CHAPTER VIII.
Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ, Isaiah’s second representative son, is the subject of prophecy in the opening verses of the eighth chapter.
Like Cyrus afterwards, he was named by God before he was born, and the things that he should memorialise were specified. Much ingenuity has been expended in vain attempts to identify Maher-shalal-hash-baz with Immanuel. That there is a relation, and a close one, between the two men of sign is undeniable; but that the two names cover one and the same person is impossible. It is an advantage to trace the points of comparison and contrast in the case. Known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world ; and known unto Him are all human oppositions and perversions of His word, as the whole of the prophetic Scriptures testify. In this case the matter appears to be specially guarded. It is impossible to avoid being struck with the particular definition of sonship to Isaiah personally given in the opening verses of this eighth chapter.
“ Moreover, the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash- baz. And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess, and she conceived and bare a son. Then said the Lord unto me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” The first point of contrast then between Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, is that the former was to be a virgin’s son, while the latter was Isaiah’s son by the prophetess. Enlightened Israelites would never confound the two , they would know positively from the covenant God made with David, that Messiah would be at once a son of David and a Son of God, for the terms were: “ I will be his father, and he shall be my son.”
“ Write in a great roll with a man's pen ” (the same word stands for a graving tool), reminds us of the contrast between Immanuel and all others of Israel’s sons that is introduced both in the Mosaic law and the prophetic symbolism concerning him. Understanding from divinely enlightened Jewish teaching (Heb. xiii.) that Jesus is the antitypical altar, we remember the restriction of Ex. xx. 25: “ If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted, it.”
In haimony with this is the vision of Zech. iii. Joshua and his fellows, like Isaiah and his children, were men of sign. The angel’s words are : “ Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they are men of sign (margin), for behold I will bring forth my servant the Branch (i.e., Jesus, see Rev. xxii. 16), For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua ; upon one stone seven eyes ; behold I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.”
The same feature was exhibited to Daniel when Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation were revealed to him in answer to his prayer. “ Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image.” “ Forasmuch as thou sawest (this) ... the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter ” (Dan. ii. 34, 35).
So that, whether presented as the remover of iniquity, or the destroyer of the kingdoms of men, Immanuel, as his name imports, is of higher than human origin, even as Jesus said : “ I came down from heaven.” Those who would refer his paternity to Joseph—and it is these chiefly who confound the names of Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz—are guilty of polluting the altar, and giving the he to God.
Then the signification of the two names is very different. ‘‘God with us” is the equivalent of Immanuel, and “Speed the spoil, haste the prey” that of the other. The prophet’s son was not “ God with ” Israel or Judah. In his days God was not “ with ” the nation. He testified against them of impending judgment upon both the houses of Israel and the triumph of
Immanuel’s day belonged to a then remote future. Isaiah’s son was a sign of evil to the idolatrous northern kingdom, and Syria its equally offensive ally. “ Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria, shall be taken away before the king of Assyria ” (viii. 4).
By some who oppose the truth, these words are put against chapter vii. 16, and the attempt is made to treat both passages as dealing with precisely the same thing, that such treatment may pave the way for at least the suggestion that Immanuel and Maher-shalal- hash-baz are the same. But the words of chapter viii. 4 just quoted, are not the same as those of chapter vii. 16, which run, “ For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.” This is a larger matter than the fall of Damascus and Samaria before Tiglath-Pileser. These victories of the Assyrian king over Syria and Ephraim in the infancy of Isaiah's son, were but the earnest of "the departure of the two sovereignties that subsequently followed, and was a matter of ancient history before Immanuel’s time.
With reference to Ephraim, whose duration as a people was limited by the prophet (ch. vii. 8) to less than sixty-five years ; we are told in 2 Kings xvii. 24 that “ the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel,” who had been carried away captive. This would be the work of a later king of Assyria, long after Shalmaneser’s overthrow of Israel, and appears to mark the termination of the period specified.
The import of the name of Isaiah’s son having been defined, God spoke again to the prophet concerning the inroad of the king of Assyria. “ Forasmuch as this people (Israel) refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son. Now, therefore, behold the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the King of Assyria and all his glory ; and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks : And he shall pass through Judah ; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, Q Immanuel.” Shiloah was “ a fountain in the south of the valley of the Tyropfeon, between the upper and the lower parts of Jerusalem, from which flowed a little brook past Sion and Moriah, and was lost in the gardens south of Ophel.” It is mentioned in Nehemiah’s account of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem some 250 years later than Isaiah’s time. “ Shallum repaired the gate of the fountain . . . and the wall of the pool of Siloah, by the king’s garden ” (Neh. iii. 15).
Some years ago (in 1880), it was brought to mind by the discovery of an inscription in an underground conduit which fed the pool. The inscription was deciphered, and found to record the successful piercing of the conduit by bodies of miners beginning from each end and meeting in the middle. The date of the writing is supposed to coincide with Isaiah’s time. The Scriptures speak of some such engineering work on the part of Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 20). It is one of the many illustrations of the perfect agreement of “ The land and the Book ”
In the days of Jesus, the pool of Siloam was the scene of an interesting work of power in the case of the man born blind, whom he observed when leaving the temple after a sharp controversy with the Jews. He said that the man was an occasion for manifesting a work of God ; and having “ spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him : Go wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing ” (John ix. 7).
Then again, the name Shiloah of Is. viii. corresponds with that of Judah’s Lawgiver, in Jacob’s prophecy of “ the last days ” : “ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, for that Shiloh shall come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be ” (Gen. xlix. 10, Dr. Thomas translation). Jesus, “ the Apostle and High Priest of our profession,” spoke of himself as having been “ Sent ” : “ The Lord hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted ” (Isa. lxi. 1). This he quoted of himself in the synagogue at Nazareth. On another occasion, " he stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink. He that
believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive ” (Jno. vii. 37).
Looking back to Isaiah’s time, it is not difficult to see that Israel’s refusal of the waters of Shiloah was their rejection of the word of the Lord sent forth from Jerusalem by the faithful ministry of His servants the prophets From the beginning, the Kingdom of Ephraim was based upon apostasy from God. Jeroboam, fearing the ten tribes would return to the allegiance of the House of David, established an idolatrous system of his own devising, with centres of worship at Dan and Bethel (1 Kings xii. 29). And subsequent kings walked in the way of “ Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” Jeremiah, remonstrating later with the whole nation on the unheard of enormity of a nation changing its gods, said : “Be astonished, 0 ye heavens, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils ; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. . . . Now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor ? (the ‘ black and turbid ’ Nile) ; or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river ? ” (Jer. ii. 12, 18).
