The Wisdom of the Cross: The Exalted Servant Text: Isaiah 52:13-15
Introduction: The Great Reversal
We live in a world that is drunk on its own sense of importance. It measures greatness by power, by influence, by appearance, and by the applause of men. The way up, our world tells us, is to climb over others. The way to glory is through self-promotion and self-preservation. This is the wisdom of men, and it is a wisdom that is earthly, sensual, and demonic. It is the operating system of a fallen world.
Into this prideful darkness, the prophet Isaiah throws a lightning bolt. He presents us with a portrait of God's Servant, and in doing so, he reveals the logic of God, the grammar of redemption. And it is a logic that turns the world's wisdom completely on its head. God's way up is down. God's path to exaltation is through humiliation. God's method of victory is through suffering. God's throne is a cross.
This passage, which begins the fourth and most famous of the Servant Songs, is the preface to the gospel. Before Isaiah gives us the excruciating details of the Servant's suffering in chapter 53, he first gives us the glorious outcome. He shows us the end from the beginning, so that when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death with the Servant, we do so with the certain knowledge of His ultimate triumph. God is telling us the conclusion of the story first, so that we do not lose heart in the middle of it.
This is not just a story about a historical figure. This is the blueprint for reality. It is the pattern of the kingdom. The world sees a marred and broken man and is appalled. God sees a marred and broken man and sees the salvation of the nations. The world sees foolishness; God reveals wisdom. The world sees weakness; God displays power. What we have here is the great divine reversal, the central paradox of our faith: the cross is the place of both ultimate shame and ultimate glory. And if we do not understand this, we will understand nothing at all about Christianity.
The Text
Behold, My Servant will prosper; He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Just as many were appalled at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man And His form more than the sons of men.
Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand.
(Isaiah 52:13-15 LSB)
The Inevitable Triumph (v. 13)
The passage opens with a command to look, to pay close attention, followed by an absolute declaration of the Servant's ultimate success.
"Behold, My Servant will prosper; He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted." (Isaiah 52:13)
God the Father is speaking here, and He commands our attention. "Behold." This is not a suggestion. It is a summons to witness the central act of history. And what are we to see? We are to see His Servant. This is not just any servant; this is the Servant, the one who perfectly accomplishes the will of God. This is the true Israel, boiled down to one man, who will succeed where the nation failed.
And His mission is guaranteed. "He will prosper." The Hebrew word here means to act wisely, to be prudent, and as a result, to succeed. This is not a hope or a wish. It is a divine decree. The mission of this Servant cannot fail. All the powers of hell and all the rebellion of men will be gathered against Him, and it will be like a wave crashing against a mountain of granite. His success is as certain as the character of God who sent Him.
The result of this prosperity is a threefold exaltation. "He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted." This piling up of terms for elevation is deliberate and emphatic. It is the language of supreme enthronement. Isaiah uses this same language to describe the throne of God Himself: "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted" (Isaiah 6:1). This Servant is not just going to be a revered teacher or a moral example. He is going to be raised to the very heights of heaven and given the name that is above every name. This is the language of deity. This is the Ascension and the Session. The one who will be crushed is the one who will be crowned and seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High.
The Appalling Humiliation (v. 14)
But before the exaltation, there must be the humiliation. The path to the crown is through the cross. Verse 14 shows us the staggering cost of this prosperity.
"Just as many were appalled at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man And His form more than the sons of men." (Isaiah 52:14)
Here is the great paradox. The one who will be "greatly exalted" is first the one at whom many are "appalled." The word for appalled means to be astonished, horrified, dumbfounded. People would look at Him and be struck silent with shock. Why? Because His appearance was so disfigured that He was barely recognizable as human. "Marred more than any man." This is not the language of gentle suffering. This is the language of brutal, savage violence.
This speaks of the physical torment of the crucifixion. The flogging with the flagrum, a whip designed to rip flesh from bone. The crown of thorns mashed into His scalp. The beatings and the spitting. The nails. The spear. By the time His enemies were done with Him, He was a bloody ruin, a grotesque spectacle. He was so disfigured that He lost the very form of a man. This is what the world does to the wisdom of God. It mauls it. It tries to beat it into an unrecognizable pulp.
But there is a deeper horror here. His marring was not just physical. It was spiritual. He was bearing the full weight of our sin, our filth, our rebellion. He who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He became the ugliest thing in the universe. On that cross, He was spiritually marred with our pride, our lust, our greed, our idolatry. The Father looked upon Him and saw everything that is appalling about us, and He turned His face away. This is the horror that caused the Son to cry out in dereliction. The physical suffering was immense, but the spiritual suffering was infinite.
The Astonishing Result (v. 15)
From the depths of this humiliation, God brings forth the most astonishing victory. The result of this appalling disfigurement is the salvation of the world.
"Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand." (Isaiah 52:15)
The word "sprinkle" is a priestly term. It is the word used for the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice to cleanse from sin and defilement (Lev. 4:6, 16:14). The blood of bulls and goats could only cleanse ceremonially. But the blood of this marred Servant, this God-Man, will cleanse "many nations." This is the gospel going global. The atoning work of this Servant is not limited to Israel; it is for the world. His suffering is the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, and its cleansing power reaches to the ends of the earth.
And the effect of this is universal astonishment. "Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him." The rulers of the earth, the powerful, the proud, the ones who thought they ran the show, will be rendered speechless. They will be silenced, not by force of arms, but by the sheer, stunning reality of who this Servant is and what He has done. Their mouths will be shut in awe, in wonder, and ultimately, in submission. The pagan principalities and powers that stand behind these earthly thrones will be disarmed and put to open shame at the cross (Col. 2:15).
Why will they be silenced? "For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand." The gospel is a mystery revealed. It is news. It is something that the nations, in their pagan darkness, had never conceived of. The idea of a God who becomes a servant, who suffers, who dies for His enemies, and who conquers through that death, this is not something that comes from the mind of man. It is alien wisdom. It is a truth so profound, so unexpected, that when it is finally revealed, it shatters all previous categories. They will see the crucified and risen Christ, and in that sight, they will understand the very nature of God, power, love, and reality itself. The gospel is the great paradigm shift for all of human history.
Conclusion: Behold Your God
This passage sets the stage for everything that follows in the New Testament. It is the logic of our salvation. We are the nations who had not heard. We are the ones who were spiritually unclean. And this Servant, Jesus the Christ, has prospered in His mission. He endured the appalling shame of the cross, was marred for our transgressions, and was raised to the highest place.
Because He was marred, we can be cleansed. Because He was humiliated, we can be exalted. Because He suffered, He can sprinkle us with His own blood, washing away our sin and making us clean before a holy God. This is not a transaction we negotiate. It is a verdict He pronounces. It is a cleansing He performs.
The kings of the earth still rage, and the nations still imagine a vain thing. They are still appalled by the cross. They still scoff at the wisdom of a suffering God. They want a God of their own making, a God who fits their categories of power and glory. But the day is coming, and now is, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The kings of the earth will shut their mouths.
Therefore, we are called to do what the text commands. "Behold." We are to fix our eyes on this Servant. We are to see His humiliation and understand the depth of our sin that put Him there. We are to see His exaltation and rejoice in the certainty of His victory. And we are to live in the light of this great reversal. We are to embrace the wisdom of the cross, which means that in our own lives, the way up is down. The way to lead is to serve. The way to live is to die. For our King has shown us the way, and He has guaranteed the outcome. He has prospered, and in Him, so shall we.