Bible Commentaries

The Predicted Saviour

Isaiah 53:5).

What do these words mean? No man can tell. The best explanation of them is to hide them in the heart, brood over them, and use them when the night is darkest and when the great accusing, avenging law insists upon body and soul and all that makes us men. Some sermons are preached in the nighttime that cannot be preached in daylight; some expectations are whispered to the soul when no one can overhear. The tragedy of the Cross makes an infinite impression; it dwells within us like a memory that will hardly condescend to accept the embodiment of words; it looks upon us when we are blind with tears; it says something to us when we exclaim, "What shall we do to be saved?" It is not to be mechanically written about, or formally preached, or set forth by dainty choice of dainty words. There is a region where words are useless, where images are hardly available, where choicest metaphor feels itself a trespasser. There are regions which we can only look at, and at whose closed doors we can only wait until it pleaseth the indwelling Spirit to set them ajar a little, that through the hospitable rent we may hear somewhat of the nature of explanatory or consolatory music. Beware of every attempt to write a bock upon Christ's agony. Beware lest in chaptering and sectioning a book, and making in some sort a printer's trick of the story, we should crucify the Son of God afresh. Men see the Cross in its saving aspect probably only once, probably in one flashing moment, but they never forget the spectacle; it recurs when they need it, and that vision leaves the whole life whiter than snow, whiter than wool, creates in the life a hunger and a thirst after things divine and heavenly, and makes the man a new creature, so that heaven's own stars are but baubles after having seen a universe compared with which they are dim specks of colour. All proportions, all distances, all values are changed, changed as in the twinkling of an eye. We are often cursed by our intelligence. We are often impoverished, in a religious sense, by our grammatical cleverness. God is not a God of etymology and syntax; else salvation would be of grammar, not of grace; of clever interpretation, not of absolute, implicit, filial acceptance and obedience. Have we had the vision? Was there a day when all heaven shone with new light, and all earth became transformed with ineffable beauty? Was there a day when we felt love towards all men and could have saved all men that very day, and have brought them into heaven at once—a great missionary experience, a great evangelistic realisation of the value of men? That was the day when the Son of man found that which was lost, and brought it home rejoicing. Never let that day drop out of your memory.

Here is a view of human nature which no man could have invented: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." There is an experimental tone in that declaration. The man knows what he is talking about It does not become any scribe to incriminate the whole human race without having sure ground under his feet. All history corroborates this criticism; all history sitting in the judgment-seat agrees with this finding. If there is a man who has not gone astray, let him stand up. If there is a man who has never been self-convicted—not within some narrow lines of mechanical observance, but within the great circle of human sympathy and human duty—let him say Isaiah 53:7).

That is our Christ; that is God's Son; that is the Saviour of the world. We know that he was oppressed, and that he was afflicted; we know that he said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;" we know that he sweat as it were great drops of blood; we have read that in history; we compare the prophecy and the history, and they are one. Isaiah might have been the reporter as he concealed himself within the shadows of Gethsemane.

But the matter does not end here. Providence does not lead to darkness. God has never started on a journey the destination in view being insignificance, blankness, poverty, desolation. On this night a morning will rise: "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied," or, according to another version, "because of his agony he shall see and shall be refreshed;" he is to have a portion divided with the great; he is to divide the spoil with the strong: because he hath poured out his soul unto death; he is to be throned above the riches of the universe; he endured the Cross, despising the shame; he looked beyond to the smiling, welcoming heaven, not as a place of selfish rest, but as a gathering place in which he should hold eternal fellowship with immortal spirits. "He that goeth forth bearing seed"—omit the word "precious," for it adds nothing to the value of the text, and is properly omitted in the best translations,—"he that goeth forth bearing seed"—the epithet is in the substantive; the substantive is too grand for adjective or term of qualification,—"He that goeth forth bearing seed" shall come again, his face all laughter, his voice all song, his arms too small and weak to hold the infinite sheaves. In this faith we stand, in this prospect we labour. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. To-day there is little hope; today there is darkness enough. It would seem as if the multitude had gone out to do evil, and as if fools counted more in number than wise men; it would seem as if still Jesus Christ was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But in reality it is not so. It is never so dark, according to the proverb, as before the dawn; it is then that the darkness is deepest simply because the dawn is nearest. O day of the Lord, come! O expected light, tip with some foregleaming the hills cf darkness! One ray would make us glad. One glimpse of light would make all thy praying ones spring up from their knees as if their prayers had been answered in a sentence. But our impatience must not rule us; our impetuosity must be held in check; our whole aspiration must be content with the words, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven." Yet we will say in our daily prayers, "Thy kingdom come,"—as the spring comes and vanishes winter, as the summer comes and explains the vernal breeze and life, as the harvest comes to crown the year's toil and travail with richest colour and richest fruit, with abundance worthy of a king. We live under a great scheme of providence: how dark sometimes; at other times how bright! How hard to dig the grave! How awful to lose the one life we cared for! How sad to be impoverished at a stroke! And yet it is in the midst of the desolateness that Christ says he will glorify those who believe in God, he will bring to fulness of honour, yea, even to coronation, those who have clung to God, and those who have clung most tenderly when the night was darkest

Prayer

Almighty God, in thee alone do we put our trust. Our whole heart goes out towards thee in eager love. We have committed ourselves unto thee, and thou art able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the throne. This gospel have we received from thy Son Jesus Christ. We owe all we are and have that is good to him. His blood cleanseth from all sin. His grace establishes the heart and causes it to grow in all holiness and sacred power. Unto him that loved us, and hath washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; unto him be dominion and majesty evermore. We bless thee for thy house. The tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth. Thou dost keep us in the right way by the declaration of thy testimonies and the continual revelation of thy truth; by the mighty energy of thy Holy Spirit, and by visiting our hearts in times of anxiety and distress. Thy ministry towards us is a ministry of salvation. Thou art always seeking to train us toward thyself. Thou dost lift up our life towards the light, and towards the higher and wider spaces. Thou dost give liberty to the captive—an infinite, a glorious, liberty, requiring eternity for its unfoldment. May we in thy house see thyself. We would look upon thy goodness; we know we cannot bear the lustre of thy glory. Help us to feel thy grace, to hear the still small voice of animation and of comfort, assuring us that the Lord reigneth and that the end of all things is good. We bless thee for all light, truth, peace, hope. These are the great gifts of God. Every day do thou enrich us with them. Then, at the last, we shall not die, but languish into life. This is the gospel of thy Son; this is life, this is immortality, this is heaven. We bless thee that we must die to live, and that living in thy light we can never die. We bless thee for the mystery of love; for the marvel and the miracle of continual grace. Amen.