Isaiah 9

Chapter 9. The King of Righteousness and PeaceThe Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,the Spirit of counsel and of power,the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,or decide by what he hears with his ears;but with righteousness he will judge the needy,with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.Righteousness will be his beltand faithfulness the sash around his waist.The wolf will live with the lamb,the leopard will lie down with the goat,the calf and the lion and the yearling together;and a little child will lead them.(Isaiah 11:2-6)This is the third picture of Christ in the book of Isaiah. The first is the prophecy of Immanuel in the seventh chapter, the next the Wonderful Counselor in the ninth chapter. Now comes the great antitype to Melchizedek, the King of righteousness and peace. Section I—The Lineage of ChristHe is a Shoot from the stem of Jesse and a Branch from his roots. The idea is that the family of David was to pass into decay like an old rotting stem, and out of the ruin was to spring a shoot who should become the heir of David’s house and throne. That the Jewish rabbis understood this as a prophecy of the Messiah is evidenced from the Chaldean paraphrase of the Old Testament in which this is translated as a son and heir and the name Messiah is used. There is a fine contrast in the whole paragraph including the previous context in which the king of Assyria is described under the image of a great cedar forest which is to be cut down and utterly fall, while the house of David, although seeming to pass into decay, is to be revived by this Branch that is to spring from its ruin. A great principle is here expressed, the principle which underlies the whole Christian system, namely, life out of death. The Lord Jesus Christ came as the outgrowth of a ruined race. He was born of our sinful humanity. He took not on Him the nature of angels, but “He took on him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16). Humanity had fallen into ruins, when out of its decaying roots sprang this new and heavenly Branch which was to “bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit” (Isaiah 27:6). Christ Himself was true to this principle all through His life and work. In accordance with it, He went down into death itself and out of the grave He arose in resurrection, life and power, to be the Tree of Life for earth’s dying millions. In like manner, our life must come out of death. Every saved soul is a shoot from the decaying root of a lost past. Every sanctified soul is as one resurrected from the dead, and the glory of the new age is to come through the death of the old and the resurrection not only of men, but of nature, too. The Hebrew word nazar signifies a little scrubby shoot. The name is applied again to the Lord Jesus in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. “A root out of dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2). This is forever true not only of the Master, but of all His followers. “The Nazarene” was a name of contempt and humiliation. It signified the last degree of human merit and earthly promise, but from this root has sprung all the hope of earth and all the glory of heaven. Section II—The Supernatural Character of ChristHe is endowed with supernatural character. The qualities of wisdom and righteousness here ascribed to this scion of the house of David are not merely remarkable in themselves, but still more remarkable in their source. They are not the inherent qualities of the Messiah, but they are communicated to Him directly and supernaturally by the Holy Spirit Himself. Here is the radical distinction between human ethics and divine righteousness. Man’s morality is the result of natural virtue and ethical culture. God’s righteousness comes down from heaven and is directly communicated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Therefore Jesus Christ Himself set the example of this new divine righteousness by delaying and suspending all His official ministry until after He received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Although the Son of God, possessing the attributes of deity, He did not exercise them in His own person. Rather, He humbled Himself and took the place of dependence upon His Father like any other man, and at length He received all the gifts and graces required for His public ministry by receiving the Holy Spirit as we are to receive Him, and living ever after a life of constant dependence by faith and prayer upon God for the supply of wisdom, strength and righteousness for His whole life and ministry. Such stupendous condescension surpasses all other acts of humiliation on the part of our Lord. He consented to be nothing and to receive everything as given Him from above. “By myself I can do nothing” (John 5:30), He testified. “These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (John 14:24). “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God” (Matthew 12:28). “Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me” (John 6:57). The Master received all His gifts and graces just as we receive them—through the Holy Spirit. The Apostle John speaks of “the seven spirits before his throne” (Revelation 1:4), that is, the sevenfold ministry and equipment of the divine Spirit. This passage in Isaiah presents to us seven operations of the Holy Spirit in connection with the character and ministry of Christ. The Spirit of Wisdom

1. Wisdom is that quality which enables us to use the right means for the end in view. It is the ability to accomplish results, to bring things to pass, to do the right thing. It is the quality which gives success and efficiency in practical life. The Spirit of Understanding
2. This has reference to knowledge in general. One may possess wisdom and yet have a very limited knowledge. On the other hand, one may possess stores of knowledge and yet have no practical sense or sound judgment. It is said of one of England’s kings: He never said a foolish thing And never did a wise one. The Lord Jesus was eminently wise and yet had boundless knowledge. How marvelously He met the snares His subtle foes set for Him and always did the right thing and so answered their ensnaring questions, so that at last no man dared ask Him anything. At the same time, how marvelous His knowledge of the Word of God. Even at the age of 12, His familiarity with the Scriptures amazed the Jewish scholars in the temple, and the testimony of all that listened to Him through His public ministry might be expressed in the one admiring reply of the men that tried to arrest Him, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). The Spirit of Counsel
3. This is the ability to impart wisdom to others and to guide safely and rightly the steps of those that look to Him for direction. What a “Wonderful Counselor” He is! “When He has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4). He leads His people “on a level path where they will not stumble” (Jeremiah 31:9). They that follow Him will not stumble, and “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein” (Isaiah 35:8). The Spirit of Might
4. The Holy Spirit endowed Christ with miraculous power over all the power of Satan, over the forces and laws of nature and over disease and men. The promise of the Comforter still involves the same power for the followers of Christ. Christianity is not a mere set of harmless opinions but the presence of a living potency that brings things to pass. The Spirit of the Knowledge of God
5. The Holy Spirit was the medium of fellowship between the Father and the Son. In His light and presence, we come to know God and hold intimate converse with Him. Divine things and the Divine Being become intensely real. The Spirit of the Fear of God
6. This means devotedness, godliness, piety, sensitive regard for God’s authority and will, and that absolute obedience and faithfulness of which the Lord Jesus could say, “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (John 8:29). The Sense of Smell
7. The final quality in this sevenfold equipment of the Holy Spirit is expressed by an extremely significant figure, whose beauty and force are brought out by the marginal reading, “and shall make him of quick scent (or smell) in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:3). The sense of smell is the finest exercise of all our physical qualities. It approaches more nearly to the spiritual and ethereal than any other. The fragrance of the flower has been compared to the sound of nature breathing out in sweet perfume. The scent in animals is the instinct which detects things as no operation of the human intellect possibly can. The dog recognizes his master and his enemy. The wild bird knows where the warm breezes of the Southland blow and the difference between the poisoned berry and the wholesome fruit of the wilderness. And so the Holy Spirit gives to us an instinctive life that is higher than the operation of our reasoning powers. We know God, and we know right and wrong. Yes, and we know His messages, His directions, His intimations to us by those finer touches, those more delicate instincts which do not appeal to our reasoning powers or our coarser senses, but which speak to our consciousness with the authority of intuitions, and which bring to us the certainty that we cannot explain to others and yet could not for a moment question. How marvelously the Lord perceived the thoughts and characters of those around Him. How often He answered men without their having spoken. How He sensed conditions, characters and things by something within Himself which was as unerring as it was incomprehensible to men. The Holy Spirit will be to us such an instinct and will give to us intuitions of God, of truth, of right, of approaching evil and of the will of God for us which will make us “of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:3), and which will lead us likewise to judge. “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears” (Isaiah 11:3). Section III—The Spirit of Righteousness and Holiness"Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist" (Isaiah 11:5). The mightiest thing about the Lord Jesus was not His miraculous power but His unimpeachable righteousness. It was this that saved us from the curse which our unrighteousness had brought upon the race. Had He for one moment failed to meet the tests of Satan, our race would have been wrecked forever and the plan of redemption been an irretrievable failure. Just once Moses, the great lawgiver, failed, and that one failure shut him out of the Land of Promise. With what subtle art the great enemy sought to overthrow the righteousness of Jesus! Could Satan have but ensnared Him for an instant and lured Him aside from the pathway of obedience upon which He had staked His life and our redemption, what despair must have filled the heavens, and what hopeless anguish must have been the endless portion of our race! But Jesus overcame because righteousness was His belt and faithfulness the sash around His waist. Not for a moment did He even think of or desire aught but His Father’s will, and so “also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). It was through the Holy Spirit that He stood victorious in this awful test, and that same Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier who still comes to lead us through the same conflict and to the same victory. Section IV—The Spirit of JudgmentThe righteousness of Jesus Christ, however, was not only personal, it also became a consuming fire to destroy the wicked. Only once or twice in His earthly life did that flame flash forth in the words that withered the barren fig tree, and the woes that scathed the hypocritical Pharisees, who knew the right but chose the wrong. He did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. Therefore, when He read from the book of Isaiah in His inaugural sermon at Nazareth the words of His great commission, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isaiah 61:1-2), He closed the book at that point, and left unuttered the last sentence of the prophecy—“and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2). The time for that had not yet come, but none the less surely is coming. The fire that melts the gold and makes it pure, burns up the chaff to ashes. The holiness of Christ must either save or destroy. The announcement of the forerunner was, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). The Lord Jesus Christ must inevitably judge all evil which refuses to be cleansed by His grace and brought into subjection to His Father’s will. Therefore, He is here revealed as the reprover and avenger of the wickedness of the wicked. “With righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4). This last clause has been quoted by the Apostle Paul in a remarkable passage in his description of the coming of the Lord, and especially the judgment that is to fall upon the man of sin, the great antichrist of the last days. After speaking of the mystery of iniquity which already works and which is to culminate in that wicked one who is coming “in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10), he adds, “whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). This is a literal quotation from our text, and it brings into view the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in His sublime character as the leader of the last great conflict and the destroyer of antichrist and Satan. Let us not, therefore, dream that the mercy of our Savior is a soft and weak emotion, without character or principle behind it. It is a love that can smite as well as save. Of all the fearful pictures of a lost eternity, there is none so terrible and none from which the men that have rejected Christ will so wish to hide themselves behind rocks and mountains as “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16). God save you from that wrath which is but the righteousness of wounded love, of rejected mercy—the wrath of the Lamb. Section V—The Vision of Millennial Peace and BlessednessThe picture that follows describes the golden age of faith and hope and prophecy. Human poetry has dreamed of it, but only inspiration has been able to portray it. It is to bring the redemption of the lower orders of creation and the restoration of this sin-cursed earth, as well as the harmony of man with man and man with God. Oh, how warbling birds will acclaim it! Oh, how the abused beasts of burden, that have groaned under man’s oppression, will almost speak their words of thankfulness! Oh, how heaven will smile as it looks down again upon this paradise restored! The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them…. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6, Isaiah 11:8-9) Come, then, oh, Christ, earth’s Monarch and Redeemer, Thy glorious Eden bring; Where peace at length, no more a timid stranger, Shall fold her weary wing. Section VI—The Restoration of IsraelAlong with this comes the restoration of God’s chosen people, the seed of Abraham. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth. Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish, and Judah’s enemies will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim. (Isaiah 11:11-13) There can be no doubt about the literal application of this prophecy. This is not the first restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, for we are distinctly told that the Lord shall set His hand again a second time to recover the remnant of His people. This also includes the 10 tribes represented by Ephraim, as well as the captives of Judah. All are to be united in an everlasting homecoming, such as the sons of Jacob have never seen since the days of Solomon. The envy of Ephraim is to depart, and the vision of Ezekiel (chapter 37) is to be fulfilled, and the children of Joseph and the children of Judah are to be one forever. The physical barriers are to be removed, “The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea” (Isaiah 11:15). The political obstacles are to be set aside, for “He will break it up into seven streams” (Isaiah 11:15). This is the river Euphrates, described by the Apostle John in Revelation 16:12, representing the Turkish power, which is to be dried up “so that men can cross over in sandals” (Isaiah 11:15). These kings of the East are the returning children of Israel, who are to go back as the rulers of the Orient when the filthy rover of Mohammedan persecution and corruption shall have been put aside. Then will come the glad millennial song of Isaiah 12 when the universe shall be summoned to celebrate the great deliverance and the advent of the new creation and the millennial age. In conclusion, what personal application can we make of this sublime vision to our individual lives?
8. As Christ came out of the ruined stump of Israel, so still our Christian life is born out of death, and at every stage we still must trace the principle of death and resurrection.
9. As the Lord Jesus Christ derived His holiness and righteousness from the Holy Spirit, so still the Christian character is not culture but a supernatural gift of the Spirit of God, which must be received by faith and maintained by union with the Lord Jesus through the spirit of holiness.
10. Like Him, we too may be baptized with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of the knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and above all, with that intuitive life which will make us of quick scent in the fear of the Lord, and give us the instinct of holiness and divine communion.
11. There is a sense in which the vision of Isaiah 6:6 is still fulfilled in our hearts and homes. The lion and the bear, the asp and the adder are not always found in the jungle or menagerie. There are human hearts and lives so like these wild beasts of earth that one cannot altogether wonder that men have thought of the doctrine of evolution and have fancied that our progenitors were monkeys and brutes. But when Jesus comes into human lives, the lion will become a lamb, the poison of the asp will cease to be found behind our lips, the subtlety of the serpent will be taken from our hearts, and our strifes and alienations will be healed, and we will walk in love even as Christ loves us. We have not the right to be looking for the millennium unless we have the millennium in our own hearts. We have no business to expect an eternity of peace if we are living in strife and envy now. Let us begin the millennial life here if we expect to enjoy it by and by.
12. The Restorer of Israel will also be our Restorer. How much there is waiting for “until the time comes for God to restore everything, as promised long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21). How much God gives back to us here of that which sin and Satan have robbed us, and, oh, how much is waiting for that glad day when the lost shall be found and “the years the locusts have eaten” (Joe 2:25) will be given back untarnished forever. How can we have this blessed King of righteousness and peace and hail and help on His glorious advent which shall make This blighted earth of ours His own fair world again.