THE GOSPEL IN ISAIAH
E.C.Burr
This chapter in Isaiah is introduced with the intention of God's people being comforted; it begins "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God". Israel will yet in a day to come be comforted by the range of things that is brought in it. The chapter has often been a comfort to souls even before that day of Israel's revival; I myself have fresh in my memory the impression of an address given on it in London in the early days of the last war; and God would speak to His people at any time in the tones of comfort: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people". The end of the chapter is rather like the end of Romans 8: there is power to prevail.
The presentation of things at the beginning of this chapter, however, is not exactly that which would be preached in the present day because there is no gospel today that tells people that they have received from God’s hand double for all their sins. I do not think there will ever be a preaching that says that; it is a statement of God's government in regard to Israel. There is no question of preaching to people in this day that God is going to give them double for their sins. That is not to say that God's government does not work, and that if people sin God's government may follow them. It is not for us to prescribe to each other the nature of God's government, but thank God there is not a preaching like that. Thank God that none of us has to bear from His hand double for all our sins; we would all be thankful for that.
But there is a gospel in this chapter; one could preach from any section of it; each of the paragraphs has something distinctly evangelical in it; it would not be at all difficult to preach from Isaiah 40. There are glad tidings as to which Zion and Jerusalem are encouraged to shout; it says "O Zion, that bringest glad tidings, get thee up into a high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest glad tidings, lift up thy voice with strength". There are glad tidings which are to be proclaimed, and I suppose that each of us as being fairly familiar with the text of the Scriptures would find that the prophecy of Isaiah is one that is replete with the gospel. It is the gospel for Israel; surprisingly enough it is a prophecy but it is replete with the Christian gospel. The theologians would tell us that at this point in Isaiah there is a different strain taken up. Of course they just apply theology to the word of God, and they apply criticism in its strict sense and come to certain conclusions, but they come to conclusions because of the premises from which they start. (It is easy if you want to lead an argument a certain way to make sure that the beginning of the argument is on the terms you would like to state; then you have some greater opportunity of coming to the conclusion that you wish.) The second part of Isaiah, from this chapter onwards certainly, has a distinctive tone and character about it, looking on in a distinctive way to the world to come, but it necessarily follows chapters in which God's judgment in relation to the nations in particular has had to be set out. This chapter tells us that God regards the nations as a drop of the bucket; He takes up the isles as a very small thing; princes and judges He blows upon just as He blows upon the grass of the field.
In the first part of Isaiah there is almost set out in order the Christian gospel. It is not that I want to give an outline of the first thirty-nine chapters but I draw attention to matters in it in the order in which they occur. In chapter 1 the state of Israel is described by God, that is that the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness in him, his wounds have not been dressed or bound up or mollified with oil. That is the state of Israel but it is the moral state of man; from the sole of his foot to the head there is no soundness in him. That is a moral view of man as he is away from God. Israel is viewed in most of this book as away from God and needing to be recovered, and that is the place of man, that he is away from God and needs to be recovered, and his moral state is described in terms which bring out its corruption. It is essential that we keep in view that that is a moral view of man as he is, because there are elements in man in which we find good, and we are often impressed by the way in which characteristics of what is good come out in people. We are often touched by the kindness of unbelieving people, their care, their courtesy, and yet the moral state of man is away from God as is described there, that from the sole of the foot to the head there is no soundness in him. You do not wonder that when in a Jewish setting in Acts 3 a man was healed, Peter says that he has "complete soundness in the presence of you all" (v 16); there is an answer to Isaiah 1 where there was no soundness. A man was constituted perfectly sound; scriptures fit together as they were made to do so; Acts 3 is the answer in demonstration to Isaiah 1. But lower down that chapter God begins to speak about sins; "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (v 18). God does not content Himself, as it were, with describing man in terms which require moral interpretation; God brings out plainly what the actual issue between Himself and man is, that is to say it is man's sins. I do not need here to go back to the beginning of Genesis and trace the way in which sins came into the world; the conscience of every man and woman in this day will tell them that they have sins if they view themselves before God. These things are to be recognised, to be admitted, that man as before God is a sinner. I read somewhere once of a man, I think a professor, who described evil done against oneself as vice, evil done against somebody else as crime; evil done against God as sin. But whatever evil or bad that man has done is an offence against God; maybe done against himself - Corinthians and Romans bring out that aspect of things - maybe done against his fellow man, which in the eyes of men might be crime, but against God it is sin. God begins in Isaiah 1; "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool". It does not tell you in that chapter how God is going to bring it about; if God says it you can be sure it will be brought about, but what is brought out in chapter 1 is that people are sinners. That is the starting point of the gospel. One could start, in preaching the gospel, from the existence of God, but I start from the way in which Isaiah unfolds things, that men and women are sinners.
