The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 2 (of 2)Smith, George Adam
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Isaiah, Volume 2 (of 2)
Smith, George Adam
Bible. Isaiah -- Commentaries
3. In the earliest discourses of the Apostles, therefore, it is not
wonderful that Jesus should be expressly designated by them as the
Servant of God,--the Greek word used being that by which the Septuagint
specially translates the Hebrew term in Isa. xl.-lxvi.[168]: _God hath
glorified His Servant Jesus. Unto you first, God, having raised up His
Servant, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from
your iniquities.... In this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom
Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and
the peoples of Israel, were gathered together to do whatsoever Thy hand
and Thy counsel foreordained to pass. Grant that signs and wonders may
be done through the name of Thy Holy Servant Jesus._[169] It must also
be noticed, that in one of the same addresses, and again by Stephen
in his argument before the Sanhedrim, Jesus is called _The Righteous
One_,[170] doubtless an allusion to the same title for the Servant
in Isa. liii. 11. Need we recall the interpretation of Isa. liii. by
Philip?[171]
It is known to all how Peter develops this parallel in his First
Epistle, borrowing the figures but oftener the very words of Isa.
liii. to apply to Christ. Like the Servant of the Lord, Jesus
is _as a lamb_: He is a patient sufferer in silence; He _is the
Righteous_--again the classic title--_for the unrighteous_; in exact
quotation from the Greek of Isa. liii.: _He did no sin, neither
was found guile in His mouth, ye were as sheep gone astray, but He
Himself hath borne our sins, with whose stripes ye are healed_.[172]
Paul applies two quotations from Isa. lii. 13-liii. to Christ: _I
have striven to preach the Gospel not where Christ was named; as it
is written, To whom He was not spoken of they shall see: and they
that have not heard shall understand_; and _He hath made Him to be
sin for us who knew no sin._[173] And none will doubt that when he so
often disputed that the _Messiah must suffer_, or wrote _Messiah died
for our sins according to the Scriptures_, he had Isa. liii. in mind,
exactly as we have seen it applied to the Messiah by Jewish scholars
a hundred years later than Paul.
4. Paul, however, by no means confines the prophecy of the Servant
of the Lord to Jesus the Messiah. In a way which has been too much
overlooked by students of the subject, Paul revives and reinforces
the collective interpretation of the Servant. He claims the Servant's
duties and experience for himself, his fellow-labourers in the
gospel, and all believers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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