p. 693God is willing to bless if only men will let Him. That is the burden of chapter lix. “Behold the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” And then follows a further catalogue of the sins and iniquities in question, like those of the previous chapter.
The apostle Paul quotes from this chapter when arguing in Romans iii. concerning the advantage of the Jew in the possession of the Holy Oracles, and the impotence of their unbelief to frustrate the purpose of God in Christ Jesus the Redeemer. The personal element comes in when he asks (v. 9), “What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin, as it is written, There is none righteous, no not one.” And he goes on to quote from Isaiah lix. and other places.
Then he adds: “We know that what things soever the law saith it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become subject to the judgment of God, inasmuch as by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. iii. 19-20).
This is the apostolic exposition of the prophet’s mourning in Isa. lix. 9-15. “Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light but behold obscurity, for brightness, but we walk in darkness. . . . We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves. . . . For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for p. 694 our transgressions are with us, and as to our iniquities we know them. . . . And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.”
This is the mourning of a righteous man like Daniel (ch. ix.), or Ezekiel (ch. ix.), “sighing and crying for the abominations that be done.” It justifies God absolutely, and confesses righteous subjection to His judgment. It acknowledges the true reason of the prevailing “obscurity” and “darkness,” and is a frame of mind which is exceedingly rare in any age or generation, and is proportionately precious in the sight of God. The Bible philosophy of the prevalence of evil is at once simple and profound. It is God’s visitation upon sin, upon the Jew first, and then upon the Gentile. But the wise of this world will not have this, but seek for some explanation more in harmony with the carnal mind, so that they can get rid of the responsibility attaching to the truth.
But no sooner was the mourning voice silent, than the prophet by the spirit announced the divine remedy in the Redeemer promised from the beginning. “The Lord saw, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore his arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness it sustained him” (v. 16).
Jesus is the “arm of the Lord,” the intercessor, redeemer, and avenger of the promise. His armour, equipment, and zeal here figuratively described, is by apostolic exhortation (Eph. vi. 17) commended to his body “the church.” It is written of him that “he marvelled because of their unbelief” (Mark vi. 6), and it is recorded that although “the Lord’s hand was not shortened,” he could do no mighty works among his own countrymen because of their unreasoning jealousy and stubbornness.
“He put on righteousness as a breast-plate,” and no weapon could penetrate it. “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” was p. 695 his triumphant question to his enemies. And he put on the “helmet of salvation upon his head”—“the hope of salvation” as Paul explains it to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. v. 8). “I know that his commandment is life everlasting,” said the Lord, as he went forward to obedience unto death, being assured of “salvation” but three days distant therefrom. We look back upon his victory. Well may the apostle exhort us to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, (and to) put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. vi. 10, 11).
But what are these “garments of vengeance?” What is this coming “fury to his adversaries” and “recompense to his enemies” in all the coasts of the earth? Most people have no place for such a conception of the work of Jesus. It is certainly not to be seen in past history: and it is as certainly to be seen in his own teaching concerning the future. In the parable of the nobleman (Luke xix.), he speaks of his “return,” and says, “Those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.” “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”
We are in “the time of the end,” and the vision speaks. We know that this could not apply to the Roman “flood” (Dan. ix. 26), for the Spirit of the Lord was then with, and not “against,” the Romans. And although the Lord “recompensed his enemies” in Jerusalem at that time, the Roman empire was not affected in the islands or coasts of the earth. It is the Gogian “flood” (Ezek. xxxviii.) against which the Spirit of the Lord raises up Jesus as a standard. The fury of the Lord God comes up in His face, and the land shakes at His presence; and so the nations are made to know the Lord God of Israel.
“And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; my spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy p. 696 mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth, and for ever” (v. 20, 21).
“Them that turn from transgression in Jacob,” is not to be restricted to Jews. It is Paul who says so by the same spirit in Rom. xi. 25-27: “I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins.”
Those who have obeyed the gospel and have “the hope of Israel” are candidates for admission in “the fulness of the Gentiles.” And the assurance of the fulfilment of the promise of God is always before them in the endurance of the word as here ordained. We listen to Jesus on the Mount of Olives before he suffered, and hear him solemnly appropriate this divine assurance, saying, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. xxiv. 35).
Nearly nineteen hundred years have passed away since this memorable utterance, so impossible from the lips of a mere son of man. Many generations of believers have come and gone, but still a new generation is always being born, in whose mouths the word of truth remains. This is God’s “covenant with them.” It is our turn. We are dying, and shall soon be gone if the Redeemer tarries. But the word will live on. Every year brings fresh fulfilment of the word scattered in many millions of Bibles throughout the earth. The crowning testimony of all is near—the return of the Lord to his inheritance.