Community Bible Study -- Isaiah

Text of Presentation, Lesson 17, Isa 52:13-53:12

Click Here for Lesson 17 Photos -- Click Here to return to Isaiah Home Page

Revelation of the Means of Reconciliation
“The Burning Heart of Scripture”

Tonight’s focal passage, Isaiah 52:13-53:12, is the climax of the book. It’s Isaiah’s description of how the Messiah, the ideal Servant-Israel as God meant Him to be, will overcome the alienation of sin.

But before getting into that, let’s say a few words about Isaiah 50-52:12, which we read but don’t discuss. These chapters emphasize God's "comfort" for his people (49:13; 51:3,12,19; 52:9); God insists their sin has not alienated them – and in fact He has found a way to bring them back. God’s ability to restore the Jews – indeed all people – to Himself is referred to as “the arm" of the Lord, a metaphor for his incomparable power (50:2; 51:5, 9; 52:10). The reader is filled with anticipation as Isaiah builds up to reveal the "the arm of the LORD"; the climax (52:11-12) is a call to go out from bondage, with the LORD leading at the “point” and following as the rear guard!

What is this great and powerful "arm of the LORD"? 42:1-6, 49:1-6, and 50:4-9 have given hints; God’s obedient Servant will deliver not just the Jews, but the entire world. However, these hints suggest a very unusual deliverance. There is no reference to a smashing conquest or the jubilation of victory. Instead, there are increasingly disturbing overtones suggesting rejection and abuse are a part of God’s ultimate victory. How can this be? It seems an oxymoron!

Tonight’s focal, 52:13-53:12, now confirms these disturbing overtones. The arm of the Lord looks nothing like a stereotypical conquering hero; indeed, victory comes through suffering unjust, brutal abuse in obedience to God. The passage is a downer – especially after Isaiah’s build-up in earlier chapters. It even seems out of place, considering the joyous songs of invitation in chapters 54 and 55 – which we discuss in next week. But it belongs where it is; there is an instrumental relationship between this poem and the chapters which precede it and follow it, as we shall discuss tonight.

The poem is divided into five stanzas of three verses each. It moves from an introduction (52:13-15) to the Servant's rejection (53:1-3) to his carrying "our" sins and transgressions (53:4-6) to the results of that carrying (53:7-9) and finally to a revelation of the atoning nature of the carrying (53:10-12). Isaiah’s meticulous structuring demonstrates both the care with which he approaches this statement and the importance he attaches to it.

The opening is a note of triumph. The Hebrew words translated "act wisely" imply acting in such a way as to succeed (eg, "will prosper," NASB). The Servant's work will end as a smashing success; he will be "raised and lifted up" . . . words applied only of God elsewhere in the book (6:1; 57:15). The Servant/Messiah is elevated to the place of God! At risk of getting ahead of the story . . . the poem also closes on a note of triumph (“a portion among the great . . . divide the spoils with the strong," 53:12), as the Messiah is portrayed as the victor dividing the spoils. These affirmations of the Servant's work at the beginning and end are probably necessary because nothing in between seems anything at all like victory . . . as man understands it.

This anomaly is made clear in the second verse. The Servant is shockingly disfigured; He hardly appears human. Most world conquerors try to portray themselves as attractive figures . . . but the Servant isn’t this at all! In fact, He is so pathetic that strong kings are speechless at the very idea he might be the great and mighty "arm of the LORD." Those to whom the Servant brings justice can’t comprehend he will do so by means of his own injury and abuse; they have never “heard" of such a thing, yet now they “see" it (52:15).

The response to this revelation about the Messiah moves from astonishment to rejection in the second stanza, 53:1-3. Surely this Servant can’t be the promised "arm of the LORD" (53:1)! Why?

1. He comes onto the scene in a quiet and unassuming way (53:2).

2. He has no extraordinary beauty or attractiveness to draw people to him; his "appearance" is quite ordinary.

3. He takes on himself the pain and “suffering” of the world (53:3).
   
   

We don’t know how to respond to this pain and suffering. We try to ignore it (“hide [our] faces"); we try not to think about it (“esteemed him not") (53:3). The Servant has come to take away the sins of the world, but no one pays any attention to His anguish. It disturbs us. It reminds us of our own vulnerability; although the text seems to imply the “suffering” is not restricted to physical suffering – neither should it be construed as excluding physical suffering, because sin is often the cause of physical suffering.

Why does the Servant suffer like this? We think God is inflicting deserved punishment on him (53:4); Jewish people could not imagine such misfortune happening to someone unless they were being punished by God (as we learn in the book of Job). But 53:4-6 make clear that’s not the case at all! He suffers for "our transgressions" and "our iniquities" (53:5); Isaiah’s repetition of first-person plural pronouns hammers home that the Servant suffers in "our" place.

