Isaiah 33:17 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

The King in his beauty.

"Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty." Of this we may take—

I. THE CONTEMPORARY VIEW . Those who heard these words from Isaiah's lips or read them from the roll on which he wrote them would naturally think of Hezekiah. But in what aspect would they think of him as clothed on with beauty? Not, surely, as one arrayed in gorgeous royal robes, or as one surrounded with the pomp of a royal court; but as one who wielded the kingly scepter in righteousness and in wisdom. The king in his beauty, to the eye of the man who speaks for God, is that sovereign who

II. THE MESSIANIC VIEW . If we refer the words of the prophet to him to whom, in themselves and apart from the context, they are most appropriate—to that Son of man who came to be the Savior-Sovereign of mankind, we have two views brought before us.

1. That of Jesus Christ as he lived on earth—the meek King of men ( Matthew 21:5 ), he who claimed to be a King even as he stood bound before Pilate ( John 18:33-36 ). Here we see the King in his beauty as we see him in his purity of heart, in his devotedness to the work his Father had placed in his hands, in his submissiveness to that Father's will, in his quick and tender sympathy with the sorrowing and the abandoned, in his inexhaustible patience with the undeserving and the wrong.

2. That of the Divine Redeemer as he reigns in heaven. Thus viewed, we see in him the beauty of one who

III. THE DISTANT VIEW . Our eyes will see the King in his beauty when we see "him as he is " —the ascended and reigning Lord. Then we shall