The Great Exchange Text: Isaiah 53:1-12
Introduction: The Scandal of the Gospel
There are certain places in the Word of God where the light of the gospel shines with such concentrated intensity that it is almost blinding. This chapter is one of them. Isaiah 53 is the Mount Everest of Old Testament prophecy. It is so clear, so specific, and so staggering in its description of the person and work of Jesus Christ that for centuries, Jewish rabbis would not read it in the synagogue. It is the chapter that Philip used to open the Scriptures to the Ethiopian eunuch, and beginning from this very text, he preached Jesus to him. This is not a chapter about the nation of Israel suffering. This is not a chapter about some anonymous prophet. This is a detailed, forensic, covenantal account of the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ, written 700 years before He was born.
But we must understand that this clarity is also a profound offense. The central message of this chapter, the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, is a mortal offense to the natural man. The idea that God's own Son would be treated as a criminal, that the holy wrath of the Father would be poured out upon Him, that our filth would be imputed to Him and His righteousness imputed to us, this is a scandal. The Greeks think it is foolishness, and the Jews think it is a stumbling block. And modern, sophisticated evangelicals, embarrassed by all the blood, try to clean it up. They want a gospel of moral influence, or a therapeutic gospel, or a gospel of cosmic victory that somehow sidesteps this bloody transaction at the center of history. But to do so is to gut the gospel of its power.
The cross is not a tragic martyrdom that inspires us to be better. It is not simply a demonstration of God's love. It is a divine judicial act. It is the place where the love of God and the wrath of God met in the person of the Son. In that collision, wrath was satisfied and love was victorious. To remove the wrath is to trivialize the love. To remove the substitution is to remove the salvation. This chapter forces the issue. It brings us face to face with the ugly reality of our sin and the even more staggering reality of God's grace in Christ. This is the grammar of our salvation, and we must learn to speak it plainly.
The Text
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our peace fell upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living, That for the transgression of my people, striking was due to Him? So His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But Yahweh was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If You would place His soul as a guilt offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide for Him a portion with the many, And He will divide the spoil with the strong; Because He poured out His soul to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:1-12 LSB)
The Unbelievable Report (v. 1-3)
The prophet begins with a lament. The message he brings is so counter-intuitive, so contrary to human expectation, that it is met with mass unbelief.
"Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?" (Isaiah 53:1)
The "report" is the gospel message itself. The "arm of Yahweh" is a metaphor for God's power in action, specifically His power to save. The question reveals a tragic reality: God's salvation would be revealed, but very few would have eyes to see it. Why? Because it would not come in the way anyone expected. Men expect salvation to come through political might, through military conquest, through glorious displays of power. But God's power would be revealed in weakness, in humility, in suffering.
Verses 2 and 3 explain the reason for this unbelief. The Messiah's appearance would be utterly unimpressive to the world.
"For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him." (Isaiah 53:2-3)
He is a tender shoot, a root out of dry ground. This is an image of fragility and obscurity. He came from Nazareth, a despised town. He was a carpenter's son. There was nothing in His physical appearance or earthly resume that would attract the proud. The world looks for external majesty, for charisma, for celebrity. But the Messiah had none of it. He was ordinary. This is a direct assault on our human standards of greatness. We are drawn to pomp and circumstance, but God chose humility.
Because of this, He was "despised and forsaken of men." He was not just ignored; He was actively rejected. He was a "man of sorrows," not in the sense of being morose or depressed, but in the sense that His life was characterized by profound suffering. He was "acquainted with grief." He knew it intimately. The world sees suffering as a sign of God's disfavor. If you are suffering, you must have done something wrong. This is the logic of Job's friends, and it is the logic of the natural man. So they hid their faces from Him. He was an embarrassment. "We did not esteem Him." We wrote Him off. This is the verdict of fallen humanity on the Son of God. And the "we" here is crucial. The prophet includes himself, and us. By nature, we are all among the rejectors.
The Great Exchange (v. 4-6)
Now we come to the heart of the passage, the central transaction of the gospel. The prophet reveals the true meaning of the Servant's suffering. It was not for His own sins, but for ours.
"Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our peace fell upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:4-5)
Verse 4 sets up the great reversal. We saw Him suffering and assumed God was punishing Him for His own faults. "We esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God." This was the logical conclusion of the world. But it was dead wrong. The truth was the exact opposite: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore." The suffering we deserved, He took. The sorrows that were the consequence of our sin, He carried.
Verse 5 gives us the vocabulary of penal substitution. These are precise, legal, sacrificial terms. "He was pierced through for our transgressions." This is not an accident. It is a punishment for a specific crime: our rebellion. "He was crushed for our iniquities." The weight of our lawlessness was placed on Him. "The chastening for our peace fell upon Him." The punishment that was necessary to restore peace between us and a holy God was laid on Him. "And by His wounds we are healed." The stripes that fell on His back purchased our spiritual health. This is a divine exchange. He took our sin, our punishment, our curse, so that we might receive His righteousness, His peace, His healing. It is the glorious doctrine of imputation. Our sin was credited to His account, and His righteousness is credited to ours (2 Cor. 5:21).
