As presented to us in Isaiah 52:13-53:12.

(Continued from page 292.)

"Who hath believed our report? and to whom is Jehovah's arm revealed? For He groweth up before Him as a tender shoot, and as a root out of a dry ground:He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and forsaken of men; a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not" (chap. 53:1-3).

It is now the testimony of God which is rejected as to One who is, nevertheless, "Jehovah's arm." As we have already said, Jehovah is the title under which God reveals Himself in the book of Exodus, when He undertakes to redeem His people. "And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah; and I appeared unto Abraham, and unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them.. .Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah:and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments; and I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians."

Thus this title speaks of God as the God of salvation. It is not that the book of Genesis does not give Him this name, or that the patriarchs did not know that it was His, as unbelief has vainly objected. It is that what this name implies God was now bringing out as it had never been brought out before. This title is essentially the same as "I am"-the One who is:the eternally present and unchangeable God. A blessed name indeed by which to take up a people from amongst the fallen sons of man, and link Himself with them as their God for ever. Israel has not yet penetrated the meaning of that name aright; but she shall know it, and be the pillar upon which He will inscribe it for ever. Meanwhile it is our privilege to know, under all these titles, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only He could be indeed Jehovah- could link abidingly with Himself a company of redeemed sinners. This to our hearts means nothing short of grace, and therefore nothing short of Christ's work, by which alone He can be righteously with us thus. "Jehovah's arm" is thus unto us who are called, "the power of God" -Christ the Saviour.

But of power in weakness and self-humiliation and sacrifice, how many think of that? Who can see Jehovah's arm in the Man of sorrows? So the prophet goes on to describe this humiliation under which He is veiled to carnal eyes-to faith revealed. "For He groweth up before Him as a tender shoot, and as a root out of a dry ground." This He is before God; this He is, too, before man:but He is rejected by man for that for which He is approved of God-"He is despised and forsaken of men."

Let us look first, as we are invited, at the Godward side. He is "a tender shoot, a root out of a dry ground." This carries us back to the eleventh chapter:"There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." This points to the cutting down of the royal stock of David which has gone back to what it was in Jesse, or even less. Out of the roots of this felled and prostrate tree comes this tender shoot. It is a new beginning in weakness of what has already suffered defeat and overthrow. Circumstances, too, are adverse:the dry ground provides no sustenance to its youth and weakness. But in this also there is more than at first appears. For why is the Davidic monarchy thus overthrown, and why are the circumstances adverse? People may say it is only as it always has been; the law of nature is a law of change; the stamp of death is upon everything. True, but it is because nature is fallen nature. Here was one to whom God had said:"If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, these children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore." This prostrate tree-trunk means then God's covenant profaned, His testimony refused; God in His holiness against it because of sin.

And what of the dry ground? It was out of Israel that this house of David sprang-out of God's vineyard, which He nurtured and cared for, and which has repaid His care with wild grapes instead of those He looked for. He had said therefore He would take away its hedge, and break down its wall, and lay it waste, not to be pruned or digged; also He would command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. The dry ground, then, was the corrupt and hardened generation unwatered of the Spirit, whom they and their fathers had always resisted. Good reason was there for the circumstances being adverse:truly that was a tender shoot, and out of a dry ground.

But what of this in Jehovah's sight? Was He less the "arm of the Lord," who, spite of this weak appearance, and spite of all by which He was surrounded, grew up, as mastering it all? Surely in His sight this was power that overcame weakness, life that mastered death. He was no creature of circumstances, no product of surroundings. He drew nothing from, was indebted for nothing to that amidst which He was. There are plants which, by the stores of nourishment they lay up in their own substance, maintain themselves in some measure of independence of the barren soil from which they spring. But these are scarcely more than contrasts to Him who, in the world, not of it, grew up in the sunshine of the divine favor through thirty years of toil and poverty and sorrow, then to receive the testimony of the Father's voice in perfect unqualified approbation:"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

But exactly what made Him the object of divine delight, for that reason made Him the object of man's disfavor. "He hath no form nor comeliness; and as we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and forsaken of men." He was rejected distinctly and deliberately-as known, not as unknown:"We see Him, and there is no beauty." How false is the thought that ignorance has to do with the rejection of Christ! There is abundant ignorance, but the condemnation is, that "Light is come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." This is the terrible reality. Men say they desire heaven; but a Christless heaven does not exist, and they have refused Christ.

No wonder then that He is "a Man of sorrows, and well acquainted with grief." What a world to pass through for a heart thoroughly one with God bearing upon it all the glory of God, all the burdens under which man groaned! Himself ever with God, with the world's shadow cast by that eternal sunshine! With God; and passing through a world which had gone with Cain out of His presence! He that had seen Him had seen the Father; and "we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not."

We are come to the central section of the prophecy, and doctrinally, also, the very heart of the whole. We are now to learn the true character of those sufferings once so misconceived. It is Israel's voice that we are listening to, the confession that they will yet make of that fatal unbelief of theirs, when once "He came to his own, and his own received Him not." Here, with their "Priest's Guide-book" in their hands (Leviticus), they realize the meaning of those sacrifices so constantly kept before their eyes in their over-prized, because so under-prized, ritual. They are learning how "sacrifice and offering He would not," who yet seemed to insist so much upon them-how much it cost Him who stepped forth to take the place of those rejected offerings, to say, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God!"

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

The first clause is quoted and applied for us in the Gospel of Matthew. "And when the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils, and He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."

The application here, then, is to what our Lord did in His life on earth-not on the cross, but in His miraculous healing of those that were diseased, and deliverance of the victims of Satan's power. This is plainly not atonement, though some have strangely argued it to be so. It is not vicarious suffering, but sympathy, manifested practically in the relief of the varied forms of the distress. And these He "bare," not vicariously or sacrificially, as He "bare our sins in his own body on the tree," but entering into them in the tender pity of His heart, feeling every sorrow to which He ministered.

It is not atonement, yet it is the path and spirit of Him who made it, because men were what and where all this declared them, and He was what His word and works declared-"Marked out Son of God, with power according to the Spirit of holiness"-but on man's behalf, "by resurrection of the dead." Of all that had come in as the fruit and shadow of sin, there could be no relief but through His cross. He who pitied must make a way for His pity, that it might reach the objects of it.

People have asked, Would nothing else suffice? The Lord Himself answers, "The Son of Man must be lifted up." He who gave His Son would not have given Him, had there been any other way to save. Love itself could not have been shown in giving where there was no absolute necessity to give. Yet, apart from revelation, who could have fathomed the need, or anticipated the way of divine love in meeting it? Unbelief could thus take up the depth of His humiliation as an argument against His personal claim. The stone lay low enough for them to stumble over it. "Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." It was the glory of His grace which blinded them, as now they own:"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed."

Here is truly vicarious suffering, which not only removes wrath, but restores to God those who were afar from Him. The two parts of the verse give these two aspects of the Cross. According to the first, our transgressions, our iniquities, have received their punishment in Him. According to the second, His stripes are our moral healing- ''the chastisement of our peace."

The last is an expression which needs to be considered. The word for "chastisement" certainly means that, and nothing else. It is translated also in our version, "correction" "discipline," and so "instruction;" and in none of these senses could it be applied to the Lord. He certainly never needed nor received chastening or correction; and a moment's thought as to the verse will show us that it is not to the Lord that it is here applied. It is "the chastisement of our peace." That last word includes in its meaning the whole well-being of those as to whom it is used. His stripes are for us the restorative discipline which brings us to spiritual health-our healing, as the last clause plainly says. As we find our guilt borne by another, our peace made by the sufferings of God's Holy One, we realize the disciplinary virtue of "his stripes." Nowhere else has the lesson been so taught us, nowhere else is the discipline so real.

Not for peace only must the Cross be known. It is the judgment of the world, the defeat of the prince of the world, the annulling of the body of sin. It is the supreme display of divine righteousness, truth, love, all the glory of God, in triumphant goodness in Him who was crucified in weakness there – "The Son of Man glorified, and God glorified in Him." Oh, to know more the reality of this holy discipline-"the chastisement of our peace!" -to eat more the salutary "bitter herbs" at our passover feast, all leaven put away out of our houses! What power for purification for us, as for Israel, looking upon Him whom they have pierced, and saying, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all."

Let us observe here that our "own way" is our "iniquity" and our misery; for when was misery far separate from sin? And who but utter orphans have to choose their own path through this world's maze? It is true we are outside Eden, but God has not left us to this. He who numbers our hairs, numbers our steps no less; and to walk in our own way is to refuse divine wisdom and love, incessantly occupied with us, and to imagine we can do better for ourselves than these. And how often is our own way disguised for us by some seeming goodness of it, which can never take off the fatal stamp of a will in independency of God's! "Lo, I come to do Thy will" was the characteristic of the pattern proposed to us; and there, where His own will rightly shrank from the dread cup before Him, there it was yet, "not my will, but thine, be done." What a commending of that will to us comes with the knowledge that what was before Him then was, in fact, that "Jehovah" was about to lay "on Him the iniquity of us all!" How the covenant name, Jehovah, has here its suited place! "Crucified through weakness," the will-less One was to be "Jehovah's arm" of power. F. W. G.

(Concluded in next number )