Why Was it God's Will to Crush Jesus? | Clip from Servant Song VI

Isaiah 53 and the Meaning of the Servant’s Suffering

Well, in verses 4, 5, and 6, we find the who and the why behind this amazing suffering. So listen to these verses. Verse 4,. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

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. 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. After Isaiah explains that the Jews are disinterested in their own Messiah, that they are what Paul says in 2 Corinthians, they are blind to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and then in verse 4, 5, and 6, the prophet explains who is behind all of this and why is it happening.

Let me read those verses for you. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 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.

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. Well who is behind all of this? Who's the great actor? It's not the people who are rejecting the Messiah.

The Father’s Sovereign Role in the Servant Songs

It's not the Romans. We know that. It's actually God, the Father. If you go back and think about these songs all the way back from chapter 42, 49, and 50, God has been the great actor. He has been the one who has been sending the Messiah, guiding the Messiah, supporting the Messiah.

In chapter 42, it is the Father who chose the servant, delighted in the servant, put his spirit upon the servant. He called the servant, upheld the servant, watched over the servant, and appointed this servant as the covenant.

In chapter 49, he prepared the servant in secret like a sharpened sword or a honed arrow, and he made him to be the light and salvation of the nations. In chapter 50, he gave the servant words to sustain his followers.

He awakened the servant. He opened the servant's ears, and he helped the servant and defended the servant so that none could disgrace or condemn him. But now, after all of that, it is still God that's acting.

Don't miss that. And in chapter 53, verse 6, he lays the sin of his people upon the servant. Chapter 53, verse 10, he is pleased, it is his will, it is his pleasure, to crush the servant, putting him to grief if he would offer himself as a sin offering.

Acts 4 and the Predestined Death of Jesus

Now we see this in the book of Acts. In chapter 4, we read, truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your God, your hand, and your purpose predestined to occur.

If that's not amazing enough, think about the role of the servant. The servant does not complain, does not resist the will of the Father. Remember chapter 50, he doesn't rebel against the will of God when it's the cross, and he doesn't sidestep or dodge the will of God.

But he drinks the cup, the New Testament says, of the wrath of God all the way to its dregs. In John 14, 31, on that last night with his disciples before his crucifixion, he talks to them a lot about obedience being the evidence that we love God, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And at the end of the chapter, he himself is the great demonstration of that, that the world may know, he says, that I love the Father. I get up and I go to the cross. It's not because there was anything wrong with Christ, he says, the evil one has nothing in me.

But I want the world to know that I love my Father, and so I embrace my Father's will. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to The Holt Council on your favorite podcast app, and it does help whenever you're able to leave a comment or a question or write a review.