Isaiah 1:1-17

A Catechetical Note

Accusations

Isa 1:1-17

It is a living man who speaks to us. This is not an anonymous book. Much value attaches to personal testimony. The true witness is not ashamed of day and date and all the surrounding chronology; we know where to find him, what he sprang from, who he is, and what he wants.

"The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah" ( Isa 1:1 ).

This man is a speaker. Has the speaker any function in society? Does the man of sentences, of eloquence, play any part in the education of the age? Isaiah defines the part he is about to attempt; he says he will first of all accuse the times of degeneracy. This is not a grateful task. More loudly would he be welcomed who came to pronounce a eulogy upon the age. But Isaiah was characterised by intense and invincible reality. He will be an iconoclast; nothing will be spared by the iron rod of his vengeance: yea, though they be gods, they shall go down; though they be idols well cared for they shall be smitten as if they were common clay. This is a chapter of denunciation, with which is strangely inwrought figures of mercy and tones evangelical. My song shall be of judgment and mercy!

Isaiah personates the divine Being as accusing Judah and Jerusalem:

"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me" ( Isa 1:2 ).

Instead of "children" say "sons" "I have nourished and brought up sons" not a mixed family, but all sons; so to say, all eldest sons, all equal sons, without favour or specialty of advantage "and they have rebelled against me." Sometimes we imagine that the fatherhood of God is a New Testament revelation; we speak of the prophets as referring to God under titles of resplendent glory and overpowering majesty, and we set forth in contrast the gentler terms by which the divine Being is designated in the new covenant. How does God describe himself in this chapter? Here he claims to be father: I have nourished and brought up sons not, I have nourished and brought up slaves or subjects or creatures or insects or beasts of burden I have nourished and brought up sons: I am the father of creation, the fountain and origin of the paternal and filial religion. "And they have rebelled against me." In what way have they rebelled? We must come to particulars. We find those particulars in the fourth verse "Ah! sinful nation." The word "ah" is not an interjection, indicating a mere sighing of pity or regret; the word should not be spelt as it is here, the letters should be reversed, it should be "ha," and pronounced as expressive of indignation. God does not merely sigh over human iniquity, looking upon it as a lapse, an unhappy thing, a circumstance that ought to have been otherwise; his tone is poignant, judicial, indignant, for not only is his heart wounded, but his righteousness is outraged, and the security of his universe is threatened, for the universe stands in plomb-line, in strict geometry, and whoever trifles with the plomb, with the uprightness, tampers with the security of the universe. "A people laden with iniquity;" so that you cannot add another element to the heavy burden: genius cannot invent an addition. "A seed of evildoers;" not a mere progeny, as if the force of heredity could not be resisted and therefore fate must be accepted, but a house of evildoers that is to say, all the evildoers having grouped themselves to keep house together a whole houseful of bad men. "Sons that are corrupters"; sons that are as cankerworms; sons that throw poison into pellucid water streams; sons that suggest evil thoughts to opening minds. What have they done? They have done three things. It is no general accusation that is lodged against Judah and Jerusalem, and through them against all the nations of the earth; it is a specific indictment, glittering with detail. "They have forsaken the Lord." By so much their action is negative: they have ceased to attend the altar; they have neglected to read the holy writing; they have turned their backs upon that towards which they once looked with open face and radiant eye. Next, "they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger." Observe how the intensity increases, how the aggravation deepens and blackens: "they have forsaken;' "they have provoked;" they have grown bold in sin; they have thrown challenges in the face of God; they have defied him to hurl his thunderbolts and his lightnings upon them. "They have provoked the Holy One of Israel." That is the key of Isaiah's whole revelation "the Holy One of Israel."

