The Servant of the LORD

Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men; so shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.    Isaiah 52:13–53:3

Recently we looked at the Jews’ perplexity over what appeared to them to be two very different Messiahs depicted by the OT prophets. One was a mighty commander to whom all opposition fell, the ruler who exacted vengeance on all His enemies and established unprecedented peace and prosperity. The other was a lowly servant who, without offering any resistance, suffered shame and reproach for the sake of others. And it isn’t just that the Jews overlooked Him or failed to fully grasp His identity; they hanged Him on a cross to die as a criminal who posed a serious threat to the welfare of the Jewish people! What did the prophets say about the coming Messiah?

The book of Isaiah is easily divided into two parts: The first (chapters 1–39) contains a plea for Israel to return to God and Israel’s refusal to hear that plea. The second (chapters 40–66) contains words of hope for the fallen. In this latter section there are four important passages in which the Messiah is described as a servant. As a result, they have commonly been dubbed the “Servant Songs” of Isaiah. In the first of these (42:1–4), the Servant is chosen by God Himself to bring forth justice. In the second (49:1–7), He restores Israel and gives light to the Gentiles. In the third song (50:4–11), the Servant offers His entire body to God’s service (50:4–11). In the final song (the best known today), He is depicted as a man of sorrows (52:13–53:12) who is despised and rejected by men and wounded for the sake of others. This Servant would be divinely chosen to reconcile the entire world to God, and He would pour His entire being into this mission, all the while suffering the abuse and scorn of those He was sent to serve.

The Servant of Isaiah’s songs is none other than Jesus Christ. Jesus was a servant to all: “Who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). And because Jesus humbled Himself to suffer for mankind, “God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). Jesus calls us as His disciples to be servants as well: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant…” (Philippians 2:5–7). When we serve as He served, we can expect the same kind of rejection that He endured (Matthew 10:24–25; John 15:18–20), but we also labor with the promise that those who share in His suffering will likewise share in His glory (James 4:10; Romans 8:17–18). Yes, there will be sacrifices that we must make along the way, but the reward that He promises exceeds by far any service we will render (Matthew 19:27–29; Luke 17:8–10).

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