Isaiah 42:5-25

Majestic Claims

Isa 42:5-25

That is a grand preamble. Words of this character excite thrilling expectation. Go to Oriential lands for magnificence of description, for redundance of self-eulogium; read the Babylonian records to find how ancient kings adorned themselves with imposing titles. Something must always be allowed for Orientalism; it is not irreverent to say that something must be allowed for Orientalism in certain parts of the Bible itself. Here is a title which, standing by itself, might challenge comparison with other royal designations. We must, therefore, go further, and inquire for what purpose the title was used. This is not all sound and fury, signifying nothing; this is but a beginning; this great title only excites astonishment, creates interest, prepares the mind to hear some great revelation that is about to be made, and that takes its tone and quality from the title itself. That is the vital and impassable distance between all other titles and the title Jehovah. Kings in ancient times and eastern lands have exhausted epithets in their self-description, but one of them came nothing but boasting, vanity, self-laudation. Our enquiry turns upon the uses to which this title is about to be committed. Who is to be entrusted with it? To whom is it to be handed as a charge, entitling the messenger to go forth and work upon it, turning it to real and blessed utility? Is it a decoration, or an authority? Is it a piece of Oriental rhetoric, or is it the very comfort of God addressed to the souls of men?

Will God thus share his title, and create co-partners of his glory? He will never give his name to another, that that other may be equal to him, and use it for purposes other than those which harmonise with divine love: but there is a sense in which he will share his throne: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." There is a blessed sense in which the Scriptures teach that even mortal man may handle the eternity of God. Yet we need this element of majesty in the Bible. We have it in nature. Whatever is small in nature is only such relatively. The earth would be much larger if the sky were less that all-dwarfing firmament; it makes all other things look insignificant: in themselves they may be great and precious, but when related to what is to us the best symbol of infinity they fall into nothingness. If we have, therefore, this element of majesty in nature, why not in revelation? There must be no trifling with God; even when he condescends it must be with majesty; when he draws near it must be to create astonishment and reverence, and fill the soul with awe, which alone can prepare it for deepest and highest revelations. It does us good to come near men who are greater than ourselves, for it rebukes our self-appraisement where it is exaggerated or marked by vanity; we thought ourselves wise until we heard them speak, then we fled away to resume our studies, because our acquisitions were so small. It does us good to come near great sights of all kinds. A man then puts off his shoes, and leaves his staff behind, and goes forward tremblingly, that he may hear voices from other worlds. "I will now turn aside, and see this great sight." So in page after page of the Bible, the Lord comes down in his full title, he brings with him his whole dignity; and the firmament itself closes its eyes in reverence and wonder. There is a sun which puts out our sun, paling its radiance as if in shame. Thus we must bring both the Old Testament and the New together in order to see at once the majesty and the condescension of God, the infinite grandeur and the infinite love of him who is Creator-Father. Neither is sufficient by itself. Union alone gives completeness. He who begins by creating ends by redeeming. In redeeming the world we see what value God set upon it. Viewed in the light of omnipotence, creation is nothing, it is less than a handful of dust or a wreath of smoke but when God comes forth to redeem what he made he writes upon it the value which he assigns to it. We must take God's estimate of God's work.

Let us now ask whether this title is ostentatious or beneficent The answer is in the sixth verse,

"I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." ( Isa 42:6 )

So then, God's eternity is to be turned to the uses of time. This is no revelation of overpowering majesty; this is the key of the door. O Messenger or the Covenant, take this key, it will open creation; the universe knows it; at its touch the lock will spring back, and thy progress will lie before thee like a straight line. This is the name to conjure with, in the noblest religious sense of that term, to bring down mountains, to raise valleys, and dry up rivers and seas. Without this name we can make no real advancement in any direction that is upward. We can dig without it, and can go to hell without it. So then the Lord himself comes forth to invest the Church with all riches: Because I live, ye shall live also: If I go, I will come again: "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you," "I" and "you:" what Christ can do the Church can do: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me: I glory in tribulation also: I have learned the divine art of turning sorrow into wine, and I drink it for the soul's comfort. The title of God, therefore, is not so much verbiage, and elaboration of eulogium, a rhetorical effort to magnify God in words; it is an inspiration and encouragement; it is a feast never to be exhausted, it is a fountain of water in the wilderness; it is the beginning and the necessity of utility; it is the guarantee of progress; it is the assurance of victory. Let us, then, take it with us everywhere: I will go in the name of the Lord God, and make mention of his righteousness, even of his only: when I see great doors and bars and gates, I will say, Lift up your heads, fall back, ye portals, and the King of glory shall come in; I will beat them down with thy name and when the river comes, flowing and uproariously, plunging through the great valley as if it would drive everything before it, I will strike it with the eternal name, and make it stand back, until I have passed through on dry ground. This should be the noble language of the Church. Wherein the Church falls into fearfulness and dejection, she has forgotten her own resources, she has humbled herself into an equality with the powers of the earth, she has waited until some painted mockery of a king has passed by. The Church should always claim precedence. The state is nothing a pasteboard frame run up in a nighttime for purposes of mere convenience in the way of commerce and exchange and so-called civilisation. If there be a Church, a redeemed and sanctified life, it will go in before every beggar-prince that wants to carry his hoarded gold along with him. The Church goes by right of the divine title. The Church stands by the dignity of God. Men should sometimes realise their representative capacity and their symbolic function; and whilst they in themselves wish to be the most modest of men, yet they have to bear a testimony, and to take a position, and to advance a banner. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain! Zion, put on thy beautiful garments! shake them from the dust, and stand up, the princess of God. All this accords with gentleness, modesty, self-obliteration in all narrow senses: and all this is consonant with the majesty of God. Let us remember that as a Church we are created anew, redeemed with the infinitely precious blood of Christ, washed and cleansed, and that we are without stain or flaw, or any such thing, a glorious Church. There are too many bent heads amongst us; too many fearful spirits; too many who say, Let gold go first, then silver, then copper, then piety. God would reverse the process; he would throw away the gold and the silver and the copper and say, This is the order of precedence: goodness first, piety at the head; gentleness, pureness, love, charity, brotherly kindness, forward. We must not reverse the processes and precedences of God.

