If you've got your Bibles this morning and you
want to turn along, we'll be in Isaiah chapter
53. This is a book that right before Easter last
year I got to preach from verses 6 to 12 and
it made sense just to go back this year and get
the first five verses. There certainly wasn't
time. There's so much packed in here. But Isaiah
himself was a prophet who ministered at least
40 years. He oversaw the reign of four different
kings and was called by God in chapter 6 of this
book. It would become the most prophetic book
in all the Old Testament, the most quoted of
all the Old Testament books. And during the reign
of King Uzziah, to lay a little context, Israel
became very strong economically, militarily.
They had become very prosperous. But in the wake
of all this social status and uptick, they declined
spiritually. Even King Uzziah, after a long kingship,
attempted to offer incense on the altar, a job
reserved only for priests, and as a result, he
would be struck with leprosy and later die. Isaiah
prophesied of some of the clearest references
in all of Scripture regarding Christ as the coming
Messiah. He's writing under inspiration of the
Holy Spirit here hundreds of years before Christ's
coming. With this idea, we begin looking forward
to Easter this week. We'll dig into Isaiah chapter
53, probably one of the most well -known chapters
in the entire Old Testament. A coming servant
who would redeem God's people and become a light
to the nations. The promise, as we have seen,
a promise that will be fulfilled, has been fulfilled
in Jesus Christ. And here in this chapter, we
discover how He will redeem and suffer for His
people. The first thing we see is the suffering
of the servant. Verse 1, Isaiah writing, Who
has believed our report? And to whom has the
arm of the Lord been revealed? Now verse 1 begins
with two questions. And to understand the immediate
context, we need to back up to chapter 52. No
chapter divisions existed in the original text.
Isaiah writing, Behold, my servant shall deal
prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled to
be very high. Just as many were astonished at
you, so his visage was marred more than any man,
his form more than the sons of men. So he shall
sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their
mouths at him, for what had not been told to
them they shall see, and what had not been heard
they shall consider. Now, in many earlier chapters
in Isaiah up until this point, Isaiah has pointed
out that the Israelites had been spiritually
deaf, spiritually blind. and failed to believe
what God had said to His people speaking through
the prophets. They had been spiritually blinded.
But the Lord promises here in the future that
He would remove their blindness and that they
would trust Him. And as we begin to consider
foremost Christ, but specifically in context
of Isaiah 53 this morning, where He is known
as a suffering servant, we must realize that
belief and trust are always at the heart of every
person's relationship to Christ. There are times
where God reveals particular things within Scripture
that are hard for us to understand and they are
hard for us to accept. And for Isaiah's original
audience, Isaiah 53 was certainly one of those
hard texts for them to comprehend. We'll get
into why that is. God's purposes have never been,
nor will they ever be, thwarted by humanity.
Isaiah quickly here references the arm of the
Lord. Now, as you hear that term, the arm of
the Lord, Many images may be flooding your mind
with many Old Testament scenes. That is specific
language that was used to express God's display
of His power. in the Old Testament. The arm of
the Lord brought deliverance to the Israelites
at the time of the exodus from Egypt. It mightily
brought the ultimate defeat of the nation Babylon.
God powerfully, using that arm of the Lord, functions
positively to rule the earth when He comes to
reign, most triumphantly. It will bring forth
God's salvation to His people, Jew or Gentile.
The triune Godhead orchestrated the plan of salvation,
the rescue mission where Christ would embark
before the foundation of the world as a means
that a holy God could be reconciled to fallen
mankind. Verse 2. For he shall grow up before
him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry
ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when
we see him there is no beauty that we should
desire him. Now, the servant... was not the Savior
that they were looking for. He would not be that.
He was not what they had in mind. He was not
going to ride in on a war horse and overthrow
the Roman government. He was going to hang on
a cross. And this was absolutely the last thing
they would have expected from a deliverer, from
a Messiah. Building on the question from verse
1, who has believed our report? Isaiah begins
to speak of the servant here by referencing his
origin and his appearance. But Isaiah uses poetic
language when he says he was a tender plant.
He was a root out of dry ground. Now that root
coming up out of dry ground, that is a metaphor.
And it's intentional. It ties in with the later
part of this verse. One plays on the other. He's
pictured here as a tender plant, opposed to something
strong and independent as a standing oak. He's
referred to as a shoot, one coming up out of
the stump of Jesse, a keenly Davidic figure is
described, but all in dry ground. What's significant
there about that dry ground? First of all, dry
soil is not fertile. And a person usually does
not find lush plants growing in places where
there's no water. This imagery captures the lowly
background, not only of his parents, but also
the state of the nation when Jesus was born also.
