Isaiah 55

55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfeth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul 3 delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. 4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and a nation that knew not thee shall run unto thee, because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee. 6, 7 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my 10 thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth 11 seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it 12 shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the 13 trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

THE great central prophecy of the sufferings of Christ (chap. 53), and of the blessings to the Church through His death and resurrection (chap. 54), is here followed by an earnest call to receive the heavenly gift. Birks.

This chapter is closely connected in sense with the preceding chapters. It flows from the doctrines stated in chap. 53, and is designed to state what would follow from the coming of the Messiah. It would result from that work that the most free and full invitations would be extended to all men to return to God and to obtain His favor. There would be such a fullness and richness in His work; there would be such ample provision made for the salvation of men, that the most liberal invitations could be extended to sinners. In common indeed with all the previous chapters (from chap. 40), we are to regard this as primarily addressed to the exiles in Babylon, and as designed to cheer them in their painful captivity by the prospect of what should yet occur under the Messiah who was to come. The main idea in the chapter, I conceive to be, that the effect of the work of the Redeemer would be to lay the foundation for a universal invitation to men to come and be saved. An invitation of the most unlimited nature may be offered. It may be offered to all classes of men. So ample would be the merits of His death (chap. 53); so full and universal the design of the atonement; so rich the provisions of mercy, that all might be invited to come, and all might come and partake of eternal life. To state this, I suppose to be the main design of this chapter. It may be regarded as comprising the following parts:

1. A universal invitation to come and embrace the provisions of mercy (verses 1-3).

All were invited to come; even they who were the most poor and needy, who had no money, were invited to come as freely as to running waters and streams (verse 1). They were now regarded as spending their money and their labor for that which produced no permanent satisfaction—descriptive of the world in its vain efforts to find enjoyment (verse 2).

If they would come to God they should live—live forever. He would make with them an eternal covenant (verse 4).

2. To encourage them to this, the assurance is presented that God had given the Messiah to be a leader of the people, and that under Him distant nations should embrace the truth and be saved (verses 4, 5).

3. In view of the fulness of the provisions of mercy, and of the fact that a great leader had been provided, all are encouraged to come and seek God (verses 6-13). This invitation is pressed on their attention by several considerations.

Jehovah might now be found; His throne was accessible, and He was ready to pardon abundantly all sinners who were disposed to forsake the error of their way and to return to Him (verses 6, 7). God shows that His designs should not be prostrated. His plans were high above the plans of men, and His thoughts more elevated than theirs, and His counsels should stand. The rain descended on the earth and accomplished His great plans, and so it would be with His word. Nothing should fail. His promises would be fulfilled and His designs would take effect, and there was, therefore, every encouragement to come and partake of His favor and His grace (verses 8-11). There should be rich and abundant blessings attending their return to God, and universal rejoicing from their embracing the religion of the Redeemer, and becoming interested in His mercy and salvation (verses 12, 13).

There is not to be found in the Bible a chapter more replete with rich invitations than this; nor perhaps is there anywhere to be found one of more exquisite beauty. To the end of the world it will stand as the fullest conceivable demonstration that God intended that the offers of salvation should be made to all men; and that He designs that His Gospel shall be successful on the earth, and shall accomplish the great plans which He had in view when He devised the scheme of redemption. While this precious chapter remains in the Book of God no sinner need despair of salvation. Barnes.

This chapter, which breathes forth the very soul of Gospel invitation and entreaty, is logically connected with the two which precede it. The sufferings of Christ (chap. 53) making atonement for sin really provide this Gospel feast with its living waters—its wine, milk and bread of life—for the needy souls of men; while the joyful change that comes over Zion (chap. 54) breathes new life into her soul and rouses all her energies to enlarge her tent-room for new converts. Now all this presupposes that she addresses herself to the work of inviting and beseeching ruined men to come to her own crucified Saviour for mercy. Hence this chapter is suggestive to the Saviour’s people of the work they have to do in filling up their tents and homes with the hungry who need the bread of life, “Go ye out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that My house may be filled.” We may suppose also that the prophet’s own soul is penetrated, filled and fired, with the glorious truths which he has been recording (chaps. 52-54), and now, seeing such provisions made for the salvation of lost men (chap. 53), and such gracious purposes of God revealed in respect to the enlargement of Zion by the conversion of vast nations (chap. 54), he cannot do less or otherwise than to break forth in these overflowings of entreaty and invitation. How the deep tides of his emotion surge and overflow under the power of this momentous and glorious truth—salvation enough—free for all! How he longs to see them come, in thronging hosts on hosts, to these abundant supplies of living bread and water! Hence he puts these words on record, both as the outgushings of his own heart and as suggestive to God’s people of their mission to invite the perishing, and suggestive also to sinners themselves of the freeness and fulness of God’s mercy and of His longing desire to see them returning, penitent, yet trustful, to His feet. H. C.

1. Ho every thirsty one, come ye to the waters; and he to whom there is no money, come ye, buy (food) and eat; and come, buy, without money and without price, wine and milk. The promises contained in the preceding chapters to the Church are now followed by a general invitation to partake of the blessings thus secured. Water, milk and wine are here combined to express the ideas of refreshment, nourishment and exhilaration. Under these figures are included, as Calvin well observes, all things essential to the spiritual life. A.

Waters, to represent spiritual blessings, forgiveness of sins, peace with God and moral cleansing, appear elsewhere in Isaiah—e.g., chaps. 12:3; 44:3 and 35:6, 7. Feasting on food at once delicious and nourishing is only a slight modification of the same figure, as in chaps. 25:6; 62:8, 9 and 65:13. Our Lord resumes both these figures—that of water in John 4:14 and 7:37; that of feasting in various parables—e.g., Matt. 22:1-10 and Luke 14:15-24, and also in His representation of His own flesh as the bread of life (John 6:32-58).

The central idea is, the best and most needful things for the body made the symbols of the best and most vital blessings for the soul. The abundance and freeness of the former represent the yet richer abundance and freeness of the latter. H. C.

Food and money are objects which all men desire; the first a necessity of life; the second a means of comfort and luxury, and also of distinction and power. Both here are symbols of good or happiness, which is that for which men are always longing and striving; but they often mistake for food that which is not wholesome nor nourishing. Christ comes to us as the embodiment of all good; He is the bread from heaven; He is the fountain of living waters; He is the incorruptible treasure; He is the life everlasting. And all that He is He offers to all freely, without price. “These gratuitous blessings are contrasted with the costly and unprofitable labors of mankind to gain the same end in another way.” Only one condition is annexed, and this arising from the nature of the case—the sense of need, the desire to possess, the willingness to seek. J. P. T.

Where has there been a nobler flight of imagination than in the passage in which the prophet calls upon those who have no money to buy and eat, to buy wine and milk “without money and without price”? No other language could have made so startling the contrast between the poverty of the blessings which are bought with human wealth, and the riches of those which are bought without it, though not without lavishing freely the treasures of the heart and soul. Lon. Spectator.

To a soul that flames with the consciousness of God and yearns for rest and peace, to the sense of sin, to the sense of sorrow, to the conscience never wholly stifled, to the desires after good never utterly eradicated and never slaked by aught besides itself, does this mighty word come. Not to this or that sort of man does it address itself, but to the common humanity which belongs to all, to the wants and sorrows and inward consciousness which belong to man as man. A. M.

