THE PASSION OF CHRIST
Isaiah 52:13-53:9-12
Part 1
THE SUFFERING SERVANT
Good News Christian Fellowship
March 5, 2006
The Passion of Christ is the most important event in history and the most explosive political, religious and personal issue of 21st century.
In year 2004 a film (The Passion of the Christ) was produced/directed by Mel Gibson faced a different criticism from different group of film critics. They say the film is extremely brutal and deeply troubling and bloody.
Yes, The Passion of Christ is bloody and brutal. But this is the place where God and humanity meet, where peace and wholeness can be found. And did you know 700 years before Christ came into the world, God open the eye of the prophet to see the very heart of Christ’s saving work. We’ll first encounter HIM and HIS work in Isaiah 52 and 53.
As you read the words of these chapters, you might almost think you are reading the report of a man who was standing by when the Son of God died upon the cursed tree. But these are the words of a man who lived almost a millennium beforehand! Isaiah, the prophet of God, wrote of the sin-atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and did so with precise detail and accuracy, because God the Holy Spirit inspired, breathed out, the words as he wrote them. Nothing else can explain this prophecy.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is one of four “servant songs” in Isaiah ( 42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11) that prophesy the Messiah- called here, God’s Servant- the Savior who rescue us from sin’s death and gives us new, blessed life. Chapter 52 and 53 also reveals Christ’s death comes at God’s initiative, and the Heart of God to save His people.
So, in these series of messages I encourage you to ponder, meditate, and savor the truth presented in this message. It is to Him and His work that we turn in this study.
HIS MISSION
Sometimes Israel is pictured as the servant of God. Sometimes it is the prophet Isaiah himself (Isa. 49:5) But in Isaiah 53 the servant referring here pictured as substituting himself for both prophet and the people as verse 4 and verse 5 shows: “He bore our grief’s.” “He was pierced for our transgressions.”
Read 52:14-15
This section, which describes the remarkable impact that the Messiah would make upon mankind, opens with a declaration that he would be successful in all that he did. The Servant will be greatly honored. That success would be accomplished in three specific stages, described here: "HE SHALL BE EXALTED; HE SHALL BE LIFTED UP; HE SHALL BE VERY HIGH."
Before He is glorified, however, the Servant will suffer. He will be “marred,” His face and body disfigured. That’s an accurate picture Isaiah gives us. Many will be amazed when they see Him; they shall stand dumfounded, speechless in His presence. They cannot believe what they saw of Him. They shall see the Servant beaten and bloodied.
John Gill commented:
“Not so much at the miracles he wrought, the doctrines he taught, and the work he did; or at his greatness and glory, at his exaltation and dignity, though very wonderful; as at his humiliation, the mean appearance he made, the low estate he was brought into; the sufferings and death which he underwent. These words are placed between the account of his exaltation and humiliation, and may be thought to have respect to both; and indeed it is astonishing that one so great as he was, and is, should become so low as he did.”
Many centuries later, Jesus’ face and body were marred from the…
• Beating at the hand of Sanhedrin (Matt. 26:67)
• Scourging and abuse of the Roman soldiers (Matt. 27:26-31)
• And from the agony on the cross (Matt.27:33-46; Mark 1515-19)
Isaiah writes that, through His death, the Servant “will sprinkle many nations,” meaning He will cleanse many people, Jews and Gentile, of their sin (Heb. 9:26-10:22). Isaiah prophesied that the One “whom many have not considered important at all, will actually provide the most important things.” (John Martin, The Bible Knowledge commentary).
Truly, our Lord has made an astonishing impact upon our world. He is the Man who cannot be forgotten.
HIS REJECTION (53:1-3)
Chapter 53 begins, “who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord revealed?” the answer to the questions: no one believes. Why not? Why unbelief, even today? Verse 6 gives the answer. All of us have gone astray. All of us turned in our own special way. For ages Israel did not believe such suffering was at the heart of God’s redemptive plan.
When God sent His Servant to save the Rebel Subjects, they despised him. Why? Verse 2 gives the answer. Israel expected a mighty, valiant conqueror to storm her enemies’ gates and lead her to freedom in a blaze of victory. They expect a handsome-prince good looks and charisma that drew all eyes to Him. They can’t accept that this Servant is a son of a poor carpenter, a “root of a dry ground.” He came silently and insensibly, and without a noise, “He grew as a tender plant.” His lifestyle, worship and view of life don’t fit their way. That’s why they rejected Him.
All of us are Rebel Subjects. We don’t like anyone telling us what to do. We go in our own way. We just don’t think about Him. We do things our ways. “My own way.” Give me my own way! That is our condition. We are Rebel Subjects. No one is exempt to this rule. “All of us…. each of us,” in all time in every place.
“We must remember that all through his boyhood, and even into his manhood, he was pursued by nasty cracks about his birth, inferring that he was an illegitimate son, born to a faithless maiden who had broken her vow of betrothal. His brothers misunderstood him and did not believe in him. They were embarrassed at some of the things he said and did. It was not until after the resurrection that they believed in him. He was called a drunkard and a glutton, and was said to be possessed by a devil. He was called a Samaritan, a disparaging term. He had no home to go to. He said himself, "Foxes have holes, birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head," (Matt 8:20, Luke 9:50). Sometimes his disciples left him alone to go about their business, but he had to go out to the Garden of Gethsemane and sleep alone beneath the o lives trees. He became at one point "Public Enemy No. 1." (Ray C. Stedman, Man of Sorrow).
