Isaiah 43:1-28

The Right of the Creator

Isaiah 43:0

The chapter opens with the words "But now." They indicate some change in the tone of the narrative, or appeal, or judgment. A very notable change they indicate, quite a miracle of a transformation, possible only to the Almighty musician; none other could have ventured upon this metamorphosis. We have read "Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart" ( Isa 42:25 ). Then the forty-third chapter opens with the words "But now." It is as if winter died and summer were born on the same day. There is no interspace; we are out of the snow and amongst the flowers at a bound; we are away from the scorching fire into the very peace of God as if by one breath. There are many miracles which have not been indicated as such. We have been in the habit of expecting a miracle to create a space for itself, saying, with some flourish of trumpets, I am about to take place: make room for me, and keep your eyes open, and see what course I take, for I am unquestionably a wonder of God. But there are miracles that ask for no observance; they appeal by their quietness; they steal in upon us, and are completed before we quite knew they were about to begin. Moral miracles are greater than material wonders, signs, and tokens. Spiritual ministries abound in all the elements of noblest amazement, infinitely beyond the miracles that are done in wind and water and fire, and matter generally. But who so deaf as Israel? who so blind as Jacob? The prophetic faculty itself remains only in form and skeleton; all the indwelling power has gone: otherwise, how full of music would be our life, and how full of gratitude all the song of our being I then every morning would be a miracle, every dawn a triumph to God, every bud and every blossom a sign and pledge that the Almighty was amongst us, the Eternal Husbandman dressing the vineyard of earth. Let them say that the day of miracles has gone who have only had vulgar miracles to think about, miracles wrought in clay, stupendous wonders accomplished in insignificant mud. Eternal miracles follow the soul in all its outwinding and outgoing; they are the perpetual seal of the divine presence.

In reviewing Providence men do not go far enough back. The Lord himself always takes a great sweep of tune. Here is an instance in point "But now thus saith the Lord that created thee... and he that formed thee." No argument is built upon what happened an hour ago. That itself is only part of the argument, and must be taken into view by those who would form a complete and just criticism of Providence. God always sets forth the whole case. It is thus the picture grows; it is by no one expenditure of paint, and no one exercise of the artistic hand, it is by a mystery of light and shade, that the whole miracle is completed. So God would have us go back to the beginning of things. This is the method of his Book: "In the beginning God created," there we drop our slate and pencil, our arithmetic, and our whole organon of reckoning, with its treacherous rules, treacherous because inadequate to the calculation of the infinite disc upon which things are evolved and completed. So here God takes the individual or the nation, the family or the constituency, of what scope soever, back to the day of creation. Is it an individual? the Lord does not say, Think what was done yesterday, and see how incidentally here and there I have been very kind to thee. He takes the individual back to the creation hour, to the first breath, to the first flash of the eye, the first consciousness of the being, and says, Reckon from that point: pick out nothing, either blessing or curse: read the writing, in all its complexity; mark how it grows, extends, contracts, enlarges, withdraws, assumes colour, and takes upon itself the mystery of suggestion, and throbs with the marvel of impulse, always beating in upward and heavenward directions. Man cannot learn this lesson easily; he has a short memory; he thinks of what occurred one week since; he seems to have lost the genius of accumulation; he supposes that the whole building is in one course of stones, not knowing that it is intended to grow, until it becomes all points, shooting upward into the blue sky. Idiots are they in God's sanctuary who talk only about the anecdotes of life, philosophers they who grasp both the east and west, and have eyes to see the line which connects the points. Thus God will have us go back to creation day, to formation time, and take in all the childhood, all the youthhood, all the manhood, all the education and strife and discipline, all the attrition and all the harmony, all the weekdays and all the Sabbath-days; and he would bid us watch the mystery of time, until it comes out in blossoming and fruitfulness and benediction. We should have no pain if we had the right line of review and pursued it, and comprehended it, in its continuity and entirety. One day corrects another; one period of life redresses another; and thus we pass from judgment to judgment, and from grace to grace, and the whole must be looked back upon, until it shapes itself into a pavilion and sanctuary of God. Blessed are they who have eyes that can review the whole mystery and development of life. But there are many creations. Formation is not a single act. God is always creating life, and always forming it. There is an individual existence; there is a national organisation; there are birthdays of empires and birthdays of reform. In the instance given in this verse the creation was official rather than personal: "But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel." "Jacob" and "Israel" are not the names of any particular individual, only solitary life: they are compendious designations; they point to periods of construction, formation, inspiration, when a man became a nation, when a wrestler became a prince, and when a prince was entitled to bear in official senses the very name and dignity of God. We are many men in one the obscure citizen, the quiet resident, the unknown neighbour, the man who employs other men, the head of a family, the conductor of a great business, the leader charged with the inspiration which means sagacity, foresight and forethought, which encompasses all the ends of nations; and so the mystery of mankind expands and enlarges, and the Lord comes down to say that he did it all: I formed the individual, I formed the official man patriot, statesman, philosopher, poet, universal linguist, man in whose voice there is a tone for every one, in whose life there is a touch that makes other life new and young.

