The following was originally posted in March 2021. It includes some minor revisions.
Isaiah 53:1-12 is the prophecy of what is commonly referred to as the suffering servant – the Holy one of God who in Isaiah 49:5-7 is foretold as the one who will redeem Israel from its exile from God and bring the light of the glory of God (of the infinite perfections of His being) to all the nations, becoming in Himself the source of God’s salvation to a world of men and women who have suppressed the knowledge of that glory through our unrighteous living (Romans 1:18-22) (Romans 3:23). As we study the whole of scripture, we learn that this servant is the mysterious seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15, who will one day destroy the works of the devil, works that have inflamed mankind’s rebellion against God (1 John 3:8) (Isaiah 1:1-4).
Isaiah 53 reveals the substitutionary atoning work of this promised seed, a Messiah if you will, who at great cost to Himself will once and for all eternity vindicate and exalt the goodness and glory of God, the truth of which has been slandered by both the devil and all of mankind who have believed the devils great lie (Genesis 3:1-5) (Romans 1:25). Isaiah 53 is thus a prophetic summary, written 700 years before Christ, of God’s ultimate expression of His love toward His people (Romans 5:8), wherein He does for us what we could never do for ourselves, namely rescuing us from the Hell we deserve and qualifying us for the Heaven that we never could (Psalm 49:7-8) (Ephesians 2:1-3).
The servant who accomplishes this is none other than God the Son –the Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of all things, who was and is eternally happy and infinitely satisfied in the presence of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (John 1:1-3) (Psalm 16:11). We are told in Philippians 2:5-8, that He voluntarily leaves the joys and pleasures and delights of Heaven where He is loved and worshiped, adored and enjoyed as the most glorious, most desirable, most essential Being in all the universe. He temporarily hides His manifested glory (John 17:4-5) and takes the form of a man, coming into this world as a helpless babe, dependent upon His creation to care for Him in His early years (Luke 2:4-7).
In reading the four Gospels we find that Jesus in his humanity, coming in the weakness of human flesh, experienced from birth to death all of the discomfort, sorrow and suffering common to life in a sin-cursed world, and more, as in His death He would suffer on the cross both the wrath of man toward God, and the wrath of God that man deserves for our sin. Isaiah 53:3 describes Him as “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief”.
Jesus was a real man with real feelings, real needs and desires. He like every man was tempted to meet these needs and desires independent of God, in ways forbidden by God and in ways that did not please and honor and glorify God. Yet it is made clear that he did not give into one of those temptations. (1 Peter 2:21-22) (Matthew 4:1-11). The testimony of the whole Bible, of Pontius Pilot, of King Herod, of the thief on the cross, and even of Judas (Matthew 27:3-4) is that Jesus was without sin (Hebrews 4:15), as he must be if He is to take on Himself the penalty we deserve for our sin. (Isaiah 53:6).
The Bible tells us that all Jesus did while on earth was motivated by a passion to glorify His Father (John 12:28) and out of compassion for the people around Him who were living, groaning, suffering under the awful weight and bitter curse of sin (Matthew 9:35-38) (Mark 8:1-2). The word compassion means to suffer with or alongside of someone, with the intent of alleviating their suffering. We are told in the book of Acts that Jesus, during His three plus years of earthly ministry, empowered by the Holy Spirit, went about doing good, bringing healing to bodies and souls of those who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:36-39).
But his ultimate mission we are told in Matthew 1:20-21, is to save His people from the eternal consequences of sin – the wrath of God in Hell. Upon initiating his public ministry, He is introduced by John the Baptist as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, testifying that the entire purpose of Jesus’ life was essentially to die as a substitute for His people – taking our sins upon Himself and suffering God’s judgment – the punishment of Hell, the second death which our sins deserve (John 1:29) (Genesis 22:6-14) (Mark 9:43-48).
Jesus declares himself to be the Good Shepherd who willingly lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11) (John 10:18). And as he closes in on that day when he will actually do so, the horrific reality of what he must suffer on our behalf begins to weigh on Him as he prays in John 12:27, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say, Father save me from this hour? it is for this purpose that I have come unto this hour.”
And that hour arrives all too soon. His march toward Calvary and the cross is swift and unhindered (Mark 15:1-25). At the celebration of the annual Passover feast with His beloved Apostles (John 13:1), Jesus announces that He is to be betrayed by one of them to whom he has been nothing but good to, namely Judas (John 13:21) (Mark 14:10-11). This betrayal will take place that night in a garden (Luke 22:39-48), just like mankind’s first betrayal of God thousands of years earlier occurred in a garden, at that time a garden paradise (Genesis 3:6-9).
But it is Jesus’ agonizing experience in this garden that fateful night – and beyond – that I will look at in my next post.
Grace and Peace ×