The book of Isaiah is divided into two parts: in the first part "the Holy One of Israel" is a phrase which is used some fourteen times; in the second part it is used sixteen times. "The Holy One of Israel" is the key of Isaiah's whole religious position. His was a majestic mind; specially was that majesty invested with highest veneration. God is not to him a mere conception; he is "the Holy One of Israel" the one holy, the only holy. Every man has his own God, in the sense of having his own conception or view of God. There are as many conceptions of God as there are men to conceive of God. Here is a mystery, and yet a joy. When men compare their several conceptions of God one with another they make each other's hearts ache. To what mind does it ever occur that the multitude of conceptions of God is due to the wondrousness and infinite glory of the God who is thought about? Were he himself less it would be easier to comprehend him, and represent him in one formula; but seeing the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, where is the word-house you will build for him, where is the creed-tabernacle in which you will confine him as in a prison? Isaiah thought of God as "the Holy One of Israel," and in this connection he beholds that Holy One under the action of provocation. So far then we have two specific charges: first, "they have forsaken"; secondly, "they have provoked": now there remains a third detail in the great indictment "they are gone away backward." They forsook, they provoked, they apostatized. Sin has its logical course as well as holiness. There is a method in madness as well as a method in reason. Men do not stand still at the point of forsaking God: having for a little while forsaken him, they will find it almost necessary to provoke him, that they may justify themselves to themselves and to others, saying, Even provocation cannot awaken the judgment of heaven with any sign of impatience; and having provoked the Holy One of Israel, the next point will be universal apostasy, a thorough off-casting of the last traces and semblances of religion. See if this be not so in the history of the individual mind. We do not pass from the Church to perdition always at one great leap. There is a course in which men move towards their ruin: it is a well-beaten course; it is a turnpike that cannot be mistaken in all the religion of time and history. First of all is given up all week-night attendances or week-day services; after the week-day passes the Sabbath morning or the Sabbath evening. The process has begun; it will end in death! Every doctor who visits the patient will say, There is no hope; this man is death-bound; he will land in hell. But why speak so? He has but forsaken, withdrawn, given up. Certainly, that is all he has done at present; but there is a law of gravitation, spiritual as well as physical, and now the man who has begun by forsaking will end by going backward, his whole life thrown out of order, decentralised; and he perpetrates the irony of walking backwards, and his crab-like action will bring him to the pit. Isaiah having these real conceptions was a fire among the people. He was not a namby-pamby teacher, a man who would exchange compliments and courtesies, and say that after all there is an average of morality, and one man is not much superior to another. He did not come along that line at all; he came from talking with the Holy One of Israel, and his face burned like a fire, and his voice was enlarged with thunder. He will do something in his age. Such men are not to be put down. How he changes his tone into one of remonstrance and expostulation! He says, "Why should ye be stricken any more?" God will never give up striking until you give up sin: you cannot outwear the Infinite, you cannot compete with the eternal; law never gives over. How will you, poor children of a day, creatures of an hour, compete with that which is infinite and everlasting? Now Isaiah was, like all other prophets, not only a seer, but a physician. You will find in his description, or diagnosis, of the case a physician's knowledge and a physician's technicality. He says, You are vitally wrong, organically out of health: the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint: the chief members of your constitution are wrong. It is a question of the head and the heart. Not, The foot has gone astray, and the hand has been playing an evil game, or some inferior member of the body has given hint of restlessness and treason; but, The head, where the mind abides, is sick; the heart, continually keeping the life-current in action, is faint and cannot do its work. Until you see the seriousness of the case you cannot apply the right remedies. This is the accusation which is brought by the prophets of heaven. They do not come to complain that some little error has been committed, or some passing ailment is troubling the human constitution; whether they were right or wrong, they set themselves in this attitude: every head is sick, and every heart is faint; from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores. Let us have a right diagnosis at the beginning. Some are clever in minutely describing a disease; they seem to have the power of looking behind, and indicating with precision everything that is wrong in substance and wrong in action. We go to such men that we may really know what the matter is, and there is no appeal from their learned and experienced criticism. Isaiah, however, was not only good at diagnosis, but good also in therapeutics. He says, "They have not been closed" physicians admire that language; it is so precise "neither bound up" another point of admiration "neither mollified with ointment." This is a man talking who understands about disease, and about what is necessary for its cure. It is not enough to know we are diseased, though the poet is right when he says, "To know oneself diseased is half the cure," that is to say, it excites concern, it leads men to thoughtfulness and to inquiry, and probably into practical courses that may end in healing. Is this true of human nature? Do not consult the sanguine poet, for he takes a roseate view of everything: he sees in leprosy only the beauty of its snowiness; he looks upon the green mantling pool, and sees nothing there but some hint of verdure. Do not consult the gloomy pessimist, for at midday he sees nothing but a variety of midnight, and in all the loveliness of summer he sees nothing but an attempt to escape from the dreariness of winter. But consult the line of reason and solid fact, or undeniable experience, and what is this human nature? Can it be more perfectly, more exquisitely described than in the terms used by the prophet in the fifth and sixth verses of this chapter? Do the poor only fill our courts of law? Are our courts of justice only a variety of our ragged schools? Is sin but the trick of ignorance or the luxury of poverty? Or the question may be started from the other point: Are only they who are born to high degree guilty of doing wrong? Read the history of crime, read human history in all its breadth, and then say if there be not something in human nature corresponding to this description. Do not be vexed in your pursuits, and troubled and fretted by merely theological definitions, but ask after having read fifty volumes of the history of human crime whether there be not great truth in the indictment "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment." Unless we have a right conception of human nature we shall never have a right conception of Christ's work. We cannot understand the Cross until we understand the crime: we cannot begin to see the mercy until we have seen the sin.

