The Servant's Triumphant Sacrifice | Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Isaiah reveals four ways that the Servant will triumph through his personal sacrifice: (1) his astonishing exaltation, (2) his healing affliction, (3) his penal substitution, and (4) his prosperous intercession. This sermon is part 6 in "The Suffering Servant," Bryan Craddock's series of verse-by-verse sermons on Isaiah 49-55.
Nothing in life ever happens by chance. In every choice that we make along the road, the Lord is always at work, and you never know what he will bring across your path.
The eighth chapter of the book of Acts tells us about a Christian named Philip. God sends him to a deserted spot on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Before long, the treasurer from the Ethiopian royal court comes rolling along in a chariot. He is coming from worshiping at the temple in Jerusalem, and it just so happens that he is reading the fifty-third chapter of the book of Isaiah. Philip asks him if he understands it. He doesn’t, so he invites Philip to join him in his chariot to explain it.
We turn now to that same chapter in Isaiah, and it may well be the most important prophetic passage in the Old Testament. It presents the missing link in God’s Old Testament plan to restore his blessing to a sin cursed world. It is foreshadowed in earlier events and rituals, but it was never set forth as clearly as it is here. It is probably one of the passages that Jesus himself explained to the two disciples that he met on the road to Emmaus on the day he rose from the dead (Lu 24:27). We are not told what Jesus or Philip said on those occasions, but I will do my best to help you understand this amazing chapter.
Isaiah 49-55 foretells the coming of a Suffering Servant. From the outset, we are told that he will come to speak for the Lord, shining as a light to the nations and rescuing those held captive in darkness. He will face intense opposition, being struck and spit upon. That experience will demonstrate his humble, obedient character, but he accomplishes more than just giving believers an example to follow. His mission is to fulfill God’s promises of restoration, righteousness, redemption, and refuge. But the part that has not been made clear is how he will do it.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 reveals four ways that the Servant will triumph through his personal sacrifice. Though it was written around 700 years before the time of Jesus, it clearly describes what he accomplishes through his death and even points forward to his resurrection, ascension, and return. It is the clearest Old Testament explanation of the gospel, the good news. It calls us to place our faith in Christ alone for salvation and compels us to turn away from sin and grow in humble obedience to God.
His Astonishing Exaltation
Society exalts people who rise to the top. It rolls out the red carpet to the most powerful, the most wealthy, the most intelligent, and the most beautiful. Everyone else is roped off and kept at a distance, particularly the losers who are weak, poor, unintelligent, or ugly. You might wonder if this is driven by television and social media. But it has always been that way in our fallen world. It shows both the arrogance and the idolatry in our hearts.
The Servant’s exaltation is astonishing because he does not fit the world’s mold. He triumphs through his suffering. Isaiah 52:13-15 tells us,
Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you--his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind--so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.
His appearance is marred, or some translations say disfigured. It is so bad that he does not even seem human. The suffering of Jesus undoubtedly has this effect. The Gospels tell us that he endures multiple beatings. He is subjected to a scourging that rips flesh from his back. Then he has a crown of thorns pounded into his head. So, even before he is nailed to the cross to suffer a slow and painful death, he is already bruised, bloodied, and swollen. I doubt many of us would have the stomach to look upon him. But it is through these disfiguring wounds that he sprinkles the nations.
Most of the other Old Testament references to sprinkling are found in the books of Leviticus and Numbers. For sin offerings, the blood of a lamb was sprinkled on the bronze altar in front of the Tabernacle to atone for sin (Lev 5:9). On the Day of Atonement, the blood of a goat was taken into the Tabernacle and sprinkled on the mercy seat covering the ark of the covenant (Lev 16:15). Water mixed with the ashes of a heifer was also sprinkled on people to cleanse them from ceremonial impurity related to sickness or to touching something that has died (Num 19). So, the Servant’s sprinkling of the nations provides the ultimate atonement and purification from sin.
His suffering thus exalts him as the one true priest over all the people of the world. He is the only mediator between God and man. Hebrews 9:13-14 in the New Testament tells us that Jesus fulfills this priestly work. It says,
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
No matter how powerful, wealthy, smart, or beautiful someone is, they still stand condemned before a holy God. Our sins make us all impure and thus spiritually weak, poor, and ugly. To have the hope of drawing near to God, we need to be cleansed to serve him now. That purification is only found in the bruised and bloodied Christ, and that leaves the arrogant kings of the world speechless.
