Minute Meditations from Isaiah 53

“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him….” Isaiah 53:1-2 NKJV

As Isaiah prophesied, some 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, many would not believe the report of God’s Word concerning Jesus. They would not see the mighty working of the LORD for our salvation. The Messiah would grow up before the LORD “as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground.” Though born in Bethlehem, Jesus was raised in Nazareth as a carpenter’s son. He descended from David through Nathan rather than through the line of kings (Luke 3:23-38). Jesus had “no form or comeliness” and “no beauty that we should desire Him.” He was not unique in form or beauty so as to attract people to Him or make Him recognizable as the promised Messiah and Servant of Jehovah.

When Jesus was born into the world, and when He ministered among His people, most did not recognize Him for who He is. Though it was revealed by an angel to Mary and Joseph, and also to the shepherds, that this Child is Jehovah God Himself in human flesh come into this world to redeem His people from their sins (cf. Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; Luke 2:8-20), most paid Him no attention. To some it was revealed by the Holy Spirit that the Child Jesus was the LORD’s Messiah (Luke 2:22-39), but most missed this all important working of the LORD. Even when Jesus healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, cast out demons, and raised the dead, most still only acknowledged Him as a great prophet sent from God; but some wouldn’t even acknowledge that much because Jesus did not fit into their legalistic interpretation of the Law (cf. Matthew 16:13ff.; John 1:11-13; 3:1ff.; Luke 4:16-30; 6:1-11). Again, it was only those to whom the LORD God revealed Jesus’ true identity who recognized and acknowledged Jesus to be God’s Son and the Messiah and Savior of the world (cf. Matthew 16:15-17; John 6:44, 63-70).

A very important question for each one of us to consider today is this: Has the truth about Jesus been revealed to you? Do you know and believe that Jesus is God Himself in human flesh come into this world to redeem you from sin and eternal death? Do you realize and believe that Jesus’ Passion, His bitter sufferings and death upon the cross, was for your sin, that you might turn to Him in repentance and receive forgiveness and life through faith in His name?

O Dearest Jesus, God the Son in human flesh, we thank you for going to the cross and paying the just penalty for our sins and then rising again on the third day in victory. Graciously reveal to us the great salvation You have won for us and draw us to trust in You for life everlasting. Amen.

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“He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him….” Isaiah 53:3 NKJV

Throughout His ministry, Jesus was “despised and rejected by men.” In Nazareth, his own townspeople rejected Him and sought to kill Him for speaking the truth. The Pharisees hated and rejected Him because He called upon all to repent of their sins and turn to God for forgiveness and pointed out to them the shortcomings of their own attempts at righteousness based upon the law. The chief priests and Sadducees hated and rejected Jesus because He pointed out their doctrinal error and unbelief and because He had a great following which they felt was a threat to their positions of power and honor in the temple and among the Jewish people. But, today too, people still reject Jesus and hate Him. The Jesus of the Bible is still a threat to the self righteous church member who places his confidence of acceptance before God in his church attendance and religious service, and to the liberal religious leaders of our day who do not wish to accept the truthfulness of the Bible and submit to His Word.

Jesus was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Jesus wept when Lazarus died, and He wept over Jerusalem and the judgment which would come upon them for rejecting God’s Messiah and their Savior. Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane as He carried the guilt and burden of our sins and the sins of the whole world. Jesus still knows sorrow and grief today as He reaches out to lost sinners in a lost world with an offer of forgiveness and life in His name only to see people turn away from Him and reject the salvation He won for them with the shedding of His holy and precious blood upon the cross.

When He was crucified, His own people turned away from Him and hid their faces from Him. He was indeed despised rather than being loved and accepted of the people. But even still today people turn away and hide their faces from Him. They do not accept and receive Him as the Son of God and their Savior but instead despise Him for the pleadings of His Word to repent and turn to Him. As John wrote, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:10-11).

What do you think of Jesus? Do you love Him and regard Him as God the Son and your Savior? Or, do you turn from Him and reject Him and His Word?

Dear Lord Jesus, forgive us for the many times we have turned from You and hid our faces from You. Renew our hearts and minds that we may know You, trust You for our salvation, and follow after You always. Amen.

