He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
11. An amplification of the meaning of Isa 53:10. He shall see &c. ] Lit. Of the travail of his soul he shall see, shall be satisfied. It is doubtful if the preposition “of” can express result, as the E.V. suggests, or can introduce the object of the verb “he shall see.” It may be used in its local sense (“away from,” or “free from”) or causally (“in consequence of”), hardly in a temporal sense (“after”). The asyndetic construction of the two verbs probably indicates that one is to be subordinated to the other: he shall see with satisfaction, sc. the cause of Jehovah prospering in his hand (as Isa 53:10). The LXX. deserves attention: “And it pleased the Lord to deliver (a variant reading of the last clause of Isa 53:10) (him) from the trouble of his soul: to cause him to see light” &c.
by his knowledge ] The gen. is not that of the obj. (“by the knowledge of him”) but of the subj.; the knowledge of God and salvation which he possesses, and which he communicates to others. The reference is to the prophetic activity of the Servant (see Isa 42:1 ff., Isa 49:2, Isa 50:4 f.) which had seemed to be cut short by his death, but will be resumed and crowned with success in his exalted state.
shall my righteous servant justify many ] Rather: shall a righteous one, my servant, make the many righteous; but the Hebr. is very peculiar. The ordinary sense of the word for “justify” (“declare righteous”) is here unsuitable, and the only other passage where it bears the ethical sense of “making righteous” is probably based on this verse (Dan 12:3, “they that turn the many to righteousness”). The many contains a reference to Isa 52:14 f. The clause would read more smoothly if we could suppose that the word rendered “a righteous one” has arisen through dittography; but the source of the difficulty probably lies deeper.
he shall bear their iniquities ] Cf. Isa 53:4.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He shall see of the travail of his soul – This is the language of Yahweh, who is again introduced as speaking. The sense is, he shall see the fruit, or the result of his sufferings, and shall be satisfied. He shall see so much good resulting from his great sorrows; so much happiness, and so many saved, that the benefit shall be an ample compensation for all that he endured. The word rendered here travail ( amal), denotes properly labor, toil; wearisome labor; labor and toil which produce exhaustion; and hence, sometimes vexation, sorrow, grief, trouble. It is rendered labor Psa 90:10; Psa 105:44; Jer 20:18; Ecc 2:11-20; perverseness Num 21:21; sorrow Job 3:10; wickedness Job 4:8; trouble Job 5:6-7; Psa 73:5; mischief Job 15:35; Psa 7:13; Psa 10:7-14; Psa 94:20; travail, meaning labor, or toil Ecc 4:4-6; grievousness Isa 10:1; iniquity Hab 1:13; toil Gen 41:51; pain Psa 25:18; and misery Pro 31:7. The word travail with us has two senses, first, labor with pain, severe toil; and secondly, the pains of childbirth. The word is used here to denote excessive toil, labor, weariness; and refers to the arduous and wearisome labor and trial involved in the work of redemption, as that which exhausted the powers of the Messiah as a man, and sunk him down to the grave.
And shall be satisfied – That is, evidently, he shall be permitted to see so much fruit of his labors and sorrows as to be an ample recompence for all that he has done. It is not improbable that the image here is taken from a farmer who labors in preparing his soil for the seed, and who waits for the harvest; and who, when he sees the rich and yellow field of grain in autumn, or the wain heavily laden with sheaves, is abundantly satisfied for what he has done. He has pleasure in the contemplation of his labor, and of the result; and he does not regret the wearisome days and the deep anxiety with which he made preparation for the harvest. So with the Redeemer. There will be rich and most ample results for all that he has done. And when he shall look on the multitude that shall be saved; when he shall see the true religion spreading over the world; when he shall behold an immense host which no man can number gathered into heaven; and when he shall witness the glory that shall result to God from all that he has done, he shall see enough to be an ample compensation for all that he has endured, and he shall look on his work and its glorious results with pleasure.
We may remark here that this implies that great and most glorious results will come out of this work. The salvation of a large portion of the race, of multitudes which no man can number, will be necessary to be any suitable remuneration for the sufferings of the Son of God. We may be assured that he will be satisfied, only when multitudes are saved; and it is, therefore, morally certain that a large portion of the race, taken as a whole, will enter into heaven. Hitherto the number has been small. The great mass have rejected him, and have been lost. But there are brighter times before the church and the world. The pure gospel of the Redeemer is yet to spread around the globe, and it is yet to become, and to be for ages, the religion of the world. Age after age is to roll on when all shall know him and obey him; and in those future times, what immense multitudes shall enter into heaven! So that it may yet be seen, that the number of those who will be lost from the whole human family, compared with those who will be saved, will be no greater in proportion than the criminals in a well-organized community who are imprisoned are, compared with the number of obedient, virtuous, and peaceful citizens.
By his knowledge – That is, by the knowledge of him. The idea is, by becoming fully acquainted with him and his plan of salvation. The word knowledge here is evidently used in a large sense to denote all that constitutes acquaintance with him. Thus Paul says Phi 3:10, That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection. It is only by the knowledge of the Messiah; by an acquaintance with his character, doctrines, sufferings, death, and resurrection, that anyone can be justified. Thus the Saviour says Joh 17:3, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. People are to become acquainted with him; with his doctrines, and with his religion, or they can never be regarded and treated as righteous in the sight of a holy God.
Shall my righteous servant – On the meaning of the word servant, as applied to the Messiah, see the notes at Isa 52:13. The word righteous ( tsadiyq), Lowth supposes should be omitted. His reasons are:
1. That three manuscripts, two of them ancient, omit it.
2. That it makes a solecism in this place, for, according to the constant usage of the Hebrew language, the adjective, in a phrase of this kind, ought to follow the substantive; and,
3. That it makes the hemistich too long.
But none of these reasons are sufficient to justify a change in the text. The phrase literally is, the righteous, my servant; and the sense is, evidently, my righteous servant. The word righteous, applied to the Messiah, is designed to denote not only his personal holiness, but to have reference to the fact that he would make many righteous ( yitseddiyq). It is applicable to him, because he was eminently holy and pure, and because also he was the source of righteousness to others; and in the work of justification it is important in the highest degree to fix the attention on the fact, that he by whom the sinner was to be justified was himself perfectly holy, and able to secure the justification and salvation of all who entrusted their souls to him. No man could feel secure of salvation unless he could commit his soul to one who was perfectly holy, and able to bring in everlasting righteousness.
Justify – ( yatsediyq). The word tsadaq is of very frequent occurrence in the Bible; and no word is more important to a correct understanding of the plan of salvation than this, and the corresponding Greek word dikaio. On the meaning of the Greek word, see the notes at Rom 1:17. The Hebrew word means to be right, straight, as if spoken of a way Psa 23:3. Hence,
1. To be just, righteous, spoken of God in dispensing justice Psa 55:6; and of laws Psa 19:10.
2. To have a just cause, to be in the right;
(a) in a forensic sense Gen 38:26; Job 9:16-20; Job 10:15; Job 13:18;
(b) of disputants, to be in the right Job 23:12;
(c) to gain ones cause, to be justified Isa. 43:9-26.
In this sense it is now often used in courts of justice, where a man who is charged with crime shows that he did not do the deed, or that having done it he had a right to do it, and the law holds him innocent.
3. To be righteous, upright, good, innocent. In this sense the word is often used in the Bible Job 15:14; Job 23:9; Psa 143:2. But in this sense the Messiah will justify no one. He did not come to declare that men were upright, just, innocent. Nor will he justify them because they can show that they have not committed the offences charged on them, or that they had a right to do what they have done. The whole work of justification through the Redeemer proceeds on the supposition that people are not in fact innocent, and that they cannot vindicate their own conduct.
4. In Hiphil, the word means, to pronounce just, or righteous. In a forensic sense, and as applied to the act of justification before God, it means to declare righteous, or to admit to favor as a righteous person; and in connection with the pardon of sin, to resolve to treat as righteous, or as if the offence had not been committed. It is more than mere pardon; it involves the idea of a purpose to treat as righteous, and to acknowledge as such. It is nor to declare that the person is innocent, or that he is not ill deserving, or that he had a right to do as he had done, or that he has a claim to mercy – for this is not true of any mortal; but it is to pardon, and to accept him as if the offence had not been committed – to regard him in his dealings with him, and treat him ever onward as if he were holy. This sense of the word here is necessary, because the whole passage speaks of his bearing sin, and suffering for others, and thus securing their justification. It does not speak of him as instructing people and thus promoting religion; but it speaks of his dying for them, and thus laying the foundation for their justification. They are justified only in connection with his bearing their iniquities; and this shows that the word is used here in the forensic sense, and denotes that they will be regarded and treated as righteous on account of what he has suffered in their behalf.
For he shall bear – On the meaning of the word bear, see the notes at Isa 53:4.
Their iniquities – Not that he became a sinner, or that sin can be transferred, which is impossible. Guilt and ill desert are personal qualities, and cannot be transferred from one to another. But the consequences of guilt may pass over to another; the sufferings, which would be a proper expression of the evil of sin, may be assumed by another. And this was done by the Redeemer. He stood between the stroke of justice and the sinner, and received the blow himself. He intercepted, so to speak, the descending sword of justice that would have cut the sinner down, and thus saved him. He thus bore their iniquities; that is, he bore in his own person what would have been a proper expression of the evil of sin if he had been himself the sinner, and had been guilty (see the notes at Isa 53:6). It is in connection with this that people become justified; and it is only by the fact that he has thus borne their iniquities that they can be regarded as righteous in the sight of a holy God. They become interested in his merits just as he became interested in their iniquities. There is in neither case any transfer of personal properties; but there is in both cases a participation in the consequences or the results of conduct. He endured the consequences or results of sin; we partake of the consequences or the results of his sufferings and death in our behalf. This is the great cardinal doctrine of justification; the peculiarity of the Christian scheme; the glorious plan by which lost people may be saved, and by which the guilty may become pardoned, and be raised up to endless life and glory; the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesia. luther.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 53:11
He shall see of the travail of His soul
Christs soul-travail and its outcome
1.
The word translated travail has not the special force which the English reader might infer from it; it is a word of much more general use, of much less intensity and much greater variety in the notion of sorrow which it conveys. It is used some sixty times in the Old Testament and means trouble of any, kind, as in the following passages: Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. God made me forget all my toil. If by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow. In all these cases the same word is used as in the text. It denotes strong effort, attended with pain and grief.
2. Again, the clause is usually supposed to mean that the glorious results which would follow, would be so glorious, that when beheld, the Messiah should look on them and be satisfied. This is a truth; but it is one developed by necessary inference from the text. The clearer and more exact rendering would be, He shall look out from his sorrow, and be satisfied: not only satisfied with the results of the sorrow, as if amply rewarded by them; but satisfied in the sufferings, in the fact of having undertaken them, because of the grand reason which was ever present to His view. Even in the midst of the sorrow He could look out above and beyond it. Thus we see in this text a most helpful and gladdening light on those aspects of the atoning work which are set forth in this chapter: we are taught not only that Christ would be satisfied when the outcome of His work was complete, but that He was satisfied with his errand on earth while in the very depths of His sorrow and care. At the same time, this view of the text does not exclude the more usual one. So far from that it intensifies it. For if there was satisfaction even at the very hour of the suffering, much greater must be the joy when the suffering is past and the glory secured. (C. Clemance, D. D.)
The aspect of the Redeemers work which afforded Him satisfaction
I. There must have been a sublime satisfaction in KNOWING THAT THE SUFFERING WAS ON BEHALF OF OTHERS; and that, however unworthy they might be of such entire devotion, they would through it be relieved of a burden which would have crushed them.
II. There must have been a satisfaction in ASSERTING THE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LOVE OF THE SUPREME GOVERNOR. In the work of the Lord Jesus Christ righteousness and peace kissed each other.
III. The Messiah would experience an intense satisfaction at THE PROSPECT OF THE NEW NAME WHICH HE WOULD ACQUIRE, EVEN THAT OF SAVIOUR.
IV. THE MESSIAH BEHELD FROM AFAR MEN WHO ONCE WERE REBELS, STANDING BY HIS SIDE, AS SONS AND HEIRS OF GOD: and this satisfied Him.
V. OUR SAVIOUR FORESAW THE CLOSE UNION BETWEEN THE SAVED AND HIMSELF, and was satisfied. He knew that after He had died for them, He should live in them, and that there would be such an outgoing of life from Him to them, as to form out of the human race men of finer mould and of higher character than, apart from Himself, would ever have been possible.
VI. The Messiah was satisfied in BEHOLDING FROM AFAR THE RELATION OF SAVED MEN TO EACH OTHER. He saw the Church perfect in One, its discords hushed, its sounds all attuned to perfect harmony. He beheld the believers sharing His glory, all with Him, seated with Him on His throne. (C. Clemance, D. D.)
Christs sufferings fruitful
I. THE ASPECT IN WHICH THAT WORK IS HERE REPRESENTED BY WHICH OUR SAVIOUR ACCOMPLISHED HIS GREAT UNDERTAKING. The sufferings of Christ were–
1. Expiatory and piacular.
2. Voluntary.
3. Most intense and awful.
The travail of His soul. He had a spirit unequalled for sensibility and affection, and keenness of feeling. To form a just conception of His sorrow, we must unite the ideas of compassion for the grief of the distressed, and horror at what was cruel and unjust; of indignation at the oppressor, and pity for the oppressed; of a wish to deliver the guilty, and an abhorrence of their sin. We must connect all the iniquity which He witnessed, and all the knowledge He had of the human heart. We must think of all the wickedness, the hardness of heart, the unbelief of man. We know nothing of the nature of this sacrifice; but this we know, that it was an act of amazing energy, of strenuous labour. It was not submission merely; it was a direct and positive consecration of His whole being; as if He would place Himself on the altar, and become Himself the sacrificing Priest.
