When one speaks of events prior to their occurance, questions ought to arise. Either some trickery has occurred or a power beyond this world is at work. When the conjunction of event and prediction is mingled with one claiming to be the suffering Christ of the living God – true humble majesty has been displayed. The prophetic nature of Isaiah 52-53 is startling in its own right – but the content of the one predicted to come is all the more striking. Marvel at the description seen in these chapters. One who is to come would be:
- Marred, beyond human semblance…
- He had no form or majesty that we should look at him
- Despised and rejected by men
- He bore our grief and carried our sorrows
- Wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquity
- Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed
- Upon him was laid the iniquity of us all
- Oppressed, afflicted, as a lamb to the slaughter
- Yet Innocent and being cut off
Such a person would be marvelous indeed, but the Biblical fact that this was very God of very God, the Son of Man, Jesus – the divine and the human conjoined in one person. As such this astounds the mind and thrills the imagination. The humility and servitude of the suffering Christ – for the joy set before him – is the subject of this prophetic passage. Perhaps the most astonishing passage and revealing as to the purposes of God, comes to us in Isaiah 53:10:
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.
Who crushed, and killed, and sacrificed this servant of Isaiah 53? None other, none other, but God, YHWH. It was the will of the Lord to crush Him...Why? He would be the lamb of God, God’s very own sacrifce and substitute for sin would be made by his Christ, he himself being the lamb without blemish (innocent) offered for the sins of humanity. The substitution, propitiation, and intercessory work of God in Christ, is seen here in the humility of the Suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
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