Podcast Episode- The Gospel According to Isaiah 53- The Life of the Suffering Servant

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5 Predictions about Jesus life. The predictions were made:

  • He would be a servant.  He came not be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.

  • His coming would be notable.  He is that root out of dry ground, that life in the dessert.  He is the way, the truth and the life.

  • His appearance was not notable, but He is beautiful to all that know Him.  He has the beautiful feet of the one who brings good news.

  • His experience was like ours, and we can know that He has dealt with all of the grief and sorrows of life that we do.  He loves us and cares for us.

  • He was rejected, and as a result of His rejection and substitutionary death on the cross, you and I can be accepted into the family of God, and be forgiven of all of our sin.

The Gospel According to Isaiah 53: Predictions about His Life- Prediction #5- His reception will be rejection. (53:3-4)

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(4)  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:4

Explanation:

Isaiah did write that the Messiah would experience the griefs and sorrows of life. He predicted that those who he would come to would see him as an ordinary person- not particularly physically attractive, subject to everything in life that we endure. And what that would mean is that he would be assessed as someone that endured the punishment of God, and subject to the curse just like everyone else. He was esteemed as “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” What was the case that the rules of Israel made against Jesus?

(4)  Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. (5)  Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! (6)  When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. (7)  The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.

John 19:4-7

They thought He was just another man who was claiming to be God. They thought that His punishment was just and brought about by God through them as God’s servants because they were “keeping the law”. Jesus was not punished by God for claiming to be God. Jesus was punished by God, as we shall see, but not for His own sin. God the Father declared multiple times, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

The resurrection is God’s final answer as to the acceptability of Jesus Christs identity and His sacrifice for sins.

Application:

Jesus told his followers that just like he would be rejected we would be, too.

(18)  If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. (19)  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. (20)  Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

John 15:18-20

(33)  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

We can count it an honor to be rejected for proclaiming the name of Jesus because He was rejected for us.

Respond:

Lord, help me to be willing to be rejected for you. Thank you for being rejected for us. Amen

The Gospel According to Isaiah 53: Predictions about His Life- Prediction #4- His experience will be like ours. (53:4)

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(4)  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:4

Explanation:

Each one of these predictions could be a sermon in themselves in regard to how Jesus fulfilled them. In the first part of verse 4 we are told that he would bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows. Certainly, this applies to the sin that He would bare on the cross at some level.

It also speaks to His human experience. We see Jesus humbling Himself and experiencing all that we face as humans ourselves. As we already noted he lived in a body. He had relationships. He was betrayed. He felt pain, joy, sickness, and the transcendent. The writer of Hebrews put it this way: 

(15)  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 4:15

The world was cursed by sin and the effects of sin.  Sin when it is finished brings forth death. Because Jesus lived in a sin cursed world He dealt with all the effects of sin that you and I deal with as well. Do you remember when Jesus went to see Lazarus after he died?  He stood near the tomb knowing He was about to raise him from the dead, and seeing the weeping and wailing of the family and the mourners He wept as well. 

Application:

What a privilege to know that there is nothing that I can take to Jesus in prayer that He hasn’t experienced. He knows what you are going through. He cares about what we go through. He died so that the sin of curse could be broken, and we can be redeemed.

Response:

Lord, thank You for taking our experience and knowing what it means to be us. Thank you for dying for us. Amen

The Gospel According to Isaiah 53: Prediction #3- His appearance will not be notable. (53:2)

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(2)  For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Isaiah 53:2

Explanation:

The prophet goes on to talk about what would not be notable about this servant who we know to be Jesus Christ. What was notable about Jesus was not his physical appearance. He had two feet, two hands, a nose, armpits and hair. He grew. He aged. This prediction tells us that he was not particularly attractive. As we read the accounts of Jesus in the New Testament this is substantiated.

When he was being betrayed, he had to be pointed out by Judas through a kiss.  He looked to those guards like every other man there.

When the woman at the well met him, she wasn’t struck that He was the Messiah by his appearance. He had to tell her that He was the Messiah.

(25)  The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. (26)  Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

John 4:25-26

What was notable about Jesus to this woman?

(28)  The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, (29)  Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? (30)  Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.

John 4:28-30

The Word He revealed to her, the truth that He gave to her, and the way that He treated her was what impacted her, not his appearance.

Application:

A principle in scripture that helps us understand how God views things is expressed in 1 Samuel 16:7.

(7)  But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7

Jesus did not emphasize the external over the internal and neither should we. Who we are on the inside should be primary, and it should affect the outside. As God regenerates us, and begins to change us it is always from the inside out.

Response:

Lord, help me to not worry about the external more than internal. Amen.