The freeness of the offered gift is implied by the strong terms of invitation, Ho, every one, come ye! Gratuitousness could not be more strongly expressed. It is here held forth and proclaimed with Divine earnestness, that he who comes to the salvation of the Gospel receives it without any offer of recompense or any worthiness on his own part. The fountain of life has indeed its price, a price which has been paid. It cost the agonies and death of the Son of God. J. W. A.—The unspeakable gift was the result entirely of God’s eternal, self-moving love. No mistake can be greater or more directly in the face of Scripture than that which fancies the love of God procured for sinners by the mediation of Christ. The very reverse was the truth. The atonement sprung from the love, not the love from the atonement. And as for the blessings of salvation, which are all conferred on the ground of the righteousness and atonement of Him who is Himself the great gift of Divine love, they are all freely offered and freely bestowed. The language of the entire Bible on this point is in harmony with that of Isaiah: “Ho, every one that thirsteth,” etc. Wardlaw.

It is nowhere said in the Bible that Christ so died for me in particular, as that by His simple dying, the benefits of His atonement are mine in possession. But it is everywhere said in the Bible that the benefits of His atonement are mine in offer. They are mine, if I will. Such terms as whosoever and all and any, and ho every one, bring the Gospel redemption specifically to my door; and there it stands for acceptance as mine in offer, and ready to become mine in possession, on my giving credit to the word of the testimony. The terms of the Gospel message are so constructed, that I have just as good a warrant for reckoning myself dead unto sin, as if, instead of the announcement that God had set forth Christ to be a propitiation for the sins of the world through faith in His blood, I had been the only sinner in the world; or I had been singled out by surname, and it was stated that God had set forth Christ a propitiation for me individually, through faith in His blood. Thomas Chalmers.

God made us that He might love us. God has given us the capacity of loving Himself, and He has made it a law of our being that we must love Him if we are ever to be happy, that there is no happiness for us but in fulfilling that law of our being which requires us to love the living God. Yet how wonderfully little of this longing there is in our hearts, this thirst for God, the living God; and all the while God, looking down upon us in His infinite mercy, is longing for our hearts, the hearts of His children. We may say it with reverence that the heart of God is athirst for our love, and longs that our hearts should be athirst for Him. Bp. Maclagan.

The thirst of the human soul after God is a great argument that there is a God to be thirsted for. Men would not thirst for that for which they have no affinity. The human soul longs for the sympathy of some being higher than, and yet like, itself. The presence of God can only be imagined as, in some sense, a human presence. The practical proof of the being of God—not of God as a mere power, but of God who has created man, and who loves him with the love of a Father, and desires a return of love for love—is to be found in the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord. Bp. Goodwin.

There is in every man an unconscious and unsatisfied longing after God. That is the state of nature. No man is made to be satisfied from himself. For the stilling of our hearts, the strengthening and joy of our being, we need to go beyond ourselves. No man is independent, or carries within him the fountain from which he can draw; and if a man’s life is to be strong and happy, he must get the foundation of his strength somewhere else than in his own soul. We are made to need not things, but living beings. Hearts want hearts. We need one Being who shall be all sufficient. We want one Being in whom shall be sphered all perfection, in whom shall abide all power and blessedness, beyond whom thought cannot pass, out of whose infinite circumference love does not need to wander, besides whose boundless treasures no other riches can be required, who is light for the understanding, power for the will, authority for the practical life, purpose for the efforts, motive for the doings, end and object for the feelings, home of the affections, who is all in all, and without whom is misery and death. Christ, the manifested God, is such a Being, for Christ is everything that a man can want. We are made to be restless until we possess perfect truth—there it is! infinite, unchangeable love—there it is! rest, purity, gladness, light in our souls—there they all are! Whatever form of human nature and character may be yours, whatever exigencies of life you may be lying under the pressure of—man or woman, adult or child, father or son, man of business or man of thought, struggling with difficulties or bright with joy—“out of His fulness,” and His only, all may “receive grace for grace.” A. M.

True faith utterly forgets itself, and credits the assurance of God’s free pardon. It looks away from its own worthiness and its own unworthiness, and hears God saying, “Ho!” “Come ye!” Come without money and without price! And it comes, without turning to the right hand or to the left. The question no longer is, What am I? but what is God? Is He true? Has He spoken? It sets to its seal, that God is true. It acquiesces in a righteousness already finished. So it saves. The doctrinal truth which lies at the basis of all is, that the procuring cause of our acceptance with God is not anything done by us, or in us, not any work, preparation, frame or feeling, but only the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The trumpet sounds thus, from over the fresh fountain, “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life, freely.” And the persuaded soul, now taught the great lesson of self-renunciation and self-forgetfulness, and swallowed up in admiration of the stupendous gift, falls into the open arms of dying Love. J. W. A.

The one essential truth to accept about the Gospel is, that no money can buy our salvation, no suffering merit it, no repentance procure it, no holiness produce it. The utmost that our own moral action can do for us, and this too is by the grace of God, is to create and enlarge the receptive faculty in us. If we will not take salvation as a gift, we cannot have it at all. Bp. Thorold.

2. The gratuitous blessings offered by Messiah are contrasted with the costly and unprofitable labors of mankind to gain the same end in another way. It was not that they refused food, nor even that they were unwilling to buy it; but they mistook for it that which was not nourishing. A.

All the pursuits of the world are “vanity and vexation of spirit.” The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. Nothing less than God’s love, revealed in the cross of Christ, can meet the deep craving of the immortal soul. “Hearken diligently”—literally, “hearken, yea, hearken.” The word is repeated to express the urgency of the invitation and to enforce a double measure of attention. Birks.

No man who feeds his heart and mind on anything short of God is really at rest in anything that he does or possesses. Occasional twinges of conscience, dim perceptions that after all they are walking in a vain show, glimpses of nobler possibilities, a vague unrest, an unwillingness to reflect and look the facts of their condition in the face—these are the conditions that attach to all godless life; and so there is no real fruit for the man’s thirsty lips to feed upon. The smallest man is too large to be satisfied with anything short of infinity. A. M.

If the question were put, Wherefore did God make man? who would not be ashamed to answer, He made him to eat and drink and take his pleasure, to gather up wealth for he knows not who; to use his inventions, that each one may become a talk and wonder to the rest; and then when he hath fetched a few turns upon the theatre, and entertained the eyes of beholders with a short scene of impertinences, descend, and never be heard of more? What, that he should come into the world furnished with such powers and endowments, for this! It were a like case, as if one should be clad in scarlet to go to plough, or curiously instructed in arts and sciences to tend swine. Hore.

All the wealth and pleasure in the world will not make one meal’s meat for a soul. Eternal truth and eternal good are the only food for a rational and immortal soul, the life of which consists in reconciliation and conformity to God, and in union and communion with Him, which the things of the world will not at all befriend. “They satisfy not,” they yield not any solid comfort and content to the soul, nor enable it to say, “Now I have what I would have.” Nay, they do not satisfy even the appetites of the body; the more men have, the more they would have. Rich people live by their money, poor people by their labor; but both mistake their truest interest while the one is trading, the other toiling for the world, both promising themselves satisfaction and happiness in it, but both miserably disappointed. God vouchsafes compassionately to reason with them: “Wherefore do you thus act against your own interest?” “Why do you suffer yourselves to be thus imposed upon?” Let us reason thus with ourselves, and let the result of these reasonings be, a holy resolution not to “labor for the meat that perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life” (John 6: 27). Let all the disappointments we meet with in the world help to drive us to Christ, and to seek for satisfaction in Him only. This is the way to make that sure which will be made sure. H.

There is no congruity between any outward thing and man’s soul of such a kind as that satisfaction can come from its possession. There is no need for exaggeration. Worldly possessions have a good in them, they contribute to ease and grace in life, they save from carking cares and mean anxieties, they add many a comfort and many a source of culture. But, after all, a true, lofty life may be lived with a very small modicum. There is no proportion between wealth and happiness, nor between wealth and nobleness. The fairest life ever lived on earth was that of a poor man, and with all its beauty it moved within the limits of narrow resources. We need enough for the physical being to root itself in; we need no more. A. M.

