BY THE REV. JOHN R. MACKAY, M.A., INVERNESS.
IN meditating upon this portion of God’s Word we shall, as the Holy Spirit may be pleased to enable us, consider:—
I.—The escaped of Israel;
The description, “the escaped,” may be taken by us in a more restricted or in a wider sense, according as we interpret the expression in connection with the immediate context, or in connection with the general teaching of God’s Word concerning man’s natural misery. If we take the expression and interpret it in the light of the immediate context, we have to notice the following steps in the movement of the prophet’s thoughts: (a) In the third chapter he brings an indictment against the people because of sin, especially emphasising the oppression wherewith one class oppressed another, and also the luxuriousness and want of modesty in their apparel which marked their women. (b) Because of all this they are threatened with the judgments of God: “Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war” (iii. 25). Yea, so terrible should be the outcome of this judgment that in the end there should be found living seven marriageable women for every man of a corresponding age. “In that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach” (iv. 1). (c) Yet in connection with this fearful visitation it was promised for the survivors that the branch of the Lord should be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth excellent and comely. The escaped—when the expression is interpreted in the light of the immediate context—mean those who should survive this exhibition of the sword, this terrible judgment of war.
Now, I am not saying that here there is a prophecy of the present, the most devastating war that the world has seen, and of this visitation alone. True it is that among the forms in which moral degeneration had been manifesting itself before this War began, the want of modesty in women was a very noticeable feature of a general corruption, and just as, in a general sense, God ordains that punishment should be in keeping with the sin that caused it, so in this case, because the women were largely the cause of God’s wrath, so the punishment in the cutting down of the young men, is felt as intensely painful by the procurers of God’s wrath. True it is also that ere this War shall have come to an end there will be parts of Europe not a few in which it will be literally true that not one young man will be left for every seven young women. Still, one feels more prepared to say that in the present context we have not so much a direct prophecy of the present War as the exhibition of a principle of the divine government which was frequently exemplified in the past, and which we hope will be exemplified in the present case. I mean, that it has been God’s method of government to follow the outpouring of the vials of His wrath against peoples having His Word, with showers of spiritual blessings.
It may, for instance, be pointed out that some one hundred years ago and more—I mean in the time of the French Revolution and in the time of the troubles caused through Napoleon Bonaparte’s ambition—God did pour vials of wrath upon Europe, and it is well known that that outpouring of wrath was followed by a remarkable revival of religion, both in Europe and in America. It was then that the Protestant Churches awoke to a sense of their duty towards the heathen lying in the darkness of ignorance. It was then that Missionary Societies—such as the London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Northern Missionary Society, to mention only a few such societies—were for the first time formed. In those days the Gospel was preached in the north of Scotland with a power and success scarcely equalled at any other time in the history of the Highlands. In connection with the preaching of such eminent heralds as the MacIntoshes, the Stewarts, the MacDonalds, the Kennedys, the Frasers, and the Cooks, did not the wilderness come to blossom as the rose?
Well, we have been visited with vials of God’s wrath more awful than those of the Napoleonic troubles, and it ought now to be our prayer that these present calamities should be followed by spiritual blessings richer than those we have just now spoken of and that in proportion as our afflictions have been greater. That He should do so would seem to be in accordance with a principle of the divine method of governing His visible Church, for as Jeremiah says: “He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies” (Lam. iii. 32, 33). And our present text speaking as it does of the branch of the Lord being beautiful and glorious even in the day in which there should be such a fearful slaughter, is also another instance of the same principle at work. In any case, the people of God ought to plead this argument now, and say:
“According as the days have been
Wherein we grief have had,
And years wherein we ill have seen,
So do Thou make us glad.”
