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 5 THE CITY OF THE EVER-OPEN DOOR.

Isaiah LX. 11, 12.

Deutero-Isaiah, the great prophet of consolation, speaks in glowing language of Zion's future glory.1 In this later section of the book, probably written by a disciple, the richest imagery is used to set forth the splendour of the chosen city —

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come,

And the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee.

For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth,

And gross darkness the peoples;

But Jehovah shall arise upon thee,

And His glory shall be seen upon thee,

And nations shall come to thy light,

And kings to the brightness of thy rising."

It is well for us, when we are inclined to criticise too severely the material forms that these promises assume, to bear in mind, what such passages distinctly assert, that it is the light of Jehovah's presence that gives strength and beauty, supremacy and attraction, to the sanctuary. There is the faith that the God who dwells in heaven must have a city on earth, in order to reveal Himself to mankind, and for the Jew this city must be Jerusalem. There is, we must admit, little of the missionary spirit here; the most exclusive Jews might adopt this gorgeous apocalyptic imagery. But there is a blending of fine ethical elements, and after all the root idea is the majesty of the Divine Presence. The gold of the nations, the treasures of the sea, the obsequious ministry of kings, — these are effects and symbols of that heavenly light which makes the walls of Jerusalem to be Salvation and her gates Praise.

"Instead of brass I will bring in gold.

Instead of iron I will bring in silver;

     And I will appoint as thy government Peace,

     And as thy despot Righteousness.

     No more shall violence be heard of in thy land.

Nor rapine and ruin within thy borders;

But thou shalt call thy walls Deliverance,

     And thy gates Renown.

     No more shall the sun be thy light.

Nor the moon for brightness illuminate thee;

But Jehovah shall be thine everlasting lights

     And thy God thy beauty.

     Thy sun shall set never more

     And thy moon shall not wane;

But Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light,

     And thy days of mourning be ended."2

It was not the size, the political power, the commercial splendour, of Jerusalem that inspired such high hopes and dazzling dreams, but the belief that here was the city of God, the dwelling-place of the Most High. That belief was certainly living, even if it at times manifested itself in coarse, narrow forms; it nerved men to fight heroic battles and it inspired steady service in dull prosaic times. This enthusiasm has been contagious, it has passed outside of national boundaries and created a world-ideal — a symbol which no earthly city can completely fulfil.

1. The Truth in the Poetry.

There is sober truth in this poetic utterance which the world has acknowledged. The central truth is that Judaism had a real contribution to make to the life of the world, something of spiritual quality and abiding significance. The presence of God, the divine light, has indeed gone forth from that city. The religion and the literature, the gift of God and the growth of centuries, has not yet done its work, and the work that it has done can never be forgotten. We refuse to be confined to the measurements of those days and those men; we who can view the whole movement are justified in seeing a meaning in their work that vindicates their extravagant language and exultant tones. They grasped something for themselves, something that on certain conditions they were willing to share with others. We cannot justly reproach them, because the spirit of privilege and monopoly still reigns in us; but we can see clearly that what gave strength to their vision was not the human weakness that was in it but the fact that they gave the central place to God and believed that what comes from God the world needs and will want to share.3 It is not simply that they despise the small gods of the heathen but that they have, even in a small way, grasped the thought that the light and glory of the true God is an attractive, unifying force.

We need not dwell on the fact that the hope with regard to Jerusalem received a literal fulfilment4; this city whose history is a series of tragedies, whose changeful career is one long story of subjection and destruction, has conquered a large place in the world. In spite of past sorrows and the tawdry glory of the present, men see in her the symbol of the unconquerable kingdom. No city has called forth a more stubborn heroism, a more persistent devotion, a more poetic enthusiasm. Men would fain give to Jerusalem great treasure if they knew how, because they are convinced that she has given much to the world. The glory of Jerusalem was not visible in the dark days when these words were written: it was an ideal, a creation, of faith. It was never long sustained in actual reality, yet men have felt that in some strange way this was a city of faith and of the faithful. The wealth that men' could give faded, spoiled by factions or scattered by ruthless conquerers, but the wealth of tradition and faith could not be destroyed.

