Isaiah 1:16-17

Exhortations

Isa 1:16-17

"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 ).

How easy to say "Cease to do evil"! Have we considered how much is meant by these words? Does evil get so slight a hold upon a man that he can detach the hand that grasps him without effort or difficulty? By what image would we represent the hold which evil gets upon men? Is it the image of a chain, a manacle, a fetter? Has it in it anything of the nature of a heavy burden, a weight that drags the life down to the very ground? Is it a tyranny that defies the poor little strength of man, and laughs at the victim when he attempts his freedom? Is evil kind to those who practise it? Is it most gracious in its mastery? Or does it taunt, and mock, and threaten, and defy? Can it be truthfully represented as a spectre that terrifies men in the darkness, a goblin that looks at them frowningly when they attempt to pray? If there is any suggestion of truth in all these inquiries and human experience alone can reply how easy it is to say, "Cease to do evil"! The man who is exhorted might reply, I cannot: the master whom I serve is a tyrant: if I even sigh as an indication of my suffering he doubles my punishment. Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Who shall cut away from me this cold corpse that I am doomed to carry? Herein perhaps we have not been sufficiently kind to men who are in a negative period of education, men who are simply trying to abstain, to refrain from evil, to cut down evil little by little because they feel they cannot cut it off all at once. To such men we should ever reveal an aspect of the tenderest graciousness, and when we speak to them our voice should be musical with tones of encouragement. It is a long leap from hell to heaven. The devil is no easy taskmaster; if he allows us to go one inch from him it is that he may leap upon us with deadlier certainty of his hold. Still, the exhortation is needed, and all Biblical exhortations bring with them their own assurance of divine interposition and divine succour; they are not mere exhortations, vocal cries, efforts in words. Whenever a man is exhorted in the Bible to cease from evil and to attempt good, the meaning is that God is behind the exhortation to afford needful inspiration and grace, if the man will himself ask for help, and cast himself unreservedly upon it. What is the evil which a man is called upon to cease to do? Every man must answer this question for himself. Almost every one can find some kind of virtue easy to practise, but every one has his own special and all but ineradicable evil, following him, stamping him, sealing him, and defying him to throw it off. Is any one conscious of being engaged at this moment in denying a craving for some personal indulgence, be it the draught of poison, the draught of death? How far have you proceeded? If you have proceeded so far as to make up your mind that it would be well to cease that evil, take heart: that is the first good, solid, upward step; that resolution is itself a rock on which you may stand. Now can you conquer all at once? The answer is, certainly not, in many cases at least. There have been stupendous and successful efforts which have had about them at the first all the characteristics and qualities of completeness; but let not those be discouraged who have to try again, to fight more desperately to-day than they had to fight yesterday. Is it a consciousness of being hardly able to speak without the utterance of profane language? Cease to do evil: there was less profanity in the speech to-day than there was the day before: be hopeful, be on your guard; say, Lord, keep thou the door of my lips, set a watch upon my mouth. So these are but indications. Whatever the evil is, know that it must be fought out, put in its right relation to your life, and that it is impossible for you to cease to do evil except with the co-operation, the inworking spiritual ministry of God the Holy Ghost. How is that to be obtained? Ask, and ye shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find.

"Learn to do well" or, to do good. Then does not good-doing come natively, as breathing does, or locomotion, or sight? Is this a trade to be learned? Do men serve an apprenticeship to good-doing? In a sense they do. All this is matter of education. And how wonderfully education spreads its necessities over the whole space of human life! You find it everywhere, on the very lowest levels, and on the very highest. We see what the author has produced, but we do not see what he has destroyed. The book comes out in fair copy, and we, looking upon the surface only, say, How well done! Who can tell what that "fair copy" cost? We see the picture hung upon the wall for exhibition, but we do not see how much canvas was thrown away, or how many outlines were discarded, or how many efforts were pronounced unworthy. We only see the last or best. So, much is to be done in private with regard to learning to do well. We do not live our whole life in public. We make an effort in solitude: it is a failure; we throw it away; we acknowledge its existence to no one: still, we are acquiring skill practice makes perfect and when we do our first act of virtue in the public sight people may suppose that we are all but prodigies and miracles, so well was the deed done. Only God's eye saw the process which led up to it. This is a characteristic of divine grace, that it sets down every attempt as a success, it marks every failure honestly done as a victory already crowned. So we are losing nothing even on the road. The very learning is itself an education; the very attempt to do, though we fail of doing, itself gives strength, and encouragement, and confidence. In learning to do well we assist the negative work of ceasing to do evil.

