How Immanuel Tames the Wild Beasts
A picture of the peace of Jerusalem is thus given in verses 6-9. “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down p. 205 together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: FOR the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
The popular view of this prophecy finds expression in a well-known and beautiful picture of a little child leading some of the beasts spoken of; and in that vision the matter is for most people exhausted. But let the questions be asked: How does the knowledge of the Lord bear upon the taming of the wild beasts? And what special reference has the matter to God’s holy mountain? A greater and more interesting development then comes into view, and one which is the subject of description in other Scriptures.
There are human wolves and lions, the subduing of whom is a greater work than taming the wild beasts of the forest. What profit would it be if wolves and lions were tamed and men left wild? It will not be so. Beginning with the Lord’s land, the knowledge of the Lord will, after judgment, transform mankind; and Satan being bound, and the “old serpent” cast into the abyss, earth will rejoice in the peace and blessedness of Christ’s kingdom for a thousand years.
In the forty-third chapter of Isaiah, God declares that He will do “a new thing,” saying, “The beasts of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise. But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.” Peter’s vision, described in Acts x., represented to the apostle, as the symbol of the Gentiles, a great sheet let down from heaven; “wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things, and fowls of the air.” In the end of the same chapter we learn that Cornelius the centurion, and his household were part of the substance represented by the vision. They were some of the beasts of the field that “honoured God” in the reception of His WORD, and the doing of His will in obeying the truth in baptism. p. 206 Thus God “cleansed” the “common and unclean” as He had thrice revealed His purpose to Peter in vision; and He bore additional testimony to the fact in the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, enabling these Gentile converts to speak with tongues even as the apostles did on the day of Pentecost.
This illustrates the process of the transformation of Gentile wolves, lions, swine, and other unclean beasts into “the sheep of God’s pasture,” led of Him all the days of their life, in hope at last of a place in His House for ever.
The case of Paul may be said to furnish a striking example of the same change. When he was a persecutor of the Lord Jesus and his people, although he did it in all good conscience, he was on the side of the Devil—a lion among the lions, a wolf among the wolves, who “breathed out threatenings and slaughter” against the sheep, and, on his own testimony, was “exceedingly mad against them.” Because he did it ignorantly and in unbelief he obtained mercy of the Lord, and being baptised, for the washing away of his sins, became one of Christ’s sheep, to the amazement of those of the flock who had known him in his old character. Slightly changing the figure, it is Paul who applies the injunction of the law against muzzling the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, to the apostolic labour, and liberty to partake of the carnal things of those to whom the spiritual things of the gospel were ministered (1 Cor. ix. 10).
The woman of Canaan who appealed to Jesus on behalf of her daughter, was promptly classed by him among the “dogs,” and had sufficient faith and humility to accept his estimate, and plead that even the dogs got a crumb or two under the table of their masters, a saying that at once secured for her the “crumb” desired. Thus dogs, wolves, lions, serpents, sheep and oxen appear as the representation of their analogues among human animals; and Bible students will recall many more illustrations that might be given.
But what wolves, lions and serpents are those that have in particular “hurt and destroyed” in Yahweh’s holy mountain because of the lack of the knowledge of the Lord? Bible history supplies the answer, which in brief is that they are the evil p. 207 doers of Israel, and the Gentile powers God brought upon the nation in consequence of their sins. Literal visitations of lions (2 Kings xvii. 25) are not overlooked; but the larger matter is now before us. “Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last, this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath broken his bones.” So says Jeremiah (ch. l. 17). And again (chap. v.) “A lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities.” The four-headed and four-winged leopard of Daniel’s vision (ch. vii.) “watched over their cities” for between two and three hundred years; and when at length Immanuel appeared as the “heir of all things,” the assembly of the wicked, of Jews and Gentiles, combined against him as a gathering of wild beasts (lions, dogs, and bulls of Bashan), on the mountains of Israel.
But their fury did but accomplish the predetermined purpose of God in the death of Christ. As Ezekiel and Zephaniah had testified of their times, the princes, prophets and judges of Israel had become lions and wolves ravening for the prey (Ezek. xxii.; Zeph. iii.); and secured a temporary triumph as the Spirit of God had testified in Psa. xxii., when telling how God’s Anointed should be brought into the dust of death. He had not failed to describe them in their true character as “wolves,” “serpents,” a “generation of vipers;” and he had specially warned his disciples in sending them forth “as sheep in the midst of wolves,” to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” After his death and resurrection, we find them acting out his advice in their difficult undertakings; and from behind the veil, as it were, the Lord himself granted them occasional deliverance as suited His purpose.
