p. 671In view of the good things promised in the everlasting covenant with David, and of the free and gracious invitation to “everyone that thirsteth” to partake thereof, the prophet goes on by the spirit to exhort to obedience, with further promises of the blessedness to be revealed.
“Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment and do justice, for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed” (Isa. lvi. 1).
The salvation and righteousness were first “made manifest” in the death and resurrection of Jesus some centuries after Isaiah spoke; but the lifetime of any true fellowservant with the prophets was all that practically separated him from a participation in the good things to be revealed, for “the dead know not anything,” but awake in the day of resurrection without the consciousness of any interval between their death and the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the “Servant” of Yahweh, to reward them according to their works.
But what is “keeping judgment and doing justice”? It is to “lay hold on” the things revealed, to “take hold of the covenant,” to keep the Sabbath from polluting it, to choose the things that please the Lord, to join themselves to the Lord, to love his name and to serve him (verses 2-6). None could do any of these things who were ignorant of the terms of the Lord’s covenants with David and the fathers, and were consequently faithless concerning the promises therein revealed. The only difference between Isaiah’s days and our own time, with respect to these conditions, is that we are not called upon to observe the Sabbath after the ordinances of the Mosaic Law, which is done away in Christ. This is impossible, and both he and the apostles were found fault with for desecrating the p. 672 Sabbath, as their enemies affirmed they did, but without true reason. Even under the Mosaic Law they only could truly observe the Sabbath who were “willing and obedient.” Hence it is said by the prophet in another place, “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord and honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Isa. lviii. 13-14).
The “blind watchmen” who found fault with Jesus for doing good on the Sabbath days did none of these things, and had no faith in the heritage of Jacob, nor in Jesus as the Son of David promised. They were lost in Rabbinical superstitions and quibbles (especially concerning the Sabbath), and blundered into “the ditch” as Jesus said, with all who were led by them.
A Bible Christian of the true apostolic type calls the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, and honourable, in looking for the sabbath rest that remaineth (Heb. iv.), and labouring to attain it. He remembers his Lord and Master who “hath entered into rest” in breaking bread and drinking wine as appointed by him every first day of the week according to apostolic custom. He abstains from his own ways and his own pleasure, and speaks not his own words, but the word of the kingdom which Jesus preached, and waits with patience his return to cause him to ride upon the high places of the earth in the heritage of Jacob his father. The “adoption” of the gospel enables him to do this.
“Blessed is the man who doeth this,” says the prophet (v. 2), “and the son of man that layeth hold on it.” The “frail man” and “son of the earth-born” as Rotherham translates it, in harmony with the spirit of the succeeding verses. If we would enlarge upon this, we might ask of the scriptures the question: Who are the blessed? What a large, harmonious, and beautiful answer we get. We listen to Christ on the Mount, when, as the Salvation of Yahweh and His Righteousness, he was p. 673 manifested in the land as “Immanuel,” God with us. “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled” (Matt. v.). “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. xxii.). “Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (Rev. xvi. 15).
These, and many other sayings in the Psalms and in the apostolic writings, give us the scriptural answer to the question “Who are the blessed?” There is no happiness or blessedness in any other course than waiting for God in the way of His commandments, in hope of the good things promised in the everlasting covenant. All else is vanity, though it be preferred by all the world.
Even the eunuchs and the sons of the strangers who take hold of the covenant are joined in the emphatic promise of blessedness to come (verses 3-8). Under the Law it was provided that a eunuch “shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord” (Deut. xxiii. 1). But here is a promise that looks beyond “the end of the Law.” We are at once reminded of some of the illustrations in Israel, and of Christ’s own words on the subject. The eunuch was literally, in his social relations, “a dry tree.” No society of “sons and daughters” could brighten his horizon, and in the inevitable course of nature, in a few years at most, his “name would be cut off.” This is the literal, and must be borne in mind to appreciate the gracious promise of God by the prophet.
