Servant and Savior
Table of Contents
Servant and Savior Part 1
"Behold, my servant shall act wisely: he is exalted, and raised up, and become very high."
The word "servant " is a very characteristic word in this latter part of Isaiah. First it is Israel that is God's servant (Isa. 41:8): "But thou, Israel, art my servant,.... whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away." But while in the purpose of sovereign grace this thought still abides, it is one which Israel as a nation has not yet fulfilled; and in Isa. 49 we find another in this place, called even by this name of Israel, who does not fail, and whose work is owned of God. We do not need to dwell upon this substitution, important as it is in its own place; but His work is there defined "It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth."
Thus the Person before us in our present chapter is not introduced here abruptly for the first time. He is the Servant-Savior, the Servant whose work is salvation; but who is in it above all else Jehovah's Servant,—the only one among men who filled perfectly that blessed place. And with this was connected the wisdom He displayed. His was the perfectly clear eye undimmed by any veil of self-interest; the single eye which made the whole body to be full of light. Wisdom is not an attribute of mere intellect. The eyes are in the heart, as Eph. 1:18 really says.
This characterizes His path then: it is the path of true service,—thus of clear-sighted wisdom; a path which ends in exaltation necessarily, because "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." He then "is exalted and raised up, and become very high." It is what Phil. 2 speaks of, admonishing us to have the mind that was in Christ Jesus. What an effectual rebuke to pride and self-seeking this exaltation of the lowliest! And what an incentive for us to the path of obedience which we had forsaken, this free choice of it by Him who owed none! And what a place that glory that awaits us, where the highest are they who realize best the blessedness of service, and highest of all is He who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many!
"As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred, more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men."
The unequaled sorrow is revealed here in its effects, the outward signs which only were before the eyes of beholders. The depths were open to God alone, indicated to faith indeed in one pregnant word, which unbelief would needs misconstrue. Even in the Gospels, which give us the history of those sufferings, the veil of reserve is maintained; and that cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" recorded without comment. Faith, taking this up reverently, may be led further to where this cry is the opening of a Davidic psalm, and find here and thus a prophecy of the Spirit of God in which all that may be told is told: while unbelief finds David only, and what is more than he is only rhapsody. It is the same Christ, as we find dumb before His enemies, revealing Himself in the circle of His friends. It is the same as when He spake in parables to those who had not ears to hear. We acquiesce fully in this reserve, which nevertheless invites to intimacy those who desire intimacy. In this same way is (more or less) all scripture written, not that formalists may have an indisputable creed, but "that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."
But what sorrow this that could thus mar the human form of the Man of sorrows! Even as He speaks of the astonishment of the beholders, the divine speaker turns, as His heart turns, towards Him who fills this place of humiliation, and breaks the unity of the sentence with an abrupt address to Him -"As many were astonished at thee.” Then He returns to announce to men, who are to receive it, the result of this unparalleled suffering:-
"So shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them they shall see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider."
Strange news, these gospel-news! and with strange power! What all the tomes of philosophers have never done has been accomplished for low and high, for Greek and barbarian, by the simple power of the cross alone. The heart is sprinkled from an evil conscience, the body washed with pure water. That which was lacking in all human wisdom, in Christ, the wisdom of God is found: "even righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Man's need met, his soul satisfied, and satisfied with God, thus in unspeakable love and grace revealed to him in Christ; his heart is cleansed and his life changed. All other greatness bows its head in presence of the cross, and yet shall every tongue confess, as to the Crucified One, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Thus then, in this introductory section, God as sovereign in counsel declares His purpose concerning His elect, that "good pleasure of Jehovah" which was to prosper in the hands to which He could fearlessly commit it, assured of the result. "I have laid help upon one that is mighty," He says, "I know him; I can answer for him." Just so, in the presence of the multitudes at John's baptism, in which He had just pledged Himself to this very work, heaven is opened, and the Father's voice proclaims His Son, the object of His good pleasure; and the descending Spirit hastens to give Him up, after forty days of fasting in a wilderness, to let the devil sift Him as he may. Yes, God can rest all, whether for man's salvation or His own glory, with perfect satisfaction and delight, upon Him.
