Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering servant reveals a breathtaking picture of a Messiah who would be both exalted to the highest place and marred beyond recognition – wounded, bruised, and pierced not for His own wrongdoing, but for the rebellion of every human being. Written some 700 years before Christ walked the earth, these verses lay bare the depth of God’s love and justice meeting together at the cross, where the sinless One bore the sins of all. It is an invitation to look again at the One whom so many have despised and see in Him the only way of forgiveness, peace with God, and eternal life.
Approximately 700 years before Christ was born in Bethlehem, Isaiah penned one of the most remarkable prophecies in the Old Testament – a detailed portrait of a servant of Jehovah who would come into the world, suffer beyond imagination, and through that suffering open the way of salvation.
The passage begins with a striking paradox. This servant would be exalted, extolled, and lifted to the very highest position of honour – and yet His visage would be marred more than any man, His form disfigured beyond recognition. He would sprinkle – that is, cleanse – many nations. Kings would be silenced before Him. The one destined for the greatest glory would first endure the greatest suffering.
The servant’s status in the world would be one of lowliness and humility. He would grow up as a tender plant, a shoot from a stump – the image of the humiliated house of David, no longer in power, with nothing outwardly attractive about it. He would come from a family of no social standing, be raised in a town of little repute, work as a common carpenter, and surround Himself with unlearned men. He would enter the world in a time of great spiritual dryness, 400 years after the last prophetic voice had spoken. Nothing about His outward appearance or earthly circumstances would meet the expectations of those looking for a conquering king. He Himself declared that the Son of Man came not to be served but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many.
Despite all that He offered, this servant would be despised and rejected. To despise is to look at something and see no value in it at all – to glance and look away, heart and affection fixed on something else. The religious leaders of His day dismissed Him openly. His own people rejected Him. His hometown tried to kill Him. Members of His own family did not believe in Him. He was betrayed by a friend with a kiss. His own nation cried out for His crucifixion. Throughout history and still today, people look everywhere else – to pleasure, to money, to religion, to philosophy – before looking to the One they have dismissed as having no value. And yet in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His claims were ridiculed, His love repulsed. He walked in the solitude of aims that no one understood, and at the hour of His greatest need was deserted by those closest to Him. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, wept over Jerusalem, sighed when He healed the blind, and was grieved at the hardness of men’s hearts. He understood not only physical weariness and sickness but the deeper suffering of sin-sick and weary souls. His invitation – “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” – carried a meaning far deeper than simple physical labour. He is a high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.
Those who witnessed His suffering mistook it as punishment for His own wrongdoing. They esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted – dying, they thought, for His own sins. Yet He had no sin. It was the sinless and guiltless One who suffered for the sinful and guilty.
He was wounded – pierced through, the Hebrew word meaning to bore through. Psalm 22, written even before crucifixion was invented, prophesied that they would pierce His hands and His feet. His hands – the carpenter’s hands, clean hands that never did one wrong thing, compassionate hands that reached out and touched the untouchable leper, beautiful hands that broke bread, healed the sick, and raised the dead – were nailed to a cross. His feet – servant’s feet that went about doing good, sinless feet – were pierced. His side was pierced with a spear, blood and water flowing out, showing He had died of a ruptured heart. His head was crowned with huge, sharp thorns plaited into a mocking crown – thorns, the very curse that came upon the ground after sin entered the world, now pressed into the brow of the One who was made to be sin for us though He knew no sin.
He was wounded for our transgressions – the word carrying the meaning of rebellion, revolt. Sin is not merely negative thinking; it is rebellion against God and His righteous standard. Every thought, word, and action contrary to God’s laws is a manifestation of that rebellion. And yet God chose to send His Son to suffer for that rebellion and give the rebel a chance. He was bruised – crushed, broken – for our iniquities. The Roman scourge, with its leather thongs embedded with bone and metal, lacerated His body. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him – that horrendous suffering so that those who believe might have peace with God. With His stripes we are healed – not a physical healing, but the healing of the sin-sick soul.
All we like sheep have gone astray. Every human being, regardless of background or standing, has turned to his own way. Sin, at its most basic, is choosing one’s own way rather than God’s way. The path that seems right to a man ends in death, and even in laughter the heart may be sorrowful. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God; there is none righteous, no not one. Even our best righteousness, brought before God as a credential, is as filthy rags. And yet the Lord laid on His servant the iniquity of us all. God took the accumulated rebellion of humanity and placed it upon Christ, who bore it in agony.
He was oppressed and afflicted, overburdened with continuous mental and physical anguish, yet He opened not His mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter – silent, humble, unresisting. His hands never pushed back; with hands impaled He prayed for His tormentors. He willingly went with His captors, stood before Caiaphas, before Pilate, before Herod, and back to Pilate, who sentenced Him to death. He was cut off out of the land of the living, forsaken by His Father as He hung in darkness under the burden of the world’s sins, crying out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He suffered that forsakenness so that those who trust Him would never be forsaken.
He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death – a prophecy fulfilled when Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, begged for the body of Jesus and placed it in his own tomb. He was sinless in His actions and sinless in His words; He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him – pleased in the sense that the justice of God was satisfied. God is both 100% just and 100% merciful, and these come together in what Christ did. The payment was made; the way of forgiveness was opened.
He shall see His seed – all who come to Christ as Saviour become His spiritual offspring. He shall prolong His days – He rose again and lives forevermore. The pleasure of the Lord prospers in His hand. By His knowledge shall this righteous servant justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Only eternity will reveal how many have been justified through Him. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. He made intercession for the transgressors, praying even for those who crucified Him – “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” If Christ was willing to have a spirit of forgiveness toward them, how much more willing is He to forgive those who come to Him in repentance?
The question pressed upon every hearer is direct. For the believer, are you living in thankful dependence on Christ, His life flowing through you? Have you wandered from God and need to come back, remembering what Christ has done? Or have you never trusted Christ at all? This One who died, died for every single person, and He wants to save.
Sermon Audio Id: 432601657915