II. THE SUBLIME AND HEAVENLY SATISFACTION ARISING TO THE REDEEMER IN CONTEMPLATING THE EFFECT OF HIS SUFFERINGS.
1. It is the pleasure arising from the expectation of success.
2. It is the pleasure of the most pure and exalted benevolence.
3. It is such satisfaction as springs from the great importance and difficulty of the event brought to an accomplishment.
4. It is satisfaction arising from the peculiar relation of His character and work, to the event itself, and all its consequences.
III. THE CERTAINTY THAT THIS SALVATION SHALL BE FINALLY REALIZED.
1. The sufferings of Christ are assumed as the basis of this assurance, and lead us to observe the natural and inherent attraction of this doctrine. But this certainty arises–
2. From the tendency of the Gospel to an unlimited and ceaseless diffusion.
3. From its conferring, wherever it is embraced, the greatest temporal advantages in connection with its spiritual benefits.
4. From its amazing progress.
5. From the promises of final success, and the encouraging appearances in the circumstances of the Church in the present day. (R. S. McAll, M. A.)
The connection between Messiahs sufferings and subsequent triumphs
I. THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST FORMED A PART OF THE PREDETERMINATION OF GOD, IN REFERENCE TO THE SALVATION OF MAN. It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, etc.
1. Contemplate the character of that purpose, in reference to its objects as manifesting the benevolence of God.
2. The wisdom of God.
3. The holiness of God.
II. THE INDISSOLUBLE CONNECTION THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN THOSE SUFFERINGS AND THE REDEEMERS SUBSEQUENT TRIUMPHS.
1. The character of the triumphs of Christianity on earth.
2. The certainty of those triumphs.
3. Their extent. (J. W. Etheridge.)
The travail of Christs soul
I. WHEREIN THIS SOUL-SUFFERING DID NOT CONSIST.
1. We are not to suppose any actual separation betwixt His Godhead and His manhood.
2. There was no sinful fretting, no impatience, nor carnal anxiety in our Lord.
3. There was not in him any distrust of Gods love, nor any unbelief of His approbation before God, neither the least diffidence as to the result.
4. Neither are we to conceive that there was any inward confusion, challenge or gnawing of conscience in Him, such as is in desperate sinners, cast under the wrath of God, because there was no inward cause of it, nor anything that could breed it.
II. WHEREIN IT DID CONSIST.
1. It consisted in the Godhead s suspending its comfortable influence for a time from the human nature. Though our Lord had no culpable anxiety, yet He had a sinless fear, considering Him as man. The infinite God was angry, and executing angrily the sentence of the law against Him.
2. He had an inexpressible sense of grief, not only from the outward afflictions that He was under, but also from the current of the wrath flowing in on His soul.
3. It consisted in a sort of wonderful horror which the marching up of so many mighty squadrons of the highly provoked wrath of God, making so furious an assault on His innocent human nature, was necessarily attended with. (J. Durham.)
Christs soul-travail
I. CHRISTS TRVAIL OF SOUL IN THE WORK OF OUR REDEMPTION.
II. THE CERTAINTY OF SUCCESS. He shall see.
III. HIS CONTENTMENT THEREIN. He shall be satisfied. He counts the salvation of lost sinners to be satisfaction enough for all His pains. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Christs soul-sufferings
In Christs soul-sufferings we may take notice of two things–His desertion and agonies. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Christs satisfaction in the salvation of sinners
Jesus Christ taketh an infinite satisfaction in the salvation of sinners.
I. EVIDENCES OF IT.
1. Christ pleased and entertained Himself in the thought of it before the world was (Pro 8:31).
2. This was the end and aim of His coming into the world; and it is pleasant when a man hath attained his end, especially if it be greatly desired and much laboured for. For delight is according to the degree of the desire and labour.
3. Now, in heaven it is His rejoicing to see the work thrive.
4. When He shall come from heaven to judge the world, with what triumph and rejoicing will He come, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father!
II. THE REASONS OF IT. His love was the cause of all–His love to the Father, and His love to the saints. (T. Manton, D.D.)
The satisfaction of the Messiah
Satisfied! Very few can say that word on this side of heaven. There is no satisfaction for those who are self-centred; and we say reverently that God Himself could not have known perfect blessedness unless He had been able to pour Himself forth in blessing upon others. We might put the truth into four sentences. There is no satisfaction apart from love. There cannot be love for sinning suffering souls without travail. There cannot be travail without compensating joy. In proportion to the travail, with its pangs and bitterness, will be the resulting blessedness.
I. THE TRAVAIL OF CHRISTS SOUL. He suffered because of His quick sympathy with the anguish that sin had brought to man. He probably saw, as we cannot, the timid oppressed by the strong; the helpless victim pursued by rapacity and passion. He heard the wall of the world s sorrow, in which cries of little children, the shriek or moan of womanhood, and the deep bass of strong men wrestling with the encircling serpent-folds, mingle in one terrible medley. He sighed over the deaf and dumb, had compassion on the leper, wept at the grave. As the thorn-brake to bare feet, so must this world have been to His compassionate heart. He must also have suffered keenly by the rejection of those whom He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wing, but they would not. But these elements of pain are not to be compared with that more awful sorrow which He experienced as the substitute and sacrifice of human guilt. It could not be otherwise. He could not have loved us perfectly without becoming one with us in the dark heritage of our first parent. Dost thou love Christ? The first duty He will lay on thee will be love to others. And if thou dost truly love, thou too shalt find thy meed of soul-travail.
II. THE CERTAINTY OF INFINITE COMPENSATION. He shall see. It is impossible to suffer voluntarily for others, and not in some way benefit them. Thy pain may sometimes seem abortive–the mighty throes that rend thee for the souls of others appear in vain; but it is not really so. Drop by drop thy tears shall presently turn the scale. Patience shall have her perfect work. The laws of the harvest in this sphere are as certain in their operation as in that of nature.
III. THE NATURE OF CHRISTS COMPENSATION. It will come–
1. In the glory that shall accrue to the Father.
2. In the redemption of untold myriads. Great as the harvest of sin has been, we believe that the saved shall vastly outnumber the lost. Nothing less will satisfy Christ. Remember that in the first age, before mention is made of the latter triumphs of the Gospel, John beheld in heaven a multitude which no man could number.
3. In the character of the redeemed. He shall present them to Himself without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.
4. In the destruction of the devil s work. What is involved in the majestic promise that He should destroy the works of the devil, is not yet made manifest. In due time we shall see it all.
IV. THE GREATNESS OF THOSE RESULTS.
1. They must be proportionate to the glory of His nature. It is not difficult to satisfy, at least temporarily, a little child. But as its nature develops, it becomes increasingly hard to content it. But surely there is more difference between the capacity of an angel and that of a man, than between the capacities of a man and a babe But, great as an angel is, his capacity is limited and finite. What then must be the measure of that blessedness, of that harvest of souls, of that result of His travail, which can content the Divine Redeemer?
2. They must be proportionate to the intensity of His suffering. The results of Gods work are always commensurate to the force He puts forth. You cannot imagine the Divine Being going to an immense expenditure without a sure prescience that He would be recouped. Satisfied! We shall hear His sigh of deep content, and see the triumph on His face. And if Christ is satisfied, we shall be. On this let us rest. (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)
Messiah suffering and Messiah satisfied
I. A few thoughts illustrative of THE MEANING of the text.
II. Two or three PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS to show how we ought to be affected who believe that meaning.
1. The satisfaction of Messiah in relation to the present world is yet incomplete. This should promote humility.
2. In spite of all past disappointments, we confidently expect the fulfilment of this prophecy.
3. The subject ought to lead us individually seriously to examine whether we are contributing to the Saviours satisfaction, either by what we are or by what we are doing. (T. Binney D.D.)
The reward of the Redeemers sufferings
He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied.
1. In the free remission of sins which, through His blood and in His name, has been proclaimed to the children of men.
2. In the actual return of sinners to God. (R. Gordon, D.D.)
Christs travail and satisfaction
The travail is the agony of one Divine as well as human, and that word leads us to the deepest depths of Gethsemane and Calvary–deeper than any plummets of angels sympathetic imagination could ever sound; while on the other hand, the satisfaction spoken of is similarly the satisfaction of one Divine as well as human, and projects before us something higher than the usual serenity of God, something more blissful than the usual gladness of the skies, some harvest home, some exquisite ecstasy that fills and overflows the Father-heart of God.
I. Whatever there may be in this word, there is a lesson of this sort, that WITHOUT SACRED TRAVAIL IN THE SENSE OF LABOUR, SACRIFICE, PATIENCE, THERE IS NEVER ANY ABIDING SATISFACTION. Not even for God. There are, I doubt not, indeed, many things which yield satisfaction to God, which, perhaps, involve no Divine travail of proportionate amount. I dare say it might be the case that creation came easily to Him, to the overflowing energy of Divine omnipotence. That it was easy for His infinite wisdom to adapt every organism to its place, and every creature to its circumstances; and He has satisfaction in that work of His hands. Perhaps providence comes easily to Him. But when He aims at the greater objects that engage His heart, when He would not make but save the world, when He would get back to Him the love of His suspicious and wandering children, when He would fill His house with guests, and when He would make these guests eternally worthy of His fellowship, and capable of communion with Him, then not easily even for Him can that work be done; but between Him and this joy that He sets before Him there is the travail of Bethlehem, with its lowliness, of His lonely pilgrim path of misunderstanding, of the weakness of feeble friends, and the bitterness of hateful foes:–there is Gethsemane, there is Calvary. Do not let us dream of doing anything effective for ourselves, or others cheaply, lightly, easily. If any one will be My disciple, says Christ, let him take up the cross–the gibbet–and follow Me–bidding farewell to dreams of ease, thoughts of self-indulgence, and copying the pattern set upon the Mount of Calvary. There is no sorrow in the world which you and I cannot materially relieve if we will but share it, but there is no sorrow that can be touched till we share it.
II. WHEREVER THERE IS SACRED TRAVAIL THERE IS ALWAYS ABIDING SATISFACTION. There may be travail in other directions without any satisfaction. Travail for wealth often leaves a man in poverty; travail for the sake of honour leaves him still insignificant and unknown. Do not spend your labour for that which will not profit, but aspire to the grand reward, to the noble results of existence, and put forth the sacred travail which, exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, is rewarded and blessed of heaven.
III. Our text suggests a third lesson which it is desirable for all Christian workers to remember–THE SALVATION OF MAN IS THE SATISFACTION OF GOD.
IV. THE SALVATION OF MEN WILL BE ON SUCH A SCALE, AS TO GIVE COMPLETE AND PERFECT SATISFACTION TO GOD. The word satisfaction is a large word. You know it is easy to please a man, but it is hard to satisfy him; and, as some one has said, it is the same with God; He is easily pleased, but hard to satisfy. (R. Glover, D.D.)
Christs soul-travail
I. THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL. Think of the travail of our Lords soul between Bethlehem and Calvary.
1. The travail of waiting during the long years of the life at Nazareth, during the tedious process of training the disciples that followed (Luk 12:50).
2. The travail of His own personal temptation, in the solitude of the wilderness, the protests of Peter, the impulses and the spiritual aloofness of the multitudes, and the actual hostility of their leaders (Joh 1:11).
3. Omitting many other particulars, the travail of Gethsemane and the cry upon the cross (Mat 27:46).
4. The travail with sin. Upon Him was laid the iniquity of us all A pure spirit is alway pained, even at the sight of meanness or vice. Christs spirit was so pure that Satan could find nothing in Him (Joh 14:30); and yetin the loneliness of the passion He suffered the penalty of sins not His own, wrestled with them in prolonged, triumphed over them for ever on the Cross. And if the travail of His soul be measured by the distance between His holiness and the guilt with which He consented to be charged, it will be seen to be absolutely without parallel in human history.
II. THIS TRAVAIL, SO IT IS SOMETIMES STATED, HAS PROVED SHEER WASTE, or at least, has not accomplished, and is not likely to accomplish, anything like what Christ in enduring it expected.
1. Christianity a failure has been the theme of many a critic of our faith; and the failure has been alleged to occur in almost every department of thought and morals and mission. It must be confessed that Christianity has not yet succeeded completely anywhere. Even in places where it has had on its side almost every possible advantage–been supported by governments, illustrated by every kind of genius, in control of the influences of education and public opinion–it has not made society quite pure, or even the average character of its own agents and adherents faultless. And at present there is no part of the earth upon which the Saviour can be imagined to look and to be satisfied with what He sees. The complaint sometimes takes a more personal form. Every Christian is occasionally tempted to think that religion is proving for himself personally something of a failure. After years of sincere trust and service, there are faults of temper, elements of discontent and self-seeking and sin present in the nature, and often apparently even supreme there. And instead of imagining that our Saviour is satisfied with us, the disposition is rather to imagine that we can never satisfy Him, never become perfect and matured, but that we shall have to go on stumbling and faulty to the end.
2. There are two obvious modes of dealing with these complaints and suspicions. It would be possible to plead the intractability of the material, and to imitate natural science in her ceaseless demand for time. Or, we may place ourselves with this prophet at the ultimate end of our Lords career, and see whether there are not, in society and in the heart of man, processes of progress that are tending to success. The conclusion will probably be that the success of Christianity, in relation to everything that concerns morality and religion, has already been so great as even to guarantee the eventual satisfaction concerning which this verse speaks.
