Jesus was a root out of dry ground

JESUS WAS A ROOT OUT OF DRY GROUND
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
A ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND NO. 1075
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAYMORNING, OCTOBER 13,
1872, BYC. H. SPURGEON,AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
NEWINGTON.
“A root out of a dry ground.” Isaiah53:2.
THE prophet is speaking of the Messiah. He declares of Him, “He shall grow
up before Him as a tender plant, and as a rootout of a dry ground: He has
neither form nor comeliness;and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty
that we should desire Him.” It is marvelous that with such plain prophecies
concerning the Messiah, the Jews shouldhave made such a fatal mistake in
reference to Him. They lookedfor a temporal prince, who would come in
splendor, notwithstanding that this and other Scriptures speak of His
humiliation in express terms. Every unprejudiced person might have seen
from this passagethat the Messiah, whenHe came, was not to be surrounded
with pomp, but would come as “a man of Sorrows, and acquaintedwith
grief,” to be, “despisedand rejectedof men.” Yet, though the truth of God
was written as with a sunbeam, and the Jewishpeople were pretty generally
acquainted with their own Scriptures, so that they had the opportunity of
knowing it, yet when the Messiahcame unto His own, His own receivedHim
not, and though favored with the clearestprophecies concerning Him they
rejectedHis claims, and cried, “Let Him be crucified!” Does not this teachus
that the plainest instruction, earnestlyand forcibly delivered, will not be

understood by the unregenerate mind? The carnalmind discerns not spiritual
things, its eyes are darkened, and its ears are heavy. Inspiration itself cannot
put a spiritual truth of God so clearly that men will see it, unless their eyes are
opened by the Holy Spirit. Vain is the bestlight to blind men! Beloved,
remember that what was true of the Jews is equally true of the Gentiles. The
gospelof Jesus Christis the simplest thing in the world, but no man truly
understands it until he is taught of God. There are preachers who labor after
simple words, and seek out instructive similitudes, by which to make the
gospelclearto every apprehension; but still of the unregenerate it may be
said, “Theirfoolish heart is darkened.” Sin has brought upon the human race
a mental incapacitywith regard to spiritual subjects. They rush on in
darkness, though the gospelcreates a noonday around them; they grope for
the walllike the blind, though the Sun of Righteousnessshines with infinite
brightness! Alas, to what has our nature fallen! How is the image of God
marred within us! How ardently should we adore the Holy Spirit that He
stoops to us even in this our blindness, and is pleasedto remove the scales and
pour light into our souls!Whateverwe have rightly discerned has been
revealedto us by His teaching, for apart from His illumination we should have
been as obstinately unbelieving as the Jews. Dearhearers, how is it with you?
Are you blind also? Thoughliving in the gospelday, it may be you have never
seenthe Savior with the eyes of faith. Are you blind also? Oh, if you are, may
He who alone canteachyou to profit, instruct you in the faith of Jesus, and in
His light may you see light! Now, turning to the text itself, you will observe
that Isaiahdescribes our Lord Jesus as growing up like “a tender plant,” a
weak branch, a suckling, a sapling, a plant that very readily might be
destroyed. We cannotpass over that comparisonwithout a note or two,
though we intend to dwell mainly upon the next clause. Our Lord Jesus Christ
in His humiliation appearedin greatfeebleness;He was born a helpless babe;
He was, in His infancy, in greatdangerfrom the hand of Herod, and though
preserved, it was not by a powerful army, but by flight into another land. His
early days were not spent amid the martial music of camps, or in the grandeur
of courts, but in the retirement of a carpenter’s shop—fit place for “a tender
plant.” His life was gentleness—He washarmless as a lamb; at any time it
seemedeasyto destroy both Him and His system; when He was nailed to the

cross to die, did it not appear as if His whole work had utterly collapsed, and
His religion would be forever stamped out? The cross threatenedto be the
A RootOut of a Dry Ground Sermon #1075
Tellsomeone today how much you love Jesus Christ. Volume 18
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death of Christianity as well as of Christ; but it was not so, for in a few days
the powerof the divine Spirit came upon the church! At its first setting up,
how feeble was the kingdom of our Lord! When Herod stretchedout his hand
to vex certain of the church, unbelief might have said, “There will be an utter
end before long”; when, in later years, the Roman Emperors turned the whole
imperial power againstthe gospel, stretching forth an arm long enough to
encompass the entire globe, and lifting up a hand more heavy than an iron
hammer, how could it be supposed that the Christian Church would still live
on? It bowedbefore the storm like a tender shoot, but it was not uprooted by
the tempest—it survives to this day, and although we do not rejoice at this
moment in all the successwhichwe desire, yet still that tender shoot is full of
vitality! We perceive the blossoms of hope upon it, and expect soonto gather
goodly clusters of success. Christianity in our own hearts—the Christ within
us—is also a “tender plant.” In its springing up it is as the greenblade of corn
which any beastthat goes by may tread upon or devour. Oftentimes, to our
apprehension it has seemedthat our spiritual life would soondie; it was no
better than a lily with a stalk bruised, and all but snapped in two; the mower’s
scythe of temptation has cut down the outgrowthof our spiritual life, but,
blessedbe God, He who comes down like rain upon the mown grass has
restoredour verdure, and maintained our vigor to this day! Tender as our
religion is, it is beyond the power of Satanto destroy it; weak as we are, we
have not utterly fallen, nor shall we, for the feeble shall be victorious, and the
“Lame shall take the prey.” Though grace is often like the hyssopfor its
weakness,it is ever as the oak for endurance; man threatens to crush the
church, or hopes to uproot true grace from the heart of the timid believers,
but it shall not be done—the “tender plant” shall become a goodlycedar, and

the weaknessofGod shall baffle the powerof man! Now let us turn to the
similitude which we have selectedfor our text—“A root out of a dry ground.”
First, we will explain the meaning of the metaphor; then, secondly, we will
speak of our experimental knowledge ofits truth; thirdly, we will dwell for a
while upon the encouragements whichit affords; and, fourthly, upon the glory
which it displays. I. First, then, this morning, our Lord Jesus is saidto be “a
root out of a dry ground.” What is THE HISTORICAL MEANING OF THIS
METAPHOR? We believe that it applies to the personof the Lord, and also to
His cause and kingdom—to Himself personally and to Himself mystically. He
is “a root out of a dry ground.” A root which springs up in a fat and fertile
field owes very much to the soil in which it grows. We do not wonder that
some plants thrive abundantly, for the ground in which they are planted is
peculiarly congenialto their growth. But if we see a root or a tree luxuriating
upon a flinty rock, or in the midst of arid sand, we are astonished, and admire
the handiwork of God. Our Savior is a root that derives nothing from the soil
in which it grows, but puts everything into the soil; Christ does not live
because ofHis surroundings, but He makes those to live who are around Him,
and Christianity in this world derives nothing from the world exceptthat
which alloys and injures it, but it imparts every blessing to the place where it
comes. Note, then, this truth of God, that Christ is always “a rootout of a dry
ground”—He derives nothing from without, but is self-containedand self-
sustainedin all the strength and excellence whichHe displays. Let us dwell on
that truth. It is quite certainthat our Lord derived nothing whateverfrom
His natural descent. He was the Son of David and lawful heir to the royal
dignities of the tribe of Judah, but His family had fallen into obscurity, had
lost position, wealth, and repute. Joseph, His nominal father, was only a
carpenter. Mary, His mother, was but a humble village maiden; the glory had
altogetherdeparted from Judah when Shiloh came; no crownwas treasured
amid the heirlooms of Joseph, and no scepterwas comprehendedin the scanty
portion of Mary. He who was born King of the Jews inherited nothing from
His parents by way of honor and dignity—His only portion was the dangerof
being sought out by the cunning and cruelty of Herod! Now, had our Lord
been descendedfrom the Pharaohs;had He come into the world as the scion
of a long line of Caesars, oras the heir to a wide-spreadmonarchy, it would
have been said, “Everyman respects pedigree and descent, and hence the

triumphs of His teaching.” But who shall do otherwise than magnify the Lord
alone, when the blessedand only potentate is born in lowliestpoverty?— “Lo
God bedews old Jesse’sroot With blessings from the skies;
Sermon #1075 ARootOut of a Dry Ground
Volume 18 Tell someone todayhow much you love Jesus Christ.
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He makes the Branchof promise shoot, The promised Prince arise.” Nor did
our Lord derive assistancefrom His nationality. It was no general
recommendation to His teaching that He was of the seedof Abraham. Why, to
this day, to many minds, it is almost shameful to mention that our Saviorwas
a Jew;though certainly the Jew is of an honorable race, ancientand
venerable, having been chosenof God of old; yet among the sons of men the
name of Jew has not yet lost the opprobrium which long ages ofcruel
oppressionand superstitious hate have castupon it. It is said that there was no
nation immediately after the time of our Savior that the Romans ardently
hated except the Jews. The Romans were peculiarly tolerant of all religions
and customs;by conquest their empire had absorbedmen of all languages and
creeds, and they usually left them undisturbed; but the Jewishfaith was too
peculiar and intolerant to escapederisionand hatred. After the siege of
Jerusalemby Titus, the Jews were hunted down, and the connectionof
Christianity with Judaism so far from being an advantage to it, became a
serious hindrance to its growth; Christianity was confusedwith Judaism, and
made to share the political disgrace of the Jewishnation as wellas its own
reproach. Had our Saviorbeen born in Greece, there is no doubt that as a
religious teacherHe would have commanded far more attention than as
coming forward from Jerusalemor Nazareth!He owednothing to His Jewish
birth, for if anything goodcould have come out of Israelin former days,
behold into what a state it had fallen—it was dead politically, religiously, and
mentally! Look at Phariseeism;what shall I say of it but that it had perverted
the noblestinto the basest? Look atthe Sadducees with their professionof
superior wisdom, their intense unbelief, and I may add, their consequentfolly.

