As I mentioned in the first paper on Psalm twenty-two, it is now my intention to include Isaiah chapter fifty-three in this series. Though that chapter is not found in the books of the Psalms, yet it is in reality a Psalm, and the contemplation of it moves the believer’s heart to praise and to worship our blessed Lord Jesus, and His wonderful Heavenly Father who gave Him for us. Also it, (like the other three great sorrow Psalms), closes with a seed, "His seed", and it tells us of the joy it brings to His great heart of love, to see them, and how that He uses them in securing the "Pleasure of Jehovah".

The chapter begins on a very sombre note. Though it was written more than seven hundred years before Christ was born, yet the Spirit of Christ in the prophet knew full well what the attitude, (first of Israel, then of the Gentiles), would be to the message of God’s wondrous grace. "Who hath believed our report", he enquires, as though those that would do so were very few in number. But those that did believe the report that he gave have surely seen the mighty saving arm of the LORD revealed. Those of us that have been saved by His marvellous grace can testify to that. Blessed be God!

"He shall grow up before Him". God in His grace had looked for such a life, ever since the fall of Adam; but He had looked in vain. Every child of Adam had been born with a sinful nature. Though some were doubtless better than others, so much so, that even Satan was compelled to admit the blameless character of their life. But even one such as Job, (who was the most righteous man living on the earth in his day); when he saw himself in the light of God’s presence, was compelled to exclaim, "Behold I am vile". We may be sure that there were things in Job’s life, that he could not see, but the searching eye of Him, (in whose eyes even the heavens are not clean), could surely see. Job was a sinner, (as we all are), he possessed the fallen nature of Adam, but the blessed Lord Jesus was sinless. Not only did He do no sin, but also He did not possess the fallen sinful nature of Adam as we all do. He was "The Seed of the woman", (not the seed of the man). "In Him was no sin". As the Father looked down from heaven, there in the perfect life of our Lord Jesus, He saw the only sinless life that had ever been found amongst men. Though Adam and Eve were created innocent, yet they were both given the right to choose as to whether they would obey God, or not, and they chose to disobey. It was the same Serpent that had tempted Adam and Eve, and had brought about their downfall, that tempted the Lord Jesus, but did not succeed in bringing about His downfall.

Thirty years of the perfect life of the Lord Jesus are hidden from us, (with the exception of His visit to the Temple for His bar-mitzvah, at the age of twelve years). But there was never a moment during those hidden years that the Heavenly Father took His eyes from Him. And every moment of those thirty years, the Father found all His delight in the Person of His Son. He hastened to declare this from heaven, when at the age of about thirty years the Lord Jesus was baptised and thus began His public ministry. During each of those thirty years, the Father had found in the Person of the Son, (as man), all that He had ever looked for in man. The Lord Jesus "Grew up before Him", as the perfect Man. And as the Hymn-writer could say, "There only could He fully trace, A life Divine below."

"As a tender plant, (or more correctly sapling), and as a root out of a dry ground". Here we have a reference to the Acacia wood that the brazen altar, and all the furniture of the Tabernacle were made from. It was just a humble desert growth, yet it was incorruptible, and never needed to be repaired or replaced.

"He hath no form or comeliness", (Lordliness), that is to say there was no show, no ostentation with Him. As we have mentioned, the Acacia tree is just a humble desert growth. It rarely grows above fifteen feet high, and if one travels in that region, one can see the camels browsing on the topmost shoots of the tree. Though Christ was the King of Kings, yet He was born in a stable, His little body was laid in a manger. He was born into the house and family of David, but His mother was a pure maid from a humble village family, in spite of the royal blood that flowed in her veins. He grew up in the poorest home. Joseph was a village carpenter, and it seems that for the first period of His working life, the Lord Jesus pursued that trade. He was known as "the Carpenter’s Son", and after the death of Joseph, as "the Carpenter". His very humility was an offence to the politico-religious leaders. Very disdainfully they said, "Is not this the carpenter’s son"? And they were offended at Him.

What makes it even more sad is the use of the pronoun "WE". It is with great sorrow that we have to admit that there was a time in our lives when we also were offended at Him, and we also rejected Him. Eyes that were blinded by sin and pride, always fail to see beauty in Him. But since our eyes have been opened, since the scales that sin and pride had brought have been removed, our view has changed altogether. Now those eyes see every beauty in Him, and we love to confess to Him that He is "Altogether Lovely".(Song of Songs 5:16)

He is still the "Despised and rejected of men", and once we were numbered amongst those that hid their faces from Him, and regarded Him as " Despised, and we esteemed Him not. It is with great shame that we now admit it! How terrible to think that our voices once mingled with those of that crowd that clamoured for His blood! We blush with shame when we hear our voice call out amidst that throng, (as the hymn says). How we love now, to extol the Man of Sorrows! We love to sing now the words of the hymn.