(1) In regard to the thoughts, which in reasoning men must underlie and to some extent determine their practice. Think what an incalculable improvement Christianity has effected in the prevalent conception of God. From these new thoughts of God the early Christians deduced their conclusions as to the infusion of a Divine element into the spirit of man, by means of which he may be lifted up to God.
(2) In matters of social progress and the amelioration of the race, is Christianity a failure? The more personal suspicion, that religion is proving a failure as far as we ourselves are concerned, is a natural fear, due sometimes to the ease with which our best aspirations are forgotten, sometimes to the weight of this body of sin. But it is impossible to imagine the Saviour, now expecting until His enemies be made His footstool, ever turning to His Father in tones of protest, After My travail and death, is this penitent sinner to be rejected? this man, struggling with the sin within him and about him, to be worsted? Did He not once actually say to His Father, thereby pledging both to pardon and help us, For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth? And therefore as certain as the Cross of Christ are the pardon of every worst sinner who comes to God through Him, and the perfecting of every believer who with inflexible purpose cleaves in devotion to Him. This word satisfied again, in its Scriptural use, suggests as much. Almost the only place where a man is spoken of as being really satisfied with what he perceives himself to be is in one of the psalms, and even there it is an emotion that is not reached until after death: When I awake, I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness. It seems to imply that, as long as a man lives, he will have some fault to find with himself, weakness or immaturity or aptitude to sin. But, clinging to his Saviour when he dies, all these miseries will fall away from him, and at last the sinner and the Saviour will be satisfied. (Prof. R. W. Moss, D.D.)
The effects of our Lords passion
I. THE SUFFERINGS OF OUR LORD. These sufferings were–
1. Continual.
2. Extreme.
3. Voluntary.
4. Expiatory.
5. Completely effectual.
II. THE SATISFACTION WHICH HE FEELS IN VIEWING THE EFFECTS OF HIS SUFFERINGS.
1. The sight. Our Lord has seen of the travail of His soul
(1) From the beginning He beheld in contemplation all the fruits of His sufferings; this was the joy which was set before Him.
(2) During the various dispensations preceding His actual coming in the flesh He saw the effects of the sacrifice which He had engaged to make.
(3) But it was on the cross itself that the Lord Christ saw with one unerring view the full and splendid results of His undertaking.
(4) After His ascension into heaven, however, the prospect of the salvation of men began to be realized in a more ample manner.
(5) Throughout the succeeding ages of the Church the Saviour has still continued to behold the fruits of His travail.
(6) But not only has our Lord already seen of the travail of His soul, He still does see of it. His arm is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
(7) But the Saviour shall, see hereafter in a still more ample measure this glorious sight.
2. The satisfaction. We are not merely to consider the salvation of sinners as satisfying the Saviour, but as satisfying Him after all the preceding anguish of His sufferings.
Conclusion:
1. The light which the subject casts on the value of the soul of man. Both the inconceivable agony of our Lords passion, and the satisfaction He derives from its effects, suppose the unspeakable worth of the human soul.
2. The light which this subject reflects on the hope of a penitents acceptance with Christ. Surely, if He endured such a travail, such anguish of soul and body, and that for the redemption of sinners, He will never reject any one who sincerely renounces his sins and flies to Him. Surely His atonement can reach the case of the worst offender.
3. The illustration which this subject supplies of the powerful motive, by which the Christian is constrained to obey his Saviour. What can claim and fix our love and obedience, if such sufferings, voluntarily endured for us, cannot?
4. The light this subject throws on the future propagation of the Gospel throughout the world. For, if the engagement of the Covenant of redemption expressly be that our Lord shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, then we may go forth in the cause of missions and of the Bible with a humble confidence. (D. Wilson, M.A.)
The salvation of man, the joy of the Redeemer
I. SOME OF THOSE OBJECTS WHICH IT IS DECLARED THE MESSIAH SHALL BEHOLD, AS THE RESULT OF HIS SUFFERINGS.
1. To remove obstructions out of the way of the sinners salvation.
2. The salvation of His own people.
3. To rectify the moral disorders of our nature.
II. THE SATISFACTION WITH WHICH THE SAVIOUR WILL BEHOLD THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF HIS PURPOSES.
1. The completion of any great undertaking is accompanied with satisfaction.
2. Another source of satisfaction to the Saviour must be in the consciousness of having accomplished a work of infinite beneficence. (S. Summers.)
The satisfaction of Christs sufferings
I. WHAT WAS THE TRAVAIL OF CHRIST ?
II. WHY HE SUBMITTED TO IT.
III. WHY AND WHEN HE IS SATISFIED THAT HE ENDURED IT.
1. He is satisfied when He sees any penitent transgressor alarmed by His warnings, or touched by His merciful invitations, and turning to the obedience which he owes to God.
2. When He sees those whom He has redeemed walking uprightly before God.
3. The last and fullest recompense of the Redeemer s sufferings is still to come; to come in that great and joyful day, when He shall see the family which He has ransomed with His blood surrounding His throne in glory. (J. B. Sumner, M.A.)
The sympathy and satisfaction of the Redeemer
I. THE DEEP, DIVINE, IMPASSIONED SYMPATHY OF THE REDEEMER.
1. If we analyze the expression, the travail of His soul, we shall find that its meaning is not exhausted, if, indeed, it is illustrated at all, by a reference to the physical sufferings of our Lord. In the writings of the Fathers; in the devotional literature of the Middle Ages; in much of the sacred poetry of ancient, and even of more recent, times; and more specially in the highly realistic conception of sacred and legendary art, the physical sufferings of the Redeemer are treated with an emphasis and detail, which is not authorized by the Inspired record, and which imperils the clearness of our insight into the deeper meaning and mystery of His passion. It is not denied that physical suffering, most acute, most varied in form, and far transcending power of description or of imagination, was the Divinely appointed lot of Him whom it pleased the Lord to bruise. Yet there is a reticence on the part of the inspired writers in relation to the physical sufferings of our Lord which is profoundly suggestive, not only as implying that a too realistic conception of the Passion is prolific of unhealthy and morbid tendencies, but as indicating that it is not within the range of His bodily anguish that we are to discover the true gauge and meaning of His travail
2. If we contemplate the more subjective phases of the Redeemers suffering, we see the impossibility of appreciating, from the standpoint of our human experience and intelligence, the travail of a sinless soul, smitten of God and afflicted.
3. But the travail of His soul involves more than this. It includes that profound and indescribable sympathy, that yearning pity for fallen man, that self-denying and soul-absorbing love of souls, which led the Eternal Son of God to surrender Himself to humiliation and suffering, to empty Himself and become obedient unto death–the death of the Cross–that sympathy which perhaps has told more powerfully upon the human heart than the most picturesque and stirring incidents in His life of lowliness and pain. It was in respect of His sorrow for the fallen and the lost that there was no sorrow like unto His sorrow. I linger on the study of this travail of His soul because of its intimate relation to the success of all truly Christian toil. With many of us the gravest problem of life is the comparative fruitlessness of our work. Does not the secret lie in the feebleness of our sympathy, in the absence of that which has been called a passion for saving souls?
II. THE CALM AND TRANQUIL ASSURANCE WITH WHICH THE DIVINE REDEEMER SURVEYS THE COURSE AND DEVELOPMENT OF HIS TOIL. A single word in the original is responsible for this deduction, which, however, is sustained not only by the highly elliptical character of the passage, but by the general tenor of the references of Holy Scripture to the mediatorial function. These passages more particularly which refer to the session of the Redeemer on the right hand of the Majesty on high, and notably the memorable passage in the Hebrews: But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool, establish the doctrine which the Hebrew original, with characteristic conciseness, enshrines in one word. The same doctrine is reflected in the history of the Christian Church, which, even in its varying cycles and its intermittent fortunes, bears witness to a Divine Headship, calm, patient, and undisturbed. This tranquil survey of the development and fruitage of His past travail in the moral history of the world does not involve the idea of the personal inactivity of the ascended Son. But this ceaseless activity is not fretted by the anxieties which wait upon human toil. Our noblest work is harassed and hampered by conscious weakness, by distrust of our methods, by the precarious conditions under which we labour, by actual failures, or by the dread of prospective defeats. We, too, are baffled by contingencies not calculable by human foresight: and in front of us there looms that inevitable end of all work which comes alike to all. It is not under such conditions that the enthroned Redeemer surveys the fields of His toil. In the calm assurance which these words imply, there lies a tacit rebuke of the recklessness and feverish impatience of the Church in regard to the conversion of the world.
III. THE CERTAINTY OF HIS FINAL AND ETERNAL SATISFACTION. It is obvious that if this passage is to be taken literally, the ultimate issues of redemption will far transcend the loftiest anticipations which the Church has ventured to entertain. For though there be a few passages even in the ministry of our Lord which seem to look towards a less cheering sequel, a study of their surroundings will show that there is no collision between them and the most hopeful interpretation of the words of the text. No conclusions drawn from merely human analogies can be fairly applied in the endeavour to ascertain the limits within which the satisfaction of the Reedemer is to be understood. Human nature is governed by sentiment. Judging of the Divine administration by its own feelings, it has assumed that nothing less than the final restoration of every fallen man can satisfy the travail of the soul of the Redeemer. But the Divine economy is not an economy of sentiment. The infinite love of the Father acts only in harmony with the other attributes of the Divine nature. Law must be satisfied as well as love; and the human will must not be coerced in its acceptance or rejection of the provisions which mercy has devised. But while we decline to indulge even a larger hope, which rests only on sentiment and on the subtle perversion of the Sacred text, no limitations which must necessarily be assigned to its exposition can spoil it of its overpowering significance. No human mind can indicate the sources or measure the depths of that satisfaction. The practical application of this ancient prophecy is furnished by St. Paul (1Co 15:58). (R. N. Young, D.D.)
Christs vision the Cross
It was in the crisis of His mental and spiritual horror, and agony and darkness, that a vision broke on the eyes of Jesus which made even His death on the Cross to be even a satisfaction to Him.
I. HE SAW THE COMPLETION OF THE MOST STUPENDOUS UNDERTAKING OF GOD.
II. THE VISION GAVE HIM THE SATISFACTION OF A CONQUEROR.
III. IN THAT VISION WAS A SIGHT OF THE SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL IN WINNING THE HEARTS OF MEN TO GOD. (C. F. Deems, LL.D.)
He shall be satisfied
The satisfaction of which the prophet speaks is not the joy of a sinner in the Saviour who redeems him, but the joy of the Saviour over sinners whom He has redeemed.
I. THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL. We may take note of some of the ingredients that entered into the cup, although we cannot measure the degree of their bitterness.
1. He who was from all eternity the beloved of His Father put His glory off, and put on our nature.
2. He severed Himself from the company of the holy who loved and worshipped Him, for the company of the unholy who in feeble friendship vexed or in open enmity crucified Him.
3. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
4. He met personally with the person of the wicked one in our quarrel.
5. His heart was often sore vexed by ignorance, selfishness, unfaithfulness, even of His own selected disciples.
6. The people for whose sake He came into the world–the Israel among whom he was born and bred–would none of Him.
7. The office of the priesthood, which He loved and honoured as God s institute to hold up the promise of redemption, was by those who held it prostituted to reject the counsel of God.
8. But alone, and above all, incomprehensible to us, yet awful both for the part that we know and the part that we know not, is the desertion by the Father, and the final descent of wrath, due to sin, on the Redeemers soul.
II. THE FRUIT THAT RESULTS FROM THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL. It is not to the sufferings in themselves that the Redeemer looks. Herein appears the greatness of His love. He looks over and past the travail of His soul, and fixes His regards on the results that it secures.
III. THE SATISFACTION WHICH THE SAVIOUR EXPERIENCES IN THE RESULTS OF THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL. How comes it that this new creature is graven more deeply on the heart of the Eternal Son than all His other works? Those other possessions were created by His word, or fashioned by His hand, but this springs from the travail of His soul. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The travail of His soul:
In dealing with the travail of our Redeemers soul, we are like a child writing down in figures the national debt of the country. The figures are soon written, and they are all correct; but how much of the mighty meaning has entered the mind of that child. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The fruit of Christs sacrifice
The fruit of Christs sacrifice included three things:–
I. THE GLORY THAT SHOULD ACCRUE TO THE FATHER from the new splendours reflected on all the perfections of His character by the work of human redemption.
II. THE REWARD THAT SHOULD ACCRUE TO THE SAVIOUR HIMSELF, His personal exaltation, mediatorial authority, His Father s approbation, and the blessings of countless millions ransomed by His blood.
III. THE BENEFIT THAT SHOULD ACCRUE TO HIS PEOPLE, the blissful change produced upon their condition, character, and prospects–children of wrath snatched from hell, servants of corruption rescued from their debasing servitude, rebels against God subdued by the sweet influence of His grace, cleansed from all moral defilement, arrayed in the beauties of holiness, purified, refined, ennobled, rendered worthy associates of unfallen angels, and made to people heaven, who, but for Christs interposition, must have been the tenants of hell. This last is the cause of His satisfaction specially referred to in the text. (J. Roxburgh, M.A.)
The success of the Gospel
How few of us are satisfied! The prophet himself seems far from being satisfied; for in the first verse of the chapter he laments, Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And yet so complete shall be the Gospel at last, so entirely shall it fulfil all that God meant it to accomplish, that Jesus Himself shall be satisfied.
I. WHY THIS SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL IS CALLED THE TRAVAIL OF JESUS SOUL. Because Gospel blessings are given us on account of Christs sufferings.
II. If we would see a little more clearly the final success of the Gospel, let us ask, WHEN DID HE SEE THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL, AND WAS SATISFIED? at what time? This chapter, I think, tells us when. When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, says the tenth verse, He shall see His seed.
