In 1 Peter 1:10-12, Peter writes, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.”
Now, if we take that paragraph and think through it carefully, we’ll see that this is a pretty amazing statement that Peter is making. He’s saying that the prophets in the Old Testament prophesied about the salvation to come and the grace that we have tasted. They described God’s work of coming salvation in images that we read and feel are so powerful and remind us of the Lord’s work. However, the very prophets making these prophecies were not clear on precisely what this would look like themselves. When they were predicting the suffering and glories of Christ, as they were moved by the Spirit to write them, they just couldn’t put the pieces together as clearly in their minds as they wanted. So, they thought, searched, and inquired, but all they knew is that the gracious salvation they were predicting through the redeeming work of the Messiah would only be witnessed by someone after them.
We are those very people, on this side of Christ’s death and resurrection, who have been privileged to know the person and means through which the Lord brought salvation to his people, as Jesus, the God-man, lived, died, and was raised for us. However, it’s helpful for us to take moments to look back at where the prophets speak of this glorious work of salvation as they prophesied of its coming. After all, these prophetic texts provide us glorious pictures in depth and in an imagery that only enhances our understanding of the Lord’s redemptive work as recorded in the New Testament. Therefore, it’s a real blessing to be able to look at this from Isaiah 49-55.
Many have suggested that this section of Isaiah, especially 52:13-53:12, is the clearest picture of Christ’s atoning work in the Old Testament. And it is amazing to see the detail that is provided for us as to how the Lord’s Servant in this text would save his people. What’s even more amazing is that just as we saw last week that the Lord spoke of how Cyrus would deliver his people from Babylonian captivity over 100 years before it actually happened, this morning we get to see Isaiah prophesying of the Lord’s redeeming work in detail 700 years before the Son actually came to live, die, and be raised for us. I think, then, this text offers us a chance to marvel at our God and pick up the gem that is his redemptive work through his Son and turn it a little bit so that we can see its glory in a different light.
Now, the way I want to go about this as we look at the text today is by asking and answering questions of the text. After all, if Peter says that the very prophets who prophesied these things inquired about the very things they were prophesying without having all the answers they longed for, it seems fitting for us to inquire of their prophecies as well while also delighting in the fact that we can provide answers. So, with that said, let’s start with this question:
This is a question that begs to be answered as we work our way through these chapters in Isaiah. We were first introduced to the servant in Isaiah 42 as God noted that it was not only Cyrus whom he would raise up to free his people from Babylonian captivity but another “servant” who would come to redeem his people as well.
But the servant doesn’t simply make an appearance in this section of Isaiah; he is front and center. As chapter 49 begins, we see unlike other sections of prophecy in Isaiah, this section contains someone speaking in the first person who isn’t obviously God. I mean, we’ve heard the Lord speak in first person throughout, saying things like, “I am the Lord,” but this hasn’t been common for another to speak in the first person in Isaiah. Yet as chapter 49 begins, we read, “Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. . . . And he said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (49:1, 3).
Now perhaps we’re tempted to say here that this question is easily answered because we are given the name. It is “Israel.” And there are places that it looks like the people of Israel are referred to as the Lord’s servant. However, there are also a few problems with this solution. One of them is that the servant appears to be a single individual. A second problem is found in verses 5-6 as the text continues, “And now the LORD says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him . . . to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel.”
The servant is actually sent to save Israel. So, it can hardly be reasonably thought that the servant merely is the people of Israel, when Israel are themselves in need of salvation. Additionally, as the servant is continuing to be described in 50:5 and 9, we find out that the servant was not rebellious and turned not away from the Lord and that he notes that no one can declare him guilty. Clearly these things are untrue of the people of Israel. In fact, the very reason God’s people went into Babylonian captivity is because they were rebellious, turned back from the Lord, and were guilty of sin. And in 50:10, we’re told that the Lord expects the people to obey his servant.
So, who is this servant who is righteous, innocent, must be obeyed by the Lord’s people, and who will save the Lord’s people? This is the very inquiry Peter tells us Isaiah must have been making as he first prophesied these words. But before we answer, let’s note one other place that the servant is mentioned specifically in this section of Isaiah. In Isaiah 52:13-53:12 we read a vivid account of the servant’s work that we will look at in more detail as we continue, but simply note that this section of text is speaking of this prophesied “servant.” The section begins, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted” (52:13).