Man of Sorrows, what a name

For the Son of God who came,

Ruined sinners to redeem;

Hallelujah what a Saviour!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In our place condemned He stood;

Sealed our pardon with His blood-

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Guilty, vile, and helpless we,

Spotless Lamb of God was He,

Full atonement- Can it be?

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

"Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows". What a difference it made when we came to realise this? It was not sorrow for Himself, but it was our sorrows that He bore (and still He bears), when we are called to pass through this vale of tears. The Blessed Son of God, is still the same today, (Hebrews 13:8) But it was the sorrows that came as a result of separation from an angry God, that He bore to the cross. It was there that He bore all the fury of the wrath of an angry God. It was as He hung there amidst that terrible darkness, that He was, Stricken, Smitten and afflicted. I know that Matthew, quoting from the Septuagint says that He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:17). But it was not our physical illnesses that God punished Him for, but our transgressions and our iniquities that He suffered and died for. (As we shall see in verse five). We are responsible for our sins and iniquities, but not for our sicknesses.

Schofield points out that He took the infirmities and the sicknesses of those with whom He came in contact during His life here on earth, by healing them. He is still able to do this, and sometimes it pleases Him to do so, but though He bore the wrath of a Holy God against sin, and though He bore all the judgement due to you and me because of the guilt of our sins, yet he did not come to remove the effect of sin. That still remains today! The forgiven sinner shall never come into judgement because of their guilty sins, but they can still fall sick, and suffer from disease. ( However this may be God’s punishment for some sin. (James 5:15)

This verse makes plain the assertion that we have just made. "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement, (punishment that brought us peace), of our peace was upon Him". What wonderful words these are? They come as the sweetest music to our souls. It is in these words that our souls can rest with the sweetest assurance! Now we are at peace with God, now the awful wounds that sin and guilt had left are gone forever. The stripes of the Divine rod, that fell upon Him, as He hung there as my substitute, have brought me healing. This is ever so much greater than the healing of any physical disease.

This verse describes the fallen and lost estate of the guilty sinner. All of us were guilty of doing our own will, of having gone our own way. We had turned our back upon the God who was so kind and gracious to us, yet if that self-will was to be forgiven, if those dreadful sins were to be forgiven and cleansed away, then the awful price must be paid. "God who knew them, laid them on Him, and believing we are free!" He our sinless substitute, willingly, and without complaint, "bore our sins in His own body on the tree". (1Peter 2:24)

Even though oppressed and afflicted yet no word of complaint escaped His Holy lips. He gladly yielded himself into the hands of those who earlier were not able to stand before the proclamation of His Great Title. (I AM) He was not driven to the place of slaughter, but He was led as a lamb, yielded and unresisting to that awful place called Golgotha, there to die for you and me!

It was from this very passage that Philip preached the gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch, (though he read from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament). This explains the difference in the words that Philip read and used. How many others have been led to the Lord by the reading or explanation of this verse we may never know while here, but perhaps in the Glory we shall!

This verse describes the injustice of what men did to Christ. His trial was only a mock trial. It was corrupted by false evidence, and those who sat in judgement upon Him, knew that He was innocent of the charges that were brought against Him. Men had determined to get rid of Him, but it was not what they did to Him that secured our salvation. At the age of thirty-three and a half years, He was cut off out of the land of the living. We have seen in previous papers, how deeply He felt what man did to Him. And the fact that he was denied the privilege of life itself, though it was He that gave to all life and breath and all things. (Acts 17:25) But there was something beyond what wicked men did to Him, because it was for "the transgression of my people", that He was stricken.

I like the way that Mr Darby translates this verse, as it is most accurate, & I quote,- And men appointed his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth. Here we see what took place after Christ had died. Here what Men did was over-ruled by God’s arrangement. How God appreciated what the Lord Jesus had done. How He appreciated His sinless and beautiful life, thus though all of His disciples had forsaken Him and fled, yet God gave the courage to two disciples (who had been His secret disciples up until this time), to come forward to demand the body of Jesus, and to give it the burial due to a King.

