HEN ISAIAH uttered the word of the Lord to the effect (continued)
If it does not convince the conscience and soften the heart, it will sear the conscience and harden the heart. If it does not ripen for heaven, it will ripen for hell. Thirdly, that Christ's coming into the world, as the dew from heaven, will not be in vain. For if Israel is not gathered He will be glorious in the conversion of the Gentiles. To him, therefore, the tenders of grace must be made, when the Jews refuse them, that the wedding may be furnished with guests, and the Gospel not return void.
2. THE INCARNATE WorD
It may be readily seen how the Word which is regarded as so lively should become personalised as in St. John's Gospel, chapter i. But already under the term "'wisdom"' the Incarnate Word was anticipated (see Prov. vit. 22, 31). That it is an intelligent and divine person who here speaks seems very plain. Wisdom here has personal properties and actions. That intelligent, divine person can be no other but the Son of God himself. All divine revelation is 'the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him''. Here we are told who and what He is, as God designed in the eternal counsels to be the mediator between God and man. The best exposition of these verses we have in the first four verses of St. John's Gospel: "In the beginning was the word."
Concerning the Son of God, observe the following points: (a) His personality and distinct subsistence. One with the Father and of the same essence, and yet a person of Himself, whom the Lord possessed (verse 22); was set up (verse 23); was brought forth (verses 24, 25); was by Him (verse 30); for He was the express image of His person (Heb. i. 3).
(b) His eternity. He was begotten of the Father, for the Lord possessed Him as His own Son, His beloved Son, laid Him in His bosom. He was brought forth as the only begotten of the Father, and this before all worlds, which is most largely insisted upon here. The Word was eternal, and had a being before the world, before the beginning of time. Therefore it must follow that He was from eternity. The Lord possessed Him in the beginning of His way, that is, of His eternal counsels, for those were before His works. This way indeed had no beginning, for God's purposes in Himself are eternal like Himself, but God speaks to us in our own language. Wisdom explains
Word and Wisdom 249 herself (verse 23), "I was set up from everlasting." The Son of God was in the eternal counsels of God designed and advanced to be the wisdom and power of the Father, light and life, and all in all, both in the creation and in the redemption of the world. 'That He was brought forth as to His being, and set up as to the divine counsels concerning His office, before the world was made, is here set forth in a great variety of expressions, much the same with those by which the eternity of God is expressed (Ps. xc. 2). "Before the mountains were brought forth."
(c) His agency in making the world. He not only had a being before the world, but He was present, not as a spectator, but as the architect, when the world was made. God puzzled and humbled Job by asking him, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who hath laid the measures thereof?" (Job xxxviii. 4f.). Wast Thou that eternal Word and Wisdom which was the prime manager of that great affair? No. Thou art of yesterday. But here the Son of God, referring as it should seem to that discourse God had with Job, declares Himself to be that which Job could not pretend to be, a witness of and a worker in the creation of the world. '"'By him God made the worlds"' (Heb. i. 2; Eph. iii. 9; Col. i. 16).
(i) When on the first day of the creation, in the very beginning of time, God bespoke the light, and with a word produced it, this eternal Wisdom was that almighty Word. Then "I was there when he prepared the heavens'', the fountain of that light, which, whatever it is here, is there substantial.
(ii) He was no less active when on the second day he stretched out the firmament, the vast expanse, and set that as "'a compass upon the face of the depth"' (verse 27), surrounded it on all sides with that canopy, that curtain. Or, it may refer to that exact order and method with which God framed all the parts of the universe, as the workman marks out his work with his line and compasses. The work in nothing varied from the plan of it formed in the eternal mind.
(iii) He was also employed on the third day's work, when the waters above the heavens were gathered together by the establishing of the clouds above, and under the heavens, by the strengthening of the fountains of the deep, which send forth those waters (verse 28), and by preserving the bounds of the sea, which is the receptacle of those waters (verse 29). This speaks much the honour of this eternal Wisdom, for by this instance God proves Himself a God greatly to be feared, that He "hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea'', that the dry land might continue to appear above the water, fit to be a habitation for man. Thus He hath "appointed the foundations of the earth"'.
How able, how fit is the Son of God to be the Saviour of the world, who was the creator of it!
(d) The infinite complacency which the Father had in Him (verse 30). '"'I was by him, as one brought up with him." As by an eternal generation He was brought forth of the Father, so by an eternal counsel He was brought up with Him, which intimates not only the infinite love of the Father to the Son, who is therefore called 'the Son of his love" (Col. 1. 13), but the mutual consciousness and good understanding that was between them, concerning the work of man's redemption, which the Son was to undertake, and about which '"'the counsel of peace was between them both"' (Zech. vi. 13). He was ''the Father's pupil"' as I may say—trained up from eternity for that service which in time, in the fullness of time, He was to go through with, and is therein taken under the special tuition and protection of the Father. He is "my servant whom I uphold"' (Isa. xlii. 1). He did what He saw the Father do, pleased His father, sought His glory, did according to the commandments He received from his Father, and all this as one brought up with Him. He was daily His father's delight. "Mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth," saith God (Isa.
xlii. 1). He also rejoiced always before Him.
This may be understood either:
(i) Of the infinite delight which the persons of the Blessed Trinity have in each other, wherein consists much of the happiness of the divine nature.
(ii) Of the pleasure which the Father took in the operations of the Son when He made the world. God saw everything that the Son made, and behold it was very good, it pleased Him. Therefore His Son was daily, day by day, during the six days of the creation, upon that account His delight. And the Son also did Himself rejoice before Him in the beauty and harmony of the whole creation (Ps. civ. 31).
(iii) Of the satisfaction They had in each other with reference to the great work of man's redemption. The Father delighted in the Son, as mediator between Him and man, was well pleased