We talked last week about just who is the Servant – the Messiah. Is he Jesus of Nazareth, or is he the suffering nation of Israel? Understanding the antecedent of “our” and “we” in 53:5-6 helps interpret this. Isaiah clearly seems to mean “our” and “we” as the prophet and the people he addresses, then and in the future. Hence although the people of Israel are servants of God bearing witness to his saving power, they are not the Servant of the LORD who’ll bring justice and deliverance to the earth. The metaphor about sheep in 53:6 seems to make this point unambiguously: "we, (the) sheep (who) have gone astray" refers to the blind, rebellious people of God (cf 42:18-25), including – but not necessarily limited to – the nation of Israel; and the Servant is beaten for our willfulness!

The next stanza – 53:7-9 – details the Servant's innocence . . . and the injustice of His treatment. This time it’s the Servant who is compared to a sheep, but using the mild, defenseless nature of sheep, rather that their poor sense of direction. The Servant's suffering is manifestly unjust, but he submits without protest (53:7). It’s significant that sheep were the animals sacrificed to symbolically remove sin . . . Isaiah probably uses the sheep metaphor deliberately with this in mind.

53:8-9 further underlines the Servant’s unjust suffering. He is not only deprived of justice, he’s also deprived of "descendants" . . . his life is "cut off” in his prime. As a final insult, the Servant is buried with the wicked and rich. What’s Isaiah saying here? Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea: a rich man, but not a “wicked” man; and the Old Testament frequently treats riches as a blessing from God. Yet in the context of this book . . . Isaiah is writing to Jews who ignored God’s command to return land to its original owners every 50 years, and who all too often amassed riches through violence and deceit. As Isaiah says in chapter 5: "Woe to you who add house to house and field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land" (5:8). Prophets like Hosea and Amos had the same viewpoint . . . as did Jesus. The contrast provided by "though" in 53:9 seems to make clear that’s the sense here: the Servant is buried with the rich even "though" he did not practice “violence” or “deceit” (53:9), as many of them did.

Why have these things happened to the Servant? The answer is in the final stanza, 53:10-12. They were not accidental; they were deliberate; it was God's intention. The opening of 53:10 seems totally out of character for God: how could the God who loves us more than a nursing mother loves her child crush his son (49:15)? What good human father could possibly do that? It is possible only if some unquestionably greater good was obtained. But what greater good could possibly justify crushing the Servant?

The second half of 53:10 is answers this question: God's purpose is realized ("the will of the LORD will prosper") when the "life" of the Servant becomes a sin offering. The Servant did not come to tell people what God wants: he came to be what God wants for us! Then the injustice perpetrated on the servant is rectified, because “he will see his offspring and prolong his days” (Isa 53:10b). But how can someone cut off from the land of the living without descendants ever have these things? Resurrection is the only answer! The resurrection is an essential part of the equation, showing the greater good realized by the Servant’s suffering at the hands of a loving God.

53:11 gives a more theological statement of what was accomplished by the Servant's death. The Servant says he "will see the light [of life] and be satisfied " when his life has been offered up for others (53:11). The hard struggle will have been worth it! But what does that struggle accomplish for mankind? By bearing "their iniquities" (which is probably what the "suffering of his soul" was about at the beginning of 53:11), the Servant is able to make many people righteous because He knows God (“by his knowledge") in intimate relationship (cf 42:1-6; 49:1-6; 50:4-9), and even shares God's righteousness (lit, “the righteous one, my servant").

Everything is summed up in 53:12. Isaiah does not want anyone to miss the reason God gives the Servant the spoils of victory. This has already been stated before, but Isaiah restates it in the closing. God gives his servant the victor's wreath “because" he was treated like one of the rebels when he was not . . . and for this reason – and this reason alone – he could bear their punishment and make "intercession" for them.

The earliest Christians understood Jesus of Nazareth as the Servant about whom Isaiah is speaking in this chapter, as Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch shows (Acts 8:26-40). Except for Jesus, this passage could not be applied to any Jew from Isaiah’s time onward . . . and the congruence with Jesus' life is remarkable, as 1 Peter 2:21-25 details. In fact, the congruence is so remarkable that those who deny Jesus is the Servant – and/or deny the possibility of predictive prophecy – need to say Jesus consciously modeled himself on Isaiah's Servant to make it appear he fulfilled that prophecy. Would that be the case with a man on whose lips was no deceit (53:9)!

Jesus appeared on the earth without fanfare – except the celebration of the angels – and without dominating presence. He was horribly disfigured before he died, as all secular descriptions of crucifixion make plain. He went to his death without protest about its manifest injustice and without any attempt to defend himself. He even asked Peter if he would have him disobey his Father's will (John 18:11), and His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane makes clear he knew his death was God’s will. Furthermore, his words at the Last Supper demonstrate he understood his death to be substitutionary: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matt 26:28).

