ISAIAH 107
2r^The immediate effect of the vision on Isaiah was an over- powering consciousness of his sinfulness, and a fear of instant death at the hand of God. It was apparently a universal belief among the ancient Hebrews that the sight of God would be instant death to a man. We see this clearly in the fear of Gideon when he discovered that his unknown visitor was "the angel of the Lord " (Judg. vi. 22) ; so with Manoah (Judg. xiii. 22), and Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 30 ; see also Ex. xxiv. 11, and Gen. xvi. 13). The Greek myth of Jupiter and Semele, and the Greek ideas about vvfij>ok7}-^ia show that similar views were not unknown even outside of Israel. And among the Hebrews this doctrine is not due to revelation ; it appears in the history always as a tradition inherited from remote antiquity — a natural outgrowth of the natural consciousness of sin. It forms a strange illustration of the knowledge man has always had of his own guilt in God's sight, and the danger of Divine punishment he constantly lies under. Man cannot conceive God appearing to him for any other purpose than to execute judgment ; so pure is God, so impure is man ! This belief may have degenerated with many into a mere superstition, a blind belief whose meaning and reason were forgotten ; it seems little better with Manoah. But it is not so with Isaiah. He knows well the reason of his danger : " I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips." He feels his own sin, and feels his solidarity with a nation that is sinful too. God's mind towards the whole nation must be one of wrath and threatening, unmiti- gated by the presence of righteous persons to leaven the mass. (See Gen. xviii. 23-33.)
^ The central fact is the vision of God as King — " Mine eyes have seen the King." You say, no man can see God and live. That is quite true ; as we here see, this man did not live ; in a very deep sense he died. The vision of God kills that it may make alive ; the fire of the Divine revelation burns up the dross of pride and passion. The great need of that time is also our own great need, a true vision^oi the Divine, a lofty thought of God. This alone cSn meet the hunger of Isaiah's soul and save the nation from utter failure. The popular religion was crude and impure ; many worshipped idols, many ran after a spurious_S£iriJ;ualism, or reduced religion to a sensuous ritualism (i. 11^ 11. 8, viii. 18). That which made a hero of this young man, and gave power to the
io8 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
purest religion of his day, was the force which also nerved our fathers to cast out superstition and fight for liberty ; the vision of a God who is supreme, who through His righteousness is really kind, who is revealed in Nature, who rules the nations and who does not disdain the cry of the penitent soul. No argument can do justice to this; it is a vision and a life. The saints and martyrs point to it as the object of their love and the source of their strength. Men of mighty intellect, of childlike heart, of pure spiritual aspiration, have through its inspiration saved the nation from despair and the Church from failure. The men who have borne the burdens and fought the battles which helped forward the world's highest life, knew the meaning of the words, " Mine eyes have seen the King." ^
3. The Incarnation has made the prophetic vision permanent. And in this respect the Incarnation, which has brought God very near to us, has not lessened His awfulness. It has indeed made known undreamt-of powers, destinies, significances in things visible and temporal. It has, to the sight of faith, transfigured the earth, but it has not lowered heaven. He whom Isaiah beheld was, as St. John tells us, Christ Himself : he saio His glory and spake of Him ; and His glory is unchanged and unchangeable. He became very man, not to bind us with new ties to earth as we see it, but to disclose its unseen potencies. He became man, that He might give us boldness to approach the footstool of His Father ; that He might lift us to a sublimer region while we are ever striving to bring things to the standards of sense ; that He might enable us to ascend in Him to that which is spaceless and timeless, which is apprehended by the soul alone, and which alone is able to fill the soul.
It is in this sense that St. Paul tells us that when he realised the scope of the work of Christ, though he had once hnoivn Him after the flesh, yet he knew Him so no more. We must strive towards the same purity of knowledge. " Christ after the flesh " corresponds in some way to the fabric of the visible sanctuary. That which belongs to the senses is our starting-point and not our goal. We in our turn are bound to use the limited revela- tion, that we may rise beyond it in hope, in prayer, in effort.