In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of Jesus' suffering and sacrifice on the cross. He highlights how Jesus fulfilled his mission and completed the work that was required of him. The preacher references various Bible verses, including Mark 8:31-33 and Isaiah 53, to support the idea of Jesus' suffering as necessary for salvation. He also discusses the concept of penal substitution, where Jesus suffered the penalty of other people's sins. Overall, the sermon emphasizes the significance of Jesus' suffering and its role in bringing about salvation.

Last Sunday evening we announced that, as from next Sunday evening, we are going to be addressing ourselves to certain passages in the book of the Prophet Isaiah. These passages have generally been called by scholars the servant songs of Isaiah. The reason for that is that they all deal with a subject who is introduced there as the servant of the Lord. You have the first of these in Isaiah chapter 42 and you may remember that Isaiah 42 verse 1 begins, Behold my servant, and that is really the title. Behold my servant. That's going to be our subject. We took last Sunday evening, and I'm going to take the time before us tonight, in order to introduce this theme, because as I indicated last Sunday evening, we as Christian people come to the Old Testament from and with the light of the New Testament. We do not come to the Old Testament as if Christ had not arrived in this world. We do not come to the Old Testament as if the Holy Spirit did not come to his people on the day of Pentecost. We come now to a study of the Old Testament as those that have the New Testament in our hands. And the New Testament means that Jesus Christ has come, and the Holy Spirit has been given, and we bathe, we bask, enlightened in knowledge not given in any fullness at any rate, to the Old Testament saints. Now concerning these passages in Isaiah, many people have asked the kind of question that was asked by the Ethiopian Chancellor of the Exchequer when Philip overheard him reading from Isaiah. You remember on his way back from Jerusalem to his native country, reading from Isaiah 53, he asked Philip, poignantly I believe, who is the Prophet talking about? Is he talking about himself in chapter 53 of Isaiah, or is he talking about somebody else? And if you were to read the scholarly books that have been brought out of the press, that have been published on this subject, you would find them to be multitudinous. Many of them suggesting that the Prophet was writing about perhaps the nation Israel, perhaps a remnant within Israel, perhaps this Prophet, perhaps that Prophet, perhaps this King, perhaps that. Conservative Christian people have from the beginning, from the very beginning of the church seen here, that is in these passages in Isaiah, seen a portrait given beforehand of the Messiah that was going to come into the world. And it's very important for us to be sure of ourselves if we are going to come to these passages in Isaiah with this suggested key to an understanding of it. It is necessary for us to be quite sure that this is the case. Is there any way whereby we may be sure that those great passages in Isaiah really refer to our Lord Jesus Christ? Now that is the kind of thing that I'm trying to deal with tonight, and tried in part to deal with last Sunday evening, in order that when we come to consider these passages, we shall have left these issues one side, and I trust we'll be able to see that according to our Lord Jesus himself, and according to the Apostles, some of whose testimony we shall be considering tonight, we shall be able to come with quite a certainty in our soul that we have a legitimate basis for seeing in those remarkable passages a veritable prophecy of the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Servant of God, the Messiah. And I covet your prayers as we come, therefore, to consider those passages in due course. But now for tonight we are asking this question, of whom does the Prophet speak? We were seeing last Sunday evening that our Lord Jesus used a title of himself, his favorite designation for himself, by the way, used by him more than by anyone else, Son of Man. That title, that designation, is found in the Old Testament, particularly in the books of Ezekiel and of Daniel. And we saw, I think, quite clearly that that designation has two aspects to it. Sometimes it was used simply to refer to a person's manhood. God calling the Prophet Ezekiel, for example, called him Son of Man, and he simply meant man, a human being. It meant nothing more than that. But in the book of the Prophet Daniel it meant something very much more. It referred to an august figure who would be given a kingdom and rule, which kingdom and rule would never, never, never pass away. Jesus used the title Son of Man in both those senses, in relating, in applying it to himself. Sometimes he took the stance of the humblest of men and spoke of it concerning himself. Even the Son of Man has not a place to lay his head. Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man doesn't have a place to lay his head down. He used it to speak of himself in his manhood, and with the emphasis upon the fact that he was a man amongst men. But he also used it to speak of the glorious, the majestic figure that we have in Daniel chapter 7. Now does our Lord at any point give us clear indication that he was also the fulfillment of these servant songs in Isaiah? Of whom did the Prophet speak? Now I want to make two main statements tonight, and the first is this. First of all, I believe that the theology of Isaiah 53 is the theology of the New Testament, or if you want me to put it the other way around, that the theology of the New Testament is the theology of Isaiah 53. The second thing I want to say is that we have specific statements of Scripture in which Jesus identifies himself as the servant of Isaiah 53, and in which the Apostles likewise refer to him. Sometimes there are little bits of Isaiah 53 woven into a statement that either Jesus says, or the Apostles may say, and you may miss it as you read the first time. But when you consider it carefully, and when you really ponder what is being said, you can't evade the issue that our Lord was culling some words or statements, likewise the Apostles, so that in many, many places we have references in the New Testament to Isaiah 53 and to Jesus being the servant. That is, indicating that Isaiah 53 were the other servant songs that we shall be considering, that they were prophetically looking forward to someone who was to come, and that someone was none other than Jesus, Son of God, the Messiah. Now the first of these points is a general one, but it establishes the fact that you have the same kind of thinking about the death of Jesus, represented first of all in Isaiah 53, and then in the New Testament. You have the same underlying theology of the death of the servant in the Old and in the New Testaments. Now let me read to you a passage from Isaiah 53, the very passage that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was reading as he was going home from Jerusalem, from the feast, whichever feast it was, with a parchment in his hand. Now we don't know whether he had a whole parchment or just a part of it, but evidently you see this man was seriously seeking after God. He was a eunuch. He was a man whose body was disciplined to the nth degree. He was a man who'd come all the way from home to Jerusalem for one reason or another because he was in search of the true God. He'd gone through all the formalities and perhaps the ritual of worship in Jerusalem at the feast time, and now he's got hold of a parchment of the prophet Isaiah, and he's going back. Now he wasn't riding in a limousine. He wasn't riding in a Rolls-Royce or a Cadillac through the desert. He was going in an old cart, and the road was more bumpy than any of our Toronto roads. But believe it or not, the man is in such earnest that he's reading the Hebrew characters, and he's concentrated entirely upon this one thing, and he's reading aloud. You see, the man's in dead earnest, and particularly particularly is he confused when he comes to these statements. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth. Now if you look at verses 5 & 6, you will see that we have there an enlarged picture of the theology of Isaiah 53, and in substance the theology of that great chapter is this, salvation is procured for the many by the suffering and the anguish of one who died in the place of others. Now theologically we would designate that as the principle of substitution. One being substituted for another. One person taking the place of another, or taking the place of others. And if you read verses 5 & 6 of Isaiah 53, this comes out most forcefully, even more than in the passage that the eunuch was reading when Philip came along. Let me read verses 5 & 6. I'm reading from the NIV, it's slightly different perhaps from the version that you are most accustomed to. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now let's get the principle of that. What is the principle? What is the basic theological principle underlying all this? It is this. The servant of whom the prophet speaks is a servant who is coming to suffer, to suffer such ignominy as is virtually indescribable. The professor of Semitics that I spent four years with used to say that he only knew of one picture in the whole gamut of experience that came anywhere near approximating that which we find in Isaiah 53. And he said, he insisted, and he's put this into many, a number of books and articles, that the only picture that comes anywhere near the pain and the anguish and the torture and the physical consequences of the suffering of Isaiah 53, the picture portrays a person who is suffering from a deadly disease, something like leprosy that has never had any medical attention, a person suffering from leprosy that never has known any alleviation, but the leprosy has gone to such an extent that you simply cannot look at the person concerned. There is no beauty in him that we should desire him. We turn our eyes away from him. We hide our faces from him. We just can't look him in the eye, nor look at the furrows in his brain. But all this, and this is the theology, all this is in order to procure salvation for a multitude, or rather to use the language of the of the chapter itself to procure salvation for many. Now we have a number of students in our evening service, and I want to refer you to two or three authors. I wouldn't be doing this normally, so the rest of you can just shut off for a moment if you'd like, but I think I ought to tell some of you that there are some very good books on this theme, and they're well documented, and you could certainly profit from them. First of all, there is a book by a man, T. H. Hughes. It is called The Atonement. It was published in 1949 in London, and it's quite a scholarly document, and he says categorically, and I quote, he thinks that Jesus, quote, interpreted the vocation and the task of the Messiah in the light of the vicarious sacrifice and death of this servant, of Isaiah 53. The servant vicariously, that is instead of other people, vicariously bears the sufferings caused by his people's sin and gives himself to death as a substitute for others. In this way, a vicarious and substitutionary element enters into the very fiber of our Lord, of our Lord's self-consciousness. Let me give you another one. A certain H. C. Thompson, writing