You remember at his first advent, there was not
much fanfare. Certainly the angels appeared to
the shepherds, the shepherds came and viewed
him, but the whole city of Bethlehem was not.
you know, running around that the Savior had
been born. There was very little celebration
at that first advent. He was born in a place
where animals were kept. Not a palace, not a
place of luxuries and royalties afforded to persons
of royal lineage where they would be born. But
in spite of these lowly images, Isaiah said the
servant grew up before him, before Almighty God.
But he says there was no form, there was no beauty.
There was no impressive form in the servant.
He did not have glorious looks of earthly kings.
There was nothing in his physical appearance
that marked him out, that set him apart. And
when we speak of Christ's coming, we're talking
about the doctrine of incarnation. The scriptures
clearly tell us that Christ emptied himself,
and the Greek word for that would be kenosis,
a self -emptying, a theological term that we
use to describe Christ's self -emptying as he
came in that incarnation. He became the God -man.
100 % God, 100 % man, two distinct natures, yet
without contradiction. And we say that very easily,
but the first four ecumenical church councils
wrestled over that very language that we can
say so easily now and place our faith in. But
when Christ came to earth, He did not cease to
be God. There's some things we need to nail down
here. He did not empty Himself of deity. It was
a self -renunciation in that He veiled His glory,
and He veiled that to take on human nature. But
it was much more than God just taking on humanity.
And this is critical. He did not just take on
a human body. He also took on all our essential
attributes. Christ would feel hunger. He would
feel thirst. He would feel tired. Eventually,
he would even feel betrayal to the point that
he could identify with all of our basic human
needs. He subjected himself to persecution and
suffering. He left heaven's glories to come here
on earth and be poor. where he owned very little.
And even though he had been eternally rich, he
humbles himself in the form of a servant who
would incur the wrath of God Almighty for the
sins of all who had come to him in true faith.
Verse 3, Isaiah would say this, He is despised
and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised and we did not. We
see a title here, Man of Sorrows. We just sang
about it. But the description with the text builds,
who is acquainted with grief and we despised
him. There was nothing, as I said just a moment
ago, in Jesus' physical appearance that marked
him out as Messiah. In fact, if you were to pass
him walking down the street, if you were there
in the first century, you would not have picked
him out. Why? Because, as Isaiah had said, through
the incarnation, Christ became a human being.
He took on humanity just as you and I are in
all respects, yet without sin. The key here is
in verse 3 that he was despised for it. The fact
that He identifies with us becomes the reason
of which He is rejected. Humanity had contempt
for Christ. It was Jesus who was regularly oppressed
by the Pharisees, those who were concerned with
holding position, not losing control with the
people, and contempt ultimately led to the cross.
As He would hang there, it was so appalling,
Isaiah said, we hid our faces from Him. As Christ
was on the cross, think of all the beatings that
he had already endured, all the scourgings, all
of the things. He went through so much severe
cruelty. His body, the text would say, did not
even look like a human body any longer. As you
compare all of the writings, all from the gospel
authors, it was so marred. Humanity as a whole,
in general, still feels contempt. toward Christ.
You say, how? Because each one of us is born
in sin with a sin nature. We inherited this from
our first parents, Adam and Eve. We would call
this the doctrine of original sin when we refer
to it. That through Adam's fall, all humanity
inherits both a sinful nature and guilt, leading
to every person being spiritually corrupt and
unable to turn to God apart from His grace. We
were not born innocent. We were born in sin.
And this is not to be quickly passed over. Because
as we work that out a little bit, that means
in our flesh, in our humanity, we love the darkness.
We didn't just tolerate it. We didn't just exist
in it. We loved it. And it was only through the
mercy of God. that showed us our need of a Savior.
Only through His mercy of drawing us toward Himself,
exposing our sin, could we ever truly turn to
Him and appreciate the grace that He has offered.
Isaiah was pointing out that his hearers here
would hear this message over and over again,
but they would never actually get it. They would
never fully comprehend it. Their eyes would be
blind. Their ears would be deaf to the true grace
of God. For the Romans, The act of crucifixion
marked Christ out as the very worst sort of criminal.
In the eyes of the Jews, Jewish culture, crucifixion
was to be cursed. And it was hard for them to
imagine as they're reading this writing of Isaiah,
anything less likely to be the Son of God, anything
less likely to be the one -way Messiah than a
man hanging on a cross, especially in a culture
where the cross was a symbol of shame. The question
loomed. How could someone condemned take away
sin? The Apostle Paul wrote often of the cross.
