October 27, Isaiah 50
”I gave my back to those who strike, and my
cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not
my face from disgrace and spitting.”
- Isaiah 50:6
Pictures stir our hearts. They bring back memories of people we love who are no longer in this world. They remind us that our little children grew up so fast. Photos testify that we were once young, regardless of what the mirror says about us today.
Isaiah painted several word portraits of God’s servant, Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. With Chapter 50, he begins to show how Messiah would suffer. By the time Jesus came, Jewish rabbis could not reconcile these images of the suffering Servant with the mighty conqueror they thought Messiah would be. But this chapter and some that will follow show that God’s plan always called for Messiah to suffer.
This chapter shows the humble, obedient Servant in sharp contrast against the nation that was so unfaithful and disobedient to God. God asked the nation about the certificate of divorce he had given them. That’s the same image Hosea used to describe what happened when God could no longer bear with Israel’s serial unfaithfulness. They charged that God had forgotten them. But God reminded them that the separation and distance between them was not because he was forgetful, but because they were unfaithful.
Then, speaking as Messiah in the first person, God foretold both the Incarnation and the Jews’ rejection of Jesus when he came. He reminded them of his great power. Their troubles were not because God was not able to save them. He went on to describe how Messiah would speak with the tongue God gave him. He gave him the words to say day by day to encourage and sustain the weary people he met. God had opened Messiah’s ear, and the Servant did not rebel against God’s will. As God in the flesh, Jesus spoke what God spoke to him and through him. He completely surrendered to God, even in the words he spoke. He continued to humbly submit and obey even when that obedience led to torture, humiliation and death. Remember how Paul described it? “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Jesus set his face and heart to endure the agony of crucifixion, knowing in advance the depth and degree of suffering that was coming to him. He was confident that God would justify him by raising him from the dead. His noisy, violent opponents would eventually fail. But God would sustain him.
No other person but Jesus fits the description of the humiliating torture Isaiah foretold. As Jesus told the disciples on their way to Jerusalem, all the prophets foretold would be fulfilled by the events of his arrest, trial and execution.
Every life will have some dark passages. But God will be the light to his people to bring them through the dark ruin of sin, disappointment, illness and the valley of the shadow of death. All who trust the Lord and rely on him can have light in those dark places. But stubborn men and women who persist in self-reliance and their own enlightenment will miss the blessings Jesus came to provide, and face a tortured eternity instead of a blessed one.
Oh dear friend, how our hearts and wills should be both broken by reading about our Savior’s suffering for us. Our faith and assurance that God loves us should be strengthened every time we read about the suffering that Jesus endured for you and me. Jesus was willing to endure the suffering and God was willing to let it go on, because the objective was to save us from our sin, for his glory. For the joy that was set before him of redeeming us, he endured the cross, despising the shame. We know that’s not the end of the story, but it still hurts to read about what he endured for us.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—October 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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