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Biblical prophecy is a funny business. Sometimes it’s cloaked in shadow, shrouded in dark symbolism, obscured not only – as all prophecy is – from the eyes of godless humanity, but even from God’s people, at least in detail. Trying to interpret it is like walking around in a dense fog: you get occasional glimpses, hints; you know something’s out there, and you can tell that it’s big, but you’re not quite sure what it is until you’re right up on it.
But there’s also plenty of prophecy – more than most people imagine – that’s crystal clear, an open window through which things are seen crisp and plain, even across millenia.
The 53rd chapter of Isaiah is one of those open windows. Despite seven and a half centuries separating this prophecy from its fulfillment, we see the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ described with amazing clarity. In some ways, Isaiah’s description is actually clearer than the eyewitness accounts in the gospels, if only because it explains in simple, direct terms why Jesus would suffer, and exactly what his death would accomplish.
Rather than describe it, let’s just have a look here, verse-by-verse. A little background may also be in order: Isaiah lived in the latter half of the eighth century before Christ. He was born into an aristocratic family, was married, had at least two sons, but in the year 740 B.C. was commissioned by God in a vision to prophesy to Jerusalem.
Chapter 53 is actually the last of four prophecies that make up the heart of the heart of the book, dealing with the “servant of the Lord,” who would be sent to rescue the people of God from captivity to sin and death. This servant, Isaiah said, would be great and glorious, but he would also cause controversy. Many would believe, but many would reject him. And yet, he would humble the kings of the earth.
Chapter 53 here begins with a question: “Who has believed what they heard from us?” In case we don’t get it, and think that he’s simply asking whether this prophecy sounds reasonable, Isaiah goes on to ask more directly, “to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
The point is that this servant of the Lord, this Messiah, this Christ, won’t be believed by everyone – in fact, maybe not even by most people – because not everyone has been given a heart to believe. His glory won’t be recognized by everyone because not everyone has eyes to see it, only those to whom the Lord reveals it. This is what Jesus meant when he repeatedly ended his teaching by saying, “let those who have ears to hear, hear.” Sin blinds and deafens sinners to the Word of God, and only the Lord himself can take that blindness and deafness away.
“For he grew up before him like a young plant,” Isaiah goes on here in verse 2, “and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
People have an unfortunate tendency to choose leaders who they think look like leaders. Look at our elections. We never elect bald guys as president. Over the last forty years, the taller candidate has almost always won. We like a handsome smile, a good suit, and shiny hair.
Jesus would have none of that. There’s no reason to think he was particularly ugly, personally speaking. But there’s also no reason to think he was particularly handsome. He seems to have been physically pretty ordinary. What set him apart were his words and his actions, not his looks. And those were just as likely to drive people away, as to attract them:
“He was despised and rejected by men,” it says in verse three. “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; as one from whom men hide their faces; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
This verse proved pretty puzzling to the old Jewish interpreters. They could understand a Messiah who was great and victorious over the enemies of God; and they could understand a servant of the Lord who suffered for the truth, like so many of the prophets had. What they couldn’t understand was how the two could be the same person: a glorious king, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief… One school of thought argued that there would, in fact, be two Messiahs, a glorious one and a suffering one.
But we don’t even have to go to the gospels for the answer. It’s right here in verses four and five: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities…”
Jesus was a “man of sorrows,” but his sorrows were not his own. They were ours. What we should have carried on our own shoulder, he bears on his – the weight of our sin, our guilt, our shame. The penalty that was rightly our own, the penalty of death, he took on himself. He suffered for us. In our place.
“Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,” says Isaiah, “and with his stripes we are healed.”
Jesus is punished; we have peace. It really is that simple. He suffered; we go free. The harm inflicted by sin is healed by Christ’s wounds. Notice that there’s nothing mentioned here about our own good deeds, or our prayers, or our devotions. Only about Jesus. And thank God for it. Because as is pointed out in the very next verse, we have no claim to that peace and healing ourselves:
“All we like sheep have gone astray,” it says in verse 6, “we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Skipping ahead a little here, there’s a prophecy that the Messiah will be silent before his accusers, which was fulfilled during Jesus’ trial. We’re told in verse eight that he will be “cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.” In verse nine, it says that he’ll be buried “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.” And, of course, that happened – Jesus died a death that was literally cursed, despite his own innocence, and was buried in the tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea.
But look at verse 10: “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…”
Jesus’ crucifixion was not an unfortunate accident. It was the culmination of a divine plan of redemption in place, according to the apostle Peter, since the beginning of the world. Jesus laid down his life as the one, sufficient sacrifice for sin. And by his blood he gave us the right, as it says in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, to become children of God – his offspring.
How that happens, exactly, is laid out in verses 11 and 12: “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities…”
What that means is not that Jesus passes along some kind of secret code. The knowledge in verse 11 is the knowledge of Christ. In other words, it’s not a matter of what you do, or even what you know, but of whom. Those who know this Messiah to be their Lord, to be their Savior, to be their King – they are accounted righteous.
Keep in mind: every word of that prophecy was written centuries before the birth of Christ. And it couldn’t be any clearer. For our sake he was given, according to the plan of God, for this purpose: to bear our griefs and our sorrows, to be wounded for our transgressions, and by his blood to be bring us peace with God. That’s not a forgiveness we claim by any action of our own. There’s nothing we can do to earn it. It’s his gift, to those who know him and love him. Amen.
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