In sharp contrast with this national apostasy, and leaning on man instead of trusting in God, is David’s attitude expressed in Psa. xlii. 1-2, “As the heart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God : when shall I come and appear before God ? ” Nothing like this ardent desire for God was to be found in Israel in Isaiah’s days. They had long turned their backs upon Him, and made confederacy with a Gentile neighbour to destroy the house of David in which His covenant was established. But in vain :
“ Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son ; now, therefore, behold the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river strong and many, even the King of Assyria and all his glory.” Accordingly Tiglath-Pileser, as history tells us, slew Rezin, took Damascus, and, having conquered Syria, incorporated the country with his own dominion, and subdued also a great part of the kingdom of Israel.
which Shalmaneser and Sargon, his successors, finally overthrew. But Judah, though delivered from extinction at the hands of Syria and Ephraim, was not to escape. The word of the Lord continued .
“And he shall pass through Judah, he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck ; and the stretching forth of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel ” (verse 9). Bible history illustrates the fulfilment of the prediction. Although at first favourable to Ahaz, and later on severely checked at a certain crisis in the cutting off of Sennacherib’s army by an angel in a single night, the Assyrian prevailed against Judah till at last the kingdom of David was overturned by the Babylonian power with which the Assyrian had been incorporated by conquest.
That Immanuel should have a land does not harmonize with the fabulous notions that, in the name of Christianity, have so long prevailed against the truth. Palestine might pass away for ever in the imagined “ wreck of matter and crash of worlds,” without in the slightest degree disturbing the system of religion that has for centuries passed current as Christianity. How differently the matter really stands in the word of God, all know well who are enlightened by the truth.
Of the world at large, the word of God says : “ Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens ; God himself that formed the earth and made it ; he hath established it, he created it not in vain he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord ; and there is none else ” (Isa. xlv. 18). Inhabited, that is, eternally, by the redeemed, when “ Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation ” (verse 17), and when, unto Jesus, “ every knee shall bow ” (verse 23, interpreted by Paul in Rom. xiv. 11). This “ everlasting salvation ” of Israel is rooted in the promise to the fathers of the nation of everlasting life and land inheritance. Foremost in this divine purpose is Immanuel as the “ heir of all things.” Speaking of God’s promise to Abraham, Paul says, “ He saith not, And to seeds, as of many ; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ ” (Gal. iii. 16). Let anyone study attentively the last four verses of Genesis xiii., from which Paul’s quotation is made, and see if they can reconcile them with received ideas. If they do not at first discern the bearings of the matter, but suppose the temporary occupation of the land by Israel
under the law to fulfil the promise of “ eternal inheritance/’ let them study the apostolic comments on the case (Acts vii. 5 ; Rom. iv. 13 ; Heb. xi. 8-16, 39; Gal. iii. 16-29). Let them further trace the purpose of God in Israel, especially with reference to the “ everlasting covenant ” He made with David concerning Christ (2 Sam. vii. and xxiii. ; Acts ii. : xiii.) Let them realise that David is “ dead and buried,” and “ not ascended into heaven ; ” and that the land and city wherein he reigned are here with us, desecrated by the effete tyranny of the Turkish Empire, and ask themselves how, in accordance with received notions, is the everlasting covenant to be fulfilled ?
In nothing is Christendom more astray than in relegating Immanuel’s realm to ‘‘kingdoms beyond the skies.” God chose Palestine in the beginning, for the central land in which His kingdom should at length be established, and now, after nigh four thousand years, the wisdom of the choice is manifest to all who study the matter, and it is dimly perceived on all hands that the Holy Land is the pivot on which the destinies of nations turn. Moses reminded Israel that it was a land that the Lord their God cared for continually (Deut. xi. 12), and God said by Moses that even when it should have long lain desolate and forsaken because of their iniquities, if they would turn to Him He would in the end “ remember the land ” and reinstate them (Lev. xxvi. 42). The prophets are full of the same divine purpose, as Isaiah will further illustrate. The scattering and desolation, rightly considered, is but the earnest of the gathering and the glory. This is expressly declared (Jer. xxxi. 10 ; xxxii. 42).
The future vindication of the land by divine intervention is introduced by Isaiah simultaneously with the decree of its overflowing by the Assyrian flood. His words continue : “Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; and give ear all ye of far countries; gird yourselves and ye shall be broken in pieces ; gird yourselves and ye shall be broken in pieces Take counsel together and it shall come to nought, speak the word and it shall not stand, for (lmma-nu-el) God is with us” (verses 9-10).
However outrageous it may seem, and however repugnant it may be to popular Christianity, nothing is clearer in the Scriptures than the fact that Immanuel has a controversy with the nations concerning his land. Cast out of his inheritance and slain eighteen hundred years ago by the power of the adversary, “ when Jew and Gentile joined their power,” he was raised from the dead and taken up to heaven by the Father, “ henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” The nations are “ his inheritance ” and the uttermost parts of the earth “ his possession ” (Ps. ii. 8). Just as the first two verses of this second Psalm found a preliminary and literal fulfilment in the days of his weakness (Acts iv. 25), so will they and the remainder of it find full, literal, and glorious fulfilment in the day of his power. There is a time for everything : a time for his enemies to prevail against him, and a time for him to prevail against his enemies : a time for the rod of transgressors to smite the judge of Israel (Mic. v. 1) and a time for his “ iron rod ” to break them to pieces (Ps. ii. 9). Who but his enemies can object to this ?
This language of Isaiah viii. 9-10 is almost a reproduction of that of the second Psalm. The picture is that of a wide-spread and powerful confederacy of “ peoples ” on the one hand, and God and a certain “ us ” on the other hand, in controversy in the Lord’s land, concerning the Sovereignty of the world centred in the city of Jerusalem. The issue has long been revealed : the breaking to pieces of the enemy, the triumphant enthronement in Zion of God’s glorious King, and the subjugation in blessedness to Him of all the earth. The “ us ” on the Lord’s side is not indeterminate nor confined to Israel. The Gospel of the Kingdom calls to “ whosoever will ” to take part in the wonderful work. There is no mistake about it. Christ’s own words of promise preclude the possibility of error : “ He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I have received of my Father ” (Rev. ii. 26).