Thus Paul (2 Tim. iv. 17), speaking of his defence before Nero, says, “The Lord stood with me . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lion.” Peter exhorts to watchfulness, “because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour; whom,” says he, “resist, stedfast in the faith” (1 Pet. v. 8). And Paul warned the Ephesian elders against the “grievous wolves” who would surely arise and “not spare the flock” (Acts xx. 29).
p. 208 History has only too well verified Paul’s prophecy, and that of the later revelation of the Lord Jesus himself. In Rev. xiii., the Roman system in union with the secular power is represented by a beast “like unto a leopard” with feet like a bear’s, and a mouth like the mouth of a lion. The beast made war with the saints—for a time appointed—a time that we have the happiness of knowing is now in the past. The end of the beast, however, has not come yet; but is to be brought about by war with the Lamb (Rev. xvii. 14: xix. 19). Armageddon, on the mountains of Israel, will decide the matter for a thousand years, during which “they shall not hurt nor destroy” in all God’s holy mountain, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” “No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; but the redeemed shall walk there” (Isa. xxxv. 9). Of Jerusalem and her people: the new heavens and new earth, God says (Isa. lxv. 24-25), “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith the Lord.”
As concerning literal changes in the relations of man with the inferior creatures over which in the beginning the Creator gave Adam dominion, it has been well said that Daniel in the lions’ den is an illustration of possibilities when Daniels are multiplied in all the earth. In the beginning, “every beast of the field and every fowl of the air” were presented by the Lord God to Adam “to see what he would call them”: a very interesting incident in which Adam, strong in innocence and God-given dominion over the animals, exercised his observation, judgment, and powers of definition on their differing characteristics, and named them accordingly. Adam’s sons have been at it ever since; for the matter is a great one, and it will be one of the delights of the kingdom of Adam the second to hear his classification of the Father’s creatures with a wisdom far exceeding Solomon’s. In the days of his flesh, in the temptation in the wilderness, it is said, he “was with the wild beasts.” From these it seemed he had nothing to fear, like his prototype in the p. 209 garden of Eden: but other and more terrible wild beasts sought and took his life. Elijah fed by ravens is another glimpse of possibilities. Nothing is too hard for the Lord; and doubtless a feature of millennial blessedness will be the great reduction, or possibly abolition altogether, of the mortality due to wild beasts and serpents, which in countries like India assumes terrible proportions. But the language of the prophets, and the reason of the cessation of the “hurting and destroying,” suggests that the matter of taming the more terrible “beasts” is the subject introduced in Isa. xi. 6-9.
“The Root of Jesse”
The prophecy continues: “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the peoples; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious.” How one and the same person can appropriately be symbolised in verse 1 by the expression “Rod out of the stem of Jesse,” and in verse 10 “Root of Jesse” can only appear when the truth concerning Jesus is rightly apprehended. In Rev. v. 5 John in vision hears him called “the Root of David” by one of the elders; and in ch. xxii. 16 he says himself: I am the Root and the offspring of David.” The doctrine of “Immanuel” explains the apparent anomaly. God was the Root of David, as of all things created, and Jesus was God with Israel, and spoke God’s words, saying, for example, “Before Abraham was I am.” The Spirit was the antecedent to Abraham, but the Jews, who looked no higher than the flesh, supposed that Jesus spoke of himself, and sought to kill him. It was otherwise with John the Baptist, who, recognising his heavenly origin, said of him, “After me cometh a man which is preferred before me.” Inasmuch as Jesus was the Word made flesh, he is the “Root of Jesse”; and because he “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,” he is obviously “the Branch.” Were he merely a man, as some would have it, such expressions as the “Root of Jesse,” “the Root and offspring of David,” could have no rational place in the testimony concerning him. Those who seek to evade the force p. 210 of the prophecy of Isaiah vii. concerning his supernatural origin, should consider this. “The word of the truth of the gospel” is so interlaced in all the scriptures, that any attempt to mutilate it must inevitably recoil on those who are unwise enough to make it.