But where is this mighty One? how is this might displayed? He who in heaven looked as he was bidden for the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," saw in his wonder a "Lamb as it had been slain." In the conflict of good with evil, not force avails but good; and the cross was such a battle-ground, when one "crucified through weakness" becomes the power of God. At the cross power was upon the side of evil: it was as the Lord told the Jews "their hour and the power of darkness." On His part there was none: he who used the sword was only rebuked for it; of the legions of angels He might have had, none stirred on His behalf. The forces of evil are free: He is bound, helpless, unresisting. Then as His disjointed frame hangs on the accursed tree, the night which falls over all proclaims God the Source of light to be withdrawn. He is left alone, unsuccored, in the awful distress of that abandonment, to meet the full flood of evil at its height.
And if the darkness passed, and He were heard "from the horns of the unicorns," crying "with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him out of death," it was, as the apostle says, "for his piety." He was heard winning back life and light- eternal blessedness- out of the jaws of death and hades. It was the victory of goodness, greater immeasurably than of power, here with all power arrayed against it.
This, then, is the divine plan, the counsel of God, which the following sections open out in detail. In the next the speaker changes; and henceforth the prophet speaks in his own person, but connecting himself with the "election of grace" in Israel, the believing remnant of a future-day.
Servant and Savior Part 2
"Who bath believed our report? and to whom is Jehovah's arm revealed? For he groweth up before him as a tender shoot, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and we see him, and there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and forsaken of men; a man of sorrows and welt acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not."
It is now the testimony of God which is rejected- to One who is, nevertheless, "Jehovah's arm." It has been already said that Jehovah is the title under which God reveals Himself in the book of Exodus, when He undertakes to redeem His people out of Egypt. "And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am Jehovah; and I appeared unto Abraham, and unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them ... ..Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah: and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments; and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians."
Thus this title speaks of God as the God of salvation. It is not of course that the book of Genesis does not give Him this name, or that the patriarchs did not know that it was His. Unbelief has vainly objected these two things. It is that what this name implies God was now bringing out as it had never been brought out before. This title is essentially the same as "I am:—the One who is: the eternally present and unchangeable God. A blessed name indeed this by which to take up a people from amongst the fallen sons of man, and link Himself with them as their God forever. It is not even yet, alas, that Israel has penetrated the meaning of that name aright. But she shall know it, and be the pillar upon which He will inscribe it forever. Meanwhile it is our privilege to know, under all these titles, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only He could be indeed Jehovah,—could link abidingly with Himself a company of redeemed sinners. This to our hearts means nothing short of grace, and therefore nothing short of Christ's work, by which alone He can be righteously with us thus. "Jehovah's arm " is thus Christ a Savior: unto us who are called, "the power of God."
But of power in weakness and self-humiliation and sacrifice how many think? Who can see Jehovah's arm in the Man of sorrows? So the prophet goes on to describe this humiliation under which He is veiled to carnal eyes- to faith revealed. "For he groweth up before him as a tender shoot, and as a root out of a dry ground." This He is before God; this He is, too, before man: but He is rejected by man for that for which He is approved of God- "He is despised and forsaken of men."
Let us look first, as we are invited, at the Godward side. He is "a tender shoot, a root out of a dry ground”. This carries us back to the eleventh chapter: "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." This points to the cutting down of the royal stock of David which has gone back to what it was in Jesse, or even less. Out of the roots of this felled and prostrate tree comes this tender shoot. It is a new beginning in weakness of what has already suffered defeat and overthrow. Circumstances too, are adverse: the dry ground provides no sustenance to its youth and weakness. But in this also there is more than at first appears. For why is the Davidic monarchy thus overthrown, and why are the circumstances adverse? People may say it is only as it always has been; the law of nature is a law of change; the stamp of death is upon everything. True, but why but because nature is fallen nature? Here was one to whom God had said: "If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, these children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore." This prostrate tree trunk means then God's covenant profaned, His testimony refused; God in His holiness against it because of sin.
