The closing chapters of the prophecy of Isaiah are as it were a revelation of Jesus Christ some 700 years before his birth. They are like a little preliminary Apocalypse, that points forward to that great and glorious crisis on which our hearts are set.
If we commence, say, at the 61st chapter, we have Christ himself as it were speaking by the Spirit in the prophet the words he quoted in the synagogue at Nazareth, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” And there he stopped, and gave the scroll back to the attendant, and said to those in the synagogue, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” But the next words written in the scroll were these: “And the day of vengeance of our God,” and that is the theme that is before us in the 63rd chapter.
“Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?” The answer in the 4th verse by the Saviour, the Mighty One, is this: “The day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.” For that we still look forward; but looking backward now for these 2,600 years and more, we note for our comfort and instruction and admonition that the purpose of God has so far been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ from that day forward; from that day when he said in Nazareth, “This scripture is this day fulfilled in your ears”; and that though the purpose of God has been thus fulfilled, it has for the most part been met with the same incredulity as that which greeted the Lord Jesus in Nazareth.
“All bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth,” yet within a few moments they were seeking to throw him over the precipice. Foreseeing that, he had said to them, “You will say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself; what things we have heard in Capernaum, do here in Nazareth.” “I tell you,” he said, “many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, but to none of them was the prophet sent but to Sidon, to a woman of Sarepta. Many lepers were in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was healed but Naaman the Syrian.” And what if, similarly, outsiders should hear and receive the Prophet of the highest, whilst his own citizens should treat him as Elijah and Elisha had long before been treated in that same countryside? So it very speedily came to pass. They recognised that he was “the carpenter”—a pleasant, engaging young man, but as for anything higher, they could not see that.
But now we look back for all that long space of time, and contemplate the context of that sixty-first chapter. What was then fulfilled causes confidence in the future; and what is that future? The prophet goes on to speak of a time of comforting for Zion’s mourners, of giving them “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;” and he adds, “They shall build the old wastes, they shall restore the desolations of many generations.” And there are the “old wastes,” and there are the “desolations,” and even the “city of the great king” is in the hands of the enemy, and defiled. Shall the word fail? By no means; what has been accomplished is the earnest of what will come.
And what more did the Spirit of Christ in Isaiah say of those who, like himself, should be rejected—like the prophets, like Moses, like David in the land beforehand—all outcasts in their day and generation? Here is what he said of them, “Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God; ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye shall have double”—that is, a corresponding recompence in glory— “and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.”
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
Now the Lord himself is the earnest of this, for the Spirit of Christ in Isaiah, speaking of Christ’s preliminary realisation of these things, said, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with a priestly crown, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.” Is he not that “clothed” One in the Apocalypse who is so revealed? Has he not entered into “salvation”? Is he not that heavenly “bridegroom” of whom John the Baptist spoke beforehand, saying, “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; I am the friend of the bridegroom?” Did he not say himself, “Can the children of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast in those days.” And did they not? But he was clothed with salvation—with righteousness. He was dead, but is alive for ever, and has the keys of hades and of death.
So we see how the past and the present converge in Christ in these prophecies. He is the firstfruits, and because he lives, this purpose of God will most certainly be fulfilled to the letter. He will return, and there will be revealed that “marriage of the Lamb;” and not only so, but as we read in the succeeding chapter (62nd), that marriage of the land. These two ideas are united, and in the 62nd chapter there is a most interesting and beautiful play upon the names of the Queens in the royal history of Judah. “Thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the hand of thy God,” that is, Zion and her land. Thou shalt no more be termed Azubah—Forsaken—neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah, for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.”
Now these names were in the history of Israel; Azubah was the mother of Jehoshaphat, and Hephzibah was the wife of Hezekiah, and mother of Manasseh. So these names would challenge Isaiah’s contemporaries; they were as well known as King George and Queen Mary are to us. And now after many years we find ourselves looking forward for this return of glory to the land—the marriage of the land, as well as of the Lamb. We find ourselves by the call of the gospel in the position of those watchmen of Zion, of whom the prophet speaks, “Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence; give him no rest until he establish, until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” We obey that. Whatever may be the case in the conventicles of Christendom, in Christadelphian meetings you will hear that prayer, and it is based upon the promise of God, and will most certainly be answered. It is for us, dear brethren and sisters, to remember our Lord Jesus Christ as the type to which all watchmen have to conform, that they may have part with him in the courts of Yahweh’s holiness.
