There is no doubt that the Holy Ghost treats of Israel, more particularly of Judah and Jerusalem, throughout the visions of Isaiah. Often, it is true, we hear of judgments on, sometimes of divine grace toward, the Gentiles; and this last not merely when Israel shall be the center of blessing for the earth, but even while, as now, the Jews are set aside for a season. Still it is certain from the express language of the prophet, that the book, as a whole, applies to God's ancient people, and not to the Church of the firstborn.
Nevertheless, all Scripture being alike from God, we shall find the most precious instruction here as elsewhere, humbling lessons for the heart of man, and on God's part unfailing mercy, goodness, and patience, but withal solemn, sure judgment of all evil. Everywhere and at all times God's glory shines out to the eye of faith, as it will to “every eye” in a day which hastens fast. But the only wise God has been pleased to bring out His mind and display His ways in a variety of forms, which create no small perplexity to the narrow mind and unready heart of man. Some are apt to forget the past, as if the revelation of present privilege were all; many more would merge the actual calling of God in a vague amalgam, in an unintelligent monotony, which confounds Israel and the Church, law and gospel, earth and heaven, grace and glory.
Doubtless, now that the Son of God has appeared, it is meet that we should hear Him; and it is vain to talk of knowing the law and prophets, Moses or Elias, if He have not the central and supreme place in our hearts. And it is to hear Him, if we believe that the Spirit of truth is come to guide into all truth; much of which even apostles could not bear, till redemption was accomplished and the Son of man ascended where He was before. It is due, therefore, to the New Testament that we should look for our special portion there, the revelation of that mystery which was hid from ages and from generations. But we cannot forget, without dishonor to God and loss to our souls, that there are certain moral principles which never change, any more than God can act or speak beneath Himself, whatever may be His condescension to the creature. Thus, obedience is always the right pathway for the faithful, and holiness is inseparable from the new nature; but then the character of the obedience and the depth of the holiness necessarily depend on the measure of light given of God and the power of the motives He reveals for working on the heart. What was allowed in Levitical time and order is largely out of place now if we heed the Savior's authority. And this is at least as strikingly true of the public worship and service of God as of private life and duty. In many measures and in many modes He spoke in the prophets to the fathers; now He has spoken in the person of His Son. Hence, unbelief assumes the character of resistance to the fullest love, light, authority, and grace, revealed in Him who is the image of the invisible God—Himself God over all, blessed forever, while the faith which has bowed to Him thus displayed, loves to hear the earlier oracles and to reflect the true light which now shines, along with the fainter but equally divine luminaries which pierced through the darkness of man's night; for all the blessed promises of God are now verified in Christ.
In the prophecy before us God is still dealing with the people as a body; and, therefore, He pleads with them because of their iniquities, setting forth a full, searching, and even minute portraiture of their evil ways. For if prophecy encourages the faithful by the sure word of coming blessing from the Lord, it casts a steady, convicting light on the actual state of those who bear His name; its hopes strengthen those who bow to its holy sentences. Hence, if handled in a godly, reverent manner, it never can be popular, though notions drawn from it and used excitingly may be so. But the Spirit addresses it to the conscience in God's presence, and there is nothing man more shrinks from. Indeed this is the character of prophesying (1 Cor. 14) in a measure, as well as of prophetic Scripture; and the Corinthian preference of the more showy sign-gifts told the tale of their own moral condition.
Need I point out particularly how Isa. 1 illustrates the foregoing remarks? What an expostulation on the part of God! Heaven and earth are summoned to hear His complaint against His guilty people. The dullest of their own beasts of burden put them to shame. In vain had the largest favors been shown them: “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” Equally vain had been His chastisements. (Ver. 5-9). Land, cities, inhabitants, all was in the prophet's vision a waste and ruin through sin, with the merest remnant shielded from destruction.
Has not this a voice for us? It is not only that the Church of God began to be called out and formed when all was a failure—man, Israel, the world, judged morally in the cross; but, besides, for us, the house of God is in disorder, the last time of many antichrists is long since come. The Christian witness has more deeply and widely departed from God than the Jewish one, and in spite of immensely greater privileges. What remains but judgment for the mass, with the reserve of grace for those who humble themselves under God's mighty hand? Does this produce hardness of feeling? On the contrary, a spirit of intercession is the invariable companion of a holy heed to prophecy, the offspring, both of them, of communion with God. He loves His people too well to look with indifference on their sin, of all men; He must vindicate His outraged majesty; and those who are in the secret of His mind cannot but go forth in importunate desire for the good of souls and the glory of the Lord. But real love has no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; rather does it reprove them. Neither does that love which is of God measure sin as nature does, but feels first and most of all that which slights the Lord Himself.