“An Ensign of the Peoples”
An ensign is a standard or banner, indicating the presence of royalty or authority; and denoting a rallying point for the people in peace or war. The Bible usage of the term with reference to Christ, introduces things that have no counterpart among the powers that be. Suppose we contemplate the late Queen Victoria in the year of the Diamond Jubilee (1897) as an ensign to the British Empire. We have an imposing spectacle truly; but there is no divine life and power behind the British throne. And although the boast be true: “We hold a vaster Empire than has been;” that Empire is by no means universal, but is only part of what is to be possessed by Christ in the day when the British “kingdom” is “left to other people,” even “the saints of the Most High.”
The term translated “ensign” is that which appears in the name “Yahweh-Nissi” (Yahweh, my ensign or banner), which Moses gave to the altar he built after the victory over Amalek (Ex. xvii. 15). Amalek fought with Israel in Rephidim; and Moses, having commissioned Joshua to direct the battle, stood with Aaron and Hur on a neighbouring hill, with the rod of God in his hand. When Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed. And when he was weary, Aaron and Hur “held up the failing hands” till the going down of the sun, by which time Amalek was discomfited before Joshua. God directed Moses, saying, “Write this for a memorial, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” The altar, Yahweh-nissi (literally, He who shall be my ensign), represents Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, more honourable than Moses; and before whose unfailing uplifted hands Israel will do valiantly. Balaam, in his p. 211 prophecy of “the latter days,” saw him in vision in this victorious attitude (Num. xxiv. 17).
But before this there was another kind of “lifting up” to which the “Root of Jesse” was to be subjected. When Israel loathed the manna and murmured against God in the wilderness, God sent fiery serpents among the people, by which many died. The people confessed their sin to Moses, who prayed for them; and God commanded him, saying, “Make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole (nes, a standard or ensign); and it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived” (Num. xxi.).
About 700 years afterwards, when the brazen serpent had been made an idol, it was broken up by Hezekiah. Another 700 years, and the substance of the sign appeared in Israel in the person of an Israelite, who was serpent-bitten, though no murmurer, and who was at the same time the antitype of the loathed manna of the days of the exodus. He said: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John iii.). And to the Jews, in the controversy that arose upon his declaring himself to be “the light of the world,” he said, “When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am he” (John viii.). And just before that lifting up took place he said, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, WILL DRAW ALL UNTO ME. This said he, signifying what death he should die” (John xii.). A few days more and the Son of Man was lifted up upon the cross. God so loved the world that He gave him for that end. He thus “condemned sin in the flesh.” Thus “the prince of this world” was cast out. “He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Yahweh-nissi received the initial stage of its fulfilment in Israel, and serpent-bitten sinners had but to look upon him and live. The apostolic preaching p. 212 of the gospel, “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile,” is the literal unfolding of the meaning of the figures.
But the “ensign” did not then “stand” in the land of Israel as a beacon for all peoples. The nation that had rejected him, and the city before which he was crucified, were given over to judgment and desolation for a long “time of the Gentiles” as he had foretold; while he himself ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on High, “from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” When the time comes for that great crisis, he returns and is “lifted up” on the mountains of Israel far otherwise than as in crucifixion, and all the world is called upon to behold:—
“All ye inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign upon the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet hear ye” (Isa. xviii. 3). This is a warning that precedes the stroke of judgment that gives the hosts of the robbers of Israel for a sacrifice to the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air, and paves the way for the final replanting of Israel in their land. It is the great day in which the Assyrian falls, but not by the sword of man (Isa. xxxi. 8). “And his rock shall pass away for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of THE ENSIGN, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.” The Angel of the Lord who destroyed Sennacherib’s army was terrible to the Assyrian of old. Christ will be more so hereafter to the Great Northern Confederacy of the latter days.
And the glory of Christ as the “ensign of the peoples” is not confined to himself as the Head of his multitudinous body; but extends to all the children of the resurrection as well. This appears from the prophecy of Zechariah (ch. ix.) where God speaks of the release from the pit, of Christ’s prisoners of hope by the blood of his covenant. Of their royal position over Judah and Ephraim it is said: “The Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.” The Lord Jesus at their head is King of Kings, who “was dead and is alive for evermore;” who once was lifted p. 213 up on the cross to suffer a malefactor’s death but is then enthroned in glory with the saints as his “crown of rejoicing.” And they who have looked upon him for salvation, as Israel looked upon the serpent in the wilderness, and who have “suffered with him” in various manners and degrees, are then with him “an ensign of the peoples;” and having been by him made “unto God, kings and priests,” “all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.”
