WWUTT 2109 Man of Sorrows (Isaiah 53:1-3)

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Isaiah 53 is such a well -known chapter of Isaiah, perhaps the most famous chapter of Isaiah, where we read prophetically of the

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Christ who is to come and suffer and die on our behalf when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

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Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

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Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone.

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In our Old Testament study, we're back to Isaiah, up to chapter 53. You know

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Isaiah 53, right? Where we have such great verses, like he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, and all of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

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This is the chapter of the Bible that John MacArthur used in his book, The Gospel According to God. What does

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God say the gospel is? And it's this word that had been given to the prophet Isaiah 700 years before the birth of Christ.

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So let's look at this chapter together, Isaiah 53, verses 1 through 12. I'll go through the whole chapter here.

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Reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the Lord. Who has believed our report?

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And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground.

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He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should desire him.

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He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him.

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Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried.

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Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our peace fell upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

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All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

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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.

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So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

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And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, that for the transgression of my people striking was due to him?

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So 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.

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But Yahweh was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If you would place his soul as a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in his hand.

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As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied.

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By his knowledge the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities.

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Therefore I will divide for him a portion with the many, and he will divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

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Yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors.

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This whole chapter is about the penal substitutionary atonement in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who died for us, taking our sin upon himself, that we might be clothed with the righteousness of God.

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This continues from what we read last week in Isaiah 52, at the very end of that chapter.

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There is the promise of deliverance that is given to Israel, and then we have the reference to the exalted servant.

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And really, that closing of last week's chapter, I think, honestly serves better being brought into chapter 53.

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So, chapter 53 really should have started at Isaiah 52 .13. So, we read there,

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Behold, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted, just as many were appalled at you, my people.

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So his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.

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Thus he will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths on account of him.

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For what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand.

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And so, here we are then, at the start of chapter 53, with this question, Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?

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Who is it that has heard about these things that God is going to do, and the servant whom he is going to send to redeem his people?

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And here is the servant that is described here in this chapter.

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For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground.

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He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, and no appearance that we should desire him.

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Now, this reference to him being a root, this really goes back to chapter 11, where we read in verse 1,

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Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

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The spirit of Yahweh will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of Yahweh.

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So this is now being said of the suffering servant. The one who is going to grow up like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground, is going to be the descendant of Jesse.

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He's going to be born in the line of David. Because here we have those descriptors coming back in again, of exactly the shoot that was described back in Isaiah chapter 11.

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Now, then in the second half of verse 2, He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him.

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He's coming from the line of David. He is the rightful heir to the throne of David. But he doesn't have a stately form or majesty.

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There's nothing about this man that you are going to look at and say, Oh, there he is. Here's our

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Messiah. Remember that when it came down to Saul and David, Saul is described in 1

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Samuel as the tallest man in Judah and the handsomest.

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He was a good looking dude, and he was taller than everybody. Looking at him, you thought, that's him.

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That's our king right there. But remember then what happens a few chapters later, when Samuel comes to the house of Jesse to anoint

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David king. He doesn't know he's there to anoint David king. He sees the oldest son,

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Eliab, come before him. And Samuel thinks, this is the guy. Eliab was in Saul's army.

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He looked like a soldier. He conducted himself like a soldier.

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And so Samuel thinks by his appearance, this has got to be the man that God is choosing to succeed

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Saul. And God says, no, I've rejected him. God does not see as man sees.

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For man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And God knowing the heart of Eliab, this was not a man of God.

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It was not a man after God's own heart, the way that David is described. David, a shepherd boy, maybe 16, 17 years old, comes in from the field.

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And God says, this is the one. And that is who Samuel anoints, the next king of Israel.

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The one who by his appearance didn't look like the next king of Israel, but this was the man.

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And so born in the line of David. Now, at this point, David, of course, has great prestige among the

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Israelites. They're looking for another king to come along like David. They want another David. Someone who's even going to be an emancipator.