Whateverpower the Jewishmonotheismmay have had in the world had
perished beneath the destructive influences of a ritualistic Phariseeismand a
broad church of the Sadducees. OurSavior, could He have disowned all
connectionwith Israel, might have been rather strengthenedthan weakened
by so doing! He was, in this respect, “a root out of a dry ground.” Mentally,
among the Jews nothing was left; no harp resounded with psalms like those of
David; no prophet mourned in plaintive tones like Jeremy, or sang in the rich
organtones of Isaiah;there remained not even a Jonahto startle, or a Haggai
to rebuke! No wise man gave forth his proverbs, nor preachertook up his
parable; the nation had mentally reachedits dregs. Its scribes were dreaming
over the letters of Scripture, insensible to its inner sense, and its elders were
driveling forth traditions of the fathers—andso sinking lowerand lower in an
empty superstition! It was a “dry ground” out of which Jesus sprang. Nordid
the Saviorowe anything to His followers. He might have selected, hadHe
pleased, certaineminent persons as His first converts;casting His eyes upon
the reigning Caesarand his royal subordinates, He might have turned their
hearts to serve Him, and so have surrounded Himself with a discipleship
culled from men of renown; but He did not do so, else would men have said,
“His religion might well spread with such powerful men at its head.” The man
chosenout of the people passedby the noble and electedthe base; He might
have journeyed at once to Athens, and have collectedfrom the remnant of the
old philosophic schools the choice thinkers of the age;there still survived the
sects ofthe Stoics and the Epicureans, and the old learning of Socrates and
Plato was not quite forgotten. He might have calledto His feetthe leaders in
the more potent schools ofthought, but He did not so, else they would have
said that Christianity might well triumph with such master minds to
propagate it; He might have gone to the Forum at Rome, and there have
selectedmen of mighty eloquence;He might have converted the orators of the
tribune, or the persuasive speakers ofthe senate, and have setsuch men to
lead the van of the new faith, but He did not do so, else they would have said
that rhetoric achievedthe victory and eloquence, with her charms, had spell-
bound the world! See you not how He hastens to the fisher boats on the Lake
of Gennesaret, and calls men of the roughestexterior, and the leastcultured
intellect? Shall a world-subduing religion be disseminatedby peasants and
mariners? So did He ordain it! He selectedmen commonly known to be

unlearned and ignorant, and made them apostles of the faith! Whatever they
became in later life, He made them that; Peterdid not make Christianity, but
Christianity made Peter what he was!Paul brought nothing to Christ, but
Christ gave everything to Paul! I admit that the apostles became greatmen;
they were eloquent and learned in the truest sense ofthe term, being taught of
God, but Jesus, as “the root,” bore them, they did not bear the root! This
wondrous rootfertilized the
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soil in which it grew! It derived nothing from the men, but gave the men all
they possessed!But we will pass on. Our Savior is “a root out of a dry
ground” as to the means which He chose forthe propagationof His faith.
Nobody wonders that Mohammedanism spread; after the Arab prophet had
for a little while himself personally borne the brunt of persecution, he
gatheredto his side certainbrave spirits who were ready to fight for him at all
odds. You marvel not that the sharp arguments of scimitars made many
converts;any religion will win assentwhen the alternative is either conversion
or instant death! Give a man with a strong right hand a sharp saber, and he is
a fit missionary of Mohamed’s doctrine! Our Saviorgave to His soldiers
neither spears nor swords, but said, “Put up againyour sword into its place:
for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” He askedno aid
from governments; He disowned the temporal arm altogetheras His ally. Had
our Saviorbeen a State-churchman, and not, as He was, the grandest of
Nonconformists, it would have been said that under the wings of the State His
church was fosteredinto power. If Caesarhad said, “I will gather your
children togetheras a hen gathers her chickens under her wings,” it would not
have been surprising if the brood of Christians had multiplied indefinitely!
But our Savior sought no succorfrom potentates and restednot upon an arm
of flesh. The people would make Him a king, but He hid Himself, for His
kingdom is not of this world, and therefore His servants did not fight. Our

Savior, as He used no force, so neither did He use any means which might
enlist man’s lowernature on His side. When I have heard of large
congregations gatheredtogetherby the music of a fine choir, I have
remembered that the same thing is done at the opera house and the music
hall, and I have felt no joy. When we have heard of crowds enchantedby the
sublime music of the pealing organ, I have seenin the factrather a
glorificationof St. Cecilia than of Jesus Christ! Our Lord trusted in no
measure or degree to the charms of music for the establishing His throne; He
has not given to His disciples the slightestintimation that they are to employ
the attractions of the concertroom to promote the kingdom of heaven. I find
no rubric in Scripture commanding Paul to clothe himself in robes of blue,
scarlet, or violet; neither do I find Petercommanded to wear a surplice, an
alb, or a chasuble. The Holy Spirit has not caredeven to hint at a surpliced
choir, or at banners, processionsand processionalhymns. Now, if our Lord
had arrangeda religion of fine shows, pompous ceremonies, gorgeous
architecture, enchanting music, and bewitching incense and the like, we could
have understood its growth—but He is “a root out of a dry ground,” for He
owes nothing to any of these!Christianity has been infinitely hindered by the
musical, the aesthetic, and the ceremonialdevices of men, but it has never
been advantagedby them, no, not a jot! The sensuous delights of sound and
sight have always been enlisted on the side of error, but Christ has employed
nobler and more spiritual agencies;things which fascinate the senses are left
to be the choseninstruments of Antichrist, but the gospel, disdaining Saul’s
armor, goes forth in the natural simplicity of its own might, like David, with
sling and stone!Our holy religion owes nothing whateverto any carnal
means—as faras they are concerned, it is “a root out of a dry ground.”
Neither did the Savior owe anything to the times in which He lived.
Christianity, it is said by some, came upon the field at a time when it was
likely to succeed. I utterly deny it! It was born at a period of history when the
world, by wisdom, knew not God, and men were most effectually alienated
from Him. The more thinking part of the world’s inhabitants at the time of
Christ’s coming were atheistic, and made ridicule of the gods, while the
masses blindly worshipped whatever was setbefore them. The whole set and
current of thought at the advent of our Lord was in direct oppositionto such a
religion as He came to inculcate!It was an age of luxury—Rome was full of

wealth and the desire for selfindulgence;whereverRomans settled, they built
magnificent villas, and used all the arts for the gratificationof the flesh—was
this a preparation for the doctrines of the cross? It was an age of universal
vice! It is a greatmercy that most of the ancientcities have been destroyed,
and their works ofart dashed to shivers; for many of them were unutterably
vicious, and such as remain are doing not a little to degrade humanity. Vices
which now we dare not speak of were then perpetrated in public; things that
are now detestedwere performed as a part of sacredworship;the world was
rotten through and through. If darkness is a preparation for light, I grant you
the world did prepare itself for Christ; if an Augean stable, poisonedwith a
putridity which supersedes allcommon rottenness, is in readiness for the
coming of Him who shall cleanse it, the world was prepared for Jesus, but not
otherwise. I deny that He owed any
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thing to His times; He came when the times could not help Him in any degree
whatever, and His religion was “a root out of a dry ground.” Neither, again,
let me say, did the religion of Jesus owe anything to human nature! It is
sometimes saidthat it commends itself to human nature. It is false—the
religion of Jesus opposes unrenewedhuman nature. In Christ’s day revenge
was one of the most glorious things known; it was sung of; it was preached
upon; it was the joy of men, and what religion but Christianity ever taught
men never to retaliate? Christ said, “Love your enemies, and pray for them
that despitefully use you.” Is this in human nature? Is there anything in the
commands of Christ that at all flatters pride or encourageslust? He judges
our thoughts as well as our actions:“He that looks upon a woman to lust after
her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Is that agreeable to
human nature? Do you think that runs in the same vein as our passions?
Mohammed prospered because his religion pandered to human weakness!But
there is in the religion of Christ no yielding to what are calledthe natural

passions, no providing for sensualdesires. “Takeup,” He says, “notyour
scimitar but your cross.”He says not, “Increase your harem”; no, but,
“Crucify the flesh.” Is there any glorificationof human intellect in the religion
of Jesus? Is not its invariable command, “Believe, and live”? If Christianity
spreads, it spreads in oppositionto human nature by changing human nature,
by making it what it never was, and never could have been had not the
incorruptible truth of God been planted in it like “a root in a dry ground.”
Thus much, and perhaps too much, upon the historical meaning of the
metaphor. II. Now, briefly, but earnestly, OUR KNOWLEDGE OF ITS
TRUTH EXPERIMENTALLY. Beloved, you remember your own
conversion? When Jesus Christcame to you to save you, did He find any
fertile soil in your heart for the growthof His grace? I must bear witness that
to convict me of sin and humble me; He had need of all the mighty hammers
of His powerto break my rocky heart. Convictionof sin was no natural
product of my mind; repentance was a plant of the Lord’s right hand
planting, and not a native of the soil. Remorse we might have had by nature,
but repentance, never! And, brothers and sisters, if now we have believed in
Christ Jesus, andare resting in Him, I am sure we must admit that faith never
sprang up naturally in the garden of our hearts—the Holy Spirit taught us
how to believe in Jesus, and led us to look unto Him that we might be saved.
So far from helping Christ, my whole soul was opposedto Him; if now I bow
before His feet and delight to call Him my Masterand my Lord, it is because I
am subdued by His power, not because Ihave educated myself to it, or was at
all inclined thereto. Religion, true religion, in the heart at conversionis “a
root out of a dry ground.” Let me ask you who look into your own hearts—
how have you found them since? Has there been anything in your natural
humanity congenialwith the new life which grace has begottenwithin you?
You have the higher life in your souls—has it found sustenance in your flesh?
Ah, it is sadly the reverse!Christ’s life has come into us like Israel into the
wilderness, and it finds in us no food; if manna does not drop from heaven,
and waterleap from the smitten rock, it must die in the desertof our soul. “In
me, that is, in my flesh,” saidthe apostle, “there dwells no goodthing.” Our
carnalnature is still as evil as ever it was—“Thecarnalmind is enmity against
God, it is not reconciledto God, neither, indeed, can it be.” If you have divine
grace in your hearts today, beloved, you have been made to feelthat it is “a