Even in the days of their flesh, Christ’s people are in some sort “an ensign of the peoples” as he was. They are not now, and have not at any time been “acknowledged;” but like him have been, and are, “disallowed,” disowned, and accounted “the offscouring of all things.” “The truth” is their ensign or banner: “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth” (Psa lx. 4). Their testimony concerning Him who shall be the ensign of Israel constitutes them “the salt of the earth,” “the light of the world,” “a city that is set on a hill (which) cannot be hid.” So Christ testified of the disciples, in the sermon on the mount, cautioning them at the same time about becoming unsavoury and extinguishing the light.
If we are to have part in the exaltation of the future, we must realise the exaltation of the present, and reckon with Paul that the sufferings in consequence are altogether negligible. In the resurrection morning the memory of the sufferings will be to the apostle a pleasure instead of a pain; as the crucifixion must have been to the Lord when he awoke from the brief sleep of death. The victory that overcometh the world, says the apostle, is our faith; and the Word of God, ministered by prophet and apostle, is strong to produce that faith wherever it is earnestly sought and diligently and prayerfully followed. Be it ours to cleave fast to it, that we may be as he was in the world, and may be counted worthy of a place in his glorious rest.
p. 214“Nations Rallying to the Ensign”
“An ensign of the peoples, to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious” (Isa. xi. 10). Jesus is the “ensign of the peoples.” But what does the word of God tell us of nations seeking to Him, and of His rest that is to be glorious?
First of the nations. God’s division of mankind with the reference to His eternal purpose marks them off into the two classes—Jews and Gentiles. It might have been otherwise. What His purpose may be in other planets, with the inhabitants thereof, we know not; save the presumption (from the words of the Elohim at the time of Adam’s transgression), that they are to attain to perfection by faith and obedience manifested under trial—a choosing of the good, and refusing the evil, because of the love of God.
But concerning Earth His revelation is clear and unmistakable, though so universally neglected, that “Salvation is of the Jews.” It is vain to kick against the pricks. High-flown theories of presumptuous speculators may reject what they are pleased to term the narrowness and bigotry of a mere “tribal theology,” and claim with swelling oration the “Universal Fatherhood of God” and the common brotherhood of man. They cannot alter facts. The facts are the “pricks” (goads). All Jewish history of the past, and the world-rousing Jewish developments of the present, simply goad and torment the theorists who reject God’s plan. They can neither face nor account for them.
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities”—this, in a sentence, is an entirely satisfactory divine philosophy of the unparalleled sufferings of Israel in the past. “He that scattered Israel will gather him”—this is a perfect explanation of the movements of the present. A terrible lesson awaits the Gentiles among whom God has scattered Israel. A small remnant among them will save themselves in time before the judgment storm bursts upon the world. They will enquire of p. 215 God, by means of the Word He has given Israel and suffered it to come through them into their hands. They will discover their true relation to the matter in His gracious purpose from the beginning.
Man has no rights before God. It is true that Adam was “Son of God,” but he sinned; and “the wages of sin is death.” Our natural birthright from Adam is only evil and death. Even to the elite of the chosen nation when they were in rebellion against the Father, Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the Devil.” We must realise our true estate before we can appreciate the goodness and condescension of God in providing a Saviour to whom nations shall seek, and whose rest shall be glorious.
After more than sixteen hundred years of human progress, all flesh had corrupted God’s way upon earth to such an extent that He determined to destroy “the world of the ungodly.” He did so in Noah’s flood, saving only eight souls. So that it might have been said in that day, “Salvation is of Noah,” according to the prophecy of Lamech, his father, who at his birth “called his name Noah (Rest or Comfort), saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” In Noah’s family, in Shem’s line, comes “the heir of the world,” and “father of many nations”—Abraham. Just as in the case of Noah, so in Abraham’s case, it is entirely “of the Lord” that he is individually chosen as the vehicle of divine blessing, the fountain head of human hope in his holding of the divine covenant. That the “wise men after the flesh” have got the length in our day of saying that “it has not yet been made probable” that such a man as Abraham existed, is only an exhibition to all whom it may concern of their own utter folly before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ and a world full of Jews.