But note well the conditions : “ Overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end.” As might be supposed, such God-like powers are fenced with close restrictions ; and all unfitness is for ever excluded. But while there is absolutely no room for self-complacency; we must not swing to the other extreme, and declare, or at least esteem it to be unattainable. Christ has overcome (Rev. iii. 21) and he invites us to “ consider him.” Is he high above us, although once a wearer of our nature ? There are others—-men of like passions with ourselves—who have overcome, and are approved beforehand. Of them are Elijah (Jas. v. 17) and the prophets (v. 10), the twelve apostles (Matt. xix. 28), and “ a great cloud of witnesses ” of wlqom the world was not worthy.
For the most part of the humblest extraction, unspoiled by the pride engendered by “ philosophy and vain deceit,” being enlightened by the Word and “ made perfect through sufferings,” men have been developed in all ages of the past, in whom God takes pleasure, and whom at last He will “ beautify with salvation.” Of their estate when thus beautified it is written : “ Let the saints be joyful in glory ; let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises (or rather commands—compare Deut. xviii. 18-19) of God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hand ; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people ; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron ; to execute upon them the judgment written.This honour have all his saints ” (Ps. cxlix. 5-9). A “Christianity” that has no room among its doctrines for “ this honour ” is manifestly self-condemned.
It is now about 2,500 years since God brought upon Israel and Judah “ the waters of the river strong and many.” Our far-distant generation, that was then in the womb of futurity, now looks back upon the history of “ the land the rivers have spoiled.” The “ remnant ” that belongs to Immanuel, with eyes enlightened by him, regards it with wonder and thanksgiving ; and with faith and hope of His coming glorious intervention. He, too, has spoken of the " waters of the river.” But how differently from Isaiah, in the days of Ahaz. After the final scattering of Israel, when the measure of their iniquity had been filled up in his crucifixion, he revealed a “ drying up ” of those once “ strong and many ” waters, as a sign of the imminence of his return to his land and the manifestation to the astonished earth of a new order of kings of his appointment “ by right divine.”
His people do not require to be told where this is set forth : “ The sixth angel poured out his vial (full of “ the wrath of God ”)
upon the great river Euphrates and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared ” (Rev. xvi. 12). And concurrently with this and other developments—“ Behold I come as a thief ! ” (verse 15). The territory of the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian power has for many centuries past been occupied by the Turkish power, whose origin, as Jesus foretold (Rev. ix. 14), was in the Euphratean countries ; and which has “ spoiled,” and is spoiling the land of Israel to this day.
For about a century past the decline of this power has been a notable “ sign of the times ” and is now a fact so obvious that the matter has become a proverb, and “ the sick man ” is only preserved in being, by the mutual jealousies of the Powers who hope to inherit his most desirable though “ spoiled ” estate. They gather round with all manner of conflicting “ counsel.” Is there a place in it all for Immanuel and the “ kings of the east ” ? Imagine the derisive smiles that would greet the introduction of any such claims in any conference of the Powers that be ! No, they are the other parties to the controversy of Zion ; and though the Turkish power waning is a sign of Immanuel’s coming, there is yet another inroad of the “Assyrian ” before the matter is finally settled,
“ This man (the Bethlehem-born Ruler of Israel) shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men ” (Mic. v. 5). These are some of “ the kings of the east.” The latter-day Assyrian is the King of the North (the Russian Power). His following, and his conquering career, and final overthrow by Christ on the mountains of Israel, are the subjects of divine revelation by the prophets. Thus Ezekiel tells of the nations that shall be in his “ company ” when God brings him “ in the latter days ” against the mountains of Israel, “ that he may be made known in the eyes of many nations ” (Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix.).
Daniel tells of his “ overflowing and passing over ” into the glorious land, and of his planting the tabernacles of his palace between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain, and of his coming to his end with none to help him, in the epoch of the standing up of “ Michael the great prince,” and the resurrection of the dead (Dan. xi. 40 and Ch. xii.).
Isaiah, speaking of the fall of Babylon, has a word in Ch. xiv. concerning the fate of the Assyrian of the latter days. “ The Lord of Hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely, as I have thought so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand ; that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot; then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders ” (verses 24-25).
This has never come to pass The yoke of the Assyrian is still heavy upon the neck of Israel, and his burden well nigh intolerable upon their shoulders. It is this indeed that is the proximate cause of the latter day Israelitish movement that has “ Zionism ” for its title and the mountains of Israel for its objective as a “ legally assured home ” for its persecuted and hopeless multitudes. But vain is the help of man. “ There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”
It is Immanuel’s work altogether. “ Refused ” like “ the waters of Shiloah ” for long ages, he has withdrawn himself while the guilty nation has been overwhelmed by the enemy, and while, consequent on their rejection, the Gentiles have provided an elect remnant that have accepted his divine invitation : “ Come unto me and drink.” But the time cf his absence is almost at an end, and presently Isaiah, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, and the many that shall come from the North, South, East, and West, will rejoice in the frustration of the counsel of all the enemy, which “ shall not stand for God is with us.”
Then Isaiah tells how God required him to stand aside from the apostate people, as a sign of what Immanuel’s attitude would afterwards be among the apostates of his day :—
“ The Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not a confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy, neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself ; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” Here is complete separation from the national apostasy emphatically commanded by God. No brotherhood with those who departed from the law of God was to be thought of by the prophet. His eye was to be on God, and the family of the redeemed that should at last be manifested gloriously in Israel. We know by our own experience the difficulties of such a calling, and the amount of faith and patience it necessitates, and hence can sympathise with the prophets in theii trials, and, if we hold fast, shall be able to rejoice with them in salvation.
The past history of Israel contains many illustrations of a faithfully-maintained separation between the service of God and the corruptions of apostasy. Thus Elisha, when, at the request of Jehoshaphat, he was summoned before Jehoram concerning the Moabite war, said to him : “ What have I to do with thee, get thee to the prophets of thy father ... As the Lord of Hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee ” (2 Kings iii. 13). And even then he was so vexed that the soothing strains of a minstrel were necessary before he could prophesy of the victory that was coming.
