#1024 Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 Part 8 We Assumed

 

Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

And like a root out of dry ground;

He has no stately form or majesty

That we would look at Him,

Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.

3 He was despised and abandoned by men,

A man of great pain and familiar with sickness;

And like one from whom people hide their faces,

He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.

4 However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,

And our pains that He carried;

Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,

Struck down by God, and humiliated.

5 But He was pierced for our offenses,

He was crushed for our wrongdoings;

The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him,

And by His wounds we are healed.

6 All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all

To fall on Him.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,

Yet He did not open His mouth;

Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,

And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,

So He did not open His mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;

And as for His generation, who considered

That He was cut off from the land of the living

For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?

9 And His grave was assigned with wicked men,

Yet He was with a rich man in His death,

Because He had done no violence,

Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

10 But the Lord desired

To crush Him, causing Him grief;

If He renders Himself as a guilt offering,

He will see His offspring,

He will prolong His days,

And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

11 As a result of the anguish of His soul,

He will see it and be satisfied;

By His knowledge the Righteous One,

My Servant, will justify the many,

For He will bear their wrongdoings.

12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,

And He will divide the plunder with the strong,

Because He poured out His life unto death,

And was counted with wrongdoers;

Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,

And interceded for the wrongdoers. NASB

Isaiah 53:4 Our sicknesses and Our pain

…16When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Jesus, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took on our infirmities and carried our diseases.” Matthew 8: 16-17

However, it was our sickness that he himself bore - This stanza (Is 53: 4-6) is the very heart of the gospel. It carries mightily the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the "however" glows as the light bulb of true self realization. 

Messianic Jewish writer David Baron says "The veil lifted from their eyes, Israel sees the true cause of Messiah's sufferings, and, "bearing witness against himself, laments his former blindness to the mediatorial vicarious character of the sufferings both of soul and body that were endured by Him." Oh, it was for us—they now say—that He endured all the shame and agony. To translate the 4th verse literally: "Verily they were our griefs (or 'sicknesses') which He bore, and our sorrows (or, 'pains') with which He burdened Himself, but we regarded Him as one stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." No plainer or stronger words could be used to express the thought of vicarious suffering than those employed in the original of this verse. (Exposition)

11Not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned. 13For sin was in the world before the law was given; but sin is not taken into account when there is no law.… Romans 5: 11-13

This is not a new concept to the people of Israel, read this in Leviticus 16, there is the picture of atonement right there. We can also see why God was so exacting and severe in His punishment for deviating. He has not changed at all, and this is all about His Son, and this is the light coming on in the  hearts of the last generation of Jews, as they see Him for Who He really is.

Yet we ourselves assumed that he had been afflicted - Some have it stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. They believed Him to be a blasphemer for making Himself out to be equal with God, for saying that if you had seen Him then you had also known the Father. It was for His own sins that they thought He was up there, for cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, right? Why else would God allow such a thing? He also did horrible things like healing on the Sabbath, acted as if He could forgive the sins of an adulteress, and turned over tables in the temple. God has opened their eyes, and this is their confession, this is the gospel realization, "However", it was our sickness. He is Who He said He was, He is "God With Us", and oh the lament of how wrong our forefathers were; a greater than Abraham was really here. He tabernacled with us. 

…57Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?” 58“Truly, truly, I tell you, Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am! 59At this, they picked up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple area.… John 8: 57-59

…22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us” 24When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and embraced Mary as his wife.… Matthew 1: 22-24

…6As soon as the chief priests and officers saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” “You take Him and crucify Him,” Pilate replied, “for I find no basis for a charge against Him.” 7“We have a law, answered the Jews, “and according to that law He must die, because He declared Himself to be the Son of God. 8When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid,… John 19: 6-8

Struck down by God and humiliated - Why would God do that? Well, Isaiah will answer that in this chapter, and it is for our sins, for He was without sin as we see in verse 9, and in verse 11 we find that His sacrifice will justify many. This was God's redemptive plan all along, and what context and clarity it brings to verses that we have made cliché, like John 3:16 and Romans 10:9. What did you believe, Who did you believe in?

15that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.… John 3: 15-17

…8But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved.… Romans 10: 8-10

MacArthur has a note on the verb tenses which we have stated earlier are almost all in the past tense in Hebrew - Even though the verbs are past tense, they predict happenings future to Isaiah's time, i.e., "prophetic perfects" (SEE ILLUSTRATION) in Hebrew here and elsewhere in this Servant-song. Isaiah was saying that the Messiah would bear the consequences of the sins of men, namely the griefs and sorrows of life, though incredibly the Jews who watched Him die thought He was being punished by God for His own sins. Matthew found an analogical fulfillment of these words in Jesus' healing ministry (Mt 8:16, 17), because sickness results from sin for which the Servant paid with His life (Isa 53:7, 8; cf. 1Pe 2:24). In eternity, all sickness will be removed, so ultimately it is included in the benefits of the atonement. (MacArthur Study Bible)

…20Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God. 21God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5: 20-21