Isaiah 53:1-3

5. ATONE, CHAPTER 53
a. SHUNNED

TEXT: Isaiah 53:1-3

1

Who had believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?

2

For he grew 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 see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not.

QUERIES

a.

What message was not believed?

b.

What is the dry ground from which He grew?

c.

Why was the Servant a man of sorrows?

PARAPHRASE

But when the Suffering Servant comes, who will have believed this message of the exaltation of the Servant from such a state of deep degradation? who will have recognized in this the victorious, powerful arm of Jehovah? It was the plan of God that His Servant take the form of man and grow up like a fragile, green plant sprouting from dry and sterile ground. In our eyes there was nothing in Him to make Him attractive as king or Messiah. We saw nothing in Him that made us want Him or want to follow Him as our leader. In fact, we despised Him and rejected Him; He suffered the sorrow of rejection and grief of our unbelief as well as our physical persecutions. We went out of our way to shun Him and ignore Him.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 53:1 UNBELIEVING: Chapter 53 is still in the predictive present tense. It is as if the Servant has come, been rejected, slaughtered and the people of Israel are looking at it all in retrospect! The overall reaction of the nation to Jesus-' claims to be the Messiah was scoffing, mockery, rejection and persecution. He gained a few disciples, but at the arrest in Gethsemane, they all forsook Him and fled (Mark 14:50). The nation, as a whole, could not believe that Jehovah was at work revealing His Arm in the itinerant Galilean carpenter's son. It was especially difficult for any who had been attracted to Him during His life to believe that He was God's Servant when they gathered at Golgotha and saw His humiliating death, (cf. Luke 24:13-27). The believing, penitent Jews after their baptism (Acts 2:37, etc.) still marvelled than they could have been so unbelieving. They are represented here by the prophet as continually marvelling as they reflect on their blindness. Twice in the N.T. this very verse of Isaiah's prophecy is quoted as Jesus (John 12:38) and Paul (Romans 10:16) express shock that the Jews did not believe when Jehovah's Servant came to them.

Is there any question as to the identity of this Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53? Servant of Jehovah, -ebed Yahweh in Hebrew is prophesied at least 20 times in Isaiah Chapter s 40-53. Sometimes it refers to Cyrus, king of Persia; sometimes it refers to the nation of Israel (Isaiah 41:8; Isaiah 42:19); but most often it refers to the Messiah (Isaiah 42:1-7; Isaiah 49:1-9; Isaiah 50:4-9; Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12; Isaiah 61:1-3). The Servant is the same person (not nation) previously described in Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 9:6 ff; Isaiah 11:1-5. He is also the Branch of Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 53:2; Jeremiah 23:5 ff; Jeremiah 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12 ff. The inspired authors of the New Testament specifically confirm the following prophecies of the Servant are fulfilled in Jesus Christ; Isaiah 42:1-4 fulfilled in Matthew 12:18-21; Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12 fulfilled (or quoted) in Matthew 8:17; Luke 22:37; John 12:38; Acts 8:32 ff; Romans 10:16. The Servant's mission can only be fulfilled by Christ:

1.

Birth (Isaiah 49:1; Isaiah 53:2; Luke 1:31-35)

2.

Anointing (Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 48:16; Isaiah 59:21; Isaiah 61:1; Matthew 3:16; Luke 4:18 ff)

3.

Ministry (Isaiah 49:8-13; Acts 10:36-43)

4.

Rejection (Isaiah 49:4-7; Isaiah 53:1-3; Acts 3:13-18)

5.

Obedience (Isaiah 40:4-7; Philippians 2:5-11)

6.

New Covenant (Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:8; Isaiah 55:3; Matthew 26:26-29)

7.

Vicarious death (Isaiah 53:4-12; 1 Peter 2:22-25)

8.

Resurrection (Isaiah 53:10-12; Acts 2:24-36)

9.

Salvation Offered (Isaiah 49:8; Isaiah 61:2; Luke 24:46-49)

10.

Mission to Gentiles (Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 42:6 ff; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 49:12; Isaiah 60:3; Isaiah 60:9; Matthew 28:18-20)

11.

Glorification and Intercession Isaiah 49:3; Isaiah 53:12; Acts 2:33-36; Philippians 2:5-11; Hebrews 7:24 ff)

12.

Jesus came to serve. (Matthew 20:28; John 12:13-20, etc.)

