It is serviceservice to God. Suffering servant. Tis mercy all, immense and free, for O my God, While Jesus saves remains the central claim of Christianity, the ensuing questionHow?demands attention. The servant bears unspeakable shame from others. God would be exalted through humiliation. The suffering, which seems to be misfortune, is here seen as the Servants wisdom which will issue in his glory. 52:7). We hear that his death was actually the opposite of failure. Yet this exaltation does not occur in a manner that human beings would expect. There was nothing appealing or attractive in his appearance that would make Israel rally to him. But thats not what happened, and chapter 48 is wholly dedicated to making this point. It is reckoned to be folly, because it exceeds all human capacities." Or was there? 3) Jesus finished the work that God had sent Him to do ( John 17:4 ). Acts 5:41 is another place where glory is IN (not after) the experience of shameAnd they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. This is also Pauls logic throughout 2 Corour shame is the demonstration of Gods glory. What is described here is the ideal Sufferer, the Suffering Servant. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. Required fields are marked *. Treves, Marco. But its going to happen in a surprising way. We do not seek suffering. This was not the kind of Messiah they were expecting. But their messianic expectations for a new King David or King Solomon, who would restore Israel to its proper place in the world, full of power, glory and wealth, was not His mission. 4), it is clear that Jesus understood Himself and His mission in the light of the prophecies in Isaiah and in particular the Suffering Servant. It is that kind of pleasure. The passage is divided into five stanzas of three verses each. 53:4). Gelston, A. Verse two describes his beginnings: like a tender plant in a parched ground. Then youll enjoy Timothy Tennents book, The Fulfillment: Jesus and the Old Testament, where he explores how Jesus Christ fulfills many Old Testament characters, stories, themes, and practices. We consider the sufferer an unlucky person who is falling by the way. The response to the suffering Servant is so true to life. 53:9). Its the story of Gods defeat of evil so that you and I can be rescued from the human condition, the death we see all around us, and that which we find inside ourselves. Jesus shame on the cross and his everlasting glory are more closely interlinked than we fathom, as Isaiah promises. The contrast is staggeringhe will startle kings (startle is preferable to the translation sprinkle). The Golden Passional of the Old Testament. BibSac 94 (1934):211-232, 337-353. Hopefully youll re-read the four Servant Songs (or the whole book of Isaiah!) Success with God may not include fame and fortune, health and happinessas the world knows them. If we paraphrase the first verse we would say something like, No one ever imagined this. The verse is expressed in the form of questions. And the pain brought spiritual healing and peacethat is, the suffering was redemptive. While we were yet sinners, he died for us. The Suffering Servant speaks his response to his mission in the Second oracle. Not so with the suffering Servant. God made this Servant a sin (guilt) offering for many, so that by their knowledge of him they might be justified. The Lord may call on us to suffer and even perhaps to die. 3) could hardly be significantthey say. 42:1-4; 49:1-7; 50:4-11; 52:13-53) that Jesus combines with the Son of Man prophecy from Daniel 7 to explain the kind of Messiah He is. In the ever growing clear vision of the Messiah, the Hebrew prophet introduces Yahweh's Servant (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12). Isaiah 53. VT 24 (1974):98-108. Jesus Christ not only comes to earth as perfect man (the second Adam), but He also comes as our High Priest, our Prophet-Redeemer, our Final Sacrifice, our Lawgiver and our King. Mitteilungen Ein Vorschlag zu Jes 53:10f. ZAW 81 (1969):377-380. Soggin, J. Alberto. 8:31-33). A little later, Jesus will repeat the same prophecy to them, but they will still refuse to hear what He is saying because they are too busy deciding who will be most important in the Kingdom (Mk. The theme announced in the first verse is now developed: the exaltation follows humiliation. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, and greater spiritual service can no one do for others, than to suffer with them and for them that they might be healed spiritually. Isaiah was included in the books of the Hebrew Bible that Jesus surveyed with his disciples after the resurrection, showing them that everything had been anticipated in the Torah, the prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44-49). The promised Savior as suffering servant (vv. The second set of expressions clarify the purpose of this vicarious or substitutionary suffering as redemptive: The chastisement of our peace and by his stripes we are healed. All interpreters of this verse agree that the peace, the healing, is ours in consequence of the chastisement and scourging. Jeremiah associates this verb with the prophecy of the Messiah receiving