“In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” So God said to Abraham, and Paul, about two thousand years afterwards, speaking to some of those concerned, emphasised the fact, saying, “The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify p. 216 the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” Thus the matter of Isaiah’s prophecy of Immanuel is rooted in the covenant of God with his father Abraham. For nearly two thousand years the full scope and bearing of the divine purpose with regard to the Gentiles was concealed. It was there all the time, concurrently with all the law and the prophets, but, although the subject of abundant revelation, was not thoroughly comprehended till the “rod out of the stem of Jesse” appeared, of whom it had been said, “In his name shall the Gentiles trust.” Even in his infancy the hope of nations comes before us in the songs of angels and prophecies of saints:—
“Peace on earth, goodwill from heaven\ Reaching far as man is found,”
was the theme of the heavenly host in connection with the glory of God to be revealed through the Babe of Bethlehem. And the aged Simeon, rejoicing in having survived “to see the Lord’s Christ,” spoke of him as “a light to lighten the Gentiles.”
Time passed and Jesus went forth on his mission preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Some incidents in his ministry foreshadowed the opening of the door of faith unto the Gentiles. On one occasion a centurion asked the favour of his healing a sick servant. “I will come and heal him,” was the answer. But the centurion, deeply impressed with the majesty of Jesus and his own unworthiness, said, “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed;” and argued that that would be as easy for Jesus, as the giving of a command to a soldier would be to him. And “when Jesus heard it he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” And he dismissed the centurion with the words: “Go thy way; p. 217 and as thou hast believed so be it done unto thee.” And the servant was healed as he spoke.
Soon afterwards the leaders of that generation of “the children of the kingdom” combined with the Romans and crucified the King, who died without resistance, and with a prayer to the Father for their forgiveness upon his lips. But he had forewarned them of the consequences of this filling up of the measure of their iniquity, telling of the great wrath of God that should come upon the land and city and nation, and the desolation of Jerusalem during a long “time of the Gentiles.” Before the subversion of the Jewish State of those times, he caused the gospel of the kingdom to be preached “in all the world,” or Roman habitable earth, to Jew and Gentile, and in the doing of this his apostles expounded to all men God’s purpose in Christ concerning Israel and the nations. Beginning at Jerusalem with devout Jews out of every nation, it extended, in the hands of Peter the holder of the keys of the kingdom (the key of divine knowledge), to the household of Cornelius and onwards; and afterwards, in the hands of Paul, to the Jews and Gentiles of Europe and Asia.
Paul was especially “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” In the exercise of this function he had much to say of the word of God concerning the Gentiles. The Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s writings reveal it. At Antioch, in Pisidia, when the Jews rejected the gospel, Paul turned to the Gentiles, quoting Isa. xlii. as the Lord’s command in justification of so doing. At Lystra he rebuked the prevailing idolatry and restrained the priest of Jupiter from sacrificing to him! At Jerusalem, when the apostles came together over the matter of the Judaisers, he witnessed of God’s working with him in miraculous attestation of his ministry, and, with others, took back to the churches of Asia the inspired decision of the apostles. At Phillipi, at Athens, and Corinth, and at Ephesus (to trace the progress of the Acts), he testified to the Gentiles concerning Christ, and one night when imprisoned in the Roman castle in Jerusalem, “the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem so must thou p. 218 bear witness also at ROME.” And so, having appealed to Cæsar, he was taken to Rome, where he convened the chief of the Jews for the sake of “the hope of Israel.”
But these rejecting the Gospel, he turned to the Gentiles, as was his wont, and a community was founded at Rome, to whom he afterwards wrote the epistle which contains so much concerning the Gentiles in their relation to the Jews and to the Law of Moses, to Abraham as the father of many nations, to Adam who was inversely a figure of Christ, and to the promised “receiving” of Israel which is to be a revelation of “life from the dead.” In the tenth chapter of Romans, Paul quotes the Word of God to Moses that He would requite Israel’s provoking Him to jealousy with their idols, by provoking them to jealousy by the “foolish” Gentiles. And he adds the “very bold” contrast in Isa. lxv., between disobedient Israel as the rejecters of God’s long-proffered mercy, and the Gentiles who suddenly accepted His gracious invitation. In the fifteenth chapter, Paul, emphasising the matter before us in Isaiah xi., says, “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy; as it is written”—and he quotes where it is written—from the Psalms, from Moses in Deuteronomy, and from Isa. xi. “Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.”
