Behold My Servant: Who Has Believed Our Report? — J. Glyn Owen

Shall we pause for a moment's prayer as we come to this gigantic passage of Scripture tonight? Let us again turn to the Lord together. We pray our Heavenly Father that we may metaphorically know what it is to take off our shoes.

For the ground whereon we tread is holy as we move into this holy of holies of the Old Testament into the sacred place of suffering as Depicted by the prophet. You alone know the extent of our need rightly to understand and having understood to honor Such a massive revelation.

Isaiah 53 and the Suffering Servant

You know our need now. Oh Spirit of God help us to the glory of the Savior's name. Amen. We come this evening to the most remarkable chapter perhaps in the whole of the Old Testament literature. And I'm going to begin now by reading from the King James Version the first three verses of Isaiah 53.

And you will see that there are some differences there that we shall have to touch upon as we come to Try and discover for ourselves what God is saying here. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor calmliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and We hid as It were our faces from him he was despised and We Esteemed him not.

Now there are two or three things here that stand right out on the very surface of the passage and demand our attention. First of all, I would like you to look at a Report that apparently demands a response.

The Prophet asks Who has believed our message or Or In the language of the King James who has believed our report. Now the connotation of that word translated report or message is is Important we need to get the point that the Prophet wants us to to get at this stage.

Actually the words underlying the sentence before us could mean either a Report about us. As if the Prophet will speak on his own behalf along with other prophets the report about us prophets. Or it could mean the report which we the prophets have received.

Or it could mean thirdly the report which we the prophets or which I the Prophet Isaiah Proclaim deliver declare it could mean one of three things. What's the background. It would seem that the background is this.

Every true prophet of God is distinguished from the false prophets. Every true prophet of God was taught by the Spirit of God to listen to the voice of God. This was one of the essential characteristics of a genuine prophet.

He had learned to listen for and to the voice of God. True true as many of the Old Testament prophets tell us they were also disciplined In the art of listening to men and of hearing the significance of What people were saying and how they were saying things what they were saying about one another.

The way they performed their religious acts. They were they were told and they were taught how to listen to men how to assess the acts of them of men as well as the words of men, but fundamentally The prophets were schooled the prophets were taught in this supreme art Listening to the voice of God and in listening to hear and in hearing to be prepared.

To bring the message from the inner chamber of his presence out into the outer court of the world and There to declare it in the name of the God that had given it. Now that's the prophet. He is first of all a person who knows or who knew how to gain access and Having gained access.

How to listen having listened how to receive having received how to go out in the strength of the Lord and impart the report of What he had heard in the inner place the innermost Recesses of fellowship with God.

Now, that's what we have here. Isaiah is asking who is it that has believed the report that we have given. We've been in your presence. We've heard your word. We've delivered the message. We've tried it aloud.

But who has believed our report. Now the content of that report or of that message is I? Think to be described in two senses. If you were to ask the question, what was the report that Isaiah brought to the people?

It can be answered in two ways one and we shall not pursue this but we could reply and say in in general terms the report that Isaiah brought was the sum total of the book that bears his name. He didn't write this book.

He's not the author of this book this Holy Spirit of God is God is the author of this book. It was God who gave these ideas to the man of God was God who spoke to? Isaiah. And It was Isaiah who? Responded to the work of the Spirit of God first of all in delivering and then in writing this word.

But the ultimate Authorship of the book is not Isaiah. It is God and Therefore in this larger sense It is true to say that the report that Isaiah brought to the nation's comprises the whole message of the book that bears his name.

But The answer can also be given differently it can be viewed more particularly in this particular context. It could well be that the Prophet is here thinking of the divine message given him. Especially concerning the servant of Jehovah the Lord's servant that we have been dealing with the message of the servant song.

The message particularly of the passage beginning at the end of chapter 52 and going on to the end of chapter 53 this Remarkable capstone to the series of servant songs that we have been considering together.

