Savoring the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

We are at the last song of the servant songs in Isaiah.

This is week four of our message.

Would you please turn to Isaiah chapter 52, beginning to read at verse 13?

Isaiah 52 · chapter mention

You can also follow along in your bulletin if you wish.

These are the words spoken to the prophet Isaiah over 700 years before the servant would come.

We learn much about this servant as we read through Isaiah.

Reading God's holy word.

Behold, my servant shall act wisely.

He shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.

As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

So shall he sprinkle many nations.

Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard, they understand.

Who has believed what he has heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces.

He was despised and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned every one to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

Although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put him to grief.

When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their infirmities, excuse me, iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

This is the reading of God's precious holy word.

May we ask the Spirit's blessing and working in our hearts to take this truth in.

Father, these words are astonishing.

We would not know what to do with these words if you had not given us your spirit to understand.

Lord, may we understand this morning.

May we discern what we read.

Father, may we respond with open hearts, Lord, to take in this truth, to take in your grace this morning, so that we might grow in our wonder, in our amazement, and our thanks to you for all that you did for us.

And this we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

As we've seen, the servant is clearly identified in these songs as the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's no question about the identity of this servant.

And we said last week, like any song, that each verse brings out a different understanding of the description of this Messiah.

Each verse adds, builds on the verse before this portrait of the Messiah.

This morning we're going to see in this passage the servant's exaltation, the servant's humiliation, and lastly the servant's satisfaction.

The servant's exaltation.

We see in the first verse, chapter 52, verse 13.

Note the first word.

Behold, behold.

Now let me tell you, this is a command.

Take that in.

To behold the Messiah is a command.

And like any other command, we can break those commandments.

Stop, Isaiah saying.

Take a deep breath.

Linger.

Look at the portrait of this servant.

Anybody that goes through the Christmas season without doing this breaks God's commandments.

I wonder how often that happens.

We can do a lot of things in the Christmas season.

But if we don't stop and behold this servant and look closely and look intently with the Spirit's help, we've missed it.

Behold, stop, and take in my servant who acts wisely.

Look at the language of exaltation.

He shall be high and lifted up, and he will be exalted.

You can't really help but notice this sounds like the language of our Savior and His crucifixion, his resurrection, his exaltation.

Isaiah is pointing us forward.

Centuries later, this is what would happen to this servant.

As I've been reading through the book of Isaiah lately, I see this description to behold this God in so many places.

I want to go back a familiar passage in Isaiah to a lot of us, but this is a good place to come back.

Let's just pause and behold.

Let's take in the portrait of the Savior, this servant.

You might not immediately go to this passage, but this is what Isaiah is doing constantly throughout the prophecy.

The contrast between the king, high and lifted up.

Doesn't Isaiah say, who dwells with those who are humble and contrite of heart?

But listen to what Isaiah said earlier about this servant, Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, a high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost.

I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

In the Gospel of John, John unequivocally tells us this is Jesus.

This is a vision of Jesus, the exalted Jesus, King of kings and Lord of Lords, and the servant who came down so low.

How can this be in the same person?

But it's true.

And so when Isaiah tells us again, Behold my servant, he shall be high and lifted up, and he shall be exalted.

Before Isaiah gives us our own estimation of the servant, he gives us his father's estimation of the servant.

The one who sent the servant, his father, chose this servant because he knew that he alone was the only one who could accomplish this mission.

As Pastor Josh opened this sermon series, savoring the sent one.

But never mistake it, the sent one is the holy one, high and lifted up.

The sent one is the king of kings and the Lord of the universe.

The servant's exaltation, but let's move on because most of these verses are given to the servant's humiliation.

Verse 14.

As many were astonished at you, who's the you?

Jesus.

As many were astonished at you, and then it goes to another pronoun, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

That word, that verb astonished, can be translated shocked.

It can be translated shattered.

And all of a sudden, we're getting a very different image of Isaiah 6, the king high and lifted up, and the one that when those looked at him in his suffering were shocked and shattered.

It's a very strong verb used in the Old Testament of places that were devastated.

You might think blighted.

His appearance was so marred, disfigured, that those who saw him in his suffering stepped back in horror.

Nobody, nobody was smiling, I don't think, at the Savior on the cross.

Hebrew scholar Alec Moter says that the language suggests this: that as they were looking upon him on the cross in his suffering, the question that would have been most on their hearts and minds was, is this human?

