Is Isaiah 53 "The Suffering Servant" a prophecy about Jesus?

FULFILMENT, “Who [the Lord Jesus Christ] His own Self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Pet 2:24). Isaiah’s prophecy is the clearest and fullest presentation of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord on the cross to be found in the whole of the Scriptures. In Old Testament times it must have been used to give many a weary seeker peace of soul; and it is as much used today in pointing anxious enquirers to the only Saviour. It very clearly teaches that our Lord died, as bearing the judgment our sins deserved, affording God a righteous ground for offering the forgiveness of sins through faith in the One who died on the cross.

The sufferings of Christ. It was given to Isaiah to behold 700 years before the Son of God appeared on earth an almost complete picture of the sufferings of Christ and their vicarious character. How the obedient servant was to be treated by men is for the first time mentioned in chapter 50:6: "I gave My back to the smiters and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, I hid not My face from shame and spitting." But the great revelation of the sufferings of Christ is found in the famous fifty-third chapter. It is the culmination of the second part of Isaiah. The center of the chapter is "brought as a Lamb to the slaughter." The most ancient as well as reliable Jewish expositors apply the chapter to Messiah. The great expositors of the Church in the past have all read the story of the cross of Christ in this chapter. The New Testament repeatedly quotes Isaiah 53 and knows no other fulfillment than in Him, who was the man of sorrows.

The Spirit-filled evangelist Philip heard the eunuch reading from this chapter and then opened his mouth and preached Jesus unto him. The infidel Jews have invented a theory which teaches that the nation's sufferings are described and not the Messiah's. This wicked denial the destructive critics have fully indorsed.

The prophecy begins with ver. 13 of chap. 52, and goes down to the end of the fifty-third chapter. All the typical vail is dropped, and we see One manifestly in a sacrificial place for men, — a sin-bearer. The details of the death by which He would be cut off from among men are minutely given, as well as the perfection of character and life which fitted Him for an offering. He is, moreover, Jehovah's servant in all this, fulfilling His gracious purposes of blessing, and exalted by Him to glory unequaled as His sorrow.

Let us take this first, which to Him was first. It is as Jehovah's servant that the prophecy begins with Him. The wisdom with which He acts, the glory resulting, hinge upon this. God is glorified in Him; and being glorified in Him, glorifies Him in Himself. In the depths of that terrible agony to which He stooped, in the heights of supreme glory to which He is lifted, He is still and ever the steadfast servant of Jehovah's will. It pleased Jehovah to bruise Him: Jehovah path laid on Him the iniquity of us all; Jehovah's purpose prospers in His hand; He is "Jehovah's arm" of power for the deliverance and blessing of His people. How indeed like a track of light through the darkness of this apostate world is such a course! This is the bullock of the burnt-sacrifice, offered indeed for us, but "without spot, to God."

But now we come to another point. "Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 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. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all … for the transgression of my people was he stricken … it pleased Jehovah to bruise him, he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed … and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness [so I translate the hiphil here], and he shall bear their iniquities … because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Isa. 53. Now none can read the chapter without seeing that, as Gesenius admits, expiatory suffering is the point insisted on — a principle of interpretation evident, from the terms of the passage, as being the point. They thought Him rejected of God as well as man; but He was really bearing their iniquities. This is the special force of the chapter, confirmed by the general conviction of the Jews on the subject of expiation, and of every nation under heaven.

