This quotation is from Isaiah, forty-second chapter, and first part of the chapter. The reader will remember that the critics deny this testimony of Matthew. This forty-second chapter which he (Matthew) assigns to Isaiah is a part of the book which they affirm has come to us from some unknown source.
It is worthy of repetition that three times Matthew, the inspired author of the first gospel, has affirmed without equivocation that the passages which he quotes were "spoken by Isaiah the prophet." The critics say "No." Which will the reader believe?
The author of the third gospel, describing our Lord's visit to Nazareth, says: "As his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah, and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Luke iv. 16-19.
Luke informs us that it was "the book of the prophet Isaiah" from which our Savior made this quotation. We turn to the prophecy and discover that the passage is found in the sixty-first chapter and first and second verses of the book. But the critics who are correcting our Bible for us (?) inform us that their same literary discovery holds good here—that this part of the book was not written by Isaiah. They assume to hand over this part of the book, knowingly, to the "Great Unknown" and unknowable prophets. The testimony of Luke contradicts the critics. He gives Isaiah full credit as the author of the statement. The reader will doubtless accept the fact that the inspired writer, the author of Luke's gospel, obtained his information at first hand, from God himself, who inspired the record.
Again Luke contradicts the critics when he puts on record Philip's interview with the eunuch, as we find it in Acts viii. 30-33. When Philip joined himself to the eunuch, by direction of the Spirit, he "heard him reading Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah liii. 7), and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?" ... Now, the passage of the Scriptures which he was reading was this: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before his shearer, dumb, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: his generation who shall declare? For his life is taken from the earth," (R.V., Acts viii. 30-33.)
Our critics have robbed Isaiah of this passage. It was written, so their literary skill claims to have discovered, by some prophet who has successfully concealed himself, and finally disappeared from sight, leaving no hope that his name will ever be discovered.
Luke informs us that he knew who the prophet was that penned that touching description of the coming Messiah, and that his name was Isaiah. This question he has settled.
Turning to the gospel of John, we are furnished the testimony of one of whom our Lord said, "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of woman, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." This witness comes before us, therefore, indorsed by Jesus Christ himself, "The faithful Witness." We ask him, therefore, to speak for himself as to who is the author of that part of prophecy which the critics are attempting to wrest from Isaiah.
When the priests and Levites came to ask him, "Who art thou? That we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?" he replied, "I am the Voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet." (See John i. 22, 23, R.V.)
This was his testimony, first concerning himself. We believe him. And this was his testimony, secondly, concerning the author of the prophecy which he quoted: "Isaiah the prophet."