“Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely. When You make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished. He will see it out of His anguish, and He will be satisfied with His knowledge. My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.” (Isaiah 53:10-12 HCSB)
We stray as sheep, we return as children… – J. Alec Motyer
This morning I had the privilege of preaching to a group of prisoners, men who are serving time for various crimes. A good friend of mine oversees a unique program called the OBU Prison Divinity Program. This program operates through Oklahoma Baptist University in conjunction with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to train incarcerated men as ministers of the Gospel. These men receive a full bachelor’s degree in pastoral ministry from OBU while incarcerated and then they will serve as ministers within the prison system throughout Oklahoma. The first cohort of prisoner students will graduate in two weeks from OBU. They will then be dispersed to other prisons across the state to share the Gospel and minister to other inmates. I believe this unique and powerful ministry is a direct fulfillment of the verses we will study this week.
As I study this passage, I see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words not just in the lives of these incarcerated men but also through so many others I know, like you. Sunday will be the beginning of Holy Week as we prepare for the celebration of His resurrection on Easter. I’m sure some of you thought I might deviate for a week or two away from our Isaiah study to more familiar Easter-centric passages in the Gospels. Not a chance! This chapter of Isaiah is one of the best Easter-centric passages in all of scripture. In fact, this chapter has been the inspiration for many great Christian hymns, worship songs and powerful sermons and it will now be the inspiration for one more, less impressive sermon.
Our focal passage begins, “Yet the LORD was pleased to crush Him severely.” We’ve touched on this before, so I won’t dwell on it long. God’s perfect plan for the redemption of mankind is not His backup plan, it is not His plan B. Scripture clearly demonstrates that God’s plan has always been to “crush” His Servant as the means to redeem man and destroy the power sin has over us (see Gen. 3:15). But how could God be “pleased to crush” His own Servant, His Son? I think we get tripped up on the idea of this being “pleasing” to God, as though God gets some morbid pleasure from torturing His Son. The word “pleased” means that it is in line with God’s will and fulfills His divine purpose (see Rev. 13:8).
But we often misunderstand God’s purpose and plan. As I mentioned, this Sunday is Palm Sunday. We use it as a reminder of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ and Easter. For a moment, let me take you back to that day in the gospel stories. The excitement surrounding the ministry of Jesus has been growing to a crescendo – a crescendo of anticipation for the crowds as they hear His words and marvel at His miracles, and a crescendo of frustration and anger for the Jewish religious leaders at His growing popularity and His rejection of their religious authority.
As Jesus approaches Jerusalem that day, word of His arrival spreads quickly throughout the city. Crowds assemble unbidden and begin laying palm branches before Him, mimicking the crowds who welcomed King David returning from a victorious battle – “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD. Hosanna to the Son of David (see Ps. 118:25-26).” But did they really understand the implications of their words? The Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and Chief Priest certainly understood, but I’m not sure the crowd did. If they did, it didn’t last long. The same crowd who is singing His praises on Sunday will be calling for His death on Friday.
Oh, how easily we are swayed by public opinion. Our view of God’s will is always too small and shortsighted. They wanted a king who could deliver them from bondage to Rome, but God had a different plan. Their political bondage to Rome was NOT the problem they perceived it to be and certainly NOT God’s focus for His Servant. Isaiah says, He was a “restitution offering.” God would crush Him as an offering for sin.
The wording in this phrase, “when you make Him a restitution offering”, is a bit ambiguous. The subject “you” is not clearly identified in the Hebrew. It could be referencing the LORD, “when You, LORD, make Him a restitution offering, He will…” That’s entirely possible since it is the LORD whose will it was to “crush Him severely.” But it seems to imply that God willed something that His Servant was resistant to do or be. Scripture says that it was the Son’s desire to do the Father’s will. Jesus said, “This is why the Father loves Me, because I am laying down My life so I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father.” (John 10:17-18 HCSB)
It is also possible that the subject of this phrase is you and me – or anyone who is willing to trust in Jesus’ sacrificial death for the forgiveness of their sin. Listen to it with that thought in mind: “When you make Him a (or your) restitution offering, He will see His seed (children/descendants), He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the LORD’s pleasure will be accomplished.” If we are willing to make Him our restitution offering for sin, we will become a child of God. We stray as sheep, we return as children (J. Alec Motyer).