III. If we would ask IN WHAT RESPECTS JESUS WAS SATISFIED, we may answer at once, in every respect. All the purposes for which He died will be accomplished. We may hence learn–
1. That the number of those finally saved will be exceedingly great.
2. The complete final sanctification of believers.
3. Another reason for which Christ poured out His soul unto death was, to obtain for us the grace and help of His Holy Spirit. (E. Bradley.)
The promised fruit of Christs sufferings
I. THE PREDICTION BEFORE US HAS ALREADY BEEN PARTIALLY FULFILLED. Already has our Redeemer seen much of the fruit of His sufferings. Our once barren world, watered by His tears and His blood, has already produced a large harvest of righteousness and salvation.
II. DURING THE PERIOD WHICH MUST ELAPSE BEFORE TIME SHALL END, THIS PREDICTION SHALL RECEIVE A MUCH MORE AMPLE ACCOMPLISHMENT.
III. IT IS TO THE FINAL CONSUMMATION OF ALL THINGS, IT IS TO ETERNITY, THAT WE MUST LOOK FOR THE COMPLETE FULFILMENT OF THIS ANIMATING PREDICTION. Our Redeemer will see that spiritual edifice, the foundation of which was laid in His blood, which has been so long erecting, standing before Him finished, resplendent in glory, and perfect in beauty. (E. Payson, D.D.)
The prophecy of the Cross
In fancy we can see the Son of God standing before the world began upon the heights of heaven, His ancestral home, and there with conflicting emotions at work within His heart, and mirrored on His face, He sees the great drama of Calvary unrolled before His eyes.
I. JESUS SAW THE NECESSITY FOR THE CROSS.
1. He knew that God the Father had plans for man. He was a being of order and intelligence. Man was to be created in the image of God. He was to have happiness within his reach. It was to come by a perfect obedience to the will of God. That was all man needed for happiness.
2. Jesus saw that men would go away from the plan of God.
II. JESUS SAW THE REALITY OF THE CROSS. Jesus knew as He looked with prophetic eye that there must be some satisfaction rendered for the law that had been violated. He saw that He must render that satisfaction.
III. JESUS SAW THE FRUIT OF THE CROSS. (A. W. Bealer, D.D.)
The Saviours ultimate joy
May we not safely say that the joy will be as varied as the relationships which our Saviour bears to us? It will be the joy of the Sufferer whose agony is forgotten in the abundance of bliss,–the joy of the Sower in reaping the abundance of the harvest,–the joy of the Shepherd in seeing all the sheep as one flock, safe for ever in the heavenly fold,–the joy of the Friend in seeing all His friends by His side in a union with Him and with each other, that no misapprehension shall ever mar, and no sin shall ever stain,–it will be the joy of the Warrior when the battle is over, when every enemy is still as a stone, and the summons to fight is exchanged for victorious rest,–it will be the joy of the Leader, who has brought all His host into the promised land,–it will be the joy of the Mediator, who has discharged His trust and surrendered it to the Father, saying, Of those whom Thou gavest Me I have lost none,–it will be the joy of the King who is to reign for ever over a kingdom in which revolt has been made impossible through the achievements of almighty grace,–it will be the joy of the Redeemer when the redemption is complete, fulfilling His longings and His prayers,–it will be the joy of the First-born Son at seeing every member of the new-born family safe in a happy home, which no sin can disturb and no death invade,–it will be the joy of the Son of man in witnessing the ideal of human perfection,–it will be the joy of the Son of God, as to principalities and powers in heavenly places He reveals through a glorified Church the manifold wisdom of God, showing to worlds on worlds what Infinite Love devised and Infinite Power achieved! (C. Clemance, D.D.)
Travail of soul and satisfaction
I have known an eminent portrait-painter, who, when the crisis of his picture came at which it was to be determined whether or not he had produced a likeness of the features only, or a picture of the soul and character of his subject, used to fall into perfect paroxysms of excitement, weeping, wringing his hands and grovelling on the ground; but when it was over and the true likeness stood embodied the canvas, gave way to equally extravagant exultation. (J. Stalker, D.D.)
Messiah satisfied
Small things will satisfy a small mind. It requires great things to satisfy a great mind. What must be required to satisfy the mind of an angel? above all, what must be required to satisfy the mind of God? The salvation of ruined mankind does so! (J. R. Macduff, D.D.)
The satisfaction of realized purpose
There is intense joy in work when it is done and well done. The humblest mechanic feels this pleasure when he sees the article he has been making passing out of his hands perfect. The poet surely feels it when he writes Finis at the end of the work into which he has poured the full force of his genius. What must it have been to William Wilberforce to hear on his deathbed that the cause to which he had devoted the toil of a lifetime had triumphed, and to know that, when he died, there would not be a single slave breathing in any of the dependencies of Britain! (J. Stalker, D.D.)
By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many
Justification by the knowledge of Christ
I. THE GREAT BENEFIT THAT FLOWS FROM CHRISTS SUFFERINGS. Justification.
II. THE PARTIES MADE PARTAKERS OF THE BENEFIT. Many.
III. THE FOUNTAIN FROM WHICH THIS BENEFIT FLOWS TO MANY. My righteous Servant.
IV. THE WAY CHRIST JUSTIFIES. Not simply by forgiving, but by His satisfying for them. He shall bear their iniquities.
V. THE MEANS BY WHICH THIS BENEFIT IS DERIVED. By His knowledge. (J. Durham.)
My righteous Servant:
Consider the title that Christ gets in these words.
I. He is called the Lords SERVANT. It looks to Him as Mediator. It imports–
1. A humiliation and inferiority in respect of God (Php 2:1-30).
2. His prerogative as being singularly and eminently Gods Servant.
3. The particular task or work that is laid on Him, and the commission that He hath got to prosecute that work.
4. That our Lord Jesus, in performing the work of redemption, cannot but be acceptable to Jehovah, because it is a performing of that with which He hath entrusted Him.
II. He is called the Lords RIGHTEOUS SERVANT. He is all excellent Servant; not righteous simply as He is God, nor as He is man, but righteous in the administration of His offices, and in the discharge of the great trust committed to Him. He administrates His offices–
1. Wonderfully wisely.
2. Very tenderly.
3. Most diligently and effectually.
4. With all faithfulness. (J. Durham.)
Justification
There are commonly six causes made necessary to concur in justification.
1. The efficient cause–God, the Party that doth justify.
2. The final cause–His own glory.
3. The meritorious cause–Christs merit.
4. The inward instrumental cause–faith.
5. The formal cause, or that wherein justification consists.
6. The external, instrumental cause–the Word of God. (J. Durham.)
Knowledge and faith
Faith, where it is saving, hath always knowledge going along with it.
1. Faith is nothing, but as it lays hold on some object. How can faith lay hold on an object, except it know it?
2. Faith, as justifying, is always holden forth as making use of and giving credit to that which is revealed in the Word.
3. In justification, God would have a sinner proceed as a man doth who defends himself before an earthly tribunal. As it is dangerous in a weighty cause to have an ignorant advocate, who puts in a wrong defence, so is it, in this case, to be ignorant (Rom 10:3).
4. There must be repentance ere a sinner can be justified, which supposeth knowledge. He must needs know his sin, and that his own righteousness will not do his turn.
5. Look forward to the duties of holiness, which are necessary, though not to justify you, yet that ye may live as it becomes justified persons. Now, can any know or do duties, who are ignorant?
6. Consider your own peace, and how, in order to it, there is a necessity of knowledge. (J. Durham.)
Justifying faith
1. The necessity of it.
2. The Object of it.
3. The act of it.
4. The effects that flow from it.
5. The manner of its concurring in the attainment of justification. (J. Durham.)
Justification by the knowledge of Christ
1. It is the privilege of the Gospel to discover a way for the justification of sinners by His knowledge.
2. Faith is knowledge, or an apprehension of Christ. The knowledge of Him.
3. By faith we are justified. He saith by His knowledge, but He meaneth faith; such apprehensions of Christ as cause answerable dispositions in the spirit. (T. Manton, D.D.)
The knowledge of Christ
I. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE KNOWLEDGE TO WHICH THE PROPHET ASCRIBES SUCH EFFICACY? It is well to cultivate the understanding, if, perchance, the Spirit of enlightening grace might employ this faculty as an avenue to the heart. And yet we must beware of substituting the means for the end. Others have acquired a more clear view of the Gospel revelation, who know much, but employ their knowledge to no better purpose than to maintain an empty parade of religious profession. What is the knowledge to which we allude–the knowledge which involves privileges so inestimable? The prophet calls it, the knowledge of the righteous Servant of God. This is no other than the holy Jesus, the righteous Messiah.
1. There must be the knowledge of self.
2. The knowledge which the sinner acquires of his own character, though connected with that to which the prophet alludes, is not the thing itself. It is the knowledge of the Saviour, Christ. To know the Lord Jesus Christ is to renounce all virtue in ourselves, and to look to Him alone for salvation. But there is a further particular comprehended in the knowledge which the believer has of Christ. The Lord Jesus is called the righteous Servant of God. If we love Him, we must love Him as a righteous Saviour.
II. THE BENEFITS WHICH SUCH A KNOWLEDGE IS MADE INSTRUMENTAL IN PROCURING.
1. The believer enjoys justification from sin by the sufferings and death of Christ.
2. As he is united by faith with the Saviour, he partakes in His righteousness.
3. As he is designed for the heavenly inheritance, he must be made meet for its enjoyment; and therefore he has the promise of the Spirit of Christ to sanctify his heart. (W. North, M.A.)
By His knowledge:
That is, either by His own knowledge, or by their knowledge of Him. And, as Dean Plumptre puts it, the prophet may have been directed to an expression which included both. For both are true of Christ. Men are saved by knowing Him; and, on the other hand, it is His knowledge of the Father that enables Him to lead men to the Father. (Expository Times.)
Justifying the many
1. Here is a state supposed with regard to the many–that they would need to be justified. Look at history. Let us look into our own hearts. Let us look at the pure and holy law.
2. The prophet foresees One who would be an exception to the many. While to them iniquities belong, this one would be the righteous Servant.
There has been but One in all history to whom this expression could completely and unreservedly apply.
3. Nor did the prophet foresee this One merely as one Righteous One amid a desolate waste of sin, but he foresees Him taking on Himself the liabilities of the race. He shall bear their iniquities.
4. The knowledge of this Righteous One should have peculiar value. By His knowledge; this and no more will the Hebrew term bear. But we may understand either–by the knowledge He has, or by the knowledge that He imparts, or by the knowledge of Himself that men should gain. Either way a sense is conveyed that is intelligible and true.
5. Where the Righteous One is thus known, He accomplishes a glorious justifying act. By means of the saving acquaintance with Him which believing penitents make, when, confessing their sin, they rely on Him for pardon, He, in the exercise of His own royal rights, absolves them from all their guilt, and releases them from the condemning sentence of the law of God.
6. As the result of this release the penitents are re-set in a position of favour, grace, and love.
7. The ground or reason of His justifying the many, is that He bore their iniquities. The justifying is not only a sequence, but the consequence of His bearing our sins. (C. Clemance, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. Shall be satisfied – “And be satisfied”] The Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, and a MS. add the conjunction to the verb, vaigisba.
Shall my righteous servant justify – “Shall my servant justify”] Three MSS., (two of them ancient,) omit the word tsaddik; it seems to be only an imperfect repetition, by mistake, of the preceding word. It makes a solecism in this place; for according to the constant usage of the Hebrew language, the adjective, in a phrase of this kind, ought to follow the substantive; and tsaddik abdi, in Hebrew, would be as absurd as “shall my servant righteous justify,” in English. Add to this, that it makes the hemistich too long.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He shall see, he shall receive or enjoy, as this word commonly signifies,
of the travail of his soul, the comfortable and blessed fruit of all his hard labours and grievous sufferings,
and shall be satisfied; he shall esteem his own and his Fathers glory, and the salvation of his people, an abundant recompence for all his sufferings.
By his knowledge; either,
1. Actively, by that knowledge of Gods will, and of the way of salvation, which is in him in its highest perfection, and which by him is revealed unto men, and by his Spirit is imprinted in the minds and hearts of his people, so as to produce faith and obedience in them. Or,
2. Passively, by the knowledge of him, as my fear and thy fear are put for the fear of me and of thee, Psa 5:7; Jer 32:40; knowledge being here, as it is most frequently in Scripture, taken practically, for that kind of knowledge which worketh faith, and love, and obedience to him. So the sense is the same in both cases.
My righteous servant; which title is here given to Christ, partly to vindicate him from those false imputations of wickedness which were fastened upon him by his adversaries, and which found the more belief because of his most grievous and unexampled sufferings both from God and men; and partly to show his fitness for this great work of justifying sinners, because he was exactly
holy, and harmless, and undefiled, Heb 7:26, and
fulfilled all righteousness, according to his duty, Mat 3:15; and therefore his person and performance must needs be acceptable to God, and effectual for the justification of his people, which was the great design of his coming into the world. Justify acquit them from the guilt of their sins, and all the dreadful consequences thereof; for justification is here opposed to condemnation, as appears from the following clause, and from many other passages in this chapter, and as it is used in all places of Scripture, one, or two at most, excepted, where it is mentioned. And Christ is said to justify sinners meritoriously, because he purchaseth and procureth it for us; as God the Father is commonly said to do it authoritatively, because he accepted the price paid by Christ for it, and the pronunciation of the sentence of absolution is referred to him in the gospel dispensation.