in the transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society, has this to say, and I quote, the servant is made an ashan, that's a Hebrew word, for the guilty people. It is the, he is the substitute, that's what the word means, he is the substitute who gives his life and so preserves theirs, and by his sacrifice their guilt is expiated. Well, let me give you another one, a familiar, more familiar name perhaps, but no less scholarly, Dr. J. S. Whale of some repute in Europe and in England. He emphasizes the penal aspect of the sufferings described in Isaiah 53 in these words, the song makes 12 distinct and explicit statements that the servant suffers the penalty of other men's sins. Now that's the point. Not only vicarious suffering, but penal substitution is the plain meaning of its fourth, fifth, and sixth verses that we read. These may not be precise statements of Western forensic ideas, but they are clearly concerned with penalty inflicted through various forms of punishment, which the servant endured on other men's behalf and in their stead, because the Lord had so ordained it. Now let's all join, if some of you went to sleep for a few moments. We have come to the point where we recognize that Isaiah, not just according to some ordinary preachers like ourselves, but according to a number of rather well-known and reputable scholars, Isaiah's theology is that of substitution, penal substitution, someone substituting for someone else or some other people and bearing a penalty that was due to them. Now that same theology, that same understanding of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, we again meet in the New Testament. We meet it in Jesus, we meet it in the Apostle Paul, we meet it with Peter, we meet it with John, we meet it in every solitary epistle, maybe one exception in the New Testament. Evidently I can't refer to them all tonight, but I want to refer to Jesus and to Paul and maybe one reference to Peter. But you see what we're getting at? What we're saying is that the theology of the New Testament is basically the same, in essence it is the same, as the underlying principle that we discover in Isaiah 53. Jesus spoke of himself as one of whom the Scriptures had said that he must suffer and die. Now there is a world of difference between saying that he must suffer and die and saying something like this, I'm going to do the work that God has given me to do and in the process of doing the work that God has given me to do I will suffer and I will die. Do I need to repeat that? Every man of God, every woman of God will have to suffer sooner or later. We are living in a fallen world, we have a mighty enemy, and evil seems to be working its way towards a crescendo. Throughout the ages, saints of God who have done any battle for their Lord, who've been even the least nuisance to the kingdom of darkness, have had to suffer. In every age the saints of God have had to suffer. If they've served their Lord rather than bury their light somewhere, if they've served their Lord they've had to suffer. And this will be the case to the end of the ages, much more so during these days and days that may lie ahead of us. The saints of God, the servants of God in general, will have to suffer. So if you're being called to do a work for God, make quite sure about it that you take in this ingredient as something that is in written into your Christian calling. You will have to suffer. I will have to suffer. But now that's quite a different thing from saying that I can only fulfill my ministry in suffering and through suffering. And the picture behind Isaiah 53 and the picture which Jesus gave of himself was this. Not that he would suffer because he was doing the will of God, but that the will of God was that he should suffer. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. It is written that the Son of Man must suffer. The must lay behind the suffering. This is the only way whereby he can fulfill the mission that was given him and that he himself has undertaken. When at last he had breathed out his spirit to the Father, only then could he say, it is finished. Tetelestai. It's over. I've finished it. I've come to the end. I've done what I was required to do. I've suffered. I've drunk the cup to the full, to the bread. Now you'll remember you come across this theme in our Lord over and over again. Suffering was necessary. He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. That is in Mark. Again in Mark chapter 8 verses 31 to 33. When Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Out of my sight, Satan, he says. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. What warranted, what warranted those strong words? Only a moment ago Jesus has called Simon Peter, blessed. What now warrants this strong word of condemnation? Away, Satan. The answer is this. Peter now tries to dissuade his Lord from going to the cross, and Jesus tells him, look Peter, you're on the wrong wavelength altogether. Now you become satanically inspired. You say they're not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. You're not in touch with God, God's mind, God's purpose, God's, the prophecy that God has given concerning me, his will for my life here upon earth. You're not in touch with it. Get behind me. In other words, you see, the dying of our Lord Jesus, the suffering of the Lord Jesus was essential to the fulfillment of his ministry, but now we've got to go one step further. The suffering which Jesus declared to be necessary for him to undergo was often and positively connected in his mind with that which is described in Isaiah chapter 53. Can I refer again, those of you who are students here, to a book published by W. Zimmerle and J. Jeremias called The Servant of God. It was