Please turn to Isaiah 52. Isaiah 52. We will read from verse 13 through Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 52:13 Behold, My servant shall deal wisely,
He shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.Isaiah 52:14 Like as many were astonished at Thee
(His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men),Isaiah 52:15 So shall He sprinkle many nations;
Kings shall shut their mouths at Him:
For that which had not been told them shall they see;
And that which they had not heard shall they understand.Isaiah 53:1 Who hath believed our message?
And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?Isaiah 53:2 For He grew up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of a dry ground:
He hath no form nor comeliness;
And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.Isaiah 53:3 He was despised, and rejected of men;
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
And as one from whom men hide their face He was despised;
And we esteemed Him not.Isaiah 53:4 Surely He hath borne our griefs,
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.Isaiah 53:5 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.Isaiah 53:6 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.Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed, yet He humbled Himself
And opened not His mouth;
As a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
And as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb,
So He opened not His mouth.Isaiah 53:8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who among them considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of My people to whom the stroke was due?Isaiah 53:9 And they made His grave with the wicked,
And with a rich man in His death;
Although He had done no violence,
Neither was any deceit in His mouth.Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief:
When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.Isaiah 53:11 He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied:
By the knowledge of Himself shall My righteous servant justify many,
And He shall bear their iniquities.Isaiah 53:12 Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong;
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And was numbered with the transgressors:
Yet He bare the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.
The portion of Scripture that we have just read is one of the greatest and most precious portions in the whole Bible. Of course, the whole Bible is precious; every part of it is precious. But there are some portions that seem to speak to us very deeply and very dearly, and this portion is one among them.
I do hope that, if you have not memorized this portion, you will do so. We should memorize this passage and know it by heart, and you will find how precious it is.
This is a passage which refers to Someone many years—almost eight hundred years—after this portion was written.
One day there was a eunuch of Ethiopia. He was a proselyte to Judaism. He went to Jerusalem to worship God, and after he had finished worshiping God in the temple at Jerusalem, he was on his way back to Ethiopia.
He was in his chariot reading the Bible. As he was traveling through the desert—there was no man there; it was a desert—he was reading the Bible. But God provided a man to speak to him: Philip the evangelist.
Philip was laboring in Samaria, and God seemed to bless his work of evangelizing very much, because many were brought to Christ. It was a very prosperous work of God. But suddenly the Spirit of God called Philip to go out of the city and go into the wilderness, where there was no man.
In obedience to God, Philip went to the desert. Here came this chariot, with the eunuch sitting in it and reading. The Spirit of God moved Philip’s heart to run after the chariot, so Philip ran alongside it.
Of course, he turned to the man and said, “What are you reading? Do you understand what you are reading?” Sure enough, this man was reading the book of Isaiah, and he was reading the portion that we have just read:
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.
When the eunuch was asked by Philip, “Do you understand what you read?” he said, “How can I understand? No one is instructing me. I do not know whether the prophet refers to himself or to somebody else—such as Moses, Abraham, Josiah, Cyrus, or even Israel. There are different theories. How do I know without anyone explaining to me? To whom does the prophet refer?”
So he asked Philip to come and sit by him in the chariot. As they were going on the way, the Bible says that Philip took up the Scripture and announced to him the good news of Jesus Christ.
And the news was so good. The prophet was referring to the Lord Jesus, Who was to be born almost eight hundred years later. He was the One Who was wounded for our transgressions. He was the One Who was bruised for our iniquities. With His stripes, we are healed.
So Philip announced to the eunuch the glad tidings of Jesus Christ. The eunuch believed, and he had to be baptized right away. After he was baptized, the Spirit of God took Philip away; he was caught away.
The eunuch went on his way with joy in his heart. Possibly, this was one of God’s ways of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ into Africa, because Ethiopia was in Africa.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is a very precious portion. This eunuch turned to Judaism because he found that all the other religions could not satisfy his heart.
He went to Jerusalem, to the temple, to worship God and to hear the words of the rabbis in Jerusalem. He was reading the Word of God, the oracle of God Himself. Yet, even after he became a proselyte of Judaism, even after he worshiped God in the temple in Jerusalem, and even after he heard the teachings of the great rabbis of those days, there was no understanding.
