Isaiah 33:17

THE PROSPECT OF THE GODLY

Isaiah 33:17. Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.

The literal application of this prophecy is generally supposed to have reference to the deliverance of the Jews from the Assyrian army. They would then have the joy of seeing Hezekiah in his goodly apparel, and, freed from the presence of the invader, would be left at liberty to enjoy their own pleasant and goodly land. The deliverance was accomplished (2 Chronicles 32:21). But there is another application of the text—to the beatific vision of the King of kings in the heavenly land. Let us then consider—

I. THE GLORIOUS PROSPECT BEFORE THE CHILDREN OF GOD. “Thine eyes,” &c. The prospect respects—

1. The vision of Christ. Christ is King. Of Him Melchisedec, David, and Solomon were types (Psalms 2:6, &c.; John 18:36; Hebrews 2:9; Revelation 1:5; 1 Timothy 6:10). Patriarchs and prophets saw Him in human form. The Jews saw Him in His humiliation, as “a man of sorrows,” &c. The apostles and disciples saw Him in His risen glory. John saw Him in the vision of Patmos (Revelation 1:13, &c.) Hereafter all His people shall see Him “in His beauty,” in all His regal splendour and magnificence. They shall see Him clearly, fully, eternally.

2. The vision of heaven. “The land,” &c. Of heaven Canaan was a type. It was a land of beauty and abundance; of freedom, after the slavery of Egypt; of triumph, after warfare; of rest, after the toils of the desert. Its crowning distinction was the Temple, which God filled with His presence and glory. But heaven is all temple.

II. THE CERTAINTY OF ITS REALISATION. “Thine eyes shall,” &c.

1. This was contemplated by Christ in our redemption. He designed our emancipation from the dominion of sin, our deliverance from this present evil world, and also our elevation to His glorious kingdom (Hebrews 2:10; John 17:24).

2. This is repeatedly the subject of the Divine promises (Luke 22:29; Luke 12:32; John 14:2, &c.)

3. To this tends the work of grace in all its influences on the soul. See what our calling is (1 Peter 5:10); to what we are begotten (1 Peter 1:3); why we are sanctified (Revelation 3:4).

4. A goodly number are now enjoying the fulfilment of these promises (Revelation 7:9; Revelation 7:14).

5. The glory and joy of Christ would not be complete without the eternal salvation of His people (Isaiah 53:11).

III. THE PREPARATION NECESSARY FOR ITS ENJOYMENT. Nothing is necessary in the way of merit, price, or self-righteousness. But if we would see the King, we must make Him the object of our believing, affectionate regard now.

2. If we would see “the land,” &c., we must seek and labour for its attainment (Hebrews 11:16; Hebrews 4:10).—Jabez Burns, D.D.: Pulpit Cyclopædia, vol. ii. pp. 154–157).

THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST’S CHARACTER

Isaiah 33:17. Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty.

There is a difference between the worthiness and the beauty of a character. A poetic beauty adorns the worth of Christ’s character.
WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF THE SUPREMELY BEAUTIFUL CHARACTER OF CHRIST?

I. Sensibility. This is a word to be preferred to sensitiveness, for it includes sensitiveness; it has the passive quality of sensitiveness with activity of soul in addition exercised upon the impressions received. The more perfect the manhood, the more perfect is this sensibility. The total absence of it is the essence of vulgarity. The presence of it in its several degrees endows its possessor, according to the proportion of it, with what Chaucer meant by “gentilness.”

(1.) It does not seem wrong to say that there was in Christ the sensibility to natural beauty. He also, like us, wished and sought that Nature should send “its own deep quiet to restore His heart.” We find His common teaching employed about the vineyard and the wandering sheep, the whitening corn and the living well, the summer rain and the wintry flood and storm.

(2.) Still higher in Him was an intense sensibility to human feeling. He saw Nathaniel coming to Him, and in a moment frankly granted the meed of praise (John 1:47); when the malefactor on the cross appealed to Him, Christ saw at once that the fountain of a noble life had begun to flow (Luke 23:43). It was the same with bodies of men as with men; He wove into one instrument of work the various characters of the Apostles; day by day He held together vast multitudes by feeling their hearts within His own; He shamed and confuted His enemies by an instinct of their objections and their whispers; men, women, and children ran to Him, as a child to its mother.

How did the sensibility of Christ become active?—

1. As sympathy with Nature. There are many who never employ either intellect or imagination on the impressions which they receive. Remaining passive, they only permit the tide of the world’s beauty to flow in and out of their mind; they do nothing with it. In Wordsworth, each feeling took form as a poem. As Christ walked silently along, He lifted up His eyes and saw the fields whitening already to harvest; and immediately He seized on the impression and expressed it in words. It marks a beautiful character to be so rapidly and delicately impressed; but the beauty becomes vital beauty when, through sympathy with and love of what is felt, one becomes himself creative of new thought. Sometimes such sympathy is shown through the imagination, as when Christ, seeing the cornfield by the shore of the lake while He was teaching, looked on the whole career of the field, and combined impressions taken up by the imagination into the Parable of the Sower. Sensibility becoming sympathy is discriminating. Praise without distinctiveness is wearisome. We find perfect discrimination in the illustrations Christ drew from Nature. How exquisite the passage beginning, “Consider the lilies!” This distinctiveness appears still more in the choice of places for certain moods of mind,—the temptation in the wilderness, the hill-side for prayer. In all this, Christ recognises natural religion as His own, and bids us believe in its beauty, and add it to the spiritual.

2. As sympathy with human feeling. Examples of this are numerous. His tenderness stayed Him on the wayside to satisfy the mother’s heart and to bless the children; touched by the widow’s weeping, He gave her back her son. “Jesus wept” even at the moment when He was about to give back the lost, because those He loved were weeping. How discriminating the sympathy which gave to Martha and Mary their several meed of praise! How unspeakably beautiful the words, “Woman, behold thy son!” Friend, “behold thy mother!”

This, then, is loveliness of character.
Remember, we have no right to boast of our sensibility to the feelings of others; nay, it is hateful in us till we lift it into the beauty of sympathising action. Remember, too, its wise discrimination. Christ, while feeling with all the world, sanctified distinctiveness in friendship and love.

II. Simplicity. Milton tells us that poetry must be “simple.” The beautiful character must also possess this quality. But by simplicity is not meant here the simplicity of Christ’s teaching. What is meant is the quality in His character which corresponds to that which we call simplicity in poetry; and that which is simplicity in art is purity in a perfect character. The beauty of Christ’s purity was first in this, that those who saw it saw in it the glory of moral victory. His purity was not the beauty of innocence in a child; it was purity which had been subject to the storm, which had known evil and overcome it. And from this purity, so tried and victorious, arose two other elements of moral beauty—perfect justice and perfect mercy. Innocence cannot be just, nor is the untempted saint fit to judge; but Christ is able to be just and yet merciful, because He is entirely pure.

III. Passion, defined as the power of intense feeling capable of perfect expression. Milton tells us that poetry must be “passionate.” We may transfer it directly to character as an element of beauty. It was intense feeling of the weakness and sin of man, and intense joy in His Father’s power to redeem, that produced the story of the “Prodigal Son.” “Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” How that goes home! How deep the passion which generalised that want into a single sentence! It is a beauty of character, whether seen in words or action, which passes into and assumes the diadem of sublimity. Christ’s words to the Pharisees have all the marks of indignation and none of the marks of anger. Passion and energy limited by temperance imply repose of character. Activity in repose, calm in the heart of passion, these things are of the essence of beauty. And in Him in whom we have found the King in His beauty, this peacefulness was profound. This is the final touch of beauty, which gathers into itself and harmonises all the others, and hence no words are so beautiful as those in which Christ bestows it as His dying legacy on men, “Peace I leave with you,” and repeats it as His resurrection gift, “Peace be unto you.” All moral and spiritual loveliness lies in knowing what He meant when He said, “Come unto Me … and I will give you rest.”—Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A.: Christ in Modern Life (Three Sermons, pp. 89–131).