Open your Bibles, please, to Isaiah 53. We’ve been in a long series on messianic prophecy, and for a good amount of time now we’ve been in the prophecy of Isaiah, working through the many messianic prophecies that we find there; and really, we haven’t looked at all of them. We’ve been highlighting them, and now the last several times we’ve been looking through the servant songs: Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50, and now Isaiah 52, verse 13, through the end of chapter 53.
This evening, we will focus on verses seven through nine. Isaiah 53, verse seven:
“He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is before its shearers 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? And 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.”
As I mentioned, we’ve been looking through the servant songs in Isaiah. Isaiah 42 is the first of the servant songs. These are poems that the prophet announces regarding the coming of the servant of the Lord. And in the first one, Isaiah 42, the servant is introduced: “Behold my servant.” The accent there is on his success. He’ll be glorified. He’ll bring forth justice to the nations. He will accomplish God’s purpose in the earth.
And then the second servant song, Isaiah 49 verses 1 to 13, and then the third song, Isaiah 50 verses 4 through 11—they both echo the success theme that we find in Isaiah 42 (he’ll be a light to the nations and so on), but there’s a growing emphasis on the suffering of the servant as well. It seems, before the fact—from our standpoint we get it all—but before the fact it must have seemed very puzzling to look at these prophecies and say he’ll be successful, he’ll bring justice to the nation, and then at the same time the prophecy saying that he will suffer unjustly. He will be shamed, and he’ll be defeated, and so on. How all of that comes together must have been a real mystery for them until now, after the fact, we’ve seen in the work of Christ how that comes to pass.
But there is in those second two songs, Isaiah 49 and Isaiah 50, that growing emphasis on the servant’s humiliation and suffering. Isaiah 49 and verse 7 says he will be deeply despised and abhorred by the nation. And then Isaiah 50 in verse 6 has the servant saying, “I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.”
And now we come to this last, or this fourth servant song, Isaiah 52, verse 13, through the end of chapter 53, and both of those ideas are prominent: both his success, that he will be exalted and glorified, and the theme of his suffering and humiliation. The song, though, this fourth poem, is bracketed with the emphasis on his exaltation and success. Isaiah 52, verse 13, at the outset, tells us, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely, he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.” And then this poem ends at the end of chapter 53, verse 12: “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great.” So we have the emphasis here, front and back, that he will be successful and he will be exalted.
And in between, we have this heavy emphasis on his suffering. We come to learn, as we’ve seen, that his suffering actually becomes the means of his success, the means of his triumph. Of course, we find that clearly spelled out when we come to the New Testament; particularly, that’s a theme that the Gospel of John picks up.
Now in this one, we have five stanzas. By way of review, chapter 52, verses 13 to 15, are five stanzas of three verses each: verses 13 to 15, then chapter 53 verses 1 to 3, verses 4 to 6, and then verses 7 through 9, and then finally verses 10 through 12 that we’ll see next time. I’ve mentioned that we have alternating themes in each of these stanzas. Now the first stanza introduces the whole thing and sets the stage, kind of a prologue summarizing the main themes of the rest of the song. But then we have in stanzas 2, 3, 4, and 5, we have the alternating emphases.
In stanza 2, we have the emphasis on his suffering. They will tell us that he suffered. That’s verses 1 to 3. It might tell us what he suffered. But then the next stanza tells us why he suffered, and it gives the explanation for it. He’s borne our transgressions. And then again, now in the passage we look at this evening, the focus again will be on what he suffered—that he suffered—and he’ll tell us some specifics of what he will suffer. And then in turn, verses 10 to 12 next time will provide further explanation as to why he suffered.
As we come to verses 7 to 9, it’s not entirely clear who is speaking. You might remember that I mentioned there are some alternating or changing voices in this poem. In Isaiah 52, verses 13 to 15, it’s clear that the Lord is speaking: “Behold, my servant.” And then verses 1 to 6, Israel is speaking, and here they’re speaking collectively in retrospect; and at the same time, they are confessing their previous unbelief and professing their newfound faith in this servant who has come. And they say there, in essence, in verses 1 to 6: “We didn’t know, we didn’t understand, we didn’t recognize him for who he was, we rejected him, we despised him, and we thought he was suffering and got what was coming to him.”
Now in verses 7 to 9, it seems that the prophet is speaking. It’s either the prophet or God himself speaking in verses 7 to 9. When we get to verse 11, it is the Lord who is speaking: “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. I will divide him a portion with the many.” It’s clearly God who is speaking. But in verses 7 through 9 here, it seems that the prophet is speaking. I’m not certain of that. It could be the Lord. “He was oppressed. He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb stricken.” Verse 8: “He was stricken for the transgression of my people.”
A Voluntary Sufferer
Well, the overall emphasis then of verses 7 to 9 is the voluntary suffering. He is a submissive servant. That’s the overall emphasis of these verses: that he was a voluntary sufferer. He endured all of this, and he did so voluntarily.
Let’s work our way through that. Verse 7: “He was oppressed and he was afflicted.” That is to say, he was treated violently. He was treated tyrannically. He was, I guess to put it bluntly, he was roughed up and bullied. That’s the idea here. And his response in verse 7—two times it tells us he didn’t even open his mouth. Verse 7: “Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” No protest; he just submitted to what was happening and gave himself to it willingly without rebuke.
Now we have here the sheep illustration: “like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,” and so on. I’m sure that’s playing off of the lamb, the sacrificial lamb theme that we find so prominently in the Old Testament. I have no doubt that there are allusions to that. I think that’s picked up in John 1:29: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” I don’t know what all John is referring to there, but I would think it has to include at least something here in Isaiah 53, where the lamb is slain on behalf of his people. So I have no doubt that they’re having in these verses, when he mentions in verse 7 this lamb illustration or the sheep illustration.
But the point is his voluntary submission to the suffering. There’s no protest. There’s no rebuke. He doesn’t stop and say, “Hey, you shouldn’t be doing this.” He just takes it willingly. Unjust though the suffering was, he offers no protest. He gives himself to it. So if in verse 6 we read, “The Lord laid on him our iniquity,” this was the Lord’s doing. Here in verse 7 we learn that the servant was one with him in it. He voluntarily took the role. He made our sins willingly his, and took the suffering without protest. He was the sinner’s substitute, but justice is not served if the substitute is not a willing substitute. And so twice we are told in verse 7, he didn’t open his mouth—no rebuke, no protest—and unjust though the suffering was (that will be emphasized again later), unjust though it was, he took it all without protest.
Now all of this points us back to a huge theme that we can find elsewhere in the Scriptures, and that is it points us back to before time in the very purpose of God in creation. God had determined to save a people for himself, to glorify himself in the redemption of sinners. He chose a people for himself. He gave those people to his Son. That’s the language that’s used in the Gospel of John. He gave them to his Son, and the Son in turn willingly came to do what was necessary to achieve their redemption. He was the sinner’s substitute, and so he went to take the punishment due their sin. We find that echoed in 1 Peter 1, which echoes Isaiah 53. Jesus is referred to as the Lamb foreordained before the foundation of the world. So the Son took on himself this task of redemption, and he took it willingly.
So the Father sent the Son on a saving mission. The Son took it up willingly. And when it came to the moment, horrifying though it was, he did not resist. He didn’t protest. And in fact, in the Gospel of John, the language that we read is that this was his hour—the hour for which he had come, the hour in which he accomplishes the Father’s mission.
So, verse 7, then, the Son, the servant, willingly takes the role. You might remember in Isaiah 50 and verse 7, in the third servant song, he set himself like a flint. The servant himself is talking: “I’ve set my face like a flint.” And then you get this idea of a deep resolve that he’s determined to go through with whatever suffering comes his way to fulfill the Father’s mission. That actually is echoed in Luke chapter 9, where we find Luke describing Jesus in those days before the cross: when it came time to go up, he set his face like a flint, reaching back to the servant song, Isaiah chapter 50.
Jesus determined to go through it. And we find that in the account of Jesus’ arrest and trial as well. It’s worth rehearsing it. Matthew 26: he’s arrested and he offers no resistance. One person did offer some resistance. You remember? That was Peter. Pulls his sword. Poor Malchus lost his ear temporarily. You remember what Jesus had to say? “This wasn’t thrust on me against my control. If I wanted, I could ask the Father. He’d send 12 legions of angels. This isn’t something being forced upon me.”