Then in chapter 6 you have a man in the presence of God and of the holiness of God. Think of that: a man there who recognises that he is a sinner - as he must recognise that he is a sinner - but in the presence of God it is revealed to him that he is a sinner. He is undone, he says, a man of unclean lips and dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips (see v 5). Why does he say that? Because he has been impressed with the holiness of God. It is having to do with God in His holiness which brings home to the conscience that one is a sinner. God does not in this prophecy start with declaring who He is although the prophecy of Isaiah is full of absolute statements about who God is - "I am" and "I am He" runs through this prophecy - but He starts with the state of man. Then as you follow the thread it is almost as if God says, If you do not believe that that is your state, come into My presence where there is infinite holiness. As the prophet goes into the presence of God - and we may think of the prophet as one of the best of his day - he sees God high and lifted up and His train filling the temple, and voices say "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts"; and the prophet says "Woe unto me! for I am undone", chap 6: 3,5. Peter was brought to say he was a sinful man by the goodness of God, that is clear from Luke, and in a certain sense it led him to repentance; but the point to which the soul has ultimately to come is the conviction of its state in the light of a God who is holy. Bel oved, let us never forget the holiness of God. (We have referred earlier to the possibility of undue familiarity or irreverence in the presence of God; let us never forget that God is holy). The seraphim say "Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts": let us be affected by that. Let it affect our souls that unless God has come in on our side the result in us must be to acknowledge that in the presence of that holiness we are undone. Isaiah says "I am a man of unclean lips"; it corresponds with what the Lord says in the gospel, that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him but what comes out of him (see Mark 7: 15). Isaiah was clearly in the light of that teaching, that what came out of him was unclean, and therefore the man must be unclean in the light of the holiness of God.
Isaiah immediately goes through certain experiences with the live coal taken from off the altar as to which we could speak, but what I want to go to is chapter 9 where the word that comes in is exactly the way in which God has met the state of man in the light of the holiness of God: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given" (v.6). That is the way in which God who is holy has Himself come in on man's behalf, by sending His Son in the form of a child, just as a child. It says that in the beginning of Matthew - "the little child". In the Acts it says "thy holy child Jesus" (chap 4: 27, A.V.): think of that! Have you understood that when that little Child was born He was given to you? "Unto us" - it was to you. In its setting dispensationally it was to Israel, and Isaiah 9 is in relation to Israel for it goes on to bring out the great titles He will have in the world to come when He administers everything for God. But take it into our own day: what I am saying is that you can follow through Isaiah the Christian gospel. You start with the fact that your sins have been brought home to you in the light of the holiness of God and what is needed then is that God gives a Child - "unto us a child is born "; it is as the Lord says parabolically of God in the gospels: at last, He said, I will send my Son (see Matt 21: 37). It was not their son - "unto us a son is given". Of course according to flesh Christ came of Israel - "of whom, as according to flesh, is the Christ" says Paul in Romans 9 (v.5), but the Son is not exactly for Israel but is given to us, and to us a Son is born.
What did they do with Him when a Child was given to them? The first thing was to reveal that there was no room for Him; God gave them a Child and there was no room for Him - not anywhere. So He was born in a manger, in conditions which bore out that there was no room here for the intervention of God in the form of a Man in relation to man's condition. And He grew up as a boy, the child Jesus, He increased in wisdom and stature; He lived with His father and mother and according to reputation He worked in His father's business - "Is not this the son of the carpenter? " Matt 13: 55. But He was here about His Father's business - "did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father's business?", Luke 2: 39. Very interesting to think what Jesus had in view in that expression! From the actual setting out of things in Luke I think that His Father's business was the interpretation of the Old Testament to those who already had the gain of it because in chapter 24 He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. When He was in the temple hearing and answering questions He was in His Father's business opening out the truth of God to men in order that men might be instructed by it. What would He have said about Isaiah? What did He say about Isaiah in Luke 4? - "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears" (v 21). As you take account of Isaiah 9, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given", He could have said " Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears" because He was there as given to them, the child Jesus. He was born to them, given to them, but at last betrayed by them, to the Romans in order that He might be crucified. This is the aspect of things being done by the hands of wicked men, that He was crucified and slain, but from God's point of view it was the necessary sacrifice to maintain the holiness of God while allowing Him to pardon and forgive sinners. This chapter says "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem... that her iniquity is pardoned" (v.2). He was crucified in order that God might still maintain His holiness and righteousness when pardoning sinners. We do not wonder that Isaiah begins this chapter with com fort, for persons are shut up to what God will do in a situation where His holiness has revealed them to be unclean and to be sinners. What God will do will be for comfort, and God has Himself provided a Child, indeed provided His Son, given at length in death - "He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all" (Rom 8: 32) - in order that that having been done, God might retain all His holiness and righteousness and be One that can pardon iniquity.
