The Person and first coming of the Lord; Christ’s sufferings from man
Chapter 50 enters into the detail of the judgment which God brings upon Israel, and the true cause of their rejection.1 Nothing can be more touching, more wonderful, than the manner in which the Person and the first coming of the Lord are presented in this remarkable chapter, which requires not interpretation but devout study. Jehovah, who disposes of the heavens and the earth at His pleasure, has learned how to speak a word in season to the weary and heavy laden, taking the place Himself of lowliness and humiliation. Men-sad and dreadful truth!-seized the opportunity to insult and put Him to shame. They would none of Him. The heart pauses before such a truth, and judges itself. But soon also, thank God, it melts before that love which took occasion to introduce man into God’s own perfection (and that of man in the divine counsels) and to adapt itself, at the same time, to all his need-to make him feel that it had experienced all his misery. But, whatever the sorrows and trials attendant on such a service, the Man, Christ, trusted in God throughout, and turned not away back.
(1. It is affecting to remark how in both pleadings, as to idolatry, and as to the rejection of Christ, the love and faithfulness of Jehovah and its consequences are introduced before the pleadings of the Spirit of God with the people for their failure in these very points; the resulting blessing before the human evil, God before man. It was so in the counsels of God before the world: the full declaration of the blessing comes afterwards.)
Israel’s rejection; the remnant who hearken to God’s true Servant
Here then is prophetically the cause of Israel’s, or more specifically Judah’s, rejection; when Jehovah came, there was no man. But, at the same time, with the help of the New Testament, we find the Christian’s place in the most clear and striking manner. It is the place of Christ Himself. That which Christ says here the Apostle adopts, and puts it into the mouth of the believer1 (Rom. 8:33-34). He is identified with Jesus in His position before God. God (thus judges faith) acknowledges Him whom the people have rejected, and by so doing have, as it were, forced God to give them a bill of divorcement. Next, this is what distinguishes the remnant-a new and important principle-they hearken to the voice of the servant, the Messiah, to the prophetic word. We have seen the church hidden in the Person of Christ Himself; here it is the faithful remnant of Israel in the latter day that are specified (vs. 10). The rest who seek resources in themselves, in man and in flesh, shall lie down in sorrow.
(1. These verses in Romans 8 should be divided thus: “It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again,” etc.; “who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” In His love He has gone through everything that could make us imagine it possible. They have become the proofs of His love. Moreover it is the love of God; creation cannot separate us from His.
I add a brief synoptical view of all these chapters, to aid in seizing them as a whole. Chapters 40-48 treat the question of idolatry between God and Israel; chapters 49-57 that of Christ. Chapter 49 gives an orderly view of the purposes and ways of God as to Israel and the Messiah. God will be glorified in Israel (vss. 1-3). Then Christ has labored in vain; yet His work is with God. First, He will be glorified in the eyes of Jehovah. Second, It is a light thing, the restoration of the preserved of Israel. He is salvation to the ends of the earth. Third, Heard in an acceptable time, He is set as a covenant of the people. Zion is restored. In chapter 50 Israel is divorced, because when Jehovah came, there was no man. He had come as man in humiliation in order to perfect sympathy with man in sorrow. Given up to shame, God justifies Him (vss. 5-9). This, that is, Christ’s justification, is the church’s, as we have seen; in verses 10-11 we have the Jewish remnant of the church. Chapter 50 gives us Christ’s sufferings from man; in chapter 53 it is atonement. Chapter 49 gives the glory resulting from Christ’s taking the place of Israel, the fruit of His labor; chapter 50, the consequence of His rejection by Israel, yet in grace as to the yet unrevealed church and the remnant which is positively spoken of; chapter 49 has more to do with the government of God.)