Isaiah 6
It is amazing how little the minds of Christians entertain any thoughts about what the present judgment of the Lord may be as to their individual or collective estate. Generally speaking, all questions are merged in the one of final, individual salvation; as if to believe, so as to get to heaven, answered all the ends of God's glory and Christ's redemption. As to any practical acquaintance with the judgments of the Lord, in their moral bearing, everything is left in a vague and undefined way, to what another world and the final awards of eternity may disclose. " But the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, bath appeared to all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:11-13.) That is, the believer being set between the manifestation of God's infinite grace, in the appearing of Christ, for the accomplishment of redemption, and His coming again in glory, is `called to have his whole moral being in this world in conformity with these termini (or limits) of his course. Every motive and desire should bear the stamp either of the cross or the glory. For if God's end in grace, as it has been said, "is to gather companions for Jesus in the glory," His object with them, as to this world is, that their character, and aims, and position, should be a witness of this, before the glory is revealed. As it was said of Israel, "ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."
Now, nothing appears to be more simple than the application of the light of scripture to the moral condition of individual, or collective associations of believers, to determine whether it is in accordance with God's thoughts or not.
In this vision of the glory of the Lord, the practical application to Israel's moral condition is simple and direct; and it affords, also, a principle of universal application -namely, that the moral condition Of the heirs of the glory ought to answer, in this world, to the glory to which they are destined; and to be thus the reflex of the character of the God of glory. But this point is not left to the application of a general principle. In the first chapter of the book of Revelation, there is a similar vision to the one we are considering, of Christ's glory, in its bearing on the moral condition of the Church, as set to be Christ's witness on the earth. In this vision Christ appears to John, not as the accomplisher of redemption, nor as the High Priest of our profession in His office of un failing intercession, (not that these have practically ceased,) but in the glory which belongs to Him as " the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth." Or, in other words, it is Christ as He is about to appear in the display and vindication (and application, too, in judgment on the earth) of that glory of which the Church ought to have been the witness. In application, therefore, the addresses to the Churches are, in effect, the sentence of apostasy, as in Isaiah, beginning with the charge to Ephesus of having forsaken its first love, and ending in utter rejection in Laodicea, "I will spue thee out of my mouth." But it is not intended now to pursue this farther than as it is an illustration, in reference to the responsibility of the Church, of the principle of the vision before us in Isaiah; for it is manifest that the condition of the churches is judged of by their accordance, or otherwise, with the glory of Him who was seen by John in vision.
In our chapter the glory of Jehovah is manifested to the prophet as the glory of Him with whom Israel was associated (in name at least), and through whom it was to be manifested in all the earth. Consequently, it at once becomes the test of the moral condition of the people; for God's glory has ever its own moral character of holiness attached to it. Hence the prophet says, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts." And when grace comes in personally to the prophet, as symbolized by the touching of his lips with the live coal from off the altar, it is only to make him the herald of Israel's apostate condition. He said, " Go, and tell this people, Hear ye, indeed, but understand not; and see ye, indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat; and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed." But this is not an arbitrary and unconnected message, any more than the glory is a mere majestic breaking in. of God on the prophet's mind, to inspire him with awe. For the display of this glory was necessary to afford (if I may so speak) the standard of admeasurement of Israel's apostasy, or departure from the Lord. He might, indeed, have said, as in Jeremiah, with regard to their forgetful unbelief of their signal redemption from Egypt, to which they owed their existence as a nation," neither said they, where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt," &c., but He here gauges their departure from another point,—their unfitness to be the witnesses of His glory. Their departure from the Lord in both respects was manifest, for they had failed to maintain their position in the redemption which had been already accomplished, and they were unfit to be the vessel of the display of the glory with which they were nominally associated. For how is it that Israel saw not this glory? It was but Jehovah judging from His sanctuary. And if the bright radiance of His throne was not always, as now, manifest, still He was ever the " Holy, holy, holy Jehovah of Hosts;" and His glory could never be associated with that which was inconsistent with its moral character of holiness. But the sentence of the prophet, " Hear ye indeed, but understand not," &c., is but the moral reflex of the glory, as it throws its detecting beams upon the condition of the people that are professedly in connection with it. They neither see nor hear, nor can they be the medium of its display; but judgment must waste the nation until it leaves only a small remnant, or "the holy seed as the substance thereof." "The kingdom of God must be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Then, "he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called Holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning." (Isa. 4:3, 4.)
But in truth everything is, and everything must be, estimated by its accordance or otherwise with this glory. If it be the question of sin, it is "all have sinned and come short Of the glory of God." If of divine mercy, it is "vessels of mercy, whom God hath afore prepared unto glory." If of heavenly hope, it is "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we also shall appear with him in glory." If of final earthly purpose, it is "As I live, saith the Lord, the whole earth shall be filled with my glory."
In the case of Israel, the subsequent dealings of the Lord have confirmed the sentence of apostasy, on the nation, which came forth from the glory, as well as brought on them the judgments threatened in the neglected warnings of the prophets. For alas! they knew not the day of their merciful visitation when He, of whose glory Isaiah spoke, the Christ, the Jehovah of Israel, was manifested in grace among them; and now their " house is left unto them desolate." And in the case of the professing body now, the failure which began in apostolic days, will end in a total rejection, by the Lord, of the Church, viewed in its character of earthly witness, as utterly distant from accordance with the glory of Him by which everything that bears His name must be tried. As to individuals (as in the case of the prophet) there is the personal application of grace, and with it, if viewed aright, the sense of general departure, relieved only by the hope and expectation of the coming of the Lord Jesus to take His heavenly Church to Himself ere He is manifested in glory; when there will be the execution of judgment upon that especially which falsely bears His name. But the habit, even of Christians, of estimating the importance or otherwise of all truth by its bearing on individual salvation, neutralizes almost every moral consideration drawn from the glory of God. But surely it must lead to wrong conclusions, if I make my own safety or well-being the center of all my thoughts, when the center of all God's counsels is the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He it was who " humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also bath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the rather."
But can there be a stronger proof of unfitness in the body that bears Christ's name to witness for His glory, or to enter into that glory, than the way in which the hope of His coming is lost sight of? To the mass His coining has only the aspect of judgment instead of joy and hope: so entirely has everything changed since it was said of believers that they were "looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ," and "waiting for God's Son from heaven!"