root out of a dry ground.” I bless the Lord that we have felt this at peculiar
seasons. Whenyou have had great joy in God, greatexhilaration and delight,
has it not usually been at times when you might leasthave expectedit? When
the body is gradually pining awaywith sickness, we have seenthe spirit more
triumphant than it was in health, deriving none of its joy from the strength of
nature, but flourishing upon secretprovender of which the world knows
nothing—it has been “a root out of a dry ground.” Sometimes we have been
desponding in spirit; our animal spirits, as they are called, have been quite
dried up and yet, before we knew it, our souls have been made like the
chariots of Amminadab, and we have flashed and glowedwith sacreddelight!
“A root out of a dry ground” again. Children have died, and perhaps a
beloved wife has been taken away;possibly business has been againstus, trials
have multiplied, and yet at that very seasonwe have walkednearerto God
than ever we did before, and had more delight in His company, and have
known more of the powerof the Holy Spirit in our souls than ever we did in
days of prosperity—all to show us that the grace within us lives by its own
inward vigor, and by supernatural help—and owes nothing to bodily health,
nothing to outward circumstances, but is still a root flourishing best in a
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dry ground! There is much that is painful about this experience of the dryness
of the ground, but there is something delightful in the experience of the
growing of the root under such circumstances, forthen all the glory is given to
the Lord alone, and we dare not touch it, no, not so much as with one of our
fingers! III. But I will pass on. This whole subject appears to me to afford
much ENCOURAGEMENT to many. And first, let me speak as earnestlyas I
can a word to those of you who are seeking afterthe Savior, but are very
conscious ofyour own sinfulness. You are depressedunder a sense of being
unworthy to be saved, and what is perhaps worse, you feelthat though the
gospelis preachedto you, you are unable to receive it; deadness and

powerlessnessare the main thoughts upon your mind. Now, beloved, let this
console you! Christ Jesus, whenHe saves a sinner, borrows no help whatever
from the sinner. “It pleasedthe Fatherthat in Him should all fullness dwell.”
If there is all fullness in Him, He does not need any contribution from us, and
blessedbe His name, He never waits for any! We cangive none, and He will
receive none; Christ is all—does not that cheer you? Do you say, “I need
power”? In Him is strength. “I need wisdom” you say—He is “Made of God
unto us wisdom.” “I need a tender heart”— who can give it to you but Christ?
“But, ah, I need to repent”—is He not “Exaltedon high to give repentance?”
“But I long for faith.” Well, and have you never read, “It is not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God”? He is “a root out of a dry ground,” and your ground is
very, very dry; He will come and put fertility into it, but remember He does
not first need fertility in you; poor, helpless, hopeless, stripped and emptied
one, you need not look for, nor desire anything in yourself to prepare you for
Jesus!He delights to come into empty hearts to fill them with His love—into
cold hearts to warm them with His sacredflame—andinto dead hearts to give
them Life. Now, the same thought which thus comforts the seeker, and I pray
it may, ought also to encourage anyChristian who has been making
discoveries ofhis ownbarrenness. It is not every child of God that knows
himself thoroughly; we may go on a long time after our conversionwithout
any very deep understanding of what poor things we are. Have you begun to
see yourself in the mirror of the Word, and does the sight alarm and distress
you? Are you crying, “My barrenness;my barrenness”? Belovedbrothers and
sisters, Christ “is a root out of a dry ground,” and though you are thus barren
now, you are not one whit more barren than you always have been! Your sin
alarms you, but it was always there! Your natural death disgusts you, but it is
no new thing. “Oh, but I seemto be less, now, than I was!” You never were
anything, and if you had begun by understanding you were nothing, you
would have begun in a wiserand happier state than you are now. Whenever
the child of God says, “I find my total of natural strength is getting smaller,”
he is only approximating to the truth, for his strength is “perfectweakness.”
Beloved, when we get to realize the lessontaught us in our baptism, we are
drawing near to the truth of God. You ask, “Whatis that?” Why, it is the
burial of the creature in Christ’s tomb! Circumcisionsignifies the putting
awayof the filth of the flesh, but baptism teaches us the burial of it altogether,

as an incorrigible and utterly corrupt thing, not to be reformed and mended,
but to be reckonedas dead and buried! “Mortify therefore your members
which are upon the earth.” Be nothing at all, and let Jesus be all in all! When
at any time you are castdown by a sense ofyour nothingness, remember that
your Lord is “a rootout of a dry ground.” The same comfort avails for every
Christian worker. You who work for Jesus in the pulpit, or in the Sunday
school, orelsewhere, Iam quite sure if God blesses you, you do not always feel
the same. Machines who preachregularly in the same wayaccomplishvery
little; God means to use men, and while men are men they will be sensitive
and changeable. Fleshandblood are not like marble—they change— and God
means to use the feelings of His ministers and His servants for divine ends and
purposes. If God ever honors a man in public, He will whip him every now
and then behind the door, and make him cry out, “Who is sufficient for these
things?” Now, brother, when you feel you are barren, do not fret or despair
about it, but rather say, “Lord, here is a dry tree; come and make it bear
fruit, and then I shall joyfully confess, ‘FromYou is my fruit found.’ Lord, I
am a withered branch by nature, come and put sapinto me, and make me bud
and blossomlike Aaron’s rod—so shall men see a miracle of grace, and You
shall have all the praise of it!” Do not think that your unfitness to be used is
really a disqualification with God! The last thing a man might chooseto fight
with would be the jawbone of a donkey, and yet Samsonfound it handy
enough, and it made his victory the more famous! The last instrument God
might
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choose to use might be yourself, and yet if He pleases,there is fitness in your
unfitness, and a qualification in your disqualification! A man’s conceitthat he
is well prepared for God to use him will prove fatal to him; if a man is
possessedof polished diction; very learned, a man of high family, a man of
greatrepute, and so on, the likelihood is that he will be esteemedby his fellows

so much that the Lord will say, “I cannot use this man lest men glorify him.”
Therefore Godoften uses young men because people know they are fools;He
honors illiterate men that people may know that it is not by their learning; He
chooseshome-spun people who speak without the polish which others have
gained, and He uses them because the world says, “He is an unlearned man,
and a rough vulgar fellow.” Do you not see that thus all the glory goes to God?
The man’s disqualifications are his fitness!“Therefore mostgladly,” says the
apostle, “I will rather glory in my infirmities, that the powerof Christ may
rest upon me.” Go on, dear worker, for Jesus is “a rootout of a dry ground,”
and in your dryness He will flourish! Don’t you think that this also ought to
comfort all of us with regardto the times in which we live? They are said to be
very horrible times; they always were ever since I have knownanything of the
world, and I suppose they always were in our fathers’ time. We are always at
a crisis according to some people. I am not about to defend the times—they
are, no doubt, very bad—for the innumerable spirits of evil are bold and
active, while goodmen seemto have lost their courage. We find company
mergers and compromises ad infinitum, and the precious truth of Godis
trodden as the mire of the streets!What about all this? Are we discouraged?
Far from it! Bad times are famous times for Christ! When Wycliffe came, the
times were dark enough in England, and therefore the morning star was the
more welcome!When Luther came into the world the times were almost as
black as they could be, and therefore goodtimes for reformation! The times
were dead enough when Wesleyand Whitefield came; but they proved
glorious days for the Lord to work in! And if you discern now that there is not
much prayerfulness, nor much spirituality, nor much truthful doctrine, nor
much zeal—do not fret—it is thoroughly dry soil, and now the root of grace
will grow!John Bunyan once said that when he heard the young fellows swear
so profanely in his parish, he used to think what men God would make of
them when he convertedthem! Let us think like that! Suppose He saves those
wretchedpriests who are trying to swallow downEngland? Suppose He
converts these profane rationalists who almostdeny God’s existence—what
penitent sinners they will make when He once breaks their hearts, and what
preachers of the word they will be when He renews them! Let us have good
hope! Our faith does not rise when people say the times are improving, nor do
we despond when men denounce the times as bad! Eternity is the lifetime of

God, and He will work out His purposes; time may ebb and flow, God is in no
hurry. But if the world goes onfor millions of years, God will triumph in the
end, and the poem of human history will not wind up with a dirge, but will
end with a triumphant hymn after all. Let us be of goodcourage aboutthat.
And thus we may be encouragedconcerning any particularly wickedplace.
Do not say, “It is useless to preach down there, or to send missionaries to that
uncivilized country.” How do you know? Is it very dry ground? Ah, well, that
is hopeful soil! Christ is “a root out of a dry ground,” and the more there is to
discourage, the more you should be encouraged!Readit the other way. Is it
dark? Then all is fair for a grand show of light! The light will never seemas
bright as when the night is very very dark. Come with the salt of Christ where
there is most rottenness. Where is the scene for the triumph of the physician
but where disease has reignedsupreme? Go with Christ’s gospelin your
hands where it is most required! The same is true of individual men—you
should never say, “Well, such a man as that will never be converted.” You
parents do not say, “Now, there is Mary, she has a sweettemper; I expectto
see her brought to Christ. And there is John, an open-heartedlad; he seems
very attentive in the house of God; I expectto see him saved. But, as for Tom,
he is such a wild daredevil fellow;I shall never see him saved.” I should not
wonder that he is just the very one whom Godwill bring to Himself, and make
him to be the joy and gladness of your old age!Who are you that you should
setup to electGod’s people? He has done that years ago, and He has often
electedthe very ones whom you would have castout! Seek the conversionof
all persons, and all classes, allmen, and all your relatives, and all your
children, for you do not know whether any shall be saved. He is “a root out of
a dry ground.” Look for the dry ground, and rather rejoice when you see it is
dry ground, with the comfortable hope that the root will spring up there.
8
8