And what of the dry ground? It was out of Israel this house of David sprang, out of Israel that had been God's vineyard, which He had fenced and nurtured and cared for, and which has repaid His care with wild grapes instead of the grapes He looked for. He had said therefore He would take away its hedge, and break down its wall, and lay it waste, not to be pruned or digged; also He would command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. The dry ground, then, was the corrupt and hardened generation unwatered of the Spirit, whom they and their fathers had always resisted. Good reason was there for the circumstances being adverse: truly that was a tender shoot, and out of a dry ground.
But what of this in Jehovah's sight? Was He less the “arm of the Lord,” who, spite of this weak appearance, spite of all by which He was surrounded, grew up, as mastering it all? Surely in His sight this was power that overcame weakness, life that mastered death. He was no creature of circumstances, no product of His surroundings He drew nothing from- was indebted for nothing to- that amidst which He was. There are plants which, by the stores of nourishment they lay up in their own substance, maintain themselves in some measure of independence of the barren soil from which they spring. But these are scarcely more than contrasts to Him who, in the world, not of it, grew up in the sunshine of the divine favor through thirty years of toil and poverty and sorrow, and then to receive the testimony of the Father's voice in perfect unqualified approbation: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
But exactly what made Him the object of divine delight, made Him, and for that reason, the object of man's disfavor. "He hath no form nor comeliness; and we see him, and there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and forsaken of men." He was rejected distinctly and deliberately, as known, not as unknown: "We see Him, and there is no beauty." How false is the thought that ignorance has to do with the rejection of Christ! There is abundant ignorance, but the condemnation is, that "Light is come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." This is the terrible reality. Men say they desire heaven; but a Christless heaven does not exist, and Christ they have refused.
No wonder then that He is "a Man of sorrows, and well acquainted with grief."What a world for a heart thoroughly one with God to pass through! bearing upon it all the glory of God, all the burdens under which man groaned! Himself ever with God, this was the shadow cast by that eternal sunshine! With God; and passing through a world which had gone out with Cain out of His presence! He that had seen Him now had seen the Father; and "we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." F. W. G.
Servant and Savior Part 3
We are come now to the central section of the prophecy, and doctrinally, also, the very heart of the whole. We are now to learn the true character of those sufferings once so misconceived. It is Israel's voice that we are listening to, the confession that they will yet make of that fatal unbelief of theirs, when once "He came to his own, and his own received him not." Here, with their old "Priest's Guide-book" in their hands, they are realizing the meaning of those sacrifices so constantly kept before their eyes in their so over-prized, because so under-prized, ritual. They are learning how "sacrifice and offering he would not, "who yet seemed to insist so much upon them—how much it cost Him who stepped forth to take the place of those rejected offerings, to say, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God!"
" Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
The first clause is quoted and applied for us in the Gospel of Matthew. "And when the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."
The application here, then, is to what our Lord did in His life on earth- not on the cross, but in His miraculous healing of those that were diseased, and deliverance of the victims of Satan's power. This is plainly not atonement, though some have strangely argued it to be so. It is not vicarious suffering, but sympathy, manifested practically in the relief of the varied forms of distress around. And these He "bare," not vicariously or sacrificially, as He "bare our sins in his own body on the tree," but entering into them in the tender pity of His heart, feeling every sorrow to which He ministered.
It is not atonement, yet it is the path and spirit of Him who made it, who made it because men were what and where all this declared them, and He was what His word and works declared- "marked out Son of God, with power according to the Spirit of holiness"- but on man's behalf, "by resurrection of the dead." For of all this that had come in as the fruit and shadow of sin, from the lightest prick of the thorn to death itself, there could be no relief but through His crown of thorns and His cross. He who pitied must make a way for His pity, that it might reach the objects of it.