Now I personally subscribe to the view that Isaiah is here referring very especially to what we may call the overarching emphasis of Isaiah 52 12 to the end of Isaiah 53. There is one Magnificent emphasis which runs right through the passage that mr McLeod was expounding last Sunday evening and the whole of this 53rd chapter and I tend to the view that what the Prophet had in mind when he asked in this way Lord who has believed our report.

Is this he's referring to the main Thrust of his message. Well, what was that? Well now here it is there are two strands that are brought together and they don't make sense. To a man with no faith. They just don't make sense the first stress and this is with this is how Chapter the the servant song in chapter 52 that is verse 13.

Excuse me. This is how it began see. My servant will deal wisely or will act wisely. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted right. Notice what comes next in chapter 52 verse 14. Just as there were many who were appalled at him and the sentence isn't finished.

His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form. Marred more than human likeness and now notice the switch again back to the subject with which he began. So will he sprinkle many nations?

Kings will shut their mouths because of him for what they hadn't for what they were not told. They will see and what they have not heard. They will understand. Have you got the two strands? The first strand is this with Categorical and divinely given assurance the Prophet says my servant the Lord's servant is going to gain supremacy and Lordship and he's going to succeed and He's going to startle the nations as well as sprinkle the nations and If you go right through to the end of chapter 53 chapter 53 ends on the same note.

So that having gone through death and suffering and anguish and bloodshed and all the rest of it He is the one who is going to share the spoil with a strong. In other words, he's the victor. It's the victor who shares the spoil.

It's the mighty in war who shares the spoil. And this passage this servant song ends up at a place where the servant whatever else you want to say about him. He's there right on top of things. He's Lord.

He's King. Now that's one strand. It's the reiterated statement of verses 13 and 15 in chapter 52. He will be raised up. He will be very high. He will be exalted and there's nothing that can stop him.

But now here's the other strand. It's this strand of Terrible suffering. His visage was marred more than any man. We hid our faces from him. There was nothing in him to attract us. There was everything in him to repel us his physical condition as Seen by human eyes was such as to put everybody away and turn everybody off.

Never the less and this is the message it seems to me. This is the report. He's bringing my Servant is going to succeed suffer, yes. In a manner in which no one has ever suffered before and no one will ever suffer after but but but He will succeed now there comes then of Necessity the challenge of the report has delivered who has believed our report.

You can understand you can understand in the light of what I'm I've just tried to say very briefly. You can understand that. This is a very real challenge. Talking about a deliverer like this who is going to suffer as this one is going to suffer.

Who can who can honestly believe that he'll come out on top? Who can honestly believe that a person is going to suffer as this person is going to suffer in eyes? According to Isaiah 53 who can possibly see him coming out on top and dividing the spoil with a strong.

The thing is monstrous. Of course, we know the answer but Isaiah you see was aware of the natural unbelief of his contemporaries. He had been long familiar with this challenging feature in the experience of men and women schooled in the Providence of his and Schooled in Providence and schooled in history as they were schooled by the law and schooled by the prophets.

Nevertheless Israel of all people were stubbornly unbelieving and Proclaiming to them such a deliverer who was going to deliver in such a way. Says Isaiah who has believed our report. It's all been in vain.

That would seem to be the sense of it. Yes, Isaiah had his finger on the pulse of the generation. He knew that the hearts of his contemporaries were unbelieving hearts. And he was right in his assessment of the situation.

Believers in such a messianic deliverance as Isaiah was announcing in these chapters was very very rare. Nevertheless, God has never been without a nucleus without a remnant of people Who by the Holy Spirit working in their hearts and in their minds?

Have had faith in him and been obedient to him and served him. Now, can I pause for a moment and say something in parentheses? In a sense, it's unrelated in another sense. It is what I want to say is this you see then there is a continuity between the old and the New Testament in many Many ways but in this sense, for example New Testament preachers can identify with Isaiah particularly on the score that we too have to announce a report and When we've announced our report, we've got to look around and see who has believed that report.

