Isaiah 53:1. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
The prophet seems to speak in the name of all the prophets, lamenting the general unbelief concerning Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The report concerning him is very clear. It comes from God: it is for our salvation. And yet how many disbelieve it! In fact, all do. Until the arm of the Lord is revealed, until he works upon the hearts of men, and they are led to believe in Jesus. And here is the difficulty of belief.
Isaiah 53:2. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
There was nothing about Jesus Christ to attract the attention of those who look for pomp and splendor. His religion is all simplicity; it is plain truth; there is nothing about it that is gorgeous to attract those who look after ritualistic vanities. To the most of men there is no beauty in him that they should desire him.
Isaiah 53:3. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
It was so with Jesus when he was here. He was the greatest of all sufferers: there were few that followed him; some of those who did betrayed him. There were few who would stand up for him he met everywhere with a repulse, and yet he came on an errand of love. He needed not to have come at all. Heaven surely was large enough for him; but such was his pity for the dying sons of men that he must needs strip off his royal robes and put on the robes of our mortal flesh.
Isaiah 53:4-5. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for out transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
He had not a pang to suffer on his own account, nothing to cause him grief in anything he had done:
«For sins not his own, he died to atone;
Was love or was sorrow like this ever known?»
Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet, peradventure, for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Isaiah 53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Taken the full load of sin, the whole mass of human guilt, and placed it upon him. He was perfectly innocent, and yet was the sin of man heaped upon him. He was our substitute, standing in our stead: a wondrous truth was this!
Isaiah 53:7. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
And you know right well that our Master would not speak when he was charged before Pilate and Herod: he was eloquent more eloquent in his silence than if he had used his ordinary language, which was wonderful, for «never man spake like this man,» and yet never man was silent as he for our sake.
Isaiah 53:8-10. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt 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.
Our blessed Lord and Master is to have a full reward for all his griefs, and an earnest of that reward is here tonight. He will receive this very night some born unto him by the new birth, who shall henceforth be his children, and who shall gladly say, «Here, Lord, I come myself to thee, for thou hast bought me by thy precious blood.» It is the joy of some of us that we belong altogether to Christ. We would not have another honour: we wish to live to him, loving him and serving him, as long as we have any being. And there are some here tonight who have not felt this, whom God, nevertheless, will make to feel it, for so runs the promise:
Isaiah 53:11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
That is the way he justifies them takes their iniquities upon himself; and since a thing cannot be in two places at one time, when Christ takes our iniquities, they are gone, and we are just in the sight of God. He takes the burden, and we are unloaded, blessed be his name! «He shall bear their iniquities.»
Isaiah 53:12. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong:
The dying Christ has risen again, and he is a great conqueror now, and divided the spoil. Those spoils are human hearts, and the true love and deep devotion of those he has redeemed. He shall have this:
Isaiah 53:12. Because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors: and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors,
And he is doing it now; pleading this very night that old prayer of his, «Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.» Oh! let you and I be pardoned with that plea.