The escaped, as interpreted in the light of the preceding context, are the survivors of God’s fearful visitation in judgment. And in the present case it will cause no difficulty if we add—the escaped of Israel, taking Israel also literally; for it is certain that no people feel the present devastation more terribly than do the Jews themselves. Their home may be said to be the borderland which lies between Russia on the one hand, and Germany and Austria on the other. The tremendous armies of those several empires have been these two years, like heavy rollers, passing and repassing over that devoted people, crushing them to the ground, and one cannot but wish and even hope that this may prove to be the finishing of God’s wrath, in a temporal sense, against that nation. If Israel be taken here in a literal sense, and the sword awakened against them a literal sword, we are certainly justified in understanding this visitation in judgment as referring to times later than anything connected with either the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, or Grecian Empires, for beyond doubt our text and its context brings us down to the days of the Messiah, and even to days when Israel shall be greatly blessed in that Messiah. Furthermore, the greatest spiritual blessings ever to visit this earth shall not come until the Jews get repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah. The Apostle Paul distinctly teaches that they were for a season rejected, in order to the enriching of the Gentiles, but that this rejection was to be only temporary, and that when they shall be received back again, their reception will be fitly described and regarded as life from the dead to the rest of mankind.
Hitherto, we have been interpreting the term “escaped” in the light of the immediate context. But it is also legitimate for us to interpret the expression in connection with what is generally taught in God’s word regarding the misery of man’s estate by nature; and if we so interpret the expression, the term’s connotation will be ampler and in a sense more profound. For when mention is made of the escaped of Israel, that is of the Israel of God, the implication is that it is a marvel that any should escape, and, of course, that it is a greater marvel still that a company which no man can number should escape. To such as have but carnal and superficial views of the misery of man’s estate by nature, it appears strange that any should fail to escape, but to those who so far think their thoughts with God, the marvel seems to be that it should be a case of so much as one escaping.
What is it that renders it such a marvel? Well, to begin with, guilt—and the whole world is brought in guilty before God—is a load so heavy that the mountains are light in comparison with it. Many are the forms which efforts, having in view the removal of this load, have taken in the history of religion in the world. Some have gone the length of offering in sacrifice the fruit of their own body in order to propitiate the anger of deity. But it was all to no avail. There is only one way in which guilt can be removed, and that is by casting ourselves upon the great burden-bearer Jesus Christ. But what a load He had to carry! The material universe was light as a load in comparison with the load He bore, when, as the Apostle Peter puts it, “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” But was it not a marvellous thing, that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ should have laid such a burden upon Him, that He should have put Him to grief as He did? Seeing then that it was only by the Son of God becoming the bearer of the intolerable load of guilt that any could escape from the wrath of God, is not the escape of any a marvel?
Nor was the guilt of wrath the only obstacle. There was the obstacle of the creature’s own unwillingness. Now the teaching of the New Testament is that in order to the removal of this unwillingness, it is necessary that there should be a forth-putting of power more marvellous than that exhibited in the creation of the world. It was “the exceeding greatness” of God’s power that achieved that men who had become incapable of fulfilling the end of their creation, should begin to realise that end in some measure, or that a naturally unwilling people should be rendered willing. If, then, there must be the exercise of this exceeding greatness of God’s power in order that any should escape from the wrath and curse due to us for our sins, may we not well say that the marvel is that any escape? Time would fail me to speak of other obstacles which make the escaping of any an impossibility if the grace of God should not intervene—such obstacles are the power and craftiness of the devil and his angels, and the allurements of the present evil world—but what has already been said may suffice to show that God’s saved people may very properly be described as the escaped of Israel, the suggestion being that their escaping is a marvel of marvels.