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“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5 NKJV

Why is it that Jesus suffered so terribly at the hands of the Jewish rulers and then at the hands of Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers? The people, for the most part, considered this God’s punishment upon Him for His teaching and claims to be the Messiah and very Son of God. Yet His griefs and sorrows were our own. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” His terrible sufferings and death were not because of any sin or guilt in Him. Rather, it was because of our sins—yours and mine, as well as the sins of the rest of the world—that Jesus was wounded, bruised, and then finally put to death on the Roman cross. He was punished that God’s just wrath against our sins would be satisfied and we might have peace with God. It is by His stripes that we are cleansed and healed of our sin.

And so, as you once again consider the incomprehensible torture and sufferings which Jesus endured in His last hours of ministry upon this earth, as you consider the pain and agony of His crucifixion on Golgotha, consider also the reason for it all! It was not because for anything He had done amiss, for He was and is the holy Son of God in human flesh. Rather, it was for your sins and mine that Jesus was crucified on Calvary. As the Bible says, “He [God] made Him [Christ Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus, the holy and innocent Son of God, bore the just punishment for all our sin and rebellion against God that we might be pardoned and counted righteous through faith in Him.

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, open up our eyes that we might see and understand the reason for Your bitter sufferings and death upon the cross. Grant that we see that You died for our sins, and that You rose again that we too might have peace with God and new life in You. Cleanse us from our sin and guilt for the sake of Your blood which You shed in our stead upon the cross and raise us up to new life with You. Amen.

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“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6 NKJV

These words, spoken some 700 years before the birth of the Messiah, summarize it all. All of us—every one of us—like sheep have gone astray. As the Scriptures say elsewhere, “There is none righteous, no, not one….They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10, 12; Psalm 14:1-3). We might like to think that these words are talking about somebody else, but they are talking about us—about you and me. We have turned aside from God’s ways, every one of us, to our own ways. Instead of walking after the LORD God who made us, we turn aside and go in our own direction. We live for ourselves and for our own goals and ambitions, and we seek to do what we desire rather than submitting to the LORD God and His holy Word. Instead of modeling our lives after the God who made us, we fashion and model a god in our own image, who thinks as we do and accepts us the way we are! However, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways (Isaiah 55:6-9).

What did God do to redeem us from our sin and rebellion? What did God do that we might not have to suffer the eternal consequences for our sin? “The LORD has laid on Him [Jesus Christ] the iniquity of us all.” God took all your sins and all my sins, together with the sins of all mankind, and laid them upon Christ Jesus and punished Him in our place! Jesus Christ the righteous made full atonement for all our sins as well as for the sins of the whole world (cf. 1 John 2:1-2). That is why Jesus was in such agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. That is why He did sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. That is why He was beaten and scourged and condemned to die upon a Roman cross. That is why He cried out before His death: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). And as we shall again see, Jesus not only bore the full punishment for our sins and died upon the cross; He also rose again in victory. And He calls upon all of us, upon you and upon me, to repent of our sinful ways and turn unto Him for forgiveness and life everlasting!

O dearest Jesus, we thank You for bearing upon the cross the full punishment for our sins. For the sake of Your shed blood, forgive us for turning aside to our own ways and rebelling against You, and graciously raise us up to life in communion with You—to life everlasting! Amen.

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“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7 NKJV

Why is it that Jesus permitted the Jewish soldiers to take Him? Why did he permit them to hit Him and make fun of Him? Why did He permit Pontius Pilate to judge and condemn Him? Why did He permit the Roman soldiers to beat and scourge Him and finally nail Him to a cross and crucify Him? Could He not have walked away through the middle of them all as He had earlier done at Nazareth? Could He not have caused them all to fall to the ground before Him as happened in the Garden of Gethsemane? Could He not have called upon His heavenly Father and been provided with more than twelve legions of angels? He was and is the very Son of God; could He not have come down from the cross? The Scriptures make it quite clear that Jesus could have walked away from His accusers and the cross. He could have judged and condemned them on the spot. But, He didn’t. He willingly permitted His enemies to arrest, abuse and crucify Him. He didn’t even speak out in His defense. As Isaiah prophesied centuries before, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7 NKJV).

Why did Jesus willingly suffer and give up His life upon the cross? Why did He go silently, without ever opening His mouth in protest? He did it that He might redeem us from sin and the eternal punishment we deserve. This is why Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, came into this world: that He might suffer and die for our sins and rise again in the third day! He came to give His life a ransom for many—to make atonement for the sins of all people. Jesus willingly and quietly went to the cross for you and for me that He might pay the just penalty for our sins and win for us God’s pardon and forgiveness!