At the end of Isaiah 52, the prophet says that these kings see and understand. But how do they respond to a Savior who by their standards seems like a loser? In the first verse of chapter 53, Isaiah asks, “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”
There are two factors at play whenever anyone responds positively to the gospel. First, an individual must choose to believe the message. No one is saved by birth or nationality. No one is accepted by God on the basis of their rank or status in society or their good works. Each person must decide to trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
At the same time, this change of heart only comes about through God’s supernatural intervention. He must open someone’s eyes to the truth of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished. He must reveal Jesus to them as the arm of the Lord who carries out all God’s mighty work on the earth. This enlightenment is the only way that anyone can see the triumph of the Christ’s astonishing exaltation.
His Healing Affliction
My family and I enjoy visiting lush botanical gardens. They make you feel as if you’re connecting with nature. But that is not really true. They contain exotic plants gathered from around the world rather than the mundane local selection. Gardeners fastidiously tend them so that they look their very best. If a plant looks sickly, they cut it back or yank it out. They maintain the illusion of Edenic perfection, but the real world is not that way.
We do something similar. We look for quick fixes to cover over the harsh realities of life in a fallen world. We want pills to take away our health problems and laws to clean up our society. The Servant doesn’t play that game. By experiencing the harsh affliction of real life, he triumphed and opened the way to true healing. Isaiah 53:2-3 tells us,
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
It might surprise you to learn that there is no biblical description of what Jesus looked like. All the portrayals of him in works of art are fabrications that say more about the artist than they do about him. It’s even worse in film and television when some handsome leading man is cast to play the part. Isaiah says that the Servant has no impressive form, no majesty or beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected like a sickly plant. No one would want his picture.
He is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and that may be part of the reason that people reject him. Sorrow and grief makes people uncomfortable. A lot of us would rather just think happy thoughts, so people try to avoid looking at the Servant. Their rejection also adds to his sorrow and grief. But there is more to it than that. Verses 4 and 5 say,
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
The griefs and sorrows that we experience are all rooted in sin. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the world fell under his curse. They were driven out from their perfect garden into a world that became infested with thorns where the work required to survive became worryingly hard. They began to experience the sorrow of aging, sickness, and death.
The Servant bore the full weight of that curse, and we cannot help but think of the cross when we read Isaiah’s description. Jesus had committed no sin, but Deuteronomy 21:23 says that a man hung on a tree is cursed by God. Verse 5 says that he was pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities. He took the punishment that we deserve.
So, the result of his affliction is peace and healing. Those who believe in Christ experience this peace and healing here and now in a spiritual sense. Peter explains this idea in 1 Peter 2:24, by saying,
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
Jesus heals believers of our spiritual deadness. He gives us peace with God. He enables us to start living righteously. His also opens the way for us to spend eternity in a new heaven and earth where there will be no more sorrow, sickness, or death. His affliction will bring about the ultimate triumph of healing and peace.
His Penal Substitution
In our society legal matters are decided in ornate marble buildings that feel far removed from the practical concerns of everyday life. But in Israel’s history, justice was once enforced by David, the king who grew up working as a shepherd boy. In Psalm 23, he even pictures the Lord as our Shepherd.
Isaiah adopts this imagery to describe how the Servant brings justice. We could say that he triumphs through penal substitution. In other words, he, being innocent, takes the place of those who are guilty and pays the penalty that they owe. To explain this concept, Isaiah starts with the bad sheep. In verse 6, he says,
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
We are all supposed to be following our good and gentle Shepherd, but we don’t. We go astray by doing things our way rather than his. We call it an expression of independence and freedom. But he regards it as iniquity. That term suggests that disobedient behavior twists and distorts God’s design for life. So, he holds us accountable for that. There is literally hell to pay! The just penalty for sin against a holy God is eternal punishment.
In his gracious plan, the Lord transfers that penalty to the Servant. Since he is the substitute for all of us wayward sheep, Isaiah uses a different perspective on sheep to describe his innocence. In verse 7, he tells us,
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
Jesus once said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt 12:34). How would you respond to oppression and affliction? Would you complain? Would you lash out at people? Would you curse God? Jesus is not completely silent through the crucifixion, but the statements that he makes reflect his holiness, humility, and grace. He does not respond in a sinful way.