IV. I must close with a few words upon THE GLORY WHICH ALL THIS
DISPLAYS. Christ’s laurels, beloved, at this day are none of them borrowed.
When He shall come in His glory there will be none among His friends who
will say, “O King, You owe that jewelin Your crown to me.” None will
whisper among themselves that if the honor is given to the captain, yet it was a
soldiers’battle, after all. No, but everyone will admit that Jesus was the
author and the finisher of the whole work, and therefore He must have all the
glory of it, since we who were with Him were dry ground, and He gave life to
us, and borrowednothing from us. In the end of the world it will be seenhow
Christ has perseveringly shakenoff from Him everything that could have
marred His victory. This is most prominent in history. The Church of God
went on gloriously and subdued the nations till that unbaptized heathen,
Constantine, thought as a piece of State policy, that he would get the
Christians on his side to secure for him a throne which otherwise he would
have lost. And that old sinner made Christianity a national religion, and from
that day Christianity was pure no more! You could not find pure religion
unless you went to the valleys of Piedmont, among the persecutedWaldenses,
where it was maintained. Religion, as far as real, true, pure holiness was
concerned, almostceasedto exist from the day when the royal hand inflicted a
spiritual cancerupon the church by its touch! The Dark Ages were a
chastisementto the church for leaning upon an arm of flesh; then came the
Reformation, and as long as men preachedthe gospel, and depended upon
spiritual power only, even persecutionmade it spread! But those sinners,
Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth extended the royal wing over it, and it
sickenedalmostto death. The despised Puritans became the representatives
of the crucified Lord, and then there came a time when these Puritans were
multiplied, but they erred—they took the sword, (and if Puritans take the
swordthey can fight, mark you), and they got the upper hand by the arm of
flesh—and then down went the spirituality of Puritanism because whoeverit
is that thinks to bring glory to God in that way, God will have nothing to do
with him! And now, at this day the Lord may bless His dissenting people in
this country, but if they seek politicalpower, and lean upon the education of
their ministers, or any other earthly thing, God will castthem off as He has all
the others!History shows that Christ blesses a humble, believing, trustful,
spiritually-minded people; and history shows that when they cringe before the

king, or use swordor bayonet—from that moment the Masterputs them
down, and begins againat the first foundation—for it is “Notby might, nor by
power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” And so it shall be! When at
the lastthe entire church shall rise in all its splendor, not a single stone shall
bear the mark of the carver’s toolof human workmanship—from basementto
pinnacle there shall be no tokenof human masonry! No king shall be able to
say, “I gave that glorious window of chrysolite.” No prince shall say, “I
contributed that pinnacle of sapphire or chrysoprasus.” No minister shall be
able to say, “My eloquence made yonder gate of agate, and openedthose
windows of carbuncle.” No angel, even, shall be able to say, “I spread the
sacredpavement of transparent gold like unto pure glass.”But it shall be to
God, to God, to God alone—the foundations laid in the divine decree, the
stones cementedwith the fair vermillion of the Savior’s atoning blood, each
gem fashionedand placed by the mysterious Spirit of the living God, and the
whole temple fitly framed together—glowing withthe glory of God, bright
with the presence ofGod, from foundation to pinnacle, it shall speak ofGod,
God, God alone! When that palace shallbe complete, then from the ends of
the earth shall be heard the shout, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, the
Lord God omnipotent reigns!” Hushed will be every other acclamation!This
anthem will drown them all! Let it in our hearts drown them all: “The Lord,
the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, for He is God, and beside Him
there is none else!” Amen and Amen!
What Is the Meaning of “Tender Plant. . . out
of Dry Ground”?
By Wayne Jackson
•
“In Isaiah 53, the coming Messiahis described as a ‘tender plant and as a root out of dry
ground’ (v. 2).What is the meaning of this expression?”
Isaiah 53 is a veritable galaxy of prophecies regarding Jehovah’s suffering Servant — the
Christ.Seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, God’s prophet declared that the Messiah would
grow up under the Lord’s watchful eye, yet under the most disadvantageous conditions. The

prophet symbolically describes the situation as being somewhat like a “tender plant, and as a root
out of dry ground” (53:2). Hardly a plan for success, it would appear.
What was the significance of the prophetic declaration?And how was it to be fulfilled?
As noted already, a “tender plant,” attempting to survive in “dry ground” seems like an unlikely
situation.In reality, however, such was by divine design! The text is intended to emphasize that
what appears impossible with men, certainly is not with God. To use a gross but common figure
of speech, the “deck was deliberately stacked” against the Messianic mission, the purpose of
which was to demonstrate that the commencement and success of Christianity was orchestrated
by Heaven. Such was not a result of a collection of “lucky” circumstances. Note:
1. The Lord came from a paralyzed nation.The Jews had been laid low by several foreign
powers in the centuries preceding the birth of Christ. Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian,
Greek, and Roman invasions had held a stranglehold upon the Hebrew people.The nation
of Israel had become but a “stump” compared to its glorious past.Yet from this apparent
deadness, a “branch” would spring up to the amazement of humanity (Isaiah 11:1ff).
2. Jesus arrived to commence his mission in the most vulnerable form imaginable — a
newborn infant.Surely enemies, horrified by the prospect of a coming king, could
extinguish this potential rival (as they perceived the matter). But not so; though Herod the
Great attempted to exterminate the lovely child, he failed dismally in the effort (Matthew
2:13ff).
3. Christ was reared in a despised community (John 1:46), yet such could not nullify his
intrinsic divine nature.In fact, it further confirmed his humble background as previewed
in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament (cf. Matthew 2:23).
4. The Savior had no formal rabbinic education that he should amaze the people with a
scholastic faÂ
Christianity/ Blogs / Dr. Ray Pritchard / To be a Root out of Dry Ground
To be a Root out of Dry Ground
D r . R a y P r i t c h a r d
Dr. Ray PritchardAuthor, Speaker, President of Keep Believing Ministries

“He grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2).
Jesus was not born in Rome.
He wasn’t even born in Jerusalem.
When God decided to enter the world, he came in a most unlikely way. He came not as a
conqueror or a world leader but as a helpless little baby, born in a stable, in the little village of
Bethlehem.
Years later his critics dismissed him by asking, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew
13:55)
It wasn’t a compliment.
They meant it as a slur.
These were people from his hometown of Nazareth.
They had seen him grow up.
They knew Mary and Joseph.
They knew his brothers.
They said, “Who does Jesus think he is?”
That’s not fair, but that’s life in small towns. It’s not always negative, but sometimes it is. When
people decide you come from the wrong side of the tracks, that judgment tends to stay with you
forever.
So it was with Jesus.
The people who knew him best (or thought they did) couldn’t take him seriously.
“Where does he get off trying to teach us anything? He’s Joseph’s son.”
He was a root out of dry ground, meaning he didn’t come from a promising background. A root
out of dry ground is like a plant growing in the arid regions of West Texas. Lots of dust, very
little water. A little shoot pokes its way out of the ground, but it won’t last because there isn’t
any water to sustain it.
Jesus wasn’t born to royalty.
He didn’t have a blue blood heritage.
Sometimes we look at someone and say, “He’s an average kind of guy.” That’s exactly what the
leaders said about Jesus. They didn’t see any reason to take him seriously, so they didn’t. He
didn’t come with the usual marks of greatness so the rulers completely misunderstood him and
his mission on the earth.

Do not make the same mistake the Jewish leaders made so long ago.
Do not put Jesus in a man-made box.
Do not demand that he meet your expectations.
Christ has come!
God has revealed his mighty arm of salvation.
Will you believe the Good News?
O God, the world still misunderstands your Son. We long for the day when Jesus will reign over
all the earth. Until then, help us to live in hope that better days are coming. Amen.
DR. RAY PRITCHARD
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Depraved Eye
Isaiah 53:2
W.M. Statham No beauty that we should desire him. In this prophetic picture of the Christ the
question arises, "Who hath believed our report?" What wonderful attestation history gives to
this! - "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Whether the words, "he hath no
form nor comeliness," apply to the physical features of Christ, we cannot say; for the Jews had
no "art." They interpreted the words, "Thou shalt not make to thyself... the likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath," not as an injunction against "idols" alone, but
against all statuary and all art. So, though we have the likenesses of the emperors on the Roman
coins, and the Greek statues of Socrates and their wise men, we have no likeness of Christ or his
apostles. But we do know the meaning of this, "There is no beauty that we should desire him."
I. THE EYE ADMIRES ONLY WHAT THE HEART LOVES. The beauty that eye desired was
quite different. It was superficial and carnal, not inward and spiritual.
II. THE WORLD DOES NOT ALTER ITS TASTE. The classic virtues of paganism - pride,
self-reliance, honour - are more prized by men of the world than patience, gentleness, pity,
forbearance, and charity. Christ is not beautiful to the proud, nor to the selfish, nor to the
ambitions and the vain. Only the pure in heart admire and love him! - W.M.S.
Biblical Illustrator
For He shall grow up before wire as a tender plant.
Isaiah 53:2

God accomplishes great things by unlikely means1. God prosecuteth and accomplisheth His
greatest designs by the most unlikely and despised means. Jesus Christ, the great Saviour of the
world, was but a tender plant, which a man would be more apt to tread upon and crush, than to
cherish.
2. God cometh in for the deliverance of His people in times of greatest despair and unlikelihood.
For when the branches of Jesse were dried up, and had no verdure, even then sprung up the
greatest ornament of that stock, although a root out of a dry ground.
3. Mean beginnings may grow up to great matters and glorious successes. Christ, the tender
plant, was to be a tall tree.
( T. Manton, D. D.)
God to be trustedYou have no cause to distrust God; though He doth not find means, He can
create them. The root of Jesse, though there be no branches, it can bear a sprig. God, that could
make the world out of nothing, can preserve the Church by nothing.
( T. Manton, D. D.)
Christ a tender plant1. Christ in His humiliation appeared in great feebleness; born a helpless
babe, He was in His infancy in great danger from the hand of Herod, and though preserved, it
was not by a powerful army, but by flight into another land. His early days were not spent amid
the martial music of camps, or in the grandeur of courts, but in the retirement of a carpenter's
shop — fit place for "a tender plant." His life was gentleness, He was harmless as a lamb. At any
time it seemed easy to destroy both Him and His system. When He was nailed to the Cross to
die, did it not appear as if His whole work had utterly collapsed and His religion would be for
ever stamped out? The Cross threatened to be the death of Christianity as well as of Christ; but it
was not so, for in a few days the power of the Divine Spirit came upon the Church.
2. At its first setting up, how feeble was the kingdom of our Lord! When Herod stretched out His
hand to vex certain of the Church, unbelief might have said, "There will he an utter end ere
long." When, in after years, the Roman emperors turned the whole imperial power against the
Gospel, stretching forth an arm long enough to encompass the entire globe, and uplifting a hand
more heavy than an iron hammer, how could it be supposed that the Christian Church would still
live on? It bowed before the storm like a tender shoot, but it was not uprooted by the tempest; it
survives to this day; and although we do not rejoice at this moment in all the success which we
could desire, yet still that tender shoot is full of vitality, we perceive the blossoms of hope upon
it, and expect soon to gather goodly clusters of success.
3. Christianity in our own hearts — the Christ within us — is also a "tender plant." In its
upspringing it is as the green blade of corn, which any beast that goeth by may tread upon or
devour. Oftentimes, to our apprehension, it has seemed that our spiritual life would soon die: it
was no better than a lily, with a stalk bruised and all but snapped in twain. The mower a scythe
of temptation has cut down the outgrowth of our spiritual life, but He who cometh down like rain
upon the mown grass has restored our verdure and maintained our vigour to this day. Tender as
our religion is, it is beyond the power of Satan to destroy it.
( C. H. Spurgeon.)
Growth before God