Micaiah, the son of Imlah, hated by Ahab because of his prophesying evil concerning him, indignantly refused the admonition of the false prophets to trim his message, and speak smooth things ; and faithfully repudiated them and their lies, pronouncing Ahab’s doom in the impending battle. In this he encountered smiting and imprisonment, but would have the satisfaction of seeing the word of God proved true in the event foretold.
“ The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin ” were rejected in their advances by Zerubbabel and the chiefs of the Restoration, when they said, “ Let us build with you.” There was no place in their fraternity for the co-operation of these Samaritan apostates. “Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God,” said they to them ; and, as a consequence, had to encounter the misrepresentation and opposition of their wounded ambition. These people were the successors of those with whom now Isaiah was forbidden by God “ with a strong hand ” to fraternise.
The New Testament Scriptures exhibit the same command of separateness to God, and the approval of such an attitude faithfully maintained. Thus Paul writes to the Corinthians : “ Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers ; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? And what communion hath light with darkness ? And what concord hath Christ with Belial ? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty ” (2 Cor. vi. 14-18).
The faithful following out of the course of action here commanded, will soon bring a man into sympathy with the prophets and the temple-builders of the Restoration period that followed the Babylonian captivity. He will be beset with much specious argument ; for the sons of Belial never own up to their true character. It will perhaps be admitted that many evils and corruptions exist among present day ecclesiastical communities, but it will be the advice that these ought not to be protested against by so energetic a measure as “ coming out ’’ and being “ separate.”
The late Mr. Laurence Oliphant, who went the round of many “ isms,” finding no rest for the sole of his foot, at length took refuge in a device of his own heart which he styled “ Scientific Religion,” which was in reality a kind of conglomerate of Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Jewish superstition. In one part of his book with the above title he says, when speaking of “ The Evils of Compromise ” : “ Those who, perceiving the glaring evils attached to the ecclesiastical system with which they are connected, are impelled by their conscience to believe that they can best remedy those evils by remaining within its pale, and working for its reform from within, are bound to follow that guidance : and may rest satisfied that in doing so they are carrying out the will of God, as certainly as others to whom a different message is conveyed by the same still small voice ; both may be the voice of God, though the message to each may be different—for abuses may be attacked from within as effectually as from without.”
This is the sort of thing that the present day “ brethren of the prophets ” have to encounter in their endeavours to conform to the will of God. They know how to meet it. The voice of conscience is
not the voice of God. The voice of conscience said to Saul of Tarsus : “ Bind and imprison the Nazarenes.” The voice of God in Christ Jesus said : “ Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? ” The voice of conscience in Peter said to Christ concerning the crucifixion : “ Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee.” The voice of God in Christ replied : “ Get thee behind me, Satan ; thou art an offence unto me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” The voice of God has commanded separation from corruptions and corrupters of His way from the earliest times, and if the voice of conscience does not coincide, it is because it is unillumined by the word of God, the entrance of which “ giveth light.”
Isaiah, enlightened and strengthened with the word which the Lord “ spake to him with a strong hand,” stood out from all fellowship with apostate Israel, a fitting type of Christ in the attitude he maintained toward the “ evil generation ” in the midst of which he testified the truth in his day. Isaiah was encouraged to lean on God only, who in Christ Jesus would afterwards be for “ a sanctuary,” although " for a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to both the houses of Israel.”
Immanuel, a Sanctuart.
A sanctuary is a place of God’s appointment where He is manifested for approach in worship and praise. Moses was commanded by God to receive of the children of Israel an offering of many things divinely specified in Ex. xxv., and God said : “ Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” And we have abundant details of specification for the construction of the tabernacle, the materials for which being liberally provided by the Children of Israel, were put together by the skilful workmen of God’s raising up. under the guidance and superintendence of Moses.
Stringent laws regulated all the service of the sanctuary ; the breach of them being punishable with death, as in the case of Nadab and Abihu, and the cutting off denounced against any one who should fail to offer the blood at the door of the tabernacle. Paul instructed the Hebrews of his day that these Mosaic ordinances were but “ patterns of things in the heavens,” and that the Lord Jesus was “ a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man.”
The understanding of these sayings is the key to the meaning of the word of the Lord to Isaiah : “ He shall be for a sanctuary.” The Eternal Father, when the time came for the manifestation of Immanuel, raised up a Son of David by His spirit according to His promise, in whom He dwelt among the children of Israel, and in whom alone, after the way into the holiest was made known by the blood of Christ, He accepted the worship and offerings of such as “ came unto God by him.”
“ God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” So says Paul to the Corinthians. “ By him let us therefore offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased ” (Heb. xiii. 15). Israel of old made the mistake of supposing that they could reject Jesus and still retain God’s favour. “ Give God the praise,” said they to the blind man whom Jesus had healed, “ we know this man is a sinner.” ” We know God spake unto Moses : as for this fellow we know not from whence he is.” But the man pointed to his opened eyes; and Jesus said: “ Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me : for he wrote of me. But if ye bebeve not his writings, how shall ye believe my words ? ”
The attitude of Christendom is no more defensible than that of ancient Israel. Professing Christ’s service, as Israel professed admiration for Moses, they reject his commandments. Tried by the standard of these, Christendom appears in the attitude of worshippers outside the sanctuary. Indeed, this is Christ's own figure in Rev. xi- I "2—-a rod of affliction for “ the temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein,” and the outer court, unmeasured and given over to the Gentiles. The terms of the Gospel are, “ He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved : ” and the attempt to evade any part of them is simply a “ climbing up some other way,” which Jesus says is the act of a thief and a robber. Just as Aaron and his sons were in their consecration brought to the door of the tabernacle and washed with water (Ex. xxix.); so those who come unto God in the true tabernacle ” must approach by “ the washing of water by the word ” (Eph. v. 26), “ the washing of regeneration ” (Titus iii. 5). Believing the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and being “ baptized unto Christ,” they are in the position spoken of by the apostle (Heb. x. 19) : “ Having therefore brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh ; and having an high priest over the house of God ; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” Those who maintain that it is senseless bigotry to contend for “ forms and creeds,” and who make light of God’s ordinances, are in the position of the despisers in Israel of old, and will be “ cut off ” without remedy. The insistence upon this truth, and the faithful maintenance of the divinely drawn distinction between “ in Christ,” and “without,” develops all the enmity that inevitably exists between the “ carnal mind ” and the mind of God. It matters not to the people of Christ. They are in good company : they take the prophets for an example, and even their Lord Himself. The purpose of God will stand when “ every plant that the Father hath not planted ” shall have been rooted up.
