20 April 2022

Canon Couratin (8)

 Lesson VIII. Isaiah describes the Church. (Isaiah 4:1-6)

1. Isaiah prophesies that there shall be a remnant of Israel left in Jerusalem, and that this remnant shall be holy. For the Lord shall have washed away the sins of the remnant, and shall have given them his own indwelling presence. 

2. The prophecy is fulfilled in the Christian Church, the new Israel. This is the true remnant of the Old Israel, enlarged by the admission of the Gentiles, and rendered holy by the descent of the Holy Spirit, who tabernacles in the Christian Church like the Glory in the Tabernacle in the wilderness.

3. It is also fulfilled in the life of each Christian, who becomes one of the Holy People by putting off his sins, original and actual, in the waters of Baptism, and by receiving the abiding presence of the Spirit in Confirmation; and the Spirit travels through life with each Christian as surely as the pillar of cloud and of fire guided the Israelites of old through the wilderness.

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