So you can trace the Christian gospel through the beginning of Isaiah and find that man is undone and unclean, find the holiness of God, and that the Child or the Son has been the means of providing God with a basis on which He can make the unclean clean. He can fill lips with praise that were unclean lips, and even the nations, according to Romans, will glorify God for mercy, (see chap 15: 9) all because God has given us a Child, given unto us His Son, Himself giving what was nearest and dearest to Him. The footnote in Proverbs says 'the nursling of His love'; God takes One who might be so affectionately described as that, His beloved Son, and not sparing Him but delivering Him up for us all - for unto us a Son is given.
These scriptures, beloved, all have their dispensational setting, all of which could be interpreted in its own time, but as you contemplate what is said in Isaiah 9 you cannot but be moved by the fact that God has given His Son in order that the unholiness which has been revealed in us on account of sins might be dealt with righteously and that He might pardon iniquity and thereby comfort souls. The greatest comfort that a soul can have is that its sins are forgiven, that its iniquity is pardoned. All this enters into the proclamation of the glad tidings into which Zion and Jerusalem are urged: "O Zion, that bringest glad tidings, ... O Jerusalem, that bringest glad tidings". These are the glad tidings that may be proclaimed from the beginning, I was going to say, of the gospel of Isaiah; and if you go on in the early chapters of Isaiah you will find that they embrace the next aspect, I may say, of the Christian gospel. In chapter 11 you find "And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall be fruitful; and the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him" (v.1). Now that was manifested when Jesus was here· chapter 4 of Luke brings out from another chapter in Isaiah that the Spirit of Jehovah was upon Him. And He was here the man upon whom the Spirit was. One can safely say that because in John 1 it says "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he... is the Son of God", (vv 33,34) and there He is identified as the man on whom the Spirit came. There were others of course in Old Testament times on whom, and to whom, the Spirit came with a view to particular activities or exploits. Here is a Man on whom the Spirit comes and abides, the man - "the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him". How blessed to think of Jesus like that! As has often been said, One with whom the Spirit of God could wholly and restfully identify Himself. What blessedness to think of the Spirit finding a resting place for the sole of His foot, no longer on an olive tree but on a Man - how blessed!
Then, beloved, that same Spirit is available for us. If God in His infinite holiness has given His Son for us in order that every issue between Him and us might be resolved, He has also given His Spirit, and His Spirit may be upon us in order that His Spirit may be in us; the normal consequence of believing in Christ as dying for one's sins is that one receives the Holy Spirit. If you read on in the verses at the beginning of Isaiah 11 you will find that Spirit described: "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah" (v.2). That is the kind of spirit that you want; that is the kind of spirit that I want. These are things that you and I need; these are presentations of the way in which we need the Holy Spirit; we need Him also as the great Revealer of the things of God and the depths of God. Is there not a close similarity between the presentation in Isaiah 11 and the presentation of Paul to Timothy? - that "God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion", 2 Tim 1: 7. Think of what the Spirit, the Spirit, is to you, what He will be to you as you read through Romans 8, a resource for everything, a resource even against the flesh. And He comes to you as immense power; you are too weak to have any power yourself and the Spirit joins His help to your weakness. He does not join His help to your infirmity but to your weakness. And He is still a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and of might, of knowledge and of the fear of God. Do you know the Spirit like that, beloved? Is that what the anointing means to you, that you have the Spirit of God like that? You have known that you were a sinner, that your sins were as scarlet, that they were red like crimson, and you know that the holiness of God made this impinge on your soul, and then you turned to Christ the Child who was given, and the Son who was born, and you found, not through His birth but through His death, that God has been righteously able to deal with your sins and has given you the Spirit that came to rest on Jesus. There is only one Spirit, the Spirit that came to rest upon Jesus now upon you as the anointing, or the Unction now in you as power, but in you in all those great resources that Isaiah dwells on in chapter 11. It is remarkable how the Christian gospel is set out in order in the beginning of this prophecy.