195 Now what I note this now for is, that this point is (as a Christian can easily conceive) wholly omitted in the "masterly analysis." Not one word of it has Dr. Williams to produce from Bunsen, naturally enough. The pious and devoted prophet, though really representing Christ as a prophet, was far enough from pretending to be a sacrifice. But the folly of this interpretation is yet more evident, because, if our Isaiah prophesied at the end of the exile, Jeremiah was dead and gone; and that which is clearly future at the end can have no application to him. To apply it to a series of prophets is absurd; with any application to Israel as a people, the common modern Jewish idea, it is in contradiction. They are confessing their having misconceived the position of the sufferer, and that he suffered for their sins. No, nothing can be clearer than the prophecy. The servant who was to be exalted, and extolled, and very high, so that kings should shut their mouths, and he sprinkle many nations, was to be rejected by the Jews and of men, but make his soul an offering for sin, and then be highly exalted. The terms of the passage, its place in the prophecy, all give it its true and evident character, and enable us to understand why the apostles (that is, the same Spirit that dictated it) use it (I do not exactly say found their doctrine on it, for both it and their doctrine are founded on the fact) to confirm and illustrate the doctrine of the sufferings of the blessed Saviour. (Compare Psalm 22.)

These are Dr. D.'s words (p. 221): 52, 13-53,12 deals again with the figure of Jehovah's ideal Servant, and develops under a new aspect his character and work. It represents, namely, his great and surprising exaltation, after an antecedent period of humiliation, suffering, and death, in which, it is repeatedly stated, he suffered, not (as those who saw him mistakenly imagined) for his own sins, but for the sins of others." Is it not distressing that a man should see and acknowledge so much which applies clearly, unmistakably, and exclusively to the Lord, and yet withhold the confession of His name? Who but Christ ever suffered from God for the sins of others? The italics even are his own. Yet not a word honestly lets out the truth of the One efficacious substitute for sinners, though "it is repeatedly stated" as he does not deny but confess throughout the passage. Hence the effort to apply it to Jeremiah, or to Josiah, is as vain as to conceive the Jews to be here so personified. They suffered for their own sins, as all scripture shows, and most justly. Nor has any nation been less patient even under God's chastenings, instead of suffering as a lamb without one spot or blemish or complaint. Even the more ancient Jewish interpretation points to the Messiah; and the evasions alluded to are modern comparatively (on the part of Rashi, D. Kimchi, Aben Ezra, as well as Saadiah Gaon and Abarbanel) through the strain of controversy with Christians. Their very Prayer-book testifies to this truth against them repeatedly.

Of course the controversialists of Judaism seek to evade such a scripture as Isaiah 53. Instead of reading in it the future confession by Israel of their past sin in rejecting their Messiah, they try to apply it either to Jeremiah, or to the prophets as a body, or to king Josiah, or to Israel as a people. But even the rationalistic Gesenius and De Wette could not deny that expiation runs through the chapter, as it does through the Jewish system in scripture from beginning to end. Again, though the sorrows of Jeremiah may to some extent agree with the Holy Victim that Isaiah portrays, not so will either their vicarious character, or still less the glorious consummation which will be their result when kings shut their mouths before His exaltation. Applied to Messiah, humbled and suffering, but returning to reign in glory, all is plain. Certainly those who would drag Jeremiah or the prophets into the chapter are not entitled to rebuke others for neglect of the context: not a clause consists with either idea. Abarbanel's thought of Josiah is no less unfounded than that of Saadiah Gaon, who would have Jeremiah. But what shall we say of R. Isaac's, in the Chizzuk Amunah? He, with Rashi, Aben Ezra, and D. Kimchi, conceives Israel to be here. Nor do I deny that Jews do appear, but wholly distinct from the One who suffers for their sins.

It is not the Gentiles* but the Jews who say, "Who would have believed our report? … Our pains he carried while we indeed esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. Yet he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and through his bruises was healing granted to us." It is Israel who thus speak, when repentant confessing their past unbelief. They had regarded Him as an utter aversion to God, when in truth He was making atonement for their transgressions. It is not only the language and the context, but the whole scope of the prophecy, that fix its real point to be Messiah, first bearing the sin of many, then dividing the spoil with the strong, when He is exalted and extolled and placed very high. And so Jonathan ben Uzziel interpreted in the Targum, and "the wise men of blessed memory," as Abarbanel tells us, in many of their Medrashes; so the book of Zohar (comment on Exod. fol. 95, col. 3), and even the Talmud Babyl. (in Sanhed. Perek Chelek, fol. 98, col. 2), and the Yalkat Shimoni on the passage. But the most remarkable of all perhaps is the fact that in the public prayers of the synagogue, both at the Passover and on the day of atonement, even the Jews of our day "allude to Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53 as applying to Messiah, though the translator has tried to weaken the last of them by trying to bring in Josiah in defiance of the context.