Many; which word is seasonably added, partly by way of restriction, to show that Christ will not justify all, but only such as believe in him and obey him; and partly by way of amplification, to declare that this blessed privilege shall not now be, as hitherto it had in a manner been, confined to Judea, and the Jews, but shall be conferred upon an innumerable company of all the nations of the world.
For he shall bear their iniquities; for he shall satisfy the justice and law of God for them, by bearing the punishment due to their sins, and therefore by the principles of reason and justice they must be justified or acquitted, otherwise the same debt should be twice required and paid.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. Jehovah is still speaking.
see of the travailHeshall see such blessed fruits resulting from His sufferings as amplyto repay Him for them (Isa 49:4;Isa 49:5; Isa 50:5;Isa 50:9). The “satisfaction,”in seeing the full fruit of His travail of soul in the conversion ofIsrael and the world, is to be realized in the last days (Isa2:2-4).
his knowledgerather,the knowledge (experimentally) of Him (Joh 17:3;Phi 3:10).
my . . . servantMessiah(Isa 42:1; Isa 52:13).
righteousthe ground onwhich He justifies others, His own righteousness (1Jo2:1).
justifytreat as ifrighteous; forensically; on the ground of His meritorioussuffering, not their righteousness.
bear . . . iniquities(Isa 53:4; Isa 53:5),as the sinner’s substitute.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied,…. “The travail of his soul” is the toil and labour he endured, in working out the salvation of his people; his obedience and death, his sorrows and sufferings; particularly those birth throes of his soul, under a sense of divine wrath, for the allusion is to women in travail; and all the agonies and pains of death which he went through. Now the fruit of all this he sees with inexpressible pleasure, and which gives him an infinite satisfaction; namely, the complete redemption of all the chosen ones, and the glory of the divine perfections displayed therein, as well as his own glory, which follows upon it; particularly this will be true of him as man and Mediator, when he shall have all his children with him in glory; see Heb 12:2. The words are by some rendered, “seeing himself or his soul freed from trouble, he shall be satisfied” c; so he saw it, and found it, when he rose from the dead, and was justified in the Spirit; ascended to his God and Father, was set down at his right hand, and was made glad with his countenance, enjoying to the full eternal glory and happiness with him: and by others this, “after the travail d of his soul, he shall see [a seed], and shall be satisfied”; as a woman, after her travail and sharp pains are over, having brought forth a son, looks upon it with joy and pleasure, and is satisfied, and forgets her former pain and anguish; so Christ, after all his sorrows and sufferings, sees a large number of souls regenerated, sanctified, justified, and brought to heaven, in consequence of them, which is a most pleasing and satisfactory sight unto him,
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; Christ is the servant of the Lord; [See comments on Isa 53:1],
[See comments on Isa 49:3],
[See comments on Isa 52:13]. He is said to be “righteous”, because of the holiness of his nature, and the righteousness of his life as a man; and because of his faithful discharge of his work and office as Mediator; and because he is the author and bringer in of an everlasting righteousness, by which he justifies his people; that is, acquits and absolves them, pronounces them righteous, and frees them from condemnation and death; he is the procuring and meritorious cause of their justification; his righteousness is the matter of it; in him, as their Head, are they justified, and by him the sentence is pronounced: for this is to be understood not of making men holy and righteous inherently, that is sanctification; nor of a teaching men doctrinally the way and method of justifying men, which is no other than ministers do; but it is a forensic act, a pronouncing and declaring men righteous, as opposed to condemnation: and they are many who are so justified; the many who were ordained to eternal life; the many whose sins Christ bore, and gave his life a ransom for; the many sons that are brought by him to glory. This shows that they are not a few, which serves to magnify the grace of God, exalt the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, and encourage distressed sinners to look to him for justification of life; and yet they are not all men, for all men have not faith, nor are they saved; though all Christ’s spiritual seed and offspring shall be justified, and shall glory: and this is “by” or “through his knowledge”; the knowledge of him, of Christ, which is no other than faith in him, by which a man sees and knows him, and believes in him, as the Lord his righteousness; and this agrees with the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith; which is no other than the manifestation, knowledge, sense, and perception of it by faith.
For he shall bear their iniquities; this is the reason of Christ’s justifying many, the ground and foundation of it; he undertook to satisfy for their sins; these, as before observed, were laid on him; being laid on him, he bore them, the whole of them, and all the punishment due to them; whereby he made satisfaction for them, and bore them away, so as they are to be seen no more; and upon this justification proceeds.
c “exemptum a molestia se ipsum (vel animam suam, Jun.); videns, satiabitur”, Junius & Tremellius. d “Post laborem”, Forerius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This great work of salvation lies as the great object of His calling in the hand of the deceased and yet eternally living One, and goes on victoriously through His mediation. He now reaps the fruit of His self-sacrifice in a continuous priestly course. “Because of the travail of His soul, He will see, and be refreshed; through His knowledge will He procure justice, my righteous servant, for the many, and will take their iniquities upon Himself.” The prophecy now leaves the standpoint of Israel’s retrospective acknowledgment of the long rejected Servant of God, and becomes once more the prophetic organ of God Himself, who acknowledges the servant as His own. The min of might be used here in its primary local signification, “far away from the trouble” (as in Job 21:9, for example); or the temporal meaning which is derived from the local would be also admissible, viz., “from the time of the trouble,” i.e., immediately after it (as in Psa 73:20); but the causal sense is the most natural, viz., on account of, in consequence of (as in Exo 2:23), which not only separates locally and links together temporarily, but brings into intimate connection. The meaning therefore is, “In consequence of the trouble of His soul (i.e., trouble experienced not only in His body, but into the inmost recesses of His soul), He will see, satisfy Himself.” Hitzig supplies (Jer 29:32); Knobel connects , in opposition to the accents (like A. S. Th. ), thus: “He looks at His prudent work, and has full satisfaction therewith.” But there is nothing to supply, and no necessity to alter the existing punctuation. The second verb receives its colouring from the first; the expression “He will see, will satisfy Himself,” being equivalent to “He will enjoy a satisfying or pleasing sight” (cf., Psa 17:15), which will consist, as Isa 53:10 clearly shows, in the successful progress of the divine work of salvation, of which He is the Mediator. belongs to as the medium of setting right (cf., Pro 11:9). This is connected with l in the sense of “procure justice,” like (Isa 6:10); in Isa 14:3; Isa 28:12 (cf., Dan 11:33, , to procure intelligence; Gen 45:7, , to prolong life – a usage which leads on to the Aramaean combination of the dative with the accusative, e.g., Job 37:18, compare Job 5:2). Tsaddq abhd do not stand to one another in the relation of a proper name and a noun in apposition, as Hofmann thinks, nor is this expression to be interpreted according to (Ges. 113); but “a righteous man, my servant,” with the emphatic prominence given to the attribute (cf., Isa 10:30; Isa 23:12; Psa 89:51), is equivalent to “my righteous servant.’
But does mean per cognitionem sui , or per cognitionem suam ? The former gives a sense which is both doctrinally satisfying and practically correct: the Righteous One makes others partakers of righteousness, through their knowledge of Him, His person, and His work, and (as the biblical , which has reference not only to the understanding, but to personal experience also, clearly signifies) through their entrance into living fellowship with Him. Nearly all the commentators, who understand by the servant of God the Divine Redeemer, give the preference to this explanation (e.g., Vitringa, Hengstenberg, and Stier). But the meaning preferred is not always the correct one. The subjective rendering of the suffix (cf., Pro 22:17) is favoured by Mal 2:7, where it is said that “the priest’s lips should keep daath (knowledge);” by Dan 12:3, where faithful teachers are called m atsdqe harabbm (they that turn many to righteousness); and by Isa 11:2, according to which “the spirit of knowledge” ( ruach daath ) is one of the seven spirits that descend upon the sprout of Jesse; so that “knowledge” ( daath ) is represented as equally the qualification for the priestly, the prophetic, and the regal calling. It is a very unseemly remark, therefore, on the part of a modern commentator, when he speaks of the subjective knowledge of the Servant as “halting weakly behind in the picture, after His sacrificial death has already been described.” We need only recall to mind the words of the Lord in Mat 11:27, which are not only recorded both by the synoptists and by John, but supported by testimony outside the Gospels also: “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Let us remember also, that the Servant of Jehovah, whose priestly mediatorial work is unfolded before us here in chapter 53, upon the ground of which He rises to more than regal glory (Isa 52:15, compare Isa 53:12), is no other than He to whom His God has given the tongue of the learned, “to know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, i.e., to raise up the wary and heavy laden” (Isa 50:4). He knows God, with whom He stands in loving fellowship; He knows the counsels of His love and the will of His grace, in the fulfilment of which His own life ascends, after having gone down into death and come forth from death; and by virtue of this knowledge, which rests upon His own truest and most direct experience, He, the righteous One, will help “the many,” i.e., the great mass ( harabbm as in Dan 9:27; Dan 11:33, Dan 11:39; Dan 12:3; cf., Exo 23:2, where rabbm is used in the same sense without the article), hence all His own nation, and beyond that, all mankind (so far as they were susceptible of salvation = , Rom 5:19, cf., , Mat 26:28), to a right state of life and conduct, and one that should be well-pleasing to God. The primary reference is to the righteousness of faith, which is the consequence of justification on the ground of His atoning work, when this is believingly appropriated; but the expression also includes that righteousness of life, which springs by an inward necessity out of those sanctifying powers, that are bound up with the atoning work which we have made our own (see Dan 9:24). The ancients recognised this connection between the justitia fidei et vitae better than many of the moderns, who look askance at the Romish justitia infusa , and therewith boast of advancing knowledge. Because our righteousness has its roots in the forgiveness of sins, as an absolutely unmerited gift of grace without works, the prophecy returns once more from the justifying work of the Servant of God to His sin-expunging work as the basis of all righteousness: “He shall bear their iniquities.” This yisbol (He shall bear), which stands along with futures, and therefore, being also future itself, refers to something to be done after the completion of the work to which He is called in this life (with which Hofmann connects it), denotes the continued operation of His s e bhalam (Isa 53:4), through His own active mediation. His continued lading of our trespasses upon Himself is merely the constant presence and presentation of His atonement, which has been offered once for all. The dead yet living One, because of His one self-sacrifice, is an eternal Priest, who now lives to distribute the blessings that He has acquired.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
11. From the labor of his soul he shall see. Isaiah continues the same subject. He declares that Christ, after having suffered, shall obtain the fruit of his death in the salvation of men. When he says, “He shall see,” we must supply the words, “Fruit and Efficacy.” This is full of the sweetest consolation; for Isaiah could not have better expressed the infinite love of Christ toward us than by declaring that he takes the highest delight in our salvation, and that he rests in it as the fruit of his labors, as he who has obtained his wish rests in that which he most ardently desired; for no person can be said to be satisfied but he who has obtained what he wished so earnestly as to disregard everything else and be satisfied with this alone.
By his doctrine, or by the knowledge of him. He now points out the way and method by which we experience the power and efficacy of the death of Christ, and obtain the benefit of it. That method is “the knowledge of him.” I acknowledge that the word דעת (dagnath) may be taken either in an active or a passive sense, as denoting either “the knowledge of him” or “his knowledge.” In whichsoever of these senses it is taken, we shall easily understand the Prophet’s meaning; and the Jews will not be able to practice such impudent sophistry as to prevent us from extorting from them a reluctant acknowledgment of what is here asserted, that Christ. is the only teacher and author of righteousness.
Shall justify many. By the word “justify” he points out the effect of this teaching. Thus, men are not only taught righteousness in the school of Christ, but are actually justified. And this is the difference between the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of the Law; for although the Law shows what it is to be righteous, yet Paul affirms that it is impossible that righteousness should be obtained by it, and experience proves the same thing; for the Law is a mirror in which we behold our own unrighteousness. (Rom 3:20.) Now, the doctrine which Christ teaches, as to obtaining righteousness, is nothing else than “the knowledge of him;” and this is faith, when we embrace the benefit of his death and fully rely on him.
Philosophers have laid down many excellent precepts, which, as they imagine, contain righteousness; but they never could bestow it on any man; (57) for who ever obtained by their rules the power of living uprightly? And it is of no advantage to know what is true righteousness, if we are destitute of it. To say nothing about philosophers, the Law itself, which contains the most perfect rule of life, could not (as we have said) bestow this; not that there was any defect in it, for Moses testified (Deu 30:19) that “he had set before them good and evil, life and death;” but that the corruption of our nature is such that the Law could not suffice for procuring righteousness. In like manner Paul teaches (Rom 8:3) that this weakness proceeds “from our flesh,” and not from the Law; for nature prompts us in another direction, and our lusts burst forth with greater violence, like wild and furious beasts, against the command of God. The consequence is, that “the law worketh wrath,” instead of righteousness. (Rom 4:15) The law therefore holds all men as convicted, and, after having made known their sin, renders men utterly inexcusable.
We must therefore seek another way of righteousness, namely, in Christ, whom the law also pointed out as its end. (Rom 10:3.) “The righteousness of the law was of this nature: He who doeth these things shall live by them.” (Lev 18:5; Gal 3:12.) But nobody has done them, and therefore another righteousness is necessary, which Paul also proves (Rom 10:8) by a quotation from Moses himself, “The word is nigh, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach.” (Deu 30:14) By this doctrine, therefore, we are justified; not by the bare and simple doctrine, but inasmuch as it exhibits the benefit of the death of Christ, by which atonement is made for our sins, and we are reconciled to God. (Rom 5:10.) For, if we embrace this benefit by faith, we are reckoned righteous before God.
