"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently”—shall prosper; the cross was the way of prosperity—“He shall be exalted and extolled.” When I hear the saints exalting and extolling Him, I think, What a blessed place they are in, fulfilling God’s thoughts! “His visage was so marred more than any man.” He went down below man, below His creatures. When God delivers there is no looking to the right hand or to the left, either to the Egyptians or the Assyrians (Isa. 52:1212For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward. (Isaiah 52:12)). He goes before us, and He watches over our steps behind. There is no haste or flight, as men flee from an enemy. And who can tell to another the untellable blessedness of having waited for Him?
Isa. 53 brings before us the meditation of the remnant. “A root out of a dry ground” is not a very pleasant thing to look at. “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.” Jehovah speaks here. He marks that He was silent—silent as the grave into which He was going—except that He witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate and before the high priest—on the one hand that He was the Christ, and on the other that He was the Son of God. “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” In this the heavenly kingdom and the earthly and all creation have their part. “By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant instruct many” in righteousness, that is, in practical righteousness as well as in divine righteousness—that was His life-work; “for He shall bear their iniquities”—that was His death-work.
“Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” This is a military metaphor: “I will give Him the spoils of victory.”
“His visage was so marred more than any man.” In Psa. 45 we read: “Thou art fairer than the children of men.” The Person is identical. “Grace is poured into Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever.” “And in Thy majesty ride prosperously”; “ My Servant shall prosper.” “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity.” It is a sign of power for a man to avoid evil; but to hate evil is a sign of great power in a soul. “Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” We get God’s thoughts about Christ in these “therefores.” It is a great thing to have the mind of God; but what I should like is to have the affections of God. We are partakers of the divine nature, and can delight in what He delights in. It is well to read and speak of these things, but oh! beloved brethren, to get into the reality of these things in our own chambers is a much greater thing.
“All Thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia.” We are often very cruel, expecting souls to take a great place spiritually when they have never learnt what Christ is, have not smelled the myrrh, and aloes, and cassia—the fragrance of Christ. “Hearken, O daughter, and consider; forget also thine own people and thy Father’s house.” This is the earthly bride, but it applies to the Church. We forget everything; not that God is against nature, but He hates sin. In Phil. 2 He was “in the form of God”—that is, in the place of Godhead—and He became man. The death of the cross is far more than death. A man might die a glorious and honorable death on the field of battle, but the death of the cross was a death of shame. Wherefore God has given Him a name above every name—the name of Jesus, the despised name. But it means “Jehovah the Savior,” and God knows its meaning. I see more than ever, in reading the Word, that the Spirit rests on Jesus. He is God’s great resource all through this book of Isaiah. After each sorrow and trial He is brought in, in various forms of glory.
January 29th, 1882. From Words of Grace for the Household of Faith 1:306-308.