ISAIAH CHAPTER ONE
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The
first chapter of the prophet rebukes severely the Jews for the national
desertion of Jehovah. But the pathetic
appeal, that the ox knew its owner, and the most stupid of animals his masters
crib, yet that Israel knew not HIM, applies in its fullest force to the Jews rejection of
Jesus, by whom they were created, and for whose pleasure they were made. They did not
understand, says Procopius,
who he was, who was seen even by their fathers in a
human form. Therefore he saith, Abraham your father
rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. And,
It
was to the times bordering on this overthrow that Paul, guided by the sacred [Holy] Spirit, applied
the succeeding verse, Except the Lord had left unto us
a very little remnant, we had been as Sodom, and had been make like unto
Gomorrah. On which passage Procopius beautifully observes, There shall be a second call of the Jewish people in the last
days, even though it be only a remnant at first. And this prophecy hath declared, saying, The children of
By
calling them
The
Lord himself then attacks the next object of their dependence - their rites and
sacrifices. He discovers to them that
when these were not offered with a prepared and contrite heart they were no
longer acceptable. But, beside this
general subject of disparagement, there was a yet deeper cause of
dissatisfaction. The sacrifice of Jesus
being now offered, the significance of the temple service had departed, and its
victims were no longer worthy of regard; but rather an abomination, since they
could no longer be offered in faith.
Another reason assigned for disregarding their most solemn rites and
prayers, is, that their hands were full of blood. And this doubtless had an especial reference
to the Saviours death, as Procopius
also remarks : His blood be on us and on our children! was the cry which fixed their condemnation. Thenceforth their prayers were abomination,
for their hands were imbrued in the blood of the Son of God. Even this the Saviour himself threatened: Behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes;
and some of them ye shall kill, and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge
in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all
the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto
the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple
and altar.
Thus the law ended with a curse: for it found its professed subjects laden with guilt. But then
the prophet addresses them with Gospel exhortations, Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings,
cease to do evil, learn to do well: words which are re-echoed by St.
Peter in his exhortations at Pentecost; Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Repent ye,
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted when the times of
refreshing shall come from the presence, of the Lord. Even yet their scarlet sins might be made
white by the blood they had wickedly shed.
But if not, the sword should devour them:
and so it happened; the Roman armies with keen severity redeemed the pledged faithfulness
of Jehovahs word.
The
character given of
But let us fill up more definitely
the prophets sketch.
Eusebius agrees with Jerome
in explaining the expression in verse 22,
Thy dealers mix wine with water (the version
of the LXX.), as signifying that the Scribes and Pharisees adulterated the true
and pure word of the Most High with their puerile [childish,
, trivial] and corrupt traditions. Their hypocrisy the Saviour exhibited, Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! That their princes were rebellious, was seen by their revolting from Rome;
that they were companions of thieves, was
fulfilled, as both Eusebius and Jerome conceive, by their league with Judas,
the traitor and thief. That they judged not the cause of the widow, we learn from the
Saviours reproach, that they devoured widows houses. In consequence of all these sins, the
vengeance of God, it is threatened, should come upon them; yet this judgement
should destroy only the wicked. His
wrath accomplished, the remnant shall yet come forth, Isaiah assures us,
purified as gold without alloy, and
[*
Her judges restored - (that is, resurrected) - would be such men as Moses and
Joshua, or in latter times such as Ezra and Nehemiah; or more properly still,
such as Apostles (and overcomers) of the Lord.]
The
general features which this chapter exhibits as characteristic of the Jews,
are, a hypocritical show of righteousness and attention to ceremonies, joined
with a real disregard of God, and a heart full of malice, envy, and
avarice. How truly this was fulfilled in
the Jews of our Saviours time we know from the Evangelists. Connected with this their sin, is the threat
which was afterwards executed, that the temple and its service should be no
longer continued to their nation. Tread my courts no more, which is not so much a
prohibition, as a prophecy that soon they should not be able to enter those
courts which they had so profaned. And Procopius justly observes, The prophet does not accuse them at this time of idolatry,
but of murder, with which the Saviour
charged them, 0
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THOUGHTS ON ISAIAH CHAPTER TWO
By B. W. NEWTON.
The Teachers
of
[* See in Matt. 24. 34. (This generation shall not pass, &c.) as
contrasted with the generation to come in Ps. 102. 18. This shall
be written for the generation to come, and the people that shall be created
shall praise the Lord.]
It would have been well for us if our apprehensions
of the earths present evil, and of the means necessary for its subjugation,
had been as true and as vivid as those of the saints in
Yet the deliverance of earth
from the dominancy of evil and the subsequent reign of the great Melchisedek,
are subjects to which exceeding prominency is given both in the Old and in the
New Testament. In the earliest of the
songs of Israel at the Red Sea, the overthrow of Pharoah and his hosts is
regarded as the foreshadowing and the pledge of the final triumph of the Lord
over all the Pharoah-like power of earth; and when the
Church of the first-born ones
enter into their glory and stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God,
that song will again be found on their lips; for the hour of its true
accomplishment will then have come. They will sing the song
of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and
marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou
King of nations. Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy
name? for thou only art holy, for all nations shall come and worship before
thee; for thy judgments have been made manifest. Rev. 15.
The Book of Psalms teems with descriptions of the putting down of the
earths evil before the power of the coming day of glory: and the first
recorded Alleluiah of the saints in Heaven is a thanksgiving to Him who judged the great whore that did corrupt the earth by her
fornication, and avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.
Rev. 19: 2.
Little communion have we at present with thoughts like these. Our apprehension of the character of the
workings of Satan and the extent of the constructions of his evil are so
feeble, that we recognise not the need for that roar
of the Lion of
Unnumbered examples of Gods
patient goodness in bestowing blessing are afforded by the worlds past
history. Again and again, has He opened
channels of goodness, and caused to flow therein many a deep stream of
mercy. But no sooner does He give, than
mans wilfulness and evil interpose, and the mercy given is either perverted or
despised. It is needful, therefore, not
only that God should give, but that He should GOVERN. It is needful that
He should watch over and effectually control the diffusion of that which He
gives: that He should cut off disturbing agencies, and, under the supervision
of His own almighty power, carry out to their proper results His purposes of
good. For this faith waits. For this we say, Thy kingdom come: thy will be done in earth as it is
done in heaven.
No one apprehended these
things more fully than David. He had the
heart of a King. He saw that what the
earth needed was control - constant, minute control in things little and great;
and he knew that such control could only
come from Him by whom the earth was created and by whom it is sustained. He knew also that God had appointed that the
right government of the world should
depend on the right regulation of
In the closing part of
the chapter before us, we find the description of that coming day of
visitation that shall finally overwhelm the sons of Belial and all the
constructions of their evil. In the
commencement of the chapter,
on the other hand, we have the
description of the reign of righteousness and peace that is to
follow. We are taught first respecting that which is, in fulfilment, last. The order of narration inverts the order of
accomplishment. It is the method of
Gods graciousness in teaching His servants whom He loves. He
tells them of the happy and blessed end before He instructs them respecting the
evil that is to precede, that so they might enter on the path of sorrow
fortified and cheered by the sure knowledge of the resulting glory.*
[* Post-Millennialists and Anti-Millennialists take note.]
Faith, therefore, ever holds
fast the words IT
SHALL COME TO PASS IN THE LAST DAYS - that is to say, in the last
period of the history of this Adamic
earth (before the dispensation of the
fulness of times - when new heavens and a new earth shall be created),
it shall come to pass even in this fallen earth, that the power of evil shall be abased, darkness give
place to light, falsehood to Truth, man be made to bow, and Jehovah alone be
exalted. It
shall be, in the last days, that the mountain of the house of Jehovah
shall be established in the top of the
mountains, and be exalted above the hills, and there shall flow unto it all the
Gentiles.
The House of Jehovah is the
dwelling-place of Truth. There Truth
abides; thence Truth emanates. At
present Truth has no such dwelling-place in earth. It is a pilgrim - a
persecuted exile: despised hated - seeking it may be, a refuge in caves and
dens of the earth, and finding
perhaps not even that. No mountain of
strength devotes its power to its sustainment or protection.
What should we think of one
who affirmed that he was dwelling in
Almost in its earliest days,
Gentile Christianity, becoming wise in its own conceit, began to boast itself
against
[* I say this on the authority of Vitringa, who says: Plane repudiamus
illurn ingenii lusum, qui occurrit inter alias meditationes apud Cyrillum, acsi
dicere vellet Vates, Gentes fidem
Verbi Evangelii suscepisse, quia Verbum
Dei egressum est ex Tsione, hoc est egrediendo ex Tsione ... Alienissimum id est a scopo, et illi recte
contrarium. Vitringa does not
say whether he refers to Cyril of Jerusalem or to Cyril of Alexandria, nor does
he give any reference. I have examined
with the help of an index the passages where it might be supposed that the
statement would occur, but I have not been able to find it.]
Constantine and his flatterers, of course welcomed the thought of being exalted
into the place of
It is no excuse for this to
say, that the Truth made known to believers now is the same Truth that will by
and by be established on Zion, and that in that sense we have anticipatively the blessings of the age to come. It is no doubt true that believers (who be it
remembered are but a little flock) have the spiritual blessings of the millennium, and in
this sense the millennium is forestalled.
The millennial saints and ourselves have one God, one Father, one
Saviour, one Sacrifice, one Spirit, one hope.
That which saves from the flesh and its ruin now, will save from the
flesh and its ruin when the millennium comes.
Christ is the one Head under whom, and in whom all the redeemed of every
dispensation will finally be
united together in the new heavens and new earth, there constituting one glorified
body - the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. There are not two gospels, or two ways, or
two ends of salvation. But are we
because of similarities to forget contrasts?
In the coming age, the external circumstances of Gods people will be in harmony with their
spiritual condition. All will be
blessing. But now it is direfully otherwise.
Creation groans.
If we apprehend not the character of the future day
of righteousness and peace, we shall equally fail in apprehending the character
of the present evil and the judgment which is about to fall thereon. He who rejects the testimony of the first
part of this chapter as to the coming blessing, will equally reject its closing
testimony as to the coming hour of visitation.
Blindness as to these two things must involve blindness, more or less,
as to every path of service, and every branch of Truth. We shall look with complacency upon the oaks
of
*
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NOTES ON ISAIAH CHAPTER TWO
By B. W.
NEWTON.
VERSE 1
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. The two succeeding chapters, as well as the second, are
prefaced by this verse. It might seem
quite superfluous to say that
Nothing but a clear apprehension of the difference between the
present and the next dispensation, can enable us
rightly to estimate this claim. They who
believe that secular power is so essentially distinct from ecclesiastical that
there never can be a union of both in the same person, will regard the attempt
of the Church of Rome to unite them as an act of folly to be despised and
ridiculed, rather than to be seriously resisted. Whereas, others who believe that it would be
a right and happy thing for the same hand that controls the worship and order
of the Church to regulate also the order of civil and social life - who see
that Truth ought to be supreme, and that the Scripture speaks of a time when Zion and its
Priest-king shall govern all nations, are always predisposed (unless they
understand the character of the millennial age) to acquiesce, either partially
or altogether, in the rightness of the course which Rome has followed. The first are in danger of becoming Infidels
- the last superstitious Romanists.
The system of the Church of Rome is skilfully constructed on a
millennial model. Claiming to be the
Mother and Mistress of all Churches, its earthly Head sits as a crowned priest
upon his throne. He is saluted as God.
[* This distinction between the millennial saints on earth and
the risen saints will not be perpetual.
In the new heavens and the new earth all the redeemed will form one
glorified body.]
Indeed the secular power is to lead in that last great
Apostasy that is to enthrone itself on
VERSES 2 TO 5
And it shall be, in the end of the
days, that the Mountain of the House of Jehovah shall be established in the top
of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and there shall flow
unto it all the Gentiles: and many peoples shall go and say, Come ye and let us
go up to the Mountain of Jehovah, to the House of the God of Jacob, and He will
teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths, 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 ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O House of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of Jehovah.
And it shall be in the end of the days. I have already observed that the Jews are accustomed to
divide the history of the Adamic earth into two
periods, this age and the age to come. The Scripture fully sanctions this
distinction, and frequently contrasts the two periods. Thus the Apostle in the Hebrews speaks of the age to come
6: 5: and of the
habitable earth to come, Heb. 2. 5, into which God will again bring the
first-begotten from the dead, saying Let all the
angels of God worship him. Heb. 1: 6. This coming period, seeing that it is the
last in the history of this Adamic earth is called by
the Apostle the last time [who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in
the last time 1 Pet. 1: 51. See also the expression several times used by
our Lord in John 6 when speaking of the
resurrection of His saints I will raise him up in
the last day. he expression used in the passage before us end of the days (rendered by the Sept. in the last days, is equivalent in
meaning to those just quoted from Peter and from John. It is very frequently used in the Old
Testament to denote the millennial period, or as the Jews would express it, the days of
the Messiah, because those days will conclude the history of this Adamic earth.*
[* See for example the following passages:-
Numbers 24: 14. Come and I will advertise
thee what this people (
Jer. 23: 20.
The anger of the Lord shall not return, until
he have executed, and till he have performed the
thoughts of his heart: in the end of the days ye shall consider it perfectly.
Jer. 48: 47.
Yet will I bring again the captivity of
Ez. 38. 16.
And thou shalt come up against my people of
Hosea. 3: 5. Afterward shall the children of
Micah 4: 1. But it shall be in the end of the days that the mountain of the house of
Jehovah shall be established, &c.
This expression, end of the days
is not to be confounded with another, last Of THESE days, used by the
Apostle in Heb. 1: 2. The term of the existence
of this Adamic earth being divided into two periods,
(these days
and the days to come). Christ
appeared in the last part of these days - or as it is expressed in Heb. 9: 26 at the
conclusion of the ages - our dispensation being the last granted to man
during his day. So also in 1 Cor. 10: 11, the Apostle speaks of them as those on
whom the ends of the ages have come.
But again, our present dispensation which is the last of those
that precede the millennium has also itself a conclusion. The Apostle speaks of ITS last days when he says, This know that in the last
days perilous times shall
come. 2
Tim. 3: 1. Our Lord also
frequently uses the end of the age, to denote
the conclusion of the present dispensation.
See Matt. 13: 40 and 28: 20. The
context, therefore, will in each case determine how last
or end, is to be interpreted.]
The mountain of the house of
Jehovah.
An appellation
of
Shall be established in the top of the mountains,
and be exalted above (or away from) the hills. This exaltation of
He shall rebuke many peoples. The word translated rebuke,
is sometimes used of correction by words, as we read of Abraham
reproving Abimelech, Gen.
21: 25: sometimes of the rebuke of chastisement as in 2 Sam. 7: 14: or of wrath as in Habakkuk 1: 12.
When the Lord shall assume His millennial power, His dealings with the
various nations will vary according to their respective conditions. Some will be chastened: others smitten unto
destruction. The
nation and kingdom that will not serve thee [
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, &c. Contrast this verse with that of Joel. 3, where the reverse command is given Proclaim ye
this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake UP
the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: beat your ploughshares into swords, and
your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye Gentiles
and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to
come down, O Lord. Joel 3: 9-11. So this dispensation is to end. It
is one in which nation shall continue to rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom (see Matt. 24: 7) until the
hour comes for that awful summons to be given which I have just transcribed
from Joel. The gathering to Armageddon, and thence to the
O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the
light of the Lord.
The voice of
prophecy often transfers itself into the distant future, and speaks as if from
the midst of the circumstances contemplated or described. So is it
here. The Prophet stands as in the midst
of the coming scene of blessing, and thence exhorts his people.
VERSES 6 TO 9
But Thou
hast forsaken Thy people, the House of Jacob, because they are replenished from
the East, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and in the children of
strangers they abound. Filled also is
his [
But thou hast forsaken Thy
people, the house of Jacob.
Here the scene
changes. It is no longer the house of
Jacob abandoned and given up to judgment because of their abominations. The particle
may be often translated but, when the negative sentence expressed or
understood precedes.
Here, as frequently, there is an ellipse before [the
particle].
It is otherwise now, for (
but) thou hast
forsaken thy people, &c. In such a
case [the particle
] may
most suitably be translated but.]
For they have replenished
from the east.
Filled, that
is, with all that Chaldea and
Soothsayers, like the Philistines. Ancient wickedness will be combined with modern
abominations.
The forms under which Satan cloaks his agency are
various. In Deut.
18: 9-14, they are thus enumerated. When thou art
come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to
do after the abominations of those nations.
There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his
daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of
times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar
spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and
because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before
thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the
Lord thy God. For these nations which
thou shalt possess hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners, but as
for thee the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. See also Lev. 20:
27. A
man also, or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall
surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be
upon them.
God would not have spoken thus if these things were merely the
results of human deceptiveness. Saul
evidently sought the witch of Endor as knowing her to be possessed of supernatural
power: and the passage that I have quoted from the Acts
proves that the damsel at
At the close of their evil history, Israel, like Saul, finding
themselves abandoned by God, shall give themselves over to wizards that peep and mutter (see Is. 8); and instead of consulting the living God
shall consult, or seek to consult, the dead.
But the end will be anguish and darkness. They shall look unto
the earth, and behold trouble and darkness - dimness of anguish. Is. 8: 22.
