articles from a web site, called, "how stuff works" Please enjoy it, and then I'll have just a few comments at the end.
A light year is a way of measuring distance. That doesn't make much sense because "light year" contains the word "year," which is normally a unit of time. Even so, light years measure distance.
You are used to measuring distances in either inches/feet/miles or centimeters/meters/kilometers, depending on where you live. You know how long a foot or a meter is -- you are comfortable with these units because you use them every day. Same thing with miles and kilometers -- these are nice, human increments of distance.
When astronomers use their telescopes to look at stars, things are different. The distances are gigantic. For example, the closest star to Earth (besides our sun) is something like 24,000,000,000,000 miles (38,000,000,000,000 kilometers) away. That's the closest star. There are stars that are billions of times farther away than that. When you start talking about those kinds of distances, a mile or kilometer just isn't a practical unit to use because the numbers get too big. No one wants to write or talk about numbers that have 20 digits in them!
So to measure really long distances, people use a unit called a light year. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). Therefore, a light second is 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers). A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year, or:
186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles/year
A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers). That's a long way!
Ok, all of what's just above probably leaves you like me, with your mind's jaw wide open if you will. Things in the heavens are a long way a way. They are a great distance, and that's exactly what the Lord said, that the heavens are higher than the earth, and that height, that distance is a measurement of the difference between His thoughts and ways, and ours. They are vastly different.
In closing, I would encourage you to read Isa 55, and try and get a feel for the context of 55:8-9, by reading 55:1-7, and particularly 55:7, and then go on to read the rest of the verses in 55:10-13, that talks about God's Word, it's power, and the plans and intentions He has.
Back to 55:6-7, the Lord calls for men to seek the Lord, and to do it while He may be found, and to call upon Him. He also calls the wicked to forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and to return to the Lord and He will have mercy on them, and pardon them abundantly. It's at this point that God then talks about His thoughts and ways being different than ours.
In closing, may I say that our God is so wonderfully different than we are, in that He will forgive, He will pardon, He will bless those who have been wicked and unrighteous, He invites them to turn, to forsake, to seek Him, etc, etc. And He will bless them.
How great is our God.
Many blessings of grace to you.
Pastor Bob Grenier