Now why is it so key that we note specifically that Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is speaking of the servant? It’s because in Acts 8, we read that Philip was in Samaria when he encountered an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading from Isaiah. And Luke tells us that the passage of Scripture he was reading was “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter …” (Acts 8:32-33). And that passage is from Isaiah 53, speaking of what would happen to the servant. So, Luke tells us that the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Luke writes, “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:34-35). That is, Philip clearly identified the servant about which the Ethiopian eunuch as reading as Jesus.
Therefore, we can answer our first question in a fuller manner than Isaiah was every privileged to know. Who is the servant?
He is the God-man, Jesus Christ.
Now, let’s ask another obvious question about this servant, then, namely:
Well, we begin to have the answer in our very first section. As the servant speaks in 49:1-6, that section ends with the LORD speaking to him saying, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6).
The servant’s task is to bring salvation to his people. However, this can’t be pictured simply in terms of Israelites being brought out of Babylonian captivity when Cyrus led in the conquering of Babylon because Isaiah says here that the servant would be a light for the nations so that God’s salvation might reach the ends of the earth. God is going to bring his salvation to people from all nations. And clearly this can’t be talking about every nation being in physical captivity at some point so that the Lord can deliver all of them. This salvation must be talking about something bigger.
And that’s confirmed in 53:11 where we read of the servant, “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 . . .” Now that is giving us a clearer picture. The servant, Jesus, is coming to save people from every nation, but his salvation is a salvation from their sins, a salvation from condemnation and wrath because of sins, by somehow making these guilty, sinful people to be counted as righteous before God.
So, does this mean that Jesus came to bring forgiveness of sins and any picture of people being brought into a land of paradise should be ignored? After all, that imagery is all through this section of Isaiah. It looks like Jerusalem, which was destroyed in 587-586 BC and made desolate is going to become a place of paradise that is so glorious that all the nations are coming in, and this new Jerusalem of paradise is too small for all of them. If Jerusalem is pictured like a mother, she is saying, “Where are all these children coming from? I don’t remember having this many.”
See, for example, in 49:19-21, “Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land—surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.’ Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?”
And not only are many coming in, but, as I noted, Jerusalem has now turned into paradise like Eden. Isaiah says in 51:3, “For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD.” Jerusalem will be made such a paradise that no wicked person or unclean thing will ever enter it. Thus, we read in 52:1, “Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.” The city turned into paradise would be filled with people from all nations so that it is far too small for them, with no wicked men and no unclean thing entering in.
So, though we see that the servant coming to bring salvation in the form of saving guilty people from their sins so that they somehow can be accounted as righteous before God, it’s also hard to ignore that these forgiven, counted righteous, saved people, will get to dwell in some kind of paradise like the garden with their Lord.
And when we come to the New Testament, that’s what we find. The New Testament is filled with language about Jesus saving us from our sins and us being counted righteous in Christ, but we’re also told of a day in Revelation 21:22 where the Lord makes a new heavens and a new earth that he pictures as one massive city, this new Jerusalem where “nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21:27).
So, what will God do through his servant, Jesus?
He will save people from all nations, forgiving their sins, counting them righteous, and bringing them into paradise.
Now, we are in a position to ask and answer another question.
We can’t miss that all people deserve God’s judgment. The Lord makes this clear of the people of Judah in the text. He compares them to a woman he’s divorced or sold into the possession of another. But he makes clear that this was a just act, declaring in 50:1b, “Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.” And, again, that’s true of all people from all nations. We all have sinned and rebelled against the Lord, rightly falling under his judgment. So, why does God send his servant to save his sinful people who have rebelled against him?
The answer is that he has set his love on them and has compassion on them. Perhaps the most moving section of our text is Isaiah 49:13-16 as the Lord declares, “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains in singing! For the LORD has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion has said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget , yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”
The Lord sends the servant to save because the Lord loves his people, those whose names he has written on his hands. Later in Isaiah 54:8, the Lord will declare, “With everlasting love I will have compassion on you.”
This is reiterated in the pages of the New Testament as Paul writes in Romans 5:8 that God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Why does God send his Son (the servant) to save a people?
Because he loves his people and has compassion on them
Yet this only leads to another question. After all, we’ve confirmed that all people whom God saves are sinful, guilty, and deserving of punishment. And God is a holy and just God, who will not let the guilty go unpunished. So, let’s ask the obvious question:
This is the question that the book of Isaiah has been asking from the opening pages. In the very first chapter we are told that the Lord will take a people who “have forsaken the Lord” and “despised the Holy One of Israel” (1:4) and make their scarlet sins as white as snow (1:18). How? The answer is found in the servant’s work described in Isaiah 52:13-53:12.