It is quite impossible to define with precision the various
appellations that occur in these verses, Deut. 18:
9-14, or to determine the exact distinction between them: nor is it
needful, for their general bearing is obvious. They may, however, be translated
a little more carefully than they have been in our version. They may be rendered thus: There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his
son or his daughter pass through the fire* - one
that useth divination, an observer, or an augur, or a sorcerer: or a user of
incantations, or a consulter of Ohv, or a wizard, or
an inquirer of the dead.
[* This is
not the consuming of their children to Moloch, but by
way of lustration, a mock baptism, a piece of witchcraft, to preserve from
violent death.- Gilpins Demonologia
Sacra, p. 28.]
Of these descriptions I regard the second, viz., one that divineth divinations,
as the most comprehensive. I consider it
to be a generic term, including under it the various specific forms of
divination subsequently mentioned. Thus
this word is applied to Balaam (see Josh. 13: 22) who divined by omens (see Num. 24: 1), and also to the witch of Endor who divined not by omens, but by Ohv - the name in Hebrew of the
unclean spirit by whom she divined, just as the damsel in the Acts is said to have divined by the spirit Pytho. These two examples show that the word
is
applied to very different kinds of divination, and prove its generic use.
It is not easy to determine the specific meaning of
the word used by Isaiah in the
chapter before us, and is in our version rendered soothsayer, but in Deut. 18 is translated observer
of times, a rendering
frequently given by our translators. Soothsayer, which means a sayer of [pretended] truth,
is not a suitable rendering, for the etymology of
and its contextual association in Scripture,
indicate observation. There is, however, nothing in the word
that indicates observation of times any more than the observation of other things. It seems rather to denote such observation as
requires the careful use of the eye in minute inspection, such as was used by
the haruspices, whose peculiar office was to inspect
the entrails of victims, and in this differed from the augurs who judged from the flight and voices
of birds, and other palpable signs, using the ear no less than the eye. I have little doubt that this word refers to
that part of the science of divination in which the eye was employed in minute
inspection, especially of the entrails of victims. The Jerusalem Targum
renders this word, to inspect serpents.
Enchanter, which is the word
used by our translators in this passage in Deuteronomy, as the rendering of
is certainly not an accurate translation. The word implies quick and intelligent
observation, such as is ascribed to the serpent, and is twice used in a good
sense, namely, in Gen. 30: 27, where Laban says, I have learned by
experience or observation that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake, and in 1
Kings 20: 33, where it is translated diligently observe. Now the men did diligently
observe. It seems to denote that kind of quick
observation which notes signs and tokens, whether presented to the eye or to
the ear. This was especially the
province of the augur. In Gen. 44: 15, and the connected verse, it is
translated by the generic word divine. Wot ye not that such a man as I could certainly divine.
The word translated wizard
means properly one that uses sorceries. Vulg. maleficis artibus
inservire. In
Exodus 7: 11, it is translated sorcerers. Then Pharoah called the wise men and the sorcerers. Now
the magicians of
The eleventh verse of Deut. 18 is, to a certain degree, contrasted with
that which precedes.
The tenth verse which we have been
considering, treats of those kinds of divination in which demons are not
immediately addressed, but consulted mediately, by the intervention of signs, or when
effects are sought to be produced by the instrumental use of medicaments,
enchantments, &c. But in the eleventh verse words are used which imply a more
direct appeal to evil spirits. Thus the
first word
(which properly means
to bind or join together, hence used of fellowship and alliance, see 2 Chron. 20: 36, Ps. 94: 20)
denotes a charmer who seeks by incantations and invocations to bring the being
or beings addressed into association with himself. For this purpose incantations, were addressed
to demons; and this I understand to be the meaning here. The Chever, or
charmer, was one who addressed incantations to evil spirits in order to secure
their aid and co-operation.
So likewise in the next description one that enquireth of Ohv, where the direct appeal to an unclean
spirit is plainly indicated. Ohv is in our version commonly rendered familiar spirit. That it is a generic name,
used of such evil spirits as dwelt in persons who practised divination, is
evident from Leviticus 20: 27 a man also, or a woman that hath an Ohv
(literally, when an Ohv shall be in them), shall surely be
put to death. In this passage,
the actual presence and indwelling of an unclean spirit in men and women is
recognised as distinctly as it is in Acts,
when
The word Ohv means properly an
inflated bladder, or skin, and is applied to these unclean spirits, because
they caused the bodies of those in whom they dwelt to swell and become tumid
like skins filled with new wine. See
remarks of Parkhurst on this in his Hebrew Lexicon, and the
description given in Virgil of the Pythoness when
inspired. Gesenius says, Ohv denotes a Python or soothsaying demon, of which these
men were supposed to be [and really were] possessed. See Lev. 20: 27,
a man or a woman when a Python (Ohv) is in them.
The following are the passages in which this word occurs:-
Lev. 19. 31. Look not
unto the Ohvoth - plural of Ohv.
Lev. 20: 6. And the soul that turneth after the
Ohvoth, and after wizards, to go a whoring after
them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from
among his people.
Lev. 20. 27. A man also
or a woman when an Ohv shall be in them, or one who
is a wizard shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones:
their blood shall be upon them.
Deut. 18. 11. One that enquireth of an Ohv.
1 Sam. 28. 3. Saul had put
away the Ohvoth, and the wizards out of the land.
1 Sam. 28. 7. Then said
Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that is possessed of (literally that is mistress of) an Ohv ... and his
servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that is mistress of an Ohv at Endor.
1 Sam. 28. 8. And he
(Saul) said, Use divination, I pray thee, by means of the Ohv,
and bring me him up whom I shall name to thee.
1 Sam. 28. 9. Thou
knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off the Ohvoth,
and the wizards out of the land.
1 Chron.
10.
13. So Saul died for his transgression ... and also
for consulting the Ohv to enquire of it.
2 Kings 21: 6. And he (Manasseh) dealt with an Ohv and with wizards. Also 2 Chron. 33: 6.
2 Kings 23: 24. Moreover the Ohvoth and the wizards ... did he (Josiah) put away.
Isaiah 8. 19. And when
they shall say unto you, Seek unto the Ohvoth and unto wizards.
Isaiah 19. 3. And they
shall seek ... unto the Ohvoth and the wizards.
Isaiah 29: 4. And thy voice
like that of an Ohv out of the ground.
These are all the passages in which this word occurs, with the
exception of one, where it is used to signify wine-skins, or bottles. My belly is as wine,
which hath no vent: it is ready to burst as new bottles. This illustrates its meaning as applied to
those possessed of Ohv.
The application of these awful texts, in their full force, to
the spiritualists and necromancers of the present day, will not be questioned
by those who believe Gods Holy Word, and who have considered in its light the
facts of spiritualism. The history of
Paganism might have sufficiently taught men what a terrible servitude,
servitude to evil spirits is, and how easily, when God permits it, we may be
brought into connection with, and subjection to, the unseen evil spiritual
world. But human society at present
refuses alike the lessons of experience and the warnings of the Word of God,
and is blindly rushing on into the positions which Satan intends that his
servants should occupy in the last great conflict between Falsehood and
Truth. Men are deliberately rejecting
the guidance of God and of His Word, and are inviting the help of Satan. It is not wonderful that God should give them
up to strong delusion.
In the children of strangers they abound. When the Jews, with all their wealth, intelligence, and
commercial activity, shall return (as probably they soon will) in unbelief to
their own land, its very position will necessarily make it a highway of
nations. See it thus recognised in Rev. 11: 9, where (in a passage yet unfulfilled)
VERSES 10 TO 22
Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust from
before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man - (literally, the eyes of the loftiness of man) are brought down, and the height of mortals (a deprecatory word
implying weakness and impotence) is made low, and exalted is Jehovah alone in that day. For there is a day for Jehovah of Hosts against every thing
high and lofty, and against every thing that is lifted up, and it hath come
down: and against all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and
against all the oaks of Basham: and against all the high mountains, and against
all the hills that are lifted up: and against every lofty tower, and against
every fenced wall: and against all the ships of Tarshish,
and against all images of desire (pleasantness). And sunk is the loftiness of
man, and bowed down is the pride of mortals, and exalted is Jehovah alone in
that day. And the idols - the whole
shall pass away. And they (i.e.
men indefinitely) shall go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the hollows of
the ground (dust) from before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of His
Majesty, at His arising to strike with terror the earth. In that day shall Man cast his idols of
silver, and his idols of gold, which they made for him [quon lui
aura faites] to worship, to the moles and to the bats,
to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the fissures of the cliffs from
before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of His Majesty, at His arising
to strike with terror the earth. Cease ye from man,
whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?
A day for Jehovah of Hosts shall be against every
thing that is high and lifted up, &c. Cedars of Lebanon high and lifted up; oaks of
Bashan; high mountains; high towers; fenced walls;
ships of Tarshish; pleasant images and idols, are
emblems that sufficiently indicate the condition of the earth when the hour of
its judgment comes. This is the result
of what men call human progress. Men will be allowed to plant for themselves
their
Ships of Tarshish.
Tarshish (the
ancient Tartessus, a city near Cadiz, at the mouth of
the Guadalquiver) is used in Scripture to denote the
regions of the West, and the western course of commerce carried on by the
Mediterranean Sea, through the Straits of Gibraltar; just as Ophir denotes the regions of the East, and the eastern
course of commerce carried on by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. See 1 Kings 9:
26, 28. The scheme of Jehoshaphat, when he united himself
with Ahaziah,
appears to have been to build at Ezion-geber, on the
Red Sea, ships of Tarshish,
that is, ships destined for Tarshish [see 1 Kings 22. 48, and 2 Chron.
20: 36, where they are described as ships to go
to Tarshish], in order that they might go
both to Ophir [see 1
Kings 22: 48], and also to Tarshish [see 2 Chron. 20: 36], that
so Ezion-geber, the chief part of the land of Israel,
might gather to itself the commerce of the East and West - Tarshish
being reached by coasting round Africa, as was done by the Egyptians. We do not read of ships of Ophir in the latter day, but we do of ships of Tarshish; thou breakest the ships
of Tarshish with an east wind - words
occurring in a Psalm descriptive of the yet future day of
All pleasant images, or
images of desire.
This
description no doubt includes pictures, the
word adopted in our version, but
is
more extensive, including all figures that human art in any way fashions,
whether by painting, sculpture, or otherwise, for the gratification of the eyes
in its search after beauty. Lowths translation is, every lovely work of
art: the Vulgate renders Every thing beauteous to the sight: omne quod visu
pulchrum est-
a too wide rendering, for the description is limited to forms framed by art and
mans device. The exact form of the word here translated pictures, occurs only in this place; but its cognate
, also derived from
to look at, to behold, is
found in Lev. 26: 1, where it is used of
sculpture in stones. Ye shall make no idols, nor graven image, neither rear you up
a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone [ literally, stone of figure, i.e. stone in any way fashioned to
represent the form of any being - not limited, as by Gesenius, to stones adorned with
superstitious or magical figures. In Ezek. 8: 12, we find it applied to painted figures found in the chambers of
imagery - in which the ancients of Israel worshipped - the walls of these chambers
being adorned with painted figures of idols [compare verses
10, 11]. In Numbers 33: 52, it is translated pictures, but as it is opposed in the connected
clause to molten images, it
seems rather to apply to sculptured figures than to paintings. The Israelites were commanded utterly to
destroy all such figures.
At what period of the worlds history have the fine arts subserved the interests of the truth as it is in Jesus?
They have abundantly subserved the purposes of human
pride and glory. How they have been used
to beautify and throw a halo around vice and falsehood may be seen from the
relation in which they have stood to the mythology of
Paganism, and the idolatries of Romanism and Ecclesiasticism. They are so employed now. They will be
abundantly used to give beauty and attractiveness to that coming period when
the fool shall say in his heart, There is no God. But what is an adorned world without God?
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTER NINE
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The
Passage with which this chapter commences is quoted by St.
Matt. 4: 16, as a prophecy of Christs residence in Capernaum, a town
situated on the borders of Zabulon and Naphtali, on the western side of Jordan,
lying on the coast of the sea of Gennesaret, and situated in Galilec, called
also Galilee of the Gentiles.* Now it
was prophesied that this region especially, should see a great light, and the
town where Christ was to reside was definitely marked out, by all the
conditions above mentioned meeting in Capernaum.
[*Galilee
was called of the Gentiles because in this
part foreigners were more mixed with native Jews than in any other part of
It
is important to remark, that though prophecy is delivered absolutely, without
assigning the reason why it shall thus take place, yet when it is accomplishing
or accomplished, it seems most naturally or even necessarily accomplished in
consequence of the state of circumstances at that time. Thus it was prophesied of the Saviour, Out of
The
same remark applies to the present instance.
Had Jesus, after dwelling at Nazareth during the first thirty years of
his life, suddenly and without any further reason than that he might accomplish
prophecy, left Nazareth and settled in Capernaum, though we should have
acknowledged the prediction fulfilled, it would not have struck the mind with
the force and beauty with which it now does, viewing it the just and righteous consequence of the Saviours
rejection by the people of Nazareth, and their daring attempt to cast him
headlong down the hill on which their city was built. But this behaviour clearly obliged our Lord
to change his residence, and hence the accomplishment of the prophecy naturally
followed. Nor were other reasons wanting
to show that this was a fit spot for the sojourn of the Lord: (as Greswell has shown in his second volume
of Dissertations:) the chief of
which was, its nearness to the lake or sea of Gennesaret across which he could
easily pass, and thus escape the importunities of the vast multitudes, or the
observation of his malignant enemies, the Pharisees.
The
words of Theodoret on this passage
are worthy of notice:‑ Zabulon and Naphtali
obtained that inheritance (the great light mentioned in verse 1 ). In that region
the Lord wrought the chief of his miracles; there he cleansed the leper; there
he restored health to the centurions servant; there he quenched the fever of
Peters wifes mother: there he restored to life the deceased daughter of
Jairus; there he calmed the waves of the sea; there he multiplied the loaves;
there he changed the water into wine, which was the beginning of all his
miracles, as John the Evangelist teaches.
But
another topic opens upon us from this passage.
The quotation, as given by the apostle, runs thus: That it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of
Zabulon and the land of Napthalim, by way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of
the Gentiles, the people that sat in
darkness have seen a great light; and to them which sat in the region and
shadow of death light is sprung up. But when we refer to the prophet Isaiah for confirmation of the above,
we find it written, Nevertheless the dimness shall not
be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land
of Zabulon and the land of Napbtali, and after did more grievously afflict her
by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. What vexation? What dimness? Is this the passage to which the Evangelist
referred? The Evangelist speaks not of
vexation, but of joy, not of affliction, but of a great blessing! How is this?
Did the Evangelist forge a prophecy for Isaiah? for here are not only not the same words, but an opposite sense? I answer, which is most probable, that the
Evangelist, writing by inspiration of the Spirit of truth, should have
falsified this passage, or that the Jews corrupted it? If
we suppose that the Old Testament, as we now have it, is absolutely perfect,
and uncorrupted in every point, who shall defend the New Testament from the
charge of forgery? But if it be beyond
all doubt, that the Jews have wilfully
corrupted the oracles of God in those passages which bore hardest on their
unbelief, then let us by all means restore them as they were quoted by the [Holy] Spirit that
wrote them! This might be said,
though we had no further evidence to produce than the fact that they are thus
quoted by the Evangelists. To
Christians, who admit the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the question must be
decided at once. But there is also documentary evidence in
almost every case, to prove this corruption. It is so with the present passage. The Arabic
begins this chapter with the words, The land of
Zabulon, and the land of Nephtali, &c., very nearly in the same
words as the Evangelist, and discovers
to us that the words dimness and vexation do, in fact, belong to the former chapter, the close of which predicted
distress of the severest kind.
But
to proceed. As Bishop Horsley observes, the first and second advent are here
brought together; which remark, indeed, there will be frequent occasion to
repeat, as it is the practice of the Sacred Spirit so to blend them; and this
was partly the occasion of the blindness of the Jews to the pretensions of
Jesus, since they did not separate, in
their minds, the various prophecies which spoke of the Messiah; - at one
time, as humbled below the ordinary lot
of man; and at another, as
victorious and dominant above all the kings of the earth. But we know that the Lords first coming was to be that of His humiliation; and
we are assured, by abundant passages, that
the second advent is the time of His [manifested] glory, and of that of His [obedient] people. Hence the
two first verses of this chapter, and the
light they predict, may yet have a further accomplishment; as it is clear that
the third has yet to be fulfilled.
It represents the joy of Jewish nation, compared to that of harvest,
which is the continual emblem of the
ingathering of the righteous into the garner of the Lord, at the consummation of this age or dispensation, as
the parable of the tares and the wheat declares. That it was not fulfilled at Christs first
coming is evident, from the history.
There was, indeed, a partial rejoicing at Christs entry into
Again, the prophet returns to the first advent, and
discovers to us, that he who shall accomplish this should one day be presented
to man in the form of a child, yet with the mighty titles that distinguish him
so far above all of mortal kind, that Jerome
supposed the Greek interpreters were afraid to translate them. Here the divine and human natures of Christ
are seen united. For unto us a child is
born, unto us a son is given: And the
government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called,
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God,
the Father of the future age, the Prince of peace.