Not just, is this the servant?

Is this human?

What we're looking at?

This is the portrait that Isaiah paints for us.

Verse 15, and then there's this quick juxtaposition, but it does make sense, I think.

So shall he sprinkle many nations.

All of a sudden he's going back and forth a little bit from his suffering, his humiliation, but a glimpse back to his exaltation, his priestly work.

The verb sprinkle suggests the many times in the Old Testament that the blood of the lamb that was slain was sprinkled upon the altar.

Sometimes upon the people, sometimes.

Here Isaiah pictures the king of the earth, the kings of the earth silent before him.

And it does remind us, as Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 2, that one day every king is going to bow before him.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Every king, every lord, every god, every m every king who thought he was God is going to be debased.

He's going to acknowledge that this one alone is the king of kings.

Chapter 53, verse 1.

Who has believed our message?

Do you know what the answer is?

No one.

No one has believed this message until the Lord opens your eyes to see and understand, until the Lord opens your eyes to see what was really going on and to believe it.

Until then, no one would believe.

No one would believe this kind of suffering was reserved for the Son of God.

Verse 2 of chapter 53.

His beginnings would be humble, for he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

As we know, he wasn't born in a palace.

He wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Very humble beginnings, this servant.

He had no form or majesty that we would notice him.

The language is suggesting physical appearance.

In other words, nobody looked at him.

Let me put it like this.

Nobody looked at him in today's world and said, let's cast him in the movie.

He wasn't handsome.

He wasn't particularly handsome.

This verb is used in other places in the Old Testament for people who were good looking physically.

There was nothing about him.

If you were there living in that day, you wouldn't look at him and say, wow.

You would just look at him as a very ordinary person.

That's what Isaiah is saying.

Verse 3.

Far from attracting people, they shunned him.

He was despised and rejected by men.

A man of sorrows.

Isaiah is not saying that he was a mopey guy who just always walked around with his shoulder slumped carrying his sorrows.

That's not what Isaiah is saying.

He carried your sorrows.

He carried my sorrows.

A man of sorrows, like one from whom men hide their faces.

That's quite a phrase right there, isn't it?

Probably a lot of us have had that experience.

Looking at something grotesque.

What's the natural impulse?

Look away.

You don't stare at something that is so marred and disfigured.

As one, like men who hide their faces, we esteemed him not.

This is an accounting term.

If you were to add up, if the people that day of his suffering were to add up, it would be a net sum of zero.

That's what Isaiah is saying.

What does he have to offer me?

Look at him.

If he, like the soldiers said, if he really is the Messiah, call down twelve legions of angels from heaven.

Come deliver him.

Then we'll believe you.

That's not the way it works.

It's by faith, not by sight.

The result was zero if you added up the sum of what you thought he appeared to be on the cross.

His suffering explained, verse five.

And the pronouns here are emphatic.

Both he, what Christ was, and we.

The pronouns are emphatic throughout this now.

But he, emphasis, was pierced for our transgressions.

Verse five.

To pierce fatally.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

This word is used for people who are trampled to death.

This is the description of the suffering.

This is the description of the extent, the depth, and the breadth of the humiliation of our Savior.

And then he says in verse 6, again, the emphasis on we.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray.

We have turned, every one of us, to his own way.

So if you're sitting here and you hear they say, No, I never turned away, you don't understand.

Yes, you did.

We all did.

We were all born with sinful natures.

We were born into sin because of Adam's fall.

There's not a one of us who didn't turn away.

That's what Isaiah is saying.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray.

Sometimes I talk to people, well, a lot of times I talk to people who tell me in one way or another, I've always been a Christian my whole life.

I've never not been a Christian.

And you know what I have to do at that moment.

I have to try to politely say, no, that's not true.

I don't know how many times I've had to do that.

It's been a lot.

No, that's not true.

You may think you've always been a Christian.

You may think that you were born a Christian, but that's not true.

That's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says this.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned every one to his own way.

Do you know that?

Perhaps you're hearing that for the first time this day.

It's true.

All us lost sheep need a shepherd who will rescue us, who will find us, who will bring us home to God, who will lay down his life to do that.

But then the phrase, the second part of verse six, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This is what theologians call substitutionary atonement.

This is legal language.

This is forensic language.

Out of the mercy of our God, seeing our plight, seeing us in our sin, our God, behold, our God, said there's only one way to ransom you, and that's to take all of your sin and put it on my son.