The Apostolic Report of Christ’s Death and Resurrection

You will find this coming out very clearly in the in the writings of some of the Apostles Paul, for example Writing to the Corinthians. He says in chapter 15 verses 3 and 4 this classical passage of his what I What I received I passed on to you as a first importance.

Well, what is that Paul? Here it is that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. That he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, it's the report Paul reported to the Corinthians that Messiah Jesus of Nazareth had died according to the scriptures and was risen again according to the scriptures and Bearing that report Men must receive it or reject it must believe it or deny it.

You know, it's still the same. Don't you think my friend that having heard the Word of God you can just sit comfortably in your pew and Just shrug it off your shoulder. You can't do that. That luxury is not yours nor mine to enjoy the man or the woman that hears the report of what God has done in Christ has got to do something and is Responsible for that action be it positive be it negative.

You find this again, of course in the writings of the Apostle John for example. He stresses this very much as for example in 1 John 1 the first three verses. You can see this element of report coming in again that which was from the beginning.

Which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched. This we proclaim. Concerning the Word of Life you can hear the report coming through. We've touched him says John we've seen him.

We've handled him and what we're telling you is what we're sure of we were there. We were witnesses. If you believe the record of the prophets and of the Apostles announcing What God has done in through his son?

There is this element to the record. There is this element of the gospel. It's the element of a testimony to truth to fact. The history to what is done and cannot be undone because it is done. You cannot wipe out history and you cannot undo what God has done in Christ.

Faith and the Revelation of the Lord’s Arm

Calvary cannot be blotted out of the globe or out of history. It is done. Have you believed? But now that brings me to the second main point here. The response that is accompanied by a revelation. And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

Now get the point. Who has believed our report or our message. And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Of the many differing interpretations of this statement. It would seem to me that two in particular commend themselves.

Both are true to the general teaching of Scripture and both ought to find some place in our view of things, too. But probably one predominates here and I don't want to be dogmatic as to which one it is.

I Leave it to you, but we'll look at the two of them. The first interpretation. Among a number who embrace this first view is the renowned Edward J. Young. To whom we owe so much though he was called to his reward at a young age.

Now Edward J. Young has got a wonderful little volume on Isaiah 53 and Student folk here would would would treasure it if they had it. Young and others believe that we have the same essential truths enunciated in the opening question of verse 1.

Who has believed our report. Almost identically the same thought again in the next part of the verse. Stated in the words now before us albeit. The terms are quite different and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

What he's saying is that the Prophet is saying exactly the same thing in different words or almost the same thing in different words. Now upon first hearing you may feel that there is scant basis for a view such as that.

Because the words are so different are they not? The first half of the verse refers to believing the believing of a report and The second half to the revealing of an arm the arm of the Lord. What is there?

What connection is there? How can the one mean the other. How can the two be in any way the same? Well now young and others would reply that here we encounter what is called the phenomenon of parallelism which is Encountered in Hebrew poetry.

You know that it wasn't easy to write the scriptures before the printing presses came into operation and the Jews had found a way of teaching scripture and teaching truth and that was by memorizing it and In order to get the truth home.

They often use this this principle of parallelism by which they said the same truth twice over. Sometimes three times over. Now there are various kinds of parallelism. I'm sorry. I'm not going to give you a lesson on grammar.

But but there are it's necessary to see it at this point. I think in some measure a simplest form of parallelism is when you say exactly the same thing twice over. For example in Psalm 49 1 the first line says hear this all peoples.

The next line says give your all inhabitants of the world. Now you see you have exactly the same thing said but the words are different. Why are they said in two different ways the same truth? Well for this reason because the Hebrews wanted the people who read the scriptures or heard the scriptures to remember the scriptures.

And this is one that this is a major phenomenon in Hebrew in Hebrew mind. That they meant the message of the scriptures to be memorized. God meant the scriptures to be memorized. The Spirit of God meant the scriptures to be memorized.

