The eternal Alpha and Omega.
The idea of these verses seems to be this—look back, if you will, to the very beginnings of nations: God is there. Watch the changes of nations, the uprising of great kings and leaders: God is presiding over all. Peer into the dim mysteries of the future, and still God is controlling and overruling all. The thought here set before the nation finds expression in the private meditations of the psalmist (Psalms 139:1-24.). Nowhere can he get away from the sense of God's presence, and nowhere would he if he could. How fully the Apostle John was imbued with the spirit of the great prophets is well illustrated in the fact that his thought of the manifested God is the old prophetic thought. The glorified and living Christ is revealed to him as saying, "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8). Some think the "righteous man," referred to in verse 2, is Abraham, regarded as the first father of the Hebrew nation; and this view finds some support in the expression found in verse 4, "calling the generations from the beginning;" but it is evident that the mind of Isaiah was at this time filled with the return from captivity, and with the Divine raising up of Cyrus as the human agent in effecting that return. And this Cyrus is to him the suggestion of the glorious spiritual Deliverer, who should appear later on to redeem his people from their sins; not first from their sorrows, but first and chiefly from their sins. So we may cover the long ages in our thought. Abraham raised up by God. Moses set forth by God. Cyrus called out by God. Messiah the Sent One of God. "I the Lord, the First, and with the last, I am he." This view of our God may be taken as—
I. A CONTRAST WITH ALL MAN-MADE GODS. This is the prophet's great point. A man-made, or man-conceived, god comes second. Man, in that case is first; the god is his creature, and the creation of a being involves that it is inferior to its creator. God comes first; he is before man. Man is his creature, and set under his conditions.
II. A HOPE WHEN MAN CAN MAKE NO MORE GODS. That time comes by dissatisfaction. None of his gods bring him rest, and at last he will try to make no more. Then God lives, and may be the soul's Rest. That time comes by the ending of the earth-life; but even then God lives, and we may live in him.
III. A SATISFACTION FOR ALL BETWEEN TIMES. If he is first, and is last, then surely he covers and includes all the space between, and we may well turn from all self-trusts and idol-trusts, and seek now the rest, the joy, of his love and favour and service. "This God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our Guide unto death."—R.T.
Man's devices to do without God.
A curious and interesting fact is connected with the reference in this passage to hammering an idol into shape. Ancient hammers had no handles; the workman held in his hand the metal piece with which he worked. In all the copies of Egyptian figures engaged in various arts, there does not appear to be one representation of a handled hammer. Mr. Osburn, remarking on this, says, "The jar occasioned to the nerves of the hand by this violent contact of metal with metal, without the interposition of a wooden handle, or other deadening substances, would be intolerable to a modern workman, or, if he had resolution to persevere, would probably bring on tetanus. Long practice from an early age had habituated the robust frames of the ancient mechanics to these rude concussions." This passage is of a satirical character; the folly of idolaters in trusting to gods made by common workmen, and dependent on the most trivial mechanical operations for their form and their stability, is vigorously presented. We regard all this idol-making as man's device to do without the one living and true God; and, so regarded, it is suggestive of applications which may be made to our own times. Now men try to do without God because—
I. THE CONCEPTION OF HIM IS TOO SPIRITUAL. We are not permitted to think of him through any material associations, or to image him in any creaturely shapes. He is to be to us a Spirit. But that sets him out of reach; and since men will not cultivate their spiritual faculties for the apprehension, they put him aside, and try to find what they may put in his place in art-creations, art-ideals. This is their device—let us create the "beautiful," and make it do for us instead of the spiritual God. The "beautiful" is their idol.
II. THE REQUIREMENTS OF GOD ARE TOO STRICT. He gives no chance to self-willed-ness, no opportunity for the pleasantness of doing wrong. So their device is to arrange a training of the body, a system of rules and restraints by which they may regulate themselves and their relationships. Because religion is too severe they try to be satisfied with a morality which reaches no higher than a man's idea of goodness. Morality is their idol.
III. THE ATMOSPHERE OF GOD IS TOO PURE. "Nothing entereth his presence that defileth;" and it is characteristic of him that he "desireth truth in the inward parts." There man finds the demand too great, and is set on the endeavour to satisfy himself with a ceremonial purity, which does not disturb the inward corruptions. Ceremonies may express heart-piety; but they may be put instead of heart-piety. Ceremonies and ritual too often become men's idols, whose worship is easier and more comfortable to the natural man. So men help one another to make their own idols, and shift the one true God into the background.—R.T.