THE VISION
Here is the vision—Christ returned, the bride united with him in immortal divine nature—one spirit, as Eve and Adam were one flesh, by the hand of God, and they are revealed as the Bride and the Messiah, in the courts of Yahweh’s holiness. That necessitates a revived temple in Jerusalem. We know that the prophets give us that picture: “O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.” That is the prophecy: it does not look like it now; all flesh is divided into followers of many superstitions, I suppose numerically the Buddhists have it—or the Moslems, I do not know. The Roman Catholics largely outnumber the Protestants; the Jews are a very small quantity, and as for the believers of the truth of God, they are not discernible. But that will all be altered. A little while ago, you know, and all existing generations were merely potentialities in the loins of their fathers. “All flesh” is a mere passing cloud, and when God arises in Christ, he will reduce the earth to submission to himself, as these prophecies by Isaiah declare: “Behold the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.”
About 800 years after Isaiah Christ said that of himself, when he revealed to John in the Isle of Patmos things that must come to pass thereafter; and the Revelation of Jesus Christ concludes with this same promise, “Behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be.” And when he comes again, then will be that “day of vengeance of which we read in the prophet.
EDOM
“Who is this that comes from Edom?” Why Edom? We know that in old times God was revealed in this country. In the days of the Exodus God brought His people out of Egypt by Moses, who was a type of Christ, and he said, “The Lord your God shall raise up unto you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren, like unto me.” God would put his words in his mouth, and would require obedience thereto, under pain of the divine displeasure. Moses bringing Israel out of Egypt through this countryside, into the land of God’s choice, which he sware to Abraham, was but a type of Christ, who, as a second Moses will bring Israel out, and as a second Joshua will give them “rest” in the land, upon the basis of the New Covenant; so that when we read these things, there is both a historical and prophetic aspect of the matter, and in both cases God makes himself “an everlasting name.”
What a tangible thing the truth is! These countries have a history; and we can study it, and their monuments convince us of its truth. Why, upon the borders of Edom, in Moab—it is not far away, you know—a while ago they unearthed “the Moabite Stone”—Mesha’s records of his exploits in the days of this prophet. It is a reality, not a mere myth or fable. Yet only the other day The Christadelphian was handed to a young man wise in his own conceit, and he made a comment on some of its pages, on “The Signs of the Times,” that they were quite interesting, they were “equal to Punch.” That is the state of the public mind; and there is even worse. Someone handed me a clip the other day, which gave “the Socialist creed,” actually said to be taught in many Socialist Sunday schools, and it consisted of a series of negations, compiled by Robert Blatchford: “I do not believe in a heavenly home; I do not believe in God the Father,” and so on. Very well; what does that matter? Shall their unbelief make the promise of God of none effect? Can they fly in the face of facts? Is not Edom there, with its monuments? Is not the nation that sojourned there still with us? Are they not, as the prophet said they should be, “desolate,” and in dispersion, and is not the country “old wastes” and “desolate”? It is so: it is flying in the face of facts to ignore and deny. No man can excommunicate God from His own world. There may be some slight excuse—not for the extreme form, but for the lesser forms of unbelief; for the truth has been so corrupted, and flesh and blood is naturally so oblique, that it is not to be wondered at. It takes the word of God strongly applied, to hew the human heart into anything like a similitude to the divine pattern; what wonder, when this is not applied, that flesh and blood is what it is?
FUTURE DAYS
The time will come when they will “know.” Egypt was not overcome by argument, but by fire, and pestilence, and sword. The greater “Sodom and Egypt” is not to be subdued by argument, but by the “blood of the wine-press.” “Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?” Stained garments—stained with blood, not his own blood, as some hymns have erroneously interpreted it, but the blood of the peoples, his enemies—not “people” in the singular, as the A.V. has it. Not the people of Israel— they have been in the wine-press long enough, it is the time of the Gentiles; it is that wine-press spoken of in the Apocalypse, out of which blood comes “to the horse bridles.” It is “the peoples”— “I will tread down the peoples in mine anger,” and they are getting ready for it; they are all burdening themselves with the Lord’s land; they have their schemes of empire and dominion, based altogether upon another idea than the divine. It is not “glory to God in the highest,” and then on earth peace and good-will among men, that animates the policies of Russia, Britain, Germany, France, and Austria—not a bit of it; it is the lust of dominion, pure and simple, and of wealth. This is a mercantile empire; “the merchants of Tarshish” say, “Go to, let us buy and sell, and get gain; let us build the biggest ships that earth has ever seen, and scour the remotest corners of the earth, and wax fat and kick, and ‘Britannia rule the waves’ for ever and ever, Amen!”