Little did Joseph of Arimathea know the honour that was being bestowed upon him, when he donated the use of his own new tomb, to be used as the burying place of his Messiah and Saviour. Little did he know that the one whose body he and Nicodemus laid there had made the very rock in which his tomb was hewn. Yet these two hitherto secret disciples were so offended by the injustice that had been done to so worthy a man, that their indignation turned to courage, and they were led of God, to take care of the dead body of the One that had taken their place. This is something that they would never regret, as long as they lived. How we too should honour the memory of such worthy men!

This verse is very difficult for us to understand, because of the word "Pleased". We learn from other verses that God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and also that judgement is His strange work; it gives Him no pleasure. Thus we learn that it gave God no pleasure or delight to punish the Lord Jesus, who was made sin for us. Yet though it grieved His great heart of love, yet He allowed the Lord Jesus to become our sin-bearer, and to bear the rod of His Divine wrath against sin. It is a mystery that we shall never be able to understand.

There, God made the Holy Soul of our Lord Jesus an offering for our sin. There, (when He hung on the cross at the place called Golgotha), a Righteous and a Holy God, caused our Blessed Substitute to suffer. He put Him to grief. O the mystery of it all! That He the sinless One should take the place of the vile and guilty sinner! But what a glorious result there is from it all? Now that the Great Storm of God’s fury against sin, has passed, God (whose righteousness has been upheld, whose just judgement against sin has been fully satisfied), is now righteously free to forgive the sins that we have, or will commit, and now fids His pleasure in pouring out His Mercy and His blessing on once lost men. We can now sing with the hymn-writer-

The Storm that burst o’er Thy blest head,

Is hushed forever now

And rest divine is ours instead,

Whilst glory crowns Thy brow!

This verse looks on to the resurrection and the Millenniums that were to follow. Here it says, "He shall see His seed". These are the children that have resulted from His sufferings, His death, His resurrection and ascension. He saw the first fruits of His great work in the early morning following His resurrection from amongst the dead. The great Sabbath being now past, the women who loved Him, and wept over Him as He went to Golgotha’s Hill, and who stood by His cross, when all His male disciples had fled, they came with spices to embalm that precious body in which He had done the will of God. They did not understand that He was to rise again from the dead. While He had told His disciples what was to happen, it is not said that He told them. They were perplexed when they found the stone rolled away, and the tomb empty. To them it was the greatest tragedy that all that remained of the One that they loved (His body) was gone. They went away to acquaint His disciples with this tragic fact, but Mary Magdalene could not go, it was her love for Christ that held her there. That love was well known to Him, and it would seem that He remained in that Garden, just for her sake. She was not terrified by the vision of angels that she saw. The sight of them had cast the hardened; cruel Roman soldiers into a death-like stupor.

When she turned and saw Him standing amidst the grey mist of the early morning, (because it was still dark), she thought Him to be the gardener. This shows the distraught state of her poor mind. What would the gardener be doing there when it was still dark? But when she heard that well known voice call her name, she immediately responded in her love to Him. "Raboni", (my very own teacher). There in the dark of that early morning, in that garden, He saw of the fruit of the travail of His soul. She was one for whom He had endured such horror, this was the beginning of His reward, and He has been reaping that reward ever since. He had seen His seed, and He had entered a life that would never end, He would prolong His days, and would now endure forever, until Eternity, until time ceased to be. The pleasure of the Eternal, the Great self-existent Jehovah, was now in His mighty hands, and it would prosper there! On the evening of that day He came amongst His frightened disciples. He removed that fear, and replaced it with a joy that has only increased ever since.

They were now His very own. The product of a relationship that now endures, beyond the grave, on the other side of death. His seed, His forever, His through death, His now in life, endless, eternal life. "Glorious truth!" He has been doing the same ever since, for where two or three of His Seed are gathered to His name, He is there. He delights still to fill our hearts with joy, and then to lead those very hearts out in praise and adoration to His Father.

How deep the satisfaction that He now experiences? As He looks at you and me, and the hosts of those that are already gathered in His presence (the fruit of the travail of His soul), in that place that He has gone to prepare. This was the very joy, (the anticipation of which), sustained Him through those hours of agony. (Hebrews 12:2) All is His both now and forever!

Because He has borne our iniquities, He is now able to righteously justify many. All those that are of the faith of Jesus, (Romans 3:26)

This verse really needs no comment, but is the declaration of God’s eternal satisfaction with the work that our Lord Jesus did when He hung on that cross. He is indeed "Mighty to save", stronger than the mightiest of His angels. He now makes His strength perfect amidst our weakness. It was when he hung on that cross that He poured out His soul unto death. It was there that he bore the sin of many. It was as His murderers drove the nails through His hands and His feet, that He made intercession for them