If you had to look for a single place in the Bible that summarizes the entire gospel, this would be it. We find the problem of human sin in Isaiah 53:6: all of us have gone astray, turning aside from God’s perfect law of love and embracing our own will, our own desires. Our sin in turn explains the way that Jesus was treated by His contemporaries, and Isaiah predicts that so clearly: 52:14 says that He astonished those who saw Him, not least because He wasn’t the sort of Messiah they expected. They were looking for a hero like Samson, but instead they got an ordinary-looking rabbi, Who, as 53:2 says, had no form or majesty that would impress us.
And because Jesus did not fit our human ideas of what a ruler should be, and because He did not give us the worldly freedom and prosperity that we crave, 53:3 says that He was despised and forsaken by his own people. 53:7 predicts how His people turned on Him, oppressing Him and afflicting Him as they dragged him first before their religious rulers and then before the Roman governor Pilate. But in spite of His learning, and in spite of the injustice of their accusations, He did not speak in His own defense. Instead, verse 7 goes on to say that He would not even open His mouth, just as a lamb led to the slaughter is silent.
Isaiah even predicts the pain and the shame of the crucifixion, albeit not in the same graphic detail that David foresaw in Psalm 22. 52:14 says that His appearance would be marred, and it certainly was when those soldiers struck Him in the face and jammed a crown of thorns on His head. 53:5 says that He would be pierced and crushed and scourged, and verse 9 even includes the details that He would die among wicked thieves on the cross and be buried in a rich man’s tomb.
And why did all this happen? 53:5-6 make it so plain that we can’t miss it: Jesus experienced the painful and shameful death of the cross to pay the penalty our sins deserve. The Father graciously chose to put Him to death in our place, placing all the weight of our sin upon Him.
Yes, Isaiah saw it all so clearly, hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. That’s amazing enough, but even such a clear prediction isn’t the greatest proof that all these things about Jesus are true. No, the greatest reason that we should trust in Jesus’ perfect sacrifice on our behalf is the fact that He walked out of His tomb on the third day after He died. And Isaiah predicts that as well. In 53:10, he says that after the Lord had crushed Jesus, He would somehow prolong His days. And 53:12 insists that because Jesus poured Himself out to death, God would somehow allot Him a portion with the great – and how could that happen unless He was alive after He died?
So believe the gospel according to Isaiah: Christ died for sinners like you and me. And Christ rose from the dead so that we might have new life with Him, not only in the world to come, but in this world, today.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (NASB)
13 Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up, and greatly exalted.
14 Just as many were astonished at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men.
15 Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand.
Who has believed our message? 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 parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging 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 iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
7 He was oppressed and He was 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 out of the land of the living, For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
9 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 was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render 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, As He will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.