Dr. Phillipson strives hard to get rid of the truth here; as if Isaiah were declaring the present degradation of Israel to be necessary for the accomplishment of their mission, and their sufferings as borne by Israel to be the means of happiness for the nations! Is it possible that men who fear God, and tremble at His word, can fail to see that this would neutralize His solemn condemnation of Israel as guilty without excuse, and the moral glory of the Messiah as their only Saviour? Alas! those whom the prophet is here convicting of being doubly "wicked" wish to deprive of His praise Him who had done no violence, and in whose mouth was no deceit, the spotless, suffering, uncomplaining Lamb, on whom, Jehovah declares, the plague was laid "for the transgressions of my people." Who is He then? and who are "My people?" Surely not the same, but in the most marked contrast — Israel once unbelieving, now confessing; and one who was bearing their guilt, but is afterwards their highest glory and that of all the earth. Can any interpretation be more certain than this? Can perversion be more evident than that which is current among the Jews of our day? Let them weigh the section before God for their own souls. It is the old snare of every heart, Jewish or Gentile alike, the pretension to stand for oneself, instead of finding one's only safety in Messiah and His atonement of sins.

Many who profess to believe seek to make the nation the prudent servant here, so as to shut out our Lord Jesus Christ. Was it a nation or an individual who had “His grave” appointed with the wicked? Were even the godly of a nation ever “numbered with the transgressors?” Could it be said of the nation suffering for its own sins, “for the transgression of My people was He stricken?” No; none but our blessed Saviour ever answered, or could answer, to this prophecy, spoken over seven centuries before He came. But all was foreknown of God, and we praise Him for the grace which has given us to believe the report, and to see in CHRIST “THE ARM OF THE LORD REVEALED.” He and none other is the prudent servant to “BE EXALTED AND EXTOLLED AND BE VERY HIGH.”

This passage is taken from the prophecy relating to Jehovah's righteous Servant, as it was translated from the Hebrew in the Greek Septuagint Version. It is a prophetic utterance of what the believing and suffering Jewish remnant will penitently confess in a future day when they recognise their guilt in rejecting and crucifying their Messiah. "Surely he has borne our griefs [sicknesses] and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."

The passage in Isaiah evidently does not refer, as the verses which immediately follow do (Isa. 53:5-6), to the atoning and substitutionary sufferings of Christ, but to the effects of His service among men which the Jews, blinded by unbelief, regarded as a visitation from God, so that they said, "He is mad"; "this man is not of God"; "He has a demon," esteeming Him to be a Gehazi, a Uzziah, "stricken, smitten of God and afflicted."

The Spirit of God, however, in Matthew records this instance of extensive healing energy at Capernaum as an illustration of the manner in which the prophetic oracle was fulfilled. So that we are left in no doubt as to its true application. In the narrative of His taking the infirmities and bearing the diseases, there is not only the sense that the Lord removed these things from the sufferers, but also that He took them upon Himself; so that He became a "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief [sickness]" as stated in the verse preceding the quotation (Isa. 53:3).

Matthew's Gospel (12:20) tells us that this servant is the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark the different phases of His character and work while on earth and His future work when He appears again. The song of redemption glory will be sung only when He is manifested. Israel is seen as a people robbed and spoiled. None saith "Restore." This is their present condition.

Matthew 12:18-21 gives the Holy Spirit’s answer to the question, and provides the key of entrance to the wealth which is so ample and abundant in Isaiah (II). These verses are quoted from Isaiah 42, and show that this distinguished Servant is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, our precious Saviour.