The Servant of Servants: How All God’s Promises Will Be Yes

Händel’s Messiah contains fifty-three sections, and its halfway point comes after three successive choruses from Isaiah 53. No other part of the Messiah has three successive choruses. We are, therefore, warranted to understand these Isaianic choruses (§§24–26) as the hinge of Händel’s masterpiece, the fulcrum on which the Messiah turns. But, why? Why is Isaiah 53 so pivotal?[1]

1. When speaking of Isaiah 53, I am referring to Isaiah 52:13–53:12, which is sometimes called the fourth servant song or poem. Identifying it as fourth is unhelpful for two reasons: (1) within Isa. 40–55, the four servant passages are not evenly distributed, but instead Isaiah placed one in chs. 40–48 and a group of three in 49–55; (2) the designation of fourth fails to account for what seems in all likelihood to be another servant passage in Isaiah 61 (see W. A. M. Beuken, “Servant and Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61 as an Interpretation of Isaiah 40–55,” in The Book of Isaiah Le Livre d’Isaïe: Les Oracles et Leurs Relectures Unité et Complexité de l’ouvrage, ed. Jacques Vermeylen, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 81 [Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1989], 411–42). In speaking of our passage as a song or poem, we will not—like Bernhard Duhm—weaponize this label to isolate it from its contexts.

In this brief article, I aim to show that the pivotal nature of Isaiah 53 resides in this—Isaiah 53 describes how all God’s promises will be Yes. We will proceed in four steps: (1) recall the canonical and broader literary contexts, (2) receive a shocking surprise, (3) consider how Isaiah 53 works in those contexts, and (4) conclude with an eye towards Jesus’s fulfillment.

Canonical and Broader Literary Contexts

Two problems in the Book of Isaiah clarify our need for a wider canonical context. First, in Isaiah 1:2b–4 we read,

^2b The Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. ³ The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. ⁴ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.’

In the span of three verses, the Lord characterizes the problem his people face using two key words that will reappear in Isaiah 6—they fail both to know and to understand. The Lord also uses the three major Hebrew terms for sin in 1:2–4: sin, iniquity, and rebellion.[2] They are spiritually “sick” with sin (the term ḥŏlî in 1:5). This sinful rebellion did not start in Isaiah’s day, but rather, with the garden catastrophe. In the garden, “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God” (Rom. 1:22–23), and in that way, “all sinned and are [now] lacking the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) because “through one man . . . all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).[3] In short then, the first major problem in Isaiah—the one which leads to the exile—is the fallenness, the sinfulness of God’s people. Even though God’s merciful character includes “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (the same terms as Isa. 1:2–4), we wonder how he can do this and still “by no means clear the guilty” (Exod. 34:7).

2. Motyer comments insightfully, “The three great words in the ‘sin’-vocabulary are “sin” (chat’a, v. 4), the actual item of wrongdoing; “iniquity” (v. 4, from ’awah, to be bent), the ‘warp’ in the fallen human nature; and ‘rebellion’ ([v. 2] pash’a), wilful, deliberate disobedience” (J. A. Motyer, Isaiah by the Day: A New Devotional Translation [Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2011], 10n3).

3. See esp. Dane C. Ortlund, “What Does It Mean to Fall Short of the Glory of God?: Romans 3:23 in Biblical-Theological Perspective,” WTJ 80.1 (2018): 121–40; Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023).

The second major problem which stands out in Isaiah is the jeopardy of God’s promises to David. Alec Motyer observes, “[Though] no other prophet dates an event by a death,”[4] Isaiah does this twice—both times with the death of a king over Judah, a king of Davidic descent (Isa. 6:1; Isa. 14:28)! This is why, early in the Book of Isaiah, he prophesies a “shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse” (Isa. 11:1), upon whom the Spirit would rest in both knowledge and understanding (Isa. 11:2). The reason it is the stump of Jesse is because the family tree of Davidic kings is hewn back so far we do not just need another Davidic king but a new David.[5] This coming Prince of Peace will reign on the throne of David, and there will be no end to the peace he brings (Isa. 9:6–7 cf. Isa. 16:5). The need for a new David is only intensified by Hezekiah’s shortcomings as king in Isaiah 38–39. He “became sick and was near the point of death” (Isa. 38:1), and the Lord alone could remove such sickness (Isa. 38:5, 9 [Hebrew: ḥŏlî]). After being healed, Hezekiah was content with peace in his days (Isa. 39:8). Although God has promised “my steadfast love will not depart from [the Davidic king]” and “your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:15–16), we see the Davidic line deteriorating and exile looming with Isaiah, and we wonder with the psalmist, “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” (Ps. 89:49).