Chists human nature is described where he is spoken
of as a child, and also where the government is promised to him; for only as
Son of Man can this be said; as God, he
is co-eternal in power and authority with the Father. The angel that appeared to Manoah, who was doubtless the Lord
Jesus Christ, declared his name to be Secret, the word in the Hebrew being the same as in
this place, and signifying, Wonderful, as
well as hidden. That his name is also
Counsellor, the eighth chapter of Proverbs will instruct us, where the Lord Jesus
describes himself under the title of the Wisdom or Logos of the Father. Counsel is mine, and
sound wisdom: I am understanding, I have strength. (Ver. 14.) The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his
works of old. I was set up from
everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. (Ver. 22, 23.)
That he is also the mighty God, various
passages of Holy Writ do plainly assert. That we may
know him that is true, even in his Son
Jesus Christ. He is the true God, and
everlasting life. (1 John 5: 20.)
The next title, the Father of
the future age, describes the kingdom of the Son of Man, that period of
blessedness of which the prophets have spoken from the beginning. Of this future age or dispensation, our Lord
spake when he answered the Sadducees question, respecting the resurrection. The children of this
AGE marry, and are given in
marriage, but they which are accounted worthy to attain that AGE and the resurrection [out] from the dead, neither
marry, nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more, but are equal
unto the angels. (Luke 20: 34-36.) And again, in Heb.
2: 5: Unto the angels hath he not put
into subjection the world to come
(the habitable earth in
its future state,); but, as the apostle proceeds to show from the eighth
Psalm, this power and government is committed to the Son
of Man, who is, accordingly,
here styled the Father of the future age, - of
the earth in its future state of bliss. In connexion with this, he is called a1so the Prince of peace.
And St. Paul - [Robert
Govett believed Paul was the writer of Hebrews] - notices this as one of his titles, where he discovers
to us, that Melchisedek was a type of the Son of God, first being by interpretation king of righteousness,
(Melech, in Hebrew, signifying king, and
Zedek, righteousness), and afterwards king of
Salem, which is, King of peace. Thus is it with Jesus,
his first advent made him King of righteousness
by his obedience and death; his second advent shall reveal him as Prince of peace.
Can any seriously consider that the promise which
accompanies this announcement, that he shall ascend
the throne of David, is fulfilled?
Yet it was affirmed again and again by God, and re-echoed by the angel
to Mary: The Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David.
(Luke 1: 32.) Now, if
Davids was not a spiritual throne, then the throne here promised is not a
spiritual throne; if the throne of David were not an invisible throne, nor a
throne in the heavens, (and we know, on inspired authority, that David is not (even) ascended
into the heavens,) then must the throne here specified be the rule of
Christ in Jerusalem over the people of the Jews, and from
the river to the ends of the earth. (See the seventy-second
and eighty ninth Psalms.)
From the eighth verse
to the conclusion of the chapter is described the wickedness of
Following which, after the wilful king has
thus wrought Gods vengeance on
By the 20th
verse seems to be described that dreadful time of great tribulation,
predicted to the Jews in Deuteronomy chap. 28:
49-68, where it is foretold in the famine, Thou
shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons, and of thy
daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the
straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee. I am aware that this is generally understood
of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, and it was doubtless partially
accomplished then, but other passages,
as, for instance, the sixty-fourth verse,
which foretells that they shall serve wood and stone in the countries whither
they are carried captive, should lead us to believe that there is yet a
completion more terrible even than that of the Roman siege.
*
* * *
* * *
ISAIAH CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The
subject is not concluded with the thirteenth chapter, but continued throughout
the present.
At
this time Jehovah shall give to
But
this conclusion is yet powerfully corroborated by the Apocalypse and the
Acts. In Acts
3: 19 mention is made of times of refreshing to
come from the presence of the Lord, in which Jesus, who is now in
heaven, there to remain till the restitution (restoration)
of all things, shall be sent to the
Jews. These times
of refreshing are evidently coincident
with the rest here promised also to the Jews,
and it shall be after the great and terrible day of
the Lord, as we learn from the preceding chapter. But the Apocalypse is full to the point. This rest,
we learn from verse 3 of the chapter before
us, is to be given when the hard rule of the king of
The
Second verse of this chapter of Isaiah announces that the Gentiles shall restore
the Jews from their captivity, and bring them back in various conveyances to
their own land; a feature of prophecy which will be noticed again in the
concluding chapter of Isaiah.
We
come, then, to the consideration of the dirge over the fallen king of
But
the conclusion here to be established need not rest on [human] authority, for it can be made good by
argument. It would appear that
Antichrist is called the King of Babylon for two reasons, first because he will
greatly resemble Nebuchadnezzar, king of
But
be this as it may, the characteristics of the King of Babylon, as here set
forth, agree exactly with those laid down by Daniel and
I, even I, am he that
comforteth you:
Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid
of a man that shall die,
And the son of man that shall dry up as
grass?
And didst forget JEHOVAH thy Maker,
Who stretchest forth the heavens and laid
the foundations of the earth,
And fearedst continually every day the
wrathful face of the OPPRESSOR,
Because he devised to destroy thee
And where is now the fury of thine OPPRESSOR?
In
the Psalms continual mention is made of him under this character. In the seventy-second
Psalm the Lord Jesus is presented to us in his kingly office, and the
object of his rule is stated in verse 4 to
be, He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall
save the children of the needy, and break in pieces the Oppressor. His haughtiness will be considered at the 13th and 14th
verses.
He
is next presented as smiting the nation (of
the Jews) with an inexorable stroke, and subduing the nations
in wrath. That he will be a
cruel foe to the Jews many Scriptures foretel: thus Isaiah
10: 20,
No longer shall the remnant
of
And the escaped of the house of Jacob,
Trust in him that smote them.
Again,
in the 24th verse:-
Fear not my people that dwell
in
Because of the Assyrian, because he shall smite
thee with a staff.
That
he shall be a tyrannical ruler of the nations his subjects, is also capable of
being proved from other passages, He shall go forth,
says Daniel in a passage already
quoted, with great fury, to destroy and utterly to
take away many. To destroy, adds Isaiah,
is in his heart, and to cut off nations not a few.
Again, he is entitled, the
cruel Persecutor. So is he
represented in Dan. 7: 21, I beheld, and the same (little) horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them. He shall prosper and practise, and destroy the mighty and the
holy people. (Dan. 8: 24.) He shall wear
out the saints of the Most High,
and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand for a time and times and the dividing
of time. (Dan. 7: 25.) Similar is the testimony of the Psalms. Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast
scattered us among the heathen.
My confusion is continually before me: and the shame of
my face bath covered me. For the voice
of him
that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the Enemy and Avenger. (Psalm 44:
11. 15, 16.)
In accordance with this,
But what is the meaning of the eighth verse? Most
appear to regard the fir-trees and cedars as figuratively spoken of the nobles
and princes of the earth. But a like
passage occurs in the prophecy against Sennacherib. By the multitude of
my chariots I am come up to the heights of the mountains, to the sides of
At the ninth verse
the soul of the slain king is presented to us, not figuratively, but literally,
descending into Hades: (which never
signifies the grave) that is, the intermediate state, or rather place,
where all the souls of the dead are
gathered, before the final judgment shall reunite body and soul. And as he enters, the Rephaim meet him, with scornful amazement -
Art thou also captured as we?
Art thou become like unto us?
All writers of any taste have justly commended this
passage as sublime poetry; yet it will be not less fulfilled to the letter. The
mighty spirits - [i.e., Rephaim:
translated as Nephilim in the N.I.V.] - that in the
greatness of their power shook from the thrones all
the kings of the nations, but were swept away by the flood,* even as mortal men, may well say with emphasis, Art thou also captured as we were by the flood? Art thou become like
unto us, in thy descent into Tartarus?
To a like effect,
[*
The Nephilim, or Giants
as some translations have, were the off spring from a relationship between, the sons of God (fallen angels or evil spirits) and the daughters of men (Gen.
6: 4): and from 1 Pet. 3: 19-21, it
would appear that these may have been the spirits
which Christ preached to in Hades before His resurection. Ed.]
Eusebius thus corroborates this view of the passage, They who are upon earth shall say the thing spoken above
(ver. 4-8), but
they who have passed through mortal life, and are detained in the regions of
Hades as in chains, these
also at his destruction shall speak the words following. (ver. 10.)
The 12th verse describes
the depth of his fall: How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
These words would lead us to conclude, what Greswell has shown [us what] the ancient Church
believed, that Antichrist should be an incarnation of one of the spirits of
evil. For he [is] here presented as one whose habitation once was the
heaven, but afterwards cast out into the earth.
And this carries our thoughts to that time (yet future) when there shall
be war in heaven, and the accusing spirits shall be finally ejected from the presence of God,
unto the earth. (Rev.
12: 9. See Burgh on Revelation,
page 131.) Hence the Saviour
prophetically speaking of the things that are not as
though they were, observed to his disciples concerning that time, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. (Luke 10: 18.)
The succeeding words describe the extravagant ambition
of this Son of the morning.
I will ascend into
heaven;
I will exalt mv throne above the stars of
God;
I will also sit in the mount of the
covenant, on the sides of the north.
By the stars of God,
is probably meant the angels pr archangels attendant on God, as we find them
called by a like name in Job 38: 7, When the morning-stars sang together, and all
the sons of God shouted for joy.
By the mount of the covenant is meant
His last assumption of blasphemy is, I will be like the Most High. Intoxicated with a power, which none of the
nations of earth can resist, supported by the energy of Satan, and capable of
working miracles, this will be his final height of arrogance. This St.
Paul, in words exactly parallel, That man of sin
(shall) be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth
and exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so
that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Hear also the witness of the [Holy] Spirit by Daniel. He had a mouth
speaking great things. (Dan. 7: 8.), I beheld
then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and
his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. (Ver. 11.) And he shall speak great words against the Most High. (Ver.
25.) And
the King shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt and magnify
himself above every god, and
shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods. (Dan. 11: 36.)
Confirmatory is also the testimony of
But there is yet one prophecy more of Antichrist, in
his full-blown iniquity, as the Man of the Sin
(of blasphemy, as we may suppose), which, having received little or no
attention by former writers, is given
here at length, as strongly corroborative of all that has been advanced, the text amended from the Septuagint where the original
has suffered variation, or is unintelligible. He is described as the king of Tyrus; and Tyrus, apparently, signifies the
same city as the
1 The word of JEHOVAH came
again unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus,
Thus
saith the Lord God,
Because
thine heart is lifted up,
And
thou hast said, I am God,
I
sit in the habitation of God, between the seas:
Yet art thou a man, and not
God,
Though
thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God.
3 Art thou wiser than Daniel?
Is
there no secret that they can hide from thee?
4 Hast thou by thy wisdom and understanding gotten riches?
Hast
thou procured gold and silver in thy treasures?
5 By thy great wisdom and thy traffic hast thou increased thy
power?
And
is thy heart lifted up because of thy power?
6 Therefore thus saith JEHOVAH,
Because
thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God,
7 Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers on thee, the
terrible of the nations:
And
they shall draw their swords against thee,
And
against the beauty of thy wisdom;
And
they shall lay waste thy brightness, even unto perdition.
8
And they shall bring thee down to the pit,
And
thou shalt die the death of them that are slain between the seas.
9 Wilt thou say before them that slay thee, I am God?
But
thou shalt be as a man, and not God,
In
the hands of them that slay thee.
10
Amidst the multitude of the uncircumcised thou shalt die,
By
the hands of strangers; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
11 Moreover, the word of JEHOVAH came again unto me, saying,
12
Son of man, take up a dirge upon the prince of Tyrus, and say to
him,
Thus
saith the Lord God,
Thou
art the sealing up of the term (of time),
Full
of wisdom, perfect in beauty.
13 Thou wast in
With
every precious stone art thou covered,
The
sardius, topaz, and the diamond,
The
beryl, the onyx, and the jasper,
The
sapphire, the emerald, the carbuncle;
And
with silver hast thou filled thy treasures,
And
with gold thy storehouses that are with thee.
14 From the day thou wert created, thou wast with the cherub;
I
stationed thee in the holy
Thou
hast been in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wert perfect in thy ways, from the day of thy creation,
Until
iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise Thou didst fill thy
stores with iniquity;
Thou
didst sin, and wert wounded from the mount of God;
And
the cherub dragged thee from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thy heart was lifted up, because of thy beauty,
Thy
wisdom, together with thy brightness, is corrupted:
For
the multitude of thy sins I have cast thee to the earth.
I
have caused thee before kings to be made a public example (of wrath).
18 For the multitude of thy transgressions,
And
the lawlessness of thy traffic,
I
have defiled thy sanctuaries,
And
I will bring fire from the midst of thee,
It
shall devour thee:
And
I will bring thee to ashes on the earth,
In
the sight of all them that behold thee.
19 All they that know thee among the Gentiles shall be
astonished at thee;
Thou
art become perdition, and shalt be no more (found) for
ever.
Here the coincidences are so numerous, that it seems
highly probable that they refer to the same person who forms the subject of the
present chapter of Isaiah. His boast, I am God, seems at once to identify him. His sitting in the
habitation (temple) of God between the seas,
confirms it. His wisdom is compared to
Daniels: and Daniel had understanding in all visions
and dreams; was continually visited by angels, and possessed of
understanding in the interpretation of mysteries. In perfect harmony with this, Daniel
prophesies of Armillus, A king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his
own power (Dan. 8: 23, 24), that is,
as Burgh well understands it, by
Satanic agency and supernatural powers he shall reach his height of
dominion. His wealth offers the next
feature. This also is predicted by Daniel.
He shall have power over the treasures of gold
and silver, and over all the
precious things of
They shall lay waste thy brightness, even unto perdition,
They shall bring thee down to the pit. (saith Ezekiel).
Thy glory hath descended into
Hades, (saith Isaiah).
Thou shalt die the death of
them that are slain between the seas,
(saith Ezekiel).
The Lord of hosts hath sworn,
saying,
I will break the Assyrian in my
land, and upon my mountains tread
him under foot,
is the burthen of the Lord against him by Isaiah.
So, likewise, Daniel, after
declaring that he shall set his tabernacle between
the seas (Dead Sea,
Mediterranean, and
Still further, a dirge is raised over the king of
Tyrus, as over the king of
They that see thee shall
wonder at thee, and meditate on thee, and say,
Is this the
man that made the earth to shake, that shook kingdoms?
The spectators cannot but remark the greatness of his
might during his three years and a half of empire, and the fierceness of his
destructive ambition, that made the whole world a wilderness, as has been
already noticed. His state of
punishment is next described, as not buried with honour, like kings in general,
but cast into Tophet, amongst the mountains of
To complete the awe and importance of the subject, is
added the oath of God, that the believers of that day, when ready to faint, and
almost supposing that God has forsaken the earth, may have strong consolation
in the midst of their suffering, even unto death. As soon as Antichrist is destroyed in
The new prophecy following this was given in the last
year of king Ahaz. Its first sentiment is a command to all
nations not to rejoice (that is, not without fear and trembling), because, even
after the mighty evil that had been predicted, something yet more terrible
should arise. What can this be, but the
scene presented by
From the foregoing interpretation (if correct, and it
invites examination), it will follow, 1st, that Antichrist will be an
individual, not a succession of men: 2ndly, That he is not the Pope: 3rdly That he is some one yet to arise [out of Hades].
-------
FOOTNOTE
That
the souls of the saints, after the time of death, remain in Hades until the time of the Resurrection,
is without doubt, taught throughout the Holy Scriptures; and this truth was
believed to be the hallmark of Christians at that time :-
For
if you have conversed with some that are called Christians, and do not maintain
these opinions (the millenarian), but even
dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, and say that there is no resurrection of the dead, but that the souls,
as they leave the body, are received up into heaven, take care that you do not
look upon these as Christians: as no one that rightly considers would say that
Sadducees, or the like sects
are Jews: (Justin
Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 100:80).
And
again, - For
not even the Apostles, says Origen,
have yet
received their joy, but themselves also wait for it, that I also may become
partaker of their joy. For neither the
saints, when they depart hence, receive immediately the full reward of their
deserts, but wait for us.
You see therefore
that Abraham yet waits for the attainment of that which is perfect. And Isaac waits, and Jacob, and all the
prophets wait for us, that they may enjoy with us perfect happiness. On this account, therefore, even that mystery - [i.e., as to whether or not
the Christian is deemed worthy to rule with Christ in His Millennial Kingdom.
Ed.] - is kept to the last day of the deferred
judgment.
It is my opinion that
all the saints that depart from this life shall remain in a certain place in [the heart of] the earth, which the divine Scripture
calls paradise, as in a place of
instruction: De Princip lib 2: 100, 11.
*
* * *
* * *
NOTE
ON ISAIAH CHAPTER SIX VERSE ONE:
THE BITTER MESSAGE OF ISAIAH.
By B. W. NEWTON.
In the year of the death of king Uzziah, I saw the Lord seated on a
throne, high and lifted tip, and his
train filling the temple.
