The Coming Servant, Part 4: Isaiah 52.13-53.12 (5)

Pray Psalm 22.30, 31.
A posterity shall serve Him.
It will be recounted of the LORD to the nextgeneration,
They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,
That He has done this.

Read Isaiah 53.10, 11.

Reflect.
1. According to these verses, what pleases God? What is the pleasure of God?

2. What does the righteous Servant accomplish by His suffering? 

Meditate.
The pleasure of God is a great mystery. How can it please the LORD to bruise His Servant so violently (v. 10)? Because His suffering causes the pleasure of the LORDto prosper. Does it please a parent to have to discipline his child? No, but if it helps the child grow in goodness and wisdom, that is definitely pleasing. Does it please us to work out and deny ourselves certain foods? Not necessarily. But it pleases us to feel better, lose some weight, and stay healthy.

God’s pleasure is a mystery, but He invites us into it (Ps. 16.11), having paved the way there by the suffering of the Servant He promised to send. God put the Servant to grief. God made Him an offering for sin, even though He would use the hands of sinful men to accomplish this aspect of His pleasure (cf. Acts 2.22, 23).

Here also we see the promise of new life beyond this sacrifice: “He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days” (v. 10). The result of this, moreover, is that “the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand” (v. 10). The work of the Servant is not finished by His suffering. That’s just the beginning. Following His suffering, He causes the good pleasure of God to flourish. This refers to the promised great salvation, concerning which Isaiah will preach joyously in the next chapters.

The Servant will be satisfied in His soul to see many justified and declared righteous, because He has borne their iniquities in His own body (v. 11). As a mother rejoices after suffering to give birth to her child, the Servant rejoices after His suffering to see the good pleasure of the LORDunfolding through His work in His people.

And Isaiah will unpack the great scope and majesty of that work, beginning in chapter 54.

Reflect.
1. How can we know what pleases God? Should what pleases God please us as well? Explain.

2. What does it mean to be justified? How does the work of the Servant “justify many”? 

3. What work is the Servant continuing to do in our day? What is your place in that work?

Isaiah established that the slaying of Christ was a ransom for humanity’s sins when he said, “He has borne the sins of many.” And he will free humankind from demons, for as Isaiah said, “He will divide the spoils of the strong.” And the same prophet spoke out clearly that Christ did this through his death when he said, “Because his soul was delivered up to death.” That Christ would be put in charge over the whole world he revealed by these words of his, “He shall inherit many.” John Chrysostom (344-407 AD), Demonstration against the Pagans 4.12-13

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for the work You have done for my salvation. Help me today to join You in Your ongoing work as I…

Pray Psalm 22.23-31.
Rejoice in the consequences that God has brought about through the suffering of Jesus, and recommit yourself to your part in making this Good News known.

Sing to the Lord.
Psalm 22.29-31 (Dix: For the Beauty of the Earth)
All the prosp’rous of the earth shall before His mercy fall;
Bending low before His worth, hear them humbly on Him call.
Even those low in the grave He will by His mercy save.

Let the generations all witness to His saving grace;
Let them to all nations call, “Bow before His holy face!”
Let the children of the earth hear of Jesus’ saving worth!

T. M. Moore

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