Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Isaiah 53:10-12 | Date: March 16, 2025 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, once again to Isaiah 53. We’ve been looking in this long series on messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. For some time we’ve been in the prophecy of Isaiah, and then for some time within that, looking at the servant songs in Isaiah.

In Isaiah 42, you’ll remember verses one to seven, the servant is introduced. It is said that he’ll be successful, he’ll be glorified, and he’ll bring forth justice to the nations. And then we saw in Isaiah 49, again the servant is called of God to do a great task, and there it’s told us he’ll be a light to the nations. There’s also in Isaiah 49 a hint of his humiliation as well. He says at one point in Isaiah 49 verse 4, “I’ve labored in vain.” And then Isaiah 49 verse 7, it says he will be deeply despised and abhorred by the nation.

Then we went to Isaiah 50, the third of the so-called servant songs, and there the servant suffers humiliation. Verses 5 and 6, we saw there, “I gave my back to those who strike, my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” And yet we saw at the same time in Isaiah 50 that he was certain of vindication. It says in verse 7, “I have not been disgraced. I know that I shall not be put to shame.” So he’s confident of the success and the honor that God will give him for completing his mission.

Then we came to the fourth of the servant songs. We always refer to this as Isaiah 53. It’s actually Isaiah 52, verse 13, through the end of Isaiah 53. And here, both of those themes are prominent: the servant’s success, and his exaltation, and his honor. And yet, also with that, he’ll be despised and rejected. So both of those themes are prominent here in this song.

We’ve already seen that throughout the passage, it is his suffering that comes into view most prominently. That’s the focus of it. And yet, at the beginning of the song, Isaiah 52 and verse 13 and following, and then at the end of the passage, Isaiah 53 and verse 12, we have the passage bracketed with a note of the servant’s success and the honor that will be given to him. We’ll see a little bit more of that this evening.

I would like to read through the entire passage one more time with you. I think I’ll take the time for that. Isaiah 52, beginning with verse 13. Here the Lord introduces his servant again, announces his career of suffering and his ultimate success.

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many as 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 had not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.”

And then the second stanza—remember there are five stanzas here, three verses each. The second stanza, verses one to three of chapter 53, he describes the servant’s rejection and suffering. And here Israel speaks, confessing her previous rejection of the servant.

“Who has believed what he has heard from us? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, 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.”

Then the next three verses we have explaining the reason for the servant’s suffering. And here Israel confesses their newfound faith.

“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’ve turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Then verses seven to nine again describe the servant’s suffering.

“He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, 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? 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.”

Then in verses 10 to 12, we have the final stanza, and here either the prophet—eventually it’s the Lord speaking, it may be the entire portion here that the Lord himself is speaking—again now explaining the reason for the servant’s sufferings and what he achieves by it.

“Verse 10, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for sin, 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 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.”

Alright, last time we began looking at this last stanza; we were not able to finish it. You might remember, just to pick up where we were last time, I mentioned that in verse 10, we have five stated results of the servant’s death that indicate his success in death.

Five Stated Results Of The Servant’s Death

Number one, verse 10: “when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring,” or he shall see his seed. The point there is that those sinners for whom he died, whose transgressions he took that we read of in verses four to six, they in fact will be saved. And it says he will see them. He’ll see the results of his death. Though he’s put to death, he will see that those for whom he died are in fact saved. I think there’s a hint there already of his resurrection, but we have that in the next one.

Five stated results of his death indicating his success. Number one, he shall see his offspring.

Number two, he shall prolong his days. That is, although he’s put to death, his days are prolonged. I don’t know any way to understand that except to say this is a prophecy of his resurrection. I’m not sure how anyone could have understood that before the case. It’s just too fantastic. Who would come up with this? That he’d suffer such a shameful death and then be raised from the dead in vindication. But at least after the fact, looking back, there’s certainly no other way to take this. We see that that was the prophecy.

Again, the third result of his death, indicating his success, verse 10. This is where we left off last time: “The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”

What is the will of the Lord that will prosper in the hands of his servant? Well, in Isaiah 53, the will of the Lord was to secure the redemption of his people. Verse 10, to make his soul or his life an offering for guilt. We look back to Isaiah 42. The servant was to embody and to bring about every covenant blessing for the Lord’s people, to enact a new covenant and bring about all that it promised. In Isaiah 42, we find that he says, “I’ll give you,” verses six and seven, “I’ll give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nation, to open the eyes that are blind and to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness.”

So he will be the covenant and a light for the nations by means of his death. And then we saw in Isaiah 49 that through his death, the Lord’s salvation will reach to the ends of the earth. So what we find then is that the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What that will is, is the Lord’s global saving purpose. And it says that purpose, that will of the Lord, will prosper in the hands of the servant who is put to death shamefully. As a result of his death, God’s global saving purpose will be brought to fruition. He will not fail. In his death, he will secure the salvation of God’s people throughout the world, and he’ll be a light to the nations. That’s the purpose of this age. The servant has died, has died in the place of sinners, and now throughout this age, one by one, he’s securing his people for his kingdom—those for whom he died, bringing them into the safety of his kingdom.

