THE SUFFERING SERVANT OF GOD
Meditations in Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12
BLESSING TO THE NATIONS

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CHRIST SUFFERED for a great purpose of love. Christ did not have to suffer as he did as the servant of God in the sense that he was helpless before forces too great for him. Christ did not have to come into the world in the sense that he was obliged to because of some power or direction beyond his control. Rather Christ came into this world to suffer because of love. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. God had no obligation to do anything for sinful humanity, but for love's sake Jesus became poor that through his poverty we sinners may be made rich. The only compulsion on Jesus was the compulsion of his great love for us, and so for love's sake he gave himself to the sufferings we considered in the last verse. Charles Wesley says it so well in a hymn -

"Amazing love, how can it be,
That Thou my God shouldst die for me?.

Our text tells us something of the achievement of the suffering of the Servant, of the suffering endured for love's sake.

Our verse begins with the word 'so'. This connects our verse with the previous one and tells us that all the effect and blessing that our text speaks of, is the result, and because of, the suffering of the Servant. This is what the suffering achieved.

The achievement of the Servant through his suffering is that many nations are sprinkled. The Bible speaks in concrete images and not abstractly. We are given a picture of rain coming down and sprinkling the earth. The blessing from the Servant's suffering rains down on the nations, and people are blessed. What may we understand from this image.

Rain refreshes the earth. After a drought rain comes with great refreshing upon the land and upon the people. In the same way the sufferings of the Servant have refreshed this parched world.

Adam in the garden of Eden was refreshed daily by the dew of God's intimate presence. Adam and God walked together in the cool of day. By this fellowship Adam's whole being, body soul and spirit was revitalised and renewed daily. When Adam sinned such fellowship ceased, and humanity lived in a world where God was withdrawn, and so the very essence of life that we have been created for, which is to find our wholeness in God, in glorifying him and enjoy his presence, departed. The world has been in this drought ever since. Darkness has covered the earth. The very purpose of life has been lost, and humanity is thirsty, and their spirit's dry and shriveled.

Through the Servant’s suffering the world knows the refreshing of the presence of the Lord again. Through the suffering of the Servant the way to fellowship with God was opened again. And in this tremendous blessing the whole earth is sprinkled with the love of God and the ravages of sin held back, and in many, eternal healing takes place. It is a fact that at times of great spiritual blessing, when people are brought into the kingdom in large numbers, this effects the nation in which this blessing occurs in a marked way. The influence of the spiritually new born in Christ, effects all levels of society for good, and the whole nation is blessed. Further God bestows more of his common grace upon a nation for the sake of his redeemed who dwell in that society.

Further, through the suffering of the Servant, nations are blessed because through this suffering, a Gospel can now be preached. Without the Servant's suffering the world would remain in an hopeless state. There would be nothing to stem the tide of sin and corruption. There would be no message of hope and no eternal life to come. All would remain in the world without hope and without God, and so life would be entirely purposeless. Now through the suffering of the Servant there is a Gospel - Good News for the nations. This Good News sprinkles the nations far and wide. God's redeemed people are under the command of the Lord to preach it and communicate it to the ends of the earth, until every nation and language has heard and had opportunity to receive it and be blessed. The world is sprinkled with the refreshing news that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing the sins to them.

This last application of the sprinkling by the Servant, made available and possible by his suffering, is the concept of washing. People who are defiled by sin need their sin washed away. The stain of sin is beyond any agent in mankind or in the world to remove. We may think we have removed the stain, but then we come back and look and the stain is their as bad as before. Once sin has stained our souls, then the stain remains, evermore accusing us before God. The sprinkling of Jesus is the agent that alone successfully removes the stain, and removes it permanently.

The Apostle John writes in 1 John 1:9 that Christ cleanses or purifies us from all sin. God promises in Isaiah 1:18 "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they shall be like wool." This promise is fulfilled by the washing which comes through the suffering of the Servant.

To be defiled and dirty is awful as the lost son in the parable of Jesus found, but when he returned to his father he was given new clothes. He was brought into the house and given a bath and new clothes provided, and he was clean, and reinstated into the family. So it is with those sprinkled by the Servant. We are washed and made clean and brought back into fellowship with God, and given the Spirit of adoption so that we know God as our Father.