And so Jesus went willingly, and then we find in Luke 23, he went before Herod, and Herod Antipas questioned him at some length. We are told in Luke 23, verse nine, he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. And then we find he went to Pilate. He was offered opportunity to speak on his own behalf. And we have this remark in Matthew 27, that Pilate marveled at Jesus because he offered no protest, no defense. Matthew 27, verses 11 and following:
“Jesus stood before the governor. The governor asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ And Jesus said, ‘You have said so.’ But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?’ But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.”
I’ve never seen anyone like this. He’s brought up on charges. They seem flimsy. He’s given opportunity to speak in his own defense. He says nothing. Like a lamb being led to the shearers, he opens not his mouth. When we suffer, and particularly when we suffer injustice, one of the most difficult things is to bite our tongue. But this is what he does.
Lord Jesus had come on a mission to save. And David Baron—he was a Jewish Christian biblical scholar in the late 19th, early 20th centuries—remarked here: “In sublime and magnanimous silence, he accepted everything.” He had come to save; he’d come to save sinners. He must bear the just judgment of God against sin in their place. And though the treatment of Jesus was unjust, in that unjust treatment, he bore the just judgment of God against sinners. And with a heart in sync with the Father, he set his heart of love on these people who were given to him. And he came without protest to go through with it.
An Oppressive Judgment
Well, then we have verse eight. By the way, it’s one of the interesting things about prophecy—fascinating things. Here we have something written some 700-plus years before Jesus, and the detail and the specifics sometimes that are given. Sometimes the prophecies are vague, and after the fact you see it and you say, “Oh, that’s exactly what he was talking about.” But sometimes the prophecies are very specific. And we find that here. First of all, in verse seven, he didn’t open his mouth—no protest, no rebuke.
And now again, in verse eight: “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?”
“By oppression and judgment”—I think the sense of that is, if we just turn it into an adjectival phrase, by oppressive judgment. That’s the sense of it, I think. By an oppressive judgment, he was taken away. “Taken away” meaning taken away to his death. And you see that in the parallel lines: “By oppression and judgment, he was taken away; as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living.” Taken away to his death. The idea then: this was an oppressive judgment. It’s a judicial murder, if you will. It was trumped-up charges. It was a kangaroo court. The outcome was predetermined. The charges were flimsy. He was arrested. He was mocked. Those trials just simply brought about what they had determined ahead of time.
And so we find the account in the Gospels. He went to Annas, the high priest, in John. Then he went to the Sanhedrin and stood before them. And then he went to Pilate, and then he went to Herod, and then he went back to Pilate again. And in each case, he’s treated like a criminal. Well, that’s actually—if you jump down, look at verse 12—he was numbered among the transgressors.
And then verse 8 again: “As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living?” I think the sense of that simply is: who gave a hoot? For all in his generation, all that happened to him, unjust though it was, who cared? Fellow countrymen despised him. Even his disciples fled. Verse 8 continues: “Who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” No one understood. No one cared. No one cared because no one understood the significance of his death. He was led as a lamb to offer himself in sacrifice to God; no one understood. Here this is happening, this awful miscarriage of justice, and yet he’s bearing the just judgment of God against sin in place of God’s people. No one cared, no one understood.
By the way, verse 8, “stricken for the transgression of my people”—that always in Isaiah means Israel. But as we find in verses 11 and 12, and back in the first stanza, chapter 52, verse 15, his work is going to avail for God’s people beyond Israel. He’ll sprinkle many nations and there’ll be many people. Verse 11 here: “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. He shall bear their iniquities.” And that’s picked up in John chapter 10 where Jesus says, “I lay down my life for the sheep. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold and them also I must bring.” So his work extends beyond Israel. Of course, that’s picked up in the book of Revelation when men and women from every tribe and nation and kindred and tongue sing the praise of Christ who redeemed by his blood.
His Burial
Now again, verse nine takes us beyond general description to some specifics—a glimpse of what actually happened, what actually would happen, and then what actually happened to the Lord Jesus. Back in verse four, if you’d like to review, we found that he would be pierced (the nails, the spear). He would be chastised. The idea of that word is that he would be beaten with blows and stripes. He would suffer wounds. Then in verse 8, he’s arrested, he’s given a mock trial, whisked away to his death.
