Isaiah 40:18

GOD INCOMPARABLE
(For Trinity Sunday.)

Isaiah 40:18. To whom then will ye liken God? &c.

The extreme point which has ever been reached by objectors to the doctrine of the Trinity is the point of incomprehensibleness, not the point of impossibility. The doctrine, though incomprehensible as to the manner, can never be proved impossible as to the fact (H. E. I. 4811–4814). The same may be said of the Deity, or any of His attributes, e.g., Eternity, Omnipresence. Reason is required to submit to Revelation when she cannot comprehend. We might almost say that until truth is beyond (not opposed to) Reason, it does not strictly belong to Revelation (H. E. I. 537, 1087, 2022–2024).

The text is a simple but energetic assertion, couched in the form of a question, of the impossibility of finding any likeness or resemblance to God.

I. The Creator is distinguished from every creature by being self-existent.

1. No way of accounting for the origin of anything except by supposing something which never had an origin. It was an ancient inscription in a heathen temple, “I am whatsoever was, is, or shall be; and who is he that shall draw aside my veil?”

2. The existence of a Creator is a necessary existence. This should prepare us to find God inscrutable. To depict an Archangel, one has but to remodel himself; but how begin to depict God, the Uncreated?

II. Hence the vanity of all attempts to explain or illustrate the Trinity in Unity.

1. If we could produce an exact instance of three in one, we should have no right to point to it as at all parallel with the union in the Godhead (H. E. I. 4816–4821). Man was made in the moral image of his Maker. It is the image of the nature which the text says it is impossible to find. Still some use may be made of illustration.

III. Is it possible that there may be three persons in the Godhead, consistently with that unity which Scripture unreservedly ascribes to the Divine Being?

1. Observe man’s constitution. All confess he is made up of a body and a soul. Apart from seeing this union effected, we might have thought it impossible. It is a union of quite different natures. Why should he not unite two things of the same nature, e.g., two spirits? If with two, then with three; the possibility does not depend upon the number. Thus we admit the incomprehensible, but we disprove the impossible.

2. The foregoing illustration shows no unmindfulness of the truth that we cannot find a likeness to the everlasting God. It shows from what is possible in created being the unreasonableness of pronouncing a certain constitution impossible in the uncreated Being. “Wonderful Being! who has only to tell what He is to make Himself more inscrutable.”

IV. Note the practical character of the doctrine of the Trinity.

1. The whole of Christianity falls to pieces, if you destroy this doctrine. If this doctrine be false, Christ Jesus is nothing more than a man, and the Holy Ghost a creature of quality. That truth cannot be a barren speculation which may not be believed or disbelieved without affecting the Christian character.
2. Reflect upon prayer. Prayer must be prescribed and regulated by the doctrine of the Trinity. It is a false god whom man worships, if he adores Unity in which there is no Trinity. The heathen bows down before a stock or a stone, the Socinian before a Godhead in which there is no Son and no Holy Spirit. Without a Trinity, man must save himself; with a Trinity, he is to be saved through Christ.

3. Our duty. Whilst no likeness can be found to the invisible uncreated God, we are to study conformity to the image of His Son. Resemblance to Christ is the nearest approach to resemblance to God (Colossians 3:4). See Outline: THE TRINITY IN UNITY, vol. i. pp. 133, 134.—Henry Melvill, B.D.: Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 284–308.

The passage suggests:—
I. That the greatest things in the material world are nothing to God. The ocean, the heaven, the earth (Isaiah 40:12; Psalms 33:8).

II. That the greatest minds in the spiritual universe are nothing to Him (Isaiah 40:13). He is uninstructible: the only Being in the universe who is so. He is absolutely original: the only such Being. We talk of original thinkers; such creatures are mere fictions. He being so independent of all minds:—

1. His universe must be regarded as the expression of Himself. No other being had a hand in it (H. E. I. 1491–1497; P. D. 631).

2. His laws are the revelation of Himself. No one counselled Him in His legislation.

3. His conduct is absolutely irresponsible. He is answerable to no one. He alone is irresponsible, and He alone can be trusted with irresponsibility.

III. That the greatest institutions in human society are nothing to Him. Nations are the greatest things in human institutions. Nations, with their monarchs, courts, armies—Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome—these are great things in history (Isaiah 40:15). Islands (Isaiah 40:15).

IV. That the greatest productions of human labour are nothing to Him. Perhaps in all ages the highest productions of human genius have been in connection with religion. Religion has had the finest architecture, carvings, sculpture, paintings, &c. But what are they to Him? (Isaiah 40:18).

CONCLUSION.—How great is God! Well might the Moslems cry in their prayers, Allah hûakbar!—“God is great.” “There is,” said an eloquent French preacher, “nothing great but God” (P. D. 1493, 1502, 1508).—David Thomas, D.D.: The Homilist, Editor’s Series, vol. xi. p. 167.