II.—God’s Messiah
I proceed to draw attention to the striking way in which the great deliverer, the author of this escaping, the Messiah, is brought before us in the words of our text. By “the Branch of the Lord” we should certainly understand the Messiah. I give two reasons for this identification:—
To begin with, this is the first of a remarkable series of Prophecies in which Messiah is called “the Branch.” In this very Prophecy of Isaiah there occurs a remarkable allusion to the Branch that should grow out of the roots of Jesse (xi. 1), and the Personality and Messiahship of this Branch are put beyond question, when in the next breath the Prophet adds: “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” In His days, we are told, “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” Furthermore, “this root of Jesse shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious.” Furthermore, the Prophet Jeremiah repeatedly alludes to the Messiah under the figure of the Branch, as in xxxiii. 5, 6: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and the King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.” And again in xxxiii. 15, 16: “In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.” When we reach down the course of prophecy as far as the return from the Babylonian captivity, we find that by that time the Church of God had become so familiar with the Branch as the designation of Messiah, that it came to be used as equivalent to His proper name. Of this, we have evidence in the prophecies of Zechariah, as in iii. 8: “Behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch,” and again in vi. 12: “Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the temple of the Lord.” To this series of prophecies the evangelist Matthew would seem to refer when he avers that in the fact of the upbringing of Jesus in Nazareth was fulfilled “that which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene,” for the root, from which the adjective Nazarene is derived, signifies a branch, and I take it that to the evangelist it seemed impossible that there should not be some circumstance or condition attaching to the true Messiah, Jesus, which should lead one to connect Him with that remarkable series of prophetic utterances to which we have been drawing attention, and in which Messiah is foretold as the Branch.
That is one reason why we take “the Branch of the Lord” in our text in a Messianic sense. But, again, according to the common usage in what are called parallel utterances, one is, in the absence of any good reason to the contrary, bound to take “the fruit of the earth” as also a designation of the Messiah, and when one combines these two designations—”the Branch of the Lord,” and “the fruit of the earth”—there results a view of the Person of Messiah, the only key to which is the Christian doctrine of the two natures in the one Person. For “the Branch of the Lord,” as placed in apposition with “the fruit of the earth,” should be taken as equivalent to “the offspring of Jehovah,” and that offspring of Jehovah can be none other than the only begotten of the Father, the co-equal, co-eternal Son of God. When, again, Messiah is designated “the fruit of the earth,” He is designated from His human nature, just as when He is called “the Branch” or offspring of Jehovah, He is designated from His divine nature. And this Immanuel is also the fruit of the earth. Dr. John Duncan stated a plainly-revealed truth when he said that the dust of the earth is upon the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. For we must believe that, in order to fulfil God’s promise—confirmed with an oath to David—the Holy Spirit, in preparing the human nature of our Lord, did take of the very substance of the Virgin, and in the nature thus taken up into His own Person by the Son of God, the Son of God lived in this world, in it He died, in it He rose from the dead, and in it He is exalted to the throne of the universe. And if the question be put, “How can the offspring of Jehovah and the fruit of the earth constitute one person?” no better answer can be offered than that one with which we have been familiar from childhood: “Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary and born of her, yet without sin,” and thus: “The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was and continueth to be God and man, in two distinct natures and one person, for ever.”
III.—What He was to be for “the escaped.”
I pass on, therefore, to consider, in the third place, what, according to this prophecy, Messiah would be for “the escaped.” The Branch of the Lord, we are told, would be beautiful and glorious, the fruit of the earth, excellent and comely. Beautiful, glorious, excellent, comely—these are epithets which describe or characterise this mysterious Person, and we need not wonder if equally significant epithets are used whether He be designated from His divine or from His human nature, because it is the one Person that, in either case, is intended, and the one nature is as essential to Him as the other in order to His being a Saviour, Messiah. Jesus then is:—
(a) Beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely as He is in Himself, considered, that is, as one in whom Godhead and manhood have met.
This strikingly beautiful combination of qualities and perfection, is painstakingly, one might say, brought out over and over again in the narrative of Him wherewith the Gospels speaking of the days of His flesh, supply us. What a beautiful representation of one in whom eternity and time met, in whom heaven and earth met, is given us in such an incident as that one (Mark iv. 38, 41), in which we read now of His being in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow, so that the disciples must needs awake Him; but next, on His being awakened, of His rebuking the wind, and saying to the sea “Be still,” and the immediate result was that the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. It is no wonder that the disciples should immediately fall into a virtual syllogism: The wind and the sea are the servants of God. The wind and the sea are the servants of Jesus of Nazareth. Who can Jesus of Nazareth be but God Himself in our nature? (cf. v. 41). But many another similar example will occur to the thoughtful.
