Can we demonstrate that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is Jesus?
(1) we can demosntrate that he is the Messiah and not just Israel
(2) we can demonstrate that it fits Jesus better than anyone else.
by saying ss is not Isreael I am not excluding the possiblity that since Messiah comes out of Israel that it is both Isreal and an idnivudal person called "Messiah."
I. close reading of chatper will follow.
II. Messiah Will be Light to the Gentiles
A. Israel's Original Mission.
B. Israel cannot accomplish its mission without Messiah.
Messiah is contrasted with wayward Israel in several places Isaiah. Is 50:1-3 "Where is your mother's cirtificate of divorce withwhich I sent her away? OR to which of my creditors did I sell you? Becasue of your sins you were sold, because of your transgressions your mother was sent away....do I lack the strength to rescue you?
To which Messiah responds "...I have not been rebellious, I have not drawn back..." (v5)
1) Messiah to be covenant for Israel
"will keep you," God tells the Messiah "and will make you to be a covenant for the land." (Is 49:8-
2) Messiah to bring Israel back to God
Is 49:5
And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, in order that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, And My God is My strength)
C. Messiah to bring Israel back AND be light to Gentiles.
49:6
He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
D. What the Sevant does in 53 is exactly
what the book says Messiah will do.
1) Messaih emerges out of Israel
Is 43:10 "You are My witnesses," declares the Lord, "And My servant whom I have chosen, In order that you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me.
"My witnesses" is plural, "My servant" is signular. The servant is part of the witnesses, coming out of Israel, produced by the line of David. Edersheim documents that Rabbical authorites recognize this verse as pertianing to Messiah.
2) Messiah rejected
Is. 50:6 "I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard, I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting..." And we see a rejected servant in 53, a "man of sarrows accounted with greif." This is one who "was despised and rejected."
3) Messiah accomplishes his task
Is 41:4
"here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring jutsice to the nations." Or chater 11: 1 which is clearly marked out as the Messiah: "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jessey; from his roots a branch will bear fruit...(4) but with rigtheousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decsions for the poor...(10) in that day the root of Jessey will stand as a banner for the people, the nations will raly to him and his place of rest will be glorious."
Is, 42:6 (established as Messiah on previous page) "I will keep you and make you to be a covenat for the people and a light for the gentiles."
Compare: "(2)" He grew up before him like a tener shoot, and like a root out of dry ground....(12) "because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the trasngressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors."
We see that clearly throughout the book of Isiah, Israel is in no shape to be a redeemer, but itself must be redeemed. It cannot be a light to the nations without one from among it's people, Messiah, brining it back to God. In that process Messiah will be a light to the Gentiles, and the covenant for the land. Chapter 11 sasy explicitly that Messiah (the Branch) will do do this, he will be the light to the gentiles. And that is just what we see happening in 53, the servant is marked by the same, or close epithet, Branch, shoot, and is redeeming many. In fact in 52 we see that he will draw the nations to himself. This chapter (53) fits everything it says about Messiah, his mission, and his function, it does not fit anything about Israel.
III. The functin of the Passage in the overall book (s) of Isaiah.
A. Dialectical pattern of the book
1) God condemns Israel for waywardness
2) God calls Israel back and encourages her to be faithful.
3) The Messiah as Intsurment of God's plan
punctuates the pattern of dialogue
B. Chapter 53 as Crucial pivot in God's plan
1) Servant takes the rap for the many and redeems
2) After 53 Israel is seen in the blessed Kingdom in peace and prosterity.
3) The Servant's work as redeemed Israel.
The editor/redactor has placed this passage in the central location. After all the interwoven messages of confonfation and comfort, punctuated by expecations of the Messiah as redeemer, the suffering servant takes the balme for transgressions, it punished on behalf of the people, and than we see the people livng in the blessings of God . The editor used this passage as a means to express the hope and promise that as a result of the Lord's work Israel would return to God and live in peace and abanundance. Although the edtor probably invisioned this as looking forward to the return form exile, the work of Messiah in accmplishing redeemption, it does not necessarily mean that it refurs to a chronological event in that day priror to return from exile. But it looks forward to an event that would transpire at some point in the futre.
C. Israel as redeemer of Itself and others doesn't fit the pivital function.
There is no sense of how Israel was redeemed. Without the work of the SS being that of Messiah the work is incomplete. Irael would go from being wayward and weak to suddenly being strong enough to serve as suffering redeemer with no sense of how it got there and the interwoven strands of Messianich promise for this function would just be loose ends that are never tired up.
Note: this view works even better if one is determined to see the final chapters as eschatological (end times, Messianich Kingdom).
suffering servant = Messiah = Jesus!
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