Verse 6 universalizes the problem and specifies the solution.
"All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him." (Isaiah 53:6)
The diagnosis is universal. "All of us." There are no exceptions. We have all gone astray. We have all turned to our own way, which is the very definition of sin. It is the declaration of autonomy, of setting ourselves up as our own gods. The result is that we are lost, wandering, and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. But then comes the glorious, sovereign intervention of God. "But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." Notice who the actor is. It is Yahweh. The Father is the one who orchestrates this. The atonement is God's plan from start to finish. He takes the sum total of the iniquity of His people and lays it, like a crushing burden, upon the Servant. This is not cosmic child abuse, as the scoffers say. This is a Trinitarian act of love, where the Father appoints, the Son willingly accepts, and the Spirit applies the work of salvation.
The Submissive Lamb (v. 7-9)
The prophet now describes the demeanor of the Servant in the midst of this unjust suffering. His submission was not weakness, but a display of incredible strength and resolve.
"He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open Hismouth." (Isaiah 53:7)
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He remained silent. This is not the silence of resignation, but the silence of purpose. He knew what He was doing. He was the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice. Lambs do not resist when they are led to be sacrificed. This silence fulfilled the prophecies and demonstrated His willing obedience to the Father's will. He could have called down legions of angels, but He chose the cross.
His death was a miscarriage of justice from a human perspective, but it was a perfect execution of divine justice.
"By oppression and judgment He was taken away... for the transgression of my people, striking was due to Him... So His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth." (Isaiah 53:8-9)
He was taken away by a corrupt legal process. And yet, it was for the transgression of God's people that He was struck. His death was vicarious. He died the death we should have died. The details of the prophecy are astonishingly precise. His grave was "assigned with wicked men," as He was crucified between two thieves. "Yet He was with a rich man in His death," which was fulfilled when Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, laid Him in his own new tomb. And the reason for this vindication, even in death, is given: He was perfectly innocent. "He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth." The sinless one died for the sinful.
The Sovereign Pleasure of God (v. 10-12)
These final verses are perhaps the most shocking and glorious of all. They reveal the Father's perspective on the cross.
"But Yahweh was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If You would place His soul as a guilt offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand." (Isaiah 53:10)
This is a hard saying. "Yahweh was pleased to crush Him." How can this be? The Father was not pleased with the suffering of His Son in itself. He is not a sadist. He was pleased with what that suffering accomplished. He was pleased with the Son's obedience. He was pleased with the salvation of His people. He was pleased that His justice was satisfied and His mercy was magnified. The cross was the ultimate expression of the "good pleasure of Yahweh."
And the result of this "guilt offering" is resurrection and victory. "He will see His seed." His death will produce a vast spiritual offspring, the church. "He will prolong His days." This points to the resurrection. Death could not hold Him. And because of this, "the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand." The Son's mission will not fail. He will accomplish the salvation He set out to win.
The satisfaction and victory are then described from the Servant's perspective.
"As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53:11)
The anguish of His soul on the cross was immense, but the fruit of it is a deep and eternal satisfaction. He will look at His redeemed people, the fruit of His labor, and be satisfied. And here is the great doctrine of justification by faith summarized: "the Righteous One... will justify the many." How? "As He will bear their iniquities." He takes their sin, and in exchange, He gives them His righteous standing before God. This is not a legal fiction; it is a legal reality based on a real transaction.
The chapter concludes with the Father's declaration of the Son's ultimate triumph.
"Therefore, I will divide for Him a portion with the many, And He will divide the spoil with the strong; Because He poured out His soul to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12)
Because of His sacrificial work, the Father will exalt Him. He will be like a victorious king dividing the spoils of war. He has conquered sin, death, and the devil. His victory is total. And the basis for this victory is reiterated one last time: He poured out His soul to death, He was numbered with transgressors, He bore the sin of many, and He interceded for them. This intercession did not begin after His ascension; it was part of His work on the cross itself, as He prayed, "Father, forgive them."
Conclusion: The Victorious Lamb
This chapter lays before us the very heart of Christianity. It is not a message of self-improvement, but of substitution. It is not a call to try harder, but to trust wholly in the finished work of another.
But we must not stop at the cross. The suffering of the Servant is the foundation for His glorious reign. Because He was crushed, He will see His seed. Because He was cut off, He will prolong His days. Because He bore our sin, He will justify the many and divide the spoil with the strong. The cross was not a defeat; it was the decisive victory that secured the ultimate triumph of the gospel in history. The anguish of His soul guarantees the satisfaction of His reign. And that reign is not something we are waiting for in the sweet by-and-by. It is happening now. He is currently dividing the spoil. He is justifying the many. His kingdom is advancing, and it will continue to advance until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Therefore, the only sane response to this report is to believe it. It is to stop esteeming Him as stricken for His own sin and to see Him as the Lamb who was slain for yours. It is to cease from going your own way and to be gathered to the Shepherd. It is to confess that your iniquity was laid on Him, and to receive by faith the healing that is in His wounds. This is the only gospel that can save. It is a bloody gospel, a scandalous gospel, and a victorious gospel. And it is the only hope for this world.