For he shall bear their iniquities. The Prophet explains his meaning by pointing out what this doctrine contains; for these two clauses agree well: “he shall justify by his doctrine,” or “by the knowledge of him,” inasmuch as “he shall bear their iniquities.” Having been once made a sacrifice for us, he now invites us by the doctrine of the Gospel, to receive the fruit of his death; and thus the death of Christ is the substance of the doctrine, in order that he may justify us. To this saying of the Prophet Paul fully subscribes; for, after having taught that “Christ was an expiatory sacrifice for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” he at the same time adds, “We are ambassadors for Christ, and beseech you, be ye reconciled to God.” (2Co 5:20)
My righteous servant. He shows that Christ justifies us, not only as he is God, but also as he is man; for in our flesh he procured righteousness for us. He does not say, “The Son,” but “My servant,” that we may not only view him as God, but may contemplate his human nature, in which he performed that obedience by which we are acquitted before God. The foundation of our salvation is this, that he offered himself as a sacrifice; and, in like manner, he himself declares,
“
For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be holy.” (Joh 17:19)
(57) “ Mais ils n’ont jamais peu faire un seul hornroe juste.” “But they never could make one man righteous.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) He shall see of the travail . . .Better, On account of the travail of his soul, he shall see, and be refreshed. We may find the truest explanation in the words, To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise (Luk. 23:43). The refreshment after travail, because of the travail, was already present to the sufferers consciousness.
By his knowledge . . .The phrase admits of two meanings, objective and subjective: (1) by their knowledge of Him; or (2) by His own knowledge; and each expresses a truth. Men are saved by knowing Christ. To know Him and the Father is eternal life (Joh. 17:3). On the other hand, the Christ Himself makes His knowledge of the Father the ground of His power to impart that knowledge to men, and so to justify and save them (Joh. 17:25). Without that knowledge He could not have led them to know God as He knew. If we dare not say that the prophet distinctly contemplated both meanings, we may rejoice that he was guided to use a phrase which includes both. Isa. 11:2 and Mal. 2:7 are in favour of (2).
For he shall bear.The conjunction is not necessarily more than and. The importance of the renewal of the assurance given in Isa. 53:4 lies in its declaring the perpetuity of the atoning work. The sacrifice of the Servant is for ever (Heb. 10:12). He ever liveth to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25). He taketh away the sin of the world, through the ons of all duration (Joh. 1:29).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘From the travail of his soul he shall see (light) and shall be satisfied.
By his humiliation shall my righteous servant make many to be accounted righteous,
And he will bear their iniquities.’
This is summarising what has gone before in the last verse, and reminding us of the great travail through which the Servant must go. The travail of His soul is described in Isa 52:14; Isa 53:3-5; Isa 53:7-8. He will be in great travail, but from that travail He will see success (or fruit) as described and will be satisfied. And this will result because through His humiliation (a significance of yatha‘ found at Ugarit) God’s righteous Servant will make many to be accounted righteous (‘cause to be righteous in the eyes of the Law and of the Judge’). Here ‘many’ unquestionably means the ‘saved’. And they will be accounted righteous before God because He has borne their iniquities. Here then at last is the means by which the faithful in Israel, and world believers, can get right with God and be provided with sufficient righteousness before a holy God. It is what all has been leading up to. He has undergone His suffering so that this might be possible.
If we translate ‘by His knowledge’ rather than ‘by His humiliation’ we must see it as indicating that He acts on the basis of what He knows are God’s requirements. But ‘by His humiliation’ is well authenticated.
‘From the travail of His soul He shall see, and shall be satisfied .’ From the midst of His sufferings the Servant will look forward and ‘see’. But what will He see? Clearly we could put in ‘what results’, and as He is satisfied by it we could expand it to, ‘a satisfactory conclusion resulting from His sufferings’. He will have accomplished what He came to do. His work will have been completely successful, and with deep satisfaction He will see what He has accomplished and rejoice in it. (We should note that the Hebrew really demands the translation ‘from the travail of His soul –.’ ‘of the travail of His soul’ is incorrect as a translation).
However, after ‘He shall see’ the noun ‘light’ is found , not only in LXX and Qa, but also in Qb (MSS at Qumran) which is in most respects almost identical with MT. These make a strong combination textually speaking and may even suggest that ‘light’ has dropped out of the text. On the other hand copyists knew the text by heart so that we need to be wary of adding in what is not there. But it is certainly strong evidence of what future generations saw as needing to be supplied. Either way, as some idea needs to be added to give significant meaning, ‘light’ is a reasonable surmise, for the constant promise of Isaiah is that through the darkness ahead, light is coming. The point then is still that from the midst of His soul-travail the Servant will see a satisfactory result, He will see ‘the light of Yahweh’ (Isa 2:5), He will see the light which was to result from His coming and was to be made available to the world (Isa 9:2). He would be satisfied that the light for which His people were seeking would now shine on them (Isa 42:16; Isa 60:1), the light which would shine on the Gentiles through Him (Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6). When men now looked towards God through the Servant, instead of the darkness of His anger because of sin, they would see the light of His pardon and forgiveness made available through the Servant’s work. He would make many to be accounted righteous. So we can reasonably see it in this way whether we put the noun ‘light’ in or not. For the coming of that light alone could satisfy Him. The reading ‘light’ would indicate that He will see hope ahead at the end of the dark tunnel through which He is going, the glorious light of the fulfilment of God’s purposes dawning on His soul. At the end of His darkness will come light, the light of life.
‘By His humiliation shall my righteous servant make many to be accounted righteous, and He will bear their iniquities.’ We can compare here ‘being accounted righteous freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 3:24). This is the message of the Gospel. Through what He has undergone He has borne their iniquities, and therefore those who believe can now be counted as righteous before God through His sacrifice of Himself, all their guilt can now be removed. The ‘many’ in this passage are those who see Him and respond to Him (Isa 52:14; Isa 53:12 (twice); compare Isa 2:3). The idea appears a number of times in the New Testament (see especially Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45; Rom 5:15; Rom 5:19; Heb 9:28; see also Mat 8:11; Mat 26:28; Luk 1:14; Joh 7:31; Joh 8:30; Joh 10:42; Joh 12:11; Act 17:12; Act 19:18; Act 28:23; 1Co 10:17; Heb 2:10).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 53:11. He shall see of the travail, &c. “In consideration of what he suffered, he shall afterwards see all his enemies put under his feet; and by his law and his grace he shall reform the world, and prepare them who will believingly receive the benefits of his death for a total and eternal absolution and discharge from the punishment of their sins.” Instead of by his knowledge, we may read, by the knowledge of him. Knowledge may be taken here objectively, as the knowledge which he shall teach.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 974
CHRISTS SATISFACTION IN HIS PEOPLE
Isa 53:11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.
THE prospect of saving a ruined world was a strong inducement with our Lord to undertake the office of mediating between God and them, and afforded him rich consolation under the heavy trials he was called to endure in the execution of that office. And, now that his expectations are in a measure realized, he feels an inexpressible complacency in a retrospect upon all that he had done and suffered for our sake. It had been declared in the foregoing verse, that, after making his soul an offering for sin, he should see a seed, who should be, as it were, his spiritual offspring. In the words before us, the same promise is repeated, though with a remarkable variation in the terms; and it is foretold that, in the accomplishment of this promise, he should feel the most abundant satisfaction.
The promise of a successful issue to his undertaking having been already considered, we shall wave every thing relating to that, and make some remarks upon the representation which is here given of believers, and the satisfaction which our blessed Lord takes in them in that particular view.
I.
The representation here given of believers
Of all the numberless descriptions given of believers in the Holy Scriptures, there is not any one so interesting as that before us. Similar ideas indeed are suggested in many passages, where mankind are spoken of as begotten of God, and as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty: but there is a tenderness in the expression before us, which well deserves our most attentive consideration.
The image of a travailing woman is very commonly used by the inspired writers to illustrate different topics. As applied to the ungodly, it expresses the fear and terror, the distress and anguish, which they either do experience under the Divine chastisements [Note: Isa 26:16-18. Jer 30:6-7.], or will experience, when death and judgment shall come upon them [Note: 1Th 5:3.]. As applied to the godly, it declares the relation which they bear to the church [Note: Isa 54:1. with Gal 4:27.], to ministers [Note: Gal 4:19.], and to Christ himself [Note: The text.]. It is in this last view that we are now called to notice it.
Without entering too minutely into so delicate a subject we may observe, that believers are justly represented as the fruit of the Redeemers travail, both on account of their being brought into the family of God by means of his sufferings; and on account of his watching over them continually with more than maternal care and anxiety.
It is solely by means of his sufferings that they are brought into the family of God. They were indeed prepared from eternity in the womb of the divine counsels: they were given to Christ, and chosen in him from the foundation of the world [Note: Joh 17:2, Eph 1:4.]. Long before the Gentiles were actually called, our Lord spake of his having many, who were not of the Jewish fold, whom yet he must in due season bring into his church [Note: Joh 10:16.]. And the Apostle Paul, though he was so long ignorant of God, and a bitter persecutor of the Church, yet speaks of himself as a chosen vessel, that had been separated to God from the womb [Note: Gal 1:15.]. But that whereby men are really brought into the family of God, is the crucifixion of Christ. If Christ had not borne their sins in his own body on the tree, and made his soul too an offering for sin, not one of them could ever have enjoyed the Divine favour, not one of them could ever have presumed to cry, Abba, Father I But by his stripes they obtain healing, and peace by his chastisements, and life by his death. By his vicarious sufferings they are exempt from all the penal effects of sin, and have the power and privilege of becoming sons of God [Note: Joh 1:12.]. To this one source is the whole of their salvation continually traced in the inspired volume. Are they redeemed from the curse of the law? It is by his having become a curse for them [Note: Gal 3:13.]. Are they made the righteousness of God in Christ? It is by his having been first made a sin-offering for them [Note: 2Co 5:21.]. The troubles of his soul, whether in the garden or on the cross, were the travail, of which their salvation is the fruit. And as a parent, looking on her numerous family, may call to mind the pangs which she endured at each successive birth; so may the Lord Jesus, when he beholds the various members of his family, well recollect the sufferings which he endured by means of each; there not being so much as one among them, who has not occasioned him many bitter pangs, not one, for whom he did not endure the wrath of an offended God.
But believers may also be called the travail of the Redeemers soul on account of his watching over them with more than maternal care and anxiety. St. Paul speaks of himself, not only as having travailed in birth with the Galatian Christians at their first conversion, but as travailing in birth again with them, until Christ should be formed in them. He saw that they were in danger of being drawn away from the faith of Christ by the false teachers who had crept in among them; and he illustrates his anxious concern for their welfare by this affecting image. Well therefore may we apply it unto Christ, whose love to the very meanest of his children so infinitely exceeds all that the most exalted creature is capable of feeling. He sees all the dangers to which they are exposed, and all the perverseness which they manifest. He well knows how much more ready they are to follow the counsels of their deceitful adversary, than to adhere resolutely to the truth of God. How often, alas! do they grieve his Spirit by their evil deeds! How often do they even crucify him afresh, and put him to au open shame, by acting unworthily of the relation they bear to him! If even earthly parents are sometimes so distressed by the follies and indiscretions, or by the troubles and miseries of their dear children, that all the pangs of child-birth were as nothing in comparison of the sorrows they afterwards conflict with, much more may we consider the sympathy of Christ in our afflictions, and his grief at our misconduct, as a renewal of the troubles he sustained on Calvary. Nor are his labours destitute of their desired effect: he heals that which was sick, and binds up that which was broken, and brings back that which was driven away [Note: Eze 34:15-16.], and, by his almighty power, keeps them unto his heavenly kingdom. Thus, in whatever light we view believers, whether as purchased by his blood, or as preserved by his grace, we see how just is the representation given of them, as the fruit of the Redeemers travail.
While we stand amazed at this endearing description of the Lords people, let us consider,
II.
The satisfaction which Christ takes in them in this particular view
Our blessed Lord himself, advertising his disciples of the troubles which they were to sustain by means of his removal from them, and the permanent joys that they should afterwards experience, as soon as he should renew his visits to them, illustrates his discourse by the very simile before us: A woman, says he, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world: and ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you [Note: Joh 16:21-22.]. Such is the satisfaction also which Christ himself is here represented as feeling, in the sight of those who are born to God through him.
He is satisfied, first, when he beholds any penitent sinner returning unto God. Were there but one in the whole universe, and he the meanest and the vilest of the human race, that should bethink himself, saying, What have I done? and should tremble at the denunciations of Gods wrath, and turn to the Lord with sorrow and contrition, our compassionate Lord would instantly fix his eyes on him; according to that promise, To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word [Note: Isa 66:2.]. When his people of old began to repent of their transgressions, he was attentive to the first motions of their hearts, and declares to us with what pleasure he noticed the smallest risings of good in them; Ephraim said, What have I to do any more with idols! upon which the Lord immediately adds with exultation, I have heard him, and observed him [Note: Hos 14:8.]. So, on another occasion, as though he had been listening unobserved to the lamentations of his servant, he says, Surely I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; Turn thou me, and I shall be turned. Upon which his whole soul is moved with pity; and he exclaims, Is not this my dear son? is he not a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still; yea my bowels are troubled for him, I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord [Note: Jer 31:18; Jer 31:20.]. To illustrate the pleasure which he takes in the return of one sinner unto God, he expatiated upon it in three different parables. He sets forth a shepherd rejoicing over a lost sheep, and calling upon all his friends and neighbours to sympathize with him on so joyful an occasion. Then, changing the illustration to that of a woman finding a piece of silver after a long and careful search; and afterwards, to that of a father receiving his prodigal child, and making merry with him on account of the happy alteration of his state, and the blessed change wrought upon his soul, he declares, in terms as strong as language can afford, the delight he feels, when one single person is recovered unto God through him. He forgets at once all the labour and travail he has endured, or rather he looks back upon it with most heart-felt satisfaction, as soon as ever he sees it brought to a successful issue.