Thus the Church must recognise its period of creation and formation. Jacob was not always a people; Israel was not always a significant name, a symbol in language; and individuals are gathered together into societies, and they are charged with the administration of the kingdom of Christ, and as such they must go back and remember their Creator, and adore their Maker, and serve their Saviour, and renew their inspiration where it was originated. God thus comes down amongst us with the charter of creation in his hand, and would say in human words, I come to thee by right of creatorship; I have something to say to thee that will go into the very centre and core of thy being; as thy Creator I hold the key of the inmost recesses of thy nature, and as thy Former I have somewhat to whisper in thine innermost ear." Men come to us by certain rights: why should not God come by the same authority? There are some men to whom we would not speak otherwise than in the language of shallow courtesy, uttering words that are but wind; to other men we would deliver up the very soul, saying, Read it all, and tell us what to do when there is no help in us for ourselves. By what right do they come? By the right of sympathy; by the right of understanding; by the right of eternal kinship. That right is acknowledged; the possessors of it are hailed; at their approach the door flies open, and hospitality is written upon every corner of the roof. God thus produces his credentials, his certificate; he comes to us by right of having formed every bone in our body, and having breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and having touched us with so much divinity as makes us men.

Right relations to God on the part of man should be realised. All presumption is saved by the open avowal of God himself, for in beginning the interview he says amongst his first words, "Thou art mine." He has a right to speak to his own. How did Israel or Jacob become God's? I have "created thee... formed thee... redeemed thee... called thee." That is claim enough. It is a growing claim. This appeal rises into climax, into convincing and triumphant words. I have "created thee;" that is the basal line: "formed thee;" given thee shape and relation: "redeemed thee;" paid for thee: "called thee by thy name;" like a friend or child: "thou art mine." Yet all this is in the Old Testament! Do we not fly from the Old Testament into the New that we may have some sight of the tenderness of God? There is no need for such flight. There are tenderer words about God in the Old Testament than there are in the New. Asked to cull flowers that are charged with the eloquence of pathos and sympathy and kindness, I should hasten to the Old Testament, for there the flowers grow thickly on the infinite field. The New Testament indeed has a touch in it which it could not have had but for the Old Testament. Even the Christ of the New Testament is only the fully formed and perfectly revealed Christ of the Old Testament; for he himself began at Moses. This is another confirmatory instance of the method of Providence always beginning far back, and taking in the whole sweep and circuit of history in order to establish the most modern argument.

"Thou art mine; three little words, three little syllables; a child's motto; words that might be printed by a little hand and sent as a message of love; words that might be engraved on a signet ring: yet words the whole meaning of which the firmament has not space enough to hold the entire development. God condenses his speech. His condensation is like his creation. His sentences are often like grains of mustard seed, very small in themselves or in their initial form, but having in them such power and faculty of expansion and enlargement as shall mean in the long run infinite harvesting. Do we realise our relation to God? Do we suppose we belong to ourselves? Are we foundlings in the universe? Is there any one who comes forth to claim us? Are there not children who wander about on heaths and parks and wide spaces, and at eventide do not know their way home; and are they not taken care of by the constabulary, and in the morning is there not someone who comes and says, That is mine: she is mine: he is mine? Sweet voice! voice with authority subdued into gentleness, and the more likely to be true because of its quietness. There is instant recognition between the two; no formal proof or affidavit is required; it is obvious to the eyes of observers that a true recognition has been established. It is even so with us. We are often lost. We adventure into open spaces and into boundless tracts, and when the shadows come we cannot tell just where we are. Blessed be God, if the night cometh, so doth the morning; and in the morning he says to us, "Thou art mine." We are claimed, and reclaimed, and taken home, and never chided because we foolishly lost ourselves in the night.

This relation carries everything else along with it After this, there can be nothing but detail:

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" ( Isa 43:2 ).