Those around him also understood it that way. John the Baptist's identification of him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) can be understood no other way. Likewise, Peter's sermon at Pentecost, that inaugurated the Christian church, stresses baptism in the name of Jesus “for the forgiveness of . . . sins" (Acts 2:38). Paul makes the point even more explicitly when he says in Colossians 1:19-20:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:19-20).

And Isaiah 53 clearly seems the inspiration for Paul’s “self-emptying" hymn in Phil 2:5-11 – with the cross sandwiched between verses emphasizing Jesus’ transcendent glory. This passage also makes clear there is a bridge from the New Testament to the present:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, . . . made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant . . . in human likeness. And . . . humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! (Php 2:5-8).

Paul calls his hearers to emulate Jesus’ attitude of self-denial for the sake of others. Peter says much the same thing (1 Peter 2:21-25). Just as the Servant cheerfully gave up rights that were his so others might live, we are called to walk the same road. Jesus moved from heaven to a barn . . . from knowing everything to knowing nothing . . . from supplying all the world's needs to becoming dependent on the breast of a young Jewish girl for his very life. To follow the picture of the Servant in Isaiah, we are called to bear the griefs and sorrows – the burdens – of those around us.

Here in America – blessed with material riches and religious freedom – we romanticize this calling. We think it’s cool to spend $1000 or more to travel as “missionaries” to Africa and do manual labor for a week . . . or spend a weekend working with Habitat for Humanity. We gather castoff goods for the Mountain Mission, and even deliver Angel Tree gifts to families of those in prison – then go home to relative luxury. But Jesus got “down and dirty” and lived with the common people, literally taking their burdens on himself. True . . . we can’t all be Mother Teresa and live in the slums of Calcutta . . . but we must face the possibility of hardship and rejection, since a fact of the Servant's ministry was its apparent failure. The Servant died childless in the midst of life, deprived of justice and treated as though he had been violent and deceitful (53:7-9).

Suffering and rejection aren’t much fun . . . yet countless Christians have given their lives for Jesus – and others suffered prison and financial ruin. It’s unlikely any of us will face significant physical abuse for our faith (unless the ACLU seizes control of our government). But we face lots of little rejections and injustices because of our Christian beliefs. For instance, after the recent Asian tsunami, a corrupt UN official put Christian America on a guilt trip for not contributing as much as he thought we should, even though we are the biggest giver by far . . . yet he had no criticism of Moslem countries, who gave almost nothing to help fellow Moslems. And despite our sacrifice, the Moslem governments of some of the countries we helped remain as anti-Christian and anti-American as before. Jesus instructs us to “give a cup of water in (His) name,” but many of those we help just seem to gulp down the water, throw the cup on the ground, and go on without a “thank you" . . . or turn and spit in our face. But we don’t do this for a “thank you”; we do it because Jesus tells us to. They “esteemed him not" (53:3); so if that's what they did to Jesus, why should we expect better treatment (John 15:20-21)? We must just keep on truckin’ without becoming cynical and embittered or pious and holier-than-thou . . . knowing Jesus’ apparent short-term defeat led to ultimate victory!

Yet just because we expect rejection and short-term defeats doesn’t mean our goal is to be failures for God; that’s too easy! Jesus neither sought non enjoyed suffering; he was simply doing God's will! Yet we need to be careful how we define success! If our goal is success as the world counts it, we run the risk of losing everything . . . because to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we must to leave everything in God's hands. Obedience to God becomes the standard of success . . . everything is focused on being faithful. Just as the Servant was determined to be faithful and leave the outcome to God, so must we.

Moreover, when called to bear the burdens of others in a hurting world, our objective is not only to help with their burdens, but ultimately give them over to Jesus. Practically, this means we must share the grief and sorrow of the physically and mentally and spiritually sick as we try to help . . . yet we must not shirk from sharing how sin effects all corners of life, because this is what the Servant did: he came to take the sin of the world. And therein lies a potential source of rejection, because, as in Isaiah’s day, it’s not popular to talk about sin in a society that wants to “feel good” about whatever it does.

In closing . . . Jesus was able to lay aside the robes of glory and accept servanthood and suffering because He knew who he was, where he had come from, and where he was going. We, too, must have that kind of assurance. Knowing we are children of God (Rom 8:16) and our sins are forgiven should enable us to overcome the world with love (1 John 5:1-5), without needing to worry about "image" or "position." We are free to take the lowest place and "prosper" there . . . confidently giving ourselves without reservation. This allows us to face success with humility and failure with stability, concerned only about being in tune with God’s will in our lives . . . knowing the Servant has already won the victory for us.