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Text: Isaiah 53:4-6
Date: 12/18/2022 FileName: Christ_In_Isaiah_04 Code: OT23-53
Theme: The rejected servant knew human sorrow and suffering, but his suffering had purpose, because he bore punishment for our sins to bring us peace.
““Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
(Matthew 5:17, ESV)
When Jesus said that he came to “fulfill the law and the prophets,” he meant it — literally.
He came to fulfill the scriptures with himself.
The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is one of those magnificent prophecies that Jesus came to fulfill.
Isaiah, more than any other Old Testament prophet, describes the life and ministry of God’s Messiah, whom Isaiah comes to call God’s Righteous Servant.
His prophecy covers the entirety of Christ’s life — his incarnation, his ministry, his death and resurrection, and his future reign as Lord of all.
The life of Isaiah’s Righteous Servant reaches a crescendo in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, when the prophet explains the ultimate reason for the Righteous Servant’s life — as a sacrifice for sin.
I use the word “crescendo” because Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is the last of four “Servant Songs” in the Book of Isaiah.
This last song describes the suffering and triumph of the Servant of the LORD.
It is also one of the most detailed passages in the Old Testament concerning the death and resurrection of the Messiah.
For those who like to know these things, this song is composed of five stanzas of three verses each.
Unmistakably chapter 53, speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Every detail of the prophet’s words corresponds so closely to the passion of the Lord Jesus that no one with normal powers of thought could reason otherwise.
The early Church clearly identified Jesus with Isaiah’s Righteous Servant.
ILLUS.
In the 8th chapter of the Book of Acts we have the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.
This eunuch is a high-ranking official in the Court of the Ethiopian empire.
He’s a Jewish Proselyte who’s been on government business to Jerusalem.
On his way home he is reading from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
When the eunuch says, “How can I unless someone explains it to me,” Philip explains it to him!
“Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.”
(Acts 8:35, ESV).
Isaiah wrote this over 700 years before the birth of Christ.
The clear teaching in this chapter is that deliverance for all people c omes by the substitutionary death of God’s Righteous Servant.
He does not suffer because he is a sinner, but in the place of sinful people.
He suffers for them, and because of that, they do not need to experience the eternal consequences for their sins.
With that background, let’s look at just three verses of this chapter.
The three verses reveal that the Righteous Servant Bore Our Burdens, Received Our Punishment, and Was Crushed for Our Rebellion.
“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
(Isaiah 53:4–6, NIV84)
I. GOD’S RIGHTEOUS SERVANT BORE OUR BURDENS
1. in vs. 4 the passage states the true reason for the Righteous Servant’s suffering
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”
(Isaiah 53:4, ESV)
2. notice the contrast between He and our
a. the Righteous Servant is characterized by griefs and sorrows, but they were not His own
1) it was all for us that God’s Righteous Servant would be stricken and afflicted
b. the word grief here means sickness, disease, anxiety, and affliction — the normal difficulties that come with life
1) it means that the Messiah would take upon himself — not only the penalty for our sin — but the suffering, the sorrows, and the anxieties of his people
2) Jesus did this so that he might know our pain and so better empathize with us
“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.”
(Hebrews 4:15, ESV)
3) in other words, there’s noting going on in your life that Jesus cannot sympathize with
3. the Righteous Servant of Isaiah has borne — literally took upon himself — our griefs and sorrows
a. the language of carrying and bearing sets the stage for the substitutionary understanding of the Righteous Servant’s suffering
1) he took upon himself our sin and he took upon himself our sorrow in order to take it away
ILLUS.
This is the language of the Jewish sacrificial system — especially from Leviticus.
2) there the sacrificial animal carries the sins of the sinner away, so that the sinner is not burdened by them anymore
3) the animal does not merely die because the sinner sinned, but in the sinner’s place, doing what the sinner should rightly do ... die
b. in carrying our sins away, the Righteous Servant also carries away the sorrow over our broken relationship with God restoring us to right relationship with the Father
4. in bearing our griefs and sorrows the Righteous Servant was stricken, smitten, and afflicted
a. in Isaiah 52:14, God’s Righteous Servant’s appearance is described as disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness
1) it’s Isaiah’s way of saying that our Lord was beaten to a pulp
a) Jesus would have been literally unrecognizable
b. he submitted to this brutality in order to carry our griefs and infirmities
c. in Matthew’s Gospel, the Apostle quotes Isaiah 53:4 as a fulfilment of Jesus’ healing ministry
“When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.
This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.””
(Matthew 8:14–17, NIV84)
d.
Isaiah tells us that the Messiah is the One who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows
1) at the foot of the cross there is help and healing and closure at the cross for the deepest pain of our hearts
II.
GOD’S RIGHTEOUS SERVANT RECEIVED OUR PUNISHMENT
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
(Isaiah 53:5, NIV84)
1. the word but in the Hebrew emphasizes the contrast between God’s Righteous Servant and us
a. God was punishing this Man NOT for His own sins and failures, but in fact He was pierced through as a result of our rebellion
1) he was crushed on account of our twistedness
2. the images Isaiah employ have now shifted from illness to injury and have become more severe
a.
I like the KJV reading of he was wounded for our transgressions
1) however, that reading does not do the Hebrew word wounded justice
2) the word literally means to be pierced through
b. who is pierced through usually died
ILLUS.
One commentary said, “The word hints at a violent death.”
And I though Duuhhh!
3. crushed indicates breaking something into pieces and in some cases even pulverizing
a. he was crushed under the weight of our sins and the judgment of God that fell on him
b.
sin kills, and our sin killed Christ — our sins crushed the life out of Him
4. the reason for the Righteous Servant’s suffering is our transgressions of God’s Law and the iniquities of our fallen nature
a. the Righteous Servant’s punishment is far more than sympathy and compassion, it is actually bearing the consequence of our eternal judgment for our sin
b. the sins were committed by us ... the piercing and crushing fell upon Him
5. the severity of punishment on the Righteous Servant measures how seriously God takes our rebellion and crookedness
a. we typically make light of our sins, and explain them away as "mistakes" or “indiscretions” or “slip-ups”
1) on occasion, when we do something “really bad” we may actually refer to it as “sin”
2) but, for the most part we play semantic games with ourselves so as to minimize the fact that we are transgressors who are full of iniquities, and that sin is evil committed against God
b. but God will have none of it
1) the refusal of humanity to bow to the Creator’s rule, and our insistence on drawing up our own moral codes that pander to our lusts, are not shortcomings or mistakes
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