He was still seeking. His heart was still empty. He was still not satisfied until the good news of Jesus Christ was announced to him. Immediately, you find his heart was enlightened and was full of joy.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is true: this portion does not speak of Isaiah the prophet. He does not refer to himself; he is not worthy of it. This portion cannot be applied to anybody else. It cannot be applied collectively to the nation of Israel.
This portion is a prophecy concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the only One in the whole universe Who fulfills everything mentioned in this prophecy.
Of course, in the preceding chapter we have already seen that our Lord Jesus, so far as His origin is concerned, is the Son of God. But He came to this world to become the Servant of God: the Son, the King, the Servant.
The Son was sent into this world to accomplish a great work. We mentioned last Lord’s Day that He came to establish the kingdom of God on earth. That was what He came to do.
Now, in this portion, you find that He is again described as the Servant of God. But there is a difference. Here, the emphasis is more on the person.
The emphasis is on the person. Who is this Servant of God? What kind of a life does He live? How much does He suffer, and why does He suffer? What is the result of His suffering? What does He accomplish through His suffering? After He has suffered, how does God exalt Him and give Him a name that is above every name, so that at that name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord?
In other words, in this passage we are shown the person of the Son, the Servant of God. In this portion, the theme is His sufferings and exaltation.
With the Jews throughout the centuries, there was one thing they simply could not understand: how could the promised Messiah suffer and be glorified at the same time? They could not solve this puzzle.
Because of that, when they read the Old Testament prophecies, they did not know to whom to apply the sufferings. They knew the Messiah would come and be glorified, and yet the prophecies also spoke of His suffering. They simply could not understand.
That is why they sometimes said that these passages refer to the nation of Israel, or to some godly man. They just could not understand.
Not only the Jews throughout the centuries, but even the disciples of the Lord Jesus at the time of our Lord Jesus could not understand.
You remember the story in Luke 24. After the Lord was crucified and, on the third day, was raised from the dead, the news was brought to the disciples that the Lord had risen; yet they could not understand it.
Two disciples of our Lord Jesus were so discouraged and disappointed that they left Jerusalem and were on their way to Emmaus. As they walked, they talked about the things that had happened in Jerusalem: Christ was crucified, and some women said that He had risen from the dead. They could not understand it.
Suddenly, a man came and walked with them. He said, “What are you talking about?” They said, “You must be a stranger in Jerusalem, because this is the subject of conversation everywhere. One Whom we considered a prophet, the hope of Israel, was crucified. Some women said that He had risen from the dead, and we cannot understand it.”
Remember, these were disciples. They could not reconcile the whole thing. Our Lord Jesus gently scolded them—in a sense, He reprimanded them—and said, “Oh, you are so foolish and slow of heart. Ought not the Christ to suffer, and then enter into His glory?”
The Lord began to expound the Scriptures to them, and as the Lord expounded the Scriptures, their hearts were warmed.
Brothers and sisters, the Christ, the One Whom God sent to be the Savior of the world, must first suffer and then enter into His glory.
Our Lord Jesus is the Son of God. He is the eternal Son of God. In eternity past, He shared the glory with His Father. But He emptied Himself. He left the glory, as it were. He humbled Himself to become a man.
But one day He would return to His glory—not only the glory that He shared with His Father in eternity past, but also the glory that He earned for Himself as the Savior of the world.
To earn for Himself that glory, the glory of the Redeemer, He had to go through suffering. Because through His suffering on the cross, He accomplished the work of redemption.
This portion speaks to us of the great theme of the Messiah: the cross, His sufferings, and His exaltation.
It begins with Isaiah 52:13:
Behold, My servant shall deal wisely,
He shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.
Every time you find the word behold in the Bible, the Spirit of God is trying to catch our attention. You know, we are so careless. Our eyes are not single, and our ears are hearing different things at the same time. We are so divided; we do not concentrate.
Because of that, what we see and hear simply passes by, vanishes, and evaporates. Nothing remains. So here, the Spirit of God is trying to arrest our attention. He is calling us to concentrate, to focus our attention upon one thing. He says, “Behold, My servant.”