I should like briefly to point out how His satisfaction to divine justice by virtue of which the garment of sinners’ salvation was wrought out derives beauty and comeliness from the union of the two natures in One Person. Take His obedience. Obedience is competent only to a servant. But in order to the Son of God’s becoming a servant it was necessary that He should become what He was not. In this circumstance we have one of the clearest and strongest proofs of His essential deity. The highest created being, whether angel or archangel, is by the very nature of the case bound to serve and to obey God. But it was otherwise with the Son of God, when He is considered in respect of His essential nature; He was in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be on an equality with God Himself. It would not appear so strange, if we were simply taught that in order to His being a servant of men He should have to become what He was not. But the remarkable thing is that in order to being the servant of God Himself He had to become what He was not. The Son of God is not, as He is the eternal Son of the eternal Father, the servant of the Father, and, indeed, could not be. But if He did not become the servant of the Father He could not render an infinitely meritorious obedience. Therefore does He become what He was not. He that was in the form of God, and who as such could not be the servant of God Himself, takes upon Him the form of a servant—in the likeness of men it became possible to the Son of God to be the servant of God—and so, in fact, He became the servant of God. In other words, Messiah, the offspring of Jehovah, must become the fruit of the earth in order to its being possible for Him to stand in the relation of a servant to Jehovah. His obedience must derive colour and quality from the earth. But yet consider other qualities of this obedience. We may consider that His obedience, partly at least, consisted in His going about doing good in the days of His humiliation. But what manner of good achieved He? There is something supernatural characterising it all. He raised the dead; He healed all manner of diseases. But was not all this the work of a supernatural Person? Could a mere man with authority give commandments to the unruly elements of wind and stormy sea? Could a mere man have shewn himself master of the world of evil spirits? Could a mere man have revealed what is virtually creative power, as in the feeding of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, or of four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fishes? A negative answer is inevitable. These acts of obedience are the works of a supernatural Person, and if they have the qualities of excellence and comeliness as having been wrought by the fruit of the earth, they have the qualities of beauty and glory as having been wrought by the branch of Jehovah.
It was a common form of speech among the preachers of this country to speak of Christ’s righteousness, which is imputed to believing sinners, as a garment, and to esteem that that garment had in it the warp of His obedience and the woof of His sufferings, and as long as we do not regard the obedience and sufferings as separable things we, in this, make use of a form of words which is both interesting and instructive. We have seen that the warp of this garment takes colour, so to say, from heaven and from earth. A like observation falls to be made regarding the woof thereof. It is evident that the Messiah must needs be the fruit of the earth in order to His being capable of suffering. It was just in order that the Son of God might be capable of suffering and dying that He assumed our nature. But if those sufferings had been but the sufferings of a mere creature, could they have been infinitely meritorious, as Messiah’s sufferings must be? They could not; and besides, a mere man would have been incapable of bearing up under the tremendous load of the wrath of God, as Christ Jesus did actually bear up under such a burden until, after He had drank the cup to the bitterest dregs, He cried out, “It is finished,” and “he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.” The obedience and sufferings, then, of the Branch of the Lord, of the fruit of the earth, have their colour and qualities from the two natures which constitute His Person as the God-man, and they have a beauty and glory, an excellence and comeliness, which are owing to this mysterious constitution of His Person.
(b) But not only is the branch of the Lord, the fruit of the earth beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely as He is in His own Person, in His own blood and righteousness, but so His Person and satisfaction appear in the eyes of all those that are counted to be “the escaped of the Israel of God.”
In a word, this apprehension of Messiah’s worth is the very mark of their having escaped, escaped from the blindness and prejudice of unbelief, escaped in order to be united to Christ, the altogether lovely One, and thus escaped from the curse of the law, from the terrors of avenging justice, as well as from the present evil world. We have met with some who spoke of their having been converted, but Christ’s word as a prophet seemed to have no finality for them, Christ’s atoning death as a priest or sacrifice seemed to have no finality for them, Christ’s precepts as a king seemed to have no finality for them, and we, therefore, could not regard their conversion as genuine at all. It is a poor conversion that leaves Christ as much a root out of a dry ground to one after as before conversion. The language of the escaped is: “We know that the Son of God hath come, and that He hath given to us an understanding that we might know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true.” What a token Paul had of his being in the number of escaped! Ere Jesus met him on the way to Damascus, the true Messiah was to him but an object of aversion, but after that, his memorable meeting with Jesus Christ, he was willing for His sake to suffer the loss of all things, yea, to count them as dung that he might win Christ! And so in some measure is it with regard to all the escaped, all that are saved. God opens blind eyes just in order that they may truly appreciate the divine glory and beauty of Jesus Christ. And the faith which, to begin with, is to them as eyes to see His matchless beauty and suitableness, becomes at length to them also hands to lay hold upon Him, yea, a mouth to feed upon Him, that He may dwell in their hearts by faith.
