Written by Paul J Bucknell on April, 25, 2022
MGL6 Isaiah 53:10-12 The Ultimate Glory of His Servant
Isaiah 53:10-12, the fifth stanza, describes how the godly leader embraces God’s greater purposes of hardship for his life. The Servant’s ultimate glorification issues great hope for God’s people who follow Him.
Purpose
Learn to live in hope despite oppressive and vulnerable situations. As we discover the right perspective for understanding our hardships, we will be able to imitate Christ and embrace God’s greater and more glorious purposes which come to fruition in such situations.
Isaiah 53:10-12
“10 But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If (when) He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great (many), And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors” (NASB).
Isaiah 52 contains the promises of redemption and deliverance for His people. Isaiah 54 similarly continues on by speaking of God’s great work as seen in the church and the splendor of the One who makes the church great. Isaiah 53, the Fourth Servant Song, is lodged between these two chapters, providing the promises and aspirations needed for His people.
We all like free things. We might not even need the object, but if it is free—we want it. And we are happy! But there is always a cost. Someone has to pay the bill. This entire Servant Song of Isaiah 52:10-53:12 zeroes us on the high price to secure the promises for God’s people.
Due to this passage’s extreme emphasis, we are moved to ask, “What is the reasons to elaborate on the cost of salvation?”
Isaiah 53:10-12, the last verses of the Servant Song, provide a clear picture of Christ’s work and its effects. These verses, similar to what we find in the Book of Romans and 1 Peter, intertwine Christ’s work, His suffering and death, with the propitiatory results of His work. God’s Servant joined the two together. Our success is only found in Christ’s sacrificial offering of Himself. The great works from His death are seen in the establishment of the people of God, the church. Isaiah 54 makes this announcement by unfolding a great picture of the church of God.
- First, God is trying to tie an unbreakable bond between our hearts and our Savior, the Bridegroom. He wants us to be thankful, appreciative, and devoted. When we know of His great love, then we are more apt to affectionally respond to Him.
- Second, our salvation completely rests on the work of God’s Servant. We are not allowed to confuse His endearing and efficient work with our morality, devotion, or other commitment.” He testifies of our iniquity.
- Third, it is absolutely critical that we understand Christ’s saving work in detail to both believe and to pass on. Without Christ, we have no salvation; with Him we have eternal life.
- Lastly, deeply understanding these teachings is connected to the strength and devotion of our Christian lives.
Why Isaiah 53:10-12? This passage lays the foundation of the church of Christ. That foundation is none other than Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11).
From the beginning of the Servant Song, a puzzle has been set before us. We wondered how success can come from horrible suffering (52:13-14), and how this wretched one can bring cleansing to many (52:15). Remember in Hebrew poetry, the first and last unit run parallel in thought. This last stanza (#5) runs parallel to the first and fully clarifies the meaning of the remaining puzzle pieces.
Wherein before, Isaiah focused on Christ’s sufferings, here, Christ’s death is repeatedly alluded to. The mallet drives the wedge deeper and deeper into the heart of the log, until finally it splits. The cracking-splitting sound increasingly intensifies, creating suspense in us. We ask, “How can it be God’s will for the righteous to die?” “Why would a good man die for the sinner?” These questions demand an answer.
We sense a very important mission lies behind all this talk about death. There is one clue about how He works on behalf of others, but how his death can help others still remains a puzzle.
It is here in this last stanza that we finally begin to see the grand scope of God’s glorious redemptive work in Christ. Let’s now launch ourselves into the middle of these last three powerful verses that instruct us on the glorious results of the Servant’s suffering.
We never can understand the suffering of the righteous until we see the awesome results stemming from it. The “U” shaped diagram from 52:13-15 showed us that the original hopes and promises would at some point come to fulfillment.
It’s hard to predict how long the trial period at the bottom lasts, but we can be sure that God will cause the wonderful blessings to abound. All the Servant’s suffering will be rewarded! This passage further shows how all our blessings are wholly wrapped up in the blessings that Christ gained from being a wholly available servant.
1. God’s Good Will (Isaiah 53:10)
10 But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
Although some see the death of Christ as an accident or something that occurred when God was caught off guard, it actually is the complete opposite. This was planned by God, “The Lord was pleased to crush Him.”
If a you went to the market to buy some fruit, would you choose the best or worse-looking pieces? The answer is obvious. You choose the nicest ones! The Lord did not send Christ as a back-up plan but as His main strategy.