He wants us to see the Lord Jesus as His own Servant. The Father is always trying to draw people’s attention to His Son. God is always trying to draw us to see His Servant. In other words, how we need to see the Lord Jesus.
It was as if, on the Mount of Transfiguration, God dismissed Moses and dismissed Elijah, so that the eyes of the disciples might see the Lord Jesus, and Jesus alone.
Let every man be dismissed. Let us see the Lord Jesus this morning, and Him alone.
“Behold, My servant shall deal wisely.” The Lord Jesus, as He is sent by God, will deal wisely. He will accomplish the will of God wisely and prudently.
He is humble, as it were, but very wise. This does not mean being worldly clever. In this world, if you are worldly wise, worldly clever, and worldly prudent, how will you conduct yourself?
A man who is wise and prudent in the worldly sense is very slippery. You simply cannot get hold of him. He will maneuver himself in such a way that he always protects himself. He will not be touched, reached, hurt, or harmed. That is worldly wisdom and prudence.
In the world, it is considered foolish to be frank and open because you will be caught and hurt. But this is not the meaning here.
“Behold, My servant shall deal wisely.” It is not earthly prudence; it is heavenly wisdom. Our Lord Jesus is so wise and so prudent that He alone is able to accomplish the task that God sent Him to accomplish.
Because He acted so wisely, and because He did everything so well, the result is this: “He shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.” That is the consequence.
Because He was faithful to the Father, because He was prudent in finishing His work, God highly exalted Him. He became very high.
Here, then, is an introduction to this Servant of God, even our Lord Jesus.
Like as many were astonished at Thee
(His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men).
This Servant of God, Who was so prudent and Who would one day be highly exalted, came to this earth and many were astonished. They were surprised because He did not come in the way they expected.
If a great man were to come into this world, we would expect him to be born of nobility. He should be born in Jerusalem, in a palace. He should be highly educated. He should be a man of great natural ability. We have our concept of greatness.
But when the Lord came into this world, He simply did not fit the worldly concept of greatness. He was born in a manger, not in a palace. He was raised in Nazareth, that very country concerning which people asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Yet the greatest thing came out of Nazareth.
He had never been to a rabbinical school. He did not fit the Jewish idea of the Messiah.
The Jews expected that, when the Messiah came, He would overthrow the Roman Empire and make the Jewish nation the greatest nation in the world. Yet our Lord Jesus would not touch that. He said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
He did not fit the Jewish concept of the Messiah, and for that reason they rejected Him. In every respect, He was a surprise to men.
The world has a concept of what the Messiah should be, and He simply does not fit it in any way. He is different and unique. He became a surprise to many.
His visage was so marred more than any man,
And His form more than the sons of men.
Artists all have their concepts of Christ. We have seen many pictures of Christ, but these are all artists’ concepts, because no one now living has seen Him, and no picture was left of Him.
How did Christ actually look when He was on earth? Nobody knows. The Scripture does not give us much description of Him. All the pictures that you see are really the artists’ ideas of Christ.
Some paint the face of Christ in all kinds of ways. Their idea is that He is love, and because He is love, some paint Him almost feminine. Others say that He is full of righteousness and paint Him like a judge. You find all kinds of things, but these are only ideas.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, what was His appearance? “His visage was so marred more than any man.” Literally, this means that His visage, His physical appearance, was so marred that He did not even look like a man.
When Christ was born, He must have been a beautiful baby; no doubt every baby is beautiful. When Christ grew up, He might not have been handsome, but He could not have been ugly either. He was to be a man just as we are.
I do not think that He was extraordinarily handsome, but neither would He have been very ugly. He must have appeared common, just like a common boy—not too ugly, not too handsome, just common.
Yet the Bible says that His visage was so marred. He suffered so much. The wear and tear of His life, its hardships, tribulations, persecutions, sorrows, and griefs came upon Him so greatly that His whole visage was destroyed beyond human recognition. He looked no longer like a human being.
On the cross, with a crown of thorns, with His body scourged, and with His hands and feet nailed, He did not look like a man at all.
Think of the sufferings—the sufferings we simply cannot comprehend—that our Lord Jesus went through for our sake. His visage was marred more than any man; He did not look like a man any longer. His form was marred more than the children of men.