The words of this quotation differ somewhat from the words of the text in the Old Testament. What is the explanation of the fact, and how does it bear upon the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures? Paul’s quotation is from the Septuagint version, and as in the providence of God that version was the means of appeal to the Gentiles in the prevailing language of that day, a word or two on the subject may not be out of place.
Before the time came for the last dispersion of Israel, and the concurrent sending forth of the Gospel invitation to the Gentiles, it was necessary that there should exist a version of the Old Testament Scriptures that could be appealed to in the apostolic labours in a way that left their hearers an opportunity p. 219 of “searching the Scriptures daily whether those things were so” (Acts xvii.). The Jews, of course, could appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures; but the Greeks would have been at a loss apart from a version in their own tongue, unless, indeed, supernatural gifts had in every case followed the apostolic preaching. That the last supposition was not the case, the New Testament writings clearly show. How the Septuagint Version came into existence is briefly shown by the following extracts from an “Introduction” to the book that appears in Bagster’s edition of the Septuagint.
“After the conquests of Alexander had brought Egypt under Macedonian rule, the newly founded city of Alexandria became especially a place where the Greek language, although by no means in its purest form, was the medium of written and spoken communication among the varied population there brought together. This Alexandrian dialect is the idiom in which the Septuagint Version was made. “Amongst other inhabitants of Alexandria the number of Jews was considerable: many appear to have settled there even from the first founding of the city, and it became the residence of many more during the reign of the first Ptolemy. Hence the existence of the sacred books of the Jews would easily become known to the Greek population.”
The account then goes on to give reasons for concluding that the translation was commenced prior to B.C. 285 and probably completed in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The fabulous stories of the miraculous agreement of the seventy-two translators said to have been employed by the Egyptian King (“the King of the the South” of one of the verses of Dan. xi.) is dismissed; but the substratum of truth accepted is that “the Egyptian King procured a translation of the Jewish Scriptures,” “and that it was from the Royal Library at Alexandria that the Hellenistic Jews received the copies which they used.”
“The variety of the translators is proved by the unequal character of the version. Some books show that the translators were by no means competent to the task, while others, on the p. 220 contrary, exhibit on the whole a careful translation. The Pentateuch is considered to be the part the best executed, while the book of Isaiah appears to be the very worst.” “At Alexandria the Hellenistic Jews used the version, and gradually attached to it the greatest possible authority: from Alexandria it spread amongst the Jews of the dispersion, so that at the time of our Lord’s birth it was the common form in which the Old Testament Scriptures had become diffused.” “The Septuagint version having been current for about three centuries before the time when the books of the New Testament were written, it is not surprising that the apostles should have used it more often than not in making citations from the Old Testament. They used it as an honestly-made version in pretty general use at the time they wrote. They did not on every occasion give an authoritative translation of each passage de novo, but they used what was already familiar to the ears of converted Hellenists, when it was sufficiently accurate to suit the matter in hand. In fact, they used it as did their contemporary Jewish writers, Philo and Josephus, but not, however, with the blind implicitness of the former.” “In consequence of the fact that the New Testament writers used on many occasions the Septuagint version, some have deduced a new argument for its authority,—a theory which we might have thought to be sufficiently disproved by the defects of the version, which evince that it is merely a human work. But the fact that the New Testament writers used this version on many occasions supplies a new proof in opposition to the idea of its authority, for in not a few places they do not follow it, but they supply a version of their own which rightly represents the Hebrew text, although contradicting the Septuagint.” “The use, however, which the writers of the New Testament have made of the Septuagint version must always invest it with a peculiar interest; we thus see what honour God may be pleased to put on an honestly-made version, since we find that inspired writers often used such a version, when it was sufficiently near the original to suit the purpose for which it was cited, instead of rendering the Hebrew text de novo on every occasion.”
p. 221 These remarks are quoted for the sake of the interesting light they throw upon the apostolic ministry to the Gentiles, and because of the reverent manner in which is exhibited the true principle of judging of the apostolic handling of the scriptures. Superficial animosity, finding variation between the Hebrew text and the apostolic quotation or allusion, cries “Discrepancy”! and, after the manner of Dean Alford on Acts vii., does not hesitate to virtually charge God with blundering and mistake! The friends of Christ approach the matter in another spirit. Their first axiom is “Let God be true;” “Thy word is perfect;” “The spirit of truth guideth into all truth.” Grant that God, by the Lord Jesus, inspired and guided the apostles in their mission (and how can it be denied?), and all is plain. Their voice is the Spirit’s voice. God, who spoke by the prophets and by Jesus, spoke finally by them as Jesus had promised (Matt. x. 20; Acts iv. 8). Their utterances are therefore authoritative.