In what are you more ennobled than in the fact that you are related inherently to God; having a nature so high, wants so deep and vast, that only He can feed them, and not even He by any bestowment which does not include the bestowment of Himself. Would you willingly exterminate this want of your being, and so be rid eternally of this hunger? That would be to cease from being a man and to become a worm; and even that worm, remembering what it was, would be a worm gnawing itself with eternal regrets. No, this torment that you feel is the torment of your greatness. It compliments you more, even by its cravings and its shameful humiliations, than all most subtle flatteries and highest applause. Nay, there is nothing in which God Himself exalts you more than by His own expostulation when He says—“wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not; hearken diligently unto Me and eat ye that which is good. Incline your ear and come unto Me, hear and your soul shall live.” Why should we humble ourselves to so many things that are ashes and call them bread; doubling our bodily pleasures in vices that take hold on hell; chasing after gains with cancerous appetite; torturing our invention to find some opiate of society, applause or show, that will quiet and content our unrest. All in vain. Oh, ye starving minds, hearken, for one hour, to this, and turn yourselves to it as your misery points you—God, God, God alone, is the true food. Ask it thus of God to give you the food that is convenient for you, and He gives you Himself. And that is bread, bread of life, bread of eternity. Take it for your true supply, and you hunger no more. H. Bushnell.

If regard be had to the whole scope of our nature and necessities and to the true aim of life as deduced therefrom, nothing is more certain than that no man will get the satisfaction that his ruling passions promise him, by indulging them. It is very sure that the way never to get what you need and desire is always to do what you like. And that for very plain reasons. Because, for one thing, the object only satisfies for a time. Yesterday’s food appeased our hunger for the day, but we wake hungry again. And the desires which are not so purely animal have the same characteristic of being stilled for the moment, and of waking more ravenous than ever. “He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” Because, further, the desire grows and the object of it does not. The fierce longing increases, and of course the power of the thing that we pursue to satisfy it decreases in the same proportion. It is a fixed quantity; the appetite is indefinitely expansible. And so, the longer I go on feeding my desire, the more I long for the food; and the more I long for it, the less taste it has when I get it. It must be more strongly spiced to titilate a jaded palate. And there soon comes to be an end of the possibilities in that direction. Because, for another thing, after all, these desires are each but a fragment of whole nature, and when one is satisfied another is baying to be fed. A. M.

Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death. But God pays as He promises; all His payments are made in pure gold. T. Brooks.

We must thirst for salvation before we get it. It is sincerely and gratuitously offered, but if we do not want it we shall not be forced to take it. Thirst and drink, hunger and food, human dependence and Divine leadership, penitence and salvation, are as complementary as the lock and the key. Need will develop thirst, if we let it do so. If we will be saved, we shall be saved; not otherwise. We must realize the inadequacy of our low substitutes for salvation. A man would starve at a dinner-table if he insisted upon eating the wood, the china, the silver or the gold rather than those viands which were both provided and suitable for him. What countless thousands there are who prefer to buy stones instead of bread or who toil for a little unsatisfying wealth, pleasure, fame or power, rather than for that salvation which has cost the life of the Son of God! McPherson.

3. Incline your ear and come unto Me, hear and your soul shall live (or let it live), and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David. This is obviously a repetition of the same offer in another form; which shows that the two preceding verses cannot have respect to literal food or bodily subsistence. Here again the use of the word soul necessarily suggests the thought of spiritual life. Neither of the animal life nor of the appetite could it be said that it should live. The text contains a solemn assurance that the promise made to David should be faithfully performed in its original import and intent. Hence the mercies of David are called sure—i.e., sure to be accomplished; or it might be rendered faithful, credible or trusted, without any material effect upon the meaning. A.

The account of this covenant may be seen in 2 Sam. 7: 12-29 and 1 Chron. 17: 7-27; restated substantially in Ps. 89: 1-4, 19-37, and referred to 2 Sam. 23: 1-5. These passages show that in this covenant with David the chief points were: A great king in his line to whom God would sustain very special relations and who can be no other than the Messiah; a covenant affirmed repeatedly to be “everlasting,” and embracing mercies that were sure as the faithfulness of Jehovah. David’s own “last words” include this emphatic allusion to it: “He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure” (2 Sam. 23: 5). Hence the pertinence of these words of our prophet, “Even the sure mercies of David”—i.e., promised to David. H. C.

4. Lo, (as) a witness of nations I have given Him, a chief and commander of nations. The emphasis appears to be on nations, which is therefore repeated without change of form. The essential meaning is the same as that of chap. 49: 6—viz., that the Messiah was sent to be the Saviour not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. His relation to the latter is expressed by three terms. First He is a witness—i.e., a witness to the truth (John 18: 37) and a witness against sinners (Mal. 3: 5). The same office is ascribed to Christ in Rev. 1: 5; 3: 14. (Cf. 1 Tim. 6: 13.) The application of this verse to the Messiah, therefore, is entirely natural if taken by itself.

6. By a sudden apostrophe he turns from the Messiah to those whom He had come to save, and exhorts them to embrace this great salvation, to be reconciled with God. A similar exhortation, implying, like the present, that the day of grace is limited, occurs in Zeph. 2: 2. A.

Seek ye the Lord. Seek to obtain the true knowledge of Him; seek reconciliation with Him; seek His pardoning mercy. This address is made to all in view of the coming and work of the Messiah. That work would be so full and ample that an invitation could be extended to all to seek after God and to return to Him. It is implied here: 1. That men are by nature ignorant of God, or unacquainted with Him—since they are directed to “seek” for Him. 2. That if men will obtain His favor it must be sought. No man becomes His friend without desiring it; no one who does not earnestly seek for it. 3. That the invitation to seek God should be made to all. In this passage it is unlimited (cf. verse 7). Where there are sinners, there the invitation is to be offered. 4. That the knowledge of God is of inestimable value. God would not command men to seek that which was worthless; He would not urge it with so much earnestness as is here manifested if it were not of inexpressible value.

While He may be found. It is implied here that God may now be found. That the time will come when it will be impossible to obtain His favor. The leading thought is, that under the Messiah the offer of salvation will be made to men fully and freely. But the period will come when it will be withdrawn. If God forsakes men; if He wholly withdraws His Spirit; if they have committed the sin which hath never forgiveness, or if they neglect or despise the provisions of mercy and die in their sins, it will be too late, and mercy cannot be found. Barnes.

Seek God whilst thou canst not see Him; for when thou seest Him, thou canst not find Him. Seek Him by hope, and thou shalt find Him by faith. In the day of grace He is invisible, but near; in the Day of Judgment He is visible, but far off. Gregory.—If we would not seek God in vain, let us seek Him in truth, often and constantly; let us not seek another thing instead of Him, nor for any other thing leave Him. Bernard.—God, that hath promised pardon to the penitent, hath not promised the respite of to-morrow to the impenitent. Gregory.—To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it, this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another till he is starved and destroyed. Tillotson.—There is, for men, a possible absence from God; not of God from men, but of men from God. So our speech feebly and falteringly shapes the truth. God may be near to us and we not near to Him. An unfelt presence is no life nor comfort. It is a silent form near us in the dark. To be indifferent, where trust and love should be, is absence; and that, remember, is no single deed—it is a state; God is not “found” in it, not “sought.” F. D. H.—Do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s time; pray while God hears; hear while God speaks; believe while God promises; obey while God commands. J. Mason.