Herein is a mystery of spiritual education. In learning to pray we by so much separate ourselves from doing that which is evil in speech: we cleanse the mouth; we set the mind upon a new level; we import into the whole music of life a new keynote. How hard it must be to rise from prayer and then give both hands to the devil! Surely that is a miracle which ought to lie beyond the compass of human power. So we are not to wait until the negative process is completed before we begin the positive process. First of all we have to do a great negative work; we have to get rid of all our provincialisms before we can speak the true language of the country: we have to rid ourselves of our mistakes before we can begin to build: we have to cleanse the constitution before we commence the construction which is associated with sound health. Yet at points the two processes coincide, and they help one another. To cease to do evil without learning to do well is to cleanse the house and leave it empty that the devil may return to an ampler and more inviting habitation.

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" ( Isa 1:18 ).

"Come now, and let us reason together," may be read, I present an ultimatum. "Let us reason together," or, I have come from the eternal place to offer man an ultimatum: How truly becoming to divine majesty is such a voice! It is for God to say which is the way of life, and it is for God to say how life can be obtained by those who have forfeited it. Thus we get rid of all human inventions, all man-made schemes of salvation, all theories of human reconciliation. It is not for man to speak upon that question at all; his opinion is not invited; he can have no opinion to give that would touch the fundamental and vital condition of affairs. The picture, then, is that of the Eternal King offering an ultimatum to rebellious and perverse subjects.

"Saith the Lord." This expression occurs frequently in Scripture; it occurs repeatedly in this chapter. What meaning do we associate with the expression? Who, in reading such words, would not read them in a loud and resounding voice? It would appear as if we required the trumpet of the thunder that we might properly articulate the expression, "Thus saith the Lord." Etymologically that is wholly wrong in some of the instances which occur in the prophecies of Isaiah. Were the words literally rendered they would come to this, Thus doth the Lord whisper. There is no thunder in the emphasis; there is a solemn stillness, an accommodation of infinite voices to human capacity to listen. The appeal loses nothing wherever this etymology can be adopted, but rather seems to gain something.

"Thus doth the Lord whisper." He has been a whispering Lord; he was not in the earthquake, nor in the high wind, nor in the burning fire; he was in the still small voice. The emphasis is in himself. For God to speak is to be emphatic by virtue of the very fact that it is he who speaks. The Lord has no occasion to raise his voice; when he whispers he thunders, not in the outward and popular sense of that term, but when the Eternal speaks there is an energy in his whispering that could not be found in all the thunders that roar in the troubled sky. Men often say, Could we but hear the Lord speak! In ancient times men were enabled to say, "Thus saith the Lord," and therefore they had an advantage over us. Nothing of the kind. The men of ancient time heard a whisper. So may we if we listen for it if we say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. What we need is the hearing ear. Is there a man who can solemnly declare that he has never heard a whispering in his conscience, in his better nature? Has no voice appealed to him, saying, Cease to do evil; learn to do well: be a braver man and a better; come away from all evil, and abandon the paths of unrighteousness which end in ruin? He may call it memory, or conscience, or describe it by any name that suits the fancy of the hour, but the right interpretation of that whispering, pleading, is that God has a controversy with that man, or is at that solemn juncture inviting him to paths of pleasantness and paths of peace.

Hear the still small voice; listen to the energetic whisper: it suits our weakness; it meets the necessity of the case in every aspect; it is adapted to the passion which reduces our speech to a cry, and it falls like balm upon wounds that ache, and through whose red lips our poor life pours itself in despair. What do we want from heaven? Great appeals that thrill the whole wind that blows around the globe? Do we want appearances in the constellations, figures in the zenith, convulsions, earthquakes, and signs in the clouds? By so much as we ask for these are we out of harmony with God's method of educating and preserving and directing the universe. Listen for quiet voices or whispered appeals, and know that the appeal loses nothing in consequence of its being whispered, but rather gains because he who whispers is God.

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" ( Isa 1:18 ).

Who could make this bold proposition? All men can dye their souls, but, as saith a quaint divine, only God can bleach them. It is in our power to dye ourselves into all colours, but only God can make us white. The light is the image of the purity to which we are called, and which God will work in us if we yield ourselves to his gracious ministry. The idea is that there is no human condition too desperate for divine treatment. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool": "red" represents blood, and blood represents fire, and blood and fire are life; they hold in their tremendous grasp the secret of this awful thing that lives and breathes, and would be God if it could. The heifer, the white ashes of which were to purify those who had been in contact with the dead, was to be a red heifer; the sprinkling-brush was to be tied or fastened with a scarlet thread. There is a philosophy of colours; there is a theology of hues; and it hath pleased God to represent purity by whiteness. The saints above are robed in white; they who love God are clothed in white raiment now, and it is the harlot of the earth that is scarleted and that lives in her significant redness. Only God can take out all our black stains, and red signs, and scarlet tokens of iniquity, and make us as white as snow, brighter than the noonday sun. He has said he will do it; he offered to do it. This is the very purpose of the incarnation and ministry of Jesus Christ. The whole priesthood of the Son of God expresses itself in this holy eventuation, that every stain is taken out, and that the whole catharism has ended in spiritual purity and whiteness.