P. J. Rollo.There is one word which marks the difference between the work of God and the work
of man. It is the word "growth." No human work can grow. For though we speak of a picture
growing under the brush of the painter, or of a statue growing under the chisel of the sculptor,
this is only a figure of speech.
1. But there is no work of God that cannot grow. This world itself grew into being. It grew up
before God as the wild flower does — grew out of chaos, into order and beauty, and we can read
on the rocks the story of its growth. There is a greater world than this — the world of Divine
truth. And this also has been a growth from the beginning.
2. No wonder, then, that the Son of God grew up before the Lord — that the Lord of nature
conformed to the law of nature. The sacred historian is not to be found tripping here, like the
medieval romancist. He does not outrage the order of nature by a single story of monstrous
precocity. There is not a part of the being of Jesus which he excludes from the order of growth.
In body, mind and spirit he declares the child grew up before the Lord.
3. What hope is there here for man! The Son of God had to grow, and the meanest child of man
can grow. If we had no power of growth but that which we possess in common with the animal
and the tree, then were we of all creatures the most miserable. Because we have in us the power
of an endless growth in all that is great and good, we are creatures of the Most Blessed. And we
must grow. That is our destiny. Our Christianity is not a piece of mechanism that was finished
off at the date of conversion. It is a life that has been born within the soul. We are growing,
either upwards or downwards, either better or worse, either to honour or to shame.
4. But how may a noble and Divine growth be ensured? It is a question that is not left
unanswered in my text. For we are told that the plant of which it speaks grew up before the Lord.
It was the fondest desire of the Hebrew mother's heart that her son should grow up before the
Lord. She would rather have him grow up before the Lord in the temple than before the king in
the palace. There can be no higher position or nobler prospect for a man than to grow up before
his God. The child Samuel and the child Jesus grew up before the same God, but how differently.
The former under the very shadow of the altar, under the wing of the old, blind priest, utterly
secluded from the common ways of men; but Jesus, at His mother s knee in the village home, in
the midst of His little relatives and playmates, among the workmen at the bench, and the old
familiar faces in street and synagogue. And so it has become a Christian commonplace that you
can grow up before the Lord anywhere.
5. But we are further informed of the special fashion in which Jesus grew up before the Lord.
"As a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground," we read. But the Hebrew contains a more
explicit meaning. It is this: "He grew up before God like a fresh sucker from a root springing out
of a dry ground" The old plant is the house of David, once so glorious in flower and fruitage, at
last cut down and withered. The dry soil is the barren religious life of Israel. The fresh young
sucker is the Son of Man. That it did grow to what we see is the supreme miracle of Christianity.
Its principal evidence is in its own marvellous growth. This is the dilemma in which Christianity
still keeps its foes, and to which all additional thought and investigation can only add strength.
From such a root, in such a soil, how did Jesus grow to be the Christ of history? It must either be
acknowledged to be the supreme miracle or the supreme mystery of time. And this is the one
Christian miracle which keeps repeating itself century after century. From the withered plant,
and out of the desert soft, God is evermore producing His plants of renown. How was it, for
example, that Luther grew to be the man he was, and to wield the power he did? Was it from the
withered root of the mediaeval Church or the desert soil of the monastery that he derived his

power? Or was he right when he declared the conviction of his heart that it was all by the grace
of God through faith? History discloses to us nothing so glorious as these Divine developments
of the soul of man. The grace that has achieved these things is in the world as much as ever.
6. Why is it, then, that so many young men are excluding from their ambition in life that of
growth in Christ? Why is it that so many of them murmur that the old creeds are dry, and the old
Bible and the old familiar Church service, and that even the fountain of private devotion has
ceased to water the wilderness? It is because they are not rooted in God and His truth, but are,
many of them, like plants thrown out of a country nursery, which lie bleaching in the sun or are
blown about by the wind. No wonder that religion seems dry to those who are not rooted in it.
Young men! see to it that you go down into the truth which you profess to stand by, whether of
creed, of catechism, or Bible, and you will find as much good in it as your fathers did. Thus
settled and grounded, seek to grow in everything; put on nothing. All pretence is worse than
waste of time and strength. And abjure all forced and unnatural growth, all ambition to fill
rapidly a large space. Be content to occupy the ground that God has allotted to you, according to
the nature that God has given.
(P. J. Rollo.)
As a root out of a dry ground
The root out of a dry ground
H. Macmillan, LL. D.Owing to their geographical position, the central and western regions of
South Africa are almost constantly deprived of rain. They contain no flowing streams, and very
little water in the wells. The soil is a soft and light-coloured sand, which reflects the sunlight
with a glaring intensity. No fresh breeze cools the air; no passing cloud veils the scorching sky.
We should naturally have supposed that regions so scantily supplied with one of the first
necessaries of life, could be nothing else than waste and lifeless deserts: and yet, strange to say,
they are distinguished for their comparatively abundant vegetation, and their immense
development of animal life. The evil produced by want of rain has been counteracted by the
admirable foresight of the Creator, in providing these arid lands with plants suited to their trying
circumstances. The vegetation is eminently local and special. Nothing like it is seen elsewhere on
the face of the earth. Nearly all the plants have tuberous roots, buried far beneath the ground,
beyond the scorching effects of the sun, and are composed of succulent tissue, filled with a
deliciously cool and refreshing fluid. They have also thick, fleshy leaves, with pores capable of
imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry atmosphere and soil; so that if a leaf be broken
during the greatest drought, it shows abundant circulating sap. Nothing can look more unlike the
situations in which they are found than these succulent roots, full of fluid when the surrounding
soil is dry as dust, and the enveloping air seems utterly destitute of moisture; replete with
nourishment and life when all within the horizon is desolation and death. They seem to have a
special vitality in themselves; and, unlike all other plants, to be independent of circumstances.
Such roots are also found in the deserts of Arabia; and it was doubtless one of them that
suggested to the prophet the beautiful and expressive emblem of the text, "He shall grow up
before him as a root out of a dry ground."
(H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Christ's growth before God
H. Macmillan, LL. D.Commentators usually connect these words with the next clause of the
verse, and regard them as implying that the promised Messiah would have no form or comeliness

in the estimation of men, no outward beauty, that they should desire Him. This, I think, is a
wrong interpretation. The words of the text are complete and separate. They speak not of the
appearance of Christ to men, but of His growth in the sight of God. They refer not to His
attractiveness, but to His functions; and the point that seems to be most insisted upon is, that His
relation to the circumstances in which He should be placed would be one of perfect
independence and self-sufficiency.
The root out of a dry ground
H. Macmillan, LL. D.In the light of this explanation let us look at the three ideas which the
subject suggests to us —
1. The living root.
2. The dry ground.
3. The effect of the living root upon the dry ground.
Christ the living root
H. Macmillan, LL. D.1. This emblem is peculiarly appropriate when applied to Christ. He is
called the "Branch," to show that He is a member of the great organism of human life, in all
things made like unto His brethren, yet without sin. He is a branch of the tree of humanity,
nourished by its sap, pervaded by its life, blossoming with its affections, and yielding its fruits of
usefulness. But He is more than the Branch. "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of
Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots," is the spiritual language of prophecy relative to
the coming of the Messiah; but the figure is speedily changed, and the Branch is also called "the
Root of Jesse." This language is most strange and paradoxical. It reveals the mystery of
godliness, God manifest in the flesh. Jesus is at one and the same time the Branch and the Root,
the root of Jesse and the offspring of Jesse, David's Lord and David's son, because He is
Emmanuel, God with us, God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever; deriving
His human life by natural descent from man, and possessing Divine life in Himself, and the
author of spiritual life to others. The root of plants growing in a dry ground is the most important
part of their structure. It lies at the basis of, and involves the whole plant. The whole growth of a
lily, for instance, lies folded up within its bulb. And so Christ lies at the basis of, and involves
the whole spiritual life.
2. It is assuredly the most precious, as it is the most distinguishing, feature of the Christian
religion, that it places the foundation of eternal life in living relations with a living Person, rather
than in the profession of a creed or the practice of a duty.(1) One of the principal functions which
the root performs in the economy of vegetation is to attach the plant to the soil, and prevent it
from moving hither and thither at the mercy of the elements. So Christ is the living root of our
spiritual life, connecting it with the whole system of grace, the whole economy of redemption. It
is only when united to Christ by a living faith that the soul can lay hold on heaven and
immortality.(2) Another purpose which the root serves in the economy of vegetation is to feed
the plant. Through the spongioles of the root, the plant imbibes from the soil in which it is placed
the needful sap by which it is sustained; and in this simple way the whole important and
complicated processes are carried on, by which crude soil is converted into the needful
constituents of vegetable matter. For this purpose the root possesses certain structural

