Isaiah 53
The Sacrificial Servant
The Sorrowful Servant Vs. 1-3
The Struck Down Servant Vs. 4-6
The Silent Servant Vs. 7-9
The Satisfied Servant Vs. 10-12
Intro:
Announcements:
We have now reached the most important chapter in all of the Old Testament
Isaiah 53 describes the life and ministry of Jesus Christ (vv. 1–4), His death (vv. 5–8) and burial (v. 9), and His resurrection and exaltation (vv. 10–12).
Isaiah 53 is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more frequently than any other Old Testament chapter.
There are at least forty-one different citations
The theme that ties the chapter together is that the innocent Servant died in the place of the guilty.
This passage is at the heart of chapters 49–57, and its message is at the heart of the Gospel.
Like Mt. Everest, Isaiah 53 stands out in beauty and grandeur, but only because it reveals Jesus Christ and takes us to Mt. Calvary.
The messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 was held by Jewish rabbis till the twelfth century.
We have here our Lord’s suffering and death, His resurrection and ascension, and the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel.
Read Isaiah 53:1-3
Transition:
This section actually starts in chap 52
Vs. 13-15 talk about Jesus' appearance
Startled at the Servant’s appearance (Isa. 52:14).
If we take these verses in their chronological order, we see that people were shocked by His appearance (52:14), His exaltation (v. 13), and His message (v. 15).
“They shall see My Servant beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know it was a person standing there” (TLB).
“So disfigured did He look that He seemed no longer human” (JB).
When you consider all that Jesus endured physically between the time of His arrest and His crucifixion, it is no wonder He no longer looked like a man.
Not only were His legal rights taken from Him, including the right of a fair trial, but His human rights were taken from Him, so that He was not even treated like a person, let alone a Jewish citizen.
The Sorrowful Servant Vs. 1-3
Vs. 1 Even though they had seen his marred body and heard his message no one believed
The nations respond to the servant with an awed silence as the gospel reveals his true worth.
But in 53:1–3 the believing remnant of Israel laments how few in that nation have believed their witness.
Rom 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?”
Even when people see the power of the mighty God on display they still don’t believe
Most of them were still stuck on the fact that he was an uneducated Nazarite
Vs. 2 Grew up like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground
God’s power was demonstrated through a humble root in a dry land
Jesus didn’t come as a mighty tree but as a young child that grew up very poor
The dry ground is symbolic of Israel's spiritual state at the time of Christ's arrival
Vs. 2b He had no form or majesty, no beauty that we should desire him
He wasn’t much to look at
He was so normal looking that he was able to slip in and out of crowds unnoticed
Israel suffered from Saul syndrome, judged by appearances
Jesus didn't fit their kingly mold
People still struggle with that today
Most people don’t realize how beautiful God has made them
Ran into a former babysitter the other day
While few people deliberately try to be unattractive, modern society has made a religion out of physical beauty.
Jesus would’ve been rejected by the world today because he was nothing to look at
It is good to remember that Jesus succeeded without it.
Vs. 3 Despised and rejected
They were ashamed of Him because He did not represent the things that were important to them, things like wealth, social prestige, reputation, being served by others, and pampering yourself.
He is rejected today for the same reasons.
Jesus was not a “life of the party” man.
It would be wrong to think of Him as perpetually sad and morose;
Yet He knew sorrow and grief so intimately that He could be called a Man of sorrows.
Most of our sorrow is really just self-pity. It is feeling sorry for ourselves.
Jesus never once felt sorry for Himself.
His sorrow was for others, and for the fallen, desperate condition of humanity.
Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him:
Because there was nothing outwardly beautiful or charismatic about the Messiah, mankind’s reaction was to withdraw from Him, to despise Him, and hold Him in low esteem.
This shows that men value physical beauty and charisma far more than God does, and when we don’t see it, we can reject the ones God accepts.
The Struck Down Servant Vs. 4-6
Vs. 4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows:
Here, he has in view how the Messiah took our pain upon Himself.
He made our griefs His own, and our sorrows as if they were His.
The image is that He loaded them up and carried them on His back, so we wouldn’t have to.
How many people carry around pain - griefs and sorrows - that Jesus really carried for them?
He took them from us, but for it to do us any good, we must release them.