2. The Imperfection of the Message.

There is to many of us to-day something distinctly irritating in this class of passages; while we admire them as literature and as poetic outbursts of patriotic feeling, we find them to be poor and limited from the theological point of view. We think that the Jew, instead of learning humility5 from the teaching of the prophets and the sorrows of his nation, has become narrow and arrogant, and imagines that he, as the favourite of heaven, is to enjoy permanent privilege and superiority. It seems the height of spiritual pride, this idea that all the glories of heaven and earth, the treasures of sea and land, are to be tributary to Jerusalem. That foreigners are to be the slaves of the Jews, doing their menial work, that strange people will lick the dust before them and kings bow reverently in their presence — these proud hopes are revolting to our sense of Christian gendeness, even when regarded as homage to a great God and a priestly nation.6 All this must be frankly admitted, and we must acknowledge that it has done harm, because the Bible has so long been read without any sense of historical perspective. There is, however, much useful instruction here; it reminds us of the real nature of this great literature. This Book of God is also a book of man; its real glory and strength lies in the fact that it is not a mere list of laws or catalogue of abstract doctrines, all its greatest ideas are woven into the texture of human life — a life that through long, rude struggles was raised to sublime heights.

The Christian Church, as the successor of Judaism, has enjoyed much worldly success, it conquered barbarians and ruled the civilised nations. Its great temples still excite our wonder and stir our reverence. The priests have trod upon the necks of kings and exercised a power mightier than the sword. At one period all the treasures of the world, the gifts of its science and arts, were poured into the lap of a luxurious Church. Ecclesiastics might point to these scriptures as a justification of their demands and claim the course of events as a fulfilment of prophecy. In the hour of such success there were many noble souls who saw clearly that the highest life of the Church was not in these things, but in the preaching of pure truth, in the care of the weak, the ministry to the ignorant and poor; and the world has now distinctly rejected the ideal of ecclesiastical rule and priestly monopoly. We do well to reject these outward forms, but mere negative criticism and refined sarcasm will not suffice; the only way in which we can supersede them is by having the same truth in a nobler expression. In some higher way religion must be supreme and the temple central in the life of man. But the missionary effort cannot, and will not, wait until the perfect nation and the pure messengers are found. When men tell us to leave the heathen alone and cleanse ourselves from pride, greed, and hypocrisy, their message should be accepted, but not in the form in which it is given. We welcome the reminder that our missionary effort involves an obligation to purify our own personal and social life, but it may be that the desire and hope of sending out the truth is also a God-appointed way to uplift our own life.7 The way in which the Jew held himself in the face of a hostile world attracted the fierce criticism of foreigners, but it also drew attention to a faith that could challenge the world's scrutiny and respect. Thus, while we acknowledge the limitation of this great hope and reject its literal form as temporary, it may give us the spirit of humility to remember that it is only by the lessons that come to us from centuries of Christian history that we are able to make this rejection in an intelligent fashion.