“But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13 HCSB)
Next, “He will see it out of His anguish, and He will be satisfied with His knowledge. My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities.” What will He see? He will see and be satisfied that the LORD’s pleasure (or desired will) has been accomplished. Nobody likes to work hard at something and then see it come to nothing. We want the satisfaction and fulfillment of knowing that our efforts, hard work, sweat and blood have accomplished precisely what we set out to do. That is, in essence, what Isaiah is saying about God’s Suffering and perfect Servant.
Anguish is pain, but it is the intentional and directed pain of doing the things necessary to reach the intended goal. A few weeks ago, we had several really strong wind storms come through our area. As a result, I had the entire west end of my house stripped of its vinyl siding and I lost several shingles off my roof. I knew I couldn’t complete the repairs to my siding by myself. It is, at least, a two or three man job. A few day after the wind storm, the local weather was forecasting a week of rain. I needed to get the siding fixed, quickly and my son-in-law and my oldest grandson agreed to help me. We began on a Friday afternoon and worked until about 9:00 pm. When we finished, we were tired, sore and weary but we were done, the repairs were complete. The rain could come, we were ready.
On the cross, Jesus was in anguish but with His final breath He cried, “It is finished!” Our redemption was complete and the LORD’s pleasure had been accomplished. Out of His anguish, He could now watch and be satisfied with the knowledge that His work HAD achieved its intended purpose – “My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities.” The scroll of Isaiah that was found in the caves of Qumran – the Dead Sea Scrolls – has this verse stated like this: “Out of His anguish He sees the light!”
The Apostle John puts it like this: “Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man named John who was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through Him, yet the world did not recognize Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:4-13 HCSB)
God had made a promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore. The LORD’s righteous Servant sees, out of His anguish, the fulfillment of God’s promise. “Therefore, I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.” I suspect that if you had talked with Abraham in the hours and days following his encounter with God and receiving that promise, Abraham would have had a few erroneous assumptions about how the LORD would fulfill His promise. If you could talk to him now, I suspect he would chuckle at the foolishness of his assumptions but he would be satisfied in the knowledge that God kept His word.
I don’t know the specifics of how God will do it, but I am certain that He’s not finished adding “many” more to the Servant’s portion and “mighty” to His spoil. I also know, if we are willing to obediently follow Him, we are also likely to be counted among the rebels. When we are willing to be used by God as messengers of His message, we are likely to find ourselves in the same boat as the Servant – submissive to God’s will, even to the point of dying, and being counted among the rebels. But there’s no better place to be and, honestly, that’s what we signed up for.
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25 HCSB)
When the Servant, our Lord Jesus, looks out of His anguish then He is satisfied to see that God’s pleasure (or purposeful will) has been and is being accomplished through His sacrifice. When He knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane in anguished prayer, He was able to see out of His anguish the light of God’s glory being accomplished. We must learn to look out of our anguish, our intentional sacrifice and labored service to God, and see the light of God’s glory. But, like God’s righteous servant, this only happens when we are living in full obedience to God’s will and giving ourselves in labored service to Him.
Nobody wants to work, sweat and sacrifice in vain. When we work hard we can’t wait to see the results. But church, we can’t enjoy the results if all we do is sit in our worship centers, sing a few songs and share a cup of coffee over a Bible study. Jesus harshest criticisms were leveled at those who used organized religion to satisfy their lust for power, position and wealth while oppressing the poor, outcast and downtrodden. Will we be a church that dies on the vine or will we choose to be a church that gives ourselves in service to the King of kings? Our mission is not to build our budget or bigger programs. Our mission is to be obedient, baptized disciples who make obedient, baptized disciples.
So, who will you invite to worship Jesus and celebrate His resurrection next week? Be a disciple who is making disciples.
Hilltop Baptist Church - Shawnee, OK 