the kingdom (23:5). How will it go down? They go beyond the typical survival skills list, since what matters most is what lies in your head and in your heart. MacRae, Allan. What do I do about calling a priest father at my Catholic University? This is the surprise fifth figure of Christ as Suffering Servant. The Countenance of the Servant of the LORD, Was It Marred? JQR 65 (1975):217-220. He acknowledges the call God has given to him from his birth and announces that the salvation of Israel is ordered not only to their own redemption, but indeed the deliverance of all nations. This helps them have a holistic perspective on any situation. This is seen in the way Jesus treats the question of his identity as the Messiah. Vindication from the sufferings and insults comes by way of divine elevation. The picture of the suffering of our Lord is nowhere more poignantly displayed than in the prophecy of Isaiah, Chapter 52:13-53:12. He skips the birth of Jesus and dives quickly into presenting his public ministry. 15:3 highlights the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins and Is. Pp. We confess that we deserve it, or complain that we do not. We make snap judgments about suffering on the surface. Bearing fruit in a repentant life honors God who has provided the Substitute to suffer in 3). While some have claimed him to be Isaiah himself or another Old Testament persons or even Israel itself, only Jesus make sense since He alone fits all that is said about the Servant of the Lord. Aslan knew a deeper magic from before the dawn of time. That knowledge was that if a willing victim who had committed no treachery offered up his life for the traitor, then death itself would be overturned. A servant is someone who carries out the will of another. There is no peace with God apart from the chastisement that he, the sinless Son of God, bore. The Servant knows that suffering is in Gods plan the way to glory. That is what Jobs visitors concluded about his suffering. It pleased the LORD to bruise him begins the theological explanation of the suffering. Since the creedal statement of 1 Cor. The Servant became a suffering substitute for us. More civilized peoples have dealt more kindly with them; but sufferers remain a problem for philosophers and a severe test of the faith of religious people. They will face persecution in the dark days that lie ahead (described in Isaiah 56-59 and 63-65a), but ultimately they will inherit the new Jerusalem that God has in store (Isaiah 60-62). On the contrary, the fifth stanza begins, Gods will and pleasure was in it. This is consistent with the description Isaiah gave earlier (11:1), describing the promised Savior as a "shoot" that will come from the "stump of Jesse." His outward . Weaknesses Job fell victim to his culture and thought his suffering must have a traceable cause. Therein is success with God. The book of Isaiah is truly remarkable. JSOT Supp 4. There are three categories: Splinter Skills where the individual possesses specific skills that stand in . No, humiliation is the path for the Suffering Servant's exaltation. But John also emphasizes that Jesus was lifted up to glory on the cross. Williamson, W. G. M. Da`at in Isaiah 53:11. VT 28 (1978):118-122. The quotation of the Suffering Servant songs in the New Testament makes it clear that the early church understood that Jesus Christ was the Suffering Servant. In every family, in every nation, the innocent suffer for the guilty. It was completely scandalizing to think that this suffering Jesus was actually God in the flesh. Who is this?! But in addition to this truth, there is an additional application, a secondary application that flows from this. Nicholas, great point here! inquire no more! Everyday we allow the dulness of poverty, the ugliness of disease, the futility of misfortune, the disappointment of failure, to prevent us for realizing that we share the responsibility for them. But just like Joseph and his brothers who planned evil to destroy him, God orchestrated their evil to result in good (remember Genesis 50:20!). ), providing atonement for their evil. helpless race; If First Corinthians was a show, it might be slotted into the daytime melodrama genre. he is not born into nobility, but he possesses the characteristics of an noble man. Tenacity ("stick-to-it-ness") This, more than anything else, has beaten many a would-be . In the gift of Gods Son into the worldOne born to suffer and diewe finally come to fully know and comprehend the love of God. Its a profound development of that strange, poetic image we were introduced to all the way back in Genesis 3:15, about the suffering seed of the woman who would destroy the serpent: And I [God] will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. The messiah's justice-restoring salvation is a means to the end goal of God's name being rightly honored. John Calvin comments on today's passage as to why salvation through the Suffering Servant is so despised the world over: "The loftiness of the mystery is a reason why it scarcely obtains credit in the world. All of their messianic hopes seemed to be dashed to the ground.
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