This chapter is about Jesus Christ, God’s perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world (Acts 8:26–40). It actually begins in 52:13 where the prophet tells us that the Servant suffered for doing God’s will and yet was highly exalted by the Lord. Humiliation and exaltation, suffering and glory, are key themes in this prophecy.
Consider the humiliation of His birth and life (vv. 1–3) as well as the humiliation of His trial and His sufferings and death (vv. 4–9). Consider the glory of the salvation He purchased for you on the cross (vv. 10–12). The Father was pleased, not that His Son suffered, but that His sacrifice accomplished eternal salvation. God’s justice was satisfied, and believing sinners can be justified (v. 11; Rom. 3:21–31).
Consider the pictures of the Savior: a beaten servant (52:13–14), a root (53:2), an innocent lamb (53:7), an offering for sin (53:10), a woman in travail giving birth to spiritual “seed” (53:10–11), and a victorious general (53:12). Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Yet people still do not believe in Him (v. 1). Instead, they despise and reject Him (v. 2) and laugh at the message of the Cross (1 Cor. 1:18–25). But heaven praises the Lamb of God (Rev. 5), and His people on earth glory in His cross (Gal. 6:14). Are you among them?
He Paid the Price
Isaiah 53 is cited or alluded to frequently in the New Testament. (Along with the passages in the Gospels that describe Christ’s sufferings, death, and burial, see John 1:29; 12:38; Acts 8:26–40; Rom. 10:16; Heb. 9:28; 1 Pet. 2:21–25; Rev. 5.) The chapter teaches substitutionary atonement, that the innocent Son of God died in the place of guilty sinners and paid the price for sin. We do not understand all that was involved in that “holy transaction” on the cross, but we do know that it accomplished salvation for a lost world.
