Prophecy is not the law, but the warning testimony of judgment when the law has been departed from; it is the turning the eye of those that believe to better hopes and foreshown deliverance for the remnant. It supposes apostasy, though it may be in different form or extent. Therefore we have “beginning with Samuel and all the prophets;” for then Ichabod was written. The great definite presentation of the place and character of prophecy is in Isa. 6.
The whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint: from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, it was wounds and bruises and putrifying sores. As to the vineyard, it brought forth wild grapes; its wall was to be broken down, it was to be laid waste. This was the state of things as to the rights of that people who formed the object of Jehovah's care, the center of His earthly plans, the place of Messiah's visitation. But Jehovah was unaltered in character and purpose: in character, and therefore He must throw down; in purpose, and therefore He would not cast away.
But His throne was now to be set up as that from which prophecy was to flow: so it is, and His train fills the temple. And a man, though of unclean lips, is sent with lips purged by a coal from the altar, and then willing to go, but still dwelling among a people of unclean lips, having seen what Jehovah was, holy, holy, holy, Jehovah of hosts. His soul is filled with and affected by the contrast, but he, touched with the coal, said, “Here am I: send me.", “And He said, Go.” But what was His message? “Hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again and be healed “; and this “till cities be wasted without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the ground become all utter desolation, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the forsaking (or solitude) be great in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and be eaten.... the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.”
Now Jehovah had long patience; He sent prophets till there was no remedy. He smote Israel and cut them short. He let Judah go captive and restored them again, so that the land was occupied and the temple built. Still the word ran, though the prophet did not live forever. The householder had long patience, till, having yet one Son, He said, “It may be they will reverence my Son,” round Whose head prophetic testimony and present blessing closed for a crown of glory and of witness. The word of the Lord, and the works of the Lord; the righteousness, and the patience, and the grace alike, with the Father's voice, testified Who He was. But the awful knell of God's judgment still filled the unholy air of that favored country, “Make the heart of this people fat.” Now it was after long patience and marvelous love that it really came out: the sentence of God's judgment came to the earth, for all the patience of love had been tried. God had nothing more than His Son to be testified of.
“How often would I have gathered!” was now the word of reluctantly departing loving-kindness and favor, but stored in a heart from which it could not be abstracted, which nothing could reach to alter. If sin could drive love in there and shut it up, there it dwelt untouched in its own blessed and essential perfectness: no sin or failure could enter there to mar its perfectness or diminish its power. Such is God, such must He be known to us in Christ. If love and favor be driven back by sin, it is but to separate into the power of His own essential and unmingled perfectness, and, there retired, to dwell on and delight in itself. Judgment shall make a way for it to break forth only in its own unhindered excellency, and in unqualified and unparalyzed blessing. Such is God, and such is the Lord's way. But it was now only proved by his long patience that “Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet to their fathers” (Acts 28:2626Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: (Acts 28:26)).
For in them was fulfilled His prophecy which said, “Hearing ye Shall hear, and shall not understand” (Matthew 13:1414And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: (Matthew 13:14)). “For the people's heart had waxed gross; and, what Isaiah prophetically announced, when He Saw His glory, was now fulfilled when He Whose was the glory came” (John 12:40, 4140He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. 41These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. (John 12:40‑41)).
This, known to the Lord, was parabolically communicated in Matt. 13; for then His patience had not had its perfect work. In Matt. 23 it had; and God's dereliction, His going and returning to His place, was publicly announced, and “their house” left to desolation. Then, on this same footing, again prophecy begins (Matt. 24, 25.). Whether the vineyard, or in closer judgment the house itself, left desolate, the broad foundation is the same; and the remnant understand, believe, and are comforted. Nothing can be more solemn than our blessed Master's word at the close of the previous chapter. How much implies a little word from His mouth! What depth and terribleness the gentlest often conveys! It was not in severest judgment, “Ye have made My Father's house a house of merchandise.” He had left it. It was their house: what was it worth? Goodly stones, which a poor heathen would throw down. No self-exaltation, no harsh reproach. His heart, the Lord's heart, yearned over Jerusalem. But so, alas! it was. Terrible might be His judgment on the leaders of this people, who caused them to err; but of them, of the inhabitants of loved Jerusalem, He would only say in tenderness and sorrow, “Your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed [is] he that cometh in the name of Jehovah.” J. N. D.