published in London in 1957. I'm not sure when it was published, this side of the, this side of the Atlantic. And another one published by C. J. Cadoux called The Historic Mission of Jesus. Both of which enumerate the passages in the New Testament where Jesus lays hold of word images and metaphors and quotes from Isaiah chapter 53 and applies them concerning himself, to himself and to his mission and to his death. Now that's, by the way, let's come to this. The suffering which Jesus declared to be necessary for him in order to perform his life's mission was often connected in his mind with the task of the servant in Isaiah 53. Let me give you, let me ask you to read with me or to listen to me reading from Luke chapter 22 verses 35 to 37. You might like to have your New Testaments open here. Luke 22 verse 35 going through to verse 37. Then Jesus asked them, when I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing, they answered. He said to them, but now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag. And if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written. And he was numbered with the transgressors. And I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment. Now the implication of that passage is something like this. I sent you out on one occasion, says Jesus, and you didn't have anything. I sent you out without a purse, without a bag, without without sandals. You just went out, you went out just as you were, and I told you simply to trust and to go. And everything was well. Now he says, I'm giving you a different policy. I'm telling you to follow a different principle. I'm telling you now to do something quite different from that. Now if you have a purse, you take it with you. If you've got a bag to carry an extra suit of clothes, take it with you. If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak in order to buy a sword. Why? To look after yourselves because you're going into enemy territory. And he proves that by saying this. It is written, he was numbered with the transgressors. What does he mean? What he means is this. The society into which you are going is a society that is going to condemn me and nail me to the cross as a transgressor. And that society is unsafe for you. Make preparations. There will come a time, says Jesus, when you will have even to look after yourselves. And you may be physically in danger. That's what he said. It's an element in the teaching of our Lord Jesus that many people don't seem to take notice of from time to time. You know we can leave out things that don't fit into our our theories or make our our views a little bit untamable. We can't fit things in and we leave them out. Well it doesn't do do us any good. If our Lord Jesus says something that doesn't, we can't straighten out. We must come to terms with it and find a place for it in our scheme of things if we are going to have a clear conscience and peace. Now those words that Jesus referred to there are of course but an echo of Isaiah 53. Listen to what 53 12 says. He poured out his life unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors. Jesus says it is written. He was numbered with the transgressors. And I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. It was written there to be fulfilled in one person, the servant of the Lord. Now says Jesus in other words, I am that servant of the Lord and that's going to be fulfilled in me and therefore you are going to be in a very dangerous world. Come again. Take this other word of Jesus at the institution of the Lord's Supper. I'm only taking a few examples now. Matthew 26 28 refers to the institution of the Lord's Supper in these words that Jesus said this is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Now you remember that Jesus is referring to himself now. When it comes to the sacrament he says this is my body which is broken for you. This is my blood which is shed for you. Jesus is speaking about himself as the Savior and how he wants to be remembered. Now he says this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Those words are again an echo of other words in Isaiah 53 and verse 12 which say he bore the sins of many and he made intercession for the transgressors. We conclude then that in the words of Professor H.H. Rowley there is no real reason to deny that Jesus believed that his death would be unique in its effect with a uniqueness that could only be expressed in terms of the suffering servant and that in objective historical fact his belief has been justified. So much about Jesus' use and there are many many more illustrations but that's all we have time for. His use of the language and the theology and the thoughts and clear references to Isaiah 53. Paul does the same thing. Paul often stresses the substitutionary aspect of our Lord's death. Sometimes he does so in the language that we were considering last Lord's Day evening from Mark 10 45 where Jesus said that the Son of Man has come to give away his life for ransom for many. There are echoes there of Isaiah 53 too. Sometimes Paul picks up that concept and brings in this concept of a ransom when he speaks about the the death of our Lord Jesus but at other times he uses other language. Let me just give you one or two illustrations. In Romans 8 3 for example. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature. God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. A sin offering. Reflecting, echoing again something from Isaiah 43 but God is making him to be an offering for the sins of others. Or again take Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 21. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And indeed that there are a number of others. I think that these are so obvious that I don't need to dwell with them. But let me give you another one from Peter which is a very significant one. And as one commentator says this must surely have been written at the foot of the cross with Isaiah 53 in the background. He himself says Peter in 1 Peter 2 24 bore our sins in his own body to the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. I'm not going to take the I'm not going to take the time to try and say how many references there are to there to Isaiah 53. You ponder it and I think you will find that that one verse verse 24 in 1 Peter 2 is so full of Isaiah 53 that it's almost unbelievable. This must suffice then to prove that the theology of Isaiah 53 is unquestionably that of the New Testament at large. Particularly that of Jesus and Paul and this reference shows that Peter is one with them. So are others of course. Now that brings me to the second main thing I want to do. Even though it is a little prosaic I deem that it is right to do it. I want now to refer to some passages of Scripture where again we have very very clear references in the New Testament I mean. References to Isaiah 53 as a portrait of the servant that was to be fulfilled and has been fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we have a very interesting one right at the beginning of the Gospels. Let me quote from Mark I might well have quoted from Matthew or Luke. I quote from Mark chapter 1 and verse 11. Jesus is being baptized of John the Baptist in the Jordan and we read as Jesus is coming out of the water this is what we read. And a voice came from heaven you are my son whom I love with whom I am well pleased. You are my son whom I love my beloved son with you I am well pleased. Now it is not always realized that that statement attributed to God the Father by the side of Jordan is a combination of two Old Testament passages. I was many years a Christian before I saw that and there may be some here tonight who have not yet recognized it well have a good look at it when you go home. There are two statements there and they're wedded together by God the Father and announced concerning God the Son. One statement is taken from Psalm 2 and verse 7 and the other from Isaiah 42 and verse 1. The one from Psalm 2 7 is this thou art my beloved son and the other from Isaiah 42 from the Greek version not the Hebrew in you I am well pleased. Now these two passages show that in the mind of God Jesus had come to fulfill what is prophesied in Psalm 2 and what is prophesied in Isaiah 42. Psalm 2 is a messianic psalm and it goes on to speak of Jesus as the King. We have these words just following the passage from which I quoted ask of me says God the Father to his son ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession you will rule over them with a rod of iron. Psalm 2 is a messianic psalm which portrays the coming kingship of Messiah. God takes these few words from one of those verses and links them up with the other words from Isaiah 42 1 about my servant in whom my soul delights. My soul delights. The significance of this divine commendation of Jesus action then in being baptized and their confessing sin as you had to confess for John's baptism not his own of course but the sins that he had taken upon himself every Pharisee every Jew that went to Jordan to confess sin confessed his own and if you and I had gone to Jordan to be baptized of John we would have had to confess our own sins but Jesus had no sins to confess yes he had sins to confess they were not his own and later John the Baptist tells us behold he says a staggering thing pointing to Jesus of Nazareth behold the Lamb of God another concept from Isaiah 53 behold the Lamb of God who has come to bear away the sin of the world John where did you get that notion from now the Bible doesn't tell you this but I believe in principle it does John overheard Jesus confessing his sins and the sins were not his own but they were those he had made his own there was no sin in him but there was sin on him and it was the burden of his the sins of men that took him to Jordan that all righteousness might be fulfilled and the same sins took him ultimately to the cross where he instead of sinner significance of this divine communication and commendation of Jesus action in being baptized for our sins and of the further reference to him in terms of the messianic king of sound to and the servant of Isaiah 42 is considerable we however can only now refer to the fact that God acknowledged him as his well-beloved son in these terms which is another way again of linking him you see with the prophecy of the Old Testament I have to move quickly from one to another or the evening will be over come now to Matthew chapter 8 and verse 17 let me read now the background by the way is the healing of Peter's mother-in-law our Roman Catholic friends don't believe that Peter was married I'm at a loss to know how he got a mother-in-law if he wasn't married well he had a mother-in-law and I guess he must have been married now look that's the background he came into the house and his mother-in-law was sick of the palsy and then later on that same day there are many demon-possessed people who come and Jesus heals them now let me read Matthew 8 17 this was to fulfill what was spoken through the Prophet Isaiah he healed his mother-in-law and he healed those that were possessed of devils or demons in order to fulfill what was written by the Prophet Isaiah what was written by the Prophet Isaiah he took our infirmities and he carried our diseases now this is unquestionably from Isaiah chapter 53 verse 4 now let's get the thought again how was Jesus able to heal because he was going to die the death that would atone for sin and procure a full salvation for men and women a salvation that applies to the body as well as to the soul now says somebody to me you believe now we've got you in the corner do you believe as someone asked me this week do you believe that healing was in the atonement of course I do where else does healing of the body come from we are in a we are belong to a fallen Adamic race we are under the curse and our bodies suffer because of sin and Jesus has procured for us not only forgiveness of sins and the cleansing of unrighteousness of which the New Testament speak but he has procured for us a new body which we shall receive one day a body which we will be incapable of pain in which we shall know no sorrow there will be no tears where did Jesus procure that for us how did he procure it for us I'll tell you when he died upon the cross he procured a full salvation a total salvation for the body as well as for the soul I think of these two dear sisters that we've been announcing their funerals for tomorrow they're in the presence of the Lord but one day they will rejoice even more than they rejoice now when they're glorified spirits will inhabit a glorified inhabits a glorified body in the glory of his presence because our Lord by his death has procured for us a full salvation don't abandon your body to the devil don't think that your body is outside of divine redemption it isn't but that does not mean of course as some people make it me that if there is healing and a new body a perfect body for us in the atonement that you can go to God at any old time and ask him to absolve you from suffering that doesn't follow but it does mean that insofar as it is the will of God at any given time he can on the basis of the finished work of God in Christ give us gratis healing of body as well as healing of soul but if he doesn't give us such things in the here and now he keeps them for us until the there and then and one day whether you die from cancer or whether you die just in your sleep because all your strength is gone one day you will enter into the inheritance of what he purchased on the cross a full salvation oh I'd like to shout this I wouldn't be any the wiser but it's a full salvation it was all in the atonement heaven and glory was in the atonement glory for the soul glory for the mind glory for the spirit glory for the body glory all around let me rush to refer to one or two again let's turn to mark 1465 this I think is very significant to mark 14 and 65 Jesus is standing before the Sanhedrin now think of this august body will you it's the highest court jury all the high ups the intelligentsia that the learned the politicians the nobilities were all here they had a way of choosing people for this high office who were representative of the very best but now look what happens then some began to spit at him they blindfolded him I struck him with their fists and they said prophesy and the guards took him and beat him now you have only to turn back to Isaiah chapter 50 and verse 6 and you read these words this is of the servant it's not from Isaiah 53 but it's the same context one of the servant passages that we shall be coming to listen to these words I offered my back to those who beat me my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting you know it might very well have been a report of what went on in that most unexpected place before the Sanhedrin you take it from me the Jewish people the Jewish Sanhedrin did not purposely fulfill make themselves the folk responsible for fulfilling that prophecy of Isaiah 50 knowledge of scripture for they had they did not deliberately want to fulfill that kind of prophecy especially in relation to Jesus who made himself out to be the Messiah here are the champions of scripture those who knew the scriptures unwittingly went on with their hasty business and their evil business became unwittingly the agents whereby this terrible terrible scripture is now you have the same concept of the servant in many many places in the book of the Acts of the Apostles I can only refer now to one I refer to Acts chapter 3 in verse 13 the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus his servant Jesus you handed him over to be killed and you disowned him before Pilate though he had decided to let him go in chapter 3 verse 26 chapter 4 verse 27 and again in verse 30 at least you have the same kind of concept here again you see taking the words from the Greek version of the Old Testament Peter and the preachers in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles see our Lord Jesus Christ as the servant of Jehovah where did they get that title from where did they get the notion from in these remarkable passages in Isaiah 42 49 50 52 and 53 or hurry on to a passage that is most familiar to us still and one of the great imponderables Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 to 8 I read it in a version which is perhaps not as familiar to many of you and perhaps all the better for that your attitude says Paul should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and as if that were not enough being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross here again you have the servant concept coming out from the pen and the thoughts and the mind of the Apostle Paul and giving its own distinctive flavor to the ministry of our Lord is it an accident as to how far it is dependent upon the Isaiah passages we cannot say that it reflects it in some measure is evident that brings me to the last that I can speak about by no means the least coming to the very book of Revelation the apocalypse of St. John I read in verse 6 of chapter 5 these words then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain standing in the center of the throne encircled by the four living creatures and the elders he had seven horns and one