4. J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 75.

5. This observation is indebted to Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 121.

Thus, the twin problems of both sin-sickness and dashed Davidic hopes form the gloomy darkness into which the Servant’s light would shine (Isa. 9:2 [MT 9:1]; 42:6; 49:6). Moreover, since God’s promised remedy for the fall (Gen. 3:15) is expected to arise as the Davidic Messiah,[6] these problems are really one—how will God keep all his promises?

6. See, e.g., T. Desmond Alexander, “Royal Expectations in Genesis to Kings: Their Importance for Biblical Theology,” TynB 49.2 (1998): 191–212; Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 443–85.

The Surprise of the Servant Solution

Everything hinges on what the Servant does in Isaiah 53.[7] If God’s promises are going to be Yes, then Isaiah is making the case that they are Yes in the Servant. The twelve verses before Isaiah 53 make this point by showing that Yahweh’s solution is the Servant.

7. For the reader interested in how we ought to think about the identity of the servant in each of the servant passages, see L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, Essential Studies in Biblical Theology 2 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 134–56; Matthew S. Harmon, The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People Tracing a Biblical Theme Through the Canon, ed. D. A. Carson, New Studies in Biblical Theology 54 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 109–42.

The Lord promises redemption for his people (Isa. 52:3), and because his name is despised continually (Isa. 53:5), Yahweh himself will come to redeem (Isa. 52:6, “Behold, me” [hinnēnî]). This is the good news heralded from the mountaintops (Isa. 52:7)! He is coming to redeem with an outstretched arm (Isa. 52:9–10). When this happens “before the eyes of all the nations,” the “salvation of our God” is beheld (Isa. 52:10 cf. 49:6).

So, when we next hear “behold” and encounter the Arm of Yahweh, who do we see? What do the nations witness in Isaiah 52:15? “Behold my Servant!” (Isa. 52:13). Wait—what!? You read that correctly. We heard Yahweh was coming, but we see the Servant.[8] He is “high and lifted up” (Isa. 52:13) in a manner only otherwise used of Yahweh in Isaiah (Isa. 6:1; 33:10; 57:15) because Yahweh alone may be exalted in such fashion (Isa. 2:11–17).[9] When Yahweh raises his Arm to redeem his people (Isa. 52:10), we see the Servant lifted up (Isa. 53:1). The Servant who comes as the Arm of the Lord is, therefore, not merely a representative of the saving action of the Lord—but, surprisingly, the LORD himself in saving action![10]

8. This is not unlike John’s experience in Revelation 5 of hearing about a lion, but seeing a lamb.

9. See esp. Jaap Dekker, “The High and Lofty One Dwelling in the Heights and with His Servants: Intertextual Connections of Theological Significance between Isaiah 6, 53 and 57,” JSOT 41.4 (2017): 475–91; Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 49–51.

10. This wording is adapted from similar phraseology in James D. Smart, History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40–66 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), 182; Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 427.

The Song of the Redeemed

Isaiah 53 itself develops in five stanzas, as seen in Table 1 below. The initial stanza is like the summary idea which the next four stanzas unpack in two topic-comment pairs.[11] I will briefly highlight how Isaiah’s portrait of the Servant communicates that he is how all God’s promises are Yes.

11. For those interested in the textual issues of Isaiah 53, the Text & Canon Institute of Phoenix Seminary published a series of articles that are very helpful in this regard.

12. I am operating with Gentry’s structure but with adapted section headings inspired by Motyer. See Peter J. Gentry, “The Atonement in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13–53:12),” SBJT 11.2 [2007]: 24; cf. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 423.

In the enigmatic prologue (Isa. 52:13–15), in addition to the surprise I noted above, we see Paul’s motivation for church planting (Rom. 15:20–21), namely that by virtue of the Servant’s atoning work nations will both perceive and understand (cf. Isa. 1:3). When the nations and Israel worship idols, they experience what Greg Beale calls sensory-organ-malfunction—they lack eyes to see and ears to hear; however, the sacrifice of the Servant reverses this spiritual calcification.[13]

13. G. K. Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008); on how this theme works in Isaiah, see esp. Torsten Uhlig, “Too Hard to Understand? The Motif of Hardening in Isaiah,” in Interpreting Isaiah: Issues and Approaches, ed. David G. Firth and H. G. M. Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 62–83.

