The Wolf With the Lamb

There are a number of Bible prophecies that describe conditions that call to mind a paradise. A delightful description of such a paradise is found at Isaiah 11:6-9, which reads as follows:

“The wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together; and a mere little boy will be leader over them. And the cow and the bear themselves will feed; together their young ones will lie down. And even the lion will eat straw just like the bull. And the sucking child will certainly play upon the hole of the cobra; and upon the light aperture of a poisonous snake will a weaned child actually put his own hand. They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain; because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.”

Just imagine how pleasant it would be to live in tranquil surroundings like those described here, with total peace existing in such a marvelous way! This would restore the Paradise conditions that existed in the garden of Eden when animals and humans lived in that garden in perfect harmony. (Genesis 1:30; 2:8, 9, 19, 20) True Christians eagerly look forward to enjoying these grand blessings on an earth-wide scale in the future under the rule of the Messianic King, Jesus Christ. His rulership is described in Isaiah 11:1-5, the verses immediately preceding the ones quoted above. But are these sure-to-be-realized future blessings under the Kingdom rule the only fulfillment of Isaiah’s words?

No, this prophecy might also be said to portray a transformation of human personalities. In what way? Answers 18th-century Bible scholar Matthew Henry: “Men of the most fierce and furious dispositions, who used to bite and devour all about them, shall have their temper so strangely altered . . . that they shall live in love even with the weakest, and such as formerly they would have made an easy prey of.”

And another Bible scholar, Joseph Benson, wrote during the last century: “Men of fierce, cruel, and ungovernable dispositions shall be so transformed by the preaching of the gospel, and by the grace of Christ, that they shall become most humble, gentle, and tractable, and shall no more vex and persecute those meek and poor ones, mentioned [in] Isa 11 verse 4.”

Imagine that! Humans discarding former aggressive traits and putting on, instead, personalities marked by peacefulness and love! Not that such persons lose their identity. Isaiah does not say that the wolf becomes a lamb, but, rather, that its disposition changes so that it dwells peacefully with the lamb.

Similarly, in keeping with Isaiah’s words, humans with beastlike traits​—who perhaps killed, exploited or otherwise victimized their fellowman—​make over their personalities, getting along with other people who are peacefully disposed like the lamb. When such a situation comes to exist among people, the grand consequences may be spoken of as a spiritual paradise.

Consider the following example:

David is a big, brawny young man who grew up on a farm in Minnesota, in the United States. “My father always told me to settle my arguments with my fists,” explains David, who later became an amateur boxer. “I can always remember him saying, ‘Never start a fight, but be sure you finish it.’ As a result, it was fight first, never ask questions. I actually enjoyed doing bodily harm to others.”

For instance, one night a man pulling out of a parking spot blocked David’s car. He stubbornly refused to move. “I was so mad I wanted to kill him,” says David. So he dragged the man from his car and beat him to the point of unconsciousness. Could a person with such a violent disposition really change his ways?

One day, while he was unemployed, David was contacted by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their message about a coming righteous New Order of things touched his heart. “I was convinced from the start that they had the truth,” says David. As he applied in his life what he was learning, David started making changes​—he quit smoking and stopped taking drugs. He was even making progress in taming his violent disposition.

But several months later David had a disappointing setback. He was working on a construction job. One morning a co-worker started harassing him. David warned him to stop, but he did not. The result? David explains: “I hit him so hard I thought I had killed him. He was unconscious for about 20 minutes. I felt really ashamed of myself.”

However, David slowly progressed in making over his personality. A real test came several years after he became a baptized witness of Jehovah. He was out preaching from house to house. At one door a man came out and started swearing at him. The man then grabbed hold of David’s coat and threw him off the steps. Without saying a word David started walking to the next house. Not satisfied with this, the man chased after him and, picking up a baseball bat, hit David across his lower back. Yet this formerly violent young man did not retaliate! He just walked away. What a remarkable change in personality! This “wolf” is now getting along peacefully with “lambs,” serving as an elder and as a full-time minister in the congregation.