All that is something merely to be recognised, and hurried over, with a swiftness that barely recognises, and yet with a consciousness of grasp and triumph that means security. Could we not be spared passing through the waters? No. Might we not escape the rivers of God? Impossible. Could we not reach the further land where the summer breathes and flowers and sings without going through the valley of fire? No. He is a man without experience who has not often been drenched in deep floods, and often been exposed to the fury or furnaces heated seven times more than was wont. He who has come successfully through flood and furnace is a man who may be talked to with spiritual advantage; he is not a severe critic, he is not inspired with the genius of rebuke, but he is gifted, endowed, richly blessed, with the power of understanding other men, patiently waiting for them, and giving them assurance that after all their erratic wandering and eccentric action and motion, they will come to equipoise, they will realise the rest, the peace, the infinite tranquillity of God. It is easy to know a man who has often been drenched and often had struggles in the fire. He is a mysterious speaker. There is infinitely more in his speech than can be discovered at first from his words; yea, his words grow in meaning; the years bring their interpretation to his mystic and solemn expressions; then we suddenly say we remember now what he said, and how he said it; at the time there was mystery, and there is mystery still, only at first there was a mystery of darkness, and now there is a mystery of light.

We must all pass through the water, and through the fire: how are we to pass? Alone? We may never come out. I beheld, and one like unto the Son of God was with them in the burning fiery furnace: when they came out the smell of fire had not passed upon them. The fire is a lion that knows God; he lays his hand upon its burning mane, and quiets the infinite cruelty, and turns it into a blessing. Have no fear of water and fire, for they stand as symbolical expressions for all manner of trials, because they are all under God's control. No man can do you the slightest harm. Even critics cannot take the bread out of your mouth. Foolish are they who suppose that anybody can do them the slightest harm, except for the passing moment: and there shall come compensation and advantage that shall make the sufferer bless the critic for his unintentional kindness. "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." As for thee, thou black devil, thou couldst not have touched me if thou hadst not asked God's permission to try my quality. Thou canst not add one link to thy chain, thou diabolic being. Even thou, blackest of the black herd of night, art a creation and a serf of God.

Never stand up for your friend. That ought to be the policy and the inspiration of every Christian. There can be no humiliation to an honourable man so intolerable as to be told that somebody has been "standing up" for him. We must live in God. Righteousness is its own defence. Yet there are those who unintentionally inflict wounds where they meant to pay compliments: their silence would have been a eulogium; their defence is an insult. God will take care of his own, as all providence testifies. "Put up thy sword into the sheath:" little, impetuous, foolish nature, thou dost suppose that by drawing a sword thou art doing wonders; they are only wonders of folly: "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" A shallow life lives upon public recognition or friendly notice, and cannot exist without approbation. The love of approbation means vanity, and vanity grows by what it feeds on. The true Christian must live in his Master, follow the Captain of his salvation, commit his spirit into the hands of God, at the end of fifty years we will see how it all stands. Thus when some great historical character has been impeached or assaulted or humiliated, people come in the long-run to ask who it was that did it. Precisely so! Great infinite space asks who? and none can tell. Providence is a series of miracles. Every day is a new testament of wonders and signs wrought by God. Every pulse in its latest throb says, God lives, God loves, God saves; and so the little preacher ticks and beats and palpitates, and in all its vital action testifies God is good. Not drowning is as great a miracle as resurrection. The rivers shall not overflow thee: they want to do so; see how they come plunging down! but they break upon thee, and thou standest up a living pillar, a living witness, unhurt by their impotent rage.

There are great epochs or dates of life. Hence the Lord says in the fourth verse,

"Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee." ( Isa 43:4 )

Prayer

Almighty God, thy greatness is thy goodness: because thou art great thou art kind. Thine omnipotence is pledged on behalf of those who trust thee in Christ Jesus the Lord; a great voice comes down from heaven, saying, All things are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. Yea, and voices rise from thy church, saying, If God be for us, who can be against us? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, and is now on the right hand of God. So, then, all things are on the side of those who trust thee and love thee at the Cross; no manner of good shall be withheld from them; thou wilt withhold no blessing from him that walketh uprightly. He is not to measure his strength by himself, but by thine omnipotence; he carries the thunder of God. We bless thee for the exceeding great and precious promises, for they nourish and comfort the soul with infinite solace; we fall back upon them, and acknowledge them with religious thankfulness. Nor do we accept them as mere comfort, but as inspirations, encouragements to higher and more strenuous endeavour, so that we may turn them into noble actions, and prove how deep our trust is by showing the reality of our sacrifice. God is with us, and the blessed Son, and the eternal Spirit; we have all things and abound. We cannot fail in this war; we cannot be outrun in this race; this feast can never be exhausted; it is spread in the banqueting-chamber of creation, it is laid by the hands of God. Amen.