The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 35

III. THE SMALL REMNA.NT rs TO Sl'REAn THE WonD OF THE Lmrn. The next verso Mys, " Hear ye the ,v ord of the Lord." It is a Divine revelation that is to BllVe them. And the prophet who speaks is called !Miah, or Iesahiaha, signifying "the salva.tion of the Lord; ~ Bo that though the prophet speaks stern words of rebuke, hie very name contains the glorious issuo of his work. II is work was laborious and long-he proplwsicd in the da.ys of Uzzi&h, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Terribly profane ,vere those days, for in the days of Ahaz "the doors of the house of the Lord were shut up, and idolatrous altars were erected in every corner of Jerusalem." But G-od sent his Word and healed them; and that is the true regenerator in every age.-W. M. S. Ver. IS.-Salvatwn to the utter-most. "Come now, and let us reason together, B&ith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; thoµgh they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." The previous verses show that tbe;J ews had mistaken the ideal of Divine services; they had turned them into a correct ritual, to a multitude of sacrifices without purpose. And purpose or motive is the very heart of religion. They were devotional, but cruel. "\Vhen ye make many prayers, I will not hear : your hands are full of blood." It was all empty ceremony. The solemn meeting even was iniquity. A change must come. .A.nd it· must begin in charac~r. "Cease to do evil." l es; but that is not enough. Negation is not salvation. There must be life unto God as well as death unto sin. " Learn to do well." Then come the words of our text. They sound a strange note at first; they speak of what man can.not do and what God can. I. HERE IS THE GOSPEL IN illAIAB. ~'ree, full, perfect redemption. We see in these words Gethsemane and Calvary. There God's purpose was fulfilled; but it is in his heart when these words are spoken, for" the Lamb was slain before. the foundation of the world." It is a glorious gospel-God giving himself for the world. And now, as we read Israel's sins in this record, we may see even then that, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Il. HEBE IS 'l.'BE BEA.SONABLElIESS OF BELlGION, How condescending I Let us~tbe In.finite and the finite, the immaculate and the -evil. Yet so it;~,. God.says, ''.While you are stained with blood and cloaked with hypocrisy, I can have nothing to say to you or to do with you." It cannot be that light should have fellowRhip with da.r1mess. That is rensonable surely. But how can the sins of Judah and Jerusalem be purged away? .Amendment is not atonement. And God is their Ransom, the bigh God _is their Redeemer! .. . III. HERE IS THE CRAIITEB OF THE CmraOH's LIBERTY. These words .will· never be for,-,otten. They have comforted millione. It is not liberty to sin, but salvation from all sin: and from the punishment of sin. Not from punishment only, but from sin·itself, in all its forms, all its depths, all its degrees! For the colours are chosen as the symbols of the most marked and malignant evil-tlca.rlet and crimson. Yet God ie able to s11-ve to the uttermost. The words are best understood beneath the cross and in the history of redeemed men in every age.-W.:M. S. Vere. 1, 2.-Ir,gratitud,e arid i,;.kr~ention. The "vision of Isaiah" during the reigns of four kings of Judah (ver. 1), and the declaration (ver. 2) that "the Lord bath spoken" (or epeaketh), suggests- !. THE FACT 'l'HAT Goo HAS INTEBVE~'ED AND DOES INTERVENE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS. L Such Divine intervention ought not to hai-e bee.n 'Tlecessary. Fo:r God has so ordered everything around us, and has so constituted us ourselves, that .there were abundant sources of truth and heavenly wisdom without it. All visible nature (Rom. L 20); the bounties of Divine provid«mce (Acts :itlv. l'Z); the mllJlifestatipne of Divine pleasure and displeasure in the events and issues of ).ifo (P.e. xx;xiv.15, 16); the conscience that speaks and .strikCII within. tl:\e soul-.the moral jqdgpient of which our spiritual DJJ.ture is capable (Prov. xx. 27; Acts xxiv. 16; Rom. ii. 15); -the11e should have sufficed for man's instruction, integrity, perfection. But we find, from the religious history of o.ur race, tliat these sources of enUgb,tenmen~ and influe~ce have not been sufficient 2. There has be1in needed, aud there has been gr,mted, special i1tl~rve11tion frc,m God. •• The Lord hath spoken" to mankind; (1) From the l!'nll &o the Incarnation, Go<l intervened, "at sundry times ond in divers manners "-by OR, I, l-3L) 'rHE BOOK OF THE PilOJ'lIE'r 18.A.IAH. 19