Now verse 9: his burial. “They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.” Now this is a remarkable prophetic detail. He’s assigned a grave with the wicked. The “wicked” there is plural. He’s assigned a grave with wicked people. Well, he’s associated with two thieves in his death. But instead, he was buried with a rich man (singular), buried with a rich man. So this is surprising and a fascinating turn of events.
We find it in the Gospels, of course, involving this man by the name of Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea. It’s recorded in all four of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We find that Joseph was a rich man from Arimathea. We read that he was a respected member of the council, that is a respected member of the Sanhedrin. He was himself looking for the kingdom of God. We read that he was a righteous man and a good man—a man who had not consented to their judgment against Jesus. We read that he was a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one because of the fear of the Jews.
But then we find him; he stood up to the moment. Jesus is crucified and it was Joseph of Arimathea who had the courage to go to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus. Pilate ordered that the body be given to him. He laid Jesus’ body in his own tomb. It was a new tomb, we read, that had been cut out of rock. It was one that was to be for him. It was a tomb where no one yet had been laid. And it says that he—we read that he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight, to prepare the body of Jesus for a respectable burial.
That’s fascinating, too, because the custom of the time was for a criminal, when he was crucified, after he died, his body was left on the cross. Part of the shock factor. Rome would instill fear into the people. Leave the body to rot for a while, let the birds pick at it, then finally it’d be taken and thrown in the local dump. But Jesus’ body was not left to the birds, and it was not thrown in a dump, but he was given an extravagant burial. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but instead he was buried with a rich man. Verse nine: “They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.”
An Innocent Sufferer
Now the last part of verse 9 then adds a very important observation. This is picked up in the New Testament many times. The fact is that he was not only a submissive sufferer, but he was an innocent sufferer as well. He suffered for the guilty, though he himself had done no offense. No guile in his mouth, and he had done no violence.
Now, this is often emphasized in the New Testament, of course, about Jesus. In fact, it’s emphasized even in his own day. Jesus himself could look at his critics, those who opposed him, and say, “Which of you convinces me of sin?” Pilate admitted the same about Jesus. His wife, Pilate’s wife, said the same about Jesus: “Have nothing to do with this innocent man.” The centurion: “Surely this is a righteous man.” And in fact, one of the criminals crucified with Jesus rebuked the other who was mocking. They both had been mocking initially. Finally, this one rebukes the other one who is mocking and says, “This man has done nothing wrong. You and I, we’re being crucified for what we deserve, not him.”
In Hebrews, we find this picked up in an important way. Hebrews 4 verse 15: “Our high priest is one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Here’s a high priest who knows all the suffering that we endure. He understands all the emotion of it. He’s been there. The only difference between him and us is that he’s been there successfully. He’s without sin.
1 Peter 2, the Apostle Peter picks up on this. 1 Peter 2, verses 22 and following: “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” That’s verse 9 of Isaiah 53. And then he continues: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.” That’s the submissive servant. “When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” And now again, citing Isaiah 53: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed.”
Well, if the servant was to bear the sin of others, it was necessary that he himself would have no sin. For justice to be served, he must not only be a willing sufferer, he must be an innocent sufferer to stand in the place of the guilty. This, of course, the structures for this are given to us in the Old Testament in the sacrificial system. Read through the book of Leviticus, a book that seems so strange to us. All of the sacrifice—but you’ll find something cropping up over and again: “The sacrifice offered must be without blemish.” Must be without blemish, must be without blemish, must be a perfect sacrifice that is offered. And all of that, prospective of the real substitute standing in the place of sinners who has no sin. Jesus was an acceptable substitute.
So verses seven through nine: the Lord’s servant suffered undeservedly. He suffered unjustly. We read here that they whisked him away as soon as they could. The trial that they gave him was a mockery of justice. They put him to death. No one gave it a thought. He had done no violence. There was no deceit in his mouth. But they executed him as a criminal. And through it all, he did not protest. He did not resist. He went along with all of it willingly. He had come on a mission to save, to rescue God’s people from their sin, and he comes willingly to stand in their place and to go the distance. Hard to imagine a human being enduring such without protest. But that was the resolve of the Lord Jesus in coming to save.
All right. Let’s stand and be dismissed in prayer. Pastor Greg, would you pray for us, please?