It actually happened.

For the Christian, your sin, all of your sin on the cross of Jesus Christ was laid on Christ.

Christ took it all.

That's what he's saying.

The Lord has laid on his servant our iniquity.

This is the doctrine of imputation.

All of my sin, all of your sin, charged to the account of the servant Jesus.

All of the servant's righteousness, in turn, charged to your spiritual account.

This is why we call it the good news.

At such a great cost, at such a high price.

Are you amazed?

Are you beholding him now this morning?

As you listen to his word.

This is what he does for his people.

Imputation.

In the court of God's justice, he's talking, he's not talking about our subjective feelings here.

In this passage, he's not saying, How do you feel about this?

In this passage, right here, what he's saying is, do you understand this?

Do you understand?

Have you received the offer of his forgiveness?

You must receive the offer of his forgiveness.

It does not happen because you're in this room.

It doesn't happen automatically.

It happens by faith.

This is the good news of the gospel, my friends.

Back to the description, verse 7.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

Jesus remained silent.

We read about that in the Gospels, don't we?

It was not only in the cross, but it was in the farce of the trial the night before, before Pilate, before the Jewish rulers.

He remained silent.

He did not open his mouth.

He did not say in protest on the cross, oh, it's not me.

These sins are not mine.

Just want you to know.

See, it's the sins of everybody else.

He never opened his mouth in self-defense.

That amazes me.

We are so quick to play the victim, aren't we?

In life.

Too many times.

We are just too quick to play the victim.

Look at me.

Look at poor me, how I'm suffering.

No.

He didn't.

Animals go to the slaughter with blind compliance, but the servant goes with the full knowledge and awareness of everything that he was going to take on.

Although he was the victim, he never played the victim.

He simply accepted the role of the victim.

And then as if it's not enough, these truths just cascading one on the other.

We get to verse 10.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

The father put his son to grief.

How do we take this in?

I don't know.

But by faith.

I don't know, but by praying and asking, God, would you please help me to understand this?

Would you please help me respond to this?

Will we fully understand this?

No.

That the Father and the Son, who were intimately related, relationally connected out of divine love, eternally, eternally, there was never a moment when they were not in deep, deep fellowship with one another, expressing their love and pouring out their love for one another.

There was never a moment.

And then this.

But it was the will of the Father, it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

Not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

Why did it all have to happen?

Why didn't God just say, you're all forgiven?

You're all forgiven.

I've just decided to forgive you all.

And a lot of people think that.

If there was an easier solution, surely the Father would have found it and exercised it.

But he says, a life for a life, the life of a human being.

You see, that's why the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were never sufficient.

How could an animal be a sacrifice for a human being?

It required a human being to be the sacrifice for human beings, even though he was fully God, he was also fully man, our Lord Jesus.

And then in verse 10, he says, too, about the guilt offering.

When his soul, Jesus' soul, makes an offering for guilt.

It doesn't say his body, although his body was part of the sacrifice.

It says his soul.

His soul tasted death, as our Christmas carols remind us.

His soul experienced the torment of punishment of hell for us.

Oh, I love how John Oswald, Hebrew scholar, puts it.

God's power is at its greatest, not in his destruction of the wicked, but in his taking all the wickedness of sinners into himself and giving back love.

This is what Christmas is about.

The Son of God, taking all of our sins upon himself, took not only our sins, but our punishment.

So there is no punishment for you, Christian.

There is no punishment.

God never punishes the same sin twice.

Either you take the punishment for your sin, or Jesus, your substitute, takes the punishment for your sin.

Kyle and Dalitch, Hebrew scholars, say that there is no stronger expression found in the Hebrew language to denote such a violent and painful death.

We would have been horror struck.

The terminal disease was ours, not his.

Yet God punished him, not me.

Not you.

If you're putting your faith in Christ.

Brings us to the last point, the servant's satisfaction.

After saying all of this, verse 11, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, for he shall bear their iniquities.

Oh, these are words to live in.

These are words to take in this day.

This is the gospel.

The servant's satisfaction.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

Just listen to that with your heart as well as your ears.

He did not consider this a failure.

We looked at last week.

There were points in his ministry where he struggled, but not now.

With his resurrection, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

He looks at all of his suffering.

And you know what he says?

It was worth it.

You know what he says?

You were worth it.

And we marvel.

We behold our God.