and seven eyes which are the same spirits of God sent out into all the earth here is the portrait of a lamb in the midst of the throne in the previous verse the apostle has spoken of him as the lion of the tribe of Judah but here the lion is the lamb standing in the midst of the throne as if he had been slain newly slain the wounds in his hands as it were are evident as recently slain this reference to the slain lamb as well as the reference to John the Baptist's assertion that we referred to a little long ago behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world can hardly be envisaged other than in relation to Isaiah 53 and of course the concept of the Paschal Lamb in the New Testament now what's the conclusion of all this the passages we have referred to and there are many many others but they will suffice these that we've looked at to establish that the New Testament not only propounds a theology underlying Isaiah's portrait of the servant of the servant a theology of salvation by substitution but in many other places the link between Jesus as the servant of God fulfilling the concept of servanthood in these Isaiah passages is unquestionably established the Apostles believed it our Lord Jesus believed it and when Philip took that passage that the the Chancellor of the Exchequer was reading beginning with the same scripture he preached unto him who Jesus Jesus now in concluding I want to say two things I would like to bring every Christian to a place of worship why all this why talk about it why make such fuss about it Oh brothers doesn't it make you excited men and women of God the fact of such fulfillment speaks of both the sovereignty of God and the sufficiency of his grace in the first place God can afford hundreds of years before the event to tell men what's going to happen I can't do that you can't do that the United Nations can't do that all the councils of the church can never do that there is no one else that can do that God can afford to do that and he did that you try it it's a risky thing to try if you're not sure of yourself but you see God could run the risk because God is God and there is no risk with him and all this is faith kindling to those who only had a promise that is the people of the Old Testament we discover that on the basis of such promises as these you see there were those that looked for salvation in Israel they were on tiptoe they were waiting there were the faithful souls who had read the portrait the pictures there are so many of them in the in the Old Testament portraits of the coming one this is one and they had their faith upon these words of the Almighty God and they were waiting they were faith kindling promises that's what they were meant to do now to us they should be faith confirming as you and I see that our God can do this kind of thing and did this kind of thing and when Jesus came he saw that as he had been foretold as he had been pre-intimate it had been pre-intimated in these Old Testament scriptures so now he fashions his life according to it he came to fulfill he didn't need to make a groove for himself and cast away these Old Testament notions he came to fulfill them they were there already God had made his mind known he came to fulfill if this doesn't make a Christian man and woman worship God I don't know what does but let me say the other thing this phenomenon speaks eloquently of the unity of the Old and New Testaments Dr. F.F. Bruce has written a very beautiful little book very erudite really in its way of presenting the various Old Testament designations of the coming one the one that we have before us tonight is one of them it's called the time is fulfilled and he shows how in the New Testament you have so many of these themes spoken in the Old Testament and then they're fulfilled in the New and if I had my own way I'd like to give a copy to everybody here tonight I haven't got that number of copies that don't come to me tonight but if you can find it you get it it's great reading it's a little bit heavy here and there but it's great reading and for one thing it gives you such a view of God such a confidence in his word he knows what he's about he knows what we need so that faith can be created in us and when faith has come to birth in us that faith can be confirmed in us how firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord is found for your faith in his excellent word let us trust him as we approach these servant passages in Isaiah then we can now dispense with any sort of apologetic and trying to prove that Jesus did think of himself in these terms we shall come without any equivocation we shall come without any apology and we shall see there a portrait of Jesus before he came history written before it happened it's only God can do that may his name be praised may our lives be enriched as we walk in the ways of his word let us pray Oh God our father we bow in your presence humbly to acknowledge the wonders of your deeds the amazing wisdom and power and sovereignty that you exhibit in such a phenomenon as the inspiration of the prophets not only concerning this passage of these passages in Isaiah but of the whole of the Old Testament and of the new likewise but we thank you especially now for these passages free intimating announcing beforehand the one who was to come we ask our father but should there be among us in this auditorium this evening in this sanctuary should there be among us anyone who has no face that the understanding of this may somehow be the means in your hand that the spirit will use to quicken confidence in a God who not only can do this but has done it we pray for all of us at the knowledge of these things may make us more believing more trustful and therefore more obedient in Jesus name