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He's going to destroy our enemies for us and make Israel great again. But here's

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Isaiah 53 saying, no, he's not going to have some stately former majesty that when you look at him, we would desire him.

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No appearance that we should desire him. Because who was Jesus? He was a carpenter from Galilee, from Nazareth in Galilee.

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The people even knew who he was. Is this not the carpenter's son?

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Is his mother not Mary? Are these not his brothers and these not his sisters? They knew his family. They were not impressed with him.

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And even when Judas betrays Jesus, which is what we're reading about now in Matthew 26, when

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Judas betrays Jesus and he leads the mob to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, we haven't gotten to this part yet, but we're right on the edge of it.

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What is it that Judas tells the people will be the sign that this is the man that you are to arrest?

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He's going to go up to him and kiss him. Why would Judas need to do that? Why don't the people already know who

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Jesus is? Because there was nothing about Jesus in his appearance that even stood out from his own disciples.

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And it was a possibility that one of the disciples could have stepped forward and said, I'm the man, you know, trying to protect their master in Lord.

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We don't want him to be led away and put to death. So one of the disciples instead decides I would die for you and steps forward and says,

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I'm the guy, take me instead. Judas says, no, the one I kiss is the man. So the mob who's coming to arrest him would not have even been able to distinguish the carpenter of Nazareth from these other fishermen in Galilee or the tax collector or the zealot or any of the rest of them.

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Jesus had no former majesty that made him stand out. He wasn't fair skinned, long blonde hair, a cleaner robe than the rest of the disciples had with a purple sash around him.

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That was not Christ. Nothing about him immediately made people desire him by his appearance.

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It was because of the way that he taught and the miracles that he performed. Verse three, he was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him.

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You know, whenever we have these movie or cinematic or television portrayals of Jesus, whether it's

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The Chosen or The Passion of the Christ or, you know, there's a there's a play that's out now called

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The Thorn. There's Jesus Christ Superstar, which, I mean, was really, truly blasphemous.

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Any of these things, any of these cinematic television or theatrical portrayals of Jesus.

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There always seems to be this effort to make him happier. Have you ever noticed that we want to see the happy side of Jesus?

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Of course, because you want to do it in such a way that's going to be appealing to your audience so that they will want to come and see it and pay money for it.

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People don't want to come see the sad Jesus. They want to see the happy Jesus, the guy who joked and had fun and enjoyed company with his disciples and going to wedding feasts and so on and so forth.

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The Bible does not describe Jesus this way. Not to say that he didn't have fun, that he didn't laugh, didn't enjoy a good joke.

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But his disposition was more a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. That's what Scripture tells us.

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I mean, you think about it, the three years of his earthly ministry, if we think of this as going from 27 to 30

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A .D., which is that that's the time frame, I think, that we're considering here. So those three years, 27 to 30

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A .D. During the time of Jesus earthly ministry, he knows what is going to happen.

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He knows. He knows he's going to go to the cross and die.

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Take the wrath of God upon himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, grieving him so much when he got to the

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Garden of Gethsemane that it's believed that he sweat drops of blood. That blood was even, you know, capillaries in his head burst into his sweat glands.

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And so that when he sweat, it was even mixed with his blood. We'll talk about that when we get to Matthew 26.

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But you just think of the immense amount of pressure that he was under.

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He was about to go and do something that no man has ever done.

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Take the wrath of God upon himself. Now, those who die and will go to judgment, they will be experiencing the wrath of God for all eternity.

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For those who die and go to live with God in paradise, we never have to experience that.

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The wrath of God was taken upon Christ so that we don't have to perish under God's wrath.

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That's the that's the exchange. That's the great exchange. Jesus, with his death on the cross, took our punishment upon himself.

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All who are in Christ will not have to experience the wrath of God. It was taken upon Christ with his death on the cross.

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So remember, this is what Jesus is looking toward. This is what his ministry is building toward.

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His death is why we call it the passion of the Christ. And we refer to that week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday as Passion Week, because this is where Christ's passion reached its fulfillment.

