Different servants of the Lord are so named in the Book of Isaiah. The prophet himself is so designated in Isaiah 20:3 Eliakim, David and Jacob are spoken of as God's servants (Isa. 22:20; Isa. 37:35; Isa. 44:1), as is also Israel (Isa. 41:8-9), and others (Isa. 56:6, etc.). There is however One who is brought before us in this way, even He who, earlier in this prophecy, is called, "Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The ever-lasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6). We need the light of the New Testament to truly understand the significance of this great mystery, that the eternal Son of God became Man in order that He might be the Servant of the Godhead to accomplish all that lay in the eternal counsels of God for the glory of God and the blessing of men.
The first verse of Isaiah 42 is quoted in Matthew 12:18 as fulfilling that which had been written concerning Messiah so long before, and it is not difficult to understand why the Spirit of God should insert in Matthew "My beloved," for the Father had already addressed Him as such, and called the attention of others to it, when He came up out of the water at His baptism (Matt. 3:16-17). Only the beloved Son of God could accomplish the great work that was necessary to make God known, and to lay the basis in the cross for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose. How infinite the love, how lowly the mind, how unspeakable the grace, that caused the blessed Son of God to become a Servant for the pleasure of the Father and the eternal blessing of the creature.
Coming into Manhood, the Son of God was a real Man, and therefore required as Man to be upheld and supported in His place of dependence by God. As God's Servant He was His "elect," His chosen One for the great service to which He was called of God, as having put Himself at the disposal of God for His will. In this place of a Servant, Jesus was wholly delightful to His God and Father, for all that He was in Himself, in His relationship with the Father, and in the perfections manifested as accomplishing that which God had given Him to do. Everything was done by the Son that the Father desired, and wrought in the way that was required of Him, so that all that the Father is was made known in His perfect Servant.
There was nothing of independence seen in God's Servant; He was in everything obedient to God, and all that He did was by the Holy Spirit with which He was anointed. God said, "I have put my Spirit upon Him," and this was His seal of claiming Him for His service, but was also the mark of the deep pleasure He had in Him, and the expression of His confidence that He would perfectly finish the work with which He had entrusted Him.
The Son of God was God's Servant to bring blessing to His people Israel, but this was by no means the full extent of His mission on earth, for through Him God "shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." This looks on to the second coming of the Lord, when, as Son of Man, all the kindreds of the earth will be blessed through the Seed of Abraham, according to God's promises to the patriarch.
There has been however, while awaiting the blessing of the nations on earth, the blessing that has come to the Gentiles who form part of the church of God, and this on account of the death of Christ, in relation to the purpose of God. On the way to the cross there was the earthly mission of Messiah to Israel with its offer of earthly blessing, but Messiah was refused, and as rejected by His people, there was the fulfilment of the words, "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street" (Isa. 42:2; Matt. 12:19), for the Lord, in meekness though with deepest sorrow, accepted His rejection, knowing that this would open the door to a greater service, even to the bringing in of heavenly blessing to a people destined to be with Him in heaven to share His place and joys there in the Father's house.
Yet, in the hour of His rejection by Israel, He would not come upon them in judgment. Israel was a bruised reed, but He would not break it; His earthly people, who ought to have been a flaming torch in testimony for God, had become a smoking flax which gave no light to the nations around, but rather beclouded them, yet He would not quench Israel. The time of judgment would come, but there would always be a remnant until the nation stood erect as a witness for God, a bright light for Him in the world to come. Then God would send forth "judgment unto victory" through Messiah. In that day, "in His Name shall the Gentiles trust," but as the Apostle Paul shows in Romans 15:12 there is now a fulfilment of this Scripture in the Gentiles who have believed the Gospel of their salvation.
It appeared as if the service of God's Servant towards Israel had failed, but Jehovah was able to say. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for His law" (verse 4). Very soon it will be seen that in spite of Israel rejecting their Messiah, God has blessing for His earthly people, the basis His precious blood shed on the cross, and established in a new covenant that He will make with His people. Then too the isles of the Gentiles will be blessed under the reign of Israel's Messiah, the Son of Man.
When Jehovah said "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified" (Isa. 49:3), He was speaking to Messiah, for in Him the history of Israel was taken up afresh for the glory of God. Whether seen as God's son (Ex. 4:22-23), as God's vine (Isa. 5), or God's servant (Isa. 49), the history of Israel begins anew in Messiah, who brings pleasure and glory to God in all that in which Israel brought sorrow to God and dishonoured His Name.
The address of Isaiah 49 is not to Israel, for the Lord said, "Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my Name" (verse 1). Does not this show the interest of the Lord in the Gentiles? There are those among the nations that He desires to know the mind of Jehovah concerning Himself, His people Israel and the Gentiles. Although a divine Person, He would come as a Man into the world, from the womb of the virgin, and Named Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.
As Man, in the service of God in this world, the Lord in spirit can say, "And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword" (verse 2), for His word reached to the innermost recesses of heart and conscience while speaking on earth, bringing divine blessing to many, while stirring up the opposition of those who were opposed to God and His Son (See Heb. 4:12-13). He also said, "in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me," for He was ever conscious of the protection of God while bitterly assailed by men under the influence of Satan. He was also "a polished shaft," whose word reached not only those where He was, but reached into the distance, even to us in this day, a weapon that brought down the power of the enemy, a secret weapon that was hidden in the armoury of God, and that He brought forth to vanquish the foe in the time He had appointed.
God was confident that His Servant would secure His glory in all committed to Him, but as rejected by Israel it appeared as if His mission had failed, and although He knew well that it had not failed, yet His soul felt the rejection by Israel, and the apparent failure of His service on earth, so that He said, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God" (verse 4). At the end of His path what was there to show for all His labours? He was left alone, betrayed by one of His disciples, denied by another, forsaken of all; crucified as a malefactor and assailed by the leaders of Israel, and mocked by the great of this world.
In the midst of all this, as the Spirit of Christ looks forward to its fulfilment, He can say, "Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." The place of the Son of God, God's Servant, at the right hand of the throne of God now, and the place that He shall fill in the day of His glory, shows the judgment of His God in relation to all He suffered in rejection. Not only the millennial day, but the eternal day, when not a vestige of evil will be found in the universe, but all in new creation, will show the results of the work that He wrought through His death, when He left all with His God.
Jesus as God's Servant had come to save His people Israel, but they would not have Him and so rejected their own mercies. God's answer to the rejection of His Son by Israel is, "It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth" (verse 6). Not only would Messiah, rejected by Israel, be "glorious in the eyes of the Lord," but He would secure blessing to a far greater company than Israel, and His God would be His strength in achieving this great end.
What God's Servant came to accomplish for Israel would be achieved in God's good time, Israel would be regathered for the millennial day, the tribes of Jacob would be raised up, and the preserved of Israel be restored, but there would be something done among the Gentiles, both in the day in which we live, and also in the millennium, Christ being God's light for the Gentiles, and His salvation to the end of the earth. The mystery of Christ and the church is not revealed here, that awaited Christ taking His place on high and the coming of the Holy Spirit, but the preaching of Christ as God's light and salvation now is within the scope of this prophecy.
Having manifested God's wisdom in His dealing prudently here below, God's Servant was "exalted and extolled" and made very high. In life and death He was shown to be the wisdom of God, and having glorified God on the earth, and having finished the work God gave Him to do, He was set down at God's right hand in heaven "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come" (Eph. 1:20-21).
Many were astonished at the awful sufferings through which God's Servant passed, for "His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men" (Isa. 52:14). The two on the way to Emmaus were astonished that Messiah should so suffer, but the Lord said to them, "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" (Luke 24:26); and many others, like the disciples of the Lord, could not understand why Christ should thus suffer.
A like astonishment will come to many nations when the kings of the earth shall be silent in His presence (verse 15), realising in the day of Christ's glory that the One they see so glorious is none other than He whom men crucified and slew. On earth, the Servant of God was silent before the great of the earth, before the high priest, before Pilate and before Herod; in the coming day, the great of the earth, the kings will be silent before Him, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
Isaiah 53 presents to us the life, sufferings and glory of the Servant of God. It is written, "He shall see of the fruit the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness; and He shall bear their iniquities." Isa. 53:11. This has special reference to the many in Israel who, in the coming day, will be blessed in association with the Messiah on earth. He will instruct them in righteousness, and as the true sin offering bear their iniquities. Already their iniquities have been borne by Christ in His death, and when the remnant of Israel gaze upon Him whom they pierced, they will be able to say, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities" (Isa. 53:5). This is the One who, by telling them of what He did for them on the cross, will instruct them in righteousness, even as we have already been instructed in righteousness by the Epistle to the Romans.
Having come into the world in the service of God, the Son of God has become a Servant for ever, answering perfectly to the type of the Hebrew servant in Exodus 21:2-6. Love to His Master, to His God and Father, love to His wife, for "Christ also loved the church" (Eph. 5:25), and love for His children for He could say, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me" (Heb. 2:13), caused the Son of God to go to the place where He was pierced (verse 6), and so have the objects of His affections ever with Him.
In 1 Corinthians 15 we learn that the Son of God will reign "till He hath put all enemies under His feet" (1 Cor. 15:25), and having done so the end will come, "when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power," and then He shall deliver up the kingdom to Him who is God and Father (1 Cor. 15:24). When this is done, "The Son also shall Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28). While retaining for ever His place in the Godhead, when God is all in all, the Son also, in wondrous grace, remains a Servant to the Godhead for ever, delighting in His Master, and rejoicing in the objects of His love secured by His death on the cross.
What lowly grace marked the Lord Jesus. When the disciples were striving as to which should be "accounted the greatest," He said to them, "I am among you as He that serveth" (Luke 22:27), and almost immediately He laid aside His garments, girded Himself with a linen towel, poured water into a basin, and stooped to wash the feet of His disciples (John 13:3-5). Nor has the Lord's service to His own ceased by His entry into heaven, for He still cares for those He loves (Eph. 5:26), and in the coming day "He shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them," just as He served His own when risen from the dead (Luke 12:37; John 21:13).
How very wonderful it is that the glorious Son of God, so great in His Person, should come to be a Servant to God as Man in this world, should choose to remain a Servant to the Godhead for ever, because of His great love for the Father and for His own, and that that blessed One should also stoop to serve those He loves.
Wm. C. Reid.