That's why we have phenomena such as these. But you may say what on earth has this got to do with what we're talking about. Well, there's a very practical point here. This is what young and those who take his view say.

Whenever anyone has believed the prophets report and Having believed the prophets report is then looking by faith for a deliverer for the servant of the Lord who will suffer and through suffer become sovereign and Savior.

There says young the arm of the Lord has been revealed. What's he saying. What he's saying is this. Let's put it in our own terms our own contemporary idiom. Whenever and wherever you have a genuine believer in the Word of God.

That faith is brought into existence by an act of God. God himself creates faith. The human heart Has been so radically affected by sin. That though you can report the very words of God in the power of God to men.

There will be many many many who will not believe it and not receive it. I mean just think of it. The incarnate Lord himself could preach to men and they didn't believe him. Now what chance of the rest of us got?

You see Common fry as we are the best of us the sum of God the incarnate. And Paul says in the epistle to the Colossians that all the fullness of the deity was pleased to dwell in him. He preached to men and they just shrugged it off and didn't believe.

Now what chance of the rest of us got? Unless The mighty spirit of God who brought out a nucleus of nucleus after the Lord Jesus and Who gathered the Ecclesia? Around him during the days of his flesh will also use our feeble words in Reporting the truth and likewise move upon the hearts of men and bring faith to birth.

Now whether whether whether that is the main truth here or not certainly it is a biblical truth and It is something that we need to stress and we need to stress it for this reason. You see if the Spirit of God is working upon your heart and conscience at any given time in a service such as this.

Don't don't deal lightly with it. Don't say I'll attend to this business tomorrow. Don't do that. You can't act when you want to save only when the Spirit of God is upon you and Drawing you and wooing you and illuminating you in so far as it is applicable.

That is is how we are to understand the words of the point. There is a there is a time in the affairs of man When if taken by the flood we can make the right decisions in so far as it is applicable at all.

Now you have echoes of this in many places in the New Testament. For example, we read that when Apollos arrived in a kaya We're told that he was he was a great help to those. I like this description of the Christians.

He was a great help to those who by grace believed Acts 18 27, isn't that lovely? You see you can't believe when you want to sin is too great and its power too mighty and Satan is too strong. You and I just cannot get rid of our chains as and when we please unless the Spirit of God come upon us as Jesus said to Convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

It is only in that Atmosphere in that ethos when the Spirit of God is working upon us that we are free to believe and able to believe. Faith then is the gift and the fruit of the Spirit of God not a humanly cultivated phenomenon and in so far as this as Isaiah meant that then it certainly applied there and it applies today.

Can I use an illustration of this because it's so practically Irrelevant the late dr. F be mayor Spoke of the visit he once made to a firm of lawyers in the City of London. He doesn't tell us what he was doing there, of course, but he went to see this firm of lawyers and The head the the senior man of the firm took him to their strong room.

Which was quite an experience for him because it meant going down Underground and the strong room comprised a long narrow passage excavated under the street and Then he he describes that on entering the passage.

This particular lawyer took into his hand what looked like an unlit candle Attached to a coil of wire the one end. He deftly fastened to a switch and In no time the power traveled along the coil of wire and the light flashed in the China candle which served as a bulb.

So that he could see where to go. It was thus that he found the materials that he was looking for on the occasion of my visit. And it was likewise that he found his way out again from that long long passage underground.

Now says dr. Mayor and these are his words Man is like that dead lifeless flex. Until the current of God's power flows into his heart. When that power is turned on however the light of faith and hope and love begin to burn.

Thus it is that believing or the exercising of faith Synchronized with the experience of God's arm of power being revealed who has believed our report. Do you say you have? Then Isaiah would say if this is the right interpretation Yes, very well you have but you have because the arm of the Lord has been working upon you and within you.

It's not purely an act that you have have expressed in and of yourself. It wasn't a purely natural act or you were in it. Your will was in it. Your whole being was behind it, but it was God who gave you grace both to will and to do according to his good pleasure.