“O dearest Jesus, what law hast Thou broken that such sharp sentence should on Thee be spoken…The sinless Son of God must die in sadness. The sinful child of man may live in gladness; man forfeited his life and is acquitted—God is committed. Amen.” (TLH # 143, verses 1, 5)

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“He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.” Isaiah 53:8-9 NKJV

By force and tyrannical injustice Jesus was arrested, beaten, and sentenced to death on a Roman cross; and no one spoke up in His defense. Why? Why was Jesus crucified and “cut off from the land of the living”? “For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.” It was not for anything He had done amiss. “He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.” But it was for our sins, yours and mine, that Jesus Suffered such agony and died upon the cross.

Indeed, “they made His grave with the wicked.” He was hung upon a cross between two thieves and thus died with the wicked, although one of the malefactors repented of his sins as he hung there upon the cross, and he received mercy and forgiveness from the Lord Jesus (cf. Luke 23:39-43). But, in His death, Jesus was buried in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a council member of the Jews who had not consented to Jesus’ condemnation by the Sanhedrin. Thus the ancient prophecy was fulfilled: “but with the rich at His death.”

What is the significance of all this for you and for me? Jesus’ death was for your sins and my sins! It was all a part of God’s plan to redeem us and make us His own! Like the dying thief on the cross, we ought also turn to Jesus and acknowledge that He is the sinless Son of God who came into this world to die in our stead and for our sins. We ought turn to Him in repentance and ask Him to mercifully remember us and receive us into His everlasting kingdom.

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, graciously remember us and receive us into Your eternal kingdom for the sake of Your holy and precious blood shed for us upon the cross. Amen.

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“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” Isaiah 53:10-11 NKJV

Have you considered that it was the will of God the Father to bruise His own Son—to have Christ Jesus take our place upon the cross and suffer and die for our sins? Jesus was offered up a perfect sacrifice to make full atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world.

And, yes, Isaiah the prophet also foretold the resurrection of Jesus some seven hundred years before Jesus’ death and resurrection: “When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.” Jesus not only died for our sins according to the Scriptures; He also rose again on the third day. Jesus saw the results of His atoning sacrifice. He saw His seed. His days are indeed prolonged. And the will and pleasure of the LORD is prospering in His hand as He brings sinners to repent and trust in Him for full pardon and life everlasting. Jesus sees the labor of His soul and is satisfied.

“By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” Having taken our sins and iniquities upon Himself and having paid in full by His innocent sufferings and death, the risen Christ justifies many. Christ Jesus makes us sinners acceptable in God’s eyes through His shed blood so that God reaches out to us in mercy, offering us forgiveness and life through faith in Jesus’ name. And, even yet today, the Gospel message calls sinners to repentance, proclaiming forgiveness of sins and life everlasting through faith in the crucified and risen Savior (cf. Luke 24:46-47).

O dearest Jesus, thank you for bearing the guilt and punishment of my sins upon the cross. As You have risen from the dead, so raise me up to faith in You and life everlasting. Amen.

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“Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Isaiah 53:12 NKJV

Because Jesus Christ suffered and died upon the cross, shedding His holy and precious blood for our sins and rising again in victory, He will spoil the dominion of darkness and execute judgment upon this earth. The Apostle Paul writes of Jesus’ victory in this way: “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:14-15).

In the Garden of Eden, Satan used the commandment of God to bring sin and eternal damnation upon all mankind (Genesis 3). On the cross, Jesus Christ the righteous made atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world and satisfied God’s just wrath against us (1 John 2:1, 2). Thus Satan’s work and power over us was defeated and cast off, and a door was opened unto us to receive pardon, forgiveness, and everlasting life (cf. Hebrews 2:14-17).

As a result of Jesus’ work when He suffered and died upon the cross and then rose again from the dead to intercede for us before the Father with His shed blood, those who by God’s grace and mercy are brought to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus are delivered from the power of darkness and conveyed in to the eternal kingdom of Jesus, the Son of His love (cf. Colossians 1:12-14). But those who spurn God’s gift of salvation and continue on in disobedience and rebellion shall be judged and condemned on the Last Day when the crucified and risen Christ returns to judge this world in righteousness and equity (cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:7ff.; Hebrews 2:3).

O crucified and risen Savior, grant that I not continue on in my disobedience and rebellion but truly true repent of my evil ways and trust in You and Your redeeming work for my salvation. Amen.

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