This passage is very mystical; and it may be a much higher than Isaiah who speaks; for "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," and then the words will contain the deepest evangelical meaning. "Thy dead men shall live," Christ says to His Church. And why? What are the means? How is the process? "Together with my dead body shall they arise."
I. Mark the great truth that argument contains. The natural body of the Lord Jesus Christ rose visible upon the earth; but that visible body was the symbol of another body, as real, but invisible. Of that body Christ is the head, and all His are members.
II. St. Peter tells us that the restored life of the buried body owes itself to the same source as that which is the spring in this world of the life of the dead soul. The Holy Ghost is made known to us in this as in other of His offices under the emblem of the dew.
III. It has been said, that the best test of a man's character is how he wakes up in the morning. What a chorus of sweet melodies will that be, when every saint who has slept awakes to sing! Then shall we know what that means the "song of Moses and the Lamb."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 115.
References: Isaiah 26:19. J. N. Norton, Old Paths,p. 252; Preacher's Monthly,vol. viii., p. 184.Isaiah 26:20. J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Prophets,vol. i.. p. 78. Isaiah 26:20; Isaiah 26:21. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 355; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines,p. 186. 26 Parker, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxi., No. 168. Isaiah 27:3. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxv., No. 1464.Isaiah 27:5. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 255.