All right, we concluded with that last time, and now we pick up with the fourth result of his death, indicating his success, and now it’s verse 11. Here he expands: “Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.”

What will he see? Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see. What will he see? Well, verse 10, he’ll see his offspring. Verse 10, he’ll see the will of the Lord prospering in his capable hands. Isaiah 42, again, he’ll see the Lord’s justice established in the earth. Isaiah 49, he’ll see the light gone out to the nations. He’ll see every new covenant blessing brought. He’ll see the establishment in the church. He’ll see a redeemed nation. Isaiah 65 and 66, he’ll see a new heaven, a new earth. All that he died to accomplish, he’ll succeed in. And out of the anguish of his soul, he’ll see it, and he’ll be satisfied. He will not be a disappointed redeemer. He gives himself in death and he’ll see that the outcome of it all has in fact come and he’ll be satisfied. No mishaps, no mistakes, no failures, no second thoughts—”Wonder if I could have done better.” But he will see all of God’s global saving purpose come to fruition and he’ll be satisfied with the perfect success of all that he came to do.

Marvelous, marvelous prospect. So verse 11a gives us the long view of the ultimate results of his saving work. God’s global saving purpose brought to final culmination through the work of the servant. The Lord Jesus will not be a disappointed Savior. And that is told us ahead of time. So he’ll come, he’ll suffer, he’ll be despised, he’ll suffer defeat. But in his defeat, he will triumph and succeed in accomplishing all that God has purposed for him.

And that brings us to the fifth stated result of his death. And again, in verse 11: “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous,” or, “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be justified.”

Now the expression at the beginning of that, “by his knowledge,” it’s a little complicated, difficult to translate. It seems that the meaning is pretty clear and that is by our knowledge of him. “His knowledge” being our knowledge of him. And so he’s saying by knowing him, by our knowledge of him, many will be justified. Justified by means of association with the servant.

Now this is a little bit subtle, a little bit cryptic. It’s not as fully developed as what we find in the New Testament. But this is exactly the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith through imputed righteousness of Christ. On what ground do you expect God to accept you as righteous? There’s only one answer: I know him. By his knowledge, by the knowledge of this righteous servant, many will be accounted righteous. This is the doctrine of what we call the alien righteousness. It’s not our own righteousness. It’s the righteousness of the righteous servant. By means of our association with him, we are counted righteous before God.

And then he goes on to expand on that: “and he shall bear their iniquities.” Now that’s an expression we find also back in verse 4: “He has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows.” Now verse 11, “he shall bear their iniquities.” We’ll see it again in verse 12: “He bore the sin of many.” To bear sin or to carry sin has the connotations of bearing the punishment for sin. So we’re back to the doctrine of the penal substitutionary death of Christ. He died in the place of sinners bearing the penalty of their sin. To bear the punishment.

In Leviticus chapter 16, for example, guilty Israel goes free because their sin is placed on the scapegoat, and the scapegoat goes out into the wilderness bearing their sin. In Leviticus chapter 24, a blasphemer was taken outside the camp to be put to death, and there he will bear his sin. It’s the idea of being punished for sin. We find the same in Numbers chapter 14, that passage where the spies had gone in to scout out the land. They came back with their bad report. And the Lord assigns the penalty for it. This is Numbers 14:34: “According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, 40 days. A year for each day you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.”

So to bear sin, or to carry iniquity, is the idea of being punished, carrying the punishment for sin. And that, he says, is the nature of the servant’s death. He’s punished for sin. Now he is the righteous servant, so he’s not punished for his own sin. He has no sin for which he would be punished. He bears their iniquities. We find that back in verse four. Our sicknesses, He bore them; our pains, He suffered them. Verse five, He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With His wounds we are healed. Verse six, we all like sheep have gone astray, turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord has laid our iniquity on him. Verse eight, he was stricken for the transgression of God’s people. Verse 10, his death was a guilt offering, the guilt offering par excellence. Verse 11, now again where we are, their iniquities. And actually, that’s the way it reads in the Hebrew. It’s fronted just to draw attention to the idea. It’s their iniquities that he bore. Their iniquities, he bore them. By his sufferings, many are made righteous. And then we’ll see it again in verse 12: “For he, the sins of many, he bore them.”

Well, that is simply the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith through the work of Jesus Christ. It is the glorious announcement of the gospel that Jesus, the servant of the Lord, has come and done everything that God has required for the salvation of his people. This is one of the wonderful ironies of the gospel. We naturally think that when we go to God, we’ve got somehow to make ourselves acceptable. And the great irony of the gospel is you come like that and he won’t have you.