People have asked, Would nothing else suffice? The Lord Himself answers, "The Son of man must be lifted up." And He who gave His Son would not have given Him, had there been any other way to save. Love itself could not have been shown in giving, where there was no absolute necessity to give. Yet, apart from revelation, who could have fathomed the need, or anticipated the way, of divine love in meeting it? Unbelief could thus take up the depth of His humiliation as an argument against His personal claim. The stone lay low enough for them to stumble over it. "Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." It was His glory which had blinded them, as now they own: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed."
Here is truly vicarious suffering, and suffering which not only removes wrath, but restores to God those who were afar from Him. The two parts of the verse give these two aspects of the cross. According to the first, our transgressions, our iniquities, have received their punishment in Him. According to the second, His stripes are our moral healing- "the chastisement of our peace."
The last is an expression which needs to be considered. The word for ‘chastisement’ certainly means that, and nothing else. It is translated also in our version, ‘correction’,’discipline’, and so ‘instruction;’ and in none of these senses could it be applied to the Lord. He certainly never needed, and never could have received, chastening or correction; and a moment's thought as to the verse will show us that it is not to the Lord that it is here applied. It is "the chastisement of our peace." That last word is one which includes in its meaning the whole well-being of those as to whom it is used. His stripes are for us the restorative discipline which brings us to spiritual health- our healing, as the last clause plainly says. It is as we find our guilt borne by another, our peace made by, our sin condemned in, the sufferings of God's Holy One, that we realize the disciplinary virtue of "his stripes." Surely nowhere else has the lesson been so taught us, nowhere else is the discipline so real.
Not for peace only must the cross be known. It is the judgment of the world, the defeat of the prince of the world, the annulling of the body of sin. It is the supreme display of divine righteousness, truth, love, all the glory of God, in triumphant goodness in Him who was crucified in weakness there—"the Son of man glorified, and God glorified in him." Oh, to know more the reality of this holy discipline- "the chastisement of our peace!"- to eat more the salutary "bitter herbs" at our passover feast, all leaven put away out of our houses! What power for purification for us, as for Israel, looking upon Him whom they have pierced, and saying, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath made to meet on him the iniquity of us all."
Let us observe here- simple fact as it is- that our "own way" is our ‘iniquity’; it is our misery also, for when was misery far separate from sin? and who but utter orphans have to choose their own path through this world's maze? It is true we are outside Eden, but not even so has God left us to this. He who numbers our hairs, numbers our steps no less; and to walk in our own way is to refuse divine wisdom and love, incessantly occupied with us, and to imagine we can do better for ourselves than these.
But how often is our own way disguised for us by some seeming goodness of it, which can never take off the fatal stamp of a will in independency of God's! "Lo, I come to do thy will" was, as we well know, the characteristic of the pattern proposed to us; and there, where His own will rightly shrank from the dread cup before Him, there it was yet, "not my will, but thine, be done." What a commending of that will to us comes with the knowledge that what was before Him then was, in fact, that "Jehovah" was about to lay "on him the iniquity of us all!" And notice how the covenant name, Jehovah, has here its suited place. "Crucified through weakness," the will-less One was to be "Jehovah's arm” of power.
Servant and Savior Part 4
We come now, in the fourth section of this prophecy to see this same blessed Person tested in every possible way by all this through which He passed, and every fresh test only bringing out some fresh perfection.
"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as to his generation, who considereth that he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken? And they gave him his grave with wicked men, and with a rich man when he was dead: because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth."
