(Read Isa. 49)
Both in patriarchal narratives, and in prophetic revelations, we get the New Testament, in its great outline, anticipated.
In Genesis, which is the book of the patriarchs, we travel from Matt. 1 to Rev. 22; that is, from the opening to the end of the New Testament.
We have the incarnation and birth of Christ in the first promise, the promise of “the seed of the woman,” in chapter 3, and in that promise, too, we have the death and resurrection of that Seed of the woman. “It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” involves or conveys those wondrous, blessed facts.
We have the heavenly calling in Enoch, and the restored earth in Noah.
We have the Church in Eve. We have Israel reprobated or cast off for a time, and then received again in Joseph and his brethren.
We have the gathering together of heavenly and earthly things, as in the days of the kingdom, in the two families of Joseph in Egypt, that which he had as from the Gentiles, his near kindred, and that which he had by birth or in the flesh, his Jewish, Abrahamic kindred.
Thus we gather up, as in fragments, all the materials of the New Testament in the book of Genesis. And this is wondrous food of faith, for it tells us how He, with whom we have to do, knows the end from the beginning. But if this one patriarchal book, by its narratives, furnishes all this to us, so this one chapter from the prophets, I mean Isa. 49, does the same.
It opens as with the first chapter of St. Matthew. The Speaker, Messiah, the Christ of God, who is Jesus of Nazareth, announces that He was called by His name before He was born. And so it was—for it was said to Joseph in that chapter, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus.” v. 21.
Messiah there shows Himself to us in His ministry, as One that is as a drawn sword in the hand, and as a polished arrow in the quiver. And in certain features of it, these symbols strikingly illustrate that ministry—for, as with a drawn sword the Lord was ever exposing all that was around Him, laying bare the springs and principles of human nature. His ax was at the root of the trees. And He also again and again gave warning of a judgment to come; but He did not execute it. He judged everything morally, but nothing retributively. He refused to judge, saying that He had come to save. And thus He was as a shaft or arrow hid in a quiver, while He was as a sword drawn in the hand. He would stoop down to write on the ground as though He heard not the accuser, and yet He would say, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” v. 2.
But there was another feature in His ministry. As man was thus exposed by it, God was glorified by it. It was the witness of God among men. He who saw Jesus saw the Father. God committed the glorifying of His name to Jesus—so that now, if we are enlightened with the knowledge of the glory of God, we must have found it in the face of Jesus Christ. Here He Himself announces this, through His servant the prophet, v. 3.
This ministry, however, as far as Israel was concerned, ended in present failure. Israel was not gathered. “Ye would not,” is the Lord’s word to them at the end of it, after telling them again and again that He would have gathered them, as a hen her chickens. This was so in the New Testament history of the Lord’s ministry, and in Isaiah’s anticipation of that ministry here. But Messiah’s work, if refused and disappointed by Israel, was accepted of God. Jesus was raised from the dead and His resurrection, among other things, was the justification of all that He had said and done. The voice from heaven when He was beginning His ministry sealed Him then, the resurrection at the close of it seals Him and His work now. And this He here foretells by His prophet, saying, “My judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.” v. 4. And then, being thus accepted for His work-sake, and raised from the dead, He is crowned with glory in heaven, and seated in possession of all power. This is the ascended Christ, as before we had the risen Christ; and His glory and strength, as ascended, He anticipates here, v. 5. Upon this, the present age of the Gentiles is foretold—the mercy which is now visiting, in the Gospel, all the ends of the earth. This verse is cited to that effect by the apostle to the Gentiles in his preaching, in Acts 13:66And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: (Acts 13:6).
The kingdom, or millennial age, is next announced. In the verse that follows, Messiah is seen as seated in the dignities of “the world to come,” His own world. His title to be there, King of kings, is found in His precious sufferings, or in His rejection by men when He first came among them. Others, however, became connected with the kingdom, as well as He—as these verses also tell us. But they do so on another title altogether—because the acceptable time or the day of salvation had visited them. Israel are accordingly represented by this prophecy as prisoners now released, or like those who once sat in darkness now called out into the light. And heaven and earth are summoned to rejoice in this millennial day here anticipated. And I may add, that in the course of this rich and animated prophecy, the things in Rev. 7 are announced, the gathering from all parts of the earth, and the feeding of them at the fountains of water, v. 7-13. Wondrous all this is, accurate and beautiful. Surely, I am warranted in saying, that in this one chapter of Isaiah (nay, in 13 verses of it) we are carried through the New Testament. We have the birth, ministry, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord, His rejection at His first advent by the Jews and the world, the present age of mercy to the ends of the earth, and the coming millennial kingdom.
At v. 14, Zion is heard complaining. She had not once been named in the progress of this wonderful prophecy, and now she complains that she was forgotten and forsaken. Messiah had been surely remembered, the secrets of grace and glory had been announced, the millennial joy of heaven and earth celebrated, and Israel itself gladdened with hope and promise; but she, Jerusalem, had been passed by. “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me,” she says.
The Lord answers her grief in words of fervent affection. He tells her at once, that it was impossible she could be forgotten. And we may say, “Surely so.” Jerusalem had “a gift and calling” of God, as well as Israel. Israel was Jehovah’s people, Jerusalem was Jehovah’s city. His sanctuary and His palace were in her—she was the seat of His government, and the place of his worship. The Lord loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Jerusalem was as the family mansion, where, at stated seasons, the children, settled through the land in their different inheritances, had to come and keep holy-day. All this was so, and all this constituted “a gift and calling,” which we know is never repented of (Rom. 11:2929For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)). It was, therefore, impossible that she should be forgotten.
And having thus pledged to her the constancy of His remembrance of her, the Lord then, in the closing verses of this chapter, goes on to tell her of her coming blessedness and dignities; and gives her good reason to know that her millennial beauty and honor will far exceed her Solomon distinctions, that she shall be greater and more excellent in the day of Messiah than ever she had been in the days of any of the sons of Jesse. Kings and queens of the earth should wait on her. She should deck herself with ornaments, as a bride doeth. And the Lord promises that He will fill her with her children, and empty her of her destroyers; and then rescue all that belongs to her out of the hand of her oppressors. He speaks this very fervently, and in the style of many other scriptures, in the Psalms and Prophets, which address themselves to Zion. And, among other things, He promises her that she shall stand lost in wonder and amazement at her own condition in those coming days, as one that scarcely knows herself, so excellent and blessed will she be. Her heart, as another scripture has it, “shall fear and be enlarged” at the sight of her prosperity and honor.
What a state for the grace of God to bring the heart into! How He satiates the soul with fatness! The queen of Sheba tasted this, when there was no more spirit in her, and when she said, the half had not been told her. The disciples experienced it in their way and measure, when their hearts burned within them under the words of the Stranger who had joined them on the road. The sinner knows it betimes, when he is introduced to the grace that saves him—as when the poor Samaritan left her water-pot behind her, forgetting everything but her new-found treasure in Christ; or as when the woman of the city spent, in company with her tears and her kisses, the treasure of her house on the person of her loved and worshipful Redeemer.
Thus it has been, beloved, and thus it will be. Would that we knew that it is so, from our own joys in the Lord! But each heart knows its own humiliations. We can, however, desire it—and surely we can sing, as at times we do, those fervent words of Cowper—
Dear fountain of delights unknown,
No longer sink below the brim;
But overflow, and pour me down
A living and life-giving stream.