I saw the Lord seated on a throne. Compare Rev. 4. Behold there was
a throne set in heaven, and on the throne One seated. Heaven, not earth, was the place where John
beheld the Divine glory; for the
The vision granted to John was far fuller than that seen by
Isaiah; for Isaiah lived before the work of redemption had been wrought out, and
therefore the time was not come for the fulness of its results to be
declared. Consequently, around the
Throne, as seen by Isaiah, were
no symbolic Cherubim, no enthroned crowned Elders, symbolizing the place soon
to be occupied by the redeemed in glory.
The holiness of the God of Israel in contrast with the uncleanness of
those who professed to be His people, was the thought
intended to be pressed home on the heart of Isaiah; and he trembled. Yet his terror was but for a moment. Grace caused him to apprehend his relation to
the Throne in peace through the power of atoning sacrifice, and John himself,
notwithstanding his far greater light and knowledge, had no better title than
Isaiah to say that his iniquity was gone, and his sin
atoned for. Christ was the Lamb foreordained, and the same love that
afterwards enfolded John enfolded Isaiah, though the time was not yet come to
explain and develop all its fulness.
There was an essential similarity between these two honoured servants of
God in this, as well as in the character of their message. They both stood under the same grace, and
served in the same service. The message
they were respectively commissioned to bear was to them both, a bitter message.
Isaiah was sent to prophesy against
[* See Greek text as
edited by Tregelles.]
The unity of the redeemed in glory is one of the most
precious of the truths of Scripture. How
contrasted such unity with the many differences, dispensational and personal,
that have been known among the redeemed in earth! To be
excluded from that one body of which Christ is the Head, as well as the Saviour
(see Eph. 5: 23), is to be lost. The Scripture knows of no redemption that
does not in result involve union with the Person of the Redeemer. What
then shall we say of a doctrine, which, whilst it admits that Abraham and the
Old Testament saints are redeemed, excludes them, nevertheless, from the
Church, and from the Churchs glory? *
[* See Marcionism
at the end of this section. Ed,]
Is the Scripture false when it tells us that they who are
Christs have all things? (1 Cor. 3: 21-21.)
Is not Abraham Christs? How is
it then that he has not all things?
Again, we read, He that spared not
his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Was
not Abraham one of those for whom Christ was given? How then can he be excluded from the all things freely given?
Separation from Abraham in the ages to come is perdition. To be separated from him and the promises
made to him, is separation from Christ and the promises made to Christ. To Abraham and his
Seed (i.e. Christ) were THE PROMISES
made. Gal. 3: 16. Mark well the expression THE PROMISES. It is an expression so wide as to include every blessing in earth or
heaven that ever has, or ever shall come to that one family of which Christ is
at once the Redeemer and the Head.
But THE PROMISES were not
made to Abraham apart from Him who was to be the meritorious Procurer of them, i.e. Christ. To Abraham and his
seed were THE PROMISES made. He saith not, And to
seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. Gal. 3: 16.
Now suppose we dissociate ourselves from Abraham, and cut ourselves off
from these promises made to him and to his seed, what remains to us but
wrath? Are any promises of any kind
whatsoever made to us apart from Christ?
The great struggle of the Apostle Paul was to show, not that Abraham was
the heir of all the promises, but
to prove that we, dogs from the
Gentiles, were admitted into strict fellowship with him in them. This, even Peter and Barnabas
practically denied at
They who teach this doctrine are necessarily obliged to
derogate from, and therefore to dishonour the work of Christ by taking from it
that which the Scripture ascribes to it, and to it alone. For when it is asked, why Abraham, and David,
and Daniel, on whom (no less than on ourselves) rests the full value of
Christs most precious blood, are to be excluded from the Church, and the
Churchs glory, the answer is, Because they, while on
earth, did not receive the baptism of the Spirit as we; and none except those
who receive the Holy Ghost in that special character in which He is now
dispensationally sent as the Paraclete, belong to the
Church either in earth or heaven. Such is the answer. If this were true, we should indeed have to
teach another Gospel - one that the Scripture knows not. We should no longer be able to define the
Church as the Scripture defines it, viz., as being that which the Lord* has purchased by His own blood - words which would
not have been used if redemption did not define the limits of the Church, and
if in eternity, the Church and the redeemed were not co-extensive and convertible
terms. Shall we indeed say that the
Church is founded not on Christ, but on the Spirit as dispensationally
given? Would not this be another Gospel?
[*The reading in this passage, which
seems to have the weight of evidence in its favour (see Tregelles) is to feed the Church of the LORD which he purchased by his own
blood.
Compare also Numbers 27: 17; 31:
16: Josh. 22: 17.]
The teaching of the word of God is far different from
this. It teaches that God hath laid in
From Abel downwards, the spiritual stones have been in process of
preparation, though the foundation-stone was not laid until Christ came. The object of His words to Peter was not to
ignore all that had been previously done in the way of preparation, but to
declare the great truth that He, and He alone, was the foundation.
The preparation of the stones is one very material part of the process
of construction. No little labour had
been expended in digging them out of the quarry to which naturally they
belonged. Abraham was one of these
stones: Peter was another. The same Rock
that made Simon what he was as a Rock-man (the meaning of
as
distinguished from
, a rock) gave
to Abraham also the same standing in
eternal strength. They will both be seen as living
stones in the spiritual building when
the hour of its completion and manifestation in [millennial
and eternal]
glory shall have come. And although,
after Christ had manifested Himself as the foundation, the spiritual stones
were brought into a unity and into a relation to Him and to one another that
prefigured (in a manner that never previously had been) their final unity in glory, yet how has this condition of the
Church been by sin and Satan changed! The gates of Hades might to the outward eye seem to have
prevailed. But they have not
prevailed. On
this Rock, said Jesus, I will build my Church,
i.e. I will go on building it,
whatever may oppose, until all shall be
finished. Accordingly, the building
still advances. Stones are still being
prepared, and fashioned, and squared, and polished. The
unity of the redeemed, though hindered in its manifestation, is not destroyed. They have through the [Holy] Spirit a relation to God,
and to Christ, and to one another, that no circumstances - no power of Satan
can subvert. Satan may prevail against
them for a season in the earth, but he cannot prevail against them in the
Heavens. It is for [a new] Heaven [and a new earth] the
Church is destined: there it is to shine in as lustre: there it is to be known as
the fulness of Him that all in all.
There was an hour when (the building of the typical temple having been
completed) Solomon could say, I HAVE SURELY BUILT for
thee a house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.
1 Kings 8: 13. So also the hour will come when Christ,
ceasing to say, I will build,* will say
instead thereof, I have built. The
spiritual building will be completed, and the foundation on which it rests will
be known and recognised by all as being Christ alone.
[* The future tense, both in the Old and New Testament, is
frequently used to denote a course of action that has been commenced, and is in
a state of progression. Thus, although
God had already justified multitudes, and was daily justifying more, the Apostle,
nevertheless, uses the future tense, and says, There is one God who shall
justify the circumcision by
faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. Rom.
3: 30. These words do not imply
that none had been already justified, but the course of justifying action had
not been completed towards all who were to be brought under it, and therefore
the future tense is used. See also Romans 5: 19.
As by the disobedience of one man many were
constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one SHALL many BE constituted
righteous. The future is used
because the course of action spoken of is continuous and not concluded. The Future,
say Winer,
in expressing general truths sometimes very nearly
assumes the import of the present.
It is applied to a rule that continues to be in force
a rule established by God. See Winer, Part III, § XL.
In Hebrew the use of the future in expressing continuousness of action
is constant. In
his [Jehovahs] law he will meditate, i.e. He will continue to meditate day and
night. This is especially the case when
a course of events avowedly successional is spoken of. Thus in Dan. 7:
17. These great beasts which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.
The future tense is used, although the first of the beasts had
already arisen: but the whole series was not complete.]
Heaven, be it remembered, is not to be a transcript of the
dispensational differences of earth.
There is a power of unity in Christ, paramount to all the temporary
dispensational distinctions that have been found amongst His people in the
earth, and that power will finally be put forth in all its strength, and will
bring all who are in Him into unhindered participation of His fulness. Out of His fulness have all we received, and grace following
upon* grace, are words which, though
true in earth, will be much more consciously realized and appreciated in
heaven. [* Like wave following wave in constant successive flow. As
one wave goes, another succeeds into its place.] Before the world was, all the elect were chosen in Christ, and
unity of blessing predestinatively given to them in Him. Whom he did predestinate, them he also justified; and whom he
justified, them he also glorified - and that, with like [millennial] glory,
for it is expressly said - [of those who suffer
with Him] - to be in joint-heirship with Christ (Rom. 8: 17),
and in association with Him (verse 17), and in His likeness conformed to the image of his Son that he might be the first-born
among many brethren. This is
said to be the appointment of God to all [the
overcomers amongst] His [redeemed] children [who share in His
sufferings]. If children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint-heirs with
Christ. [IF indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
(N.I.V.) The
Apostle expressly tells us in the Galatians that the Old Testament saints were
children and heirs. Are they heirs without an inheritance? No.
They are not heirs without an inheritance. The predestinated are [all] called, and the called are [all] justified [by His grace], and
the justified are [all eternally] glorified.
Such is the golden chain which God has, in the sovereignty of His grace, drawn around all His chosen people. Time
reveals what eternity has bestowed.
The process of unfolding is indeed gradual, and thus many profitable
lessons are learned: but the elect of later dispensations have the comfort of
knowing, that there is not one of their endowments in Christ that will not, in the eternal ages, be participated in by
their brethren who have preceded them in the path of faith. Abraham will not in eternity have less knowledge of Jehovah than
Moses, because God was pleased in time to reveal Himself as Jehovah to Moses in a manner in which He had
not revealed Himself to Abraham. God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah; and I
appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty,
but by my name JEHOVAH was I not
known to them. Exodus 6: 3.* So likewise, although Paul while
on earth received the Spirit
in a manner different from that in which He was received by Moses, yet Paul
will not in glory be more in the power of the Spirit than Moses. Indeed, Paul himself had no title to the
Pentecostal gift of the Spirit as the Paraclete,
except as coming under the covenant made with Abraham. Mark well his words to the Galatians. Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the
blessing of Abraham might
come on the Gentiles through Jesus
Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Here
we are expressly taught that we receive the promise of the
Spirit as now given,
because we share Abrahams blessing.
Take the promise of the Spirit from Abraham, and we take it from
ourselves. The promise of the Spirit is
not a temporary dispensational promise merely.
The Spirit will be the power of our new life in glory. Without it we
could not act either here, or hereafter, as members of the body of Christ. Nevertheless, the possession of the Spirit,
either as the Paraclete, or in any other way, is not
that which supplies to us our title to membership in the body of
Christ. Christ by His work in redemption
supplies to us the title. What can be more important than for the
soul to distinguish between title to privilege, and ability to act in the power of that
privilege, especially when the ability is a result - a
necessary result of the title; so that he who has the title, must, sooner or later, have the ability. Paul, the moment he said in faith, Lord Jesus, belonged to the Church of God before he
was baptized either by water, or by the Holy Ghost; although in due time he
received both - not indeed to make him an heir of glory, but because he had
been made an heir of [eternal] glory, through, and in, Christ. The thief on the Cross died without receiving
either the baptism of water, or the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit, yet he had the
title [to eternal glory], the
moment he believed, to all that the covenant with Abraham had conferred; and,
in glory, he shall inherit all.
[* How little dispensational position in the earth has to do with the inheritance of glory
in the world [age] to
come, may be seen from this, that although neither John the Baptist, nor any of
the saints who preceded him, were in the kingdom of
heaven as dispensationally formed on earth, yet they will not on that
account be excluded from the kingdom in [its
manifestation and] glory. The kingdom of heaven
was dispensationally formed by the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus. Those consequently who preceded Him were not
in it. Hence the Lord Jesus, speaking of
John the Baptist, said, The least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he: that is, dispensationally and ministerially greater: for John the Baptist did not
himself minister the Gospel of grace as Jesus and His disciples did. Nevertheless, the saints that preceded Jesus
will not be shut out from the kingdom in glory, because they were not in it dispensationally on the earth. Jesus Himself says: Many
(that word includes ourselves) shall come from the
east and west, and shall sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 8: 11.
Therefore, they who were not in the kingdom of heaven dispensationally here, shall be in it in its glory.]
There are many relations which the Spirit of God is pleased to
hold towards us. He became a Spirit of
testimony to us in the Prophets, and subsequently in the Apostles. In the Prophets, as well as in the Apostles
(though with less fulness), He testified
of the same Christ and the same redemption.
Moreover, as Lydias heart was opened by the Spirit to receive the
things spoken by Paul, so, from the beginning, the Spirit of God opened the
hearts of all who received the testimony respecting the promised Seed, and
created in them that which is called in Scripture, the
new man, without which there could have been no faith - no fruits of
righteousness - indeed nothing that was pleasing or acceptable unto God, for the flesh profiteth nothing - in it no good thing dwelleth. Consequently, we know that in the Old Testament
saints (seeing that they were enabled to please God) the new man must by the Spirit have been created, quite as truly as in the saints
of the present dispensation. Again,
seeing that the new man needs to be
strengthened and directed, the Spirit also comes to be a sustaining and
indwelling Spirit; otherwise the new man would
be overpowered by the strength of the old, and
no fruits would be brought forth unto God.
The Old Testament saints, therefore, received the Spirit as truly as we,
though to them He was given as the Spirit of servantship - to us as the
Spirit of filial-condition. We have not received the Spirit of servantship
again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of son-condition, whereby we
cry, Abba, Father. The Old
Testament saints from Sinai onwards, were placed under the Law as children are
placed under a tutor or governor* during the time of their pupilage; but the
very passage that teaches this, teaches us that they were children and heirs, although during the time of their pupilage they differed not from
servants. Now I
say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant,
though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time
appointed of the father. Even so we,
when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world; but
when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might
receive the condition of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. Wherefore
thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Gal.
4: 1-7. Can any one read these
words and deny that the Old Testament saints were children as much as we; and
if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and [potentially
to be] joint-heirs with Christ? Shall we dare to dissever links that God so
solemnly declares that He has made fast for ever?
[* Schoolmaster, the word
adopted in our version as the rendering of paedagogue, does not adequately convey the meaning. The paedagogus or tutor, frequently a
superior slave, was entrusted with the moral supervision of the child. Thus his office was quite distinct from
the
English rendering, schoolmaster.
The
Rabbinical writers naturalised the word, and in the Jerusalem Targum, it is used to translate
(authorised version, a nursing father). Num. 11: 12.
It was however, part of the duty to see
that the child was taken to right teachers, so that the thought of instruction
is not to be excluded from the general supervision to which the paedagogue was
appointed.]
It has been frequently asserted, that in Scripture the Old
Testament saints are nowhere called the body of Christ. Now, even if this expression were not applied
to them in Scripture, we can dispense with the expression if we can show that
all the characteristics of the one body are
declared to pertain to them in glory. There is, however, a remarkable passage
in Isaiah where they are called Christs body.
Again, is Abraham, to whom circumcision was given as the seal
of the covenant of promise (for circumcision was not of Moses, but of the
fathers, John 7: 22) - is Abraham to have
primarily the sign and the seal of that
Covenant of blessing, and yet to be excluded from all that that sign denotes -
from all that that seal pledges? Circumcision
denotes separation from the flesh.
It denotes severance from all that naturally characterizes us as
children of the first man, who was earthy, and
indicates the attainment of a new and unearthly condition of being, such as is
seen in the Second Man the Last Adam glorified. The bestowment of unearthly glory in a new
creation was that which God pledged to Abraham when He gave to him the sign of
circumcision. He thereby covenanted that
He would finally, by the operation of His own faithful grace, bring Abraham,
and all who had been or should be of the faith of Abraham, into that new
creation-glory into which flesh and blood cannot enter, where there is nothing
according to the flesh, but where all is
according to the Spirit; in other words, where all is according to Christ glorified. Christ
by
His death and resurrection hath
secured this for all those of whom He is the Representative and Head. He has borne them through judicial death into
the glory of the new creation. He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning,
the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the
pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father
that in him should all fulness dwell ... for in him dwelleth all the fulness of
the Godhead bodily. And ye are filled to
the full in him who is the head of all principality and power: IN WHOM ALSO YE ARE CIRCUMCISED with
the circumcision made without hands, in
putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ
[i.e. by a circumcision received by means of Christ]. Buried with him in baptism,* wherein also ye are risen with him through faith in the
operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having
forgiven you all trespasses. Col. 1: 18
and 2: 9-13.
Let any one ponder these words and say whether all the anti-typically
circumcised (and not to be anti-typically circumcised is to be left in the
uncircumcision of our flesh and to perish) whether all the anti-typically
circumcised are not by this passage declared to be in Him in whom as Head of
the body the Church (for
it is in this character that He is spoken of throughout the passage) it hath
pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell in order that they (the
anti-typically circumcised) might in Him be filled to
the full. Unless then we say
that Abraham was not anti-typically circumcised - unless we can show that he
was left among the uncircumcised to perish, we must admit that he, and all
others who are of faith, are in, and filled to the full in Him who is the Head of the body the
Church. Can we say of such, that
they - [Old Testament saints] - are not in the body the
Church?