But that is not to be so; God has told us that He will “stain the pride of all glory,” and “the ships of Tarshish” among others, shall be humbled, and the remnant shall wait for God. That is the vision, then, that we have before us. Christ, who spoke in Nazareth all those hundreds of years ago, is now exalted to immortal nature at the Father’s right hand, awaiting the end of the vision in the “day of vengeance” which he would not then mention, but only the “acceptable year of the Lord.”
WHAT DOES IT SAY TO US?
Now to us, what does it all say? The apostle Paul afterwards writing to the Corinthians, and quoting another passage of Isaiah, says, “In an acceptable time have I heard thee,” and then says to the brethren, “Behold, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” And, dear brethren and sisters, it is not closed yet. “Behold, now is the accepted time,” it is for us now to rise up to a comprehension of these things and to obey the commandments of God in Christ, and look toward the day of recompense—the day of reward, and of vengeance upon the peoples who oppose the Lord Jesus Christ; and the type of it all is in the history of the Exodus of old, when God made himself an everlasting name in the days of Moses, which yet was but a type of those mightier works in Christ by which he will make himself an everlasting name on a greater scale, and reveal the kingdom of God which the Lord Jesus Christ preached.
Now in view of all these things, the remainder of the prophecy is made up of prayers and praises, and further revelations concerning this kingdom of God. The prophet prays: “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence.” In the 5th verse of the 64th chapter: “Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.”
WORKING RIGHTEOUSNESS
“Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness;” what is there in that? We look back to the days of Moses, and we see an interesting type. Moses had been away in a far country, but the day of vengeance upon Egypt drew on, and God sent Moses back from that far country to deliver Israel, and said, “Aaron thy brother shall come out to meet thee, and will be glad to see thee.” And so it was, that Moses being sent back to Aaron his brother, who was overjoyed at the sight of Moses, returned, and together they went back to Egypt, and proclaimed the name of God to Pharaoh. He would not receive it, but he was compelled to, so that at last, by reason of mighty judgments he let Israel go. Is not that a beautiful type? A greater than Moses is coming back again, and there are those who will be “glad to see him,” and whom he will be glad to see. He will make them “kings and priests unto God,” and with them he will proclaim the name of God to the nations, who will not hearken, but will be compelled to. And so Israel will be delivered, and at last the very Gentiles themselves.
And then in Christ’s own times and experiences there is another parallel—after he was crucified and raised from the dead. After he was raised, he met two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they were “glad to see him,” and how glad was he to see them, after having passed through that bitterness of death, And he commissioned them to bear the Father’s name—not particularly before old Egypt, but before Jerusalem and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth, a new “Sodom and Egypt” (Rev. 11.), and they did so. They proclaimed “the acceptable year of the Lord,” also warning all men that there was a day of vengeance to come; that God had appointed a day, as Paul told the Greeks, at Athens, in which he will “judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
TESTIMONY OF ISAIAH
And so they preached, and went their way, and died in the hope of these things; and their word, reduced to writing, has come down to us, and so we have, though they be absent, the very words of God calling to us instead. This was foreseen in the 65th chapter of Isaiah: —
“I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not; I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.”
That is, the Gentiles. What had we to do with it all? We were “without God, without hope, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,” and God revealed himself to such; but to Israel, “All day long have I spread forth my hands unto a rebellious and gainsaying people,” says Paul, quoting these things to the Romans.
And so it came to pass. While Israel was scattered the call of the Gentiles came, and so we find ourselves, dear brethren and sisters, gathered by this call to God’s kingdom and glory, looking for the new heavens and new earth of this same promise; waiting for the Father’s house of many mansions with which the vision of Isaiah the prophet closes, and of which our Lord Jesus Christ himself spoke. Could we have, as we thus gather together round this memorial bread and wine, stronger incentives than are presented in these glorious things, to hold fast the hope of everlasting life? We could not.
(1916). CC Walker, The Christadelphian, page 535–539.