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This is what he lived to do. He was born to die. He was he went through his earthly ministry to that point.

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And then, of course, rose again from the dead, was seen by his disciples 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

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But all of his ministry was building to that point, as said in Colossians 1 20. God, through Jesus, is reconciling all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

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So all of redemptive cosmic history pivots around this one central event that happened on a place called

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Golgotha outside of Jerusalem in 80, 30, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

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All of human history revolves around that event. Our timeline is even based on the life of Jesus Christ.

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The very fact that we call this, you know, 2024, it's 2000, 24 years after the birth of Christ.

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You know, that's the way that the the calendar has been settled. So all of human history revolves around this event.

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God is even reconciling all things through the person and work of Jesus Christ, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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And so as Jesus is going through his earthly ministry, do you really think that this was a happy time?

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And not to say that he didn't experience joy. In fact, I think that Jesus was perhaps the most joyful person there ever was because he knew all things were in the father's hands.

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But being joyful does not mean that he's always happy. Joy is not synonymous with happy.

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You can be sorrowful and be joyful. You can't be sorrowful and be happy. That's hard. But you can still be filled with joy.

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Consider what Hebrews 12, 2 and 3 say. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.

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So, Jesus, though he's looking toward the fact that he's going to take the wrath of God upon himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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Yet he was still a man who had joy in the father because he looked beyond what was going to happen on the cross to what

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God was ultimately fulfilling through this. Nonetheless, as a man who was made like us,

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God who put on flesh and dwelt among us. Who took on the appearance of sinful man, as said in Romans and Galatians.

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Isaiah 53 says that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He's like one from whom men hide their face.

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He was despised and we did not esteem him. As we continue on in Matthew 26, we're going to read about where the disciples abandoned

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Jesus when he gets arrested. A man who was acquainted with grief, not even esteemed by his own disciples in his darkest hour.

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Now, really this statement about being despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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This has more to do with his being arrested and going to his death and what he suffered on the cross.

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Then it does about his general disposition over the course of his earthly ministry. I still think it speaks into that, but it's not to say that he was always just walking around sorrowful.

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I think he did experience good times, happy moments with his disciples. I think that that was their joyful times with his mother, with his family, or even looking to his father,

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Joseph, his earthly father, who taught him the trade of carpentry that he learned and provided for his family after Joseph had died.

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And so he did still experience joy in life, but a joy that came not from those experiences.

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Rather, again, it was looking to the father and doing all things to the glory of the father. This next verse further highlights the fact that the grief is talking about what he bore for us.

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So verse four, surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried.

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Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

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But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

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The chastening of our peace fell upon him. And by his wounds, we are healed.

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All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

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That's what we're going to come back to next week. So really, we've just covered three verses here of Isaiah 53 verses one through three.

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We'll look at four through six next week and then, God willing, the week after that, finish the rest.

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But we want to take a deep dive here into some of these things that are talked about in Isaiah 53. For this is prophetic about the sacrifice of Christ himself.

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As we're in the month that's leading up to Easter, a good time to be thinking about these things. What was actually accomplished by Christ's death on the cross?

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What was happening there as he hung, bleeding and dying for our sins?

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So join me again Thursday as we return in our Old Testament study to Isaiah 53.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here. We thank you for giving us your

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Son. For by his wounds, we are healed. Because Jesus, who is

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God, put on flesh and dwelt among us. Because he lived a perfect life. Because he died for us.

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We have life. And I pray that we are also able to do all things to the glory of God the

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Father. As Jesus did. As said in Philippians 2 .11, all this he did. Even dying for our sins, he did for the glory of God the

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Father. And so everything that we do, we look beyond our suffering to him who suffered for us and is seated at the right hand of God.

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And all those who are in Christ Jesus, likewise, we will be raised from the dead to live with you in your glorious kingdom forever.

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May that hope sustain us in these days as we look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

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It's in his name we pray. Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word, When We Understand the