peculiarities adapting it to its special functions. Just as there is provision made for the growth of
the germ in the starchy contents of the seed, until it has attained an independent existence; so
there is provision made in the nutritive tissue of the bulb or tuber for the support of the plant
which it produces. This function also the Root of Jesse performs in the case of those who are
rooted in Him. He is the mediator of the New Covenant; the only channel by which spiritual
blessings can be communicated to us.
The unfoldings of the Root of Jesse
H. Macmillan, LL. D.All the individual life of the Christian, with its blossoms of holiness and its
fruits of righteousness; all the Christian life of society, with its things that are pure, and honest,
and lovely, and of good report, is but a development and a manifestation of the life of Christ in
the heart and in the world; a growth and unfolding of the power, the beauty, and the sweetness
that are hid in the Root of Jesse.
The dry ground
H. Macmillan, LL. D.There is usually a very intimate connection between a plant and the
circumstances in which it grows. Modifications of specific character are produced by varieties of
soil; and the wide difference between a wild flower or fruit, and a garden flower or fruit, is
entirely owing to the difference between rich cultivated soil and the poor untilled soil of nature.
The plants of a dry ground, however, are less dependent upon the nature of their soil than others;
they receive from it, in most cases, mere mechanical support and room to expand in, while their
means of growth are derived entirely from the atmosphere. Looking at the emblem of the text in
this light, we may suppose the "dry ground" here to mean —
I. THAT HUMANITY OUT OF WHICH CHRIST SPRANG. There are many who regard Jesus
as the natural product of humanity — the highest development of human nature, the blossom, so
to speak, of mankind. But we look upon Him as a Divine germ planted in this wilderness, a
Divine Being attaching Himself to men, wearing their nature, dwelling in their world, but still
not of them — as distinct from humanity as the living root is distinct from the dry ground in
which it grows. The soil of humanity is indeed dry ground. Sin has dried up its life, its fertility,
turned its moisture into summer's drought, and reduced it to perpetual barrenness. By the law of
natural development, mankind could never have given birth to a character in every way so
exceptional as that of Christ. It is true indeed that a few individuals have ever and anon emerged
from the dark chaos of fallen humanity, and exhibited a high type of intellectual and moral
worth; but such individuals have been completely identified with the human race, and have
shared in its sins and infirmities. In Jesus, on the contrary, there was a remarkable remoteness
and separateness from men. his life ran parallel with man's, but it was never on the same low
level. He was independent of worldly circumstances, and superior to worldly conventionalities.
He had no joys on earth save those He brought with Him from heaven. He was alone, without
sympathy, for no one could understand Him; without help, for no mortal aid could reach the
necessities of His case. Like a desert well, He was for ever imparting what no one could give
Him back.
II. THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE JEWS REGARDING THE MESSIAH. There are scientific
men who believe in the doctrine of spontaneous or equivocal generation. And so there are
theologians who assert that Christ was merely the natural product of the age and the

circumstances in which He lived; the mere incarnation, so to speak, of the popular expectation of
the time. In all their attempts to account for His life, without admitting Him to be a Divine
person, they bring prominently into view whatever there was in Jewish history, belief, and
literature, to prepare for and produce such a personality and character as those of Jesus; they
endeavour to show that the condition of the Jewish world, when Christ appeared, was exactly
that into which His appearing would fit; and that all these preparatory and formative conditions
did of themselves, by a kind of natural spontaneous generation, produce Christ. In reply to these
views, it may be admitted as an unquestionable historical fact, that the expectation of a Messiah
ran like a golden thread throughout the whole complicated web of the Hebrew religion and
polity. The expectations of the Jews did no more of themselves produce the Saviour, than the soil
and climate produce, of their own accord, any particular plant. There was nothing in the age,
nothing in the people, nothing in the influences by which he was surrounded, which could by any
possibility have produced or developed such a remarkable character as He exhibited. There was
no more relation between Him and His moral surroundings, than there is between a succulent
life-full root and the arid sandy waste in which it grows. The counterfeit Messiahs were not roots
out of a dry ground, but, on the contrary, mushrooms developed from the decaying life of the
nation. There was a complete harmony between them and their moral surroundings. They were
really and truly the products of the popular longing of the time; they agreed in every respect with
their circumstances. The prevailing notions concerning the Messiah were worldly and carnal.
III. THE CHARACTER OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. Nothing can be more marked and striking
than the contrast between the character of Christ and the general character of the Jewish nation
— between the excellences which He displayed and those which they held in most esteem. It is
said that a man represents the spirit and character of the age and the race to which he belongs. He
seldom rises above their general level. But here we have a man who not only rose high above the
level of his age and nation, but stands out, in all that constitutes true moral manhood, in marked
and decided contrast to them. He was descended from the Jewish people, but He was not of
them. He was rooted in Jewish soil, but His life was a self-derived and heavenly life. This is a
great and precious truth. Something has come into this world which is not of it. A supernatural
power has descended into nature. A man has lived on our earth who cannot be ranked with
mankind. A Divine Being has come from God, to be incarnate with us, and to lift us up to God.
Christ binds humanity into a brotherhood
H. Macmillan, LL. D.The roots of the desert, by their extensive ramifications, fix the constantly
shifting sands, and prevent them from being drifted about in blinding clouds by every wind that
blows. So the Root of Jesse binds the dry ground of humanity by its endless fibres of
benevolence and love. The despised and apparently feeble Jesus of Nazareth was lifted up on the
Cross, and then followed — according to His own prophecy — the drawing of all men to Him
and to one another. Sin is selfishness and isolation; the love of Christ is benevolence and
attraction. Jesus unites us to the Father, and therefore to one another. The love of Christians is
not to be confined to their own society and fraternity. In Christ they have received expansion, not
limitation — universal benevolence, not mere party spirit.
A root out of a dry groundI. THE HISTORICAL MEANING OF THIS METAPHOR. It applies
to the person of the Lord, and also to His cause and Kingdom: to Himself personally and to

Himself mystically. A root which springs up in a fat and fertile field owes very much to the soil
in which it grows. Our Saviour is a root that derives nothing from the soil in which it grows, but
puts everything into the soil.
1. It is quite certain that our Lord derived nothing whatever from His natural descent. He was the
Son of David, the lawful heir to the royal dignities of the tribe of Judah; but His family had fallen
into obscurity, had lost position, wealth, and repute.
2. Nor did our Lord derive assistance from His nationality; it was no general recommendation to
His teaching that He was of the seed of Abraham. To this day, to many minds, it is almost
shameful to mention that our Saviour was a Jew. The Romans were peculiarly tolerant of
religions and customs; by conquest their empire had absorbed men of all languages and creeds,
and they usually left them undisturbed; but the Jewish faith was too peculiar and intolerant to
escape derision and hatred. After the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, the Jews were hunted down,
and the connection of Christianity with Judaism so far from being an advantage to it became a
serious hindrance to its growth.
3. Nor did the Saviour owe anything to His followers. Shall a world-subduing religion be
disseminated by peasants and mariners? So did He ordain it.
4. Our Saviour is "a root out of a dry ground" as to the means He chose for the propagation of
His faith.
5. Neither did the Saviour owe anything to times in which He lived. Christianity was born at a
period of history when the world by wisdom knew not God, and men were most effectually
alienated from Him. The more thinking part of the world's inhabitants were atheistic, and made
ridicule of the gods, while the masses blindly worshipped whatever was set before them. The
whole set and current of thought was in direct opposition to such a religion as He came to
inculcate. It was an age of luxury.
6. Neither did the religion of Jesus owe anything to human nature. It is sometimes said that it
commends itself to human nature. It is false: the religion of Jesus opposes unrenewed human
nature.
II. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF ITS TRUTH EXPERIMENTALLY. You remember your own
conversion. When Jesus Christ came to you to save you, did He find any fertile soil in your heart
for the growth of His grace?
III. This whole subject affords much ENCOURAGEMENT to many.
1. Let me speak a word to those who are seeking the Saviour, but are very conscious of your own
sinfulness. Christ is all — does that not cheer you?
2. The same thought ought also to encourage any Christian who has been making discoveries of
his own barrenness. When at any time you are cast down by a sense of your nothingness,
remember that your Lord is "a root out of a dry ground."
3. The same comfort avails for every Christian worker. When you feel you are barren, do not fret
or despair about it, but rather say, "Lord, here is a dry tree, come and make it bear fruit, and then
I shall joyfully confess, from Thee is my fruit found."
4. Ought not this to comfort us with regard to the times in which we live? Bad times are famous
times for Christ.

5. And thus we may be encouraged concerning any particularly wicked place. Do not say, "It is
useless to preach down there, or to send missionaries to that uncivilized country." How do you
know? Is it very dry ground? Well, that is hopeful soil; Christ is a "root out a dry ground," and
the more there is to discourage the more you should be encouraged.
6. The same is true of individual men; you should never say, "Well, such a man as that will never
be converted.
IV. THE GLORY WHICH ALL THIS DISPLAYS. Christ's laurels at this day are none of them
borrowed. When He shall come in His glory there will be none among its friends who will say,
"O King, Thou owest that jewel in Thy crown to me." Every one will own that He was the author
and the finisher of the whole work, and therefore He must have all the glory of it, since we who
were with Him were dry ground, and He gave life to us but borrowed nothing from us.
( C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ not the product of Palestine
C. Clemance, D.D.According to Renan, the excellence of Jesus was due to the climate and soil of
Palestine! But he forgets to ask how it is that the climate and soil of Palestine have never
produced such another!
(C. Clemance, D.D.)
He hath no form nor comeliness
Christ's humble appearance
R. Bogg, D.D.While we see no necessity for the Saviour of the world appearing in pomp and
splendour, we can point out many important ends that may be answered by His having been
made humble and of no reputation.
1. In this state His all-perfect example was of the most extensive benefit. He could exhibit virtues
more in number, more difficult to practise, and more generally necessary, than there could have
been room for in a higher rank and in less trying circumstances. And the virtues which such a
state required from Him, as they are the most difficult to practise, so are they those which are
universally useful. The virtues which belong to sovereign power and regal dignity a few only
have occasion to exercise. The virtues of that station which He assumed are useful for all to
acquire.
2. By His appearing in the humble, suffering state He teaches us how very insignificant in the
sight of God, and in the eyes of true wisdom, are all the possessions of this world and all the
flattering distinctions of a present state.
3. By appearing in a humble, suffering state He shows us that earthly distress is no proof of a bad
character; that suffering is no sure intimation of God s displeasure at the sufferer.
4. By appearing in this state He shows us that it was only the force of truth that engaged and
influenced His followers. So strongly are men impressed by the circumstances of high birth, of
eminent rank, of great power, the splendid acts of a monarch or a conqueror, that wherever these
are found they are eager to show deference and respect. But Jesus had none of these worldly
attractions.
(R. Bogg, D.D.)
The real character of the Messiah