That the title is not ostentatious but beneficent is proved also by the seventh verse

"To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." ( Isa 42:7 )

The Lord sent to Saul when he prayed that his eyes might be opened, and Saul himself described the vision as marvellous light. We want, too, to be brought out of prison. The word "prison" is a large word; it signifies ignorance, prejudice, criminality, all manner of unlawful or needless or self-imposed limitation; it means independence of all the allurements, snares, fascinations, temptations, of time and space: it means spiritual freedom; it is described in the gospel as "glorious liberty." All liberty may be said to be glorious, yet there is a liberty that needs an epithet to give it just the particular accentuation which expresses its range and quality; so the word "glorious" is attached to the word liberty. They match each other well; the words fall into blessed accord and mutual complement; they belong to one another; it is the liberty, not of the dawn, which is useful, not of the growing day, which is inspiring, but of the noontide, which is glorious. Men are in various stages of liberty. We are not all equally the free men of God. There are men even now who are under the disadvantage of prejudice. Even today superstition lives chilling, fear-exciting, soul-depressing, superstition. There are those who still live in the letter of the Word. They have never felt the summer warmth of the Spirit; the juices, the sap of life may be said not to have risen in the stem of their manhood yet, even in vernal days. Others are far on; they are high up the hill; they can almost touch the sky, and warm themselves at the higher fire; they are marked by what timid souls would call audacity; and indeed when timid souls so criticise these higher freemen they speak their own language, because to them the action of the higher men would indeed be audacity. But we must not curb one another, and especially the small nature must never fix itself as the measure of manhood. Better that the great souls should say, "All others are like us," than that little invisible natures should say, There are some who have gone astray by going upward. Blessed are they who are straying towards heaven! May the pastures through which they pass be green, may they be able to quaff the water out of the river of God! Christ has come for the express purpose of opening blind eyes and releasing prisoners. The question which men ought to put to themselves is this, "Do we see; are we free, or are we blind; and are we still in prison? If the Son shall make you free, ye should be free indeed. Only the truth can give liberty; and truth is a term so large that only one other term can stretch a line upon it, and say, I am as large as you; and that other term is Love."

But here comes a great indictment:

"Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant?" ( Isa 42:19 ).

Israel is here referred to. The servant that ought to have seen everything sees nothing; the messenger that ought to have the hearing ear has lost his faculty of hearing; and he that ought to have been perfect is blind. A curious word is this which is rendered "perfect." In sound it is like "Moslem," and it means literally, the resigned man. That is what Moslem affects to be. That is the very genius of Islam, the resigned man; the man who says he will make no effort, because what will be will be; he need not bestir himself in the morning, because he can effect nothing by all his labour and energy; he will resign himself to the rocking of nature, and be lulled to rest by its soothing movement. There is a charm in fatalism. If it could call itself Calvinism it would make more progress. There is a fascination in the faith that says, Sit still; do nothing; hold your hands; close your eyes, let sleep steal upon you; and the stars will go on just the same as if you were making frantic endeavours to be wise and great and strong. But nature feels an indefinite antagonism to that base suggestion. Nature now and again rises and says, No: I was made to be active; I know it, I feel it: why were these faculties given if they were not to be used? Possession is inspiration: to have eyes is to be entitled to see; to have ears means that we have a right to listen to music, and eloquence, and learning, and persuasion. Let the voice of nature prevail. To have a faculty means that that faculty is to be used. Herein is the tremendous indictment correct "Seeing many things, but thou observest not, opening the ears, but he heareth not." To have faculties that have fallen into disuse, to have the symbols of manhood but no virility, to look a man, and yet be but a thing, to seem to have a heart and yet have no response to human want and pain, that is the inconceivable but possible irony. Having eyes, they see not; having ears, they hear not; having hearts, they do not understand. Yet are they counted as of the population of the earth. A man may withdraw himself from the working force of society, and from the real manhood of the world, and may occupy room of which he is not worthy. Only they should be counted whose souls are alive. The first question should be, What are you? What is your purpose? What is the tone of your life? What use do you make of your faculties? Are you helpers of society, or burdens? Do you carry, or are you to be carried? Thus Christianity becomes a most active religion. It does not count a man when he is asleep the same as it counts him when he is awake; it counts the day population; and there are men walking about who are really walking in their sleep, and they are not counted at all. Christianity makes no account of somnambulists in the daytime. Christianity expects us to use our faculties. Christianity in the person of its Infinite Founder, says, How is it that ye do not understand? Ye can discern the signs of the sky, how is it that ye cannot read the signs of the times? O fools and slow of heart! The Church is to be the most sagacious of all institutions. The Christian is to be the most statesmanlike of all men. He is not concerned in some little problems, in some arrangements which may be thus or otherwise, and yet no great interests are affected by their distribution. He is in burning earnest, in deadly earnest; he deals with great questions, he addresses himself to infinite difficulties; he needs all his mental power, all his moral sympathy, all his social resources. So then, we go back to the divine title "Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;" I will be with thee, I will hold thy hands, I will keep thee, I will see that all thy way is marked out for thee, I will lead the blind by a way that they know not, and by paths that they have not understood. "I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools." Thus the title passes down from pompous rhetoric into beneficent service.