(c) But those to whom Messiah is thus beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely, will experience that He is all this first for their benefit.
His beauty and glory, His excellence and comeliness are imputed unto themselves, and in fact God regards the escaped only as seen bathed in these transcendent excellencies of Messiah. We never see the moon save as bathed in the light of the sun. The moon is in itself a dark object, and of itself would, at its actual distance from this earth, be invisible always. But when it is bathed in the flood of the sun’s rays, and these rays are again reflected to us from the moon, not only may we see the moon, but the moon itself appears fair, deriving beauty and a certain similarity from the sun. So is it with regard to the escaped from Israel. God, as judge, never looks upon them but as bathed in the greater flood of the rays, the beauty and glory, the excellence and comeliness of the Sun of righteousness. Therefore does He say that the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Surely they are happy that are in such a case as this! Even the ruggedest and what may naturally be the least lovely part of creation, will, sometimes, glitter as diamonds when the light of the sun strikes upon it. And so it is with regard to those whose eyes are opened to the unspeakable loveliness of Jesus Christ. They have Christ’s beauty and glory, excellence and comeliness put upon them, and when God, the Judge of all, looks upon them, He beholds in creatures naturally uncomely and depraved only beauty and glory, excellence and comeliness. And as they are thus seen from the moment of their union to death as to relative grace, so ere the day is over, they shall be also in respect of real or inward grace.
Application.
We read in the Scriptures of two classes of persons. One class is described by Moses when he complains of Israel that, until the day of his addressing them, God had not given them eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor hearts to understand the meaning of what God had wrought for Israel. The other class is described by Jesus Christ when addressing His disciples, He says: “But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.” To which of these two classes do you belong? Does the prophet Isaiah only give expression to what you have apprehended in your heart, that Jesus of Nazareth is beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely in His own Person and satisfaction, and that He is all this for the benefit of as many as do not remain in their natural blindness? If that is your case, you may, indeed, reckon yourself as happy born! But is it, on the other hand, the testimony of your conscience that you have not yet been thus ravished with the divine beauty of Jesus? Ah, then, will you not learn a lesson from one who, conscious of his physical blindness, and hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, cried out unto Him, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me, let me receive my sight,” and had the experience of all those who came to Jesus for physical cure? He was healed; he received his sight. Well, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by in a preached gospel, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, and like as none came to Him in the days of His flesh for bodily health and was refused, so none now cry to Him for spiritual eyes to see, but they will have their petition answered. Will you not avail yourself of what may be your last opportunity? The Lord bless His word.
OH, that our eyes and our souls swelling should go after a blasted and sun-burnt flower, even this fair plastered out-sided world; and then we have neither eye nor smell for the flower of Jesse, for that “Plant of Renown,” for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! O let some of us die to feel the smell of Him, and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for evermore, providing I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ! I know it is sometimes at this, Lord, what wilt Thou have for Christ? But, O Lord, canst Thou be budded or propined with any gift for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold? or rather, may not a poor needy sinner have Him for nothing? If I can get no more, O let me be pained to all eternity with longing for Him! The joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven for evermore. Alas! that I cannot draw souls and Christ together. But I desire the coming of His kingdom, and that Christ (as I assuredly hope He shall) would come upon withered Scotland, as rain upon the new-mown grass. O let the King come! O let His kingdom come! O let their eyes rot in their eye holes, who will not receive Him home again to reign and rule in Scotland!—Samuel Rutherford.