Ephesians 1:4 states, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” That means His redemptive plan, including His suffering Servant, was planned out before Adam’s existence. The ramifications of this truth are profound. It is sufficient for us, now, to recognize that sending Christ to die was God’s preferred choice. It was not accidental but deliberate. “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23). He had a purpose in all that happened to His prized Servant.
This word “pleased” is often translated as delighted. God loved His Son even though it was a most difficult plan to carry out. God took pleasure “to crush Him.” It is critically important to note that God took not pleasure in the pain and gore but in the purpose of the Servant’s pain.
People inflict all sorts of pain to their bodies hoping that it would help them when awards or be more spiritual. Pain has no virtue in and of itself. Pain’s preciousness is found in what can be accomplished through it. The mother’s birth pain brings forth delight in her newborn child. Those things which can be accomplished through pain are counted more valuable than the absence of pain.
We are willing to suffer but only because there are greater purposes to be accomplished. God demonstrates His glorious love through pain; He gives up His Son. His purposes are not based on the Servant’s preferences but on His greater plan—so that others can share in His glory. “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You’” (John 17:1). This is the heart of missions, bringing greater glory to God through challenging and sacrificial work. The greater we live for Christ, the clearer the rewards.
Paul, in Philippians says, “have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). The word for attitude comes from the Greek meaning “to think about” or “regard with your mind.” In other words, we are not just to imitate the things Jesus does but also to maintain the right mindset when doing those things.
Many call themselves Christians but their lives don’t remind you of Jesus Christ. What happened? They don’t have the heart of Jesus, from which springs His faithful and kind service. They imitate actions without His attitudes and motives. The Lord humbled Himself by coming to earth and suffering: “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5). He left that glory behind to accomplish His service; He made Himself available.
Jesus’ pain served another equally grand purpose besides giving us an example to follow; He suffered on our behalf, in our place. In so doing, the Servant bore our guilt. Our guilt and penalty transferred onto Him. God would judge Jesus Christ, His own Son, because He took our sin upon Himself. This greater redemptive purpose called this into plan into action.
We will not fully understand many of God’s designs until the end. If we took x-rays of a child’s mouth, we would see that there are other teeth embedded in a child’s gums—this is God’s plan. When the first baby teeth in the child’s mouth fall out, God has arranged for those hidden ones to come in. God has it all planned out so the mother does not need to be alarmed when her child’s teeth start to fall out; God had already arranged for the secondary teeth to come in. There is a greater plan; the same is true with our salvation. He knows the plan ahead of time and shares it with us before it is done. This is part of the reason Isaiah 53 seems so cryptic in places.
There are at least three direct results from Christ’s death on the cross mentioned here in Isaiah 53:10.
a) He will see His offspring (53:10)
This term, offspring, refers to the children of God, the many people He would save—the church (Gen 15:5-6). While all living beings are God’s creatures, God only adopts some as His spiritual children through faith in Christ Jesus on the basis of the Servant’s death (cf. John 1:12-13). His death brought life to a host of undeserving people, like you and me—all characterized by their sinfulness. Many others, scattered in hills and cities, still need to be reached. Nothing will thwart God’s plan to reward His Servant. Jesus said, “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18).
The offspring’s existence depended upon whether or not the Servant would become a guilt offering. “If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring” (Is 53:10). When He made the guilt offering with His body on the cross, then many would become His offspring. God allowed the suffering so that He could cause blessing to rise up in our lives. This is His absolute love which we should never forget. Tertulian, the church Father, rightly observed, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Tertulian spoke of many Christian martyrs, but the pattern was indelibly set in Christ’s example.
The main purpose of Holy Communion is to constantly remember Christ and His work. Some have drifted off in seeing a spiritual blessing in the elements themselves. This perhaps occurs because we no longer cherish Christ’s suffering or understanding its crucial work. Isn’t this confusion much like the high priests in Jesus’ time who killed Him? The priests couldn’t see the purpose for which they served God!
How many offspring does God want? A few, many, a multitude? I have asked this question a number of times to groups of pastors. They are always fully convinced it is a multitude. They are right. Revelation 5:11 gives us a sneak preview of a scene in heaven.
“And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11).
Many Christians work hard at evangelizing the lost. We need to be active in evangelism, discipleship, and missions. It is our calling because He wants many blessed offspring.
b) He will prolong His days (Isaiah 53:10)
Isaiah also speaks of Christ’s resurrection. Without the Gospels’ full explanation, this phrase “He will prolong His days” would look contrary to what is said about the Servant in Isaiah 53.
