The seat of His dominion is also the seat of His repose. The beneficent
activity just described is wielded from a calm, central palace, and
does not break the King's tranquillity. That is a paradox, except to
those who know that Jesus Christ, sitting in undisturbed rest at the
right hand of God, thence works with and for His servants. His repose
is full of active energy; His active energy is full of repose. And that
place of calm abode is 'glorious' or, more emphatically and literally,
'glory. He shall dwell in the blaze of the uncreated glory of God,--a
prediction which is only fulfilled in its true meaning by Christ's
ascension and session at the right hand of God, in the glory which He
had with the Father before the world was, and into which He has borne
that lowly manhood which He drew from the cut-down stem of Jesse.
THE WELL-SPRING OF SALVATION
'Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
ISAIAH xii. 3.
There are two events separated from each other by more than fifteen
hundred years which have a bearing upon this prophecy: the one supplied
the occasion for its utterance, the other claimed to be its
interpretation and its fulfilment. The first of these is that scene
familiar to us all, where the Israelites in the wilderness murmured for
want of water, and the law-giver, being at his wits' end what to do
with his troublesome charges, took his anxieties to God, and got for an
answer the command to take with him the elders of Israel and his
miracle-working rod, and to go to the rock, 'and the Lord shall stand
upon the rock before thee and them, and the water shall flow forth.' It
was not the rock, nor the rod, nor Moses and the elders, but the
presence of God that brought the refreshing draught. And that that
incident was in Isaiah's mind when he wrote our text is very clear to
anybody who will observe that it occurs in the middle of a song of
praise, which corresponds to the Israelites' song at the Red Sea after
the destruction of Pharaoh, and is part of a great prophecy in which he
describes God's future blessings and mercies under images constantly
drawn from the Egyptian bondage and the Exodus in the desert. Now, that
interpretation, or rather that application, of the words of my text,
was very familiar to the Jews long, long before the New Testament was
thought about. For, as many of you will know, there came in the course
of time a number of ceremonies to be added to a feast established by
Moses himself--the Feast of Tabernacles. That was a feast in which the
whole body of the Israelitish people dwelt for a week in leafy booths,
in order to remind them of the time when they were wanderers in the
wilderness; and as is usually the case, the ritual of the celebration
developed a number of additional symbolical observances which were
tacked on to it in the course of centuries. Amongst these there was
this very memorable one: that on each of the days of the Feast of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account