Isaiah 52
13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14 As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the 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 consider.
Isaiah 53
1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2 For he shall grow 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 shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 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. 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.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
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. 11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
We will look at a few points here. It contains so much! We cannot describe in words what He has done for us.
The first verse, “My Servant shall act wisely”. Jesus is here called the Servant. Jesus, the Eternal God, came down to serve you and me.
Many times prophets and evangelists don’t answer in the right way. They fail sometimes. But Jesus, the Servant of God, never failed and always acted wisely. Remember how wisely He answered the religious leaders and politicians of His day that tried to trap Him.
These words in Isaiah were spoken hundreds of years before Jesus was born, yet the prophecy was true to the finest details!
Indeed our Lord Jesus has also been lifted up and exalted, as the rest of that verse says. Till today He is still “exalted and extolled”, and kings marvel at Him and their mouths are shut because of Him. All power and authority now belongs to Jesus.
How blessed are those who believe on Him when He is revealed to them, even though they haven’t heard of Him before. Woe to those who hear of Him every day and their lives are not transformed as true believers. Of them it will be fulfilled that others will come from the East and West and sit in the Kingdom of Heaven while the children of the Kingdom are cast out.
Because He was identified with our sins, it is written that His face was marred being recognition.
He made Himself to be nothing because of us! He carried our illnesses and griefs and sins. He was punished and crushed for our iniquities where we should have been crushed!
Think of the way that He had been beaten with those crude whips with rusted nails at the end.
It pleased God to crush Him when He carried our sins. Imagine it! That God was pleased by it!
Ponder upon God’s love for us that He would crush His Son for our sake!
We also read that He shall look upon the anguish of His soul and be satisfied. Jesus was brought so low and went through so much for our sake but when He looks at how we are delivered then He is satisfied and it brings Him joy to say, “it was worth it”. Even like a woman that gives birth and feels like she would die, but when the baby is born she forgets all of her anguish and pain because of the new life of her child. The Lord Jesus went even further. He actually died so that we can have life!
Jesus justified us through His suffering and death. Have you experienced that? He was made a curse for us, hanging on the tree for our sakes! If you see that you will thank God for all eternity!
We are the sinful ones. Jesus never had a trace of His own sin. Because of His sinlessness He was able to lay down His life as the Lamb of God.
Peter says we are redeemed by “the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot or blemish” (1 Pet 1:19). The sacrifice of Jesus Christ cannot be compared to the blood of bulls and rams. The blood of bulls and rams cannot take away sin. Only the precious Blood of Jesus can wash away sins.
Illustration: In Germany many years ago a man was working high up on the steeple of a church. Suddenly he lost his footing and fell headlong to the ground beneath. Grazing on the grass in the churchyard was a lamb. The body of the man fell on the lamb, and thus, his fall was broken. The lamb perished, but the man was saved. As a token of his gratitude he carved in one of the stones over the doorway of the church the figure of a lamb. Every true church of Christ has that lamb, as it were, carved in the stones of its wall. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29.)
So too Jesus is our Passover Lamb and was crushed for us so we could live. Jesus is the Lamb of God without spot or blemish. That is why He could redeem us.
When David sinned and confessed his sin he cried, “cleanse me with hyssop”. He knew the symbolic significance of hyssop.
In Egypt the Israelites had to sprinkle the blood at Passover with hyssop upon the doorposts (The priest would also sprinkle a cleansed leper with hyssop). All those who obeyed and sprinkled the blood on their doorposts with hyssop were redeemed and none died in their houses, but those who neglected it, their first born died. Even Pharaoh lost his first born, and so he let the children of Israel go.
Are you cleansed by that precious Blood, sprinkled with hyssop? Are you washed whiter than snow, in the Precious Blood of the Lamb?