No wonder that, when He was thirty, people thought He was fifty. You remember that. No wonder the two thieves who were crucified with Him lingered there, and their legs had to be broken to hasten their death. But our Lord Jesus was only six hours on the cross, and He died.
His body was so bruised, so fragile, and had suffered so much. In only six hours, He was gone. That is the suffering of Christ.
There is yet another surprise. Verse 15 says:
So shall He sprinkle many nations;
Kings shall shut their mouths at Him:
For that which had not been told them shall they see;
And that which they had not heard shall they understand.
He was a surprise because He did not fit our concept of greatness—indeed, He was almost the opposite of it. Yet, after He had accomplished the work of redemption, He again became a surprise to the nations.
Why? Because the work of salvation was accomplished, and many would come and bow at His feet.
The phrase, “So shall He astonish many nations,” may also be rendered, “He shall sprinkle many nations.” In Old Testament times, the priest would sprinkle blood upon lepers to make the leper clean.
Here it means that because our Lord suffered so much for us, His blood comes out of His suffering and is sprinkled upon many nations. Many shall be washed clean. That is a surprise.
What had not been told them shall they see, and what they had not heard shall they consider. How true this is. The story has never been fully told, even today.
What we have heard and what we have seen is only something we try to understand, but there is much more. The story has never been fully told: the salvation of our Lord Jesus. This is Christ.
Then, of course, in Isaiah 53:1:
Who hath believed our message?
And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Both the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul quote this verse. In John 12, John quotes it and asks, “Who hath believed?” Who will believe and who will receive?
Paul, in Romans 10, quotes it again: “Who hath believed our report?” This good news is that the Lord Jesus suffered and died for us, accomplished the work of salvation for us, and that anyone who comes to Him shall be sprinkled and made clean. But who will believe the report?
To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? To whom will the salvation of the Lord come? Remember, brothers and sisters, the whole matter is so foreign to our natural mind that unless there is revelation, no one can see it and no one can believe it.
You need a revelation. The Lord Jesus can only be believed by revelation. As Paul said, “It pleased God to reveal His Son.” There must be a revelation.
If you look at our Lord’s outward appearance, there was nothing appealing and nothing attractive. No wonder, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, people despised Him and rejected Him. There was nothing that appealed outwardly.
But if God opens your eyes to see what He is inwardly, then, brothers and sisters, you will find that it is a different story.
So how we need revelation to know Christ. There is only one way to know Christ: by revelation. It pleased God to reveal His Son in us. If we only open our hearts to Him, He will reveal His Son to us.
Now, I will not go through the whole chapter. We do not have time to explain it all. But I do believe that if you read it yourself, you will see much in that chapter.
Oh, how the Lord Jesus, in the eyes of the world, is like a root out of dry ground. There is no comeliness and no loveliness for us in Him. Yet before God, He is altogether separate.
He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but it is our sorrow that He bore. It is our grief that He carried. He was wounded, but for our transgressions. He was bruised, but for our iniquities.
We do not understand. We thought that He was rejected by God. If it pleased God, surely God would deliver Him from the cross and not allow Him to suffer so much. But we do not know that it was for our sake that He suffered all these things.
It was not only from men, but it was God’s will that He should so suffer, because God made Him a sin offering for us.
But thank God, He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul. He shall have a seed, and those who believe in Him shall have their sins forgiven and shall enter into the knowledge of righteousness.
I do hope that you will continue to read this chapter for yourself. We do not have time to explain it all. But remember one thing: the suffering and the exaltation of Christ.
Thank God, the sufferings are over. He is now exalted at the right hand of the Father, waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool. This is the Christ Whom we announce, Whom we believe, and Whom we love.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee for Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is Thy faithful and wise Servant. How we praise and thank Thee for the work of redemption that He has accomplished. But what a cost He paid.
O Lord, our hearts are moved by Thy love for us: that Thou Thyself shouldst bear our sorrows and carry our griefs, that Thou shouldst die in our stead for our transgressions.
O Lord, we cannot understand this love. We only know that it is real, and we do love Thee. Lord, we pray that Thou shalt ever be before our eyes and in our hearts throughout our lives. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus.