R.C. Sproul: The Suffering Servant

it was a treat for me to sit and listen to derek's exposition of job earlier today never get tired of hearing about it several years ago i was watching a christian television show where there was a well-known host interviewing a young woman who had been the mother of two children and both children died before they were three years old both by being killed in accidents on separate occasions and as the woman was telling her story she was sobbing and through her tears she said to the host why did god allow this to happen and the host rebuked her somewhat mildly but i think trying to be pastoral he said to her no no you mustn't think of god in this situation god had nothing whatsoever to do with the death of your children all of that is to be ascribed to the work of satan not at all to the sovereignty of god and as derek pointed out this morning my feelings immediately i felt like i'd been kicked in the stomach and i and i said if that's true then i'm going to have to sleep in tomorrow morning because i have no hope no comfort whatsoever if god has nothing to do with suffering on the contrary the bible tells us particularly in the new testament that god has everything to do with suffering and yet in the mystery of his providence and in his eternal counsel he has chosen to bring redemption to this fallen world and to those of us who are fallen people by means of suffering salvation comes through the via dolorosa and we see this most clearly in the life and in the death of our lord but though this at that time 20th century television host had not yet grasped the significance of suffering as it relates to salvation he certainly was not alone as the very idea that salvation could possibly come through the medium of suffering was an idea anathema to even the closest friends of jesus and his inner core of disciples we remember for for example that when peter had caesarea philippi answered jesus question who do men say that i am then he said who do you say that i am and peter responded with what is called the great confession when he said thou art the christ the son of the living god and our lord pronounced the benediction on him saying blessed art thou simon barjona flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father which is in heaven and then he renamed simon saying and you are now petros the rock and upon this rock i will build my church and that is a magnificent moment in the history of redemption when the lights came on for simon peter as to the true identity of jesus but the light didn't last very long for it seemed that within minutes from that great confession we read that jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to jerusalem and he must suffer many things from the elders the chief priests and the scribes then they must be killed and raised the third day now listen to this same peter who just received the benediction from the lips of jesus in verse 22 of chapter 16. then peter took jesus aside and began to rebuke him can you imagine that anybody who was a follower of jesus then or now would ever have the audacity to say come here jesus and then began to rebuke him to instruct him and that's exactly what peter did he said far be it from you lord far be it from you lord right let me tell you what you need to do lord let me advise you on the correct path of redemption lord far be it from you lord this shall not happen to you i like to call this the first papal encyclical so much for the infallibility of the first pope far be it from you lord this shall not happen to you for peter it was absolutely unthinkable that the one whom he had confessed as the son of god as the long-awaited messiah should suffer and die it's obvious that in peter's mind and in his consciousness all that he understood of the old testament prophecies regarding the activity and the character of the messiah did not include a crucial and i don't mean a pun a critical element of the makeup of the long-awaited messiah and that is that the messiah would be the abed yahweh the servant of god who is described in great detail in the latter portions of the book of isaiah as the divinely appointed suffering servant and so if every any man ever had a vocation to suffer if ever a person was put on this planet in order to suffer it was jesus this was his vocation as messiah it wasn't until after the resurrection that the eyes of disciples began to be opened and to draw the lines together from the old testament and identify the connection between the servant of the lord in isaiah and the ministry of jesus as we read in the book of acts when the ethiopian eunuch was writing in his chariot and philip heard him as he was reading aloud from isaiah 53 and he approached the eunuch and he said do you understand what you're reading and the eunuch confessed that he didn't he said how can i understand this unless somebody teaches it to me and so then philip opened his mouth and began to explain to him that that chapter he was reading chapter 53 of the book of isaiah was declaring jesus the savior let's refresh our memory this morning by looking once again at that so profoundly important portrait of the servant of the lord that we find in isaiah 53 but i want to men remind you before we look at it that the suffering servant who is described here is the servant of god he's not the servant of satan he's not the servant of fate he's not the servant of circumstances but he is the servant appointed anointed and called to suffer by god himself and so it begins who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the lord been revealed let me just pause there for a second as isaiah begins to unfold this portrait of the servant of god he realizes that if he's going to take a poll of his fellow jews he would need the lamp of diogenes to find anyone who would believe it and so he begins isaiah 53 that who will believe this report because the report that he's about to give is the gospel the gospel that is clothed and couched in pain in suffering and in death who will believe it it seems that there are many today with the triumphal spirit who still don't believe it they don't get it but this is the way of god for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground if you've ever been to israel and paid attention to the topography of the land if you know anything about the geography of palestine you know that they have two seasons during the year in which the rains come they're the former rains and the latter rains rains that come in the spring and rains that come again in the fall and the rest of the year the land is absolutely barren and dry the dried up gulches or arroyos are called wadis and for most of the year they're just empty and that the bottom of them is the clay that has been beaten down by the sun and you've seen illustrations of hard clay that had been exposed to months and months of relentless sun without any refreshment from the rain and how the earth begins to crack like miniature earthquakes and the portrait that isaiah says is that i'm looking at a dried up riverbed a wadi and in the middle of this seer and arid land i see a sprig poking its head up through one of these cracks in the earth and i marvel at it and think how can anything grow here without any moisture how vulnerable how tender is this sprout coming forth from the dry ground here he's describing the condition of the world in the fullness of time when god brings his servant to life in the midst of a decadent and dried up spiritually dead nation for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant as a root out of dry ground then he goes on to give a more vivid description he has no form or calmliness and when we see him there's no beauty that we should desire yes the metaphors are being mixed here and one would look at this sprout coming out of the dried up wadi and you wouldn't go down and cut it off at the root and give it to your wife as an anniversary present there's nothing pretty about it it's barren no blossom no loveliness no sweetness no beautiful aroma it has nothing about it in its form that would make it appear to our eyes to be beautiful there's no beauty none that we should desire him you know the portraits that are made of jesus and solomon's head of christ with the flowing locks how gloriously handsome he seems that's not the description here there's none of that nothing beautiful about him that would incite a sense of desire in our hearts but rather he's despised and rejected by men as john tells us centuries later he came to his own and they received him not the light came into the darkness and the darkness couldn't comprehend him rather his lot will be one of hatred and complete rejection jonathan edwards once made the comment that the hostility of fallen man against god is so intense and so great that if god would make his life vulnerable to the hands of men god would not survive for 15 seconds the destiny of god incarnate is clear evidence of that when god appeared in the flesh he was despised he was rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief you want to talk about suffering and god you look to jesus nobody in history including job ever understood the depth dimension of suffering and of sorrow a man of sorrows acquainted with grief personally acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we did not esteem him that little phrase in there we hid as it were our faces from him strikes a chord in me in terms of a ministry that i was involved with years ago in pittsburgh i was involved in a ministry of outreach to help solve issues of conflict between labor and management at that time pittsburgh was the uh third largest corporate headquarter city in the country with united states steel and alcoa and pittsburgh plate glass and other companies like that and it was i believe the second largest union center in america second only to chicago the headquarters of the united steelworkers one and a half million members was found in pittsburgh and as i was involved in this ministry i would spend mornings speaking to men in the unions along the monongahela river steel towns and in the afternoon i'd be lecturing at the headquarters of fortune 500 corporations like westinghouse and others and in dealing with the grievances of the union workers i discovered that the number one problem that they had was not economic but it had to do with respect and dignity i talked to a man who worked in the open hearth of one of the mills a black man and he said to me he said you know he said we work all day he said and then the suits come in to the floor of the of the mill he said he looks at me and he drops his head and i said what you know i had a vision of the headless horseman ichabod crane carrying his head around in his hand and he drops it on the ground i didn't understand quite what he meant until we did a seminar in a hospital on labor and management there and i was sitting in the waiting room by one of the wings and i noticed that a doctor came onto the floor and the head nurse as soon as she saw the doctor she just lit up and her face began to shine and she addressed him cheerfully i noticed that dynamic a few minutes later the nurse started walking down the hall and i saw coming from the other men up from the other end of the hall one of the maintenance men he was pushing a cart of soiled linen and i watched him he saw the nurse coming and he lifted his head to her and she dropped her head and passed him by like he didn't exist i said that's what that open hearth labor was talking about how he felt when his boss came to the floor and looked away that's what we do with people whom we regard as ugly and undesirable not worthy of our respect we turn our heads aside and so isaiah tells them that's what will happen with the servant of god that we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we didn't esteem him but surely that is the certainty of which the prophet speaks is this that he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows it's a parallelism there he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows means the same thing that all of the pain that belongs to us has been transferred from us to his back and like a beast of burden the servant of the lord allowed the burden of grief and of sorrow to be placed upon his back and yet we steamed him stricken look at him poor fellow smitten by god and afflicted we saw him stooped over dragging across and the people wagged their tongues and heaped derision on him looking at this poor soul afflicted not just by pontius pilate but this poor soul has been smitten by god let me stop there for a second that's how he was regarded and at that point dear ones it was true because the one who afflicted him was not the devil as i said at the beginning this was the ibed yahweh the servant of god it is god who called his servant to bear the griefs and the sufferings and the sorrows that will become more clear later in the chapter but he was wounded for our transgressions which of you convicts me of sin jesus asked and all the tongues were silent the only time history has seen a sinless person not even job but jesus without sin and yet he was wounded what do you think that bildad would make of that since all this affliction was heaped upon jesus the only conclusion bildad and so far and eliphaz could come to was that he must be the chief of sinners but he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed you look at the back of this man who is god incarnate and as he goes to the cross where he's been stripped of his clothing and of his robe his back is bare striped like a zebra the stripes coming from the lash and the welts that are left there whoever thought that anybody could be made whole or be healed of anything by being struck by a lash but with his stripes our healing is found then isaiah begins to describe the people who have been healed all we are like sheep who have gone astray we have turned every one of us to his own way you know that's what the essence of sin is i'll do it my way and we celebrate people who do it their way rather than god's way but every one of us would prefer to do what is right in our own sight rather than to subject ourselves to the rule of god and to do it his way and so the prophet is telling us about the human condition we're like sheep everyone turning aside to his own way but the lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all again who put this baggage on the back of the savior yahweh the lord laid on him the iniquity of us all this is a clear description of the idea of imputation where my sin is transferred to the sinless one which is only half of the gospel because of all the suffering servant did was to pay the penalty for my sin or your sin that would bring us back to the state of innocence but we would have no righteousness required of god to enter into the kingdom of god but not only does he bear our sins by imputation but all the wow he's living a life of perfect obedience and righteousness providing for the double exchange my sin to his back his righteousness to me i have nothing but filthy rags until i am clothed by the righteousness of christ imputation is at the heart of the gospel and it's under attack right now in the evangelical world and even in the reform world one famous biblical scholar has protested against this idea of a substitutionary atonement offered by jesus for the sins of his people saying that for god to lay our sins upon him would be a case of cosmic child abuse how far from the gospel can you get than that but he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth when the father laid the iniquity of us all upon the son the son didn't scream and protest saying that's not fair how could you do this to me i heard you say from heaven this is my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased and this is what i get he opened not his mouth not a word of protest because the sun servanthood was done willingly counted his equality with the father not a thing to be jealously guarded but he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient even unto death for that reason hath god highly exalted him he was led as a sh as a land of the slaughter and as a sheep before it shears his silence again he opened not his mouth he was taken from prison from judgment and who will declare his generation for he was cut off from the land of the living he wasn't married he had no children who has jesus of nazareth in his family tree there is no genealogy it ended with him no one to declare his generation except his adopted sons and daughters he was cut off in the land of the living and for the transgressions of my people he was stricken and they made his grave with the wicked but with the rich at his death because he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth one of the interesting theological questions we wrestle with is that the life of jesus followed a basic pattern that went from humiliation to exaltation and where is the point of reversal where does the humiliation stop and the exultation begin normally we think that the exultation begins with the resurrection no his humiliation ends at his burial because instead of being thrown unceremoniously on the garbage dunk of the outside of the city to be burned like all the rest of the corpses of those executed under the romans intercession was made to pilot and pilot granted the request that jesus could be buried in a grave of honor owned by a wealthy man so all of a sudden the ignominy of his humiliation begins to turn turns the corner to exaltation at that moment he made his grave with the wicked but with the rich at his death because he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth now verse 10 i believe is perhaps the most important verse in this whole chapter and in the whole drama of redemption that speaks so eloquently to our question of the relationship of the sovereignty of god and human suffering even though he had done no violence even though there was no deceit in his mouth yet it pleased the lord to bruise him can you bear that he has put him to grief this does not mean that god took diabolical pleasure in tormenting his son nevertheless there was something profoundly pleasant in the eyes of the father in the bruises and wounds of his son because this is the method that from all eternity the father and the son and the holy spirit had agreed upon to answer the problem of suffering and of evil and when pain god doesn't deny evil he hasn't even removed it yet from the planet though he will but he redeems it and therein is his sovereignty seen so clearly that god took pleasure in the suffering of his son why because he knows what it was for he knows the end from the beginning he knows that this pain was not without purpose or futile or meaningless but god could look at his son in his agony and take delight that in this act of sacrifice by the suffering servant the redemption of his people was being accomplished on the one hand christ on the cross was the most hideous grotesque ugly human specimen can you imagine the sins of all of god's people being visited upon this one man how grotesque he would be and yet from the vantage point of redemption the most beautiful sight in history because it was the suffering savior who was saving his people it pleased the lord to bruise him he has put him to grief and when you make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days and the present pleasure of the lord shall prosper in his hand this is the one of the verses that i love he shall see the travail of his soul and be satisfied that jesus himself on the other side of the cross will see all of the riches of redemption that he has accomplished for his people the fruit of his labor the fruit of his travail and it's interesting to me that that word travail is the word that is usually used for the pangs of childbirth after i saw my wife go through childbirth with our oldest child sherry i couldn't believe that she would ever want to have another baby i can't understand these women but once they look into the face of that newborn child they forget all about the pain they see the travail of their soul and they're satisfied well that's the promise that someday we will see the travail of all of the pain and suffering that we've had to go through in this veil of tears and from the perspective of eternity which i will address this afternoon like the servant will be satisfied somebody who's satisfied after going through this kind of travail is somebody who sees the value of his work of his sacrifice and of his pain i've written many books and i can't tell you what a painful thing it is to write a few pages and read it and say this is no good and have to tear it up and throw in a waste pass could stop me if i'm lying right i've done all this labor for nothing it's the worst of all possible things we can have when paul talks about the resurrection at the end of his argument for the resurrection of christ he says therefore my beloved brethren be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the lord for in as much as you know that your labor in the lord is not in vain they have pain with no meaning to suffer for no purpose is the worst kind of human futility that we can imagine but for the christian there is no such thing as meaningless pain or purposeless suffering someday dear ones we will see the travail of our souls and we'll be satisfied one other point about this text here for just a second usually when we think of suffering and pain we think almost exclusively in physical terms but there really is such a thing called mental anguish and i know that some of the most painful moments of your life and of mine have been emotional pains pains where we've been wounded by others we're disappointed frustrated or broken we call that the sorrowful soul jesus himself began to feel exceedingly sorrowful just before he went to the cross as he faced his great passion of suffering his soul was exceedingly sorrowful that was before anybody hit him or beat him or lashed him or put nails in him he already experienced horrendous pain but he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied and by his knowledge my righteous savior servant shall justify many for he will bear their iniquity our justification comes through imputation without the imputation there is no justification therefore will i divide him a portion with the great he will divide the spoil with the strong and because he poured out his soul unto death was numbered with the transgressors bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgression you know this the chapter ends there but i don't think it should beginning of chapter four sing o baron you have not born break forth into singing and cry aloud nobody can pronounce judgment on the integrity of god's sovereignty with respect to pain and suffering until they see the end of all things and so with the writers of the scriptures we see not a comparison so much as the contrast that the worst pain that we suffer in this world isn't worthy to be compared to the joy and the blessedness that god has laid up for his people the game isn't over it's not over in haiti it's not over in your life or in my life and until we see god standing at the end of the day we will never know what suffering was meant to accomplish for us but again the way of redemption is the via dolorosa the way of sorrows and the suffering that's why the wise man says it is better to go to the house of mourning than to spend your time with fools let's pray father thank you for a savior who is not impervious to our pain and sorrow and afflictions but who has experienced myriads of times multiplied anything that we have borne in our lives and he did it in righteousness and in silence we thank you a father that where your son remained silent you did not but three days later you shook the world and you screamed in the triumph of your son worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive honors richest dominion and power and glory for he has triumphed and will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied amen you

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Length: 47min 15sec (2835 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2015