Self impelling, self-renovating power we have none; but the helm power we have, and if we use it rightly, it will put us in the range of all power, even the mighty power of God. Hence the great call of the Scripture salvation is, “come unto Me,” “come unto God;” because the coming unto God is the coming unto God’s operation, and the receiving of what His Divine power will work in the soul, when He is tempted in it. Hence also the call to renounce our own will, to renounce the world, to renounce eternally sin; because whoever lives in his own will—lives for the world as his end, lives apart from all homage to God—cannot be in God’s will, or come at all into God’s operation. In the same way there must be a clearing of a thousand particular and even smallest things that will steer off the soul from God. An old grudge adhered to steers it forever away from God. Any mode of profit, whose fairness or beneficence to men we distrust, but will not give up, will do the same. In the same way, the dread only of being singular, the going after popularity, the fear of men’s opinions, the cringing of the soul to men’s fashions—all these give over the helm of one’s life to others, that they may turn it where they will—always away, of course, and still away from God. Every such thing must of necessity be renounced or even denounced, as we hope to come into God’s operation or come unto God. When the helm is practically set, honestly gauged for God, God will be a perfectly open harbor to it, but how can it think of entering either this or any other harbor, when it is really steering itself away? H. Bushnell.

If you seek first the kingdom, you shall find it. If you seek it second to any other interest, you shall not find it. God’s kingdom will bow itself down to no other. It will be a stepping-stone to no other. It came to find a place in the heart; to renew it; to possess the whole soul; and if it fail, it will return back to God and leave you behind. If you embrace the kingdom heartily, it will embrace you. If you neglect it, complain of none but yourself that you lose it. And the loss shall not be made good to you; for what shall you give in exchange for the lost kingdom of God; what give in exchange for your lost soul? R. T.

7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the man of iniquity his thoughts, and let him return unto Jehovah, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon (literally, multiply to pardon).** This is a continuation of the foregoing call, and at the same time an explanation of the way in which it was to be obeyed. We are here taught that the seeking of Jehovah, and the calling upon Him just enjoined, involve an abandonment of sin and a return to righteousness of life. A.

“Let the wicked forsake his way,” his evil course of life, and “his thoughts,” his purposes, wrong objects of pursuit, his selfish and sinful aims and plans of life; the two phrases being designed to include all that pertains both to the outer and the inner life of man. He must make his heart right and his outer life right also; not his heart only, but his life; not his life only, but his heart no less. The word rendered “thoughts” means not merely or primarily opinions, views of things; but the moral purposes, the chosen objects which one lives for; the preferences, determinations which control all his subordinate activities. The grand inducement named here to urge sinners to seek God thus is the assurance of God’s mercy in His free and abundant pardon. H. C.

Let them consider that they have to do with One who will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax; that the heart of God is with them; that the darkness and death of Christ, now changed to the strength of intercession, are on their side, and all those heavenly promises which are Yea and Amen in Him, and which, as bright and as many as the stars in their courses, all fight for them. Let them think of Jacob’s wrestling, of David’s tears, of Paul’s threefold prayer, of the woman of Canaan, of Christ Himself, who was always heard, and yet had to cry in agony; and let them be sure that if they continue to look to God they shall be lightened, and find there were good reasons for the cloud and darkness, even very abundant dews of God in them, to prepare them for coming sunshine. And if all these considerations fail, let them still take up this language, “Nay; but we will serve the Lord,” “We cannot force from Him a sense of His favor, but we can humbly and perseveringly offer Him our service—not as a price, but as a humble tribute to Him, whose we are and whom we ought to serve. On this we are resolved, whatever be the issue, for this is just and right, and all His own.” Ker.

Observe, before pardon can be sealed, he must forsake not this sin, or that, but the whole law of sin. “Let the wicked forsake his way.” He forsakes the way of sin that turns out of the whole road; in a word, thou must forsake the blindest path of all in sin’s way, that which lies behind the hedge, as I may so say, in the thoughts of the heart, “and the unrighteous his thoughts;” or else thou knockest in vain at God’s door for pardoning mercy, and therefore forsake all or none. Gurnall.

Take away the Gospel, and where art thou? Were it possible for thee to repent and become a new man, what settles the connection between repentance and salvation but the Gospel promise? Will the violated law of works accept thy repentance instead of obedience? Doth it not expressly preclude any such expectation? Doth it give any ground to look for anything but death after sin? Thou must therefore fly to the Gospel or yield thyself lost. And know, it contains none but faithful and true sayings, that have more stability in them than the foundations of heaven and earth. Howe.

Many sins do not prevent our pardon or conversion. God’s free gift is “of many offences unto justification” (Rom. 5:16); and it is written in this verse 7, “He will multiply to pardon.” For nearly these six thousand years God has been multiplying pardons, and yet free grace is not tired and grown weary. The creatures owe a great debt to justice, but we have an able surety. There is no want of mercy in the creditor, nor of sufficiency in the surety. Certainly, mercy is an ocean that is ever full and ever flowing. The saints carry loads of experiences with them to heaven. Free grace can show you large accounts, and a long bill cancelled by the blood of Christ! Manton.

Impossible it is that He should reject any penitent sinner merely for the greatness of the sins he hath committed. It is the exaltation of His mercy (saith faith) that God hath in His eye when He promiseth pardon to poor sinners. Now, which exalts this most, to pardon little or great sinners? whose voice will be highest in the song of praise, thinkest thou? surely his to whom most is forgiven; and therefore God cannot but be most ready to pardon the greatest sinners when truly penitent. Gurnall.—I am a great sinner, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. But I am an old sinner, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. But I am a hard-hearted sinner, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. But I have served Satan all my days, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. But I have sinned against light, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. But I have sinned against mercy, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. But I have no good thing to bring with me, sayest thou. I will in nowise cast out, says Christ. Bunyan.

If the soul is really in earnest in seeking God, there is a consciousness of two things in that soul. One is the consciousness of how far off that life is from God, and the other is the consciousness of how near it is. And the two together make the soul’s salvation. If it did not seem so far away, the soul would think it easy to do that which is a great and profound thing to do. On the other hand, without the second consciousness there would come despair. Know the difficulty of salvation. Know the easiness of salvation. Know how far from God you are. Know how near to God you are. Keep all the fear of the Christian life. Keep all the hope of the Christian life. Struggle as if God was so far off that you would need all your strength to come to Him. Leap as if one single bound could carry you out of your wickedness into His righteousness and love. Phillips Brooks.—Open your whole nature to God, offer yourselves in the spirit of contrition and of a real, unquestioning faith to the occupancy of God, and the light will not more certainly break into the sky and fill the horizon with day, when the morning sun is risen. Ask, in one word, and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find. This now is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is not some new idea of the Gospel. It is an advance of the Divine love to recover lost ground and bring back guilty souls among men, to that which is the original, everlasting bliss and beauty of all the created intelligences of God. H. Bushnell.

8,9. The word “for” connects verse 8 with the latter part of verse 7, appending it to sustain the declaration, “God will have mercy;” “God will abundantly pardon.” God’s thoughts and ways are here put in contrast with man’s in the special point of His rich mercy and readiness to forgive, with design to overcome the repelencies of unbelief and conscious guilt in the sinner’s heart. H. C.—As if He had said, “You must forsake your evil ways and thoughts, and by so doing, you infallibly secure My favor; for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so far am I superior to you in mercy, not only in the rigor and extent of My requirements, but also in compassion for the guilty, in benevolent consideration even for the Gentiles, and in the constancy and firmness of My purposes when formed.” A.