[* God, by appointing Christ as our Substitute
and granting us union with Him, has delivered us from the flesh, and all that
was due to our sin in the flesh, so that by means of the death and resurrection
of Christ we have received the circumcision made without hands. He who is one with Christ in resurrection is
surely severed from the flesh. Baptism
and circumcision alike indicate separation from the flesh as the result; but
baptism is a much fuller type than circumcision. Circumcision does not symbolize the means by
which we are separated from the flesh into a new creation; but baptism
does. It points to the death and resurrection of our Substitute and Head as
the means whereby this severation into glory is
effected for us; for we are typically
buried in the likeness of Christs death by being placed beneath the water, and
typically raised in the likeness of His resurrection when raised from the water. Nevertheless, baptism only unfolds that which
is in circumcision involved; and there is no blessing pledged in baptism to the
family of faith which is not equally pledged in circumcision.]
When the Apostle too speaks of Christ as the first-fruits of them that have fallen asleep,
(see 1 Cor. 15: 20),
these words emphatically designate the Old Testament saints, for they, not we, had fallen asleep when Christ
rose. It is a description, therefore,
that pertains not to us, but to them only.
From other passages, however, we learn that we are not excluded from the
blessedness of being able to say that Christ is our first-fruits
also: for immediately afterwards the Apostle teaches us that all* who are Christs at His coming, shall, at that coming, rise in the likeness of
His glory. It is true of Abraham, and true of all who are in this dispensation
brought to Christ, that we shall be Christs at His
coming. It is as true,
therefore, of Abraham as of ourselves, that‑ as
we have borne the image of the earthy we shall also bear [Let us also bear, see R.V. margin.] the image of the heavenly.
Is there any blessing higher - any more distinctive than this - the
being raised in the likeness of Christ?
[* The all here must refer to a limited company: See Luke 20: 35; 22: 28-30; Luke 14: 14; Phil. 3: 11; Heb.
11: 35b; Rev. 3: 21, etc.]
How can they who are all equally like
Him, differ in their powers of knowledge, or love, or service?* We are expressly
taught that all [overcomers] who are Christs at His coming, shall be raised in
His likeness, and that because they are like Him, they shall all see Him
as He is, and all know even as they are known.
They shall alike have all perfectness of love towards
God, and towards one another: otherwise, they could not be all like Christ.
We are accustomed to say that we believe in
the communion of saints. Now,
the communion of the saints in [millennial] glory is based upon their common likeness unto
Christ [now]. It flows from the unity granted to them all
in Him. How could there be communion
between those whose sensibilities, and powers of thought and affection and
feeling, were different? How could there
be communion between the redeemed, if some were admitted into a circle within
which others had no ability, or else were forbidden, to enter? In Heaven, we shall have no wish to narrow
the circle of blessedness - no wish to occupy a sphere of thought and feeling
from which Abraham, and David, and Daniel, are excluded. We shall not then desire to cavil at the
truth so distinctly declared to us in Scripture, that
the
[* There may be
difference of official position, and difference of reward among the redeemed. One may be over five, another over ten
cities. Some may sit on thrones judging
the twelve tribes of
Christ as the eternal Son is co-equal with the Father - He is
God over all blessed for ever, yet in the
arrangements of the Divine government, He will finally take the second
place. Then
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that did put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. Yet His essential co-equality with the Father
will not be altered, because He voluntarily takes the second place in the order
of governmental administration.]
Again, as Christ is called the
first-born from the dead. (Col. 1: 18. See also Rev. 1:
5), so they who rise in the first resurrection when Christ
comes, are called the Church of the first-born-ones
first-born in relation to those who [were not accounted worthy to rise at the first resurrection (Rev.
20: 4-6); and of those], being brought
into the fold of faith during the millennium - shall rise at the close of that
period, when the whole Church will be complete.
Consequently, all who are Christs at His coming (and is not Abraham
Christs?) will rise at His coming, and
be therefore included in the one CHURCH of the first-born-ones. Unless we exclude Abraham from the first
resurrection he must belong to the Church of the first-born-ones.
They who reject this most blessed and vital doctrine of the
unity of [all]
the redeemed in [eternal] glory, are accustomed to say that the Church of this
dispensation is in Scripture called the mystery. Now, even if this were so, it would afford no
foundation for their theory. But it is
not so. Many things connected with the
history, both of the Church, and of Israel, and of the nations, are called mysteries (one mystery is the
mystery of iniquity): but it is not true that either the Church as a
whole, or that part of it which comes within the present dispensation, is
itself called either the mystery, or a mystery.
When the Apostle, in the third of the Ephesians, speaks of the mystery
that had been hid from ages and generations, but which was then (specially though not exclusively) by his ministry being made
known, what does he declare the mystery to be?
Does he say that it consisted in the shutting out of all the saints who
have preceded us from the one body, and from the household of God?
He says the very reverse. He says
that we of the present dispensation obtain our blessings by being incorporated
into the commonwealth of those who had
preceded us. We dogs of the Gentiles had been aliens from
the
The eleventh of the Hebrews has been similarly perverted. That chapter brings into blessed association of suffering-service here, and of
glory hereafter, ourselves and those who have preceded us in the path
of faith. We (though less faithful than they) are yet associated with those of
whom the world was not worthy. We are taught
that they too, like ourselves, looked for no mere earthly hope. Of Abraham it is said, that he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. Heb. 11: 10.
Subsequently it is said of him and of his children; These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were
persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth. For they that
say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that
country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have
returned: but now they desire a better country, that is, an
heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath
prepared for them a city. Heb. 11: 13-16.
Can we with these verses before us say that Abraham is to be
excluded from that heavenly City which is the Bride of the Lamb? Are the saints of
Arguments might be almost indefinitely multiplied, but if
these that have been advanced satisfy not, it would be idle to adduce
others. Let it be remembered, however,
that it is impossible to deny the unity
of the redeemed in glory, and to hold fast the Gospel. If we rest our title to be in the Church and
to have the Churchs glory on anything else than on that work of redemption
which the Lord of glory commenced and finished on the earth, we do reject the
Gospel. Ascribe our title to be in
the Church to anything else than the blood of the Lamb, and we lay another
foundation than that is laid - we teach another Gospel. They who wash their
garments (and we only wash them in the blood of the Lamb) have title to the Tree of Life, and to enter in through the
gates into the City. That City is the Bride of the Lamb.
*
* * *
* * *
MARCONISM
DOCTRINE OF MARCION RESPECTING THE OLD
TESTAMENT SAINTS
Among the many
indications of the rapidity with which mens minds are departing from the
Truth, there are few more ominous than the extensive diffusion in this country
of a system of doctrine that teaches, that all the Old Testament Saints
(although purchased unto God by the precious blood of Jesus) are to be excluded
for ever from the Church, and from the Churchs glory - that stigmatizes as
Jewish, and as not designed for the Church, those very instructions which the
Lord Himself, in His parting words to His disciples, expressly commanded to be
taught to us* - that teaches that the Apostolate of Paul is of a higher order
than that of the Twelve, and that his Gospel was different from theirs - that denies
that the fulfilment of the Law by Jesus was essential to the salvation of the
Church - that (instead of teaching, according to Scripture, that the Father
hath reconciled us in the body of Christs flesh
through death) speaks
of our being justified in a risen Christ -
that confines to the Jews (as being alone formally placed under the Law) the
text that speaks of Christ being made a curse for us
(Gal. 3: 13), and imagines that the Church
owes its salvation not to such a redemption, but to union with the Person of
the Son. These, and like things, are now
being extensively taught and received.
Recently I heard one of the sustainers of this system affirm that there
are two Gospels; two ways, and two ends of salvation. He might have added, two Christs
(for his system required it) - a Christ for the salvation of the Church (or
what they suppose to be the Church) and a Christ for the salvation of the
saints of
[* See two last verses of Matthew.]
Few, probably, are aware of the origin of these and like
doctrines. Their origin is evidently Gnostic. Marcion, a Gnostic
of the second century, appears to have been the first who taught his disciples
to reject as not properly Christian, everything that he was pleased to
stigmatize as Jewish. Modern German neology, which has
ransacked antiquity in order to become eclectic of falsehood, has disinterred
and remoulded many a Gnostic heresy, and so they have been introduced into this
country; although in England Marcionism has not as
yet been fostered so much by neologians as by others.
The connexion between Marcionism and
Germanism has thus been remarked on by
What Marcion
is said to have done literally, that Schleiermacher
does virtually in his system: for (i.e.
instead of) I am not come to destroy the Law and the
Prophets, he reads the converse. ... The dread
of everything Jewish, the general characteristic of Gnosticism, has been
carried to its extreme in modern times by Bauer
of Tubingen, who has misspent no ordinary
learning and ability in the attempt to show that the history of early
Christianity is that of a struggle out of a Judaized
atmosphere into a purer element; and that when the Christian religion shall
have been entirely freed from the Jewish prejudice which narrowed the mind of
our Lord (! ! !) and His immediate followers,
its work will be accomplished, and the law of love universal. The Judaeophobia,
as one may call it, has been exemplified among ourselves of late in a History
of the Hebrew Monarchy. -
Marcion
carried his rejection of everything Jewish so far that he excluded
Abraham and the Old Testament Saints not only from the Church, but from
salvation. False,
says Irenaeus,
is Marcion, and so are his
followers, who exclude from the inheritance Abraham, to whom the Spirit hath borne
testimony by many others as well as by Paul, saying, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for
righteousness. So also the Lord bore testimony
to him ... saying, When ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the
prophets in the kingdom of heaven, but you yourselves cast out. This, therefore,
is manifest, that they who disallow
Abrahams salvation and frame the idea of another God besides Him who made the
promise to Abraham, are themselves aliens from the kingdom of God, and are
excluded from the inheritance of incorruption, seeing that they set at naught
and blaspheme God, who introduceth through Jesus
Christ Abraham to the kingdom of heaven as well as his seed, that is, the
Church, upon which is conferred the adoption and the inheritance promised to
Abraham. - Irenaeus.
Lib. 4., cap.
18.
Marcion not only rejected the Law and the
Prophets, but even in the New Testament he refused to receive any of the
Epistles except those of Paul, not including the Hebrews, and he rejected all
the Gospels except that of Luke, which, however, as well as the Pauline
Epistles, he mutilated, and received only in part.
The Marcionite aversion, says Lardner,
to the Old Testament was so great, that on this
account they mutilated many passages in the New in those books which they
admitted, rejecting all that related to
the Law and to the Prophets, or which were quoted thence as plainly foretelling
the coming of Jesus Christ, or which spoke of His Father as the Creator of
the world. - Lardner, History of Heretics. Chap. 10., § 33.
As regards the Marcionite notion
that Paul alone knew the truth, and that to him the
mystery was manifested by revelation,
Irenaeus
writes as follows. With regard to those (the Marcionites) who allege that
Paul alone knew the truth, and that to him the mystery was manifiested
by revelation, let Paul himself convict them when he says, that one and
the same God wrought in Peter for the Apostolate of the circumcision, and in
himself for the Gentiles. Peter,
therefore, was an Apostle of that very God, whose was also Paul: and Him whom
Peter preached as God among those of the circumcision, and likewise the Son of
God, did Paul (declare) also among the Gentiles. For our Lord never came to save Paul alone,
nor is God so limited in means, that He should have but one Apostle who knew
the dispensation of His Son. ... Again,
in the Epistle to the Corinthians, when Paul had recounted all those who had
seen God after the resurrection, he
says, in continuation, But whether it were I or
they, so we preach, and so ye believed,
acknowledging as one and the same, the preaching of those who saw God after the
resurrection from the dead. - Irenaeus. Book 3, chap. 13.
It would be impossible within the limits of the present paper
to detail all the omissions and alterations which Marcion
made in the Gospel of Luke, which he professed to receive, and in the Epistles
of Paul. They may be found at length in Epiphanius and Irenaeus, or in Lardner. I will content myself with a few examples.
In Luke 13: 28, instead of
reading, When ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and all the prophets in the
[* Tertullians
words are: When he also adds, for ye are all the children of faith, it becomes clear that what the heretics (Marcions) industry erased was the
mention of Abrahams name, for by faith the Apostle declares us to be children of Abraham; and
after mentioning him he expressly calls us children
of faith also ... and of whose faith, if not
Abrahams? To Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but
as of one, and to thy Seed, which is Christ.
Fie on Marcions sponge! But indeed it is superfluous to dwell on what
he has erased, when he may be more effectually confuted from what he has
retained. - Tertullian against
Marcion,
Book 5, § 4.]
He also omitted, according to Rufinus, the two last chapters
of the Epistle to the Romans, ending the Epistle with the 23rd verse of the fourteenth chapter. We can well understand his reason for
this. Not only is the fifteenth chapter full of quotations from the
Jewish Prophets respecting the call of the Gentiles into participation of
Jewish blessings (as for example, Rejoice ye Gentiles
with his people), but in the sixteenth
chapter the Apostle declares that he used the prophetic writings, i.e. the writings of the Old Testament,
in making known the Gospel which he was sent to preach. This was the very thing that Marcion denied.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians, amongst other alterations, he
erased, in the 20th verse of the second chapter, the word prophets (built upon
the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets) for Marcion saw that all his system must fall if he admitted that the two lines of
foundation laid respectively by the Apostles and Prophets were knit into the
unity of the same building by both resting on the same chief one corner-stone,
Jesus.
These examples may suffice.
The fact that Marcion saw the necessity of
erasing these and like words, was a sufficient
acknowledgment of their conclusiveness if permitted to stand. Which shall we say is the greater sin, to
cancel the words of Scripture, or to
destroy by false exposition their plain unmistakable meaning?
The Marcionites
also adopted the heresy of the Docetae, and taught that Christ had the appearance of a human body, but not the reality -
that He appeared to have flesh, but really had not, so that His sufferings were
apparent merely.* They
made no distinction between flesh in a
physical, and flesh in a moral sense; and believed
that everything material must partake
of evil.
[* Nothing, says Tertullian, substantial can be allowed to be effected by an
unsubstantial thing - nothing full by a vacuity. If the habit were putative, the action was putative; if the workers were
imaginary, the works were imaginary. On
this principle, too, the sufferings of Christ will be found not to warrant
faith in Him. For He
suffered nothing who did not truly suffer.
- Tertullian
Some of the followers of Marcion,
however, believed Christ to have real flesh, though they would not admit that
He was born. This seems to have been the notion of Apelles.]
It must not be supposed, however, that Marcion,
in rejecting the Old Testament, rejected it as untrue. He evidently believed its truth, but contended that the God and the Christ of the Old Testament were different from the God
and the Christ of the New. Else he
could not have avowed his belief in a Jewish Christ to come. Marcion,
says Lardner, acknowledged Jesus to be Christ, but not the Christ foretold
by the Jewish Prophets. He could not
deny that a Christ or Messiah was there spoken of, but he said a Person different from our Lord Jesus
Christ was there meant. He allowed,
as Tertullian
expresses it, that the Prophets of the Creator had promised a Saviour to the
Jewish nation, who should deliver them out of the hands of their enemies, and
restore them to freedom. But he pretended that this Deliverer was not
the Son of God; and that the oracles
of the Old Testament did not agree to Jesus Christ. So that this
man, as Tertullian observes, who was so adverse to Judaism, did himself Judaize in the most shameful manner. Marcion, says that writer, is for
two Christs - one who appeared in the time of
Tiberius for the salvation of all nations, and another the restorer of the
Jewish state, who is yet to come.*
[* The later developments of Marcions
system were probably adopted by him from Cerdo, whom he met at
The doctrine of two Christs is also asserted by the Marcionite
in the dialogue ascribed to Origen. In a work
also said to be written by Athanasius, we are informed that Marcion
supposed that as Jesus came from the good God, so there was to be another from the just God, because each of
them was to be the father of a Christ peculiar to Himself; the good God of one, the just God of another. - Lardner,
2. 21. He drew a distinction between
true moral perfection, which, according to him, consists
in love and goodness, whose essence is only to communicate itself, only to
bless, to make happy, to redeem; and mere justice, which metes out everything
by desert, rewards and punishes, requites good with good, and evil with evil,
which gives birth to mere outward discipline, but can communicate no power of
moral enthusiasm - this (says Neander) was Marcions
great practical and fundamental idea which formed the nucleus of his whole
theory. But between love and a justice
that revealed itself in punishment he found no means of reconciliation
- Neander, Vol. 2, p. 140. Hence,
believing matter and flesh to be essentially connected with evil, he taught
that the God and the Christ of the Old Testament and of the Jews, were distinct
from the God and Christ of the New Testament revealed to the Church, which
comes as a kind of parenthesis between the ancient Jewish period, and the future Jewish period when the Christ
of the Jews will appear and effect their deliverance.
The point of practical importance
with Marcion, says Neander, was to assert the absolute
newness of the creation by Christianity; to sever every link of connection
between it and the world as it had subsisted before. While he gave an
exclusive prominence to the love of God, the revelation of which in the gospel
had penetrated his whole soul (! !) he allowed all the other divine
attributes to retire out of view. Seeking
only to insist upon that which belonged peculiarly to Christianity, but rending
it from its connection with the groundwork of the Old Testament, he determined to know nothing at all of a
retribution grounded on the holiness of God. Neander, Vol. 2, p. 140.
[* That is, he excluded
such acting in righteousness from the God and Christ of the Church, but not
from the God and Christ of the Jews, as will be seen from the remarks below.]