Christ as the Arm of Jehovah

But now there's a second possible translation understanding of that same key passage. The key to the second view is that the phrase the arm of the Lord is Not used here as a mere metaphorical reference to God's power employed in creating faith but that rather it is a Designation of the servant the servant of God the servant the Messiah.

So the meaning is this who has believed our report? And To whom is the Messiah the servant of Jehovah revealed as God's arm? Now the more you think of it the more remarkable a statement or an understanding.

This is Those who believe the divinely inspired report concerning the servant of Jehovah will in due course recognize him as God's In action. And whether this is the is what Isaiah had in mind here or not.

Certainly, this is a divine truth. Certainly, this is true. Jesus spoke in one occasion of him casting out demons by the finger of God. You remember that? If I by the finger of God cast them out, then what about your own sons and daughters?

I'm not concerned about the detailed exegesis of that but just the reference. In other places our Lord Jesus was the outstretched hand of God coming down to people in their needs Bringing the gift of God from highest heaven to lowest abysmal depth.

There is much that our Lord may be able to do. There is much that God may be able to do. By his word by his influence the influence of the Spirit. But scripture does depict God as the God whose arm is strong.

It was by his mighty arm that he delivered the Israelites out of Egypt and Again it was by the might of his arm that he called them back from Babylon and it was by his arm That he nursed them through the wilderness.

It's the mighty arm of God and underneath are the everlasting arms. Scripture has got a lot to say about God's arms. And I think there is much to be said for this understanding that our Lord Jesus Christ is here depicted as the arm of Jehovah.

Perhaps of course we should not think of the term quite as literally as we have and Take it as a reference to God's instrument for the fulfillment of his purposes. Without an arm, you see there are certain things that you cannot do.

You can do many things but without an arm, there are some things that remain undone. Our God is able to do exactly what he has determined to do because he has an arm that is strong. As himself and that arm is the Lord Jesus.

He is the extension of deity into time. Now this second understanding of the words before us take Isaiah saying then that Provided you have received the prophets report in good faith. You have already been given the revelation of the one who is to be God's arm in Accomplishment of his task.

You see that the servant of Jehovah is not just a servant who's told go here do that. But he's he's actually one in and through whom God is active. God's arm. God Extended. And this of course is what the New Testament insists upon.

I and the Father are one. Jesus Christ was not a messenger separate from God. Even in his incarnation. He wasn't cut off from God as you send an ambassador from one country to another and he severed from the base.

Jesus was no such ambassador from heaven to earth separated from base. Not at all. He talks about his being in heaven even when he's on earth. The Son of Man who is in heaven he says in John chapter 3.

In other words I and the Father are one. There is this vital Abiding union between them. And when he speaks the father speaks. When he acts the father acts. God was in Christ. No, we have something here probably of the order of what we have.

There is a difference. But something of the order that we have when Simon Peter made his epochal confession at Caesarea. Philippi Blessed art thou Simon Barger. No such Jesus flesh and blood doesn't reveal that to you.

You didn't get that in school. You didn't get that in the college. You didn't get that here there or elsewhere. My father who is in heaven. Believing the report means seeing the Messiah. Seeing the servant of Jehovah as the Lord.

The Servant’s Future Growth and Prophetic Perfect

Stretching out his arm to deliver. Now just a few words about the third main point here. The bulk of our text remains and I haven't dealt with it. But what I want to do is to give you a picture. The result of the revelation of the servant of Jehovah as the arm of the Lord to believers.

Believers that is in the prophetic report. You will notice a difference here. Depends what translation you have the NIV and the RSV. Will have one tense. The King James Version has a different ten tense.

Quoting from the NIV goes like this. He grew up before him like a tender shoot. And like a root out of a dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him etc.

It's in the past tense. In the King James, it's all in the future tense. He shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground etc in the future tense. Now here is a problem.

I've got to say something about it because I know some of you are involved in giving serious attention to this Passage of Scripture. What's the difference? Well, how does one put in the past and another in the future?