But even in this indictment there is an evangelical tone, there is the beginning of a great remonstrance, expostulation, and proposal. What a sweet word is in the ninth verse:

"Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." ( Isa 1:9 )

My song shall be of mercy and judgment! "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us------" Then you may fill up the verse according to present history, or personal experience, or individual recollection. The beginning of our speech is provided for us; it opens thus, "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us" or given us or provided for us or interposed for us. The divine action explains the turns which human history has taken in the direction of recovery or redemption, or any form of restoration. Except the Lord of hosts had come with the morning, it had perished, it had perished even whilst it was dawning; except the Lord of hosts had taken up the little child, and warmed the little life at the infinite heart, it had died; except the Lord of hosts had come into the house when the harvest was a heap and the day was a multitude of sorrows, the tempest had crushed in the roof, and put out the household fire; except the Lord of hosts had done this or that, we had stumbled into darkness and fallen into ruin.

And now begins a great revolution. The challenge is:

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts [or fasts] my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood" ( Isa 1:11-15 ).

Is God, then, condemning the very ceremonies which he may have himself instituted? Nothing of the kind. He is only condemning them because they are used by men whose hearts are no longer in them. The liturgy may be the finest expression of the language in which it is written; it may be comprehensive in thought, eloquent in diction, pious in spirit; but when lying lips utter it the Lord says, Take it away; it wearies me: pious words without pious hearts constitute an irony which I cannot tolerate. We are not to consider that oblations, incense, new moons, Sabbaths, calling of assemblies, and appointed feasts, were condemned in themselves, and were ruthlessly abrogated; we are to consider that they had been abrogated by their false professors. He makes a nullity of the church who comes to it and leaves his heart outside. He makes the altar a laughing-stock who bends his knee but not his heart. Rend your hearts, and not your garments. God will have nothing to do with unreality, heartless ostentation, pomp and circumstance of worship: God abhors the sacrifice where not the heart is found. It is needful to remember all this, at least in some of the phases of its suggestion, lest men should come to a passage of this kind, and say, See how all formality, institutionalism, ceremonialism, and ritualism have been driven out of the sanctuary: God himself has cursed them, and abolished them. Nothing of the kind. They were cursed by the men who used them; they were practically abolished by the men who turned them into a cloak under which to conceal the very genius of evil. We still need institutions, churches, Bibles, altars, helps and auxiliaries of every kind, and shall do so as long as we are in the body; but let us take heed how we use them. To read the Bible without the Biblical spirit is to mock its inspiration. To profess Christ without living Christ is to crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. Christianity gives infidelity any hold it may have upon human attention. Christianity could have outbuilt infidelity, could have shamed it away, could have made it almost equal to murder when it charged a Christian with anything that was wrong. Christianity could so have operated in society that if any man whispered one word against it the very spirit of judgment would have burned the air in which he whispered. If we have left the building standing but have expelled the divinity which glorified it; if we maintain the shell after we have extracted the kernel; if we hold up the name when the substance has been taken away then do we tell lies to society; then may we write Ichabod upon the door which hides our desolation; then may we say to the mocker, Mock on, for we are but dead men. What then is to be done?