In the passage before us (Rom. xv. 12 in connection with Isa. xi. 10), we simply conclude that for the purpose in hand Paul considered the Septuagint version sufficiently accurate: and indeed its rendering: “He that shall arise to rule over the Gentiles,” is quite equivalent to the Hebrew: “Which shall stand as an ensign of the peoples.” So also “In him shall the Gentiles trust,” is the same idea as “To it shall the Gentiles seek.” We ought surely to allow the Author’s liberty of choice to the Holy Spirit, and whatever difficulties may appear, let us not charge God with error. Most difficulties can be solved; but if not, let them remain, and suspend judgment, avoiding the pitfalls into which the “wise men after the flesh” stumble to their own discomfiture.
Quoting this prophecy to the Roman believers, in illustration of the divine intention with regard to their privileged position in Christ, Paul adds: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” After this he speaks of the ministration of the Grecian brethren to “the poor saints p. 222 at Jerusalem,” and comments on the indebtedness of the Gentiles to the Jews. He desires their prayers, and, greeting many by name, with many words of approval and encouragement interspersed, concludes thus: “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began; but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever, Amen” (Rom. xv. 25, 27).
Our time has come in the passing generations of the Gentiles, and the revealed mystery, by the Scriptures of the prophets, has become known to us, and we have so far rendered the obedience of faith as to put on Christ in baptism, and enter upon his service in hope of the rest that remaineth. “In him shall the Gentiles trust” receives an exceedingly fragmentary illustration in our day and generation; but it is a real one nevertheless, for nothing but trust in his name would induce men and women to come out from kith and kin and all that is agreeable to the flesh, and accept the inevitable scorn and humiliation that pertains to a true following of Christ, and is part of the perfecting process that prepares for the Kingdom of God. The signs are many and clear that tell us the end is near, and that the larger fulfilment of the prophecy is near, when the nations shall seek the Lord at Jerusalem in the day that he shall be exalted there.
“His Rest Shall Be Glorious”
“His rest” is an extraordinary phrase to find applied to a son of David in prophecy. Familiarity has largely obscured the true wonder of it; and an effort has to be made to get rid of the blunting effect upon spiritual perception of the mere repetition of the familiar words. In the beginning, at the end of the creative week, “God rested on the seventh day.” Parkhurst says the Hebrew word shabath “is opposed not to weariness, but to work or action,” which, though well enough as applied p. 223 to God, does not exclude the idea that the saints will be wearied enough before they enter upon “the rest that remaineth.”
Though not definitely stated in the Scriptures, it is manifest that Paul endorses the tradition that just as God employed six days in the creation of the World Adamic, and rested on the seventh; so He is employing six millenniums in the creation of the World Messianic, and will rest on the seventh, which is the day of Christ of a thousand years’ duration. In the epistle to the Hebrews, Paul argues on this wise, and refers to “the rest (literally sabbath-rest) that remaineth to the people of God” (Heb. iv. 9). He also refers to the history of the Exodus, and the rest in the land of promise under Joshua, which was a type of Christ’s rest in the same land; and to the failure of the unbelievers to enter—“whose carcases fell in the wilderness.” These were an example of the many who shall be refused entrance into “his glorious rest” in the day of Christ.
Paul makes a pointed application of these things to the believers of his day: “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” He justifies his future placing of the rest by reference to the ninety-fifth Psalm, in which God, “after so long a time” (that is, in David’s days, about 430 years after the occupation of the land under Joshua), says to Israel, “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.” On this Paul argues that if Joshua had given Israel rest, God would not afterwards have spoken of another day, and concludes that there remaineth a sabbath rest for the people of God.