Well now. First of all, perhaps something we've said already gives you a little cue here. This servant song began with the future. My servant will act wisely. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

That's 52 13 and Then right at the end of chapter 53 again, we have back. We are back with the with the future therefore I will give him a portion among the great. He will divide the spoils with a strong etc because of certain things he did in the past but now We have a different tense.

Actually, this is in the Hebrew it is the past tense. It is a perfect tense which of describes something in the past. Now Why then do the King James the translators of the King James translate it as if it were in the future?

What right did they have to put in the future what the Greek tense is only unequivocally puts in the past. Well now the reason is this. They and not only they many people before them and many people after them believe that you have a phenomenon in the Old Testament, which is called the prophetic perfect.

Now the prophetic perfect is this. The Prophet is seeing the things of the future with a mind Illumined by the Spirit of God and the things that he sees which are really in the future. They haven't yet come to pass.

He sees them so clearly and so Certainly that he speaks of them as if they had already come to pass and so he speaks of them in the past tense as if they're already finished and done with whereas as a matter of fact they are yet to come now, let me give you a beautiful example of that.

You remember the words in Isaiah chapter 9 we often use them and even sing them at Christmas time. For a child has been born to us. And to us a child is born and to us a son has been given literally and the government has been Put upon his shoulder and his name Etc.

Now a Child has been born to us. That's what Isaiah said but if you read the context the child was not yet born the child was not yet given and Insofar as it referred to the Lord Jesus Christ. There were five six seven hundred years to transpire before the child was to be born of the Virgin Mary and this this was to be Fulfilled but can you see why why he he used the perfect tense?

It was because it was certain to him. But the reality was still in the future. So when we speak of the reality, it is legitimate to speak of it in the future tense. So though the translators of the King James Version do not translate what we find in the Hebrew They interpret it at this point.

Nevertheless, they do so legitimately. Because if this is what we have there then they rightly understand and rightly interpret the mind of The prophet now, that's all about that. I Statement that we have here.

I want to leave. I want to take leave to employ the future tense as the King James Version does and I want you to notice the main thing that is said here and The main statement that we have in the rest of the passage before us tonight is this He shall grow up before him as a tender plant.

The main statement grammatically and Otherwise understood is that Who has believed our report to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Well, he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, etc, etc, etc.

He shall grow up before him. But the main the main clause in the whole that follows is this he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. Now what we have there is exactly the same kind of statement as we had in chapter 52 verse 13.

What do we have in chapter 52 verse 13 see my servant will act wisely. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. But now the same truth is put in in in agricultural or horticultural terms. He shall grow up before him as a tender plant grows up.

Like a tree thriving in Unconducive environment as we shall see here. But it's a tree growing. Sprouting and growing and getting taller and and and bigger and greater and its roots spreading and as branches spreading.

But the trees growing you see. That's the point. Now if you take that as the key, you've got an understanding to this and a very enriching one. The very eyes of those who had believed Isaiah's reports were now destined to see the Lord's servant.

Five Obstacles to the Servant’s Triumph

Growing up and now this is what we have in the rest of the passage. Growing up despite the obstructions. Growing up into lordship and sovereignty and saviorship being made perfect through sufferings. All kinds of sufferings are going to frustrate him.

All kinds of experiences are going to stand in his way and each one of them should hinder him. But they can't. Nothing can stop him. He's like a mighty Commander-in-chief of an army and he's going on in all the might of his divine power and whoever tries to stand in his way He moves them aside and he moves Majestically forward to his destined glory until at last you see him dividing the spoils of his victory with other people.

That's the message now. I can only refer to some of the things that would Hinder his path to victory and to glory. Let's just look at them and you must meditate upon them yourselves. There are five of them.

He shall grow up before him despite his unwholesome environment. Let me explain this in case I haven't He that is the first reference. The first he is to the servant of the Lord. Who if you accept one understanding of the of the phrase who is the arm of God outstretched.