It seems (I still quote from
Neander) although it is a point which cannot be determined with
certainty,* that Marcion
taught that the Messianic predictions of the Old Testament would still be
actually accomplished in behalf of the believers in the Demiurge. (Marcions name for the God of the Jews.) The Messiah promised
by the Demiurge would yet appear and bring to a rigid judgment those who had
not been freed from his power by faith in the higher Christ, and awakening those who had died righteous according to the Old Testament, would
unite them all in a millennial reign of earthly felicity. The eternal heavenly kingdom to which the Christians belonged would
then form the direct antithesis to this perishable earthly kingdom. The souls of Christians would lay aside their
gross bodies as the bird rises out of the egg. ... The God of love (i.e. the God of the Church) does not punish; those, however, who refuse to accept the
proffered fellowship with Him will fall under the
power of the Demiurge (the God of the Jews) and
His avenging justice. Whoever, on the other
hand, enters into fellowship with the Father through faith in the Son of God,
becomes partaker, even on earth, of a divine life superior to the power of the Demiurge and of Matter. For him there is no longer any judgment. Delivered from the power of the Demiurge, he
is under the special protection of the God of love. ... From the whole context of Marcions
ideas resulted the antithesis between those who remained subject to the Demiurges government, and those who, released from his
power, become objects of the providential care of the Supreme God, whom He
trains for His kingdom, with whom all things shall work together for good.
** - Neander, Vol. 2, p. 147.
[* The words of Tertullian clearly
show that Marcion expected a Christ yet to come to
the Jews. Tertullians words are, when to these are added their Christs,
the one which appeared in the time of Tiberius (whom they believed to
have had the appearance of flesh
only) and the other which is promised by the Creator
or God of the Jews.
- Tertullian,
Book I, chap. XV.
** The distinction drawn by Marcion
between the condition of the Church and those whom he
imagines to be placed in a subordinate condition of blessing under the God of
the Jews, is very marked. It would seem,
however, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the Old Testament
saints, were excluded by Marcion even from this
subordinate blessing. His statement as
to them is most revolting. I will not
transcribe it. It may be seen in Epiphanius, Lib.
1, § 42, and still more fully in Irenaeus, Lib. 1, chap. XXVII.]
The history of Marcion affords a
memorable example of the manner in which men, while pursuing a phantom of
imagined spirituality, can be drawn into a place of direct antagonism to God
and to His Word. There can be little
question that Marcion was sincere. He was zealous, energetic, and self-denying
even to austerity. Ephraem Syrus says that Marcion acquired, by his asceticism, a deceptive shew of sanctity. In his early days he is said to have given
his money to the Church. (Pecuniam in primo calore fidei ecclesiae contulit.) To his mind matter was synonymous with
evil; and flesh, in its physical sense, identical with sin. Absorption into something immaterial was, in
his estimate, essential to salvation. The assumption of real flesh by the Son of
God and the resurrection of the body, he denied. But the Scripture stood in his way; it
contradicted his thoughts, and therefore the
greater part of Scripture he avowedly rejected. He would have been more consistent and more
honest, if he had rejected the whole.* For he acknowledged not either the
God, or the Christ, or the redemption, of which the Scriptures speak. The Scripture speaks only of the God of
Israel and of the Christ of Israel, and of a redemption wrought out in the
midst of
[* It is better for the interests of Truth that its
adversaries should reject Scripture rather
than that they should professedly own it, and then undermine it by sophistical subtilties of
interpretation. In
It is said that Marcion, towards the
end of his life, repented of his heretical course, and sought to counteract its
effects. But it was too late. In a world like this, a natural, an appointed buoyancy belongs to the thistles seed; it
floats upon the breeze, and the airs ready current soon diffuses it over the
surface of the wide earth. Thistles shall it bring forth to thee. Marcions heresy, says Epiphanius who flourished about
the middle of the fourth century, is even now existent at
His heresy received from some the
condemnation it deserved. The aged Polycarp of
The heresies of Marcion
are scarcely more to be deprecated than the comments of Neander
on them. Thus Neander supposes him to have belonged to the number of those who were first brought to
the faith, not by the tradition of the Church, but by their own study of the
written word - that word which
he mutilated and blasphemed. Perhaps, continues Neander, it was the majesty of Christ as it shone upon Him in the
contemplation of His life, and the study of His words, that attracted him to
Christianity. And the Pauline type of
doctrine which most completely harmonized with his tone of mind,
may have been the form in which he first learned to understand Christianity,
and which chained his spirit once for all. - Neander,
Vol. 2, p. 133.
Again, Neander writes: the consciousness of redemption formed the ground-tone of
his (Marcions) religious
life: the fact of redemption he regarded as the central point of Christianity.
[Redemption, as revealed in Scripture,
had no place in Marcions system at all.] ... To his
heart, filled and flowing with the image of the God of mercy and compassion who
had appeared in Christ. Nature appeared
as something wholly inconsistent with the way in which this God had revealed
himself to him in his soul. ...
The same mental tendency which made it impossible for
him to recognise in Nature the God of the gospel, allowed him to see nothing
but contrariety, no fundamental unity between the Old Testament and the New. ... In the
Churches of Asia Minor he believed it impossible to recognise the genuine
Christianity which had been preached to them by the Apostle Paul. Accordingly, this conviction may have given
rise (to his desire) to purify Christianity
from the foreign Jewish elements with which it had been mixed, and to restore
it to its primitive form. ... And
so, step by step, he was continually driven to place the Old and New Testament
in sharper contrast to each other, until at last, he boldly taught that
there was one God and Christ for the Jews, and another God and Christ for the
Church.
I will now conclude these already too
extended remarks, by a few brief quotations from some of our Protestant
Confessions in reference to the
inclusion of the Old Testament Saints in the one elect body, the Church.
The confession of Dort, after quoting the
words, whom he predestinated, them he also called, and
whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also
glorified, adds, this election is not
manifold (i.e. diverse) but one and the same of all which are to be
saved, both under the Old and New Testament; because the Scripture speaks but of one only
good pleasure, purpose and counsel of the will of God by which He hath chosen
us from eternity, both unto grace and glory, both unto salvation and the way of
salvation, which He hath prepared that we should walk therein. ... and this
doctrine, touching Gods election, was by Gods appointment declared by the
Prophets, by Christ Himself, and by the Apostles as well under the Old
Testament as the New - Articles of Dort., 8
and 14.
Also the Confession of
We most
constantly believe that God preserved, instructed, multiplied, honoured,
decreed, and from death called to life His Church in all ages, from Adam till
the coming of Christ in the flesh. As we believe in one God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so do we most constantly believe that from the
beginning there hath been, and now is, and to the end of the world shall be,
one Church, that is to say, a company, a multitude of men chosen of God, who
rightly worship and entreat Him by true faith in Christ Jesus, &c.
- Art. 5 and 16.
So also the seventh of our English Articles.
The Old
Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament
everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator
between God and Man, being both God and
[* The doctrines of the Roman Church
are, it is well known, most erroneous and false as to the condition of the Old
Testament saints whilst militant on the earth.
Yet, even they, warned perhaps by Marcions
example, refuse to exclude them from the Church in glory. Thus Dr.
Manning, in his recent work on The Mission of the
Holy Ghost, writes as follows:-
The
multitude and fellowship of the just who, from Abel to the incarnation, had
lived and died in faith and union with God, constituted the soul of a body
which should be hereafter. They did not
constitute the body, but they were waiting for it. They did not constitute the Church, which
signifies not only the election but the aggregation of the servants of God; not only the calling out, but the calling together into one all those who
are united to Him. Some of the
Fathers do indeed speak of them as the Church, because they were to the then
world what the Church is now to the world of today. They belong also to the Church, though it did
not then exist, just as the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world,
though the sacrifice on
As then till
the Incarnation there was no Incarnate Head, so till the day of Pentecost there
was no complete organization.
There are, no doubt, parts of the
above statement to which just exception might be taken, but passing these, I
quote the passage merely because of its unequivocal acknowledgment of the
inclusion of the Old Testament saints in the ultimate glory of the Church. All grace was from
the beginning given through the most precious blood, though as yet it had not
been shed, are important words.
I question, however, whether these words and the paragraph as a whole, would please the censors of the
We must remember, too, that although
the words most precious blood are blessed
words, and grateful to the hearts of those who understand them according to the
Scripture, yet they are suggestive of far different thoughts to the mind of a
Romanist. They direct his soul not to
the once perfected sacrifice, whereby he that believeth is sanctified and
perfected for ever, but he thinks of blood carnally taken by him in material
flesh, which he believes that he actually eats, and thus the value of that holy
blood becomes his. Unless he carnally
eats it he perishes: and so he becomes an idolater, and worships a phantom, and
does (unless he repents) perish.
Dr. Mannings
statements, respecting the condition of the Old Testament saints whilst
on earth, are most
objectionable. Thus when he says that the Church is gathered from the world by baptism, and that into
every soul rightly baptized the grace of Faith, Hope and Charity are infused,
together with the seven gifts and a substantial union of the Holy Ghost with
the soul is constituted, it is very evident that he excludes the Old
Testament saints, while on earth, from the condition into which he pretends
that baptism brings, and excludes them from the possession of that LIFE which is the portion of all the
regenerate of every dispensation, and which when given involves everlasting
relationship to God as His sons, and heirs of glory. Again, Dr.
Manning says, before the Incarnation, the Holy
Spirit wrought in the souls of men, one by one, illuminating, converting,
sanctifying, and perfecting the elect.
But the union between His presence and the soul was conditional on the
correspondence and fidelity of the individual.
It was a dissoluble union, &c. (p. 58). And again, its
(
Dr. Manning recognises
no distinction between the operation of the Spirit of God in quickening the
elect, and His coming personally to dwell in those whom He has quickened. The Old Testament saints were regenerated as
truly as we. They had LIFE as truly as we: and although the
Spirit was not given to them as the Paraclete, or as
the Spirit of son-condition, yet He was given to them as the Spirit of servantship, (Rom. 8: 15)
because, though they were sons (see Gal. 4),
they were in a state of pupilage until redemption was perfected. Now I say, that the
heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be
lord of all. Gal. 4: 1. And as the Old Testament saints received
acceptance through the foreseen value of the blood of Immanuel, so also they
received Life before He, in whom that life was, was manifested in the
flesh. As light existed before the sun,
and was afterwards in the sun concentrated, and from it dispensed, so life was
dispensed to the elect before He came, in whom that life essentially was, and
in whom it was manifested. God fore-acted on what Christ was as fore-ordained. But
wherever there is a disposition to misrepresent, or to magnify unduly the
present dispensational standing of the Church, there the sacrificial work of
Christ as alone giving the TITLE to
all the blessings brought by redemption is depreciated, and results which God
has made to depend exclusively on Christs relation to the redeemed, are
ascribed not to Christs work, but to the Spirit. The truth of the Gospel is lost when this is
so. Whether we say that they who are not
baptized do not belong to the body of Christ, or that they who did not receive
the Spirit in the manner in which He is now dispensationally given, do not
belong to the body of Christ, in either case we destroy the truth of the
Gospel. Title to belong to the body of Christ is founded
entirely on the work of Christ
in redemption. The gift of the Spirit
(which is a purchased result of redemption) does not give the title to membership in the body of Christ, but supplies the
power of that associated action which is needed by those who are
called to act together as co-members in one body. Are we to confound title, and power to act according to such title?
See also Luther:-
When the
Scripture saith that all nations which are of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham, it followeth necessarily that all, as well
Jews as Gentiles, are accursed without faith, or without faithful Abraham. For the promise of blessing was given to
Abraham that in him all nations should be blessed. There is no blessing then to be looked for,
but only in the promise made unto Abraham, now published by the Gospel,
throughout the whole world. Therefore
whosoever is without that blessing is accursed. - Luther on
Gal. 3, 10.
See also Calvin:-
And this is
a singular proof of the benevolence of God toward us, that although from the
beginning of the world he showed Himself bountiful to His children (the
Old Testament saints), He nevertheless so regulated
His grace as to provide for the salvation of the whole body (in which we, of this dispensation, are included). What more could any one among ourselves
desire than that regard should be had to him in respect of the blessings with which
God hath followed up Abraham, Moses, David, &c.,
so that with them he might coalesce in
the body of Christ? - Calvin on Heb. 11.
God has made a better provision for us
than to allow that our elder brethren, who have preceded us in the path of
faith, should be perfected in glory apart from us. The Scripture uses the word apart. They
who are not apart must be together.
*
* * *
* * *
ISAIAH CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The
meaning of this chapter has been very variously given by those who have
interpreted it. I prefer that of Bishop Horsley, as the most literal,
consistent with itself, and agreeable to
the ancient interpretations and general tenour of prophecy. Dr.
Hendersons offends against that great canon of prophecy, which forbids us
to regard as of private interpretation that which is of universal import to the
Church. The following are some of the
Bishops commencing observations:‑
I set out with considering every one of these assumptions (that
the prophecy regarded
A
summons is uttered to some mighty nation, situated either towards the east or
west of
A
commercial and maritime nation is certainly pointed out by these various yet
harmonious features. But to whom are the
messengers to be sent? Jerome, Horsley, and others, understand the Jews, and it will be seen that
the lineaments accord with the historical character of that people. They are dragged
away and plucked - torn from their native country again and again. They are a people
wonderful from their beginning hitherto. Moses
brings this observation before their eyes in his day. Did
ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as
thou hast heard, and live? Or bath God
essayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by
temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by
a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your
God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? (Deut.
4: 33, 34.) Nor has their
singularity and the awe of their history ceased since then. The wonders of Joshuas day, of the Judges,
and the Kings, of the Saviours appearance, and their scattering through the
world, combined with their present existence still unchanged and unchangeable,
confirm their title to be considered the most wonderful people of the
earth. To a like effect speaks the Geneva Bible on this clause The Jews (are the nation spoken of) who, because of Gods plagues, made all others afraid of the
like. They are also an always expectant nation. Perpetually disappointed in the hope of a
Messiah yet to come, still in every country and under every disappointment they
are expectant, even to the present day.
Yet in spite of their hope of one day ruling the world, they are also trampled under foot.
Who more so than the Jews? Their
very name a proverbial expression of insult, their persons despised everywhere,
and in former times subjected to every species of ignominy, injury, and
death. Whose
land rivers have spoiled. That
is, according to Bishop Horsley,
whose country kings have frequently plundered.
This interpretation seems borne out by chapter
8: 6, 7, nor is there need to prove at length that the country of the
Jews has been subject to invading armies.
In addition, however, the confirmatory words of Jerome may not be unacceptable Go
swiftly to the nation of the Jews, plucked up and torn by the Assyrian
invasion; to a people once terrible, who were under the rule of God, with whose
power none may be compared; to a nation always expecting the aid of God, and
nevertheless trodden down by man; whose land, rivers, that is, different kings,
have laid waste.
Nor
are the messengers to go to them alone; but their cry is to all the nations of
the world, to announce to them the appearing as of a banner on the mountains,
and the sound of a trumpet. Now as the
appearance of a banner and the sound of a trumpet are the signals for an army
to gather, so I apprehend are these. We
read of both these signals in the Saviours great prophecy of his return; to
which time, as Horsley justly
observes, this prophecy reaches. And
then shall they see the siqn of the Son of Man in
heaven, whatever it be: whether or not, as the Fathers expected, it
signify the cross, which is indeed the emblem of the Son of Man. But the Saviour proceeds to declare, He shall send forth his angels with a great sound
of a trumpet, and they shall qather toqether his elect from one end of heaven to the other. Nor is this all. The coincidence is yet more complete. Isaiah
assures us that the message is to all nations. St. Luke, immediately before this prophecy of the sign of the Son
of Man and of the last trumpet of the Archangel, places the distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, mens hearts failing them for fear;
while St. Matthew adds, And then shall all
the tribes of the earth mourn,
and they
shall see the Son of Man
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Respecting
the 4th verse there is so much
uncertainty, that though Horsleys version is retained in the text, that of the
LXX. seems almost equally worthy of
reception:‑
For
thus said Jehovah unto me,
There shall be safety in my city;
As a cloud in the mid-day light and heat,
And as dew in the day of harvest.
If
Bishop Horsleys be preferred, the verse will signify a long withdrawal of the
miraculous interposition of God in the affairs of the world. He will sit still in his dwelling place until
the inhabitants will think that he has forgotten; that he hideth away his face
and will never regard what is done on earth, and that, just before Gods vengeance shall burst forth like
lightning. This is in entire accordance
with the tenour of prophecy. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I
make thine enemies thy footstool.
If the Septuagint [LXX] version be
adopted, the sense will be, that when the banner is thus erected, and the
trumpet blown, Jerusalem shall be a quiet habitation,
and the security experienced shall be the more grateful because of the
preceding time of great tribulation, even as a cloud is grateful in the midst
of the glare and heat of a tropical clime, and, as Jerome observes, as the dew is pleasant
to the panting reaper. Which of
these is to be preferred, as both exceedingly well accord with the analogy of
prophecy, is left to the readers choice.
