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Day Four

The Suffering Servant Foretold in Prophecy

by Ashley Marivittori Gorman

In the Book of Isaiah, four “Servant Songs” appear, prophesying about a certain “servant” of the Lord (Isa. 42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-9; and 52:13–53:12). Most of the Servant Songs depict this person as a better source of salvation than the idols of the nations. He would be a strong savior who establishes justice, restores fortunes, and rules benevolently over many who will bow to him. 

While the first three Servant Songs prophesy of a strong savior and ruler, the final Servant Song sings a strikingly different tune, as it paints a painful picture of the servant’s great suffering. 

Read Isaiah 53.

As we learned yesterday, the only way to remove sin is through sacrifice. And since sin is the real enemy, we don’t see the Suffering Servant getting up on a white horse to fight this battle. We see Him get down on an altar. He knows a perfect substitute is required to pay for His people’s sin, and He pays it Himself, with His own blood. 

Yes, the Servant has great plans for the people. Yes, He will take them into freedom and fairness and fortune one day. Those prophecies about the Servant are true, too! But before He takes them anywhere, He must first take their place. 

The Suffering Servant chapter is a very intense prophecy. So, why would God inspire Isaiah to even include something so gruesome? Because God wanted His people to rightly recognize the Servant when He finally came on the scene, else they’d probably miss Him as their heads looked left and right for someone flashier. With this prophecy, God was being intentional to prepare His people, giving them a heads-up to look out for someone unexpected, someone who took the form of a sacrifice before He took on the form of a ruler. God wanted His people to know that this Servant had been in the plan for a long, long time, and they needed to be ready to spot Him when it was time.

And God wants us to know the very same things. Because of this prophecy, we can easily look back and identify Jesus as this Servant, and instead of seeing His death as a random or cruel historical accident, we can now see it for exactly what it is: part of God’s intentional plan to save us all.