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" ( Isa 1:16-17 ).

That is the new ritualism; that is the new programme. Look at two points. "Relieve the oppressed." Literally the words might read from the other point of view, and would then stand thus: Correct the oppressor. It is of little use to relieve the oppressed until you kill the tyrant You are but offering temptations to the oppressor when you take under your patronage his victims. It is right that they should be cared for; in fact, unless they are cared for there is no Christianity in the case, but the real thing to do is this: whilst relieving the oppressed, correct the oppressor; put manacles on the hands of the tyrant, put fetters upon his feet, and chastise him with the rod of righteousness. "Judge the fatherless." Let the judge become an advocate; then the advocate will be a judge. This is what we have to be and to do in the great Church of Christ. The judge seated on the bench is to be the advocate to whom the fatherless can look, saying to him, You know my case; speak for me: you have words; I have none; you know how to state the reasons: take up my cause for me. And then the judge shall be advocate, and the advocate shall be no longer a paid hireling to prove that wrong is right, or make the worse appear the better cause. When called upon to plead for the fatherless, to judge the fatherless, the orphan, the homeless, then his eloquence will be touched. Hear how he halts, stumbles, hesitates when he expounds an old black-letter law for which he cares nothing: how poor he is when challenged by the spirit of pedantry! but let an orphan appeal to him, let a widow who cannot speak for herself commit her case to him; then see how he rises in stature, flames into sacred fire, and speaks as if he were pleading for his own life. That is the enthusiasm which the love of Christ enkindles! "Plead for the widow." The very word "widow" comes from an ancient term which signifies dumbness a woman who cannot speak for herself; she is made silent by grief, or she is speechless because she has no status in the court "Plead for the widow": be a mouth to her, an eloquent tongue to her silence: she cannot speak, you must speak for her: accept her brief and relinquish her fee. Then will heaven clear away the clouds from its kind face, and there will come back again all summer, all beauty, all love.

Prayer

O thou Christ of the living God, thou didst die for men; yea, whilst they were yet sinners thou wast crucified, buried, and raised again, that they might obtain through faith eternal salvation. This is the love of God; this is the appeal of heaven to the children of time. How gracious the invitation! how tender every tone of the Father's speech! how yearning the solicitude that broods over us! May we hear the gospel voice, and answer it with our love; may we know how much we need the Saviour; may all attempts at self-help and self-redemption be abandoned as falsehoods and impossibilities: with one consent may the nations turn to Christ and to his Cross, seeking cleansing only through the blood of his sacrifice, and finding peace only through him who is our reconciliation. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Jesus Christ has answered the law; he has filled up all that was needful, all that was lacking; he came to seek and to save that which was lost: he has found us, he has brought us home rejoicingly, and there has been joy in the presence of the angels of God over repentant and returned sinners. May none be left behind; may not one perish in the wilderness: may the last be brought in as the first, and may thy flock be thus completed, O Shepherd of Israel, O Pastor of the universe. We bless thee for a gospel which we need so much. We need it most when the night is darkest, when the temptation is severest, when the enemy is cruellest, when all sense of self-help abandons us, and when we are cast upon the mercy of the living God: then how great the gospel, how gracious the redeeming speech, how ample the provision made for sinners, how free how infinite the forgiveness of God! May we all cease to do evil, learn to do well, betake ourselves to those Christian activities which are binding upon Christian souls; and having served our day and generation on this side the vale may we pass beyond the cloudy screen, and there look upon all that has been waiting for us with the patience of eternity, and with the confidence of love. Amen.