Suffering Servant Song IV – Part 2 – Caracteristics

“Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:1-3) [Read 52:13 – 53:12].

The fourth suffering servant song begins in Isaiah 52:13 and continues through 53:12. That is why I am suggesting to my readers that we read the passage daily as we move through this marvelous prophecy of the Messiah’s coming which Isaiah foresaw and recorded. What are the characteristics of the Suffering Servant?

First of all, His life and characteristics are unbelievable in their magnitude. Isaiah writes of Him as if He has already come: “Who has believed what they heard from us?” Or, in the more familiar King James Version: “Who hath believed our report?” The Suffering Servant’s coming and what He will do as God-with-man is so incredulous that people cannot believe it. But that does not deter the prophet from declaring the reality of His appearance. The very fact that he writes in the past tense, or as scholars term it, “the prophetic past tense,” indicates the surety of His coming. And to whom is He revealed? Isaiah does not answer his question, but that remains. He is still being revealed to people, even in this age, centuries from the time of His prophetic prediction. Belief and trust are always at the heart of every person’s acceptance of this report of the Suffering Servant. “The arm of the Lord” refers to His miraculous strength and His saving power.

He has the characteristic of humility. He had no form of majesty but was as a tender plant—not a mighty oak or a towering tree. Isaiah refers to a “root from the stem of Jesse,” (Jesse-King David’s father), showing his lineage from Israel’s great King David. Yet with that lineage in the Messiah’s earthly roots, He is still humble, despised and rejected. How prophetic, indeed, were Isaiah’s words, for “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).

He was despised and rejected—the characteristic of unpopularity, unacceptability.
How tragic that God-with-us, the very God-man sent to show us the way to restore our lost fellowship with God would be sorrowful and alienated. “Despised” describes how despicable He was to many. With that identification, Jesus met His death on the cross. From the foundation of the world it was so ordered. Man entered into this necessary plan of God by rejecting the One who came to show us the Father. It was because “we esteemed Him not.”

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Saturday, September 25, 2010