8. The contrast here is not between the holiness of God’s ways and the unholiness of the thoughts and ways of sinners, but between the largeness of His ways of grace, the vastness of His thoughts of mercy, and the selfishness of the sinner, or the low conceptions of the penitent, when first he turns to God. Birks.

As the heavens are high above the earth, so are the great thoughts of God in them above man’s thoughts. The Son of God coming from heaven to die for man, the Spirit of God coming from heaven to live in man, to change man, the enemy of God, into His friend, His heir, and to do this for all who are but willing to make God’s Son and Spirit welcome, these are thoughts which have a majesty and range so great and godlike that they show their origin. Ker.

At the same time that this passage refers primarily to the subject of pardon, and should be interpreted as having a main reference to that, it is also true of the ways of God in general. His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not ours in regard to His moral government; to His actual administration; to His plans in the creation and government of the world. He has plans of accomplishing His purposes which are different from ours, and He secures our own welfare by schemes that cross our own. He disappoints our hopes; foils our expectations; crosses our designs; removes our property or our friends, and thwarts our purposes in life. He leads us in a path which we had not intended, and secures our ultimate happiness in modes which we should not have thought of, and which are contrary to all our designs and desires. It follows from this, that we should form our plans with submission to the higher purposes of God. Barnes.

10, 11. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and thither returneth not, but when it has watered the earth and made it bear and put forth and has given seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be, which goeth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void (or without effect), but when it has done that which I desired, and successfully done that for which I sent it. This is a new comparison, suggested by the mention of the heavens and the earth in the preceding verse. The tenth and eleventh form a single sentence of unusual length in Hebrew composition. The one contains the comparison properly so called, the other makes the application. A.

In addition to the grandeur and exalted magnitude of God’s wonderful scheme of salvation, the prophet here sets before us, by another impressive figure, the absolute certainty of its success. The figure is drawn from the fixedness and invariable character of the laws and operations of material nature. Snow and rain descend from heaven, and water the earth, and promote vegetation; this is the uniform and inevitable result. Just so every declaration from the mouth of God must have complete accomplishment. He who maintained the order of material nature fulfils with like precision His own glorious designs in His scheme of grace. His word of salvation can no more fail to achieve the results which He has appointed for it, than natural causes can fail to bring to pass their own proper sequences. W. H. G.

This assures us that the promises of God shall all have their full accomplishment in due time, and not one iota or tittle of them shall fail. These promises of mercy and grace shall have as real an effect upon the souls of believers, for their sanctification and comfort, as ever the rain had upon the earth, to make it fruitful. That according to the different errands on which the word is sent, it will have its different effects; if it be not a savor of life unto life, it will be a savor of death unto death; if it do not convince the conscience and soften the heart, it will sear the conscience and harden the heart; if it do not ripen for heaven, it will ripen for hell. (See chap. 6:9.) One way or other, it will take effect. H.

“My Word that Goeth out of My Mouth.” Diversified as are its several parts in topic and style—a diversity running through the whole scale of prose and poetry, argument and song, history and apocalypse, proverb and precept, dirge and carol—there is, nevertheless, such a unity in its contents, as itself to be an argument for its Divine origin, for collusion among writers living fifteen centuries apart is impossible. Proceeding from one mind, it relates to one theme: the redemption of the human race by the Incarnate Son of God. Assured that there is but one redemption, we are assured also that there is but one revelation. This is so rounded and completed and sufficient, that no other is necessary. It precludes, by its own claims, the expectation of any other disclosures, inasmuch as those already made are ample for our guidance in this life and our salvation in the life to come. The peculiarity of the volume is, that it is the only infallible rule of human faith and duty. W. Adams.

The Scriptures are not only a revelation, but also the history of a revelation. They are primarily the records of the development and unfolding of the plans of God for the redemption of fallen mankind. These plans involved two great processes—viz., the preparation of salvation for man, and the preparation of man for salvation. Essentially, then, the Scriptures are the records of an educational process, in the development of which the grand and fundamental truths of the biblical religion, in their whole length, breadth and depth, were gradually unfolded through God’s providential guidance and instruction of His people. There is a growth from small beginnings, an unfolding of germs, and a historical development. The biblical religion is not a “book religion” in this sense, that from the very outset the whole plan of God was set ideally before the people in the shape of abstract principles and propositions; but these principles and truths were developed and perfected in their fulness rather in connection with the historical growth of the kingdom of God on earth; not, indeed, in the naturalistic and naturalizing sense now current in some circles. In these we are told that the great principles of this religion are the spontaneous and native expression of the religious trend and tendency of the Semitic mind, which has by natural endowment the same pre-eminence in this sphere that the Greek mind had in philosophical and aesthetic thought, and the Roman in legal and administrative.

No legitimate interpretation of the Christian Scriptures has yet been able to eliminate from the history of which they are the official documents the Divine factor as the sui generis element. No reasonable hypothesis can satisfactorily explain the deep truths of biblical teachings—no matter whether these truths are brought forth through the facts of God’s special dealings with His people in shaping their destinies and fate, or whether they, through prophetic or apostolic inspiration, are given didactically as formulated propositions—unless on the assumption that their source and fountain-head is Divine. Indeed, the very fact that the stage of development at which the religious teachings in Israel had arrived at any particular period in their history was far in advance of their religious status and capacity, is evidence sufficient that it was not Israel that developed the fundamental principles of the biblical religion, but it was the latter which guided and directed the historical growth of the nation. It is just here, in the inversion of these facts, that we find the cardinal error of much of the neological biblical criticism of the day. Schodde.

The book is given to us as a whole. It is declared emphatically that the holy men who wrote it were moved by the Holy Ghost. What right have we to modify this declaration, and say that the Holy Ghost moved some of them more than others, or more at one time than at another? The attempt to cut and carve the Bible according to our ideas of good, better and best seems to us very much like taking a living man and trying to show by dissection that some parts of his body are more important than others. Every part of the body is essential to its completeness and perfection. Every part of it was divinely planned. The whole is “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth” (Eph. 4 : 16). Interior.

For Christians it will be enough to know that our Lord Jesus Christ has set the seal of His infallible sanction on the whole of the Old Testament. He found the Hebrew canon just as we have it in our hands to-day, and He treated it as an authority which was above discussion—nay, more, He went out of His way, if we may reverently speak thus, to sanction not a few portions of it which our modern scepticism too eagerly rejects. When He would warn His hearers against the danger of spiritual relapse, He bade them remember Lot’s wife. When He would point out how worldly engagements may blind the soul to a coming judgment, He reminds them how men ate, and drank, and married, and were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. When He would put His finger on a fact in past Jewish history, which, by its admitted reality, would warrant belief in His own resurrection, He points to Jonah, three days and three nights in the whale’s belly. When, standing on the Mount of Olives, with the holy city at His feet, He would quote a prophecy, the fulfilment of which would mark for His followers that its impending doom had at last arrived. He desires them to flee to the mountains, where they “shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place.” Are we to suppose that, in these and other references to the Old Testament, our Lord was only using what are called ad hominem arguments, or talking down to the level of popular ignorance which He did not Himself share? Not to point out the inconsistency of this supposition with His character as a perfectly sincere religious teacher, it may be observed that, in the Sermon on the Mount, He carefully marks off those features of the popular Jewish religion which He rejects in a manner which makes it certain that, had He not Himself believed in the historic truth of the events and the persons to which He thus refers, He must have said so. But did He then share a popular belief which our higher knowledge has shown to be popular ignorance? and was He mistaken as to the worth of those Scriptures to which He so often and so confidently appealed? There are those who profess to bear the Christian name, and who do not shrink from saying as much as this; but they will find it difficult to persuade mankind that, if He could be mistaken on a matter of such strictly religious importance as this, He can be safely trusted about anything else. Yes, the trustworthiness of the Old Testament is, in fact, inseparable from the trustworthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ; and if we believe that He is the true Light of the world, we shall resolutely close our ears against any suggestions of the falsehood of those Hebrew Scriptures which have received the stamp of His Divine authority. Liddon.