It was said that “ the Lord of hosts ” besides being “for a sanctuary ” should be “ for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared and be taken.” However undiscernible this may be to scattered Israel, who still have the words of the prophets in all their synagogues, it is plain enough to the outsiders who in the mercy of God have come unto their ‘ sanctuary.” Simeon, at the birth of Jesus, prophesied concerning him in harmony with Isaiah’s words. He said to Mary : Behold this
child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against ” (Lu. ii. 34).
Jesus himself afterwards amplified this, when he emphasised the parable of the vineyard and the slain heir, by the quotation from Psalm cxviii., concerning “ the stone which the builders rejected. He said : “ Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder (Matt. xxi. 44).
Some fell on him who were broken (as Peter and Paul were, and as, indeed, he himself was), but who will “ rise again ”. Others stumbled fatally over him, being “ offended.” “ Whence hath he this wisdom and these mighty works ? ” said they, listening to his parables and seeing his miracles, “ Is not this the carpenter’s son ? ” “And they were offended in him ” (Matt. xiii. 54). John the Baptist, in the misery of imprisonment, having heard of the works of Christ, sent two of his disciples to Jesus, saying, "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another ? Jesus sent back the messengers as eyewitnesses of his mighty works, to reassure John, adding, “ Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” John would doubtless be revived by this, and the time of his further sojourn was mercifully shortened by the executioner’s sword.
Paul, in Rom. ix. 32, makes application of the prophecy of Is.
- 14 to Christ. He says Israel “sought not righteousness by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone ; as it is written. Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling- stone and rock of offence ; and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. And in 1 Cor. i. 23, he alludes to his preaching a crucified Messiah as being “ unto the Jews a stumbling-block.” Peter goes further : he diagnoses the reason of the stumbling. His words are : “ Unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient ” (1 Pet. ii. 8). All stumbling at the appointments of God is traceable to disobedience. “ Great peace have they which love thy law, and they shall have no stumbling- block.” So says the Psalmist (Psa. cxix. 165). All Wisdom’s words “ are in righteousness ; there is nothing froward nor perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge ” (Prov. viii. 8-9).
It would be a woeful mistake to suppose that Christ is a stone of stumbling to Israel only. He is such to the disobedient of all generations whither his name has come. Christendom has stumbled over him as badly as Israel of old, as they will discover when his day of “ grinding to powder ” is manifested. Disobedient Israel, with false anticipations of kingly glory not based on the sacrificial declaration of God’s righteousness in a crucified Messiah, rejected him in that phase of his work. Christendom under the influence of pagan doctrines has subverted the truth concerning his sacrifice, and left no place at all upon earth for the kingdom and glory that is to follow. In the first century some stumbled at the fundamental truth that “ Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,” and from that day to this, men have repeated the history of their folly. Others stumble over his commandments, declaring them to be impossible and impracticable. Others again stumble over his hard sayings as to his divine origin and relation to the Father. But in all general tions since his manifestation there has been a remnant who, having found in him the Sanctuary of the Lord of Hosts, have not been offended in him ; but having through faith and obedience entered into him as into the holy place, have there abode till the end of their mortal career, and will, in the day of his manifestation, be made pillars in the temple of God, and go no more out (Rev. iii. 12.
It was said that he should be a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to both the houses of Israel. When he appeared, the ten- tribed kingdom of Ephraim had long passed away, as the prophet had foretold, and the descendants of the restoration of Judahs captivity from Babylon were those who took offence at him. There appears thus to be a future application of the prophecy to the lost ten tribes.” They have never seen those works of power that left Judah inexcusable for his rejection. It will be a feature of the restoration of Israel that they are similarly put to the proof.
There was nothing in the external appearance and bearing of
Jesus to indicate to a casual observer in Jerusalem eighteen hundred
years ago, that the guileless man who went about among them doing good, was “ for a gin and a snare to them.” Things are not always what they seem. The enemy who triumphed over him, and at last cut off his life from the earth, did not dream that in thus carrying out their evil work to their own entire satisfaction, they were rea ly walking into a death-trap of agony unspeakable. And yet the awful experiences of that generation exemplified the prophecy. Rows of crucified wretches round the doomed city were exhibited by the Romans (till the wood for making crosses gave out), that they might
intimidate the defenders to cease their useless and exasperating opposition. All in vain ; with almost superhuman madness and obstinacy they persevered. They mocked at the prophets, and in the midst of famine, pestilence, sedition, and assassination within the city, and the iron grip of the implacable foe without, they perished like wild beasts in hundreds of thousands.
“ Touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm,” saith the word of God. “ He that toucheth you, O Zion, toucheth the apple of his eye.” The Anointed of God, His city and His saints, are not “ disallowed,” “ touched,” rejected and slain without consequences. There is a heavy debt accumulated by the world in its treatment of Christ’s people and Israel. Jerusalem had her turn when in the horrors of the overthrow which Christ foretold, God avenged the insult of His rejection by “ destroying those murderers, and burning up their city.” Next time it is to be Rome, the “ great city ” of the Gentiles : “ Rejoice over her thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her ” (Rev. xviii. 20). ‘‘As a snare ” it is coming, and the only place of safety is on the side of those who, like Isaiah of old, have come out and are separate from the apostate system, and “ sanctify the Lord of hosts himself ” in the “ Sanctuary ” of his appointment.
Isaiah and his Sons ; Signs and Wonders in Israel.
“ Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold I, and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of Hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion ” (verses 16-18).
From Paul’s quotation in Heb. ii. 13, in which he applies the above quoted words to Jesus and his brethren, we perceive in this word of God to Isaiah an illustration of the phenomenon referred to by Peter when he spoke of “ the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets.” They were “ men of sign,” and often represented in the lives and actions some characteristics of Christ, to whom they belong, as his children, in “ the restitution of all things.”