3. The Light of Hebrew History.

Suppose we turn upon this passage the light of history drawn from the study of that ancient nation and seen in the larger view of it that is now possible to the careful student "The open door" may then be shown to mean something that was hidden from the view of this prophet. He wished that the door of the Church should stand ever open to receive tribute; that was his way of expressing the ideas, God is supreme, religion is central, the Church is divine. Unless we interpret his imagery as a noble symbolism, the ideas behind it lose something of their purity by being clothed in forms of this world's wealth. Possibly he did not see that this policy of the open door had been the divine method all through. Recently there has been much discussion as to how much Israel owes to Egypt, Babylon, Canaan, Persia, and Greece. These inquiries and debates are natural in an age like ours, when men of science are deeply interested in the origin of all forms of life and the nature of its development. Sometimes there has been lack of "academic calmness" on the one side and the other; the proud claims on behalf of Israel as an organ of divine revelation seem to act as a challenge and an irritant on the minds of some thinkers, while zealous defenders of those claims have not been lacking. Those who examine this great literature carefully know that whatever has been borrowed has been amply repaid with abundant interest. In fact they know that "borrowing" is a phrase too crude and mechanical to express the complex process. The Hebrews conquered Canaan, but they absorbed much of its spirit and atmosphere; they rejected Baal worship, but claimed that Jehovah was the giver of the fruits of the earth;8 they refused to worship the star-gods of Babylonia and claimed that their God ruled the stars.9 Influences from Persia and Greece were no doubt treated in the same way. Thus the Hebrew faith was not an empty monotheism or a system of abstract doctrines. All realms on earth and air, in sea and sky, and in the lands beneath the earth, were gradually annexed to Jehovah's dominion, until the God of the fathers was the God of the whole world.10 Much of this process, like all the great movements of life, was unknown to those in the midst of it; they were not in a position to survey the past or to analyse the present. But when they claimed the world for their God there was the weight of centuries of throbbing life behind them. It was because they were both exclusive and receptive that they grew to be so great in their own realm. There was a catholicity in their thinking, though they did not fully appreciate its logical consequences. What they took they cleansed and uplifted. When they came to write the history of their race they fitted it as best they could into the general framework of the world's life. Simple stories from the past and strange beliefs in the present were treated from the point of view that there is one God, and that God is the God revealed in the history of the past and the life of the present. The whole conception was, if not a missionary idea, then the root of all missionary ideas, when the time should come for a fuller understanding of it. We do not say that this writer, claiming a central position for the temple, had all this in view, but we maintain that in estimating the value and importance of his position we must take these things into consideration. To him, at least, the idea of God is central, and from God's ownership of the world there comes all this glorification of the temple. To some extent the gold, silver, and precious stones are the mere furniture or drapery of the faith. He also would have said, "Seek Jehovah first, trust Him, serve Him in noble fellowship, and He will take care of the temple and of you."

4. Our Lesson from the Idea.

When we are thus allowed in some measure to enlarge and transform the idea by holding it in the light of Hebrew history, its applications for ourselves become clear. The time, we know, has gone by for any one Christian temple in East or West to monopolise power and rule all life, even within a small area. Men are beginning to see that this is not the highest kind of dominion. The appropriate lesson from this text refers to the attitude of the Church towards the great outside world. The doors of the temple should stand open to receive the world's gifts, and its windows open for the fresh breeze. But we must conceive of these gifts in a large, liberal spirit; they are gifts not only for the maintenance of the building and the support of the ministry, but also for the fabric of our thought, the form and even the content of our theology. The supreme act of faith is to believe that God is in all our world, the guide of the living present. Organisation we must have, definite forms of worship and regular methods of communion, but these must be concerned with the problems of the present and not with the preservation of "the crust of custom" that comes from the past. It is because custom was broken down by contact with foreign influences and new social forces that the prophets had to give new messages as to the nature of religion and morality. These messages have proved to be permanent in their spiritual power, but their form must be adapted to meet new needs. Science and art bring to the nations new revelations and new powers, these breed new monopolies and slaveries. It is the province of Christianity to care for the freeing of the slave, not only the distant foreign slave but the slave under the shadow of our own churches. The inspiration that comes to us from the great prophets of the past and especially from the life of the Christ must give stimulus to new forms of service. The world must be claimed for God in a broader and higher sense. New movements of thought that may seem at first to be quite alien may, on closer examination, be found to express an earnest effort to embody the old truths in a larger form. The social message of the Old Testament and its suggestions of a universal faith await a richer fulfilment. When we speak of the Christian religion as the highest, the absolute, or final religion we surely cannot be thinking of the scholastic theology of a particular period, but rather of the spirit of freedom in it which, because of its noble thought of God the Father, gives power of assimilating all real gains from the thoughts of keen searchers after truth, all living ideas that are not opposed to its central principle. Not to some distant future must we defer the picture of a new Jerusalem whose pilgrims come from the four quarters of the earth.11 Each church, while faithful to its own noblest traditions, must seek to be an institution that is open to all sources of light and life, that receives from the world rich treasures and consecrates them to the service of the sanctuary. Such a sanctuary will receive only that it may give back again; it will seek to place the stamp of heaven's treasury on much that we are tempted to regard as earthly coin; it will seek to breathe into all forms of human service a spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion, so that nothing that relates to human welfare can be regarded as common and unclean. Only thus can the words be fulfilled —