Through this individual washing nations also are sprinkled, because the changed lives of those who are washed have a purifying effect on the society in which they live. The life of the nation is effected for good as the purified lives of Jesus' washed ones, live and influence all around, and influence the ways and practices of the society in which they move.

Isaiah goes on to describe a marvellous effect upon nations resulting from the sufferings of the Servant. There is here a description of a marvellous change in attitudes and actions. Kings will change from criticism to silence - their mouths will be shut. Kings are spoken of because as leaders and rulers of their people they speak and act for their people, for their nation. There will also be new information - they will be told what they did not see. Also there will be new understanding - they will hear what they did not understand.

Surely this a description of the result of the suffering of the servant. When we examine history from the New Testament onwards this is what we see. After the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, when redemption had been won, the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh. This is what Peter tells us about in his first sermon in Acts 2. Joel prophesied of this blessing. The sufferings of the Servant - his victory over sin, Satan, death and hell - brought this about. Christ was raised to sit at the right hand of God, and given authority to dispense the salvation he had won by pouring out his Spirit in the world.

When we look at the history of the early church in the Acts, we find the criticism of the Jews being stopped. What I mean by this is not that the criticism ceased, but of the fact of the plain realisation, which the Jews would not confess to, that Jesus Christ was their Messiah. Then there was a coming to understanding and spiritual sight of hundreds and hundreds of Jews, who were brought by the Spirit of God to see Jesus as the Christ, and to believe on him. We see this marvellous change in the conversion of the apostle Paul. What before he counted gain, he now counted loss for Christ's sake. Then from Paul's preaching came a massive movement of sight and understanding being given to the Gentiles, and so the work went on until at the 3rd century AD the Roman Emperor, Constantine, embraced Christianity and the faith of Christ became the faith of the empire.

So the work of Jesus has gone on down the centuries. Though there has been dark periods, the advance has never ceased. The Holy Spirit has called in the faithful. Nations have been effect and changed. Societies have been changed for good. Even when the forces of the evil-one have mobilised great persecution, the church of Christ has never been extinguished. The church has remained and even grown, and risen out of the ashes of the persecution to advance again.

Isaiah foretells the redemption won be Christ in his suffering of atonement. Some speak of Christ's work of suffering as merely making salvation possible if people will see sense and only believe. However the Bible speaks of God's electing love. The Bible speaks of God choosing his believing people from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1), and so understanding and spiritual sight is given by God in his grace, and the elect of God are raised to new life in Christ and given the ability and desire to believe and receive salvation.

The suffering of the Servant - this perfect work of redemption Christ achieved - brought in life and light and understanding; and the main means by which this prophesy of Isaiah, embodied in the verse we are studying, is realised is by the ministry of preaching and witness Jesus gave to his disciples before he ascended into heaven - go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. There is here a great encouragement to all those engaged in preaching. The suffering of Jesus gives us a message of great good news and accompanied with great power. We are able to preach forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God with the gift of eternal life and glory. Christ has made such a message possible, but further Christ has given power to this message. His suffering is a perfect and complete work which has purchased and won eternal life for all who believe. The power is in the fact that simple faith in Jesus as Saviour and redeemer bestows forgiveness, life and reconciliation with God, certainly and surely and permanently, to the one who believes.

The sight and understanding that comes through the suffering of the Servant is light and life. It brings us into a wonderful new life in the kingdom of God, and we see spiritual things and live in the heavenly realms in Christ. We are translated by faith into God's kingdom of life and love.

What a glorious effect has the suffering of the Servant, our Lord Jesus Christ. His suffering redeems us from sin and death completely. His suffering brings a sprinkling that washes us clean, and justifies us completely in the sight of God. What wonderful sight and understanding it is to see and know that we have been loved by God with an everlasting love, and with gentle cords of love he has brought us to himself through the suffering Servant, and who for loves' sake did not count the cost of the sacrifice of his one and only well beloved Son.