He was crushed and put to grief. Everyone knew what happened to guilt offerings—the priests killed them (cf., Leviticus 14:12-18). “Next he shall slaughter the male lamb… sprinkle some of the oil seven times before the LORD.” But here it says that the Servant’s life will be prolonged. Jesus died, but His days were prolonged by coming bodily alive and now living forever.
We need to understand this theological concept. Jesus Christ did die, but not due to his sins; He was righteous. He died because He took on the sins of others. Because He was righteous, death had no claim on His life. “He who is steadfast in righteousness will attain to life” (Proverbs 11:19). Jesus came alive and lives forever.
How blessed it is to know that He who gives away His life shall be saved and those who live a self-life shall die. Our blessed Lord Jesus rose from the dead and lives forever. A third blessing remains.
c) And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand (Isaiah 53:10)
Surprisingly, Isaiah writes, “the good pleasure of the Lord.” In the first part of the verse, he writes how the Lord was pleased; and now the Lord’s good pleasure. Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word for both uses of pleasure.
This perspective serves as a foundational block for those who endure suffering and pain. The righteous might suffer, but they live under the special care and delight of the Lord. They should not feel rejected due to their general poverty, pain, lack of food, social rejection, or persecution. Each bruise and scar brings glory to God. God works greater things out through His people’s affliction. “The good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.”
These last words, “will prosper,” are critical. Otherwise, the conclusion will be drawn that this righteous Servant will suffer and be forgotten. But with such words, people are unable to draw the conclusion that the One who suffered will forever suffer. A hope of blessing always accompanies the righteous one’s suffering. The Lord delights in this predetermined action that crushed the Righteous Servant because, in the end, His death results in life and a great ongoing extension of God’s blessing. He will be greatly rewarded. This partially refers to Christ’s exaltation; He now sits at the right hand of God. There is another aspect, however. Christ’s life and blessing would somehow be invested in offspring.
Interestingly, Ephesians 2 teaches that it is not only Christ who sits at the right hand of God but also his offspring.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-7).
The Messiah pleased the Father by becoming a guilt offering. The sufferings and the guilt offering—the sacrifice of His body, satisfy God’s wrath. His vicarious death, vividly and repeatedly described, brought wonderful blessings to His offspring. They would surely come about because Yahweh would prosper His hand. This all finds fulfillment through Christ’s resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father and the spread of the church around the globe.
The riddle is finally solved, though we need the New Testament perspective to understand how it practically works out in real time.
2. Effective Sacrifice (Isaiah 53:11)
“As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11).
The theological explanation for the blessings mentioned in verse 10 is given here. Can you see how God especially uses the anguish of His faithful Servant? The Gospel does not exclude grief and acute pain, but instead, promises great blessings to come from it. Christ arose from the dead and therefore sees the good that came from His pain. When we looked at the U-pattern (see 52:13-15), we observed that many want success without the pain. There is no room in their mind for suffering. Success in their eyes means that there is no sacrifice, no pain, and definitely no blood. The God of the living, however, looks beyond death into life everlasting.
Jesus’ success, however, originated in His pain, suffering, and ultimately His death. Jesus Christ would “justify the many.” This “many” would include the wicked who believed in Christ; they now would now be declared righteous (lit. justify). There is no clearer explanation of the cross than in this verse. Let’s look specifically at what it says.
Christ’s death served, in fact, as a guilt offering that satisfied the Father. “Their iniquities” shows their dilemma; good works could not make them righteous. God’s righteousness (and justice) must always be satisfied; He rules righteously and all sin must be judged. The Servant’s death resulted in the justification of the many sinful ones because He Himself bore their iniquity. The Righteous for the unrighteous, that many might be declared righteous.
Justify can mean to cause to be righteous or declared righteous. Since the judgment is in view here, the latter—vindication or acquittal, appears to be the most accurate, especially with the New Testament’s interpretation. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). We become the righteousness of God—but only because we are in Him, in Christ.
Some Christians have a problem with the word “many.” They want to see all, the all-inclusive ‘everyone.’ I’m glad the word “many” is used because God did not need to save any. Only due to God’s loving sacrificial plan did He save many. He did not half save, like making them better, but instead transferred their penalty of death upon His Servant so that many would be fully justified and saved. Christ secured their salvation so that they could fellowship with their Lord.
What results from His death? After Isaiah 53, Isaiah no longer uses the word “Servant” in the singular form. The plural form, however, is used eleven times, and refers to the “many” followers or offspring (53:10). The apostle Paul called himself a servant. As Christians, we all are servants making our lives available just like Christ did.