In this section, Isaiah declares that Jesus, as God’s servant, would be “despised and rejected . . . a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (53:3). Though he should be exalted, he would be despised. Indeed, as Jesus suffered on the cross, we know that many mocked and derided him. Wicked men looked upon him, claiming that he was bearing the wrath of God. They as Isaiah prophesied “esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (53:4).
And they were right! As Isaiah 53:10 declares, “It was the will of the LORD to crush him” and put him to death. But what those standing around the cross failed to understand was that God was crushing him “for our iniquities,” wounding him “for our transgressions,” and laying on him “the iniquity of us all” (53:5-6). This is the answer to the mystery of how a just God can forgive and cleanse a sinful and guilty people without compromising his justice.
He sent his servant, the Son, Jesus, the God-man, to live the perfect life of obedience that God’s people should have lived, then he died on the cross, being smitten and stricken of God because he was bearing the punishment and penalty for our sins. This is what Isaiah declared 700 years before the incarnation, and it’s exactly what happened at the cross. Our sins were punished as they were laid on Christ, the servant. Our penalty was paid in full, as it was borne on the cross. Therefore, God can both justify us (that is, declare us righteous) and remain just.
But we know that Jesus didn’t remain dead; he rose from the dead on the third day so that, living forever, he could intercede for his people forever so that they could be saved forever. And even this Isaiah prophesied. Note 53:10-12: “. . . when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days [you can’t see and have your days prolonged unless you’re alive]; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous [that’s the saving benefit his death and resurrection secures for us], and he shall bear their iniquities. 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.”
Now, this has huge implications for us. If God’s forgiveness of our sins is not simply an act of mercy but an act of justice (that is, Christ bore our sins and the penalty for our sins as our substitute in our place), then we need not wonder if that forgiveness will be reversed tomorrow. Do you see that? If God forgives because he is controlled by arbitrary emotions that may drive him to mercy one day and judgment the next, then we can never know what his response to our confession will be. But, if he has sent his Son to live, die, and be raised for us and in our place so that he is exercising justice in forgiving us, then we can know that the holy God will forgive us as we confess our sins. This is why John can write in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Praise God for his merciful and just salvation of a guilty and sinful people. How can God forgive us and remain just?
Because the servant, Jesus, bore our sins and paid our penalty in his death and was raised to intercede forever
Finally, let’s ask one more question:
That is, what is our response to the news that God sent his Son to live, die, and be raised so that sinful people might be forgiven of their sins and reconciled to him? This question too is answered for us in our text. The last chapter of the section we’re looking at this morning, Isaiah 55, provides an answer for us. Notice how this chapter switches to a number of exhortations.
The Lord says to his people in Isaiah 55:1-3 and 6-7, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David” . . . “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
The Lord says to sinners like you and me, “I know there’s nothing that you can plead before me that you have. You cannot plead your own good works. It’s not enough. You’re like a people without money who desperately need water, wine, milk, and bread. But come and realize that I’ll let you buy all of this without money.”
That is, the Lord calls us to come to him empty-handed. Our response to God’s saving work for us in Christ is not to come and try to point to our good works that we hope to add to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We come empty-handed, without money. We merely come in faith, believing Christ is enough. We repent of our sins, come to him in faith, and believe that, as he has said, he will abundantly pardon us of our sins and guilt. And he does. How do we respond to the Lord’s magnificent saving work for us?
By repenting and coming to him empty-handed and in faith
Peter tells us that as the prophets, like Isaiah, wrote these words, they understood that they were announcing glorious good news. But they didn’t know precisely how the details of this salvation would work. How blessed are we to be able to declare together this morning that because of God’s love for us, God the Son took on flesh to come, live, die, and be raised to save everyone from every nation who would repent of their sins and believe in him, cleansing them from their sins and bringing them into a new heavens and a new earth where we can dwell with our God forever.
If you’re not a believer this morning, I plead with you to flee from coming judgment and be among the number who repent and come empty-handed, coming only with faith to the Lord. And for those of us whose faith rests in Christ, our greatest need is to hold this glorious message of Christ’s redeeming work before ourselves daily and continually respond in repentance and faith. Let us even do that now as we come to the table. Amen.