Isaiah 11:1-5 - Homiletics

The spiritual nature of Messiah's perfections.

It was certainly not from Isaiah that the Jews derived their notion that the Messiah would be a mighty temporal prince, the leader of armies, who would break the yoke of Rome from off their shoulders, and give them dominion over all the nations of the earth. Isaiah does, indeed, announce him as a King ( Isaiah 32:1 ), and could do no less, since he was indeed "King of kings, and Lord of lords." But he ever puts forward his spiritual character, his influence over men as a Teacher, his moral and mental excellences. Messiah's qualifications for his high office (as here enumerated) are—

I. HIS POSSESSION OF WISDOM . "Wisdom" here may be that transcendental quality whereby God "established the heavens" ( Proverbs 3:19 ; Proverbs 8:27 ); or possibly that still more recondite faculty which Jehovah "possessed in the beginning of his way, before his works of old" ( Proverbs 8:22 ). Being distinguished from "understandings" "counsel," and " knowledge of God," it must apparently be supra-mundane and abstract—a power of which it is difficult for man to form a conception. Its sphere cannot be human life or mundane affairs, but the purely intellectual world of supra-sensuous ideas and concepts.

II. HIS POSSESSION OF UNDERSTANDING . By "understanding" seems to he meant moral intelligence—the power of appreciating the moral character, and judging aright the moral conduct of others. Our Lord possessed this quality in the most eminent degree, never misjudging the character or conduct of any one. His unerring insight gave him an absolute fitness to be the final Judge of men, but was far beyond what is needed by any earthly ruler or king.

III. HIS POSSESSION OF THE SPIRIT OF COUNSEL . Here, no doubt, is a quality of which a temporal ruler has need; but it was not as a temporal ruler, or for the most part in temporal matters, that our Lord's counsel was given. The maxims of his lips were not maxims of worldly policy, but such as these: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;" "Take no thought for the morrow;" "Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor," and the like. He counseled men for their spiritual rather than for their worldly good, with a view to a spiritual and not a temporal kingdom.

IV. HIS POSSESSION OF MIGHT . "Might," or ability to execute his designs, is, again, a quality of high value to an earthly ruler; and had our Lord used his might for earthly ends, he might easily have been all, and more than all, that the Jews expected. But he ever restrained himself from any exhibition of physical strength, or power of organization, or even of persuasive eloquence, exhibiting his might only for spiritual cuds, in miracles of mercy, whereby he sought to win men's souls to himself, or once and again in miracles of power, shown forth as evidences of his mission.

V. HIS POSSESSION OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOD . None could know God's will so well as he, who " was in the beginning with God, and was God" ( John 1:1 ). Partaker from everlasting of his Father's counsels, the instrument whereby the Father worked in bringing all things into being ( Hebrews 1:2 ), he had sounded all the depths of that nature which he had in common with the Father, and knew even as he was known. This was spiritual knowledge of the highest kind, and enabled him to be man's perfect spiritual Guide, capable of setting before him the true and "perfect will of God" ( Romans 12:2 ) as none other ever was, or will be, capable.

VI. HIS POSSESSION OF THE FEAR OF GOD . "Fear" in the Son is doubtless so mingled with love as to be something very different even from the fear which the angels feel, when they veil their faces before the throne. But the words "Father" and "Son" imply authority and submission, awfulness and reverence. And the human nature of Christ had the same experience of the "fear of God" as belongs to his perfected saints, whether in earth or heaven ( Psalms 19:9 ; Psalms 34:9 ; Ecclesiastes 12:13 , etc.). "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy Name?" Messiah's "fear" brought forth that perfect obedience which made him " holy , harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" ( Hebrews 7:26 ), and constituted him at once our perfect Pattern and our meritorious Sacrifice.