Isaiah 53:2-3 UNCIVIL: What Jew in his right mind would ever have dreamed or imagined rejecting his Messiah or Jehovah's Servant in such an odious way as Isaiah predicts? Only the most shameful incivility prompts men to deliberately hide from another human being. Yet these verses vividly portray the scandalous hatred the Jews will manifest toward the Incarnate Servant. It is the life-story of the Servant from the cradle to the grave. The Servant's entry into this world was so inglorious; born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), of poor parentage, in a stable. When He grew up as a lad in Nazareth He was just like any other lad according to all outward appearances (Luke 2:51-52) (with the one exception of confounding the scholars at Jerusalem, Luke 2:41-50).

He grew up before him. means the Servant grew up in the eyes of Jehovah, or, by the foreordained plan of God, as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. Jehovah sent His Servant to the world through the Jews, despised and harassed people by the Roman world of Christ's day. He grew up in Nazareth which was in Galilee (which means, circuit of the Gentiles). Can anything good come out of Nazareth? (John 1:46) was the attitude toward that infamous village. That the Servant of Jehovah, the Messiah, should come from a carpenter's family would be unthinkable to Jewish theology. A tender, green plant in dry parched ground is regarded with skepticism as to its origin and its survival. So Christ was looked upon.

Among all ancient peoples (even as among some modern advertisers) ideal physique, refined facial features, etc., were considered necessary prerequisites of future greatness, along with right parents, right birthplace, right schools, etc. These verses are not intended to describe Christ's facial features or His physique. They are simply predicting that men would judge Him by that inauspicious human appearance and completely reject Him because of their presuppositions. When Jesus was only a baby, Simeon the aged prophet took Him in his arms and predicted He was the consolation of Israel and a light unto the Gentiles but that He would become a sign that is spoken against, (cf. Luke 2:22-35). When He was arrested and mocked and tortured by the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod, there was no form or comeliness in Him that any of the nation desired Him to be king. Why would God plan it that His Servant come into the world in such untoward surroundings? In order to put men into the refiner's fire. All who beheld His glory through eyes of faith and saw beyond the humiliation of the incarnation that He was the Son of God became sons of God. All who were blinded by their own carnal standards of comeliness and judged Jesus by them became sons of disobedience. God wanted to get at the heart of man, for that is what He judges, not outward appearances.

Jesus was seldom treated with indifference. When He spoke or acted, people either clamored after Him or plotted against Him. But even most of the clamoring of the multitudes was only superficial. It was motivated by fleshly hunger for more bread and fish or for instantaneous healing of sicknesses. The Sadducees and Pharisees hated the Servant and plotted His death because He stripped away their facade of orthodoxy and exposed their immoral and rebellious hearts. And, in the end, these pretentious theologians and greedy legalists seduced the carnal-minded multitudes to clamor for His crucifixion! He was despised and rejected of men; forsaken and shunned. The two Hebrew words makeoyoth and kholiy are literally, pain and sickness, but are translated, sorrows and grief. When people saw that His earthly life was characterized by trouble, pain, rejection, sorrow, poverty, humiliation, absolute honesty and purity, few wanted to have anything to do with Him. Misunderstood by alleven His select disciples and His own human familyHe was a man of sorrows (see comments on Isaiah 49:4). How could Jesus have been a man of sorrows and yet speak so much of his joy? Because the object of His joy was beyond this world! (Hebrews 12:1 ff). All men who live godly in this world will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12; John 15:18 ff; John 16:33), but they may also have joy if the object of their joy is beyond this world (John 4:34; John 15:11; John 17:13, etc.).

What people turned away from the Servant of the Lord for when He was in human form on the earth they still turn away from Him for todayHis substitutionary atonement. Some are superficially in agreement with what they think is His pacifistic humanitarianism or His socialistic human-rights stance, but they absolutely will not surrender to the truth that Jesus had to die for their sin. This is what was so unacceptable to the self-righteous Pharisees of Jesus-' day. It remains a threat to the self-righteousness of men today!

QUIZ

1.

How extensive was the unbelief predicted by Isaiah?

2.

Who, alone, could fulfill the predictions of the Suffering Servant?

3.

Would it have been a normal thing for the Jews to reject their Messiah?

4.

Why did they reject the Servant-Messiah when He came?

5.

Why did God foreordain such an inauspicious incarnation for His Servant?

6.

What was the fundamental issue over which people turned away from Jesus?