In this first pair (Isa. 53:1–6), God’s people have lived like sheep without a shepherd (1 Kgs. 22:17), so when the Good Shepherd arises like a shoot from the stump of Jesse, he suffers unbelief and rejection. He would call out as their teacher, “This is the way, walk in it!” (Isa. 30:21), but each one turned to his own way instead (Isa. 53:6). The sickness he experiences is not his own (as in Hezekiah’s case [Isa. 38:9]) but that of the many whom he saved, who testify about “our sicknesses” (Isa. 53:4 cf. 1:5).[14] The Servant secures the peace that Hezekiah could not (Isa. 53:5), so that those united to him have an unshakable covenant of peace (Isa. 54:10, 13). By bearing sickness, being struck, and enduring chastisement, the Servant bears covenant curses for his people (sickness: Deut. 28:59–61; struck: Deut. 28:22–28; chastisement cf. Deut. 11:2; wounds: Deut 28:27–35).[15] These verses prepare us to hear about the extent to which the Servant would vicariously substitute himself to reverse curses for his people.

14. I’m indebted to Reed Lessing’s observation that these are the only three passages in Isaiah which use the language of sickness (Isaiah 40–55, 86n363).

15. See Harmon, Servant of the Lord, 130–31.

In the second pair (Isa. 53:7–12), we behold the lamblike Servant who is silently obedient unto the slaughter. He emptied himself by “pouring out his soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12 cf. Phil. 2:6–8).[16] Not only is he removed from the land of Israel (Deut. 28:63–68); he is “cut off from the land of the living” (Isa. 53:8). His death in the place of the many atones for their sin and removes their guilt, echoing language from Leviticus 16:20–22 and 17:11. In fact, the Servant successfully atones for iniquity, transgression, and sin (Isa. 53:11–12), which explains how Yahweh himself solves the tension in his gracious character (Exod. 34:6–7). This is, therefore, how the Servant resolves the problem of sin mentioned above. But, what about the second problem?

16. See esp. J. Alec Motyer, Jesus Our Joy: The Message of Philippians, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 108–18.

What about the dashed Davidic hopes? We know this Servant did not remain in the grave because numerous elements of Isaiah 53:10–12 would misfire if the Servant is not resurrected.[17] In Isaiah 54 we meet the many (servants who are redeemed by the Servant), and after this we are reintroduced to the Servant asthe New David (Isa. 55:3 cf. Acts 13:32–40). This is the David through whom all the blessings of an everlasting covenant with Yahweh come.[18] The invitation to the feast of Isaiah 55 is the open offer to be satisfied in the Servant and all that God is for us in him (cf. John 6:27–56; Rev. 21:6; 22:17). Thus, the Servant is also how the Lord keeps his promises to David.

17. On which, see Harmon, Servant of the Lord, 132–37; Gentry, “The Atonement in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song,” 38–39.

18. For arguments in favor of this, see pages 73–86 of my dissertation and the sources cited therein.

The Servant of Servants: Our Lord Jesus Christ

This mystery is profound, but I have been writing to you about Jesus Christ, in whom “all the promises of God find their Yes” (2 Cor. 1:20). When the Eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet [Isaiah] say this, about himself or about someone else?” Philip “beginning with this Scripture [Isaiah 53] . . . told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:34–35). Isaiah 53 is so pivotal to the Bible and to Handel’s Messiah because it describes the turning point of salvation history, which has come in Christ.

Because the Servant dies to purchase his people and those people are described as Yahweh’s bride in Isaiah 54:5, Reeves’ words are appropriate to conclude: “‘All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.’ . . . Just so, our great bridegroom has taken all our sin, our death, our judgment, and he shares with us all his life and perfect righteousness [cf. 2 Cor. 5:21]. He has become poor that we might share his riches. It is the great marriage swap . . .. Christ is one with his people, and so all theirs is his, and all his is theirs.”[19]

19. Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 68.

The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.

—H. W. Baker (1868)