C. Moore, M. A.I. AS TO THE OBJECTION, that Jesus was not the true Messiah, because He
did not answer the universal expectation which the Jews had of His being a mighty temporal
prince. Considering the natural temper of mankind, and how strongly addicted they are to their
worldly interests, and how jealous of everything that thwarts and opposes them, we must allow it
to be a prejudice not easy to overcome. It requires a greater zeal for the honour of God and
religion than most men are possessed of, to adhere to truth when we are likely to be losers by it.
Few there are that have resolution enough to abide by a religion in which they have been
educated, when once it comes to be opposed by the secular powers, and the profession of it to be
attended with nothing but poverty and affliction: how much more courage then, and firmness of
mind, is necessary to make men enter into a religion newly set up, and that is attended with the
like disadvantages? But can any one seriously think this excuse of any force? Let him urge it in
its true light, and thus must he plead when arraigned at the tribunal of God for unbelief: "I would
willingly have embraced the religion of Jesus Christ had it been made more suitable to my carnal
inclinations and interests; had the rewards it promises been temporal instead of eternal, none
should have more industriously and cheerfully sought after them; but when He told me that His
'kingdom was not of this world,' and that I could not follow Him without 'taking up the cross;'
without losing, or being in danger of losing, everything that was valuable in life, nay, life itself,
for His sake — my flesh trembled at the thought, and human nature, directed me to take care of
myself, and to run no hazards for the sake of religion." What sentence can such an one expect but
this: "Thou hast preferred thy temporal to thy eternal interest, thou hast had thy reward on earth,
and canst therefore expect no other in heaven"? But the Jew perhaps thinks he has somewhat
further to say in behalf of his unbelief — that he was persuaded, from the predictions of the
prophets, that the Messiah would really be, what the Gentiles might only wish Him to be, a
temporal prince; and, finding Jesus not to be so, they thought it a good reason for rejecting Him.
But was this (supposing it true) the only mark by which the Messiah was to be known? How
often do we read of His sufferings and ill-usage in the world? Did anybody appear that answered
the character of the Messiah, in any one instance, so exactly as Jesus did? The Jews made
another objection against Him of much the same kind: that He was brought up, and, as they
supposed, born at Nazareth, in Galilee; a country much despised by the Jews, as if there was
anything in the nature of the soil or air of the country that rendered the inhabitants of it less
acceptable to God than they might otherwise be, and He could not, if He would, produce eminent
and bright spirits out of the most obscure parts of the world. The Chaldees were an idolatrous
people, and yet God made choice of Abraham, a man of that country, with whom to establish an
everlasting covenant, and in whose seed to bless all the nations of the earth. The prophet Jonah, a
type of Christ, was born at a place called Gath-hepher, a town of the tribe of Zebulon, in Galilee
itself, though no prophet is said by the Jews to come from thence: and Isaiah moreover plainly
declares to us, in the description he is giving of the universal joy and comfort that will be
occasioned by the birth and kingdom of Christ, that "in Galilee of the nations" this shall be seen.
"The people (says he) that walked in darkness, have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land
of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." So that this objection is as groundless
as it is weak and foolish.
II. APPLICATION to ourselves.
1. It greatly behoves us to take care that worldly interest and advantage be not the principal
motive that engages us to perform our duty; lest, after the example of the Jews, we fall away
from it, when that motive fails; lest, being disappointed of the hopes we had conceived from our
attachment to religion and religious men, we become enemies instead of friends.

2. How hard it is for truth to prevail over the prejudices and settled notions of men.
(C. Moore, M. A.)
Religion a weariness to the natural man
J.H. Newman, B.D.Putting aside for an instant the thought of the ingratitude and the sin which
indifference to Christianity implies, let us, as far as we dare, view it merely as a matter of fact,
after the manner of the text, and form a judgment on the probable consequences of it.
1. "Religion is a weariness;" alas! so feel even children before they can well express their
meaning. Exceptions, of course, now and then occur. I am not forgetful of the peculiar character
of children's minds: sensible objects first meet their observation; it is not wonderful that they
should at first be inclined to limit their thoughts to things of sense. A distinct profession of faith,
and a conscious maintenance of principle, may imply a strength and consistency of thought to
which they are as yet unequal. Again, childhood is capricious, ardent, light-hearted; it cannot
think deeply or long on any subject. Yet all this is not enough to account for the fact in question
— why they should feel this distaste for the very subject of religion.
2. "Religion is a weariness" I will next take the case of young persons when they first enter into
life. Is not religion associated in their minds with gloom and weariness? This is the point that the
feelings of our hearts on the subject of religion are different from the declared judgment of God;
that we have a natural distaste for that which He has said is our chief good.
3. Let us pass to the more active occupations of life. The transactions of worldly business,
speculations in trade, ambitious hopes, the pursuit of knowledge, the public occurrences of the
day, these find a way directly to the heart; they rouse, they influence. The name of religion, on
the other hand, is weak and impotent.
4. But this natural contrariety between man and his Maker is still more strikingly shown by the
confessions of men of the world who have given some thought to the subject, and have viewed
society with somewhat of a philosophical spirit. Such men treat the demands of religion with
disrespect and negligence, on the ground of their being unnatural. The same remark may be
made upon the notions which secretly prevail in certain quarters at the present day, concerning
the unsuitableness of Christianity to an enlightened age. The literature of the day is weary of
revealed religion.
5. That religion is in itself a weariness is seen even in the conduct of the better sort of persons,
who really on the whole are under the influence of its spirit. So dull and uninviting is calm and
practical religion, that religious persons are ever exposed to the temptation of looking out for
excitements of one sort or other, to make it pleasurable to them.
6. Even the confirmed servants of Christ witness to the opposition which exists between their
own nature and the demands of religion. Can we doubt that man's will runs contrary to God's will
— that the view which the inspired Word takes of our present life, and of our destiny, does not
satisfy us, as it rightly ought to do? That Christ hath no form nor comeliness in our eyes; and
though we see Him, we see no desirable beauty in Him? "Light is come into the world, and men
love darkness rather than light." If our hearts are by nature set on the world for its own sake, and
the world is one day to pass away, what are they to be set on, what to delight in then? What are
to be the pleasures of the soul in another life? Can they be the same as they are here? They
cannot; Scripture tells us they cannot; the world passeth away — now what is there left to love
and enjoy through a long eternity? It is then plain enough, though Scripture said not a word on

the subject, that if we would be happy in the world to come, we must make us new hearts, and
begin to love the things we naturally do not love. "He hath no form nor comeliness," etc. It is not
His loss that we love Him not, it is our loss.
(J.H. Newman, B.D.)
The love of beauty (in art
J. H. Newman, B. D.Let us fix our thoughts on one example of that contrast which inspired
prophecy and the life of Christ have agreed to reconcile. It is decisively expressed in the
contradictory words of Zechariah and Isaiah: the former heralding the King of Sion as one whose
beauty should surpass the utmost praise of human words or thoughts (Zechariah 9:7); the latter
declaring that those who should see that self-same Christ should find in Him no beauty that they
should desire Him. I would try to suggest something in regard to the actual fulfilment of both
prophecies in the claims addressed to our sense of beauty, by the revelation of Christianity;
believing that there is a deep meaning in that strange and blended force of stern restraint and
irresistible charm which this sense has so often owned in the presence of the Crucified; and
hoping to show that this too is an instinct of our human nature, which, if we suffer it to act in
sincerity and truth, will find its rest for ever in the Person of its Redeemer. Let us, then, notice
first that the prophecy of Isaiah is, if we take it alone and superficially, in accord with much that
has been written or implied about the influence of Christianity upon the genius of Art. For we are
sometimes told, and more often made to feel, that there is something irksome and hindering to
the free appreciation and enjoyment of beauty, in those dogmas about the conditions and issues
of human life, which are inseparable from the work of our Lord. In various ways it is suggested
or proclaimed that Christianity has unduly and too long presumed to thrust its doctrines between
the human soul and the beauty which is about it, and disturbed that free entrance into the
pleasures of sight and sound, through which every energy might go out to find its satisfaction
and its rapture. And so some have already returned feed and foster their sense of beauty by the
works and thoughts of those who lived before this tyrannous restraint was preached; others are
looking forward to a time when Art may avail itself of the triumph of scepticism, and renounce
all hindering allegiance and regard to the discredited formulae of religion; while many more are
conscious of a vague expectation that the life of passion henceforward will and should be fleer
and fuller than it has been: that hitherto we have been unnecessarily cautious and sober in our
pleasures, and timidly patient of undue restrictions; but that now all is going to be much more
passionate and unfettered and absorbing, and that, by the pursuit of Art for Art's sake, we enter
into an earthly paradise, which has at length been relieved from certain gloomy and old-
fashioned regulations, and in which it may now be hoped that our sense of beauty will be a law
unto itself. And in this temper very many who little know the consistent significance of their
choice are falling in with a course of life and thought which has, as a whole, turned away from
the Cross of Jesus Christ: turned away to seek elsewhere the full desire of their eyes, because He
hath, as He dies for us, no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we
should desire Him. For in truth there is a challenge and a law with which Christianity must ever
meet the lover of beauty as he goes out to seek by whatever way the gratification of this sense.
The Church of Christ cannot, while she remembers His message, her Master, and her trust,
consent to be dismissed from the sphere of taste, or let it be thought that she has no counsel for
her sons, as they turn to those high and thrilling pleasures, no means or right of judging the tone
and the ideals of contemporary Art.
(J. H. Newman, B. D.)