He is satisfied, next, when he sees his redeemed people walking uprightly with God. The pleasure, which a parent enjoys at the first sight of her new-born infant, is increased, when she beholds it growing up to maturity in the full enjoyment of all its faculties, and the uniform discharge of all its duties. Thus our Lord taketh pleasure in his people; and every grace they exercise, every service they perform, every sacrifice they offer, is pleasing and acceptable in his sight. The beloved Apostle knew no greater joy than to see his children walk in truth. So our Lord, when his people grow in grace, and make their profiting to appear, rejoices over them with joy, and rests in his love, and joys over them with singing [Note: Zep 3:17.]. So delighted is he with the view of them, that he rejoices over them to do them good, and engages with his whole heart and with his whole soul, in securing to them the everlasting possession of his heavenly kingdom [Note: Jer 32:41.]. Though he is so high, yet hath he respect unto them, coming to them, manifesting himself to them as he does not unto the world in the most intimate and endearing manner, shedding abroad his love in their hearts, und maintaining fellowship with them, as a parent with her dear children. This is opened by the prophet in terms so accommodated to the text, and so beautifully descriptive of the truth before us, that we cannot refrain from quoting his words. After repeating several times that Zion should travail in birth, and have a numerous issue, Christ calls on all of them to rejoice in their happy lot, and to suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolation: and then in direct reference to himself, he says, then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees; as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem [Note: Isa 66:7-13.].
But most of all will our adorable Lord be satisfied, when he shall behold all his family surrounding his throne in glory. While they are here, he is too often grieved with them, and constrained to hide his face from them. But, when they shall be exalted to heaven, there will be an end of all their imperfections; they will all be pure as God is pure, and holy as God is holy: they will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father; never to suffer an eclipse, never to set again. If a parent finds all her joys consummated, when she sees those, with whom she has travailed, and over whom she has so long watched, comfortably at last settled in the world, how must Jesus rejoice, when he sees all his children settled beyond the reach of harm, in the full enjoyment of that kingdom which was provided for them from the foundation of the world! With what satisfaction must he reflect upon the travail of his soul, when he shall see myriads, countless as the sands upon the sea-shore, surrounding his throne, and hear them all acknowledging with one voice, that they were washed from their sins in his blood, and that all their happiness is the fruit of his obedience unto death! If, even in the clays of his humiliation, he was so transported with this joy set before him, that, in consideration of it, he cheerfully endured the cross, and despised the shame, much more, when he shall see the full accomplishment of his gracious purposes, will he look back upon his troubles with complacency and delight. He will then wholly occupy himself in making them happy, feeding them with all the fruits of Paradise, and leading them to living fountains of waters, that they may drink of those rivers of pleasure, which are at Gods right hand for evermore [Note: Rev 7:17 and Psa 16:11; Psa 36:8.].
By way of improving this subject, we may further observe,
1.
How must the Lord Jesus be grieved when he sees sinners utterly regardless of him!
Surely if a mother, after all her pain and anguish, behold a lifeless corpse, where she had expected a living child, her disappointment must be great. And must not Jesus be grieved, when he beholds those, for whom he died, perishing in their sins? If when the Jews alone were offered him as the fruit of his travail, he so regretted the loss of the Gentile world, that he exclaimed, Then have I laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain [Note: Isa 49:4.], doubtless it must be painful to him, after having had a promise of the heathen also for his inheritance, to see myriads, even of his professed followers, as unconcerned about him, as if he had never come into the world. And are there not many such amongst us? many, whose voice he never yet heard in fervent prayer? many, who have never yet expressed any desire after him, any concern about him? The Apostle Paul could appeal to God that he had great heaviness, and continual sorrow in his heart for his brethrens sake: and Jeremiah, in the view of the troubles that were coming on his nation, cried out, My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart! much more therefore must the compassionate Jesus, who wept and prayed for his very murderers, be afflicted at the guilt and danger of the unbelieving world. It is true, that, strictly speaking, he is incapable of sorrow in his present state: but the Scripture, to accommodate itself to our feeble apprehensions, represents him as exercising human passions, because, with respect to us, he will act as if he were either gratified by our attention, or grieved by our neglect. Careless sinners are spoken of as grieving and vexing his Holy Spirit, yea, moreover, as crucifying him afresh, and trampling under foot his precious blood. Let not then such aggravated guilt be found in us. Let us not so requite our gracious and adorable benefactor. He yet waiteth to be gracious unto us: he seeks us, as he did the Samaritan woman, that vile notorious adulteress, that he may turn us from the error of our ways, and save our souls alive. And, as on that occasion he had meat to eat which the world knew not of [Note: Joh 4:18; Joh 4:29; Joh 4:32.], so will his soul be refreshed and comforted with the first prospect of delivering us from sin and death.
2.
What obligations lie on all of us to repent and turn to God!
There is one way, and only one, in which we can afford any satisfaction to our blessed Lord; and that is, by going to him for his benefits, and receiving at his hands the blessings he has purchased for us. And shall we hesitate to do this? shall not a sense of gratitude impel us, strengthened as it is, and confirmed by a concern for our eternal interests? If our Lord had required some great thing of us, ought we not to do it? How much more then when he only says, Wash, and be clean! Had he required that we should spend our whole lives in such a state of pain and travail as he himself endured, we ought gladly to comply with his will, and account ourselves happy in such an opportunity of testifying our love to him. But when he desires only, that we should seek our own truest interests, and declares, that he finds his happiness in making us happy, we should turn to him without delay, and give ourselves up to him without reserve. Hear his own word; The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy. Now if you cannot love him as you would, yet if you can fear him; if you cannot rejoice in an assurance of his mercy, yet if you can only hope in it, you will thereby afford him pleasure. And will you think this too much to do for him who travailed, as it were, in birth for you? Repentance indeed must precede a sense of favour and reconciliation with God. But the deeper our contrition, the more exalted will be the joy that follows it. Let us then look on him whom we have pierced, and mourn, and be in bitterness for our manifold transgressions. So shall Jesus be recompensed for all that he has endured for us; and we shall participate his glory and blessedness for ever and ever.
3.
How securely may we commit ourselves into the Saviours hands!
If a child can be safely trusted with any one, surely it may with her, who travailed in birth with it, and who must therefore be most deeply interested in its welfare. But infinitely more secure are we in the hands of Jesus, as he himself tells us by the prophet: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Can such a monster be found? Yea, says our Lord, they may forget; yet will not I forget thee: behold, thou art graven on the palms of my hands [Note: Isa 49:14-16.]. We need only commit ourselves to him, and he will approve himself faithful to his promises. He will keep us by his power; he will guide us by his eye: he will carry the lambs in his bosom, and gently lead them that are with young. Nor shall any weapon formed against us prosper. Our place of defence shall be the munition of rocks: bread shall be given us, and our water shall be sure. He will keep us as his garden; he will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, he will keep it day and night. Let us then commit ourselves to him in well-doing, as into the hands of a faithful Redeemer, assured that he will keep that which we have committed to him, and preserve us unto his heavenly kingdom.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
DISCOURSE: 975
THE MEANS OF OUR JUSTIFICATION BEFORE GOD
Isa 53:11. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
IT is not possible to conceive a more difficult question for unenlightened reason to resolve, or one in the resolution of which mankind are more deeply interested, than this, How shall a sinner be justified before God? Every man feels himself a sinner, and has, in a greater or less degree, a sentence of condemnation within his own bosom. And the more he considers his state, the more he feels an anxiety to know how he may escape the punishment he deserves, and secure the favour of his God and Judge. The words before us remove all doubt upon this subject: they represent Christ as Gods servant, sent and commissioned for this very end, to justify sinners by the knowledge of himself; and, while they thus declare the means of our justification, they specify also the ground of it; for however gratuitous this blessing is, as it respects us, it is altogether procured for us by the vicarious sacrifice of the Son of God.
Let us consider, then,
I.
The means of our justification before God
Christ is the person spoken of throughout this whole chapter: and here, as in the preceding chapter [Note: ver. 13.], he is denominated Gods servant. This title belongs to him only in his mediatorial capacity; for in his own nature, Christ is one with the Father, in glory equal, in majesty co-eternal. The appellation of righteous, which is here applied to him, is of peculiar force in this connexion. He was eminently righteous above every creature in earth or heaven. Of fallen men, there is none righteous, no, not one. And though the angels are holy, yet is their righteousness not originally of, and from, themselves; it is the gift of God: nor is it immutable, seeing that many have fallen from it; and the preservation of those who maintain their first estate, is also the effect of Gods distinguishing grace: but Christ is essentially, eternally, and immutably righteous. Moreover, angels are righteous for themselves alone; but Christ is righteous for us, having fulfilled all righteousness with the express view to impute that righteousness to us, that so we may have a righteousness wherein to appear before God, and God may be just in justifying us [Note: Rom 5:19; Rom 3:26.]. The particular application of the term righteous to him as justifying sinners, shews, that it is to be understood in this extent, and as equivalent to that name which is elsewhere given him, The Lord our Righteousness.
To justify sinners is the work assigned him by the Father. It is his office to take even the most sinful of the human race, and so to purge them from all iniquity that they may stand before God without spot or blemish, and be regarded by him as though they never had sinned at all. This is a work which none other can perform; nor, if God had not revealed a way in which it might be done, could we have conceived it possible that such a marvellous work should ever be accomplished.
By what means he makes us partakers of this blessing, we are told in the words before us; it is by or through the knowledge of himself; he enables us to behold him as he is revealed in the Scriptures, and leads us to embrace him as our all-sufficient portion. Knowledge in general has its seat in the understanding only; but the knowledge of Christ is seated both in the understanding and the heart. Hence, in order to be justified by Christ, we must not only view him as appointed of God to save us, but to this theoretical knowledge we must add the approbation of our hearts: we must have such a full persuasion of our inability to save ourselves, and of his sufficiency to save us, as determines us to renounce all dependence on an arm of flesh, and to glory in him alone. This is the knowledge of which our Lord speaks, when he says, This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent: and it is by this alone that any sinner can be justified.
Now by bringing men thus to know him and believe in him, he has justified many in all ages, and is yet daily communicating to thousands the blessings of salvation. It is true that, in comparison of the ungodly world, the justified have been but few in number, a little flock, a small remnant: but in the last day, when they shall all be collected together, they will be numberless like the stars of heaven, or the sands upon the sea shore. Nor is any one, however vile, excluded from the hope of justification, provided he be willing to embrace this Saviour. On the contrary, if all the people in the universe would but look to him for the ends and purposes for which he is revealed in the gospel, they should instantly experience in their souls what the wounded Israelites experienced in their bodies when they looked to the brazen serpent in the wilderness: they should be delivered from all the fatal consequences of their sins, and be endued with spiritual and eternal life.
To mark more clearly the connexion between the means and the end attained by them, it will be proper to advert to,
II.
The ground of our justification
The way appointed for our restoration to the divine favour is not a mere arbitrary institution of the Deity: there is a fitness in it, and a suitableness which deserves peculiar notice. It may be asked, Whence comes it that a knowledge of Christ should be the means of a sinners acceptance with God? What has Christ done, that he should be authorized to justify sinners by means so inadequate to their end? In other words, supposing these means effectual to their end, what is the ground on which they become so? To these questions the text affords us a precise and satisfactory answer.
The vicarious sacrifice of our blessed Lord has been repeatedly insisted on in the foregoing parts of this prophecy; and here it is again spoken of as the ground on which he justifies those who believe in him. For the elucidating of this point let two things be considered;
First, The sacrifice of Christ removes all the, obstacles to our salvation. When man had fallen, there were many things which seemed to render his restoration impossible. The law, which he had broken, denounced a curse against him; nor could the lawgiver, however desirous he might be to rescind his decree, revoke his word consistently with his own perfections: his justice demanded satisfaction for the breach of the law; his holiness rendered it necessary that he should shew his utter abhorrence of sin; and his truth was pledged for the execution of the sentence which he had annexed to the violation of his commands; and therefore there seemed no alternative for God, no hope for man. But Christ, in becoming our surety, and bearing our iniquities in his own body, removed all these difficulties at once: he magnified the law by enduring its penalties, and made it honourable by fulfilling its commands: he also satisfied the demands of his Fathers justice, truth, and holiness, and afforded to the whole creation a most awful proof, that sin could never be committed with impunity. There was, indeed, yet one more impediment to mans recovery. Man, haying once fallen, had lost that righteousness which qualified him for the enjoyment of his God. But this also was removed in the very same way; for Christs obedience unto death not only rendered our salvation consistent with the rights of law and justice, but constituted also a righteousness which was capable of being imputed to us; and procured for us the Holy Spirit, by whose almighty agency we are renewed after the divine image in righteousness and true holiness. Thus every obstacle to our salvation being removed by the death of Christ, that death may properly be called the ground of our justification.
But, in the next place, the sacrifice of Christ has obtained for him a right to justify whom he will. We are often said to be bought with a price; and it is particularly specified, that the price paid was, the blood of Christ [Note: 1Pe 1:19.]; yea, that God purchased the Church with his own blood [Note: Act 20:28.]. Now it is obvious, that he who purchases any thing, has a right to the thing purchased, as soon as ever he has paid the price. Thus then has Christ a right to us as his purchased possession. Moreover, Christ is represented as a surety who has discharged our debt; who may therefore demand our liberty, and deliver us out of the hands of our adversary, who threatens to cast us into prison. Nor is this all: for, as has been observed on a foregoing part of this prophecy, God had bound himself by covenant to give him a seed; and had promised that, if he would lay down his soul an offering for sin, the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand. Christ therefore, having fulfilled his part of the covenant, may claim the fulfilment of the Fathers engagements, and, by virtue of the authority committed to him, may reveal himself to sinners in order to their eternal salvation. Thus, whether we consider the justification of sinners as obtained for them, or Imparted to them, the death of Christ must be acknowledged as the true and only ground of it.