HIS SUBSTITUTIONARY SACRIFICE (vv.4-6)
But He knows it would happen. It didn’t take him off guard. He did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. “He surely bore our grief, and our sorrows he carries…” verse 4a.
Read verse 5.
This verse communicates the horror of the crucifixion. He was “pierced through” and “crushed”
This is the heart of the gospel of Jesus- substitution. This is the message of Good news that God has for rebel subjects who are willing to lay down their rebellion. Instead of collapsing in grief over our rejection, he bears of griefs. Instead of increasing our sorrows, he carries our sorrows. Instead of avenging our transgression he is pierced for them in our place. Instead of crushing us for our iniquities He is crushed for them as our substitute. And all the chastisement and whipping that belong to us for our Rebellion He takes on himself in order that we might have peace and be healed.
All of His suffering was because of our rebellions and sins.
Verse 6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way."
Psalm 14:3 - "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one."
In Adam we suffered a great fall and a great loss. We fell from God’s favor into condemnation. We fell from sinlessness into sinfulness. We lost original righteousness, fellowship with God, access to God, and all spiritual life. We fell from life into death, from liberty into bondage, from peace into enmity, and from light into darkness. But that is not all. We are sinners by imputation, by birth, and by nature (Psa. 51:5; Matt. 15:19). But we are all sinners by personal choice too.
"And the Lord hat laid on him the iniquities of us all." Can you grasp this glorious truth? God the Father, against whom we have sinned, from whom we have strayed, whose law we have broken, whose justice must be satisfied, has laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, his own dear Son, all the sins of all his elect. The Son of God was made to be sin for us, so that he might be justly punished for sin in our stead, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (II Cor. 5:21).
God tells us what we need to know. His Rejected Servant is in fact a Ransoming Substitute for Rebel Subject. That’s the GOSPEL
HIS HUMBLE SUBMISSION (v.7)
Read Verse 7. We see four things that happen to Him and three times how He responded.
First, He was “oppressed.” The word is most used often in OT of that taskmasters do to his slave. They press him hard and drained terrible sense of pressure, stress, and burden on slaves. Jesus experienced this in the same way.
Second, He was “afflicted.” The word implies humiliation, being brought low, treating with contempt, shaming, belittling, scorn, jest, mockery, ridicule. All of that was the gall Jesus sipped during his whole ministry and had forced down His throat in the last awful week.
Third, He was led like a lamb to be slaughter.
Fourth, He was sheared, like a sheep before its Shearer. He was stripped of His clothes, His friends, His honor, and His divine protection. No one has ever been naked as Jesus on the Golgotha on Good Friday.
But all of these suffering His response was in silence. He did not open open His mouth to depend himself. His response was in silence, patience, and acceptance. During His trial in front of Caiaphas, He did not make an answer (Matt.26: 62-63)
But he didn’t just suffer. He also died.
HIS DEATH (v.8)
Read verse 8. “He was cut-off out of the land of the living.” He was just not led slaughter. He was slaughtered. And like all the other lambs at the Passover or the sin offerings of Israel, He was slaughtered not for His own transgressions, but for the transgressions of his people. We deserved to be slaughtered for our sins, but He was slaughtered instead.
This is the Heart of the Gospel of God: Jesus was cut-off, to die in our instead. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. (2Cor. 5:21)
1 Cor. 15:3, sum up the Gospel: “Christ died for us according to the scripture.” Exactly what Isaiah prophesied 700 years ago.
And what was the response of his generation when he was cut-off? Isaiah said, “Who considered it?” The word “considered” is not a word for “notice” or “perceived”. It’s a word used to meditate, ponder. The point it seems to be: we can see the greatest events in history and yet did not see it. One of our weaknesses is that we do not meditate on the great things. We didn’t stop and ponder the things of God.
So the message is that we have to meditate, ponder, muse, reflect, study, and contemplate the great things.
HIS BURIAL (v.9)
Finally, verse 9 speaks of the burial of the Servant. Verse 7: He suffered patiently; verse 8: He died for his people and scarcely anyone took it to heart; now He is buried.
In verse 7, there is hope because the servant is suffering, not as guilty sinners but as a sin-bearing Lamb. In Verse 8 there is hope because he dies not for his own sins but for the transgressions of his people.
And in verse 9 there’s hope because He died with the wicked but was buried in the tomb of the rich man. (Matt. 27:57-59)
Why is that significant? Why God plan it 700 years ahead of times?
The work of redemption was done! There is no more humiliation. Instead God signified the honor of His Servant by arranging for him an honorable burial in the grave of a rich man, the disciple, Joseph of Arimathea.
So even the burial of Jesus was lined with hope. He was the Servant of the Lord. And when the work of suffering like a sacrificial and dying for the transgressions of his people, God gave him honor even in the way he was buried.
So this is both revelation and validation. It is revelation because it reveals things about God and his way of salvation that we cannot know in our own. And it is validation because it comes 700 years before Christ, who fulfills the Servant prophesies so amazingly down to the details how he suffered, died and was buried.
REFLECTION
Brothers and sisters as we will commemorate the Passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ let us ponder and meditate the accomplishment of God’s plan for redemption.
1. Why did the Son of God suffer all this agony of body, of heart, and of soul?
• To satisfy divine justice!
• To put away our sins!
• Because he loved us!
2. How does it impart your faith to have seen Jesus’ sacrificial death prophesied in such detail by the prophet Isaiah centuries before it happen?
3. Why do you think God foretold His Servant’s suffering and death?
4. What does the greatness of Jesus’ suffering tell you about human sin? What does it tell you
about His love for you?
Let us PRAY.