The 5th verse describes
the judgements of God just before the harvest (or ingathering of believers, as
the Saviour explains it in his parable of the tares and wheat), upon his
professing Church. As at the time
immediately preceding harvest, when the vine is in blossom, the husbandman
prunes it of its luxuriant and useless shoots, so will Christ deal with his
Church; he will send such troubles and persecutions upon it, that all who are
mere professors will be severed from it, as the useless boughs by the
pruning-knife. The time will come that judgement must begin at the house of God.
This
interpretation is made good by the fifteenth
of
Yet
at that time when the wickedness of man has come to the full, the Lord Jesus
shall appear, and then shall his ancient people become glorious in the eyes of
the Gentiles, who shall bring them by every mode of conveyance to their native
land, and especially to the Saviours abode on
The
observations of Procopius on this
point are here presented to the readers notice. After the harvest of the present
life, they that are thought worthy of
that consummation, shall partake of unmixed divinity, when the separation shall take place of those that are now gathered
together in the Church of God. And
the superfluous branches of the vine shall be cast for food to the avenging
Powers; and the fruitful souls
shall attain their expectation from God.
But who he is that shall take away and cut off, the Saviour himself
declares, setting before us under the figure of a vine and its branches, the
good and the foolish, saying, I am the true
vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that
beareth not fruit, he taketh away. Here the writer refers the period spoken of
to that succeeding the final judgement, which the concluding words forbid us to
admit; for the time specified shall be that of the Jews return, both locally
to Mount Zion, and spiritually in heart to the
faith of Christ; and this were impossible in its former part after the earth is
burnt up. With this exception the view
of Procopius agrees with that given above.
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
AND CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The twenty-fifth chapter is evidently a
continuation of the twenty-fourth, and describes the joyousness of the saints
at the first resurrection. The Jews, says Jerome,
in commenting on the 18th verse, think that this is the voice of the
saints, and the believing people, when God shall have performed against the
whole world what is spoken above, and the prophecies of all the prophets are
completed; and they interpret the overthrown city (verse 2.) to signify Rome
which is to be utterly destroyed; and the mighty people who shall praise
Jehovah, and to whom Jehovah hath been a strength in their trouble and
distress, they refer to Israel who shall be freed from the persecution of the
Gentiles. In this opinion they
are confirmed by
But
the correspondence in verse 4 is still more
remarkable. The
four and twenty elders and the four beasts, saith St. John, fell down and worshipped God
that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. And thus Isaiah,
Thou hast performed wonderful deeds, even thy ancient
counsel of faithfulness. Amen, Jehovah! where the Amen
of
Eusebius, commenting on the words, Thine
ancient counsel, beautifully refers to Matthew
25: 34, - Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, and to Eph.
1: 4, According as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world. He
proceeds to say, - That therefore was an ancient
counsel. And in truth these were the wonderful things
foreseen by me before the foundation of the world, but to be fulfilled at the
completion of the ages. This counsel,
then, was ancient, on account of the foreknowledge and ordaining of God; and true because of the issue at
last. Which
blessings, says Procopius, the prophet desiring to see as speedily as possible, offers
as his prayer, So be it, Lord!
The
6th verse describes that meeting
of the just of which the Saviour spake, when he said, that many should come from the east and from the west, and sit
down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, in the
At
this time Isaiah assures us the vail
shall be taken away from all nations, which covers the glory of the Gospel from
their eyes. And the reason has been
given above: for why is the Gospel hidden to them that
are lost? Because, says the apostle, in
them the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light
of the glorious Gospel [gospel of the glory. R.V.] of Christ, who is the image
of God, should shine unto them.
But in
the former chapter it was declared that Satan should be removed and shut up
during this blessed period, and the Spirit of God poured out. Then also shall be destroyed the vail that
covers the face of
And
then shall death be swallowed up in victory. For then, according to the apostles declaration
in the fifteenth of the 1st Corinthians, This corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this
mortal shall have put on immortality; and then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. For the risen saints shall then have put on their glorious [immortal] bodies,
and then shall in them be fulfilled the words of the Lord, They that are accounted
worthy to attain that world (dispensation,
aiwva), and
the resurrection from [out of Lit Gk.] the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither
can they die any more: but are equal unto the angels; and are the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection (Luke 20: 35, 36); which last words show that this
is the first resurrection of the just alone,
else it would not be true that they would be the
children of God, because the
children of the resurrection. To
a like purpose saith
Then,
and not till then, shall the offence of the cross cease: for then all shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest,
and out of the Saviours kingdom will the reaping angels have gathered all
things that offend and those that do iniquity.
It
should be noticed here that one of the
Greek interpreters has translated differently the 7th
verse, and gives it thus,‑
And he will destroy on this
mountain
The face of the Ruler that ruleth over all
nations.
On
which Jerome observes, Some will have Antichrist to be signified who is to be
consumed on
The
conclusion of the chapter fortels Gods vengeance on
CHAPTER 26
In
the twenty-sixth chapter the same subject
continues. Here is given the very song
that shall be sung in that day, showing that if
the promise of the swallowing up of death, quoted by St. Paul, refers, as
beyond a question it does, to the resurrection,* so does this song to the time immediately following. The strong city here is evidently
[*
It is gratifying to be able to quote on this passage the following excellent
remark of Dr. H., - By his (Pauls) inspired
authority I deem it the only wise, because the only safe course, in this and
all similar cases to abide.
Would that it had been so always!]
Thus,
then, the dead in Christ shall rise; not all the dead, but as they are
beautifully called, thy dead, O Christ! for the dew from thee is healing unto them. Perfectly accordant is the explanation of Theodoret, For
as the rain vivifies the seeds covered with earth, and as it were buried, so
thy word, like the dew, shall call men to arise. Again and again does the Saviour declare it as the peculiar blessedness of each believing
member, I will raise him up at the last day. Here is the prediction reiterated, and its
peculiar significance defined. But, when
destruction shall come on the giants, - the Powers of evil gathered against
the Lord - the people of Jehovah shall be caught up in the air, and hide themselves a little moment, till the indignation
of Jehovah is overpast, For, behold, Jehovah
cometh out of his place to
punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquities. As when the world perished by the flood, Noah
was caught up into the chamber of the ark, and the Lord
shut him in till he came forth into the new world, so shall it
be in this day of vengeance; the saints shall shut their
door about them till the woes on the wicked are inflicted. And as the children of
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTERS THIRTY NINE AND FORTY
By ROBERT
GOVETT
After the recovery of Hezekiah,
the king of Babylon and his wise men, struck with astonishment at the preternatural lengthening of the
day, which they could not account for upon astronomical principles, sent
messengers and a present to him to congratulate him on his restored life, and
to inquire of him the reason of the miracle which was exhibited on his behalf. This had a tendency to tempt Hezekiah to
pride, as being the subject of a special embassy and inquiry on the part of so
great a king as the king of
Hezekiah is, therefore, presented to us as another instance of
the frailty of man. But the lesson is
beautifully expanded to the plenitude of the believers experience under the
Gospel, by the concluding remark of the inspired writer of the Chronicles: In those days
was Hezekiah sick unto death, and prayed unto the Lord, and he spake unto him
and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah
humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of
[* See Power Lost and Recovered on the website.
Ed.]
CHAPTER FORTY
This chapter is signalized by being thrice quoted in the New
Testament; and inspired quotations are of singular service
in enabling the interpreter to discover whether his explanation is correct.
The first is that in Matt. 3., who declares
that the passage (ver. 3, 4) was fulfilled in the preaching of John the
Baptist in the wilderness of
Whence we conclude that in this chapter, as in many, indeed in
most
prophecies of the Saviours appearance, his first and second advents
are closely bound up together. But the
prediction here bears principal reference to the second; which will be seen as we proceed.
For then
So also as John Baptist
heralded the first coming of Christ in the spirit and
power of Elias, shall Elijah himself herald
the second
coming in conjunction with Enoch:* as it is
written of him, Behold, I will send unto you Elijah
the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.
(Mal. 4: 5.) And he shall cry in the
wilderness as one of
the Two Witnesses: for thither shall the Jewish Church [called out people] be
driven, as we have seen in the remarks on chap. 16.
This testimony is confirmed by the twelfth of the Apocalypse, where we read that the woman (the Jewish Church) fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of
God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days
(the three years and a half of the reign of Antichrist). In the desert, therefore, (as well as in
But he has yet to be proclaimed as the Lord Jehovah coming with might, when his arm shall rule with
sovereignty, and his reward be with him, and the work of every man before him,
words which, as Eusebius perceived, must be spoken of his second appearing.
Then
shall also his gracious character of a shepherd be manifested in its full
blessedness to his risen saints, and the inhabitants of the world living under
his [millennial]
rule.
The greatness and Divine Majesty of the Lord Jesus is then set
forth, in his creation of the world, and the augustness of his presence, before
whom all nations are the drop
of a bucket.
The depth of his understanding who is the Wisdom of God, is
next announced an the bold and sublime verses quoted by
Who hath
known the mind of JEHOVAH?
Or who hath been his
counsellor?
Or who hath first given him?
And it shall be recompensed
to him again!
In the first of these questions, the depths of his plans is
implied as far beyond the comprehension of any created being, so that, if we
find difficulties therein, it becomes us to wonder and adore. In the two last clauses, his sovereign right
as Creator the bestower of all benefits, the
receiver of none, is set forth; on the ground of which he justly challenges the
absolute right of disposing of them as he pleases.
Such being his majesty, with what force of argument and
eloquence is he contrasted with the pitiful image of dumb and motionless wood,
to which the blinded idolater would liken him!
In the 23rd verse, his
power in bringing princes to nought, alludes
to the overthrow of the Antichristian faction.
Indeed the whole picture is designed with a special view to the
encouragement of the believers, in particular those of the Jewish Church, in
their last great conflict with the enemy, when their faith is almost failing,
because they see the wicked in such prosperity, and themselves as sheep
appointed for slaughter, and shall almost begin to conclude that God has
forsaken the earth; a state of mind which is beautifully and prophetically
depicted in the seventy-third Psalm, to
which the reader is referred. Still, in
spite of their trials, that they should think that their
way is hidden from Jehovah, is derogatory to his justice, and the truth
of' his promises. The Creator fainteth not, neither is weary; his plan from eternity once
settled is never altered: in effecting it, he fainteth not, neither is weary. Nor can his wisdom, in thus severely trying
the patience and faith of his saints, be understood by man. And if
faith be ready to fail, he is able to strengthen it: the door stands always
open: the believer is to pray always and not to faint, for shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him, though he bear
long with them? I tell you, he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh shall he find
faith on the earth? (Luke
18: 7, 8.) Yet the few
that are found to believe, shall at the Saviours voice, mount up
with wings as eagles, shall run, and not be
weary; shall walk, and not faint; as saith the apostle in a verse
quoted before, Then we which are alive and remain,
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE [PART 1]
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The subject of this prophecy is the rejection of the Jewish
nation for their sins, especially their great sin, the rejection of Christ
Jesus. The 2nd
verse seems to show that it is spoken of the same time as the preceding
chapter, - the captivity of the Jews to their last great foe, for the Lord
inquires why there is none to rescue, and then reproves them for not trusting
in him. - Did they doubt whether he had power to deliver or not? Then follow some of the wonders to be
accomplished by the power of the Lord, as the drying up of rivers, and the
smiting the heavenly bodies with darkness.
The threat that the heavens shall be clothed with blackness, Theodoret
understands of the three hours darkness at the crucifixion, and this was
probably its primary accomplishment; its plenary fulfilment being postponed to
the time of the smiting of the sun and moon, as predicted by the Lord.
The Saviour next adverts to his first coming of humiliation, when
the Father sent him to declare his words of wisdom kept secret from the
foundation of the world. He remarks his
meekness in suffering such contradiction of sinners
against himself, his endurance of scourging, smiting on the face, and
spitting, all which were literally fulfilled.
And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then did they spit
in his face, and buffetted him, and others smote
him with the palms of their hands. And when they had
blindfolded him, they struck him on the face. (Matthew
27: 27; 27: 67; Luke 22: 64.)
The same view is presented by Procopius, -But return we to Christ, who saith to the Jews, Though ye
indeed after being invited refuse, yet will not I disobey my Father who desires
to gather together all things in me. And
humbling myself, I suffered the most shameful possible treatment, knowing that
I do not suffer shame by obedience to my Father. Though, therefore, Pilate scourged me, and
one of the servants smote me, and others spit on me, I set my face as a hard
rock. For it was of Divine power that I
endured. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
But now the Saviour speaks in the majesty of his return, when
the Father having justified him by raising him from the dead, he and all his members may well defy all their accusers and
enemies. Who
shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect? it
is God that justifieth. Hence they shall all pass away, despite their
power, and boasting, and persecution; and the
Redeemer encourages the persecuted still to wait for him and expect his return. For as for all the various devices of those
who seek to fulfil their own
counsels, and are opposed to the plans of the Almighty, their fire shall not be
a light to them, but they shall receive the wrath of God and lie down in
sorrow. The figure employed appears to
be taken from the travellers through the desert, who are obliged in consequence
of the coldness of the night, even in those tropical regions, to light a fire
for the purpose of warmth and light and to keep off wild beasts. Yet these their devices should not prevail to
ward off the judgements of an angry God.
R. GOVETT.
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTER FIFTY ONE [Part 2]
By ROBERT
GOVETT
An address is now made to believers both of the natural and
spiritual
In hope of this kingdom not to be moved, believers are
exhorted to hold fast their steadfastness, and not to regard the laugh or
reproaches of men. For yet a little
while, and the arm of Jehovah shall awake as in ancient times, as in the generations of old,
when
Again is added an exhortation against the fear of the Man of
Sin, showing how terrific will be his power, how great the dread of all men,
that the believers have need of perpetual warning against his subtlety, and
encouragement against his power. Yet,
mighty as he may be, he shall die; his breath is in his nostrils. The remedy for the fear of man is to fear
Jehovah, as said the Redeemer, Fear not them which
kill the body, but are not
able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him, who is able to destroy both body and
soul in hell [Gehenna]. (Matt. 10: 28.)
Soon shall his day pass, and his fury vanish, and it shall be said, Where is the fury of thine oppressor?
On the fourteenth
verse, Jerome has these remarks:‑
Symmachus
thus interpreted it, Soon shall Hades be opened, and
he shall not die into corruption, where Christ is understood, who, in the
fifteenth Psalm says,
Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades,
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. But does
it not also refer to the resurrection of the saints from Hades? For thus spake the Lord, On this rock will I build my church, and the gates
of Hades shall not prevail against it:
that is, My people shall be delivered from the custody in which they are at present
held, and shall attain the adoption, to wit, the demption of the
body.
This shall be the time when Gods wrath against
R. GOVETT.
*
* * *
* * *
ISAIAH CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The command given at the commencement
of this chapter shows, that Gods time of favour to
That it is not the restoration from the literal Babylon which
is spoken of in this and the preceding chapters, is clear from the declaration
there that Jerusalem should no more
drink the cup of the Lords wrath; and in this place, that from the time of the
promise, no more should the uncircumcised or unclean
enter into her.
But after the promise, her sins against God are enumerated,
and the captivities to which she was and will be subjected. The next scene presents them as in subjection
to their last oppressor; and the Lord assures them, that to him they have been
delivered up, because through them his name was
blasphemed amongst the Gentiles.
This passage is quoted by St.
Paul, in Rom. 2: 24, where he proves
that the Jews, wherein they judged another, condemned
themselves, and both foolishly and impiously supposed, that their
privileges would redeem them from the wrath of Jehovah, when their deeds were
such, that occasion was given even to the unbelieving heathen to slander
through them the God whom they pretended to worship. This passage in the Hebrew has been wilfully
corrupted by the Jews, because of their hatred to the prophets testimony
against them, and still more to
In that day
The eleventh verse is,
perhaps, cited by
Then follows a prediction of Jesus, and a comparison is
instituted between his first and second coming.
As many were astonished at his marred countenance when he came in
humility, so when he shall be exalted, and lifted very
high, many nations shall admire him, as did St. John, when he beheld
him in his glory, and as Solomon in his Song prophetically describes him. The ancient fathers testify,
that Christs figure and countenance had nothing in it beautiful or very
remarkable; he emptied himself of all glory at the first appearance, but he
shall be surrounded with all his rightful honours at the second.
The last verse is adopted by
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The fifty-third chapter, by the confession of all rightly-minded
Christian authors, relates most perspicuously to Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, it is hard to conceive how any can
admit the inspiration of the Scripture, and interpret it of any other, as the
New Testament writers, by various quotations of its text, authoritatively apply
it to the Saviour.
It commences abruptly by a strongly implied charge of
disbelief of the Christ, brought against the Jewish nation by the apostles and
messengers of the Gospel.
It is adduced, most justly, by
It is foretold that the Messiah should grow up before the
Father as a tender plant, or, as the Septuagint
translates it, as an infant; and as a root out of a dry ground, alluding, probably, to
the unbelieving state of the Jewish people, and also to the lowly and degraded
state of the family of David, whence the Lord was to spring. He was to possess no outward comeliness; and
this was true, as far as tradition can inform us. Nor does there need any proof that he was
despised and rejected of men, or that his people hid their faces from him. The
Evangelist Matthew quotes the next
verse in the following connexion: When the even was
come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils; and he cast
out the spirits by his word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet,
saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. From which we learn, that our blessed Lords curing of diseases was
the fulfilment of this verse.
The vicarious nature of the Redeemers suffering is next
opened to our view. The prophet teaches
the atoning nature of Christs death.
His afflictions were not for any sin of his own, but for our
transgressions, because he bare the penalty of them, that by his stripes we might be healed. Because we like
sheep have gone astray, the Lord bath made to light on him the iniquities of us
all: in which words the extent of his atonements is made equal to the
extent of mans sinfulness: or as the New Testament Scriptures phrase the same
truth, He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins
of the world.
The next feature commended to our notice is his silence under
judicial accusation, and in the presence of his enemies. This is discovered to be more worthy of
regard, if we consider that he endured such
contradiction of sinners against
himself, who hates all sin: that the accusations were false, an aggravation felt with peculiar
force by men in general: still further, that it was at any time in his power to
have destroyed his false accusers; Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to the Father, and he shall
presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? And lastly, that these false accusations were
the return for his mighty benevolence and boundless beneficence of word and of
miracle - that they who thirsteth for
his blood were those whom he came to redeem by the sacrifice of himself! This point was literally fulfilled, as the
Evangelists discover to us in their sacred narrative of his trial. Now the chief
priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus,
to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet
found they none. At the last came two
false witnesses, And said, This fellow said, I am able
to destroy the
The passage now before us is, in another place, by evident
implication of the strongest kind, interpreted by inspiration of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is cited in the Acts as read by the Eunuch of Candace Queen of
In his humiliation, his judgement
was indeed taken away, for all justice was
abandoned at his trial - and even he who decreed that he should be crucified,
and he that betrayed him to death, confessed his innocence. On which verse the
words of Procopius
may not be unacceptable. The ensuing declaration is therefore perfectly true, that in his humiliation his judgement was taken away. For they gave their
vote against him carelessly, as respecting a person of no importance: so that
the prophet intends to remark their unlawful and unjust judgement of
him. And though he was judged in his
humility, yet he was by nature, God.
Whence, he adds, Who shall declare his
generation?
And the difficulty of declaring it lies alike on both his generations.
In a certain sense he was born of God, and in a certain sense of a virgin. For thus much alone we know, on the one hand
that he is God of God, Light of light; and on the other, that the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee. On each side, therefore, the question, What is his
generation? is ineffable. For his life
is taken away from the earth; that is, the economy
thereof and his life according to the flesh is higher than the earthly. And in another point of view, the essence of
the only-begotten is above every created thing.
But some say, that the words, he is
taken away from the earth declare his glory
after his resurrection; for experience showed the Divine value of the economy
instituted here below; for though he was himself subjected to death, yet by his
grace he made us alive unto incorruption, and by faith in him are we redeemed. But wherefore was he who knew no sin subjected to
the penalty of death? The Father makes
reply, For the transgressions of my people he was led to death: either signifying, vicariously suffering for their sins,
or because they in their transgression slew him.
The question, Who shall declare his
generation? refers doubtless, as Procopius observes, to his mysterious eternity as Son of the Father. Jerome
hereupon refers to Prov. 8: 25, Before the
mountains were settled, before the hills was I set forth. There is likewise a reference to the
Saviours birth of a virgin by the mysterious operation of the Holy
Spirit. The translation of the 9th verse is that of Dr. Kennicott,
and by the transposition of two words, clearness is restored to that which was
before obscure. Such a transposition has
before occurred in the words sheep and lamb in the 7th
verse: as is proved by the Evangelists quotation. Moreover, it is but
the natural order of events to speak of the Saviours death before his burial. The natural order of his
life has been followed hitherto, beginning with his infancy: why should it not
be followed here? But to one who believes the Scriptures there is a still
stronger proof, arising from its thus corresponding exactly with fact. He was lifted up,
as he himself prophesied, signifying what death he should die - and with
wicked men - the two thieves crucified on each side of him. With the rich man
moreover was his sepulchre; as the Evangelist notices. When the even was
come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself
was Jesus disciple. ... And when Joseph had taken his body, he wrapped it in a clean
linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb. (Matt.
27: 57. 59, 60). His suffering
accomplished, it is predicted that the Lord shall behold a seed that shall prolong its days, to be accomplished
in that day when all shall know the Lord, and when, as Isaiah subsequently
prophesies, the days of the Lords people shall be as the days of a tree; or as the Septuagint has it, as the days of the tree
of life. A passage similar to
this is found at the end of the twenty-second Psalm,
in which the Saviour describes his crucifixion; and then adds, My seed shall
serve him, it shall be counted unto the Lord for a generation.* They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a
people that shall be born, whom
the Lord hath made. (Prayer-book version.) But its
final reference is certainly to the eternal life of his people - the life and
immortality brought to light by the Gospel.
The pleasure also of Jehovah shall
prosper in his hand, for then shall be accomplished all that the Most
High designed, even to give into the hands of Christ Jesus all power in heaven
and earth, and openly to subdue all things to his will, thereby completing the
prophecies uttered by his servants.
Because he humbled himself, even to
the death of the cross, God shall also highly exalt him: and give him
the souls of his people, even all those that are justified through the knowledge
of the Just One.
He shall inherit the earth and all its inhabitants by the
Fathers gift, both Jews and Gentiles; as the second
Psalm, with many other passages, declare. Such shall be his reward, for patiently
enduring the agony of the garden, the treachery of Judas, and the ignominy of
his trial and of his crucifixion in company with malefactors. For through this bearing
of the sins of many, and his present intercession at the throne of God,
is satisfaction made to the justice of the Most High, and a way opened to the
holiest through the blood of Jesus.
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTER 53 OUR SUBSTITUTE
By B. W. NEWTON.
There are few chapters to which the heart, when conscious of the
sin within it and the sin around it, more instinctively turns for comfort than
to the fifty-third of Isaiah. It is a
chapter that should peculiarly abide in our remembrance. No plainer, no more simple
attestation to the vicarious obedience and vicarious suffering of our holy
Substitute is anywhere given. By acquaintance with himself shall the Righteous One, my
Servant, bring (or cause) righteousness unto the many, and he shall bear their
iniquities - words few and simple, but words of [eternal] salvation to them that
believe. The Righteous Servant of
Jehovah is at once the bringer to us of righteousness, and the taker away of
our guilt. The Spirit of God sent Philip
to explain this chapter to the eunuch in the wilderness: he heard, believed,
and [after being baptized,] went on his way rejoicing. So shall it be with the feeblest who truly
cast themselves on Jesus as testified of in this chapter. There are, indeed, many now who spurn its
testimony. They talk of Jeremiah, or of
a righteous remnant in
In reading the fifty-third of Isaiah, we must not dissociate
it from the two chapters which precede; for it forms
their sequel. The subject of the
preceding chapters is, the woe, and after the woe, the blessing and the glory
reserved for
Such is the picture drawn by Job of
himself when unconsciously foreshadowing Another. It is a partial and imperfect picture of
course, as every typical foreshadowment of Him in whom all fulness dwells, must
be: but it throws an added light, clear and precious, on that coming hour when
the Servant of Jehovah shall in this
earth which has hitherto despised Him, be
extolled, and exalted and high exceedingly; when He shall break the jaws of the wicked and pluck the spoil out of his
teeth; when the blessing of him that was ready
to perish shall come upon Him, and when He shall
cause the widows heart to sing for joy.
Such is the [future] salvation in which redeemed
[* Acquainted, that is, with the
disease and misery that prevailed around Him.]
It is not my intention here to examine the words of this
chapter in detail, though I hope to do so in the notes that follow. It should, however, be observed that this
chapter, in speaking of Jesus as the vicarious sufferer, does not direct our
minds only to that great
and pre-eminent hour of His anguish when He drank in death the appointed cup of
wrath. The earlier verses of this
chapter give great prominence to His previous sufferings. They speak of the time when He began to grow up before
Jehovah as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. The ground around that tender sprout was soon
discovered to be dry.
All that the Son had to do and to suffer as the Substitute was
appointed by the wisdom of God - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
before the world was. When once the
appointment had been made, everything that had been appointed became necessary to the effectuation of the work of
redemption. If one thing that had been
appointed had been omitted, the work of redemption could not have been
completed. In the typical ordinance of
the Meat-offering of the first-fruits, the commandment was: If thou offer a meat-offering of thy first-fruits unto the
Lord, thou shalt offer for the meat-offering of thy first-fruits green ears,
scorched with fire, bruised corn, of full ear. The being bruised and the
being parched or scorched are here given as typical of the Lords sufferings
through life. But there is
nothing in the Hebrew which would enable us to determine whether the scorching
preceded the bruising or the reverse: evidently, I think, for this reason, that
the sufferings indicated by the bruising and the scorching were not consecutive
but concurrent. They attached to the
Lord Jesus during the whole of His life.
The translation given in our Version, Leviticus
2: 14, beaten out of, is misleading. It is
simply bruised or crushed. When
this had once been appointed for the first-fruits, the offering would not have
been received at the altar unless it had first been both crushed and
scorched. Both were, as I have said,
concomitant experiences, and were as needful as was the burning to the
completion of the offering upon the, altar.
So was it with Christ. All His
sufferings were pre-appointed. His
living sufferings, therefore, which were as the scorching, were as needful to
the effectuation of redemption as His dying sufferings, which were as the
burning. The expiatory act, indeed, was His death - death under wrath; but that
act could not have been performed by one who had not first done and suffered
all that was appointed to be done and suffered by Him who was to perform the expiatory act. Therefore, the living sufferings and service of
Christ were as needful to the accomplishment of His atoning work as were His
sufferings and service in death. Hence the prominence given to His living sufferings in this
chapter. We must receive or
reject the testimony of this chapter as a whole. If we reject its testimony
to the sufferings of our Substitute in life, we must, to be consistent, reject
its testimony to His substitutional sufferings in death. The same person who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, was also the root out of a dry ground: and the reason for both was
the same, namely, that He might make for US
SATISFACTION to God.*
[* When it is asked, says Calvin, how Christ, by abolishing sin,
removed the enmity between God and us, and purchased a righteousness which made
him favourable and kind to us, it may be answered generally, that he
accomplished this by the whole course of his obedience. This is proved by the testimony of Paul, As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And indeed he elsewhere extends
the ground of pardon which exempts from the curse of the Law to the whole life
of Christ, When the fulness of time was come,
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them
that were under the Law. Thus, even at his baptism, he declared that a
part of righteousness was fulfilled by his yielding obedience unto the command
of the Father. In short, from the moment
when he assumed the form of a servant, he began, in order to redeem us, to pay
the price of deliverance. Calvins Institutes, Book 2. ch. 16, § 5.
Turretine says, The common and received doctrine in our Churches [the
Reformed Churches] is, that the Satisfaction of Christ
which is imputed unto us for righteousness before God, comprehends not only the
sufferings of Christ which, whether in life, or whether in death, He bore; but
that it comprehendeth also the obedience of His whole life; that is to say,
those just and holy actions whereby in our stead He fulfilled perfectly the
commandments of the Law: that so from these two parts the full and perfect
price of our redemption might spring. Turretines
Institutes, Locus 14, Concerning the
mediatorial office of Christ. Question 13, § 2.]
Again in the seventh section he says that The sufferings whereby Christ made satisfaction are to be
extended to all those sufferings which were laid upon Christ, not only on the
Cross, but also in the garden; yea, throughout the whole of His life. And here we cannot approve of the fiction of
those who wish to restrict all the satisfying sufferings of Christ to those
sufferings which He endured during the three hours of darkness whilst He was on
the Cross, and before He expired, excluding the other sufferings from the satisfaction
to Justice, although they might have pertained to
a satisfying the Divine verity and the fulfilment of the types. For, however
certain it be that those sufferings were the most grievous with which He
conflicted during the hours of darkness, it is nevertheless clear that the
others were directed to the same end, for the Scripture nowhere restricts the
[satisfying] sufferings to the three hours on the
Cross, but speaks of them generally without any limitation. See Isaiah
53: 4, 5; 1 Peter 2: 21 and 3: 18; Matthew
16: 21; Hebrews 5: 7 and 10: 8. 9. Turretine, idem. See
also 2 Corinthians 8: 9.
* *
* * *
* *
ISAIAH CHAPTERS FIFTY NINE TO SIXTY ONE
By ROBERT
GOVETT
The
present section of prophecy relates ultimately to the last state of iniquity of
the Jews in their own land before the wrath of God brakes forth on them. They are described as persecuting even to
death the people of God, as lying and unjust.
Because
of those things God shall leave to themselves, to grope in the darkness, and be
full of disquiet. The darkness mentioned
is literal, as well as figurative. For
thus we read in Rev. 16: 10, And the fifth angel poured out his vial on the seat of the
Beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven
because of their pains, and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. This was foreshadowed of old by the three
days darkness in
By
this mighty display of his glory and power, all the remainder of men shall fear
him. Then shall have arrived that
blessed time which the apostle foretels in the Romans, where he quotes the
succeeding words of Isaiah, And so all
CHAPTER 60
With
the return of the Saviour as the Deliverer of
The
interpretation of Procopius on the
former verses is here submitted to the readers attention: He announces to them that sit in darkness, the coming of the
light of Christ; a declaration which is suitable not merely to his first coming
but also to his second, of which the Saviour saith, And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds
of heaven; and by his angels he assures us
that he will gather his elect from every side; and again, When the Son of Man shall come in his glory. Then he speaks of
the judgement of the righteous and the ungodly, under the figure of sheep and
goats, and the delivering up of the one to the fire and of the other invited
unto the new Age;
wherein shall not be any corporeal sources of light, for Christ himself, the Sun of Righteousness, shall
suffice for enlightening. And then,
according to the words of most holy Paul, The
dead in Christ shall rise first, and they
which are alive and remain shall meet Christ in the clouds. To such then, addressing himself, he says, Shine, O Jerusalem! or,
according to the other translators, Arise,
shine!
See if he does not by the word arise, discover the resurrection of the dead, for (Christ) the Light shall vivify the dead by his own radiance, and
they arising shall behold his glory; wherefore he adds immediately, And the glory of the Lord is risen on thee. From what has preceded it will be seen that
the author does not agree with all the foregoing quotation, nor is it
reconcileable with what follows, especially the declaration that there will be
no corporeal sources of light, - a mistake originating in a confusiom. between
the temporary
and the final blessedness of the saints, between which the Apocalypse so happily and clearly distinguishes.
The
Saviours return shall be the signal for the restoration of
But
the exposition given by Procopius is
also worthy of the readers consideration, Who are
these that fly as a cloud? This Paul has made clear, when he said, We shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air, and so shall we be ever with the Lord; being joined, that is, to the
assembly of those of the ancient people who did that which was right in the
sight of the Lord, who also, being represented as beholding the upward
flight of the saved from among the Gentiles, wonder at the multitude thereof.
So
great shall be the peace of those days, that the gates of
The
Jews, moreover, from being the despised, shall become the admired of all
nations, and all shall press forward to serve them. Then shall God pour out his blessing, and for
brass bring gold, and for iron silver, as it
was remarked in the typical reign of Solomon, And all
the vessels of the house of the
The
19th verse, however, will
probably at that time receive but a commencing fulfilment, as it is only of the
final
state of the blessed that it is said, And the
city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory
of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. (Rev. 21: 23.)
Lastly,
the mighty increase of the Jews is promised, for then shall be fulfilled to the
letter the promise to Abraham of the multitude of his seed. But as the spiritual and the natural Israel
shall then be united, the words of Procopius,
in his comment on the 21st verse,
are here added, Us, then, the people of the Church,
Christ himself justifieth by grace, and we are the planting of his hands, who hath grafted
us into the good olive-tree. At present,
indeed, during this age, the glory of the saints is hidden, but in the future,
the least of them shall rule over very many, in which prospect the saints
rejoicing say, He hath subjected the nations
unto us, and the people under our feet. And this shall take place, when I gather them
at my descent from heaven, and they shall be caught up in the clouds to meet me.
CHAPTER 61
The
commencing verses of this chapter were read by our blessed Saviour in the
synagogue at
But
that day of wrath to the world shall be a time of joy to his [redeemed and obedient]
people, Lift up your heads, for your redemption
draweth nigh. In accordance with
which are the views of Procopius,
who writes as follows: He declares also that he was anointed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord: thus intimating the time of his abode on earth as man,
wherein to those who came to him he afforded the light of day. For, as he is the Sun of righteousness,' a year is suitably accorded
to him. But, perhaps, it signifies the coming age, unto which he
hath deferred those promises of which he teaches, when neither the sun nor
the moon, but the Lord shall be thine
everlasting, light, wherefore it is called the year of the Lord, as
being enlightened by him; and the acceptable
year, or according to the other translators,
the year of approval, being the same as the day
of recompense, wherein men will receive the remuneration of their labours in this life. Till then his Church must mourn, especially in the Great Tribulation, as said
the Saviour, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the
days of the Son of Man (his kingdom), and shall
not see it; and then should they be told of the coming of some false
Christ, or prophet; but to prevent delusion, the Lord gives them the lightning
as the sign of his appearing. (Luke 17: 22.) So, on another occasion, he said, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?
but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and
then shall they fast. (Matt. 9: 15.)
Still more exactly parallel are our Lords words in
Then
shall the former desolations of
The
other promises of the chapter do not require explanation, but follow readily in
the train of the observations made above.
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