That he would say you were worth it, that I was worth it.

He makes many to be accounted righteous.

Not all.

Not all, but many.

Are you of the many?

Are you one of the many?

Have you received the suffering servant is your savior?

The sent servant, the listening servant.

Have you received him?

Have you asked him to be your punishment substitute?

Have you asked him for his righteousness to give you his righteousness?

Jesus is satisfied with the results of his death and resurrection.

The Father is satisfied with the results of the resurrection.

Here's a question.

Are you?

Are you satisfied with all the work that he did?

Are you satisfied?

I can't tell you how many conversations I have with people who aren't saying, I'm not sure I am.

Are you satisfied?

Or are you sitting back even now saying, well, I'm not sure what to do with it all?

Are you sitting back today and saying, maybe he can forgive me, but I can't forgive myself?

Somebody thinking that?

Maybe he's willing to forgive me, but I don't know that I can forgive myself.

Let me, as gently as I can, say, you're not as holy as God, and your standards are not God's standards.

If you can't forgive, if you can't accept his forgiveness and forgive yourself, you don't understand God's standards.

Nobody's standards are as high as his.

If he can forgive you, you can accept his forgiveness.

And you can forgive yourself because of the work of Christ.

It's true.

I think a lot of people need to hear that message.

Sometimes we get so stuck in our own remorse.

Sometimes we get stuck in the consequences of our own lives, the things that we did that we regret.

And sometimes we just get stuck.

And we wonder, is there any way out of this?

The Bible says there is.

Accept his forgiveness.

You accept his forgiveness, and you will be able to forgive yourself no matter what you've done.

Because he's satisfied.

Just as his degradation was the deepest possible, so his exaltation was the highest.

How about a little more gospel?

Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Listen to what Paul says about this.

Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Verse 5 have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, something to be grasped.

But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

There's the humiliation, but listen to the exaltation.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.

Your knees, my knees, that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, every tongue your tongue, your tongue.

Have you confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord with your tongue?

Paul says in Romans chapter 10, if you believe in your heart that God raised his son from the dead and confess with your tongue that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

This is the gospel.

Two last thoughts.

Man, I love that.

You know, God, it's not only his wrath that is furious, and it is against sin and sinners, but his love.

Have you ever thought of his love as furious?

Outrageous.

He did this out of love.

This servant came to serve out of love, not just in general, but for people with names and faces and addresses.

Like us.

He came to love real sinners.

And you can't be saved unless you come to him with a real sin.

You come to him with your sins.

I come to him with my sins and accept his forgiveness because of the suffering servant, his son, he gave to us.

As Charles Spurgeon said, either he, Jesus, must die, as we've seen in this passage, or we must die, or justice must die.

When there is a crime and there is a victim, there is always retribution.

Somebody has to pay for the crime.

Isaiah says, look at the one.

Look at the one.

Although he was disfigured, we wanted to turn away from him.

We didn't want to look at that.

Now, because of what he's done, you don't have to turn away from him.

You can turn to him this morning and behold him.

Behold our God.

He loves us.

Let that be your Christmas gift.

This year.

Before I pray, I just want to comment on the song that we sang earlier.

Oh come, all you unfaithful.

Ben introduced that to us this year.

What was it that spoke to my heart so much the first time I heard that song?

Why does that song speak to my heart like this?

Oh come, all you unfaithful.

That's me.

I don't always have it together, do you?

I know you don't.

Oh come, all you unfaithful.

Come, weak and unstable.

Come.

Know that you're not alone.

Oh come, barren and waiting ones, weary of praying, come.

See what your God has done.

This is the heart of Christmas.

See what your God has done, not what he's asking you to do.

Christ is born for you.

Oh, come, bitter and broken.

Come with fears unspoken.

Come, taste of his perfect love.

Oh, come, guilty and hiding ones.

There's no need to run.

See what your God has done.

He is the Lamb who was given, slain for our pardon.

His promise is peace for those who believe.

Father, we pray.

Give us faith to see, give us faith to believe, give us faith to behold this morning.

Give us the gift of faith to accept the gift of your son.

Father, thank you for this portrait.

It's not an easy one to look at, but it's a necessary one to look at.

I thank you, Father, that you brought your son to life and that he is satisfied and that you are satisfied with the results.

May we be satisfied as we look to the finished work of Jesus.

The one we love, the one whom we adore, the one who we sing about now.

In his name we come, amen.