In Galatians 6 .14, Paul would say, But God forbid
that I should boast, except in the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been
crucified to me and I to the world. Now, Paul
could have very well boasted. He could have boasted
in his intellect. He could have boasted in his
influence. He could have even boasted in his
apostolic authority. But he absolutely refused
to take pride in any of the abilities, education,
or accomplishments that he had. Now this is contrary
to our fallen nature, which constantly seeks
grounds for boasting. We like to say good things
about ourselves. It's in our flesh. It is our
natural desire to brag and boast and build ourselves
up. But Paul said he wouldn't do that. He said
he was only going to boast in the cross of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And in fact, Paul would
say it again and again in his New Testament letters.
I mean, if we just thought about them quickly,
he would say things like, I have been crucified
with Christ. We preach Christ crucified. I decide
to know nothing else amongst you except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And finally, he preached
about the wonder of the cross as we consider
those letters. Christ is the only one who we
can boast in church because He is the only one
who can take away our sin. We fall so short.
Our humanity, in every way we fall short. We
can build ourselves up. We can brag on ourselves.
We can build empires around ourselves. But they
are nothing. They will be reduced to nothing.
When we leave this life, it will not matter.
Christ came as the second Adam, the last Adam,
the true and better Adam to fulfill what the
first never could. In every way that we fall
short, our Savior never did. As we think about
verses 4 and 5, we see the substitution and the
work of the servant. We'll hold these two verses
together. 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, and He was bruised for
our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
If you notice the text on the screen, you'll
see every our and every we is underlined. And
if we look at the text critically, we can make
a very easy summation. He was pierced for our
transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Now, very quickly though, as we consider verse
4, Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God,
and afflicted. It would almost appear on the
surface that Jesus was somehow being punished
by God. But we deduct very quickly from verse
5 that it was not for any sins He had committed,
but for ours. Martin Luther would say, each time
the crime is ours, our pain, our suffering, our
transgressions, our iniquities, and each time
the suffering is his. He took, he bore, he was
pierced, he was crushed. It was Christ who lived
a life free from sin. He was tempted in every
way, but without sin. Righteously angered to
the point that he turned over temple tables,
yet without sin. If we think about the Old Testament,
there is shadow after shadow where God raised
up a deliverer, delivered His people for a little
while, and then more oppression would return.
Chasing after false gods would come again. It
was only temporary and it pointed toward the
need for a greater Savior, a greater deliverer
who would not lead the nations in any false worship.
In every way, none of those deliverers were enough,
but Christ was more than enough. But as we consider
this text that we just read, it is He who was
smitten, stricken by God, and afflicted for no
transgression of His own. It was for our sin
for which He died and it was for our salvation
that He secured. Christ was numbered among the
transgressors despite living a perfect life in
His humanity. God has a righteous anger towards
sin. It is detestable in His sight. Cannot even
look upon it. And satisfaction, atonement, had
to be accomplished. It was Christ who drank redemption's
cup of wrath fully to the bitter bottom, and
he did so on the cross. The central idea of verses
4 and 5 is substitution, specifically the idea
of penal substitution. Don't get caught up in
that. That just means that Christ took the legal
penalty. He took the legal punishment. for our
sin, in the place of sinners, satisfying God's
holy justice. This is at the very heart of our
salvation. Christ is our substitute. He died
in our place. He died for our pain. He died for
our suffering. He died for our transgressions,
our iniquity, and our rebellion. Because of that,
He was crushed and He was pierced for us. But
it was not partial. And it was not temporary.
The writer of Hebrews would say, But Christ came
as a high priest of good things to come, with
the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not
made with hands that is not of this creation,
not with the blood of goats and calves, but with
His own blood He entered the most holy place
once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
Praise be to God for the goodness of His Son.
Christ served as our head church. He was a representative.
To this day, He is still the head of the church.
His bride. The punishment that brought us peace
was placed upon Him. God had passed sentence
on sin. It had to be accounted for. It had to
be reckoned. And that sentence was born by Christ.
It was carried by Christ. He endured the judicial
wrath of God for you. for me, for all who would
ever come to Him. And He offered His own blood
as a payment for sins for all who would come
to Him in faith. Tim Chester would put it this
way so wonderfully. God's attributes cannot be
played off one another. God does not stop being
holy so He can show mercy. He does not suspend
His justice to extend forgiveness. But through
the substitutionary death of His Son, He is true.
God is true to every aspect of His character,
showing mercy while remaining just. Paul would
write in Romans 3, Christ, whom God set forth
to be a propitiation by His blood through faith
to demonstrate His righteousness, because in
His forbearance God had passed over sins that
were previously committed to demonstrate at that
present time His righteousness. that He might
be just and the justifier of the one who has
faith in Jesus. The substitute in this case is
Christ. He bears the penalty while sinners may
receive pardon. Our pain, our suffering, our
transgression, our iniquities are imputed to
Christ here. In exchange, we receive peace with
God and the adoption of sons. Isn't that amazing?
