THE SHORT COURSE SERIES

Edited by Rev. John Adams, B.D.

The Song and the Soil

Or, The Missionary Idea in the Old Testament

By W. G. Jordan, B.A., D.D.

WARNING - Author mistakenly holds to the unbiblical "Deutero-Isaiah Theory"

Chapter 3 THE MISSIONARY SERVANT.

ISAIAH XL II. 1-4.

In the series of poems contained in the chapters xl.-lv., which in their spirit and style form in substance one discourse, the purpose is distinctly stated, namely, to comfort Jehovah's people and inspire them to new courage by the vision of a glorious destiny. These chapters are now generally regarded as the work of a prophet whose name and exact place of residence are unknown, who was moved by the Spirit of God to give consolation to the sorrowing exiles. He bases his message of comfort on a great theology, a lofty view of God, splendidly set forth in the noble introductory chapter (xl.). Jehovah, the Creator of the world, the Supreme Guide of history, has called him to the ministry of mercy. In that dark hour, when the nation was in ruins, and the plans of its leaders in hopeless confusion, nothing but a great thought of God could act with creative healing power. We cannot at this point attempt to expound the whole theology of the prophet who has been called "Deutero-Isaiah." Suffice it to say that it was in the hour of sorrow that the mission of the nation began to take on a wider outlook. Why indeed should this great God build up the walls of Jerusalem and bring together the scattered sons and daughters of Zion if there were not some great purpose in view? This thought is not worked out into a complete philosophy, it is not freed entirely from all national limitations, but there is less of hostility to "the heathen," and there is a looking towards the great truth that those whom God redeems and to whom He reveals Himself must in their turn be witnesses and light-bearers.1 This "election" is from the free sovereign mercy of Jehovah and not from Israel's merit; out of the richness of His nature, the largeness of His love, the God of Israel lavishes upon His people this undeserved and unrequited generosity. The very statement of such a love has in it something evangelical, something that will, when it is understood, overpass the limits of mere nationality.

1. The Servant Idea and the Servant Passages.

It is true that this comes out most clearly in the four passages which are regarded as separate poems and thought by some scholars to be of later date.2 There the figure of the servant appears, elected to teach the nations, conscious of a mission larger in its scope than the ministry to Israel, subject to misinterpretation and persecution, bearing the burden of pain for the benefit of others. Many of the keenest scholars still believe that these poems stand in their proper place and form the loftiest points of Deutero-Isaiah's teaching. On this view, Israel, in the hour of weakness and apparent extinction, is led to the great thought that she is a missionary nation, that she must bear witness in a gentle spirit to an unbelieving world. Not only is the light in Jerusalem kindled by Jehovah's presence to be so pure and strong as to attract those who are hungering for the truth, there is to be an effort to carry that truth into distant lands. This is then the nearest approach to the great command, " Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations."3 The ideal is there, whether it is this great poet's conception of Israel's election to service or whether it is a picture of an individual teacher and sufferer whose destiny it is to give a larger, richer meaning to the service of Jehovah. The principles that underlie the statement imply a oneness of humanity and a universality of religion that can only come to full expression through much painful progress. The greatness of the missionary idea is seen more clearly when we catch a glimpse of the process by which, like all great truths, it has been wrought into the substance of the world's highest life. Like the belief in one God, the hope of immortality, and other central ideas of the Christian faith, this thought that men of different races must minister to each other in the highest things has grown to clearness of expression through centuries of silent preparation. This could not possibly be accomplished in any one generation in a world arranged and ruled on the same principle as ours. It required that the Hebrews, very similar in their origin and character to other Semitic tribes, should first be separated from their neighbours by the growing strictness of their law and the severer demands of their God. This involved bitter struggles within the nation itself, springing from the attempt to make the law of Jehovah supreme in all spheres and produce "a holy nation." This attempt was scarcely well on the way under the noble movement represented by the Book of Deuteronomy, when the people were sent forth to learn from the hard logic of facts that the truth could live away from the soil and religion exist apart from the temple. It was indeed a complex movement, and many good men found it difficult to adjust themselves to the different aspects of it. The nobler men among the Jews were driven to turn their attention from the local forms of worship to the large universal aspects of the truth. Their next effort was to build that truth into a system, keep it pure, guard it from the attacks of those who, in the very process of sharing it, would once more weaken and degrade it. So the movement went forward, first, separation for the sake of serving Jehovah, then a higher view of the nature of that service; a vigorous attempt to embody this service in city and temple, then the sharp lesson that the truth is something greater than either city or temple; an exultant cry caused by a noble interpretation of history, "Our God has been teaching us great lessons,"4 then the vision, given to a few noble souls, that the divine thing, the lesson from God, cannot be for ourselves alone. This reaches its height in the picture of the servant. This servant-idea, whether it is that of a prophet nation or a personal minister, is essentially Christian in its scope and significance; that is, it shows thoughts struggling for expression which have attained in Christianity a freer movement and a supreme embodiment in the life of the Christ. The servant, having a call to carry the religion beyond the bounds of the nation, addresses the distant isles and offers to meet the hunger and expectation of their peoples.5 The same servant faces fierce opposition with the confidence that God, who is on the side of truth, is more than all the opposing forces.6 The silent sufferer, the God-cursed man, bearing the sorrows of his kind or of mankind, presents a still deeper view of such ministry, a view that is prophetic of the noblest missionary work.7