The crisis of judgment, in the overthrow of the Jewish State in the lifetime of the generation that rejected Immanuel, having been revealed ; what was to become of the “ oracles of God,” of which, to their great advantage (Rom. iii. 2), the Jews had, by the divine favour, become the custodians ? Was the faith of God to perish from the earth with the hiding of God’s face from the house of Jacob ?
The answer to these questions is contained in the words that immediately follow—verse 16—“ Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” That is God’s disciples, and, in Immanuel s days, the disciples of Jesus. There would be a “ remnant ” faithful in Israel, as Isaiah had already testified. And there would be a great provoking of Israel by the extension of God’s kindness in the Gospel invitation to “ those which were not a people ”—to the “ foolish nation ” outside Israel, as Moses had testified ages before (Deut. xxxii. 21). The leading characteristic of these “ disciples ” of the “ remnant ” of Israel and from among the Gentiles, would be the exact opposite, with regard to “ the law and the testimony,” from that of the ensnared, fallen, and broken stumblers. Of these the prophet had said (ch. v. 24), “As the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” Of His “ disciples,” God says : “ To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word ” (Isa. lxvi. 2).
Foremost among these, as head of the one body, is Immanuel himself, who was the Word made flesh, and upon whom the spirit of the Lord rested, making him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. In him, personally and centrally, the law and testimony are bound up and sealed. “ Of his fulness,” says John, have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” “ All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.” So wrote Paul to the Corinthians. God “ openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction ” said F.iihn to Job ; and Jesus declared himself to be the subject of this divine sealing. Rebuking the multitudes that followed him foi
the sake of the loaves and fishes, he said : “ Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you : for him hath God the Father sealed (Jno. vi. 27). But when he interpreted the bread to be his flesh, they stumbled, and even the “ disciples,” in that early stage of discipleship, declared it to be “ a hard saying.”
But these being men of humble and contrite spirit, he rallied them, saying, Doth this offend you ? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before ? It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life ” (verses 61-63). And afterwards they did see the Son of Man ascend, and being by the promise of the Father sealed by the Spirit in like manner, but in less degree to their royal Master, the law and the testimony was bound up and sealed in them. Paul blesses God for this in writing to the Ephesians. He alludes to the apostolic standing in Christ, “ that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation : in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance ” (Eph. i. 12).
Thus, the disobedient in Israel having stumbled and fallen, the new wine of the gospel was put into new bottles, and both were preserved. The relation of the “ disciples ” to the substance shadowed by the law is alluded to by Paul more than once. Thus he says to the Romans that God sent His Son . . . and “ condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit ” (Rom. viii 4). And to the Philippians (ch. iii. 3) • “ We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
“ Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. x. 4). And “ the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Equipped with the law and the testimony, the “ disciples ” of Jesus went forth “ conquering and to conquer,” and by it, as the sword of the Spirit,” planted his name victoriously in the earth. Their description by the spirit of God in all the dark ages of the conflict that rages during his absence, is in harmony with
Isaiah’s prophecy. It is recorded in Rev. xiii. 17, which describes them as “ the remnant of the woman’s seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
In this attitude they have always, like the prophet, waited upon the Lord : “ I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.” The Lord Jesus in this, as in all things, is the foremost example. It had been testified of him in the Psalms that this should be his attitude : “ I have set the Lord always before me ; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved ” (Psa. xvi. 8). And in the crisis of his death at the hands of Israel, when the Lord’s face was averted from the nation in the time of their filling up the measure of their iniquity, he cried : “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But the forsaking was only for a moment. On the third day the Father raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures, and a little while afterwards removed him from the earth to His own right hand, until the time should come for his reappearance in the house of Israel in the latter days.
In all the centuries since the Lord’s departure from the earth, the waiting remnant has preserved the same attitude. They have known and believed God’s promise, that He will return in mercy to Israel; and, therefore, the “ long time ” of His silence and of “ hiding his face from the house of Jacob ” has not stumbled them. They are visible in this waiting attitude in the apostolic epistles as well as in the prophets. Thus we see Paul writing to the Thessalonians: “ Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.” Isaiah’s words, “ I will wait upon the Lord ... I will look for him,” in the New Testament illustration of them in the attitude of the disciples of Christ, resolve themselves into this : “ I will obey the commandments of God in Christ Jesus, and await his return from heaven.” Throughout all the New Testament scriptures, nothing is plainer than this ; and in nothing is Christendom more evidently astray, than in the universal ignorance and indifference that prevails concerning the matter of Christ’s relation to “ the house of Jacob,” and the one “ hope of Israel ” with which it is so inseparably bound up.
Isaiah, in a later chapter that deals with the future song of salvation to be heard in the land of Judah, speaks of this waiting attitude : “In the way of thy judgments 0 Lord have we waited for thee: the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night ; yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early : for when thy judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness ” (Isa. xxvi. 8). “ In the way of thy judgments ”—that is the qualification of the waiting. Not in idleness and indifference ; but in enlightened and enterprising and faithful service, knowing that the evil “ night ” is short, and that the day of glory that is coming is everlasting. Of the day in which death is swallowed up in victory the prophet further says (ch. xxv. 9), “ It shall be said in that day, Lo this is our God ; we have waited for him and he will save us : this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” But of course this “ shall be said ” only by those who can truthfully affirm that they have thus waited, for none others will be permitted to taste the sweetness of victory when “ mortality shall be swallowed up of life.”
When this day of glory dawns upon the world, the signs and wonders of which the spirit spoke by Isaiah (viii. 18), wiil be manifested in Israel. “ Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of Hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.” This is one of the many beautiful instances in the Scriptures of divine double intention, that is of the word having both a proximate and more remote object and fulfilment. The more remote and concealed application of the words is revealed to us by Paul’s quotation in Heb. ii. 13, in which he refers them to Jesus, in the world to come, having once tasted of death, but then surrounded by the “ many sons ” whom he shall have “ brought unto glory ” by his perfect obedience. The proximate application was to Isaiah’s own times. He and his two sons were men of sign, both to that generation and all generations to come ; and all three were related most intimately to Immanuel who was to come.
