Isaiah 53:1 - Meaning and Application

At the end of the last chapter, the prophet looked ahead to the kind welcome the gospel of Christ would receive among the Gentiles. Nations and their kings would embrace it, and people who had never seen Christ would believe in him. They had no earlier promise of gospel grace to prepare them, yet they would still give it careful attention when they first heard it.

Now the prophet turns, with sadness and surprise, to the unbelief of the Jews. They had many earlier notices of the Messiah in the Old Testament, and some even had the chance to know him in person. Yet they still rejected him. Isaiah 53:1 shows the great contempt they showed for the gospel of Christ. This unbelief in Jesus’ own time is said to fulfill this word (John 12:38), and it is also applied to the small response the apostles received among Jews and Gentiles (Romans 10:16).

There were very few who believed the report of the gospel, even though it was openly announced to all. It was not whispered in secret or kept for a small group. It was a faithful message, fully worthy of acceptance, and one might expect everyone to receive it. But few believed the prophets who spoke of Christ beforehand, and when Christ came, only a few from the crowds followed him. Even when the apostles carried this message through the world, only some in each place believed, and the number was still small. That is still true today, even among those who say they believe, because few truly welcome the gospel in their hearts and submit to its power.

People do not believe the gospel because the arm of the Lord is not revealed to them. That means they do not see, or will not admit, the divine power that goes with the word. God’s arm was shown, as Isaiah had said earlier (Isaiah 52:10), in Christ’s miracles, in the surprising spread of the gospel, and in its power on the conscience. The message is quiet, but it is powerful. Yet many do not notice this, and they do not experience the Spirit’s work that makes the word effective. Their unbelief is also tied to their own rebellion against the light they already had. Because they resisted God’s truth, they justly lost his grace, and without that grace they would not believe.

This should move us deeply. It is something to wonder at and to mourn. Ministers can bring this grief to God, as the prophet does here. What a sorrow that such rich grace is received in vain, and that precious souls perish by the pool because they will not step in and be healed.

The people also despised Christ’s person because he appeared in such lowly form. That likely explains why they rejected his teaching. Many who heard him and even approved of what he said still would not take it seriously, because it came from someone with so little outward honor and no worldly advantage to recommend him.

Christ willingly entered the world in a condition that did not match what the Jews expected of the Messiah. They expected him to come from a noble line. He was to be the Son of David (2 Samuel 7:9), but he came from David’s family when it had fallen low. Joseph, David’s descendant and Christ’s supposed father, was only a poor carpenter, and Christ’s relatives were mostly fishermen. That is why he is called a root out of dry ground. He came from a family and a place that seemed barren and unpromising, in Galilee, a region many looked down on. From a virgin mother, who herself had no natural prospect of bearing such a son, he sprang forth as both root and fruit, the source and the offspring of David, the root of the good olive tree.

They also expected the Messiah to make a public, impressive entrance. Instead, he grew up before God rather than before men. God watched over him, but people did not notice him. He grew like a tender plant, quietly and without display, like seed that grows in the ground without our seeing how (Mark 4:27). In his beginning, the gospel was like a mustard seed, so small and ordinary it seemed almost nothing (Matthew 13:31-32).

They expected him to have striking beauty that would catch the eye and win the heart. But there was nothing outwardly remarkable about him. This does not mean he was ugly or deformed, only that he had no special appearance or glory that would make people desire him at first sight. Those who looked at him saw no beauty that set him apart from others. Moses was said to be very fair when he was born (Acts 7:20; Hebrews 11:23), and David was handsome when Samuel anointed him (1 Samuel 16:12). Christ had no such outward feature to recommend him. This may also point to the plain manner of his appearing in the world. His gospel was preached without human show or persuasive display, but in plainness suited to the message.

They also expected him to live a pleasant life and enjoy all the comforts that would draw people to him. Instead, he was a man of sorrows and familiar with grief. His suffering was not only at the end of his life, but through it all. His whole path was marked by labor, sorrow, and pain. By being made sin for us, he took on the judgment that sin brought on us, so that what was said after the fall, that we would eat in sorrow all the days of our life (Genesis 3:17), would be greatly eased for us.

His condition was sorrowful in many ways. He had no settled home, had nowhere to lay his head, lived on gifts from others, was opposed and threatened, and endured the hard words of sinners against him. His spirit was tender, and he fully felt sorrow. We never read that he laughed, but we often read that he wept.

Lentulus, in a letter to the Roman senate about Jesus, said, “He was never seen to laugh.” He was worn down by constant grief so much that, when he was only a little over thirty, he was thought to be nearly fifty (John 8:57). Sorrow was his close companion, for he took up the troubles of others, felt with them, and never kept his own pain at a distance. Even in his transfiguration, his conversation turned to his own death, and in his triumph he wept over Jerusalem. Let us look to him and mourn.

2. People thought very little of him because of this. We often judge by what we can see, by outward appearance, and so they saw no beauty in him that would make him desirable. There was real beauty in him, the beauty of holiness and goodness, enough to make him the desire of all nations, but most of the people among whom he lived saw none of it. That beauty can only be seen spiritually.

Carnal hearts, that is, hearts ruled by worldly desires, see no excellence in the Lord Jesus. They find nothing in him that makes them want closeness with him or a share in him. More than that, he was not only unwanted, but despised and rejected, abandoned and hated, a reproach among men, an outcast, one people avoided and did not respect, a worm and no man. He was despised as a low man and rejected as an evil man. He was the stone the builders refused, and they would not have him rule over them.

Men, who should have known better, and who should have been too tender to trample on a man in misery, rejected him, though he came to seek and save them. “We hid our faces from him,” as if we turned away and did not care, and his sufferings meant nothing to us, though no sorrow was ever like his sorrow. More than that, we acted not merely as if we had no concern for him, but as if we loathed him and hated him. It may also be read this way: He hid his face from us, meaning he kept back the glory of his majesty and drew a veil over it. Because of that, he was despised and we did not value him, since we could not see through that veil.

Christ took on himself the task of making satisfaction, that is, paying fully for the wrong man had done to God’s honor by sin, because God can be wronged only in his honor. He did this not only by laying aside the glory due to an incarnate deity, that is, God come in human flesh, but also by taking the shame that belonged to the worst sinners and criminals. In humbling himself in this way, he brought glory to his Father. That gives us every reason to value him highly and honor him. Let him be welcomed by us, since men rejected him.