Christianity and the sensuous
J. H. Newman, B. D.We were going to throw ourselves without reserve into this or that
enthusiasm of beauty, to steep our souls in the excitement of music, or poetry, or art, to forget all
else in the engrossing delight of their eager sympathy, to lay aside every hindering thought, to
trust the strong desire of our heart, and measure our interests by their intensity: and Christianity
recalls us to ourselves. It sets before us, in the compass of a single life, the full expression of that
deep and marring discord which has broken up the harmony of this world, and it urges us to seek
within ourselves for the secret of the disturbance and misery. It shows us the Perfect Love
rejected, Perfect Purity reviled, Perfect Holiness blasphemed, Perfect Mercy scorned; God
coming to His own and His own receiving Him not; the righteous Judge condemned; the Lord of
Life obedient unto death; and it says that the cause of this anomaly, the condition which made
this the earthly life of the Incarnate Son of God, is to be found within our own souls; and we
know that them is something them which seems at times as though it would crucify the Son of
God afresh: something which would distort our choice from the high and spiritual to the bestial
and mean: something which has often made us cruel and unjust to other men, and contemptible
to ourselves. And as before the Cross which mankind awarded to its Redeemer we feel the havoc
and tumult which sin has brought upon the order and truthfulness of our inner life, we must
surely hesitate before we say that no restraint shall rest upon our sense of beauty, that there is no
need, whatever adversaries may be moving about us, to be sober and vigilant in the world of Art.
But for those who humbly take the yoke upon them, who, as they turn to the manifold wealth of
beauty, do not thrust away the knowledge of their own hearts and the thought of Him whose
death alone has saved them, and whose strong grace alone sustains and shelters them — for those
the best delights of Art and Nature appear in a new radiance of light and hope, and speak of such
things as pass man's understanding. The moments of quickened and exalted life which music and
painting stir within them, the controlling splendour of the sunset, the tender glory of the distant
hills, the wonder of a pure and noble face — these no longer come as passing pleasures, flashing
out of a dark background, which is only the gloomier when they are gone, half realized and little
understood: for now all are linked and held together as consistent tokens of the same redeeming,
sanctifying Love; they see the Hand, the pierced Hand, which holds the gift; they know the Love
which fashioned and adorned it; they have read elsewhere the thought which is embodied in the
outward beauty; for it is He who spared not His own Son who with Him freely gives them all
things. And all that He gives them prophesy of Him.
(J. H. Newman, B. D.)
Christ's beauty
J. Parker, D. D.It was not a beauty of form, it was the beauty of expression. It was not the beauty
of statuary, it was the beauty of life. It is the purpose of God to disappoint the senses. He has
victimized the eyes, and the ears, and the hands of men.
(J. Parker, D. D.)
No beauty in Christ
J. Trapp.Look not on the pitcher, but on the liquor that is contained within.
(J. Trapp.)
Christ's meanness on earth no objection against

R. Fiddes I. Show against unbelievers, that THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROPHECIES
WHICH CONCERNED THE MESSIAH ARE A CONVINCING ARGUMENT OF THE
TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. It is agreed on all hands that there can be no human
or natural reason assigned for such future and remote events as have no visible or natural cause
to produce them; but are of a contingent nature, and many times depend on the free choice and
will of man; and therefore the prediction of such events must be supposed to proceed from some
supernatural revelation. It is the argument whereby God proves Himself to be the Lord, and that
there is no other Saviour beside (Isaiah 43:11, 12). By the same reason, he proves the gods of the
nations to be idols, and no gods (Isaiah 41:21, 22, 29). The prophecies of Scripture, which
referred to the Messiah, were of things at such a distance, and of such a nature, that there could
not be any probable reason assigned, or tolerable conjecture made of them. And yet there was not
one tittle of all the prophecies which relate to the manner or design of Christ's appearance in the
world that fell to the ground.
II. Show against the Jews, that THE MEAN APPEARANCE OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD IS
NO GOOD ARGUMENT AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, OR OF ANY FORCE TO
PROVE THAT JESUS OF NAZARETH WAS NOT THE CHRIST; and that upon the two
following accounts —
1. As the grounds upon which the Jews expected a temporal Messiah, were false and
impracticable; false with respect to the spirituality of His kingdom; impracticable with respect to
the extent and universality of its blessings and privileges.
2. As the state and condition of life which our Saviour chose in the world was most agreeable to
the great ends and design of His coming into it.(1) It gave a strong confirmation to the truth of
that holy religion which He came to plant in the world. Had our Saviour been a victorious prince,
that had given laws to the world, and backed the authority of them with the sword, the atheist
might then have pretended, that the Christian, as well as other religions in the world, was the
daughter of force, and a mere politic invention, contrived by its Author the better to settle and
confirm His government to Him, if He should find a favourable juncture to possess Himself of it.
But now the effects of the Christian religion on the minds of men, and the methods of
propagating it, cannot be ascribed to any human power or authority. Instead of employing the
secular arm to compel men to come into the Church, God put a sceptre of righteousness into the
hands of Christ: He authorized Him to give such a body of holy and righteous laws to His
Church as might be proper to work upon their minds by the gentle methods of reason and
persuasion. He made choice of such for His companions and disciples as were men of mean
occupations and law fortunes; men as to their natural capacities no ways qualified for so difficult
and high an undertaking as the establishing a new religion against the settled laws and powers,
the prejudices and passions, the vanities and vices of a corrupt world. The design of the holy
Jesus in all this was to show that the excellency of the power which attended Himself and His
apostles, in preaching the doctrine of salvation, might not be ascribed unto men, but unto God.
He would make way for the reception and establishment of the Gospel in the world by no other
means but by the evidence of its truth, the excellency of its morals, the number of the miracles
wrought to confirm it, and the simplicity of those who were the first preachers and promoters of
it. And, indeed, that the Christian religion, by such mean and unlikely instruments, should in so
short a time extend itself so wide, and that they should reap such a harvest of triumphs over so
many enemies, seems to have been the greatest miracle of all.(2) The state and condition of life
which our Saviour chose in the world was also a wise and excellent method to recommend the

practice of religion to it. The holy Jesus did not think it enough to reveal the will of God to
mankind; this He might have done, as God delivered the law in the Mount, by speaking to some
extraordinary prophet, and committing what He spoke to a standing writing, without rendering
Himself visible. But God gave Him a body, that men might from His own mouth hear the words
of eternal life.(3) The circumstances wherein our Saviour made His appearance in the world
were most agreeable to His design of becoming a sacrifice and propitiation for the sins of the
world: for though our redemption is attributed more especially to His sufferings and death upon
the Cross, as His sacrifice was there finished, yet we ought to look upon it as begun as soon as he
was born into the world.
III. PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT.
1. If the accomplishment of the prophecies concerning our Saviour be an evident proof of His
being the great Prophet that was to come into the world, then whatever doctrines He taught are,
certainly true and Divinely revealed.
2. From the circumstances of our Saviour s appearance in the world let us learn the duties of
patience, charity and humility.
3. In order to humble the pride of our hearts, when we are tempted to bear ourselves high upon
any worldly advantages, which give us a superiority above our brethren, let us consider how
Jesus Christ, the best and wisest, judged of these things.
(R. Fiddes)
Christ uncomely and yet beautifulHow can it be said of Christ that He had neither comeliness nor
beauty, since it is said (Psalm 45:2), that "He is fairer than the children of men," or "than the sons
of Adam"? And in Song of Solomon 5:10-16 He is described by the spouse to be well-coloured,
and likewise well-featured, and she goeth on from part to part, from head to feet; and then
concludeth, "He is altogether lovely." To this I answer —
1. It is one thing what, Christ is to the spouse, another what He is to the unbelieving Jews
Christ's beauties are reward, seen of none but those that are inwardly acquainted with Him. The
spouse speaketh of Him in a spiritual sense.
2. We must distinguish between Christ's humiliation and exaltation, His Godhead and His
manhood. In His Godhead He is "the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of
His person," and consequently full of beauty. In His humiliation He is not only a man, but a
mean man (Philippians 2:9).
3. In Christ's humiliation we must distinguish as to what He is in Himself and as to what He is in
the eye of the world.
( T. Manton, D.D.)
The mean not necessarily despicableDo not despise things, for their meanness, for so thou
mayest condemn the ways of God.
( T. Manton, D.D.)
God's use of the meanAs there was meanness in the outward habitude of Christ's person, so there
is now in the administration of His kingdom; as appears by considering —

1. That the ordinances are weak to appearance; there is nothing but plain words, plain bread and
wine, in one ordinance, and only water in another. The simple plainness of the ordinances is an
obstacle to men's believing; they would fain bring in pomp, but that will mar all.
2. These ordinances are administered by weak men. Our Saviour sent fishermen to conquer the
world, and made use of a goose-quill to wound Antichrist. Moses, the stammering shepherd, was
commissioned to deliver Israel; God makes use of Amos, who was a herdsman, to declare His
will. So Elisha the great prophet was taken from the plough. And many times God made use of
young men, such as Paul, whose very person causeth prejudice; young Samuel, young Timothy,
men of mean descent, low parentage, and of no great appearance in the world.
3. The manner how it is by them managed, which is not in such a politic, insinuating way as to
beguile and deceive, and as if they were to serve their own ends (2 Corinthians 1:12).,
4. The persons by whom it is entertained, the poor (James 2:5). Usually God s true people are the
meanest, not being so noted for outward excellency as others. This has been always a great
prejudice against Christ's doctrine (John 7:48).
5. The general drift of it is to make men deny their pleasures, to overlook their concernments, to
despise the world, to hinder unjust gain, to walk contrary to the ordinary customs and fashions of
the world.
( T. Manton, D.D.)
Christ assumed an appearance of meannessThis meanness of Christ was willingly taken up by
Him.
1. In His birth.(1) For the time of it. It was when the royal stock of David was come so low that
Joseph was but a carpenter by profession. Therefore is the genealogy of Joseph and Mary so
carefully sought out by the evangelist, because it was not commonly and publicly known that
they were of that lineage. The throne of David was occupied by Herod, who was an
Ascalonite.(2) The place, Bethlehem, a small place. Then He was not born in any stately room,
but in a manger in the stable.(3) Consider how in everything He was found in shape like another
child, being circumcised the eighth day.(4) Consider the oblation that was made for Him, such as
was made for poor people. Yet we may observe there was something Divine still mingled with
Christ's outward, meanness, as the appearing of the star, the trouble of the Jews, the wise men's
report and offerings. By these things God would leave them without excuse, and under this
poverty discover some glimpses of the Deity.
2. In His life and manner of appearance in the world. He was altogether found in fashion as a
man; to outward appearance just as other men, for His growth was as other, men's, by degrees:
"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." His life was spent
in much toil and labour, etc.
( T. Manton, D.D.)
Poverty1. Poverty and meanness are not disgraceful. Christ Himself was a carpenter, Paul a tent-
maker, and the apostles fishermen. Christ, you see, scorned that glory, pomp and greatness which
the world doteth upon.
2. Poverty should not he irksome to us. Christ underwent it before you; His apostles were base in
the world's eye (1 Corinthians 4:13). Poverty is a great burden, and layeth a man open to many a

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