We come confessing that we are not acceptable and we have nothing to offer. Our whole hope is what the servant has done in our place. I read a quote this past week on one of the values of Facebook. Imagine that. I read a quote, I think by A.W. Tozer it was. Marvelous quote, succinct to the point: “The only sin that Jesus ever had was ours. The only righteousness we will ever have is his.” That’s the point here of this passage exactly. We come confessing our guilt and our emptiness, but we say to God, “You’ve sent your servant to do for us all that you require. And I come in his name.” And so we tell others, “I’m righteous before God and accepted.” And it says nothing about me. It says something about Jesus. The servant, the righteous servant in whom we are made righteous. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter three talks about his past life and all the things that he thought were a credit to his account. He said, “I’ve abandoned them all that I may be found in him.” When God comes and examines me, what he’ll find is that I’m associated with the righteous servant and in association with him, I’m accounted righteous. Well, after all of that, then we have verse 12.

The Servant Exalted

The Lord here speaks, and he brings a final of the servant’s songs to conclusion. And here he speaks of the servant exalted. “Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.”

One Old Testament scholar translates this, “I will apportion to him the many. The strong he will apportion as the spoiled.” The idea is that God will reward him and give him everything that he has earned. Well, what is it that the servant has earned? Well, let’s go back again through these servant songs. Isaiah 49: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I’ll make you a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” It is God’s global saving purpose, the salvation of the nations that is in view. And God says, “I’ll give it to him.”

A wonderful prophecy of this in Psalm 2. The nations are raging against God. God laughs. It’ll never succeed. “I’ve set my king on Zion, my holy hill.” And then the Messiah speaks. Remember in Psalm 2? And he gives us this little insight into this conversation that he had with God. The king himself speaks. It said, “He told me, ask of me and I’ll give you the nations for your inheritance.” You have this wonderful picture then of the Lord Jesus in his incarnation coming, doing the work of the servant that’s been assigned to him. And through his death and resurrection, he’s exalted to the throne of the universe. And he’s ascended to heaven and he says to the Father, “You’ve promised. You’ve promised that I would have the nations. I’ve done the work.” And the Father says, “You’ll have them.” And he gives it to him.

And all of this because, verse 12, because of these four facts: “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.” He interposed himself, intervened on their behalf. They were under condemnation, just condemnation. The servant came and stepped in between them and the Lord’s condemnation, bore the condemnation himself, and they go free. And so because he, the servant, the righteous servant, stood in the place of sinners in judgment, God grants him this great reward for his work and salvation goes to the ends of the earth.

Marvelous prophecy. One Old Testament scholar, professor at Dallas Seminary, makes an interesting comment on this fourth servant song, Isaiah 53. He calls it a rags-to-riches story. He says at the beginning, the servant is despised and rejected, he’s humiliated, he suffers defeat. And yet at the end, he says it turns out he’s altogether successful and he’s exalted as the world’s king. And then he says within that rags-to-riches story, there’s another rags-to-riches story. He says, and that is these wandering rebellious sheep who were certain for condemnation, suddenly they’re forgiven, they’re rescued, and they live joyfully under the reign of the great king.

A marvelous rags-to-riches story. It is that, but I think we can go one up on him. It’s more than just a rags-to-riches story. This is the story of history. The question of history since the garden has been, how will God make the world right with him again? It’s clearly not something the world can do. It’s nothing we’ll accomplish. So how is it the Lord will make the world right with him again? Isaiah’s servant songs summarize the answer for us. And it’s the whole Bible story.

God has appointed a servant. He’ll do the work. He announces up front, introduces the servant to the world, and announces that the servant will be successful. And he’ll be exalted in all that he does. And so the servant comes just as promised. And amazingly, he stands in for God’s people. And he bears their sin. He takes the punishment of their sin to himself. The Lord, to use the language of Isaiah 53, the Lord lays on him the iniquity of all of his people. And then under the hands of rebellious sinners, he’s crushed. But it was the Lord’s crushing, and it was the will of the Lord that was being served as he bore the just condemnation of God’s people in their place.

But standing in the place of sinners as he does, the servant satisfied the demands of divine justice. He stood in their place bearing their sin, and so their sin is removed. And all the demands of divine justice are satisfied. Their sin is forgiven. They’re justified. They’re accounted righteous by virtue of their association with the servant. And so God, seeing the successful work of the servant, God vindicated the servant. He prolonged his days, raised him from the dead, exalted him to a position of the highest honor, gave him the nations for his inheritance, the will of the Lord prospers in his hands, the kingdom of God advances, and he secures the salvation of all of God’s people. And one day, men and women redeemed from every nation under heaven will gather and worship the Lord together through the work of the servant.

The story of history. When I was a kid, the church where my dad was pastor had lettering up on the wall behind the pulpit that said, “We preach Christ crucified, risen, and coming again.” That’s the story of the Bible, that’s the story of these servant songs. The servant was announced, he was introduced, he came, he did the work, was successful in it, secured the salvation of God’s people, and God has rewarded him, and every one of us in turn has experienced the will of the Lord prospering in his hand as he’s come to us and brought us safely into his kingdom. Marvelous prophecies 700 years before Christ, and yet so crystal clear of the gospel that we find expounded at length in the New Testament.

All right. Pastor Greg, would you pray for us, please?