In the small Book of Jonah we have the other side of the picture. Here is presented a different type of a prophet, one who is chiefly concerned with prediction in a mechanical sense and with his own personal glory. This man is reluctantly driven to the foreign field and is content with the rule of a mere prophet of vengeance. One cannot help feeling, as we study the teaching of this wonderful little book, that there is an element of satire in it, that it is a keen protest against religious narrowness. The Jonah of this book is no real prophet, but the writer of it is deeply imbued with the prophetic spirit. If we could know more clearly and closely the circumstances of the Jewish Church at the time when it was written, we might enter even more fully into its spirit. As it is, we feel that the keynote of it is to be found in the words attributed to the men of Nineveh: "Who knoweth whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?" And every generous soul welcomes the statement, "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil which He said He would do unto them; and He did it not."

That this thing "displeased Jonah exceedingly" is to us a revelation of this "prophet's" littleness of soul, and we rejoice in the large sympathy of the question with which the book closes, "And should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city; wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?" Our pride and petulance is rebuked, our narrow dogmas and small ecclesiastical interests shrink into their proper proportions when thus set in the larger light of God's great purposes and humanity's pressing needs.

2. The Foundation of the Servant's Work.

The work of the servant rests securely upon the divine call and God-given equipment. In this whole Book the movement is from God to man: what man can do by his worship or work is infinitely small; it is in the reality and beneficence of Jehovah's purpose that strength is found. It is the great revelation of God that gives the noble thought of service. Here particularly the thought that election is not to mere privilege but to service receives special prominence.8 God's delight in the servant is linked with the work that he shall do. The purpose of the calling is that he may publish law or spread religion; this is the high vocation in which, through the submission of the servant, the God of heaven finds satisfaction.9 The God who calls him equips him for the high task.

This belief in the gift of the Spirit of Jehovah, as an endowment fitting men for royal service or prophetic ministry, like all other great truths, has had a long10 complex history before it appears in this pure form. To-day there are those, even in the Christian Church, who either bind this sacred influence to magical ceremonies or find it most fully in the startling and sensational. We are tempted to say that these are but remnants of earlier, cruder forms of thought, but perhaps we do well to guard against the pride of intellectual refinement and to remember that the Divine Spirit is still compelled to work in imperfect forms. Indeed, what form can perfectly represent the pure thought of God? This much, however, we must say, that this noble picture of a quiet servant who, in his steady, thoughtful work of teaching, proves the power of "the Spirit's" presence with him, is one of the highest points of Old Testament prophecy. Here the Spirit is not manifested in violent energy of patriotic passion or ecstatic emotion.11 There is a steady radiance of light and love ministering to human need. The Spirit here does not seize, overpower, and startle. It enters into the life of the soul to give abiding wisdom and strength. Men believed in spirits of various kinds that entered into human life with mysterious power and lawless action. The relation of these strange forces to the God of Israel was not, all at once, worked out clearly, but as the prophets came to a loftier thought of God it was seen that all forces must be subject to His sway and all spirits obedient to His will. As the whole world becomes God's world, so religion becomes a power ruling the whole man; the message of the teachers gains high intellectual qualities and great moral force. The Spirit becomes the creative, guiding, and inspiring power in the highest sense; at this stage it is possible to have the ideal of a teacher who, while he arises within the nation, represents a faith that is beginning to chafe against its national barriers.

