Isaiah 4:2-6 - Homiletics

The glories of the restored Church.

Three principal glories are here noted by the prophet as belonging to "that day"—the day of judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem for their manifold sins, and of restoration and re-establishment of the mountain of God's Church at the head of the mountains ( Isaiah 2:2 ). These are—

I. THE COMING OF MESSIAH TO FOUND HIS CHURCH LIES AT THE ROOT OF ALL . The glorious "Branch"—the new shoot of the house of David ( Isaiah 11:1 )—which sprang from the old stock, and grew up "like a tree planted by the water-side, which bringeth forth its fruit in due season, the leaf whereof shall not wither" ( Psalms 1:3 ), had first to come and to dwell with man, and to reveal himself, in his glory and majesty and beauty, as the perfect moral Being, the pattern Man, after whom all should shape their lives, before a holy Church, a Church of" saints," could be set up on earth, or men could know in what true holiness and righteousness consisted. The "Branch" came, "beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely," "the chiefest among ten thousand" (So Isaiah 5:10 ), "his eyes as the eyes of doves" (verse 12), "his lips dropping sweet-smelling myrrh" (verse13), "his countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars, his mouth most sweet," yea, he himself "altogether lovely" (verses 15, 16); and the earth saw what it had never seen before—absolutely perfect humanity. Nor was this the whole. He who set the perfect pattern made also the perfect atonement; "washed away the filth" of sin ( Isaiah 4:4 ); "purified to himself a peculiar people" ( Titus 2:14 ); made holiness possible to man, who was "very far gone from original righteousness," corrupt, "sold under sin" ( Romans 7:14 ). Thus the first glory fitly introduces the second.

II. THE HOLINESS OF THOSE WHO ARE TRUE MEMBERS OF HIS CHURCH , "Holiness becometh God's house forever" ( Psalms 93:5 ); "Without holiness shall no man see the Lord" ( Hebrews 12:14 ). Christians are holy by profession, by call, by obligation; if they will, by life and act. Not, indeed, holy in the highest sense; not as they ought to be; not "as he is holy" ( 1 Peter 1:15 ); for "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" ( 1 John 1:8 ). But still " holy " in a real sense; ever striving to be holy, ever repenting, ever seeking and obtaining forgiveness, ever washed afresh in the blood of Christ, which "cleanseth from all sin" ( 1 John 1:7 ). The unholy, who "persist in sin" without striving against it, are no true members of the Church of Christ, but false pretenders to membership, " strangers to Christ's covenant, and aliens from his commonwealth" ( Ephesians 2:12 ). The real Church is "holy," as it is called in the Apostles' Creed; deriving its holiness ever from him who is its Life, from whom it receives continually fresh supplies of grace, and fresh power to resist temptation. The holiness of the Church is thus dependent on the presence of God with it; and the second glory leads naturally to the consideration of the third.

III. THE CONTINUED PRESENCE OF GOD WITH HIS CHURCH , AND HIS CONTINUED PROTECTION OF IT . "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," is the most precious promise of the New Testament. Christ is with his Church