Isaiah means Salvation of Yah, and thus agrees with the name of Jesus (Saviour) : “ Thou shalt call his name Jesus,” said the angel Gabriel to Mary, before his conception, “ for he shall save his people from their sins ” (Matt. i. 21). Isaiah represented proximately to Ahaz and the House of David, the salvation of Judah from Syria and
Ephraim, and, remotely, that greater and “ eternal salvation ” that should be manifested in Judah by Immanuel, “ unto all them that obey him.” Shear-jashub, the name of Isaiah’s eldest son, means, The Remnant shall return. He was the representation proximately of the return of the captivity of Judah by the princes of Ephraim at the expostulation of the prophet Oded (2 Chron. xxviii.), a beautiful and touching incident. And, remotely, he was a sign of that more glorious return of a ransomed “ remnant ” in the latter days, for thus saith the Lord: “I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning : afterward, thou shalt be called, the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and they that return of her with righteousness ” (Isa. i. 26). Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the name of the prophet’s second son, means, “ Speed the spoil: haste the prey.” He was a sign, proximately, of the seizure of the “ spoil ” and “ prey ” of Damascus and Samaria (the capitals of the confederated Kingdoms of Syria and Ephraim at enmity with the house of David), by the King of Assyria. But, being, as Paul shows, one of the representatives of “ the children ” whom the Father hath given Immanuel, he is likewise, more remotely, a figure of the speeding to the spoil and hasting to the prey that pertains to Immanuel and his children.
What ! sav the pious professors of the name of “ another Jesus,” do you mean to say that the Lord Jesus will take “ spoil ” and “ prey ” ? Why, yes. Have you never read in theScriptures, “ I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong ; because he hath poured out his soul unto death ” ? Would you deprive him of the fruits of victory ? If so, are you not on the side of his enemies ? And where will you be when he appears ? Listen to the law and the testimony. “ The nations thine inheritance ... the uttermost parts of the earth thy possession ” (Psa. ii. 8). “ This is the heir : come let us kill him, that the
inheritance may be ours.” So said the wicked husbandmen of Israel (Luke xx. 14). “ Wait ye upon me (all ye meek of the earth), saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey : for my determination is to gather the nations that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger : for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy ” (Zeph. iii. 8). “ Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ” (Jesus). “Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his ! How long ? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay ! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them. Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee ; because of men’s blood and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein ” (Hab. ii. 7-8). “ The merchandise of Tyre and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord : it shall not be treasured nor laid up ; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the Lord, to eat sufficiently and for durable clothing ” (Isa. xxiii. 18). “ Arise, shine, O Zion, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. . . . The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the wealth of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. . . . Thy gates shall be open continually ; they shall not be shut day nor night ; that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted ’’ (Isa. lx.).
So then God will “ rise up to the prey,” when the Lord Jesus, “ the heir of all things,” who once was slain and cast out of the inheritance, returns. By the indwelling of “ the Power of the Highest,” he will gather round him “ the children whom God hath given him.” Most of them are “ asleep in the dust of the earth ” ; but, being “ the Resurrection and the Life,” he will cause them to “ awake,” and “ rise up suddenly,” and after investiture with immortality they will, under him, take possession by conquest of “ the prey,” “ the spoil,” the “ booties,” “ the wealth of the Gentiles” which they will consecrate to the service of Jehovah in Mount Zion. All this, though absolutely and irreconcilably at variance with the “ Christianity ” of the churches and chapels, is nevertheless in harmony with “ all that the prophets have spoken,” and which Jesus says men are “ fools ” not to believe.
What depth of folly is equal to that which transforms the glory of the kingdom of God into the imaginary realms of bliss of popular theology? What “strong delusion ” is like unto that which, disregarding the great salvation of which the Lord Jesus Christ, in the glory and incorruptibility of spirit nature, is now the visible and tangible example and earnest, rejoices in the supposed translation at death of “ immortal souls ” to kingdoms beyond the skies ? The glory of the Lord and His signs and wonders are to be “ in Israel ” when “ the Lord of Hosts dwelleth in Zion.” “ The word of the truth of the gospel ” defines the matter to be very real and tangible, much more so indeed than the present occupation of the earth by “ vapour-lifed ” flesh and blood which “ passeth away.” “ The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” God, who created the earth, has given it to Christ, who is the “ heir of all things.” The world for Christ, is the divine rule, co-rulership with him for the saints, Palestine for the Jews, Jerusalem for the Great King, blessedness for the nations in their being joined to the Lord in that day, after his judgments have taught them righteousness.
Look at Zion in those days and we see by the eye of faith “ signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of Hosts." The heathen have ceased out of the land. The Lord has caused the false prophets, and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land (Zech. xiii. 2). No longer do the mummeries and superstitions of Greek and Roman Catholicism, Mohammedanism and kindred abominations desecrate the Holy City. The Lord hath inheiited Judah his portion in the Holy Land, and hath chosen Jerusalem again. All flesh is silent before Him and He is raised up out of His holy habitation (Zech. ii.). He dwells in the midst of Zion with songs of rejoicing. He is manifested there, upon the throne of the Lord over Israel, in an immortal King—the central “ Sign and Wonder ” of Israel and all the earth. His name is “ Wonderful ” far beyond what it was in the days of his flesh. He was Immanuel even then, though born of a woman, and crucified through weakness. Much more is he Immanuel now—“ declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.” “ In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” All power in heaven and earth is his.
He is surrounded with a glorious company of immortals in which Isaiah and “ all the prophets,” and “ the ancients of Israel gloriously,” find place. “ Behold I, and the children whom God hath given me!” It is the doing of the Lord of Hosts; the design and handiwork of the Creator of all things. “ This people have I formed for myself ; they shall show forth my praise.” It is the Father’s “ House of many mansions ” at length manifested upon earth, architecturally and politically. The Lord Jesus spoke truly, “ If it were not so, I would have told you.” He would not have mocked us with vain hopes. He did not, and now it has come to pass. “ This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.” This is that which was spoken of the Spirit by David, who now sees his throne and kingdom established for ever before his face, as the Lord hath sworn : “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” “ How doth David by the Spirit call him Lord ? ” Ah, it is all very manifest now, in the presence of these “ signs and wonders. For a long time most of them silent sleepers in the dust of the earth, they have “ come forth unto life ” at the voice of Him who is the resurrection and the life. God has “ shown wonders to the dead.” They have arisen and praise Him, and become “ wonders in Israel ” ; over all the earth.