1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed
Vs. 4b Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted:
Curiously, this estimation was accurate. Certainly, the Messiah was struck down.
He was smitten by God. He was afflicted.
The problem was not in seeing these things, but in only seeing these things.
Man saw the suffering Jesus, but didn’t understand the reasons why.
In 1804 Thomas Jefferson took a razor to his New Testament and cut out everything he found incompatible with his rationalism.
Only about 10 percent of the text survived the operation.
The Christian faith is thoroughly miraculous, and some people choke on that.
But they often miss the most outrageous miracle right at the center of the gospel.
In Romans 4:5 Paul says that God “justifies the ungodly.” That’s a real problem.
Jesus walked on the water—so what? No one is harmed.
But when God justifies the ungodly, he upsets the whole moral order of the universe
Everybody knows that God punishes bad people and rewards good people.
It’s his job. But the gospel disagrees.
The gospel says that God justifies the ungodly. What does that mean?
It means that God declares guilty people innocent.
It means that God treats bad people as if they were good people.
Vs. 5 By His wounds we are healed
The NKJV actually uses stripes to reference the type of suffering he underwent
Wounded is literally “pierced through
Jesus was literally scourged which means to be whipped
Passion of Christ
Jesus was whipped on his back and then flipped over
By those stripes we have been healed
Jesus enduring all of that was the perfect payment satisfy God's wrath
We were healed because death had been cured
Eternal life was made available thru those wounds
Vs. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray
To further clarify that this healing was solely the work of Christ God shows us our role
All, like sheep, have gone astray following our own desires
We have no role in our healing whatsoever
We can't take one ounce of credit for it
In spite of that God laid the sin of every rebellious selfish person on his Son
When the natural reaction would be to turn his back on the selfishness
The natural reply would be to say "Have it your way."
God instead took all of that and laid it on his son
He was struck down
The Silent Servant Vs. 7-9
Vs. 7 Oppressed and Afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth
A servant is not permitted to talk back; he or she must submit to the will of the master.
Jesus Christ was silent before those who accused Him as well as those who afflicted Him.
He was silent before Caiaphas, the chief priests and elders, Pilate and Herod Antipas.
He did not speak when the soldiers mocked Him and beat Him.
Matt 26:63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
This is what impressed the Ethiopian treasurer as he read this passage in Isaiah
If you think about it Jesus couldn't say anything
To continue with Gods plan he had to endure injustice, affliction, and all silently
He didn't defend himself once
There are a lot of lessons to be learned here
Vs. 9 Made his grave with the wicked and a rich man in his death
Since Jesus Christ was crucified with criminals as a criminal, it was logical that His dead body would be left unburied, but God had other plans.
The burial of Jesus Christ is as much a part of the Gospel as is His death, for the burial is proof that He actually died.
The Roman authorities would not have released the body to Joseph and Nicodemus if the victim were not dead.
A wealthy man like Joseph would never carve out a tomb for himself so near to a place of execution, particularly when his home was miles away.
He prepared it for Jesus and had the spices and grave clothes ready for the burial.
How wonderfully God fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy!
The Satisfied Servant Vs. 10-12
Vs. 10 It was the will of the Lord to crush him
The NKJV says it pleased the Lord
The prophet now explains the Cross from God’s point of view.
Even though Jesus was crucified by the hands of wicked men, His death was determined beforehand by God (Acts 2:22–23).
Jesus was not a martyr, nor was His death an accident.
He was God’s sacrifice for the sins of the world.
2 Cor 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
He did not remain dead! “He shall prolong His days”
Isa. 53:10 means that the Servant was resurrected to live forever.
In His resurrection, He triumphed over every enemy and claimed the spoils of victory
The Servant’s work on the cross brought satisfaction (Isa. 53:11).
To begin with, the Servant satisfied the heart of the Father.
“I do always those things that please Him
The death of the Servant also satisfied the Law of God.
The theological term for this is “propitiation” (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2).
In pagan religions, the word meant “to offer a sacrifice to placate an angry god”; but the Christian meaning is much richer.
God is angry at sin because it offends His holiness and violates His holy Law.
In His holiness, He must judge sinners; but in His love, He desires to forgive them.
God cannot ignore sin or compromise with it, for that would be contrary to His own nature and Law.
Closing:
