Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is a challenging text—there’s more involved than most people are aware of. Many people can only see Jesus in the text. While He is unquestionably all over the text, the question is: does the text have reference to anything else, or is it simply a predictive text that had no immediate message for the people who received it (8th century Judah)?
Isaiah’s story is one of sin and exile. His ministry began with King Uzziah’s death in 740 BC (see 6:1ff). The northern kingdom was less than two decades from exile. Judah, Isaiah’s primary concern, would experience their own exile beginning in 605 BC. Both turned their backs on God and suffered the consequences Moses had warned them about in Deuteronomy 28:15ff.
That’s not the complete story though. As in Noah’s time, not everyone had given in. Not everyone chose to bow down to idols. Just as today, there were people who had sold themselves out to God—and they weren’t looking for a refund! (May their tribe increase)
This was not the majority of the people—it was a few, a remnant. Isaiah speaks of them in 10:20ff and other places. He says they “will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel” (v. 22). If we think about Elijah and the 7,000 who hadn’t bowed their knee to Baal, they represent what has always been true—there has always been a righteous remnant of God’s people.
Despite their righteousness, they nonetheless suffered exile along with the unrighteous. While the exile was God’s punishment upon the wicked for their sins, the righteous were simply caught up in the consequences of the sins of others. Though they experienced the same thing the wicked did, they were not being punished by God. This is an important truth to keep in mind. The righteous and the unrighteous sometimes suffer together—while the unrighteous are being chastised, the righteous are not. They are simply suffering the consequences of living in a sinful world.
We’re all connected. If something happens to one person there is a ripple effect. A man goes off to prison as punishment for his crimes. Predictably, his family suffers economically and in other important ways. They didn’t do anything wrong; they’re not being punished. They’re just experiencing the consequences of living in a sinful world. It’s built into the system to help us understand the sinfulness of sin. This is what the remnant, people like Daniel and his three friends, experienced as Judah went off into captivity in Babylon beginning in 605 BC.
But there’s more to the remnant’s story. While it’s true they suffered because of the sins of others, it’s also true that their suffering wasn’t in vain. God used their sacrifice and righteousness to rebuild and resurrect the nation. This is spoken of in 49:3 where it says, “You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will display My splendor.” Notice that Israel is referred to as “My servant.” But if we stick with the passage, we’ll see God was not referring to all Israel—He had in mind the righteous remnant rather than the entire nation. Verse 5 tells us, “And now the Lord says—He who formed me in the womb to be His servant to bring Jacob back to Him and gather Israel to Himself . . .” It was the job of “His servant” to bring Jacob back to Him and Israel to Himself. It’s clear He was speaking to the righteous within the nation. Their task was to bring the unrighteous of the nation back to God. Verse 6 echoes this. We see this fulfilled by (but not limited to), people like Daniel and his three friends.
As we wade into the waters of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the first thing that is helpful is to recognize that like 49:1-6, it is another “servant” passage (see also 42:1-4 and 50:4-9). It would be natural for Israel to read of the rejection, redemptive suffering, and resurrection associated with the servant and understand it in reference to the righteous remnant as we saw in 49:1-6. Listen, when the man from Ethiopia was reading this passage in Acts 8, do you remember what he asked Phillip? He said, “Is the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” (v. 34). That’s a better question than we give it credit for being! Isaiah was certainly part of the righteous remnant. There is a sense in which what he said applied to himself and others. They imperfectly modeled in their time what would be perfectly fulfilled by Jesus (McGuiggan). The righteous remnant point us to the Righteous One.
You can think of it like the stars and the sun. On a clear night, we can look out and see plenty of stars in the sky. To a degree, they light up the sky. Then the sun comes up. The stars don’t go away, but we can’t see them anymore because they are eclipsed by the brightness of the sun. To speak in the terminology of Isaiah, Jesus is the ultimate righteous remnant. He was a Jewish person who was faithful to God in a way no one had ever been. We know about the rejection He experienced as well as His redemptive suffering, and the resurrection that has brought us life. The text is ultimately fulfilled only by Him.
But we do learn some important things by Jesus being referred to in the same manner as the righteous remnant (i.e., “My servant”). We learn that God is not afraid to for Jesus to be identified with us. Neither is Jesus. Hebrews 2:12 tells us that Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. He is not ashamed of our relationship with Him.
We see this at the Jordan when people were standing in line waiting to be baptized by John for the forgiveness of their sins. Who was in line with them? Jesus! He wasn’t there because He had sinned and needed to be baptized. He was there because it was God’s plan for Him to be there. He was there standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them. They were His people! So, if it is objected that this understanding of Isaiah 53 can’t be correct because it requires Jesus to share the text with the righteous remnant, such an objection is missing out on a fundamental aspect of who our Lord is.
We are also reminded by this text that we are called to redemptive living—to allow our lives to be used by God to help others find and know Him. If you think about it, it’s the same kind of thing that happens when people become parents. They begin living for their children. They spend years clothing, feeding, educating, and nurturing their children. They’re okay doing this because not only do they love them, they know and appreciate that their parents did the same thing for them. In the same way, disciples embrace redemptive living because we realize Someone did the same thing (to a much greater degree) for us.
The willingness to suffer is part of this perspective. Paul told the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of His body, the church” (1:24). In his sufferings as an apostle (see 2 Corinthians 11:23ff), Paul was simply doing for the Colossians what the righteous remnant had done for Israel. But he didn’t endure it, or accept it—he rejoiced in it because he knew it had been done for him in a far more glorious way by Jesus. He also knew that if Jesus suffered in His body while on earth in living redemptively, then the church, His body, will do the same “and fulfill what is lacking Christ’s afflictions.”
How do we do this? How do we give our suffering a braver reception? The answer is easy, but challenging. We make it more about Him and less about us. That’s what Paul did in Philippians 1 when he talked about whether he would walk out or be carried out of his imprisonment. He didn’t know, but he said his real goal was, whether by life or by death, for Christ to be exalted in his body (v. 20). He made it more about Jesus and less about himself.
That’s how we live out Isaiah 53.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 