“ But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour ; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of One : for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, “ I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children whom God hath given me ” (Heb. ii. 8-13).
Witchcraft and Necromancy condemned by “ this Word.”
A prominent feature of Israel’s apostasy, with which Isaiah was not to be confederate, was witchcraft and necromancy, which the Spirit of God foresaw would prevail in some form or other until the day of the manifestation of the Sons of God in Zion. It was specially forbidden in the law, and the history of the nation contained some striking examples of the breach of the law having been punished with death. The word of God by Isaiah concerning this matter, in ch. viii. 19, was : “ When they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep (whisper), and that mutter : Should not a people seek unto their God ? For the living (should they seek) unto the dead ? To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
The law was plain : it said (Ex. xxii. 18), “ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” “ The soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits 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. A man 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 ” (Lev. xx. 6, 26). “ Thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations (that defile the land of promise). 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 ” (Deut. xviii. 9-12).
The examples of the judgment that came upon transgressors were striking. Israel in the wilderness “joined themselves to Baal- Peor and ate the sacrifices of the dead ; ” and suffered a devastating plague in consequence of their thus provoking God to anger.
Saul in his latter end is the most conspicuous example. When “ the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets,” he had recourse to the witch of Endor that he might enquire of the dead Samuel. And this after he had previously put away all witchcraft. The woman was reluctant to gratify the wish of the strange night visitor (Saul was in disguise), and only consented, on his assurance that, notwithstanding the law of God, he would not cause punishment to come upon her. This promise being given, the woman said, “ Whom shall I bring up unto thee ? ” And Saul answered, “ Samuel.” And immediately, to her great astonishment, she had a vision of Samuel, and discerned that her visitor was Saul. This limitation of knowledge and discernment is interesting. All that God permitted Saul to get from his unrighteous errand was a message of rebuke for asking of a dead man, and the dreadful intimation that, on the morrow, he and his sons together should descend into the grave with Samuel. The discrepancy between the true, and popular views of the incident does not now concern us. The comment on Saul’s end in 1 Chron. x. 13 runs thus :— “ So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the Word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it ; And he enquired not of the Lord ; therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom to David, the son of Jesse.”
In later times Ahaziah’s messengers were intercepted by the prophet Elijah when on their way to enquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron. The angel of God told Elijah to turn the messengers back with a message from God to Ahaziah saying, “ Is it because there is no God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron ? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed upon which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die ” (2 Kings i.). And so it came to pass, notwithstanding Ahaziah’s fury and the companies of soldiers sent to take Elijah.
These things were known, or should have been known, to the people to whom Isaiah testified ; but they heeded them not. Not only Israel, but Judah also, under the evil influence of Ahaz, was turning his back upon the law and the testimony, and going after the abominations that had been the ruin of the nations whom Israel dispossessed in the land. The more we reflect on witchcraft and necromancy, the easier it is to see why “ all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord.” God is the great Fountain of underived life, knowledge, and power: and He is jealous of His honour and glory. Witchcraft and necromancy, known to the moderns as Spiritualism, Theosophy, and so forth, obscure God’s glory altogether, and give the lie to His word. It affirms in effect that there is life apart from His gift and control, that His word is palpably untrue when it affirms that “ the dead know not anything.” It declares that the dead not only live in the enjoyment of a knowledge far superior to that of the days of the flesh ; but that they are potent to control the destinies of the living, and inform them of the way in which they should go. It matters not to such a system that the word of God declares that in the day of death man’s “ thoughts perish,” that “ their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished,” and that “ there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in sheol.” It thinks it knows better, and pities the dulness and incredulity of those who believe God rather than man. Such are “ an abomination ” to the dupes of such a superstition, just as their notions and practices are “ an abomination to the Lord.” It is a case of mutual abhorrence.
It might not seem at first sight that ancient witchcraft and necromancy had anything to do with modern Christianity ; but the study of the matter in the light of the law and the testimony yields a different conclusion. The central doctrine of popular “ Christianity ” is that the dead are alive, being “ immortal souls.” And if alive, possibly accessible to communications from earth. Hence the origin of that particular “ merchandise ” of Rome in which the substance of the deluded people is exchanged for imaginary benefits said to accrue to the souls of the departed as the results of the prayers of her corrupt and ignorant priesthood. The only escape from such imposition is through the light that comes from the law and the testimony. This gives us to understand man’s true estate, and reveals to us the enormity of neglecting the knowledge of God, and turning to the profitless fables that are preferred by all the world.
The modern revival of the truth does well to take Isa. viii. 20 for its watchword. "To the law and to the testimony ” has ever been the attitude of the faithful remnant among men. Finding current superstitions thereby condemned they have “ come out ” from among them, preferring the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ and the prophets, to the ease and advantages of confraternity with those under the “ strong delusion.” They are warned by the Word itself, and the examples of punishment upon the disobedient in Israel, and comforted by the reflection that the reign of vanity and death is short, and their own days of subjection to it shorter still; and that at last “ the wicked shall be turned into sheol, and all the nations that forget God.”
The eighth chapter of Isaiah closes with the picture of the land in great affliction and the people “ driven to darkness ” amid attending horrors of famine and sword.
In the Hebrew Bible the eighth chapter embraces the verse which in the A.V. is counted as the first chapter nine. Notwithstanding the trouble and darkness and dimness of anguish there was still hope of better things in the future. The word continues : “ Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon, and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations.”
Whether this be the correct translation, or that of the Revised Version, which differs somewhat from it, the meaning is clear. Zebulon and Naphtali, and the districts of Galilee, had been the locality of severe visitations of divine judgment. In Deborah’s days deliverance came after Jabin, King of Canaan, had afflicted Israel for 20 years. His 900 chariots of iron were overthrown, and Sisera, his chief captain, slain in these parts. Later on, Benhadad, King of Syria, at the instigation of Asa, who bribed him with the silver and gold of the temple, overran the country. Later still it was desolated by Tiglath-Pileser (2 Kings xv. 29), and Shalmaneser (2 Kings xvii. 5), and Israel was carried away captive. All this came upon them because they despised the law and the testimony, having “ no light ” in them.
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