These are the two characters of fallen man- deceit and violence. So the Psalmist speaks of the "bloody and deceitful man." And so the Lord: "All that came before me were thieves and robbers;" the last, the man of violence- the thief, the man of deceit; and yet both one, for he who will take openly if he has the power, will use deception if he be weak. But how had He used the power which was undeniably His? The mockers at His cross declared it: "He saved others." And when power was used unrighteously against Him, "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth."
But "if any man offend not in word," says the apostle, "the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." Such, then, was His perfection, from whom no pressure of evil could bring aught but good, that overcame it- who, "when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."
Yet "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted." In Him was no callousness whatever. Look at that Psa. 22, in which, if anywhere, His innermost soul is told out; and mark how every feature of the scene is before Him. With us one sorrow swallows up another; we have not capacity as He, and can little realize even the more outward of His sorrows.
Isa. 53:8 has been variously translated. I do not doubt that, as to the first clause, the margin is the more correct: "He was taken away by distress"- better, ‘oppression'- "and judgment." The second clause I would read, as others have suggested: "As to his generation, who considereth that he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken?" These are the ingredients of His cup of sorrow: cut off by ‘oppression’, perverting the forms of ‘judgment’, amid a careless and unbelieving ‘generation’, for whose sin He was stricken.'
At the end only is He separated from the malefactors with whom He had been associated, and with whom they had assigned Him a grave; but, his work accomplished, further humiliation was not permitted. We know how, in fact, the rich man interposed to fulfill this prophecy. What He really was began to come out, and to be owned of God. Burial with the rich man was the first only of a series of steps, the last of which placed Him "at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens."
Servant and Savior Part 5
We are prepared now, therefore, to see where the path of the perfect Servant terminates. This is the fitting and necessary close of the prophecy, the Deuteronomic ending of this Isaian Pentateuch.
Mediator between God and man, the divine glory and the blessing of man were joined together indissolubly in His heart, as the names of the people were graven on the Urim and Thummim of the high priest's breastplate. For this double purpose He wrought, and its accomplishment was His reward. The "pleasure of Jehovah" in the salvation of His people was the fruit of the "travail of his soul."
"Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when his soul shall make a trespass-offering, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul; he shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant turn many to righteousness, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."
It was Jehovah's pleasure he undertook to fulfill, and Jehovah's pleasure was that He should be bruised. But mark well, as the explanation of it, how again comes in the covenant name. God's interest in man it is that requires this- His 'delight' (for delight, that word translated ' pleasure' is in); and was not His "delight" also, who came to fulfill this, "with the sons of men"? Thus, then, His soul bowed itself to make for them a "trespass-offering;" fittingly this aspect of His sacrificial work named here, because the trespass is the restitution offering, which repairs all injury, whether toward God or man. Thus the trespass-offering it is, the blood of which anoints the ear, and hand, and foot of the one but now a leper, to restore him to his place amongst Jehovah's people. It is the governmental offering also, satisfying the requirement of the throne of God, as the sin-offering does that of His nature. Thus He "sees a seed; he prolongs his days," becoming "last Adam," with no conditional tenure of life such as the first had. "He asked life of thee," says the psalmist, " and thou gavest it him, even length of days forever and ever." This, then, His 'seed' share, possessors of eternal life in and with Him.
He then "shall see of the travail of his soul; he shall be satisfied:" blessed satisfaction of a heart like his! His rest, the rest of a perfect love, the rest of the Mediator! What follows as the expression of this? "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant"- there His heart God-ward is seen- "shall my righteous servant turn many to righteousness, and he shall bear their iniquities."
Aye, atonement satisfies Him also- Him who makes it. The righteous One could not be satisfied with anything short of this.
And now He comes forth the mighty Conqueror over sin, and death, and all the power of evil, to receive His recompense from God, and enjoy the spoils of His conquest. "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong," that is, as the strong do. But where has this might been shown? and what is the field in which He has been Victor? It is the lesson for eternity, and happy those who begin to learn it now! Power in goodness; victory in suffering; the battle-field a cross: "because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." F. W. G.