These points being so fully opened in other parts of this chapter, we may wave any further discussion of them, and propose for adoption such a line of conduct as shall ensure to every one the blessing here spoken of.
1.
Let us read the Scriptures with care and diligence
The Holy Scriptures are the only fountain of divine knowledge. They are a kind of map, whereby we may find our way through this trackless desert, and arrive in safety at our Fathers house. Our Lord says, Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Let us then not merely read them, but attend particularly to the testimony which they bear to Christ. Nor let us peruse them in a cursory manner, as though they needed no study or investigation; but rather let us examine them with deep attention, as we would a will or testament by which our title to a large inheritance was to be determined. What a succession of hopes and fears would arise in our breast, when we read in such a will the passages that appeared prosperous or adverse; and what diligence should we use to make our title clear! How glad should we be to consult those who could give us information on the subject, and what a deep impression would their opinion make upon our minds, particularly if it were grounded on authentic records, and established cases! Such is the way in which we should search the holy oracles for ourselves, and hear them expounded to us by others: nor should we ever rest till we can prove out of them, by indisputable evidence, our right and title to the heavenly inheritance. Happy would it be for us, if we sought the knowledge of Christ! we should soon be guided into all truth: and be made wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.
But while we thus read the Scriptures,
2.
Let us pray for the teaching of the Holy Spirit
To unenlightened man, the Scriptures are a sealed book; nor, however learned he may be in other sciences, can he attain the knowledge of Christ, unless the Holy Spirit shine into his heart to give him that knowledge [Note: 2Co 4:6.]. If we look at a sun-dial, we may understand the use and import of the figures; yet can we not attain a knowledge of the time unless the sun shine upon it. So it is with respect to the word of God: we may understand the general meaning of the words; yet can we not receive its spiritual instructions, unless we have that unction of the Holy One, whereby we may know all things. The words of Christ are spirit and life; and a spiritual discernment is necessary in order to a just apprehension of their import [Note: 1Co 2:14.]. St. Paul had studied the Scriptures diligently, but could never find Christ in them, till the light shone upon him from heaven, and the scales fell from his eyes. The Apostles had been instructed by our Lord himself between three and four years; and yet could not enter into the truths which the prophets and Christ himself had declared, till he opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures. Nor, with all our advantages, have we any more power to comprehend his truth; for he expressly tells us, that no man knoweth either the Father or the Son, except the Holy Spirit reveal him unto us [Note: Mat 11:27.]. Hence for the attainment of divine knowledge we are directed to combine a dependence on Gods Spirit with our own researches; If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God; for the Lord giveth wisdom; out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding [Note: Pro 2:3-6.]. Let us then not presume to separate what God has thus united, but pray with David, Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
There is yet another direction, which it is of infinite importance to attend to, namely,
3.
Let us guard against self-righteousness
There is no evil that cleaves more closely to our nature than self-righteousness. We are always wanting to be justified by some other way than that proposed in the text. Like Naaman, if some great thing were required of us, we should gladly do it; but when it is said to us, Wash and be clean, Believe and be saved, we turn away in disgust. The very simplicity of this fundamental truth offends us. Were we told that we must work diligently, and become godly in order to obtain justification, we should think the direction safe and proper: but the Scripture account of the way of being justified is directly opposite to this: St. Paul says, that to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness [Note: Rom 4:5.]: and this appears so strange, that men cannot, and will not, admit it. But the Apostles themselves could not obtain justification in any other way, than by renouncing all their own righteousness, and by going as ungodly and perishing sinners unto Christ, that they might be accepted through him alone. This is affirmed by St. Paul himself, who says, We, who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified [Note: Gal 2:15-16.]. Let us then guard against every species and degree of self-righteousness, and look for justification solely through the knowledge of Christ, and by faith in his all-atoning sacrifice.
4.
Let us, however, be careful to shew forth our faith by our works
Because we say, That we are not to work at all with a view to obtain justification by our works, but that we must accept justification freely as ungodly and perishing sinners, must we be understood to say, That men need not to work at all, but are at liberty to continue ungodly? No; by no means. We maintain the absolute necessity both of diligence and universal godliness: we only deny to these things the office of justifying the soul. We declare to all, that they must be daily working out their salvation with fear and trembling, and that faith without works is dead. Let this then be borne in mind; There is, and can be, but one way of a sinners justification before God, and that is, by the knowledge of Christ, and faith in his name: but this free salvation, so far from giving any licence for sloth and wickedness, is the strongest incentive to holiness, and the greatest possible obligation to good works. Let us then shew forth our faith by our works. In this way we may be justified by our works, even as Abraham and Rahab were [Note: Jam 2:21; Jam 2:25. compared with Rom 4:2-3; Rom 4:6.]; that is, we may evince the reality of our faith, and the sincerity of our hearts. Thus shall we assign to faith and works their proper offices, and adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 53:11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Ver. 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul. ] Or, Because his soul laboureth, he shall see (his seed), and be satisfied. A metaphor from a travailing woman. Compare Act 2:24 Joh 16:21 .
And shall be satisfied.
By his knowledge,
Shall my righteous servant.
Justify many,
For he shall bear their iniquities.
a Saturabitur salute fidelium quam esurivit.
b Fuller’s Church Hist.
Isaiah
THE SUFFERING SERVANT-V
Isa 53:11 These are all but the closing words of this great prophecy, and are the fitting crown of all that has gone before. We have been listening to the voice of a member of the race to whom the Servant of the Lord belonged, whether we limit that to the Jewish people or include in it all humanity. That voice has been confessing for the speaker and his brethren their common misapprehensions of the Servant, their blindness to the meaning of His sufferings and the mystery of His death. It has been proclaiming the true significance of these as now he had learned them, and has in Isa 53:10 touched the mystery of the reward and triumph of the Servant.
That note of His glory and coronation is caught up in the two closing verses, which, in substance, are the continuation of the idea of Isa 53:10 . But this identity of substance makes the variety of form the more emphatic. Observe the ‘ My Servant’ of Isa 53:11 , and the ‘ I will divide’ of Isa 53:12 . These oblige us to take this as the voice of God. The confession and belief of earth is hushed, that the recognition and the reward of the Servant may be declared from heaven. An added solemnity is thus given to the words, and the prophecy comes round again to the keynote on which it started in Isa 52:13 , ‘ My Servant.’ Notice, too, how the same characteristic is here as in Isa 53:10 -that the recapitulation of the sufferings is almost equally prominent with the description of the reward. The two are so woven together that no power can part them. We may take these two verses as setting forth mainly two things-the divine promise that the Servant shall give righteousness to many, and the divine promise that the Servant shall conquer many for Himself.
As to the exposition, ‘of’ here is probably casual, not partitive, as the Authorised Version has it; ‘travail’ is not to be understood in the sense of childbirth, but of toil and suffering; ‘soul’ is equivalent to life . This fruit of His soul’s travail is further defined in the words which follow. The great result which will be beheld by Him and will fill and content His heart is that ‘by His knowledge He shall justify many.’ ‘By His knowledge’ certainly means, by the knowledge of Him on the part of others. The phrase might be taken either objectively or subjectively, but it seems to me that only the former yields an adequate sense. ‘My righteous servant’ is scarcely emphatic enough. The words in the original stand in an unusual order, which might be represented by ‘the righteous one, My servant,’ and is intended to put emphasis on the Servant’s righteousness, as well as to suggest the connection between His righteousness and His ‘justifying,’ in virtue of His being righteous. ‘Justify’ is an unusual form, and means to procure for, or impart righteousness to. ‘ The many’ has stress on the article, and is the antithesis not to all , but to few . We might render it ‘the masses,’ an indefinite expression, which if not declaring universality, approaches very near to it, as in Rom 5:19 and Mat 26:28 . ‘He shall bear,’ a future referring to the Servant in a state of exaltation, and pointing to His continuous work after death. This bearing is the root of our righteousness.
We may put the thoughts here in a definite order.
I. The great work which the Servant carries on.
II. The preparation for that making of us righteous.
Not only ‘did He bear our sins in His own body on the tree,’ but He will bear them in His exaltation to the Throne, and only because He continuously and eternally does so are we justified on earth and shall we be sanctified in heaven.
III. The condition on which He imparts righteousness.
Parallels are found in ‘This is life eternal to know Thee’ Joh 17:3, and in ‘That I may know Him’ Php 3:10. So this prophecy comes very near to the New Testament proclamation of righteousness by faith.
IV. The grand sweep of the Servant’s work.
V. The Servant’s satisfaction.
‘The glory dies not and the grief is past.’
And the ‘grief’ has had for fruit not only ‘glory’ gathering round the thorn-pierced head, but reflected glory shining on the brows of ‘the many,’ whom He has justified and sanctified by their experience of Him and His power. The creative week ended with the ‘rest’ of the Creator, not because His energy was tired and needed repose, but because He had fully carried out His purpose, and saw the perfected idea embodied in a creation that was ‘very good.’ The redemptive work ends with the Servant’s satisfied contemplation of the many whom He has made like Himself, His better creation.
satisfied. Not disappointed. We have not an impotent Father, or a disappointed Christ, or a defeated Holy Spirit, as is so commonly preached; but an omnipotent Father, an all-victorious Christ, and an almighty Holy Spirit, able to break the hardest heart and subdue the stoutest will.
by His knowledge, &c. Punctuate: “Satisfied by His knowledge, My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear”, &c.
see: Luk 22:44, Joh 12:24, Joh 12:27-32, Joh 16:21, Gal 4:19, Heb 12:2, Rev 5:9, Rev 5:10, Rev 7:9-17
by his: Joh 17:3, 2Co 4:6, Phi 3:8-10, 2Pe 1:2, 2Pe 1:3, 2Pe 3:18, my righteousness, Isa 42:1, Isa 49:3, 1Jo 2:1, 2Jo 1:1, 2Jo 1:3
justify: Isa 45:25, Rom 3:22-24, Rom 4:24, Rom 4:25, Rom 5:1, Rom 5:9, Rom 5:18, Rom 5:19, 1Co 6:11, Tit 3:6, Tit 3:7
bear: Isa 53:4-6, Isa 53:8, Isa 53:12, Mat 20:28, Heb 9:28, 1Pe 2:24, 1Pe 3:18
Reciprocal: Gen 3:16 – in sorrow Exo 3:2 – bush burned Exo 28:38 – bear the iniquity Lev 3:8 – he shall Lev 3:13 – lay his hand Lev 5:1 – bear Lev 6:6 – a ram Lev 7:18 – bear Lev 16:10 – to make Lev 16:22 – bear upon Lev 17:16 – General Lev 22:16 – General Num 7:15 – General Num 18:1 – shall bear Psa 38:4 – as an Psa 88:3 – soul Psa 110:7 – therefore Son 3:11 – in the day of the Son 5:1 – I have gathered Isa 50:10 – obeyeth Isa 52:13 – my servant Isa 53:5 – But he was Eze 4:4 – thou shalt bear Eze 18:20 – bear Eze 44:10 – bear Dan 9:24 – to bring Dan 9:27 – confirm Zec 3:8 – my Mat 12:18 – my servant Mat 18:13 – he rejoiceth Mat 26:29 – until Mat 27:19 – that just Mar 2:5 – he said Luk 5:24 – power Luk 10:21 – Jesus Luk 15:5 – rejoicing Luk 18:14 – justified Luk 23:43 – To day Joh 1:29 – which Joh 4:32 – I have Joh 10:14 – am Joh 14:28 – Father Joh 15:11 – my Act 10:43 – him Act 13:39 – by Rom 3:24 – through Rom 3:25 – through Rom 5:15 – hath Rom 10:4 – Christ 2Co 5:21 – we Eph 4:13 – the knowledge Phi 2:7 – the form Phi 3:9 – the righteousness Col 1:10 – increasing Col 2:2 – of the Father 1Ti 2:4 – the knowledge Heb 5:7 – tears 1Pe 1:11 – the glory 1Jo 2:3 – we know Rev 12:2 – travailing
53:11 He shall see of the {p} travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my {q} righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
(p) That is, the fruit and effect of his labour, which is the salvation of his Church.
(q) Christ will justify by faith through his word, while Moses could not justify by the law.
After His sacrificial work had ended, the Servant would look back on it with satisfaction, as would Yahweh (cf. 1Jn 2:2). The "many" would obtain justification through the knowledge of Him and His work. The "many" is a distinct group, numerous but not all-inclusive, namely: believers. No other work is required but believing what one comes to know, namely: to rely on Him and His work. It is possible that Isaiah meant that the Servant alone would possess knowledge regarding what God required in relation to sin and what He should do about that, but this seems unlikely. One scholar argued that it was the Servant’s knowledge of God, and of God’s unfolding purpose for the peoples of the world, that satisfied Him and ultimately made many righteous. [Note: James M. Ward, "The Servant’s Knowledge in Isaiah 40-55," in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, pp. 129, 135.] The one Righteous Servant would make many people righteous by bearing their iniquities, not His own (cf. Isa 53:4-6; Joh 10:14-18; Rom 5:18-19). As Cyrus was God’s anointed servant to restore the Israelites to their land, so the Servant would be God’s anointed Servant to restore humanity to Himself. He would accomplish what the Old Covenant sacrificial system prefigured and anticipated.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)