What does it mean to set your face like flint in Isaiah 50:7?

Who could say but a Divine Being, "I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering"? And who but the same Being, become man, - a man in perfect lowliness, and dependence, and obedience - could say, "The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. 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. For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed"? These are the words of the only perfect man that ever trod this earth, the Lord Jesus. Having taken the place of man, in dependence and obedience, it involved the humiliation, the rejection, the shame, the spitting, the smiting; yea, above all, the cross, as the display of man's hatred, and God's judgment of sin. But what did He say? "I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." His holy face was set to do the will of God, though the accomplishment of that will involved for Him the deep, unutterable woes of the cross. His face was set like a flint, and He knew that He would not be ashamed. Obedience and God's vindication go together. The two were united in Jesus. He obeyed and swerved not, and left His cause and vindication with Him who judges righteously.

It was in the full consciousness of this that our blessed Saviour says, “Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifies Me” (vv. 7-8). He was in the place of man: but He fully relied upon divine help (vv. 7 and 9). Nevertheless, the path involved not only the shame, and the smiting, and the spitting of which we have spoken; but also death itself. With His heart full of love and His face firm like a flint He pressed forward with holy resoluteness, and He was slain.

But God has taken Him out of death, He has raised Him from among the dead! What a victory! What a vindication of the perfect life of Jesus! What a justification! “Blessed Saviour,” our hearts say, “Thou art worthy!” He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; the Father was the first visitor to His tomb, before the disciples, or Mary, or even the angels. His satisfaction was so complete in Him!

And having taken this lowly place of Servant, He had to face the scornful rejection of men. Smiting, shame and spitting were to be His portion though He came in such grace with blessing for men. Nothing however moved Him from the path of devotion to the will of God. His face was set as a flint in that direction, and therefore the power of God was with Him.

He did not turn away back when man and Satan raised the violent storm of hatred, persecution and opposition against Him; but as was foretold seven centuries before by Isaiah, He set His face “like a flint” (50:7), and as Luke says, when the time was come, “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” His soul was troubled, but He would go through all “that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.” His whole course was according to the inspired writings, according to the will of God. He said, “The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” In love and devotedness, our gracious Lord and Saviour went the whole way for God’s glory, as it was written of Him.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, that Prophet foretold and foreshadowed in the Old Testament, came to speak the words of God; also to do His will and His works. This brought upon Him opposition and persecution, sorrow and suffering. His grace and love were refused. They requited His labours for their blessing with rejection; they rewarded Him with hatred for His love. He nevertheless “set His face like a flint” to finish the work He came to do. It was thus with Jeremiah, in a measure more limited. “They shall fight against thee”, he was told by the Lord. Therefore he was to be purposeful, and gird up his loins, and arise, and speak unto them; for “I am with thee, says the Lord” (Jer. 1:17-19). To be true to his name, in “the exaltation of the Lord” amidst deceit and violence, encouragement is divinely given in this first chapter; where the details are recorded of his call and his commission.

And when the time was come that Jesus should be received up, what was it that enabled Him, steadfastly to set His face to go to Jerusalem? It was because He had (with purpose of heart) set the Lord always before His face. Therefore did He set His face like a flint against shame and spitting; thus it was that He "gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that pluck off the hair." And although Satan did not leave one stone unturned in the path of Jesus, to shift Him off the place of dependence and obedience, — he could not succeed, for He had said to the Lord: "Thou art my Lord;" He had set Him before His face, and He was at His right hand, and therefore He could not be moved. The same principle holds good for us (comp. Ps. 62:2, 6.) — But there is something more in Ps. 16 than the negative expression: "I shall not be moved." It is "Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth." The result of Christ's constant dependence and unswerving obedience was that His heart was glad in a world where He was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," and that His glory (i.e. tongue) did rejoice. There is something very beautiful in the fact that the Hebrew word for "glory" means also "tongue." So it was with Christ; His tongue was His glory, and did rejoice, because He used it only for the glory of His Father and God (our tongues, alas! are often our shame). Every word uttered by that blessed tongue was a word of truth, love, grace and wisdom. And in the same measure, as we, beloved, walk as beloved and obedient children, i.e., in the sense and realisation of the love of God, and in the only safe place of dependence upon Him, we shall not fail to realize the same, in our little measure, as to our hearts and our tongues. Our hearts will be glad and our tongues rejoice, may it be in the testimony of His gospel to poor sinners, or in speaking to one another in psalms and spiritual hymns, or when exhorting and encouraging one another with words of truth and comfort in love.

The Lord was really bringing out the two grand principles of His life when here — thoroughly obedient, perfectly dependent. The difference sometimes escapes notice. Dependence is more than obedience. In Him everything was perfect, and there was the most implicit obedience, so that at the close of His course on the cross, His mind seems to turn to Scripture to see if anything had not been fulfilled, and then He said, "I thirst." The last word that described what the Perfect Servant would do, meeting the mind of Him whose Servant He was, He gave up the ghost. The spirit of dependence went further. He had the whole heart of the Father fixed on Him when as a Servant of a lower kind, fulfilling His duties as Messiah, King of Israel, He did it in all the savour of His relationship to the Father. We have a striking instance in Gethsemane. "The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?" Not merely I must obey, but as a Son that had fully entered into the mind of His Father in perfect subjection. Christ was the perfect model of dependence in two ways. One, always seeking solitude in the enjoyment of communion; the other, the word of His Father leading Him to thrust Himself out, and set His face like a flint before the world. If I walk as a son and a servant, I realize the heart of a child. in perfect dependence. I also get the injunction which comes often in a different way.

"Let your moderation," etc. Naturally I like to assert my rights in the world, and if I see injustice done, I like to resent it. Moderation is putting a check upon our own will, for the present content to be put upon this - "The Lord is at hand." When the Lord set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem, the Samaritans would not receive Him, and the disciples wanted to draw down fire upon them. If you set your face like a flint to go to Jerusalem, you will not be received by those who are half-hearted. "The Lord is at hand."

Verse 51. "It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." I am going to get a portion in heaven, and you are to have the same portion, but it must be through rejection here. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily," etc. "When the time was come that he should be received up, he set his face stedfastly to go to Jerusalem." In Isaiah, "I set my face as a flint." He was accomplishing His Father's will here, as in all His course. Redemption must be accomplished through the cross. He "learned obedience by the things which he suffered." It was the same obedience as at the beginning, when He was coming amongst them with "Blessed are the poor," etc. - more painful, and of course, He felt the difference; but still He goes in the same blessed spirit and earnestness. Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, etc. He had found it His meat to do the will of Him that sent Him. There was joy to Him in this; but in the cup of wrath which He was going to drink there was no joy. He had met with scorn here, smiting there, rejection all through, but nothing like this cup, and therefore He cried, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me," etc. Christ proved His perfectness, for He felt what it was to be "made sin," etc. His holy nature shrank from it, yet there was the same quiet, steady, patient obedience, for "He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem," as all through. He knows His Father's will and He does it. He sets His face there, where His Father's will is to be done, not looking to this side or to that, but there - Jerusalem.

The glory of God and the blessing of man hung on His boldness. He came to do the will of God. This meant the full tale of “the sufferings of Christ.” Gethsemane and its bloody sweat, Calvary and its atoning agonies—all so freely endured by our blessed Substitute, so that the work of the enemy should be undone and creation placed on a foundation of righteousness for ever. For this He “set His face like a flint” and He was not ashamed.