Category: Troubled Time
Scriptures:
Isaiah 53
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
4 Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.
8 He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
9 They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.
11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I give him a portion with the great, and he will divide the plunder with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Commentary
In Isaiah 1, the nation is summoned to God’s court because of its sin. The people's condition is also described as dangerous; indeed, mortally ill (Isaiah 1:5-6). How can the covenant God redeem and restore his people, and can even grace save them?
As we learn, salvation is not going to be cheap, but will involve exile into Babylon with healing and restoration beyond that. In particular, Isaiah 42 introduces the figure of the Servant through whom God’s purposes will be carried out. Several so-called, ‘Servant Songs’ have been identified: Isaiah 42:1–4; Isaiah 49:1–6; Isaiah 50:49, and of course, Isaiah 52:13–53:12.The servant theme dominates these chapters and, indeed, is introduced much earlier in Isaiah 6:8: “Here am I, send me.”
So who is the Servant? Firstly, Israel itself. However, Israel failed and needed to be saved itself (Isa. 49:8). The true Son of Israel, Jesus Christ, is to fulfill the Servant role that Israel failed to carry out, becoming the true vine (John 15:1–17) that replaces the spoiled vine (see Isa. 5 and Isa. 27). When we here that “He was pierced,” we learn that His wounds were necessary for our salvation. The word “pierced” interestingly occurs in Isaiah 51:9 describing God’s smiting of the dragon, and showing that the destruction of the powers of darkness was at the heart of the cross. God not only smites the devil but smites himself to remove the curse of sin. Thus, he took the “chastisement”, or “punishment”, which our transgressions deserved.
The term, “crushed” is used in Lamentations 3:41 to describe the bitterness of exile that was the consequence of the people’s sin. “Iniquities” flow from our twisted nature, resulting in sinful attitudes and actions. Peace is secured by the Servant undergoing the punishment for us. This is not only substitution but penal substitution, because before we can be forgiven, God’s just anger against sin must be satisfied.
But there is more than forgiveness; there is healing. Isaiah 1 showed that the whole nation was a wounded, dying corpse (Isa. 1:5-6). He goes on to talk of the new creation, especially in Isaiah 65. The salvation that the Servant brings is not just of souls, but of bodies in a new and glorious world. Bodies like Jesus’s “glorious body” (Phil. 3:21) are the full, final result of the Servant.'s suffering.