In regard to Israel's history chapter 12 is perhaps the highest point they ever touch - "Cry out and shout, thou inhabitress of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee" (v 6). Israel will never touch anything higher than that. When they touch that they will acknowledge that God is Head over all, that wisdom and glory are from Him according to what David says to God in 1 Chronicles 29. When the Holy One of Israel is in the midst of them they will touch what God is as Head, not exactly in the way we know Christ as Head but acknowledging that everything stems from God - "riches and glory are of thee, and thou rulest over everything" (v 12). As we ourselves touch these experiences in spirit we find that God becomes to us what there is in that chapter, that Jehovah has become my strength and song, He has become my salvation; that is to say, you have power now to go along the Christian way; your sins have been dealt with, the holiness of God met, Christ having died and as we know having been raised, and the Spirit given - "Jehovah, is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation" (v 2). One of the easiest hymns in the book to sing is 'All through this desert dry My path His footsteps trace'; one verse says 'My song is ever - God!’ How wonderful! "Jehovah, is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation" is the highest point, as I say, that Israel will ever know, and comes back to the great chorus of Israel - what God has been in His loving-kindness. But for us, beloved, Jehovah is my strength and song and He is become my salvation. Do you know Him? Are all your days like that? Many, many things oppress us, many things tax us, and sometimes there are things that ought not to tax us but they do; really there are enough things that ought to tax us to squeeze out the things that ought not to tax us; they tax our minds and put strain and stress on us in various ways, but Jehovah is my strength and song and He is become my salvation. You wonder at the general impression of the happy believer, that he is here as a person who sings - 'So cheers the spirit that the pilgrim sings'. Jehovah is my strength and song and He is become my salvation. Well, how has He become your salvation? By always giving you a way out of the area of stress and trial, depression and anxiety; the Name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runs into it and is safe (see Prov 18: 10). He is become my salvation. Beloved, has He become your salvation? It seems to be experimental in that chapter, He is become; is it experimental with you and with me? Many things come in to occupy our minds and prevent us getting back to sleep when we cannot sleep at night, but Jehovah is my strength and song and He is become my salvation. This is the normal activity of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The One who is the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah, is the One who will make you sing to Jehovah, the One who has triumphed gloriously, the One who has Himself become your salvation.
Then at that point Isaiah turns off and goes over the history of the nations up to chapter 25, the burden of this nation and of that, the woe of this nation and of that. God is taking up the isles, as this chapter 40 brings out, as a very small thing, the nations as the dust of the balance and a drop of the bucket. He deals with them all in holiness, but He deals with them in righteousness, He deals with every one, occasionally only in a few words; in the midst of the burden of one nation and another we suddenly get the burden of Dumah: "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? ... The morning cometh, and also the night", chap 21: 11. Very affecting the way in which that breaks in in the burdens of the nations! But you emerge from the burdens of the nations and their woe, the things which you might be occupied with from day to day. You may think of the burdens of this nation, things that God might well bring home to this nation, a nation that has a public acknowledgement of God. As I think I have remarked before, I am often reminded of Mr Darby's lines in regard to Christ that 'The pride of careless greatness, Could wash its hands of thee'. Those are lines that could well describe the British Empire. That is largely what people have publicly done; but as you go through the burden of the nations you emerge with Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusts in Thee (see chap 26: 3). That is a soul that is already comforted, beloved, a soul that is already at rest with God and at rest in God. That expression is not peace with God according to Romans, it is more the peace of God according to Philippians. 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee': there is where the soul rests, the soul is at rest in God; how great it is to find the soul at rest in God! with God, but at rest in God. The soul that has found Jehovah to be its strength and song and for whom He has become its salvation touches that easily, readily; it is your normal home. How blessed! How little known, but beloved how readily available - perfect peace, the mind that is stayed on Thee.
It is not very long after that you come to the great triumphant chapter 35 where the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped, and the lame shall leap as a hart. How does that chapter finish? "Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads". Beloved, what comfort in that! what triumph! the song that God has been becoming, in a certain sense, your anointing, everlasting joy upon your head. That is what Israel will come into, but beloved you could come into it now, you could have everlasting joy at the present time. These are the glad tidings of Zion, the glad tidings of Jerusalem; it is as if God says to Zion, get up as far as you can and proclaim it as far as you can. "O Zion, that bringest glad tidings, get thee up into a high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest glad tidings, lift up thy voice with strength: ... say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!". In chapter 6 the soul is brought into complete confusion on account of His holiness, but "Behold your God! " in chapter 40 is in rest and peace of a mind that is stayed on God. Beloved, this is the normal conclusion of the gospel, that the mind is stayed on God.
I trace this again: that you began in your sins, you met the holiness of God but then He gave His Son, and His Son having accomplished His work He gave His Spirit, and then the soul is established, God Himself becoming its salvation, and the mind at peace and everlasting joy on our heads. No wonder He says "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people". The Christian gospel is in these early chapters. May the Lord bless it to us.
CROYDON
11 December 1977