So, Isaiah says that the Servant’s appearance will be marred beyond recognition. He will be despised, rejected, oppressed, afflicted, pierced, and even crushed. But in verses 8 and 9, the prophet goes further. He says,
By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
The innocent Servant will experience death and burial. That is the penalty of sin. He takes our place under judgment. He is treated as if he is wicked. We see the fulfillment of this prophecy as Jesus is crucified between two robbers. They are violent criminals, but he is not. Isaiah again highlights his speech in which there is no deceit.
On the surface, it seems as if Jesus experiences a shameful execution at the hands of an oppressive government. As Isaiah says, it does not seem that anyone who witnesses the death of Jesus understands its significance. But afterward, as the apostles reflect on passages like Isaiah 53, they come to understand that his death satisfies God’s wrath against our sins. In Romans 5:8-9, Paul explains,
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
Isaiah also mentions the Servant’s connection with a rich man in his death. The Gospels record that a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus’ body in his own tomb (Matt 27:57-60). That association leads us to one more triumph.
His Prosperous Intercession
You never see a hearse towing a U-Haul trailer. As important as all your earthly possessions may seem to be, you cannot take them with you. Whether rich or poor, we all end up the same in this fallen world. So, it is surprising that after speaking of the Servant’s death, Isaiah describes the triumph of his prosperous intercession.
Death is not the end for the Servant. Isaiah 53:10 tells us,
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
The descriptions of the Servant’s suffering build throughout the chapter. It is not merely physical or emotional. It is spiritual. The Lord crushes him and puts him to grief, yet the Servant is not a victim. He willingly offers up his soul, his life, to atone for the guilt of others. Those people are born again as his offspring, and he is alive to see it.
He experiences prosperity in connection with the will of the Lord. But what does that mean? In verse 11, the Lord speaks and says,
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
Because of the anguish he experienced, he enjoys true satisfaction. Could there be a better definition of prosperity? What is it that satisfies him? He not only bears the iniquities of sinful people, he makes them to be accounted as righteous. In a spiritual sense, he shares the wealth. He pays their debt, and makes it possible for his righteousness to be credited to their account.
This idea of being accounted as righteous is first mentioned in regard to Abraham. Genesis 15:6 says, “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Abraham himself was not perfectly righteous, but the Lord viewed him that way because of his faith. That seems unfair, and it is. The Lord cannot allow it to stand. His justice demands a real transaction. That is why this description of the Servant’s work is so important.
In the New Testament Paul links this transfer of righteousness to the death and resurrection of Jesus. In Romans 4:23-25, he says,
But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Justification is the theological term for being counted righteous. But why is righteousness valuable? In Isaiah 53:12, the Lord says,
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
The spoil goes to the conqueror. At this point, everything in the book of Isaiah begins to come together. Earlier in his ministry, he proclaimed the birth of a child to be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6). He will conquer the nations and rule the entire world from David’s throne, restoring true peace and ushering in a time when death is no more (Isa 11; 25:8).
How can any sinful person be worthy to share in that prosperous time? Only through the Servant’s intercession. In the New Testament, we learn that Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. There he intercedes for believers as our perfect high priest. Hebrews 7:25 says,
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
So, as we wait for his return, there is security and comfort in his intercession. When we place our faith in him, he justifies us, protects us, and begins to transform us. Even now we can and should live as those who are spiritually prosperous, walking in righteousness and overflowing with abundant spiritual fruit for the satisfaction of our Savior.
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We believe that Jesus is the Suffering Servant who triumphs through his astonishing exaltation, healing affliction, penal substitution, and prosperous intercession. Do you share in his triumph? If not, I encourage you to start believing in him. Receive Christ as Savior and Lord. That is how the treasurer from Ethiopia responded in Acts 8. He even stopped his chariot to be baptized in a pond along the side of the road. If you would like to learn more about Christ’s triumph, I would direct you to Romans 5 and 6.
If you’re a believer, is his triumph reflected in how you live? Are you filled with hope and joy? Are you growing in obedience? Are you reaching out with his gospel?
May we honor the Servant’s sacrifice!
Reflect
How should this passage shape your understanding of Jesus?
How should this passage shape your understanding of salvation?
How could you use this passage in sharing the gospel?