First Sermon for the First Sunday in November: On the Two Visions of God

“ I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated, and all the earth was filled with His majesty.”—Is. vi. 1, 3

“We have seen Him and there is no beauty in Him nor omeliness.’’—Is. liii, 2.

“T saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated and all the earth was filled with His majesty.” Here, my brethren, the Prophet describes for us a very sublime vision. “I saw the Lord sitting,” he says. A most wonderful spectacle, surely, and blessed are the eyes that have seen it. Who does not long with all the ardour of desire to contemplate the glory of a Majesty so great? This, indeed, has always been the one object of the aspirations of the saints. For it is the vision of Him “ on Whom the angels desire to look ” (x Peter i. 12), Whom to see is life eternal (John xvii. 3). But I have read of another vision of the same Lord, very different in character, and vouchsafed to the same Prophet. The same Isaias with whose words I began speaks thus on another occasion, “ We have seen Him and there is no beauty in Him nor comeliness . . . and we have thought Him as it were a leper and as one struck by God and afflicted ” (Is. liii. 2-4). Hereupon it is necessary to observe in the first place that this latter vision seems to be common to many, whilst the former is the special privilege of the

Prophet. For why should he speak of the one in the plural number—‘‘ we have seen’’—and of the other in the singular—‘‘I saw ’’—unless he designed to insinuate such a distinction: that whereas the vision of the Lord’s humility is accorded to many, the vision of His glory is the Prophet’s exclusive privilege ? King Herod saw Him without “ beauty or comeliness ” and therefore “set Him at naught” (Luke xxiii. I). The Jews also saw Him thus, they who “ numbered all His bones ” (Ps. xxi. 18). But evidently it is with reference, not to this, but to the vision of His majesty that the Prophet cries out “‘Let the impious one be taken away that he may not see the glory of God ” (Is. xxvi. Io, juxta LXX).

Therefore God not only “spoke by the prophets at sundry times and in divers manners”’ (Heb. i. 1), but He also appeared to the prophets. Thus David beheld and recognised Him “a little less than the angels ” (Ps. viii. 6) ; Jeremias saw Him upon earth conversing with men (Bar. iii. 38)*; according to the testimony of Isaias, He showed Himself to him at one time “seated upon a throne high and elevated,” at another, not only as inferior to the angels, but even as a man amongst men, yea, as a leper: that is, not alone in the flesh, but “in the likeness of sinful flesh ” (Rom. viii. 3). You also, my brethren, if you wish to contemplate the glory of the Lord, ought first to gaze upon the humility of Jesus. Look first upon the Serpent lifted up in the desert (Num. xxi. 9, 1 John iii. 14), if

ON THE TWO VISIONS OF GOD 345 you desire to see the King exalted on His throne.* Let the former vision humble you in order that the latter may raise you up from your humiliation. Let the one repress and heal your swelling pride so that the other may fill and satiate your appetite. Do you behold the Lord Jesus emptied (Phil. ii. 7)? Be careful. not to repute that an unprofitable vision, since the vision of Him enthroned cannot be otherwise than profitable. You shall be like to Him hereafter, when you shall see Him as He is (r John iii. 2): therefore be like to Him now also whilst you see Him as He has made Himself for your sakes. For if you refuse not to resemble Him, even in His humiliation, you have acquired the right to resemble Him in His glory as well. He certainly will never suffer the partners of His sorrow to be excluded from a participation in His triumph. So far indeed is He from disowning His companions in suffering and refusing to admit them with Himself into His kingdom that even the robber who confessed Him on the cross was with Him in paradise that very day (Luke xxiii. 43). Hence He said to His apostles, “ You are they who have continued with Me in My temptations, and I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a Kingdom” (Luke xxii. 28, 29). Since, therefore, “if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim. ii. 12), let us make “ Jesus Christ and Him crucified’’ (x Cor. ii. 2) the subject of our daily meditation whilst we live here below. Let us put Him as a seal upon our heart, as a seal upon our arm (Cant. viii. 6) ; let us embrace Him with the arms, so to speak, of fervent love; let us walk in His footsteps by leading a life of ardent piety. For this is the way by which, even to us, He will show Himself, Who is the salvation of God (Ps. xlix. 23), will show Himself, I repeat, no longer without beauty and comeliness (Is. liii. 2), but with glory so great that “ the whole earth shall be filled with His Majesty ” (Ps. lxxi. 19).

Very properly indeed does He allow Himself to beseen in the first vision, not elevated on His throne, but placed in a lower and humbler position. In every great house it is the custom to have two suites of living rooms, one above for the summer season, and the other below for the winter. Therefore, whilst the hearts of even the apostles were still congealed by the wintry frost, and whilst Peter himself, with his soul as chilled as his body, was trying to warm himself at the “ fire of coals ” (John xviii. 18), it was then surely no time for dwelling or rather for appearing aloft. But when shall be sung the new canticle (Ps. cxliii. 9, Apoc. v. 9, xiv. 3): “ Winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers have appeared in our land ” (Cant. ii. 11, 12), that will be the proper hour for the Lord to occupy His more elevated seat and to reign on high.

You may therefore suppose, dearest brethren, that when Isaias uttered the words of my text he had seen with prophetic eye the glory which belongs to that future day. “I saw,” he said, “the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated, and the whole earth was filled with His majesty.” But how are we to conceive that throne? Or what is its nature? It must obviously be understood in a spiritual sense, since the Most High sitteth not upon visible thrones any more than He “ dwelleth in temples made with hands ” (Acts xvii.

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24). No kind of material substance would be suitable for such a seat, noble enough for such a structure, worthy of such an Occupant. With “living stones” (x Peter ii. 5) must be built up the spiritual fabric which is to be honoured with the presence of Him Who is the true and eternal life. But if the angelic creation, reduced as it is by the fall of the apostate legions, be insufficient for so great a structure, let Him vouchsafe to “raise up the needy from the earth and to lift up the poor from the dunghill, that he may sit with princes and complete the throne of glory” (1 Kings ii. 8). And perhaps the reason why the Prophet who saw that throne described it, not only as “high,” but as “ elevated,” was this: in order to designate the firm, because natural, sublimity of the angels and the merciful elevation of men. The words which follow in our text require to be carefully considered ; so, let it suffice for to-day to have made a beginning.