^ R. J. Campbell, Sermons to Young Men p. 200.
i88 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
IF Of William, Prince of Orange, Motley says, as he closes his history of the Rise of the Dutch EepuUic : ' He went through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. Their name was the last word upon his hps, save the simple affirmative, with which the soldier who had been battling for the right all his lifetime, commended his soul in dying to ' his great captain, Christ.' The people were grateful and affectionate, for they trusted the character of their ' Father William,' and not all the clouds which calumny could collect ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty mind to which they were accustomed, in their darkest calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets."^
III.
The Relief that Comes from Cheist.
Isaiah's words are not only man's ideal : they are God's promise, and that promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the most conspicuous example — none others are near Him — of this personal influence in which Isaiah places all the shelter and revival of society. God has set His seal to the truth, that the greatest power in shaping human destiny is man himself, by becoming one with man, by using a human soul to be the Saviour of the race.
A man shall be a refuge, rivers of water, the shadow of a great rock. Such an expectation seems to be right in the teeth of all experience, and far too high-pitched ever to be ful- filled. It appears to demand in him who should bring it to pass powers which are more than human, and which must in some inexplicable way be wide as the range of humanity and enduring as the succession of the ages. It is worth while to realise to ourselves these two points which seem to make such words as those of our text a blank impossibility. Experience contradicts them, and common sense demands for their fulfilment an apparently impossible human character.
What do we find in Christ that makes Him a refuge and a rock ?
* J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, iii. p. 480.
ISAIAH 189
1. He is a man. Oh how often, in the thought of Christ's real humanity, has my soul found a hiding-place from all manner of storms ! God ! — the word is great. God ! — the idea is sublime. The great Eternal Jehovah, who made the heavens and the earth, and who bears them up by His unaided power, who rides upon the stormy sky, and puts a bit into the mouth of the raging tempest — how shall I, a poor worm of the dust, draw nigh to such a God as this ? The answer quickly comes, " He has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Man Christ Jesus."
Do not talk any more about the point where humanity leaves off and divinity begins, or divinity leaves off and humanity beings. Christ is all human, human all the time. Divine all the time. He is your brother. He is also more than that. He is your God. There is nothing in Christ that is foreign to what you and I aspire to know in our God. And yet Christ is as completely human as you. Pardon me, I have even understated my case. He is more human than you are. The only Man whom the world has ever seen is your Christ and mine, as human as you. Your humanity will come to its own only when it aspires to His and is represented in it. Eemember, there is no dividing line between the Deity and the Humanity of our blessed Lord. He is both, and both are one. The Christ of the Gospel is just your Christ, the Christ you are seeking, the Christ you need. " A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."^
H Humanity is longing, sighing, praying. Men are calling for a higher manhood. The manhood of Jesus, oh, show it to them, I beseech you.
'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, that I seek In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. 0 Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever ! A Hand like this
hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ
stand.
2. He is a Saviour. This figure of a rock, resisting drift, gives us some idea, not only of the commanding influence of
1 R. J. CampbeU.
190 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
Christ's person, but of that special office from which all the glory of His person and of His name arises : that He saves His people from their sins. For what is sin ? Sin is simply the longest, heaviest drift in human history. It arose in the beginning, and has carried everything before it since. " The oldest custom of the race," it is the most powerful habit of the individual. Men have reared against it government, education, philosophy, system after system of religion. But sin over- whelmed them all. Only Christ resisted, and His resistance saves the world.