Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Suffering Servant Isaiah. 53:1-5 Part II

This remarkable prophecy of Isaiah gives us a vivid account of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.  Stated in a previous article, we commented that Psalm 22 and Isaiah Chapter 53 offer to us a clear depiction of Christ’s suffering ministry on our behalf way before He became incarnated; in fact, this wonderful prophet Isaiah will write about Christ’s suffering ministry seven hundred years before Christ’s birth.  Isn’t that remarkable? Isaiah begins that extra ordinary prophecy by raising a question – “Who hath believed our report?  And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?  The obvious answer is that this report went largely unnoticed.  This report discloses the Lord’s might and power in a very unusual way.  Dr. C. S. Lewis once made this remark – “That some things that God does are so unusual that their very uniqueness bears His stamp.”

We can adequately say that the above statement is true, especially as it relates to salvation.  This report of Isaiah will describe the life and death of our Lord.  After reading the gospel’s account of Jesus’ life, and Isaiah’s account of His life written seven hundred years earlier, I can only testify to the fact that God’s word is reliable and is inspired.  Isaiah begins in verse 2 speaking of the Messiah’s humble presentation.  He is presented “as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground.”  In other words, He was presented as an insignificant descendant of David, mainly because the mighty house of David had fallen.  He sprang from the dry ground of Israel, a nation during the Roman Regime that had lost its glory.

It is awfully amazing to me that Jesus Christ did not from a human perspective emanate from a family marked for success.  Some individuals are marked for success simply because they wear a last name that gives them that mark of distinction, but, not so with our Lord.  Jesus wasn’t afforded all of the advantages that some people have from birth.  He was born in poverty and Isaiah stated that there was nothing outwardly remarkable about Him (Isaiah 53:2).  Yet, from a divine perspective, He is the most remarkable person to invade humankind; from a human perspective, He was born in poverty, yet from a divine perspective, He had no beginning and He was awfully rich.  He was born in Bethlehem of Judah, yet from a divine perspective, He created everything, including Bethlehem.

What a marvelous condescension the Saviour of this awesome world subjected Himself to as He became our substitute for sin.  He voluntarily subjected Himself to poverty untold for you and me.  Because of His humble beginning, and the fact that the Jews saw nothing impressive about His outward appearance, they did not recognize Him.  What a tragedy, indeed.  Not only did Israel and its leaders ignore Him, but they treated Him with utter disdain – they “despised and rejected Him (Isaiah 53:3).  The word “despised” means to treat with contempt.  This verse goes on to say that our Lord’s life was characterized by experiencing “sorrows and griefs.”  As a result, the created ones viewed the Creator as insignificant, not worthy of being esteemed.  The Jews’ reaction to Jesus caused them to assess that Jesus was different and simply not worthy of their attention.  It is terrible for us to be misunderstood by our peers, but think of the God of all eternity who became man being misunderstood.  His very people, the Jews, misunderstood Him.  Yet, He did not allow the maltreatment of His people to deter Him from His mission conceived in eternity past.  In Isaiah 53:4, we see that He “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

The idea that Isaiah conveys is that Jesus fully identified with mankind and He became man’s substitute for sin.  The Jews, not recognizing the true essence of Jesus’ suffering, concluded that He was “stricken, smitten of God and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4).  The people concluded that Jesus suffered because of His own sin.  Lastly, Isaiah 53:5 states with clarity the Saviour’s absolute punishment that He underwent for us.  He was “wounded, bruised, chastised and suffered stripes for us.  In other words, He was pierced, crushed, chastised for our peace and received stripes on our behalf.  In closing again, I counted from verses 4-6, that the word “our” was used six times.  Certainly, I was really impressed that He suffered unusually for us; I can only hope that we would perceive that we didn’t deserve salvation; it was a free gift by God to us!