In view of this he exhorts, saying, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast, firm until the end.” And Paul also draws attention to Jesus, saying, “He p. 224 that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from his,” and adds, “Let us labour, therefore, to enter into that rest.” And he encourages the brethren by reminding them of the faithfulness and sympathy of the High Priest of God’s providing, and warns them of the penetrating discernment of the Word and Spirit of God.
Christ’s own words contain the assertion of his fulfilling the position assigned to him by the Spirit of God in the prophets as the Giver of Rest to Israel and the nations. On one occasion, after upbraiding Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for the disregard of his mighty works, he thanked God that the things of the kingdom were hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes; and apostrophised his hearers in words that have echoed round the world ever since: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This rest is mental and moral, and belongs even to this present time of waiting for the glorious rest of the kingdom of God. The man who comes to Christ finds rest and peace in many ways even now. He is delivered from the perplexities, doubts and distresses of those “without Christ.” Has he been burdened with sin and sorrow? Christ forgives him, and gives him hope and guidance unto life eternal. Has he dreaded “the great unknown” after death? Christ enlightens him: he is the Resurrection and the Life, and death but “a sleep in the dust” for a night, with his strong hand ready to wake him in the morning. Does he look abroad on the Father’s works in nature—the great silent Universe, and yearn for an explanation of the state of things on earth—the reign of sin and death—the triumph of evil—wars, strifes and hatreds ever increasing? Christ is the all-sufficient answer—“the heir of all things,” “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” once a wearer of this poor human nature, now glorious for ever with life and blessing in his hand ready to bestow it on his people.
p. 225 The most conspicuous wearers of his yoke have the most earnestly attested the truth of his apparently hard saying that it is “easy.” Paul was positive of it. Truly judged—by comparison with the yoke and burden of sin, we can see it is really so. Give a sinner long life, unclouded success, vast inheritance—everything but Christ; and the final verdict must be “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” And it is not only the final verdict. Where is the “rest” all the time of the vain march to the grave? There is none and can be none: we were made by God, for God, and apart from God there is no rest or peace for the sons of men. Universal human experience altogether belies the practically universal human denial of this truth.
But come to the end of the matter with Christ, and rest of mind in mortal pilgrimage culminates in the perfection of physical, mental and moral rest, satisfaction and glory in the kingdom of God. A great gathering of the labourers of all past generations is the sublime crisis toward which the world is hastening. This will be truly “glorious” as the prophet foretold, a consummation worthy of the Great Creator, and providing, as it were, a living record of His dealings with mankind in all their generations. If this end were always in view, and “the great cloud of witnesses,” we should never falter nor fail. And the word of God is able to keep it in view.
The Revised Version would render the line in Isa. xi. “His resting place shall be glorious.” This is truly so: “the glory of the celestial body” has fit topographical setting in the glory of Jerusalem in the age to come. The sixteenth chapter of Isaiah is the vision of it—Zion glorified by the presence of the Lord and the saints, the wealth of the Gentiles, the beauty of mountain, forest and stream, and the expurgation of every form of defilement. God, who appointed the city to desolation that it should become, as it has, a proverb and an astonishment, has appointed it for a praise in the earth in the latter days, and the desolation is but the earnest of the glory; and the more so as the tide is on the turn, and “Zionism” sounds the first note heralding the dawn of “Zion’s glad morning.” We labour, as it were, late on the sixth day. The Sabbath of rest is at hand, and it will be glorious for those who hold fast the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.
p. 226 The typical rest of Israel in the Promised Land under Joshua was not reached without a final time of trouble and war. The glory of Solomon’s peaceful reign only succeeded the sufferings, wars and victories of David, which were celebrated by him in songs of thanksgiving to God for His deliverance. So Christ’s “glorious rest” is only reached after war and conquest on a scale far exceeding these actions of ancient times. Isaiah, in common with the other prophets, presents this picture, as also does the later revelation of the Lord Jesus himself.
“The earth abideth for ever.” The everlasting hills are with us, and the countries that saw the mighty works of old, and are studded with the monuments of them, are to witness the revival of God’s work in the latter days. And though times and generations change; Israel is with us, ready to participate in these world-changing developments, but faithless of the wonder that is about to happen to the nation, when, by the hands of Jesus, Joshua, David, Isaiah, and the “ancients of Israel” in general, will come forth as the heads of the revived nation to subdue all enemies, and plant Israel victoriously in the Land of Promise to the glory of Yahweh’s name.