Are we trying to whiten ourselves? Then we must most surely fail. Have we undertaken to rub out the red spot from the hand that has committed murder? All the seas of the universe could not wash that hand and make it clean. God proposes to accomplish the miracle; let us hasten to him, and say, Lord, thy will be done; so long as there is one stain upon us we are restless, we are filled with torment: take thou out of us the last taint, and make us without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, a glorious Church, fit for heaven's own whiteness. If God called us to some trifling task, some little contracted effort, some evanescent attempt, to do a little better than we have been doing, the whole vocation of heaven would contradict itself; this, indeed, would be the subjugation, yea, the humiliation, of heaven's majesty in making so unworthy a proposition. The proposition is that we be cleansed in and out, that we have every fleck and flaw and speck and stain taken out by divinely-directed detergent methods, and that we be left at last pure with God's holiness. All this should be recognised as the claim of the Bible. It means to do this, it wants to do this; if it is speaking because of some human inspiration, who was the man who spoke so? Verily, we would hear him speak again, for never did human invention propound so infinite a miracle.

We have spoken of an ultimatum; the terms are given:

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it" ( Isa 1:19-20 ).

This is a message which the common-sense of men can understand. It is not marred by even apparent superstition; it is an ultimatum, based on reason which we ourselves can test; it might have been stated by man within the limits which are possible to his understanding "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword." That is happening every day. Here the Lord comes down upon the common reason and the common experience of mankind, and justifies supernatural revelations by his supreme and gracious hold on absolute facts which we ourselves can test. He works with both hands: one ranges through the heavens, and we cannot follow it; the other sets before us the facts of human history, and thus by a double action God holds human attention and human confidence with gracious and benevolent mastery.

How the chapter varies in its tone:

"How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine [mutilated, as well as] mixed with water: thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord [whispereth the Lord,] the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies" ( Isa 1:21-24 ).

In no other verse are so many divine designations given. "Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies." This is a very significant figure. It is the figure of a man drawing a deep breath, and thus casting off his trouble by an exhalation: Ah, I will draw a deep breath, and in my sighing I will ease me of mine adversaries sigh them off, cast them away with the wind of my heart and avenge me of mine enemies. Lord, take not that deep inspiration against thy creatures! Who can live if thou dost breathe upon us so? who can answer the respiration of God? Hold thy breath, or breathe softly and gently upon us, that we may live, and not die.

Isaiah represents by the threefold designation of the divine being the omnipotence of God. "The Lord," that would be enough; "The Lord of hosts," that is more; "The mighty One of Israel," he piles his argument, he draws in all possible designations significant of almightiness, and then asks Judah and Jerusalem if they will attempt to rebel against the concentrated omnipotence of God; as who should say, O fools! to attempt with knuckles and fists and hands of flesh to beat back an eternal rock! Consider the lunacy of the case, the absolute madness of the conditions! It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks: acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace. No man can encounter God in battle and leave the field a victor. Here again comes the great gospel ultimatum: Here is a stone: if you fall upon it, you will be broken that you may be reconstructed; if it fall upon you, it will grind you to powder, and the wind will blow you away.

Note

Of the literary qualities of Isaiah Ewald writes: "We cannot in the case of Isaiah, as in that of other prophets, specify any particular peculiarity, or any favourite colour as attaching to his general style. He is not the especially lyrical prophet, or the especially elegiacal prophet, or the especially oratorical and hortatory prophet, as we should describe a Joel, a Hosea, a Micah, with whom there is a greater prevalence of some particular colour; but, just as the subject requires, he has readily at command every several kind of style and every several change of delineation; and it is precisely this that, in point of language, establishes his greatness, as well as in general forms one of his most towering points of excellence. His only fundamental peculiarity is the lofty, majestic calmness of his style, proceeding out of the perfect command which he feels he possesses over his subject-matter. This calmness, however, no way demands that the strain shall not, when occasion requires, be more vehemently excited and assail the hearer with mightier blows; but even the extremest excitement, which does here and there intervene, is in the main bridled still by the same spirit of calmness, and, not overstepping the limits which that spirit assigns, it soon with lofty self-control returns back to its wonted tone of equability ( Isa 2:10 to Isaiah 3:1 ; Isaiah 28:11-23 ; Isa 29:9-14 )."