3. The Power of Gentleness.

One of the most important features of this picture is that such stress is laid upon the influence of quiet teaching. In those days men knew the stern coercion of custom or law; they were quite familiar with displays of unbridled enthusiasm in connection with patriotism or religion; they had known also from old times the reverence given to "wise men," men who could give practical guidance. In the wonderful story of Elijah we learn that "the still small voice" may bring a revelation of God that is lacking in the violent earthquake or fierce storm.12 It is difficult to say how far the presentation of a truth at a particular time is in all or any of its features new. But when we have read the older records and note the frequency of ecstatic outbursts and fierce denunciations as forms of prophetic life, we feel that here is a distinct recognition of the superiority of gentle reason and patient love. There may be a recognition of the fact that human nature has its rights as well as its weaknesses and needs, that the soul must not be overwhelmed by outside force or driven by fierce gusts of alien passion. Our Lord was a public speaker, he lifted up his voice to address the crowd, at times he was fierce in his indignation against hypocrisy and bigotry, yet the prevailing impression he has left is that of gentleness. When we think of the use that has been made of superstitious terror and brute force to bring men into the fold that bears His name, we feel that we cannot reconcile such things with His spirit and teaching. In fact, when men turn with disgust from some shameful things in the history of the Church, they find relief from the nightmare in the restfulness of His presence, in the conviction that He has incarnated so completely the ideal of strong faith and gentle, persuasive power. It was a true instinct that led the evangelist to apply this glorious passage to his Master's avoidance of undue sensation. and useless publicity.13 That which created "Judaism" and enabled it to live for a while with the temple and to survive when the temple was finally destroyed, was just this recognition of intellectual and spiritual elements in religion that can be taught.14 This also may produce hard tradition and cruel dogma, but that is because even the great things must have their share of human weakness. This belief in a system of living truth that can be taught, because there is something in man that needs and demands it; this glorification of the teacher as a divine force that makes the message prevail as the sun conquers the darkness — this is the heart of any real missionary idea. Though students have done so much for the world, in all spheres of its life we still glorify "the practical man"; we admire the success that comes from loud advertisement, and fancy that the great things are created in the roaring excitement of the immense crowd. But when proper weight has been given to our denunciations of Rabbinism, scholasticism, and pedantry, it is well to remember how much we owe to the Book, its students, translators, and expositors. It speaks now in all the languages of the world; it is the greatest missionary power, and this miracle could never have come to pass unless men had loved it, collected its scattered fragments, pondered its difficult sentences, and glorified the work of the teacher. The true teacher finds his strength not in external authority but in the power of the truth; he labours patiently, knowing that if he can once lead men to catch a glimpse of the vision that has come to his own soul they will see in it the very life of God.

4. The Success of the Servant.

The success of the servant is assured; he may have hours of despondency and cry, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and vanity,"15 or "Will ye also go away?"16 but this is but a passing mood, the dark shadow that falls at times over every earnest soul. He who does not break the crushed reed or quench the dimly burning wick shall not have his light dimmed or his spirit crushed; he will establish the reign of religion in the earth, and the coastlands shall wait in expectant mood for his teaching. Truly a noble faith this, faith in the teacher's high mission, in the power of truth, in the need and capacity of human nature. God gave to this writer a large vision, it has stood there upon the written page, it has been claimed as a prophecy of the Christ, it has given cheer and stimulus to many a lonely worker; those who would teach any great truth still need its quickening hope. We are justified in ascribing a missionary character to the passage not simply because it is one of the clearest statements that Israel has a message which no temple can contain and no wall confine, but because of its own nature. The truths presented and implied have in them a movement towards universality. Behind the picture there is the thought of great truths that men outside the chosen community need and desire. There is the vision of a God who rules the world, and who has guided its history in such a way as to make the present an hour of opportunity. This short poem, these few well-chosen words, demand for themselves a rich fulfilment. The Jew may keep to himself mere local traditions and ceremonial customs, but a message with such an evangelical tone refuses to be imprisoned in any one dialect. It is not for a race but for humanity, not for an age but for all time, because it comes to us from men who, when they looked up to the heavens, not only saw evidences of God's power but also heard the cry which is the root of all missionary enterprise, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."17