LESSON TWENTY-THREE The “Servant” of Isaiah 42 to 53
1. The servant as a worker.TDOC 63.2
a. The prophecy. Isaiah 42:1-7; 49:5-9.TDOC 63.3
b. The fulfillment. Matthew 12:17-21; 3:17; 17:5.TDOC 63.4
2. The servant as a witness.TDOC 63.5
a. The prophecy. Isaiah 43:10.TDOC 63.6
b. The fulfillment. John 18:37.TDOC 63.7
3. The servant as a sufferer.TDOC 63.8
a. The prophecy. Isaiah 52:13-15; 53:3-5, 11.TDOC 63.9
b. The fulfillment. Matthew 8:16, 17; Luke 18:31-33; Acts 3:13-15, ARV; 4:27, 28, ARV; 8:32-35.TDOC 63.10
All of chapters 42 to 53 should be read in connection with this lesson.TDOC 63.11
NOTES: Jesus the servant
“With the four Gospels in existence, no one doubts or can doubt that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the cry, ‘Behold my Servant.’ With him it ceased to be a mere ideal, and took its place as the greatest achievement iii history.”TDOC 63.12
“It is in the New Testament that we see the most perfect reflection of the Servant of the Lord.”TDOC 63.13
A great prophecy fulfilled in Jesus
“None but prejudiced Jews have ever denied that this great prophecy, known as the fifty-third of Isaiah, was fulfilled in one person, Jesus of Nazareth, and achieved in all its details by him alone.”TDOC 63.14
An unmistakable parallel
“All this parallel between Jesus of Nazareth and the Servant of the Lord is unmistakable enough, even in this mere outline; but the details of the Gospel narrative and the language of the evangelists still more emphasize it. Christ’s herald hailed him with words which gather up the essence of Isaiah 53:‘Behold the Lamb of God.’ He reads his own commission from chapter 61: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.’ To describe his first labors among the people, his disciples again used words from chapter 53:1 Himself bare our sicknesses.’ To paint his manner of working in face of opposition they quoted the whole passage from chapter 42. ‘Behold my servant.... He, shall not strive.’ The name Servant was often upon his own lips in presenting himself: ‘Behold, I am among you as one that serves.’ When his office of prophecy passed into martyrdom, he predicted for himself the treatment which is detailed in chapter 50-the smiting, plucking, and spitting; and in time, by Jew and Gentile, this treatment was inflicted on him to the very letter.” The Servant and the church.TDOC 64.1
“The divine ideal which our prophet saw narrowing down from the nation to an individual, was owned and realized by Christ. But in him it was not exhausted. With added warmth and light, with a new power of expansion, it passed through him to fire the hearts and enlist the wills of an infinitely greater people than the Israel for whom it was originally designed. With this witness, then, of history to the prophecies of the Servant, our way in expounding and applying them is clear. Jesus Christ is their perfect fulfillment and illustration. But we who are his church are to find in them our ideal and duty, our duty to God and to the world. In this, as in so many other matters, the unfulfilled prophecy of Israel is the conscience of Christianity.”TDOC 64.2