vi. 9, 10. _And He said, Go, and tell this people, &c._
A sad and mysterious errand, the statement of which might well have
quenched the enthusiasm inspired by his vision of the Divine glory.
When he exclaimed, "Here am I, send me!" how little did he anticipate
for what purpose he would be sent! It must have astounded and
saddened him, and it is full of astonishment and mystery for us. How
could God have sent His servant on an errand such as this?
Much of the mystery will be relieved, though not altogether removed,
if we recognise--what I believe to be the fact--that here we have a
statement, not of the messages Isaiah was to deliver (for they were
many, and were revealed to him at various times), but of what would
be the result of them all. Those to whom he was sent, and whom he
desired to bless, would not be made better, but worse, by his
ministry.
This is in accordance with a well-known and terrible fact, viz., that
the proclamation of truth often leads men to cleave more desperately
to error.[1] Why, then, does God send His servants to proclaim it?
_Not because He desires the depravity and destruction of men._ Such a
desire would be utterly inconsistent with His _character_ and with
His express _declarations_ (Ezek. xviii. 23, 32, &c.). We need not
imagine, then, that we have here a confirmation of those schemes of
arbitrary election and reprobation which some theologians have
attributed to Him.
But 1. _Because it is necessary for the preservation of His character
as a God of righteousness and mercy that He should do what_ OUGHT _to
result in the salvation of men._ Had He not sent His prophets forth
on their sad mission, we should have been confronted by a greater
difficulty: God permitting His chosen people to go on to ruin without
one word of warning spoken, without one effort put forth to arrest
them. But one of the supreme moral necessities of the universe is
this, that His character as a God desiring the redemption of sinners
should be maintained unimpaired; and therefore He sends forth His
messengers to proclaim the truth, although He foresees that to many
they will be the "savour of death unto death,"--and not "the savour
of life unto life,"--not as that same frosty air which "braces" and
invigorates those who are already vigorous. As this quotation reminds
you, this is the effect of the Gospel itself. Ought God, therefore,
never to have sent its preachers forth? 2. _That stubborn sinners may
be left without excuse in the day of their doom._ God will not merely
take vengeance on the violators of His laws of righteousness; He will
make it manifest that while in Him there is an awful severity, there
is no vindictiveness; and He will so act that, even when that
severity is most manifested, not only the onlookers, but even those
who experience it shall be constrained to confess, "Just and true are
Thy ways, Thou King of saints!" He will not leave it possible for
them to say, "Hadst Thou warned us, we should not have sinned." They
shall be speechless (Matt. xxii. 12; Jer. xliv. 2-5). 3. _That the
righteous may be saved._ Did He not send His prophets forth to
instruct and warn, even the men in whose hearts are the germs of
righteousness and holiness of life would follow the multitude to do
evil: _they_ hear, and turn, and live: and this is ample
justification of the prophet's mission. Those who perish would have
perished without it; but without it those who are saved would have
perished also. And in this respect Isaiah's ministry was not in vain:
while to the vast majority of the nation it was "the savour of death
unto death," it was to a few--"the holy seed" of whom also this
chapter speaks to us--"the savour of live unto life." They learned to
trust, not in Assyria nor in Egypt, but in the Holy One of Israel,
and therefore were "kept in perfect peace" amid all the convulsions
and catastrophes of their time.
The passage seemed at the outset full of mystery; our tendency was to
shun it as one that would not bear investigation, as one about which
the least that could be said the better, as one which we could have
wished had never been written. What do we see now? That here we have
an illustration of the Psalmist's saying, "Clouds and darkness are
round about Him"--so to our purblind vision it seems, the brightness
being _so_ bright that it dazzles and blinds us; "but righteousness
and judgment are the habitation of His throne." What should we learn
from this? 1. _Never to fear to investigate anything in God's Word._
There is nothing here which its friends need wish to hide out of
sight; it is all worthy of Him from whom it came (Ps. xix. 9).
2. _Never to distrust God because of anything in either His Word or
His Providence._ Things that might cause distrust we shall meet with;
some of them we shall never explain here, when we can know only "in
part;" yet let us keep fast hold of the glorious and gladdening
truth, that "in Him is no darkness at all." God is light; God is love.