When Hezekiah had been granted fifteen years further lease of life, and had shown the Babylonian princes all his treasures, the word of the Lord came to him and told him that all these should be carried away to Babylon, and, continued Isaiah, “Of thy sons which shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon” (2 Kings xx. 18; Isaiah xxxix. 7). Accordingly p. 674 we see Daniel and his companions in Babylon in charge of Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs; and in Daniel himself an eminent example of one who “loved the name of the Lord, chose the things that pleased him, and took hold of the covenant.” The assurance of the Lord to him that he should “stand in his lot at the end of the days,” and the abundant revelations he had the honour of receiving because of his whole-hearted service of God, may be taken as an inspired commentary upon this prophecy of Isaiah.
Another phase of the matter comes before us in Christ’s words when he forbade the putting away of wives “for every cause.” His disciples were surprised at his doctrine, and ventured to suggest that under such restrictions it were good not to marry. “But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save those to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mothers’ womb; and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matt. xix. 12).
Are we “able to receive it”? Yes, in view of what has come to pass since the words were spoken, namely, the gathering together into one small volume the whole counsel of God, from Genesis to Revelation. The Lord divides the matter into three cases: (1), the impotent from birth; (2), the humanly mutilated; (3), the unmarried of choice “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.” Of this last class, he himself is the most eminent example, and John the Baptist and the apostle Paul are others.
“He shall see a seed.” Many “sons and daughters” will be unto him upon a higher principle than being “born of the will of the flesh or of the will of man,” though he was “cut off out of the land of the living”—yea, because he was cut off out of the land of the living—in sacrifice. CHRIST, Daniel, John the Baptist, and Paul are before our minds as we read the promise of Isa. lvi. “Sons and daughters” after the flesh they had none; but in the day of recompense Christ under the Father will “bring many sons to glory,” being himself the firstborn among many brethren.
p. 675 As concerning the flesh, “it profiteth nothing.” Moses was super-excellent, but a grandson of his profaned the Name in the days of the Judges. Samuel was a model of integrity, “but his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes and perverted judgment.” There will be no place for ancestor-worship or progeny-worship in the kingdom of God. Its family relationships are on a higher plane. “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” They that turn many to righteousness sustain to those they so turn, the spiritual relationship of fathers to sons (Psa. xlv. 16; 1 Tim. i. 2); and in this sense Christ is the Head and Father of all; and Daniel, Paul, and others, though physically “dry trees,” will be surrounded in the day of Christ with sons and daughters the sweetness of whose society will incomparably transcend anything they could have met in merely mortal relationships.
Outside even the eunuchs of Israel were the “sons of the stranger,” to which category we in our far-off generation naturally belong. But even these are covered by the gracious promise of God by the prophet in harmony with other and earlier declarations of his counsel, such as Paul quotes in the epistle to the Romans (ch. xv.). “Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, saith, Yet will I gather others unto him beside those that are gathered unto him” (verses 6, 7).
Under the law of Moses the stranger who was joined to the Lord was first circumcised, and then drew near in the sacrifices and ordinances appointed. Under Christ the stranger who is joined to the Lord is “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Col. ii. 11). He is the subject of p. 676 this operation by a belief of the gospel of the Kingdom of God and the things concerning the name of Jesus Christ, and by a subsequent baptism into Christ, in which he signifies that he is cut off from his old life according to the flesh. As Paul expresses it in the next verse: “Ye are buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead.”
His objective then is “the Father’s house,” “His holy mountain,” “the high places of the earth,” “the heritage of Jacob;” and not “kingdoms beyond the skies,” which were certainly never promised to David in “the everlasting covenant.” As before remarked in these chapters, “the Father’s house” is both literal and spiritual; that is to say there will be a literal temple in Jerusalem, “a house of prayer for all peoples,” and there will be a “house of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. iii. 15), the totality of the redeemed in the day of Christ, of which the community of Paul and Timothy’s day was only a formative part.
Ezekiel, in the last nine chapters of his book, particularises as to the offerings in the temple of the future age in a manner that leaves no doubt as to the literality of the transactions; while John in the Revelation exhibits the mystical symbols of “the church of the living God,” with many interpolated explanations that render the revelation highly intelligible to the initiated. “Strangers who love the name of the Lord” will not fail to make themselves familiar with the matters revealed.
