The prophecies of Isaiah, it is well known, are chiefly taken up in predicting the future glories of Christ’s kingdom, of which the call of the Gentiles makes a conspicuous and shining part. This great event is foretold in a vast variety of places; and in different forms of expression, one while, plain and direct, at other times, figurative and obscure. The Messiah is spoken of as bringing forth judgement to the Gentiles; and more clearly still, as being given for a light to the Gentiles[319]. In other places, the expression is ænigmatical; as where the Heathen are mentioned as prisoners, who shall be set at liberty[320]—as strangers, who should build up the walls of Jerusalem[321]—as blind people that have eyes, and deaf that have ears[322]—and under a multitude of other images.
Full of these ideas, the Prophet begins the fifty-sixth chapter with the following triumphant exhortation—Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice, for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed; the very language, almost, in which the Baptist afterwards announced our Saviour to the Jews: whence it may appear, of what salvation the Prophet is here speaking. But to whom is this salvation promised? Why, in general, to those who keep the Sabbath from polluting it, ver. 2; that is, in the prophetic style, to those who should embrace the Christian faith: for the Sabbath being the sign or token of God’s covenant with the Jews, hence the prophets transfer this idea to the Christian Covenant; and, by keeping the Sabbath, they express the observance of that future covenant, to which mankind should be admitted under the ministry of Jesus.
But, perhaps, the Jews only were to be admitted to this new covenant of salvation. The prophet expressly asserts the contrary: for not only the Jews of the captivity (to whom we are to suppose the course of the prophecy to be immediately directed) are concerned in this salvation, but THE SONS OF THE STRANGER, that is, the Gentiles (whom the Jews always considered under the idea of Strangers, just as the Greeks did the rest of the world, under that of Barbarians)—Even them (says the Prophet, speaking in the person of God) will I bring to my holy mountain, ver. 7, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted on my altar. The language is still Jewish, according to the prophetic style, which describes the Christian dispensation under Jewish ideas: but by holy mountain is meant the Church of Christ; and by Sacrifices, the spiritual services of that new œconomy. And, to make this purpose of his prophecy the clearer, he even departs, in one instance, from his legal manner of expression, in saying, I will make them joyful in my HOUSE OF PRAYER; which is a spiritual and Christian idea; the Jewish temple being properly a house of sacrifice, and not of prayer; for which last service there is no express precept in the law. And then follows the prophecy, quoted by Jesus, as explanatory of what he was then doing—for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The prophet, as solicitous to be understood, repeats and marks out this distinction: I spoke of it, says he, as my house of prayer, For my house shall [in those latter days] be called [that is, shall be] a house of prayer, and that too, for all people; that is, not for the Jews only, but for all the Gentiles. And, as if all this were not still clear enough, he adds—The Lord God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, the Jews dispersed in the captivity, saith, Yet I will gather OTHERS to him, besides those that are gathered him, ver. 8. that is, the Gentiles.
This famous text, then, is clearly a prediction of the call of the Gentiles into the Church of Christ, a prediction of that great event which should take place under the new dispensation, when the Jewish enclosure was to be laid open, and all men indifferently, the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, were to be admitted into the Christian covenant.
It is true, our English version of this text, quoted by our Lord, very much obscures, or rather perverts, its sense. It stands thus in the Gospel of St. Mark—My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer, xi. 17. Whence it appears, that our translators considered this text, as describing only the destination of the Jewish temple, and not as predicting the genius of the Christian religion. But the scope of the prophecy, as above explained, and the Greek text itself, clearly shews that it ought to have been rendered thus—My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the Gentiles: ὁ οἶκός μου, οἶκος προσευχῆς κληθήσεται πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν.
Thus much being premised, both of the prophetic manner of teaching by signs, and of the true meaning of this prophecy, let us see now what light these considerations afford to our present subject.
Jesus enters into that court of the temple, which was called the court of the Gentiles; who had leave to worship the God of Israel there, but were permitted to advance no further. This court, he finds polluted by the sale of beasts, and the traffic of merchants; the Jews, in their sovereign contempt of these poor heathen, not only excluding them from their own place of worship, but debasing them still farther by the allowance of this sordid society to mix with them. What is the conduct of our Lord, on this occasion! Why, agreeably to his prophetic character, he declares himself sent to break through all these exclusive privileges and distinctions; to accomplish that great mystery, which the old prophets had so much and so triumphantly spoken of, as reserved to be revealed by him; and to admit the Heathen to an equal participation of the blessings, which the Gospel-covenant was to dispense, with the Jewish people.
But, in what manner does he declare this purpose? Why, he makes a scourge of small cords, and, by the representative action of driving this prophane company out of the temple, shews that he is come to break down that partition-wall, which separated the Gentile and the Jewish worshippers, to vindicate the despised Heathen from the insults offered to them, and to lay open the means of salvation to all people. He began to cast out them that sold therein and them that bought, saying to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the Gentiles. The action, we see, is used as expressive of his design; and his design is clearly ascertained, by applying to himself the express words of Isaiah. The whole is, then, a prophetic information, by way of action, of the genius of Christianity, which was to extend its benefits even to the Gentiles.
I have before acknowledged, that a secondary purpose of this transaction might be, to give the Jews to understand, how culpable they had been in permitting even a lawful traffic to be carried on in any part of their temple. For it was usual with Jesus to accomplish several ends by the same act, and even to lay the greatest apparent stress on that end, which was not first in his intention: of which some examples may hereafter be given. But the primary design of this act (and but for the sake of which it would not have been undertaken) I suppose, was, to point out the diffusive nature and influence of his spiritual kingdom.
It may be said, perhaps, that, if such was the intention of Jesus, it had been more properly and significantly expressed by a different act, I mean, by that of bringing the Heathen into the temple, rather than of driving the merchants out of it. But we are to reflect, that, as the Heathen were already permitted to come into this part of the temple (and it would have given, at this time, too great a shock to the prejudices of the Jews, to have carried them into any other), that act would have conveyed no new information; it being on all hands agreed that the devout Heathen might worship there. The business was, to shew that their religious privileges were, hereafter, to be the same with those of the Jews; and that no more contempt was to be countenanced, towards the one, than the other. All distinctions were to cease; and this information was, therefore, most fitly conveyed by an act, which expressed the same regard for the court of the Gentiles, as for the court of the Jews: that is, the honour of each is equally asserted, and no prophanation allowed of either.