The Bible as an inspired record is an infallible and it is the final authority for faith and life. Its inspiration involves its infallibility. Interpreted, as all words must be, by its real spirit, it gives us truth without error. Light and life come from the ministry of the Word. Its hallowed sayings are our stay, when all other support fails; our rock amid the billows; the songs of our pilgrimage; the pledge of our final rest. Such implicit faith may be stigmatized as bibliolatry; but where else can we go to find the words of eternal life? Bibliolatry clings to the letter; spirituality in the letter finds the Spirit, and dares not disown the letter which guided to the Spirit.

For the enduring wants of the soul, for the problems of sin, salvation and eternity, we find here an unwavering authority and rest in faith and joy upon the last assurance of the highest testimony, “Thus saith the Lord.” And as it is an infallible, so is it a final authority. No man may add unto or take away from the words of this Book. “Here is the judge that ends the strife.” Like its Divine Author, it has full oft been called before human tribunals, been reviled, spit upon, yea, buried, that it might rise again with new power, and bless even its persecutors. Of controversy, as history testifies, it has ever been the arbiter; of opposing systems, the invariable conqueror; every scheme of men has become wan and shrivelled at its touch. Beyond its revelations and its prophecies thought cannot reach; it contains the oldest of records as the most living of prophecies. New assailants, in the flush of self-consciousness, call it antiquated, and its antiquity is as that of God Himself. It is older than the stars and the earth, and awaits their dissolution, that all its revelations may be fulfilled. But it is also ever new, as well as ever old; the most progressive, as it is the most conservative of influences; the counterpart of the wisdom of God. All literature has drawn deep and precious draughts from its fountain; its Orient pearls are scattered through all lands; philosophy has there found the test of its errors and the lordliest of its truths. For four thousand years its words have been inspiration and life, comforting the downcast and breaking the oppressor’s rod; pledging peace to the penitent, and opening to all the very gates of endless life; subduing with imperial might all other words; speaking with such tones of authority as you read in no other books; and in the very name of the Lord proclaiming a kingdom which has been ever advancing, yet never subdued. And thus like a living power, it has been doing a living and abiding work among the children of men, in every clime, in every language, and now wider than ever before are its words rehearsed. “Its lines have gone out through all the earth, and its words to the end of the world.” H. B. Smith.

Its spiritual unity is the witness of its Divine origin. Consisting of books, some of them the most ancient in the world, the rest due to an authorship extending over fourteen centuries, and written in several languages—each book when first written, whether historical, devotional, prophetic or doctrinal, as distinct in date and execution, and as independent a work as the histories of Thucydides or the poems of Homer or Sophocles, and by no means composed as an assigned portion of a collection to be subsequently organized into a canon or printed in a single convenient volume for the modern world—these writings, originating thus in widely distant ages and in so many and different authorships, do, nevertheless, when brought together, reveal a spiritual unity; constitute a progressive, but organic whole; agree during all these ages in setting forth one living and holy God, who is the same almighty lover of mankind and lover of righteousness, the same inexorable foe of obstinate vice, crime and sin alike under every dispensation; and manifestly record the slow development of one far-reaching purpose for reconciling men to God—for setting forth, throughout, one way to everlasting life, in the Christ of prophecy, in the Christ of history and the immortal ascended Christ of the Epistles and the Apocalypse. This is a phenomenon unique in literature, and inexplicable except by the truth that the Scriptures record a revelation given by One who saw the end from the beginning; by One Spirit, who took the exclusive work of conveying that revelation out of the hands of any single generation; so precluding the possibility of imposture at first or of conspiracy afterward. For it was impossible that the forgers or false prophets of sixty generations could agree in producing at last the complicated organism of the Old and New Testaments. Edward White.

The faith of the Bible is as rigid and experimental in its character as the strictest science of the schools. It makes no arbitrary assumptions, rests on no disputed axioms, but upon the foundation of facts of the most impressive and varied character, it builds up, patiently and surely, its doctrines and its precepts; invites the most searching scrutiny into the testimonials which it adduces; and having by them established its first principles, gives not only for its fundamental axioms, but for its every inference and for each subsequent deduction the word of a God. Do the self-satisfied philosophers of this world tell us of the necessity of facts? We answer, the incarnation, the personal character, the crucifixion and resurrection of the Saviour are facts most fully proved, and standing alone, would be in themselves sufficient to prove the divinity of the revelation that is entwined about them, and of which they constitute the central supports, the chief and favorite theme. And every convert, ransomed by the power of this faith from the tyranny of evil habits, affords in himself a new fact, augmenting the mass of her evidences, and swelling her far-spreading and splendid “cloud of witnesses.” W. R. Williams.

Scripture does not accomplish its final, perfect end until it secures man’s salvation. The essential, decisive test of its Divine efficiency is not its teaching function, but its saving function. It is a revelation of the supernatural, not the natural. Through its length and breadth and depth and height it is Christocentric, and the light which irradiates it from centre to circumference is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The history of Scripture in the experience of the world is in exact accordance with these claims, and fully sustains them. It does make wise to salvation. It is profitable for discipline in righteousness. In the spiritual life of humanity the words of Christ have proved themselves to be spirit and life. Christ as the Life is the Light of the world. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The voice of the written word is the voice of the personal word, and is therefore mighty and living. It speaks with the authority of law, which as Logos is enthroned eternally in the bosom of God. It finds an echo in the conscience. No one who obeys it is led astray, or lost. The wayfaring man who walks its paths of life and peace, though a fool, will not err therein. All who surrender their hearts and lives to its claims find life eternal, peace indestructible, a joy unspeakable and flooded with glory. L. J. Evans.

Shall not return unto Me void. It is strictly and unquestionably true that God’s word never returns to Him void. In every case it answers the purpose for which it has been sent forth; and it is impossible for any moral or intelligent being to come into contact with it without receiving some impression which will make him either worse or better than he was before. All the truths of God’s word are in themselves eternal. They cannot be annihilated—they cannot be destroyed. Like the light that emanates from the sun, they may sometimes be obscured, or modified, or counteracted by other causes, and that to such an extent that their benignant influences may not be sensibly felt; but not a single truth falls on the ear and enters the heart that does not contribute to the formation of personal character. J. A. W.

It is a great mistake to imagine the only advantage derived from hearing is the acquisition of new truths. There is a spiritual perception infinitely more important than the knowledge which is merely speculative. The latter is at most but a means to the former, and this perception is not confined to new propositions. It is frequently, nay more frequently, attached to truths already known; and when they are faithfully and affectionately exhibited, they are the principal means of calling into action and strengthening the habits of internal grace. Love, joy, humility, heavenly-mindedness, godly sorrow for sin and holy resolutions against it are not promoted so much by novel speculations as by placing in a just and affecting light the acknowledged truths of the Gospel, and thereby stirring up the mind by way of remembrance. While I am in this tabernacle, said Peter, I will not be negligent to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the present truth. We appeal to the experience of every real Christian, whether the sweetest and most profitable seasons he has enjoyed have not been those in which he is conscious of having learned no new truth, strictly speaking, but was indulged with spiritual and transforming views of the plain, unquestionable discoveries of the Gospel. As the Word of God is the food of souls, so it corresponds to that character in this respect among others—that the strength and refreshment it imparts depend not upon its novelty, but upon the nutritious properties it possesses. It is a sickly appetite only which craves incessant variety. R. Hall.

Our faith in the Holy Scriptures and in what they contain rests upon secure foundations. There are three broad and deeply laid bastions of evidence—the internal evidences of their divineness, the testimony of the Holy Spirit in our experiences, and their transforming power as shown in the history of our race. This last by itself is overwhelming to all objections. The wise and beneficent laws of every civilized power, the organization of society, the benign institutions, all the pure maxims of morals and the comfort and joy and hope bestowed on millions in all the ages, all these are from the Scriptures, which were bestowed on mankind when as yet there was none of them. To say that this book, the source of such beneficent power, is not Divine, would show a forfeiture of our faculties of comprehension. Interior.

The Bible does not need defence so much as it needs proclamation. It defends itself wherever it is known. Deep in every soul there dwells forever a witness to the truth, whose clear eye and steady voice will see and respond to it wherever it is known. We do not need to implore men to believe the truth. We only need that they shall apprehend it, and then we may defy them to deny it. And thus the Bible of eternal truth needs no other argument for its support than itself clearly preached. Seelye.

Among all the remarkable things about the Book, nothing is more remarkable than that there it is, after all that has happened. When we think of the gaps and losses in ancient literature, and the long, stormy centuries that lie between us and its earlier pages, we can faintly estimate the chances against their preservation. It is strange that the Jewish race should have so jealously preserved books which certainly did not flatter national pride, which put a mortifying explanation on national disasters, which painted them and their fathers in dark colors, which proclaimed truths they never loved and breathed a spirit they never caught. It is stranger still that in the long years of dispersion the very vices and limitations of the people subserved the same end, and that stiff pedantry and laborious trifling—the poorest form of intellectual activity—should have guarded the letter of the word, as the coral insects painfully build up their walls round some fair island of the Southern Sea. When one thinks of the great gulf of language between the Old and New Testaments, of the variety of authors, periods, subjects, literary form, the animosities of Christian and Jew, it is strange that we have the Book here one, and that all these parts should blend into unity, unless the source and theme were one, and one hand had shaped each and cared for the gathering together of all. A. M.

In the written form which God has given to His word, and in the wondrous providence with which He has watched over its integrity, He has given perpetual security to this instrument of a final triumph in favor of Himself and His cause. What has appeared so often worsted in the conflict has not been, in reality, the Word of Truth itself, but only those emanations from itself which, by the power of the Spirit, have gone out for leaven, for mixture, for operation, through the great mass of surrounding evil. In itself it has ever remained incorrupt; giving forth its power; maintaining the ferment of good in the midst of evil; and preparing the way for the time when, the whole lump being leavened, truth shall everywhere prevail, the world yield to its sway, and all human things settle down into the unfermenting calm of light, and peace, and love, under Jesus, the spiritual king of all the earth. J. S. Stone.

The Bible is not, as a Book, the book we should have made it. But it is the Book of Him who here commends it to our acceptance. And it has prospered in every age since its first promulgation, and in every land to which according to the Divine purpose it has been sent. It takes effect upon men, singly and in communities. It comes as the dew or rain from heaven, or as the tempest; it is gentle and germinating, or it is a force irresistible. It does its office, here or there as the need may be, where human nature, as to its moral elements, is still in a cultivable state and is still reclaimable. Thus has it prospered in quickening to life millions of souls, and in nourishing the Divine life within these souls. So has it prospered in ruling the life, in strengthening the purpose, in giving heart to the courage of martyrs, and in imparting patience and contentment and a bright hope to the individual spirits of that great multitude which is gathering into the kingdom of heaven. These purposes the Scriptures of God have subserved, are now subserving, and shall continue to subserve to the end of time; and in a period not remote shall they carry light and life to every land which hitherto they have not visited. I. Taylor.

Our confidence in missions is—because God has sent His Gospel on purpose to convert the world; declared His word shall not return to Him void; promised to be always with its faithful proclaimers, and predicted that all the world shall at length feel its transforming power. Faith in this is our only assurance and strength in any such undertaking. Now the special demand for this faith and its strongest trial are in “the day of small things.” Then is the proof whether we really believe and trust in the Almighty, and can act on an assurance that though “the beginning be small, the latter end shall greatly increase.” It is no faith that cannot be assured of the accomplishment of great things and great promises, till they seem to be accomplished, or till there be a rapid and magnificent progress toward that accomplishment; and that because mighty results are not obtained in the earlier course of operations, therefore feel as if the labor and expenditure were but thrown away. Foster.

Analogies between a Seed and the Word.

A seed is the most wonderful thing in the word. There is nothing else that contains so much in so little bulk. There is nothing else that concentrates within it such capacities and possibilities. It is the origin and end of organic life. It forms the bridge of transition from the grain of sand to the living cell. By means of it the naked rock is covered with verdure, and the desolate wilderness transformed into a garden. The analogy between the word of God and a seed is remarkably close and striking.

A first point of comparison is found in the life which they both possess. A seed is a living thing. Kept by itself, it lies passive, giving no sign of life or growth, and incapable of doing so. And yet it retains unimpaired the vitality and life-history of the whole organism from which it has sprung, and can reproduce these when it germinates and develops its hidden powers. It is by the seed that the continuity of vegetable life is preserved from generation to generation; so that in reality the long history of any species of plant from the creation of the world is simply the continuous unfolding from the seed of stem and leaf and flower and fruit, and the continuous retreat into the seed of fruit and flower and leaf and stem throughout the successive seasons that have existed upon the earth. And, thus possessed of latent potential life, a seed is a profound mystery, which, the more we think of it, the more inscrutable it becomes. There can be no life without it. If anything has been clearly and satisfactorily proved by recent experiments and discussions, it is that there is no such thing in nature as spontaneous generation. All life springs from previous life by means of the seed.

And in this respect is it not a striking emblem of the word of God? That word is a living word. “The words that I speak unto you,” says Jesus, “they are spirit and they are life.” It is not truth merely in a spoken or written form. It is more than knowledge. It is a living power; it does not work mechanically, but vitally. The words of Christ were the concentration and embodiment of His own life, just as truly as the seed is the concentration and embodiment of the life of the plant. The spoken word of Christ, heard by His contemporaries, contained all that was essential in His living among men; and the written word of the Gospel which we can hear and read contains for us all that the incarnation of Christ implies. The written word and the living word reveal the closest relationship between them. They both are God’s manifestation of Himself to us. And not only in the doctrinal or specially saving truths of Scripture is this living power felt; even in its historical and common incidents we feel that there is a peculiar vital vividness transporting us into the old life of the past in a way that no other records of antiquity can do. The word of God is the highest of all life. And just as in nature it has been proved that dead matter cannot originate life under any circumstances whatever, except by the introduction into it of a living seed, so without the instrumentality of the word of God there can be no spiritual life. The Spirit takes of the recorded things of Christ, and shows them to us. Without the word there would be nothing to know, or obey, or love; without the Spirit there would be no saving knowledge, no obedience, no love. The Spirit operating upon the heart apart from the word would be only to give a vague inclination without an object as its end and purpose. And therefore all religion that does not spring from the seed of God’s word is a dim abstraction or an unreal sentimentality. It is aimless and powerless, the continual ploughing and harrowing of a field without putting any seed into it. And just as the seed is not only living in itself, but the design and end of it is to produce life, to give rise to more abundant life, so the evangelist John is careful to close his Gospel—to be henceforth the seed of the Church—with a solemn admonition of the purpose for which it has been placed in our hands. “These are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name.”

