SA 52:13-53:12{The Pentateuch-the object of the enemy's attack in the present day- more and more presents itself to me as the basis of all scripture. Even in its very form I do not doubt it to be so. Take, for instance, the New Testament, its twenty-seven books fall naturally into five divisions, which not only correspond in number with the five books of Moses, but also in a much more noteworthy manner, each to each in matter or line of thought. Thus if Genesis gives the origin and beginning of creation in its present state, the Gospels give us that which the apostle John would recall us to as another "beginning," brighter and better far, of a new creation, in Him who is second Man and last Adam. If Exodus tells the story of redemption from Egyptian bondage, the book of Acts shows us the church brought out from Jewish "bondage, under the elements of the world.” If Leviticus unfolds to priests in the sanctuary the power and value of the various sacrifices with which they come to God, the epistles of Paul establish us before God in all the value of that one Sacrifice which, taking the place of all of these, brings us, as they could not, really to Him. If Numbers gives us the order and provision for the camp in the wilderness, and how God brings through, to the glory of His name, a people continually failing under every proof, the other epistles furnish us for that path through the wilderness of this world, of which Israel's journey is but the figure. While, lastly, if Deuteronomy present those governmental ways of God, according to which a blessing or a curse follows the choice of the way which leads to either, the book of Revelation, as a perfect Deuteronomy, traces those ways by which the church or the world reaches the final consummation the end nowhere else in scripture so fully detailed.
This by the way; I cannot dwell upon it now: though I may say that the whole canon of scripture is, as I believe, a Pentateuch of Pentateuchs, four of which therefore belong to the Old Testament: the first consisting of the books of Moses; the second, of the rest of the historical books; the third, of the five psalm-like books, the utterances, under divine inspiration, of the human heart in its exercises, its sorrows, and its joys; the fourth, of the prophetic books, in which God's voice as it were answers man's voice.
I do not dwell upon this further now; and speak of it indeed mainly to emphasize the fact, that here again, in these wonderful words with which we are all familiar, we have still another Pentateuch. The passage begins of course, as I have begun it, with the 13th verse of the 52nd chapter, and goes down to the end of the 53rd, thus embracing fifteen verses, and these divide into five sections of three verses each, stamping the whole of it thus with the significant numbers 3 and 5. All are probably aware (among those who read this) that scripture numbers have significance, and that a uniform significance prevails throughout it. Three is the divine number, the number of the divine fullness-of the Trinity. It is the number which speaks of divine manifestation also; for only as Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is God fully manifest indeed. Five, on the other hand, the number significant of weakness, as many have well shown, is on that very account the human number, taken it may be from the number of those senses by which man is in relation with the scene in which he is placed. These two numbers then characterize this prophecy as the story of Him in whom bodily all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt, and who in this way alone was fitted to be, what alone HE was,-"God manifest in the flesh."
Again, it is not merely because of its five divisions that I call this a Pentateuch, it is because each of these divisions takes up in some way the theme of one of the books of Moses, and in the same order also. The full proof of this we shall have as we take them up in detail; nevertheless, it may be glanced at here, since this is no mere curious resemblance, but one which gives us the main features of the picture before us; and this is the use indeed of all such matters, to be helps to the spiritual apprehension of what might otherwise escape us. I trust, we shall find this true in a very marked way here.
Take then the first three verses, and you will easily discern the voice of One who, as in creation at first, is the Moulder and Fashioner of all things; and who can thus speak confidently from the beginning of what the end shall be. It is He who speaks here of His Servant, He who decrees the exaltation of the One self-humbled to that unequaled suffering by which His face is so marred more than any man's, and His form more than the sons of men; He who presides, as we may say, at the blessed work of redemption as at that of creation; though the actual Redeemer, as the actual Creator, is the Word now made flesh.
In the second section (Isa. 53:1-3) the speaker changes. It is now the testimony to Him who is the "power” or "arm of Jehovah," and notice that as "the Almighty" is the characteristic divine title in Genesis, so it is in Exodus that God takes up and redeems His people according to the significance of His name Jehovah. "Jehovah's arm " is thus the power of God in redemption, and this is the prophet's special testimony, rejected as he sees, by besotted man
In the third section (Isa. 53:4-6) we come, as in the opening of Leviticus, to the sacrificial character of those sufferings so misreckoned by unbelief. It scarcely needs to insist on the correspondence here.
The fourth section (Isa. 53:7-9) exhibits Him under the pressure of evil, tested by all He passed through as none other ever was: the world to Him a wilderness beyond that of which the book of Numbers gives us the history. But Israel's testing brought out with them the innate evil; with Him it brought out naught but the perfection which is His.
Finally, the last verses (Isa. 53:10-12) give us in perfect Deuteronomic sequence, the way and the end: the end as blessed as the way was full of unexampled sorrow "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.... the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand: He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied." Let us now look at these sections more in detail. F. W. G.
(To be continued, the Lord willing.)