Just before his lifting up in crucifixion, Jesus himself referred to the prophecy in the temple in Jerusalem. He had ascended up from Jericho and had spoken the parable of the absent nobleman (Lu. xix.) to correct the natural impression current, “that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.” Then he came to Bethphage and Bethany, and gave instructions to his disciples for the fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy concerning his entry into Jerusalem, “just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass” (Zech. ix. 9). It was a strange royal procession, the king riding to be crucified, and weeping because the royal city “knew not the time of her visitation p. 677”; while the multitude shouted in undiscerning anticipation of immediate deliverance from the Roman yoke by supernatural power.
And he “went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves; and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called an house of prayer for all nations, but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matt. xxi.: Mar. xi.; Lu. xix., xx.). It was the second occasion on which he had done the like (compare John ii. 15), and it is in this sole connection that we see Christ resort to violence. The whole matter is very suggestive, in comparison with the prophecy he quoted, with his association (on a former occasion); of the profanation of “the temple of his body” (John ii.), and with the revealed fact that hereafter judgment is to begin at the house of God, the temple of “his body” in the larger aspect.
We see from his application of the prophecy, in conjunction with his parable of the nobleman, how he looked forward to the time of his “return” for the ultimate cleansing of the Father’s house. As all the scriptures tell us, then, and not till then, will Jerusalem be finally avenged and cleansed from every defilement and made the place of God’s throne, that is the temple of the age to come. And then, and not till then, will “the Father’s house of many mansions” be manifested, and the “places prepared” be filled by the apostles and all who are to be honoured by incorporation into that glorious society. He himself has already been “made joyful,” for “the temple of his body” has been raised and glorified as he foretold when he cleansed the temple the first time. As “sons of the strangers joined to the Lord” we wait his coming, hoping to partake of the same glory.
Christ also spoke of the “others” whom the prophet declares God would gather with the regathered outcasts of Israel (v. 8). Speaking of himself as “the good Shepherd,” in contrast with those shepherds who “could not understand,” he said, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd” (John x. 16). The apostolic extension of the p. 678 gospel to the Gentiles by the will of God is the illustration of the prophecy, and the fulfilment thereof, and of Christ’s words; and we ourselves are the witnesses of the continued power of the Word in our day and generation.
With verse 9 a new note is struck by the prophet:—“All ye beasts of the field come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own ways, every one for his gain to his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.”
Some of the critics are puzzled with this abrupt transition. It is said that the section “seems out of place here.” This may be so to critics unilluminated by the truth, but it is certainly not so to those who are content to take the word of God as it stands, and Christ’s applications thereof. The immediate consequence of Israel’s rejection of Christ, of which the prophet had spoken so wonderfully, was the gathering together of “the beasts of the field” against the “blind watchmen” of Israel. Christ himself said of his coming against Jerusalem to judgment in the tribulation of those days (Matt. xxiv. 27-29): “Wheresoever the carcase is there will the eagles be gathered together.” This was but another description of the coming of the Roman “beast” against apostate Israel, of which Daniel the prophet had spoken.
But before that, and subsequent to Isaiah’s time, the “beasts of the field” had come to devour Israel. Nebuchadnezzar “devoured” Zion, and “swallowed her up like a dragon” (Jer. li. 34). “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” (Jer. l. 17).
Since the profanation of the temple of God in the days of Jesus, and the destruction of the temple of his body in crucifixion, many “beasts of the field” have devoured Israel, from the Roman p. 679 Eagles to the Russian Bear, under whose claws they are still prostrate. The blindness, ignorance, dumbness, greed, and somnolence of the watchmen of old, have passed over into an apostate “Christendom,” where a great host of “shepherds who cannot understand,” still look to their own ways, each one for his gain to his quarter. But among it all is the sign of the regathering of the outcasts of Israel and the gathering of others to him. Blind and ignorant indeed are those who, with Bible in hand, cannot see that ZIONISM heralds the resurrection of the dead, and the coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth. It is for the watchmen who can see, to speak and not be dumb; and for shepherds who do understand, to seek the lost sheep to the best of their ability, against the time when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, and give to all whom he approves a crown of glory that fadeth not away, and make them joyful in the Father’s house.