The Suffering Servant Of The Lord Series

Imagine what it was like for the Ethiopian man in Acts 8. He’s traveling south through the countryside, having just been to Jerusalem to worship. He’s a foreigner, but he’s devoted to the Israelite faith—for he knows it is God’s truth! Now on his way home, the LORD is still very much on his mind. As his chauffeur drives, the Ethiopian official is seated in the back of the chariot, and he’s doing what lots of us of do while traveling: he’s reading. He’s got open a scroll of Isaiah, reading the prophet’s poetic and powerful words.

But there’s a problem. He doesn’t understand what he’s reading! He’s come to Isaiah 53, and it’s a real puzzle. For it says, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not his mouth. In humiliation his justice was taken away, and who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.”

Putting the scroll down, looking out at the passing landscape to think, the man wonders to himself: ‘Now what on earth does that mean? Who’s this lamb, and why did He have to die?’ Listen to what the man asks Philip, “How can I understand this, unless someone guides me?” (8:31). He’s in serious need of a teacher.

We’re trying to imagine what it was like for the Ethiopian, but it’s actually hard to relate. It’s hard because we read the same passage as he did—Isaiah 53—and we always have our New Testament glasses on. We look at this chapter and at the same time we picture everything that took place on Good Friday. We see a compelling picture of the cross!

These startling events were already history by the time of Acts 8, but this man seems unaware of them. So in his providence, God sends Philip. The official puts this question to him: “Of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” (Acts 8:34). So Philip will tell him. It says he “opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him” (v 35). Philip, taking Isaiah as his text, preaches Christ! Already 600 years before Jesus came, Isaiah announced the coming Redeemer. The Saviour would be a Servant, one who suffers, who even dies. It’s the gospel of Isaiah 53,

The Servant of the LORD served us to save us:

1) suffering like a lamb

2) dying through injustice

3) being buried with the wicked

1) suffering like a lamb: Long centuries ago, Isaiah came to the people of Israel and he said, “Let me tell you how God will save you.” For just as God had brought his people up from Egypt, so He’d bring them out of Babylon. Valleys would be raised up, mountains and hills brought low—there’d be a highway cut through the wilderness, going all the way back home.

So how was redemption going to happen? Who’d bring it about? In these chapters, we get a picture of someone critical to God’s plan, one who’d work out the project of saving his people. Isaiah introduces him as the Suffering Servant. There are four so-called “Servant Songs.” You can read them in chapters 42, 49, 50, and now here in chapters 52-53.

When we put these four passages together, we get a portrait of the one who is going to restore God’s struggling people. ‘Here’s what He’ll do,’ says Isaiah. The Suffering Servant will preach the good news to the poor. He will heal the sick and mend the broken.

More than that—and here’s the real mystery—this servant will himself be punished instead of the people of God. This servant will suffer in their place, suffer to save them. He’ll redeem his people, but not from Babylon, in the first place. Not from our earthly discomforts or disappointments. But He’ll redeem us from sin itself.

Now in this last of the four ‘Servant Songs,’ in chapter 53, Isaiah reaches the heart of the Servant’s profile. He will be deeply terrorized, more than anyone before or since. Sure, Judah was going to suffer in Babylon—exile was no picnic, and even the return from exile was painful. And God’s people struggle and sweat and bleed in every age, for it’s a broken world. But there is one who joins us in our pain, then far exceeds our pain, because He takes it all upon himself.

Literally, verse 7 says that He’ll be ‘treated harshly’—and that’s a hint of how this treatment is undeserved. In previous chapters, Isaiah told us that God’s Servant is a righteous man, He is faithful and holy, a light to the nations and gentle with the weak. He was the one person in Israel who actually trusted God! So He’s the very last one who should be afflicted.