Another point of resemblance between the seed and the word may be found in the small compass within which the living principle is enshrined in both. Nothing, as I have said, holds so much in so little bulk as a seed. It is a miniature orb, embracing the whole mystery of animated nature. An atom, often not so large as a grain of sand, contains within it all the concentrated vitality of the largest forest trees. It is a most remarkable example of nature’s packing; for a seed consists of a single or a double leaf, folded in such a way as to take up the smallest possible room. And were it not that the miracle is repeated so incessantly before our eyes, we should find it difficult to believe that life could be so compacted; we should be filled with wonder at the sight of complicated structures—charming flower or noble tree—unfolding themselves from such minute storehouses of sleeping life. And in this respect the word of God may be compared to a seed. It is truth in its seed-form. We have in the Scriptures the most concentrated form of heavenly teaching. Nothing is omitted; nothing is superfluous. It contains all that is necessary for the salvation of man. Nothing can be added to it or taken away from it. It is rounded and finished off—full-orbed and complete, as every seed must be. All is contained within the smallest compass, so as to be easiest of comprehension, easiest of being carried in the memory and easiest of being reduced to practice. Every careful reader of Scripture must be greatly struck with the Divine economy with which its materials are arranged. There is nothing added for the mere sake of poetic embellishment or rhetorical effect. It is all full of meaning, and has a Divine purpose to serve. The seemingly dry details of history, the apparently uninteresting chapters of proper names, are like the nourishing material that is wrapped around the embryo in the natural seed, necessary for the proper understanding of the more vital and saving truth with which they are connected. All the wisdom of the scientific world, with its marvellous disclosures of the secrets of mountain and sea, star and rock and plant, do not bring us so near the great central truth in the natural as well as in the religious sphere, the very mind and heart of God, as one parable of Christ, or one of those grand prophetic figures in which all the glory of futurity is focussed. And the word of God is so compacted in the seed form, because it needs to be unfolded in the teaching and life of man. The soil was made for the revelation of the seed; and the seed was made to be revealed by the soil. As the seed cannot disclose what is in it unless it fall into appropriate soil and be stimulated to growth by suitable conditions, so the word of God cannot disclose all that it contains unless it grow in an understanding mind and in a loving heart; unless by meditation and prayer it can expand from the seed-form to the blade, and the ear, and the full corn in the ear. And hence the word of God depends, for the richness of its disclosures, upon the nature of the soil into which it falls. It comes to all alike as a seed; and the varied comprehension of its meaning and the varied results which it produces are determined by the varied natures that make it their own. Wonderful things are seen out of God’s law by those whose eyes God’s Spirit has opened; rich meanings and applications are found by them lying under words and forms of speech in which others of more prosaic minds and carnal understandings see nothing. Their interpretation of Scripture is the vivid outgrowth of their own spiritual life. Another resemblance between the word of God and a seed may be seen in the wonderful effects which they both produce. By its germinating and expanding vitality, the seed quickens the dormant fertility of the soil and the passive powers of the atmosphere. It is a living vortex, drawing to itself all the blessings of heaven and earth, making the isolated portion of soil in which it is growing a part of the wide universe, and participating in all its beneficent influences. It finds dull, dead mould, and it takes it up into its own composition, impresses it with its own character, endows it with its own qualities, lays all nature under tribute for its sustenance and well-being, raises it thus from the inert mineral kingdom into the kingdom of life, and converts grains of sand and particles of air into a vigorous organism full of life and beauty. So the word of God is quick and powerful. When it enters the soul, it does not lie dormant in the intellect, but quickens the conscience. It does not affect our opinions or speculations merely, it affects our heart and life, it dominates our whole spiritual nature. It has the power of transmutation in it. It has a spiritual quickening energy. It is the source of saving life to souls dead in trespasses and sins. It has taken its place in the heart of human culture. Nothing else has wrought such a mighty revolution in human ideas. It makes disciples of every race. The most learned and the most ignorant are witnesses to its transforming power, making the simple wise, and giving to men of highest culture soul-saving, sanctifying knowledge. It is a Divine seed which came from heaven, and has brought the kingdom of heaven down to men—made the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. The harvest which has sprung from it is everywhere visible in the Church and the world. It is increasing in beauty and fruitfulness every day. It is covering larger and larger spaces of the earth’s surface. It is reaching to the most savage and unreclaimed wastes of heathendom. And soon will it cover the whole earth with its glory and its abundance; and all people shall eat of its fruit, and know its saving health, and rejoice with the joy of harvest.

Such are some of the resemblances between the word of God and a natural seed. I might speak further at length of the wonderful vitality of a seed, its power not only of retaining life under the ordinary circumstances of nature for an indefinite period, but also of resisting the most destructive forces—an emblem, surely, of the indestructible vitality of the Bible, overcoming all the attacks of its enemies in every age and promising to remain to “the last syllable of recorded time” the great spiritual power of the world. But I must leave this tempting theme, and conclude with one or two personal suggestions. As the seed is made for soil, and soil for seed, so the heart of man is made for God’s word, and God’s word for the heart of man. They are mutually adapted. Without the seed of the word, the heart of man remains barren of all spiritual goodness; without the heart of man to grow in and develop its fulness, the word abideth alone, unrevealed. Let us use it, then, as seed sown in our heart, in our life, in our work, with prayers and tears, that under the increase of the Spirit it may grow and expand and fill wide neighborhoods with fruitfulness and beauty. We are sent into the world to sow, and not to destroy—to sow the seed of heaven, and thus raise in it a heavenly produce foreign to it, impart to it a principle of spiritual life which by its growth will choke out old evils and make all things new. And let us remember that we must give our own life in the sowing, as the plant gives its life in the seed. The word of truth must have our own life shrined in it, expressed by it, if it is to become the means of life to others. The seed of God’s word must have been sown in our own heart, grown up there, gathered round it and drawn up into its fair expanding growth from the soil and atmosphere of our own being, our own peculiarities of spiritual experience; and from this fair plant of grace that has grown with our growth and ripened with our ripe ness, we take the seed that is to reproduce a similar growth of blessedness in other hearts and lives. Macmillan.

12,13. The people of God pass out from under the restrictions and limitations of the Mosaic age, emerging from its comparative darkness and imbecility; and move upon the nations, open now to their Gospel mission. It is a joyful work; the mountains and the hills break forth before them into singing; the forest trees clap their hands in glad applause and exultant praise to their Creator. All nature seems conscious of the blessedness of this moral transformation, the glory of which is that men shall know the Lord and turn from their sinning to a holy life. Another figure conceives of the thorns and briars that came upon the earth, the curse for man’s fall (Gen. 3: 17-19), as now giving way to growths alike beautiful and useful. H. C.

13. Dropping the metaphor, the prophet then says in direct terms, that the glorious change predicted shall redound to the glory of its author. It shall be for a name—i.e., it shall serve as a memorial, which is then described in other words as a sign of perpetuity or everlasting token, with allusion, as Vitringa thinks, to those commemorative obelisks or pillars mentioned elsewhere (e.g., chap. 19: 19). This memorial is called perpetual because it shall not be cut off, pass away, or be abolished. A.—“And this shall be to the Lord for a name”—i.e., for renown and for glory, a sign and proof of His enduring and surpassing love. This stupendous change will be the memorial of His loving-kindness to our lost race, to stand forever before the hierarchies of heaven as the measure and monument of Divine compassion and unutterable love.

Thus closes one of the most grand and sublime strains of prophecy (chaps. 52-55) that ever passed through human lips. It is the Gospel age seen with its final issues on earth outspread in prophetic vision, its suffering yet glorified Redeemer; God’s love to Zion and His assurances of restoring mercy; the Gospel call, coupled with God’s gracious purpose and pledge of its efficiency in making this sin-cursed earth again a paradise of moral purity and beauty. H. C.