As to Israel, they were worse than the heathen, as bad as the worst. “Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.” It was not that they lacked zeal in religion; it was not that they did not seek a remedy for the evident pravities of their day. But their remedies were worse than useless. (Ver. 10-15.) If they approached the doom of Sodom, morally they were Sodom, and their sacrifices, feasts, and assemblies odious to the Lord, who refused to hear their prayers. There was no real repentance, no trembling at His word.
Yet the Lord deigns to call them to repentance, and the fruits suited to it, promising to help them if they were broken down and obedient, and threatening to devour them by the sword if they refused. The universal corruption is then laid bare; and, finally, the Lord shows He must deal with His adversaries, as well as Himself restore Zion, when idols and their makers perish together under His mighty hand.
We have already seen that, though the people are assured of the blessing of God, if truly repentant, the prophet shows that judgment must be executed first on the wicked: then shall Zion be redeemed of the Lord. Chapter 2 follows this up and predicts thereon, not only the restoration of their judges as at the first, and Jerusalem, called the city of righteousness, but the mountain of the Lord's house exalted and all nations flowing unto it; “for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not rise against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Ver. 3, 4.)
This is plain, if we are simple. Abandon the context, blot out, if you will, the fact that this portion is prefaced as the word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem,” and all is confusion. No doubt, to apply these glorious terms to the feeble remnant's return from the Babylonish captivity refutes itself. But the views of many Christians are not less untenable. What, for instance, can exceed the poverty of Theodoret's scheme? He tries to find an answer in the flourishing unity of the Roman empire when our Lord first appeared, and the conquered races that composed it being no longer at war but engaged in agriculture and in the unhindered (!) diffusion of the gospel far and wide. Yet I know nothing better in the attempts of men since, unless the Popish interpretation be thought more homogeneous, inasmuch as it is all supposed to be verified in the Catholic church; or unless the interpretation of others be preferred, which makes it all mystical, and imagines its accomplishment in the unbroken oneness and peace of all believers, in their perfect holiness, and their entire subjection to the Scriptures, whether on earth in the midst of truth, or, as some think, in heaven, when every conflict is over.
Take it now in its natural import, and all difficulties vanish. When judgment has done its work, Zion shall be the fountain of divine blessing for all nations, and the center to which they shall gather, when universal peace prevails, and Jehovah shall be king over all the earth. The contrast of all this, the Lord predicted, should go on till the end of the age. “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Such are the evident facts now. By and by, when the new age dawns under Messiah's earthly reign, (Rev. 11:15,) “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” It will be an order of things of which the world has had no experience, and if the casting away of Israel were the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (Rom. 11) The flowing of all nations unto Zion cannot mean the gathering out of them, which Scripture speaks of as the Church of God, even if there were not a divine judgment executed on all (and the Jews especially) before that, and if this era of peace, and blessing, and Messianic rule were not coincident with the supremacy of Israel, which supposes a condition wholly distinct from that of the Church, wherein there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but Christ is all and in all.
That which follows strongly confirms the reference to the future blessing and glory of Israel under the new covenant, and the King who shall reign in righteousness; for the prophet, (chap. 2 5,) after that happy picture, invites the house of Jacob to come and dwell in the light of the Lord. Then, speaking to Jehovah, he owns why He had forsaken His people, instead of setting them on high, even because they were replenished from the east with all that man covets and worships. Their sin was unpardonable. Lastly, he calls on them to hide in the dust because of the day of the Lord, which undoubtedly has not yet fallen on the pride and idolatry of man. The passage needs only to be read in a believing, reverent spirit to convince a fair mind, that neither Nebuchadnezzar nor Titus, nor the gospel has anything to do with accomplishing the all-embracing judgment of man which is there portrayed.
But universal as the prostration of human pride shall be, chapter 3 indicates that most crushingly shall the blow fall on Jerusalem and Judah, and this not only in their public, political life, but minutely and searchingly on the daughters of Zion in all their haughty littleness of vain show. So complete would be the desolation, that the dearth of men is described as exposing women to a boldness contrary to female modesty. But this time of tribulation is followed by an outshining of beauty and glory, and abundant mercy for the saved and holy remnant. (Chap. 4) Even as the cloudy pillar once covered the tabernacle of the divine presence, so the Lord will create on every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and on her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defense. To attempt to refer to the gospel these revelations of coming glory for Israel, after purging trial, is in the highest degree a distortion of scripture: During the present dispensation they are enemies for our sakes, as regards the gospel, while, as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. When that day comes, the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. It is a total change from this day of grace to judgment-day, whatever the mercy of God to the rescued out of Israel and the nations: “In that day shall there be one Jehovah and His name one.” It is the deliverance, not the destruction of the still groaning creation. “All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem; and it shall be lifted up and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's wine-presses.” It is not the past nor the present; it is not the eternal state but the millennium. It is an epoch of glory when the Lord will hear the heaven; and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel. Divine judgment shall have washed away the guilt of Zion, and the glory shall return more blessedly than at the first and forever. What can contrast more with our day of suffering grace?