The Suffering Servant
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Main Idea: Christ is the suffering servant whose crucifixion was a substitutionary death in our place.
I. The Servant’s Suffering (53:1-3, 7-9)
This servant would be a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” an apt summary of the life of Christ. This suffering was seen in different categories:
1. Social (53:1-3)
This servant experienced the rejection of his own people, even from birth (“like a root out of dry ground”). Jesus did not fit the expectations of the Jewish people & their assumptions about Christ & the Messiah. His own family though he was crazy, he was rejected in his hometown (cf. Mt. 13:53-58), & abandoned by his closest companions at his time of greatest need.
2. Physical (52:14)
Many would be “astonished” (appalled) by the physical suffering of this servant, wondering if he was even a human being.
“Crucifixion was for displaying people in the most cruel circumstances possible, to demonstrate publicly the power of the empire not just to kill, but to dehumanize – and by so doing, to deter anyone who dared to think of defying Caesar. Cruel, inhuman, public, and prolonged torture, that’s what it was… In addition to the physical pain and the shame of naked exposure, the victim was deliberately dehumanized to the point of being unrecognizable. A message was being sent: this object that you see before you is displayed here specifically so that you can vent your most sadistic and inhuman impulses.” ~ Fleming Rutledge
3. Injustice (53:7-9)
This servant faced the height of injustice; though he was an innocent man, he was oppressed and “cut out of the land of the living.” He does not offer a defense, but willingly & voluntarily embraces this injustice.
II. The Servant’s Substitution (53:4-6)
These three verses are the “center” of this servant song and at the heart of its meaning. The pronouns (“our,” “we,” or “us” 10x) are key to understanding the deeper significance of the cross. Though Jesus is bearing greif, iniquity, and transgressions, they were not his own. They were our griefs, sorrows, iniquities, and sins.
“The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone.” ~ John Stott
The issue here is sin, which cannot simply be “swept under the rug.” Someone must absorb the cost and the debt that sin creates. The cross tells us that God himself will absorb this cost, as he voluntarily takes our sins and iniquities off of us and upon himself.
The Romans & the Jews viewed the cross with great disdain as it represented punishment & a curse (Deut. 21:23). The Christians came to find the cross as their symbol of hope because of this “great exchange.” The cross was his death, but it is our life. Until we see ourselves at the cross, it will remain “folly” to us (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18).
III. The Servant’s Success (52:13-15, 53:10-12)
This servant was:
1. Humiliated yet exalted (52:13-15)
The ‘high and lifted up’ one (cf. Isa. 6:1) shows his glory through the suffering of the cross (John 12:23). Through his suffering, he “shall sprinkle many nations,” like a priest sprinkling the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement. He brings the outsiders in by becoming an outsider himself.
2. Crushed yet victorious (53:10-12)
The suffering & death of the servant is not the end of the story. Even though this servant is “crushed,” Isaiah indicates he will “see his offspring” and that his soul will be “satisfied.” What looks like defeat to the world is actually victory in Christ, as he is raised three days later, sharing the spoils of victory with his enemies who become his friends.
Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
