Isaiah 2:2-4 envisions a future age of universal peace and justice with Yahweh's instruction going forth from Zion to all nations.

Concede the plain fact: literal, complete, universal cessation of war has not occurred. But note what kind of prophetic statement this is. Isaiah 2:2 opens with the standard Hebrew eschatological formula 'be'acharit hayamim' ('in the days to come' / 'in the latter days'), which in prophetic idiom marks an open eschatological horizon rather than a dated, near-term claim -- contrast this with Isaiah's own explicitly time-bound oracles elsewhere (e.g., against Damascus and Ephraim, Isa 7:8, dated 'within sixty-five years'). The text itself does not attach a deadline that could be violated; it describes a consummation, not a scheduled event. Christian theology has never claimed this was completed at Christ's first coming -- it operates on an 'already/not yet' (inaugurated eschatology) structure, the same framework used to address other unconsummated prophetic hopes (e.g., Zechariah 9's king of peace). The 'instruction going forth from Zion' begins to be inaugurated in the apostolic mission launched from Jerusalem (Acts 1:8; 2:1-11, the gospel going out to 'every nation under heaven') and is consummated only at Christ's return, when Isaiah's Zion imagery is taken up directly into the vision of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:24-26, nations walking by its light). This is a structural continuity across both testaments, not an ad hoc rescue.

The historical spread of the apostolic gospel from Jerusalem outward, and the documented moral influence of Christian conviction in restraining and delegitimizing warfare among evangelized peoples over centuries, function as a genuine, if partial, down payment consistent with a not-yet-consummated prophecy rather than a falsified one.