But this idea of substitution, it did not originate
here in Isaiah 53. This wasn't something that
was just revealed to him. The idea of substitution
is the centerpiece of the Bible and of our salvation.
It had much precedent long before Isaiah 53.
This was not something he just came up with.
The idea of substitution was all the way back
in the beginning. in the garden. It was God who
took innocent animals, slew them, took skins
and clothed Adam and Eve and shed blood for the
first time for sins that they had committed.
It was this idea of substitution that was very
present as Abraham held the knife over his son
Isaac as he was on the altar and the Lord cried
out and a ram was in the brush to be offered
in the place of his son. It was this idea of
substitution that was there in the Passover as
the death angel passed through the land of Egypt.
that night every firstborn was struck dead but
yet in the land of Goshen where the Hebrew children
were innocent lambs had been slain blood applied
over the doorpost and if that blood was there
that sign that they had trusted in God's words
he passed over and an innocent animal died so
that that firstborn could live it was there daily
in the worship of Israel at the tabernacle as
blood was shed daily to cover the sins of the
people this idea of substitution had much precedent
but it was all pointing to one who had shed His
blood one time for all, never to be offered again.
And church, at the end of that verse, by His
stripes, we are healed. What the Old Testament
was in shadow, the New Testament is in substance.
Because of this great act of substitution, we
have reconciliation with God. And that is, it
rolls off the tongue so easily, but that is such
a deep... thought the servant Christ has suffered
greatly and achieved peace. The cross brought
peace while sin is an act of rebellion and we
were rebels, everyone, by natural origin. We
were enemies of God. Christ has healed us. He
has reconciled fallen, broken humanity living
east of Eden, still to this day, to a holy, righteous
God. You say, what about us? What about the church
gathered here at Mamre today at Kitts Hill? Church,
first of all, we must humble ourselves and confess
that we've went astray, every one of us. We have
deliberately turned aside. We have went our own
way. It was not accidental. We have not always
loved God. We have not always loved His ways.
We were born in sin, and we have transgressed.
We have crossed lines that God said, do not cross.
But we have to understand our fallen condition.
We have to understand our true state of sinfulness
before we can ever begin to truly value redemption
that is offered by God through His Son and appreciate
what took place on the cross because it was there
where atonement and full satisfaction was made.
The suffering of Christ was not by happenstance.
It was not by chance. It was not accidental.
Nor was it merely a result of unjust human judgment.
It was for us. As we read this text, every our
and every we in the passage presses a truth upon
us. That it was our sin that is the reason for
His wounds. And as we consider this text, it
doesn't allow us to remain neutral towards Christ
or His cross. There is no fence we can ride here.
We cannot do that. It brings us face to face
with the weight of our great need. And Isaiah
began with the question, who has believed our
report? It's not enough to just intellectually
know these truths about Christ. It's not just
enough to know all the things of the Bible and
have some sort of head knowledge. The call of
the gospel is to believe, to turn from sin, to
repent, and rest completely in the finished work
of Jesus Christ. Church, He has borne our griefs.
He has satisfied the wrath of God for all who
will call on the name of Jesus. The same cross
is so wonderful that exposes our sin. also provides
our salvation. It is in God's rich and abundant
mercy that the Spirit of God opens our hearts
and opens our eyes to see that the cross is no
longer a symbol of shame and judgment any longer,
but a symbol of true love. One where Christ offered
Himself for us, taking on our pain, bearing our
suffering, crushed on our behalf, so that by
His wounds, we might be healed. We might have
peace with the Holy God. Last word. By His stripes
we are healed. We're no longer enemies. We've
been reconciled. No longer are we under wrath,
but we are at peace with God if we are His children.
And as Easter approaches, we look toward it with
reverence. and awe of this servant, knowing that
while he suffered greatly, he now reigns and
serves as our Savior and King. All praise be
to his name, church. Powerful text this morning.
I pray that we let that set on us and we meditate
on it as we transition from this time of preaching
to come to the Lord's table. This is a specific
time we set aside every week. It's a very important
time as we come to take these sacraments, one
that we do not take lightly. If you're here this
morning, we want to invite you to come to the
table with us. We take this this morning not
only as a memorial, but we do it as we engage
in a common means of grace gathered together
here as a church body where many become one at
this table. It is a privilege of believers that
as we finish the Word, we come and we hold the
elements together. The Lord just gives a couple
qualifiers to take the supper. It is His. It
is not our table. It is the Lord's table. That
is that you have confessed Jesus Christ as Savior
and you have been scripturally baptized. And
if you have done those two things, we would invite
you to take that supper this morning. If you
have not, we're just asking you to pass the tray
on. As the elements come and they're distributed,
hold them. We'll pray together and then we will
take them together. Deacons, if you would come
and begin to pass out the elements.