2. God reasons with men on the basis of His ovm Fatherhood,
40 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
You will see how in this chapter He reminds all men of it, gives men proofs of it, tells men He has fulfilled it in relation to them. He says, " You are not simply My creatures. You are more — you are nearer to Me. I have done more for you. Hear, 0 heavens ; give ear, 0 earth. I have nourished and brought up these children ; that is My plea." He declares His Fatherhood by calling them children. He says, " It is not a name with Me ; I have fulfilled a Father's part; you owe everything to Me. Look at your life and see what it looks like in the light of this % relationship which I have sustained and fulfilled towards you. Admit," He says, " My Fatherhood — and you cannot but admit it — and what does your life look like in the light of it ? How unnatural and base it becomes. You sink below the brute, you are steeped in more absolute stupidity than the ox or the ass, for the ox knoweth its owner and the ass its master's crib, but Israel does not know." This is God's reasoning, and who of us can stand against it ? God, our Father, to whom we owe our being, from whom all gifts have come to us, upon whom we depend for everything — what has been our conduct towards Him ? "I have nourished and brought up children, and ye have rebelled against Me, Hung off My authority, despised My love, lifted your hands against Me " — what can we say to reasoning like this ? We cannot excuse ourselves, we cannot justify our- selves ; we can only hang our heads in silence and in shame while God says, " Come, and let us bring this reasoning to an end — you know you have nothing to say ; admit it."
3. Thus in this chapter also God reasons with man on tlie lads of sin's results. He says, " You have rebelled against Me ; has it justified itself in its success ? You have rebelled against Me ; what good has it done you ? Has it brought you freedom and happiness ? Has it brought to the land and the nation peace and prosperity ? " God Himself gives the answer in searching and terrible words : " Why should ye be stricken any more ? Ye will revolt more and more : the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head thqre is no soundness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores ; and your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire — that is what sin has done for you." He points them to the terrible and pitiful results which have come
ISAIAH 41
to pass for the individual and the nation through their disobe- dience towards God ; and He challenges them and says, " Nov* look at it as I have reasoned it out with you." ^
ii. The Result of the Reasoning.
There is, there can be, but one result — our sins are as scarlet ; they are red like crimson. " Scarlet " and " crimson " are really synonyms for the one colour, properly " crimson." According to the Biblical view, sin and piety, anger and love or grace are mutually related as fire and light, hence as red and white ; for red is the colour of the fire that shines up now out of the darkness and returns into it, while white, without any mixture of darkness, sets forth the pure, absolute triumph of light.
IT In a Chinese proclamation, issued by H.H. Tseng Kuo Fan, the energetic official who helped to suppress the Tai Ping Eebellion, there is this sentence referring to the depredations of the rebels. "There is no temple they do not burn, no image they do not destroy. The deities are enraged, they will cool their anger " (in their destruction). The phrase is literally "snow their anger," anger being regarded as both hot and red.^
1. Their sins were crimson because they were committed in the face of the light. It is a matter of common sense that the servant who knows the master's will, and yet disobeys, is worthy of more stripes than he who knows it less perfectly. The sinners to whom Isaiah preached, under the more complete revelation of the covenant of grace, sinned against clearer light than the sinners to whom Moses and Joshua preached. How much more, even than those to whom the prophet is preaching, do sinners now sin against the clearer light who have in their hands the last and complete development of the New Testament covenant of grace ; and over and above this, the knowledge of the outworking of the completed scheme of grace, under His providence, through two thousand years.
2. They were crimson, hecause they ivere committed against special reasons for gratitude and well-doing. Listen to that pathetic complaint : " I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner,
^ W. Perkins.
* W. A. Cornaby, A String of Chinese Peach Stones,