The Prophecy You Can't Ignore - Isaiah 53

In this episode, I dive into one of the most powerful and mysterious passages in the Bible—Isaiah 53. Written centuries before the time of Jesus, this chapter paints a vivid picture of a suffering servant who bears the sins of others, is rejected by people, and ultimately brings healing through his sacrifice. What does this prophecy really mean? Who is it talking about? And why has it been so central to Christian faith for generations?

Join me as I break down the imagery, explore the historical context, and connect Isaiah’s words to the bigger story of redemption. Whether you’ve read this chapter many times or are encountering it for the first time, this conversation will challenge you to see its message in a deeper and more personal way.

Transcript

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What is going on y'all? Welcome back to Conversations in the Kitchen. Um Yeah, I swear I did not forget about you guys. There's been a lot. You know, about to graduate in like the next two weeks. Bunch of senior festivities just ended exams and everything. But I've had I have scripts made. I have a bunch of different scripts like written up and everything, so you know, like it's cool and all. I have some stuff prepped. These are more sermony things, so I'm gonna have to do like actual topics. But I had this once in. This is I mentioned it in my last episode. I felt like this was sitting for a different time, but I just saw one of my friends' reels, and it was just a simple reminder that Jesus died on the cross for us. It's very cliche, very, you know, just duh. Of course, he did. But it reminded me of this specific outline that I have written, and it is actually about Isaiah 53, which is the suffering servant, the prophecy of the servant that would come and suffer for our sins. And so I was like, you know what? I need to do a podcast episode. Funnily enough, this is what I was planning on. I just didn't know when I would do it because of all like the different weird gaps I've had in my time or whatever. But now we're doing it. So let's dive in. Oh, by the way, I'm your chef, Corbin Cook, and today's main dish is Isaiah 53, the suffering servant. I forgot about that part. Y'all think y'all thought I would forget? Nah, nah, not at all. But have you ever asked God for something, and when it finally entered your life, it looked different than you expected? Because you know, sometimes we ask God for these very specific things to happen in our life. When it does happen, it's like, oh yay, it happened, but this is a very weird way of it approaching. Like, for instance, junior year leading in the summer, I quit football, and so I'm kind of like, Lord, you know, I want a calling for my life, I want to know what my calling is, and it came in like a way I didn't think it would come in. Um, I thought it'd be like God would give me some sort of like vision or God would, you know, use people around me. In a sense, he did. The way like I figured out my calling in my life is was through my church camp. Um, I didn't really know what my calling was. I was kind of stuck. Remember one night for some reason I was just mourning over the fact that I've friends who are either not saved or not strong in their faith, and I felt like it was a lot of my fault because I was not, you know, being the one who would go and share the gospel with them or be the light in their lives. Now, theologically, we can't make people saved, but in that moment, I also started to reflect a little after how people, even from a very young age, I was called for leadership, and I didn't know yet, because I was like eight or nine at the time. Of course, I'm not gonna know oh that's my calling, but leadership, and I realized I've been gifted with the ability to know, look at the word and be able to speak it and have insight within the word, and that's when I figured out my calling, pastoral ministry, and youth pastor is the main target because I'm not gonna be a head pastor automatically, but youth pastor because I want to reach out to this generation with the way this generation is going, yeah. Steering back to the main flow of thought, we anticipate for these things to come in our lives, and when this anticipation is created, there are very, very high expectations for whatever is coming. In Genesis 3, we see a promise that there will be a seed that crushes the head of the serpent, but the seed will also be struck at the heel. When we see this, we rejoice because the serpent will be defeated, even though it will come at a cost. Now, of course, people then did not know exactly what this servant looked like, we didn't really know who the servant would be. But if it crushes the head of the serpent, we'd expect this servant to be pretty powerful. Now, we expect strength to look powerful, we expect victory to look obvious. But what if I told you that the greatest act of power did not look powerful at all? And what if the greatest victory of all time, like defeat? In Isaiah 53, we get an image of what this would all look like. We get a look of what the seed would be like, how he would appear, we get a look into how this seed suffered and took the punishment for our sins. And um, yeah, he did not deserve this punishment. He carried it willingly. That's the hard part about all this. That all this was not an accident, it was 100% intentional. It was love. We're challenged by the passage of Isaiah 53. What kind of savior will choose? Suffering. The backtrack leading up into this chapter of Isaiah, you have to look back at 52, 13 through 15. Or 52-13, where the prophecy starts. Now, it mentions in verse 13, see, my servant will act wisely, he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. This servant will be lifted up and highly exalted. Those who never expected the servant or even knew about the servant will know who he is after this act of love. We also want to see in verse 14, just as there were many who were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being. I'm gonna relate to this later, but you can already depict how brutally tortured Jesus was. Whoa, sorry, because Jesus grew out of dry ground and was rather vulnerable, he did not appear how many thought he would have. It mentions that there was nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Many people, when you hear prophecies about Jesus, when you hear because oh, throughout the entire Old Testament, there is a lot more prophecy about Jesus, and many people, even in the New Testament, they heard a king will be born on this day. People will think of this king as someone who's rather from a royal and a wealthy lineage that would eventually take the throne. That is why Herod was so angered because he knew a king would come. This expectation wasn't met, though. As we all know, Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem. Here's some facts about Bethlehem during and before Jesus' birth. Bethlehem was a small, porn, agricultural town. Bethlehem also had a low life expectancy, and many of the residents who lived there were peasants who lived in modified caves. And Jesus was not born into a royal family either. His parents were a poor carpenter and a woman from a lower class family. So because Jesus did not have the appearance people thought he'd have, he was already despised and rejected by mankind, and we held him in low esteem. That's because he didn't meet our expectations. Now, Isaiah is not saying Jesus was ugly. That is not what he was saying at all. For all we know, Jesus was a Middle Eastern man, most likely starved. That's really all we can know of Jesus. That's really like all those stained glasses you see of like a white Jesus on the cross, that's not that accurate of a depiction of Jesus, and those candle Jesus aren't really that accurate of a description either. We just know he was in he was born in the Middle East. So we kind of have a rough idea of what he would might look like. That's a little sidetrack. Apologies. Now, with these next four verses, next three verses, let's notice Isaiah's wording. He says, Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. Now notice how Isaiah says, surely, as in this is this was this has happened, this 100% was something Jesus did. Surely he did this. Jesus willingly took up the pain and suffering that we were supposed to be given. Let's talk about this wrath of God that we were supposed to be given real quick. Observe in Matthew 26, 39. Jesus is praying to his father in the garden, and he asked his father to take the cup away from him. To take the cup away. Not bring him the cup, but away. This cup is a metaphor for God's wrath and punishment towards evildoers. In Revelation 16, we do see God's wrath revealed through it mentions bowls. It's similar to the cup. Um if I am correct, it is Revelation 16. It is in Revelation and it is mentioned in other places around the Bible with the context of the cup and the wrath of God be expressed. But the main point is that this wrath is unlike any wrath we've ever seen. It is unbearable pain we could never handle. Now, Jesus eventually took the cup. But he was not handed the cup because he was a sinner. God did not hand him the cup because he thought his son had blemishes. Jesus was perfect, fully God, fully man. But rather, Jesus is given this cup because he loves us. Jesus willingly took the cup, God willingly gave the cup to his son, and this was all out of love. 1 Peter 2, it says, He himself bore our sins and his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. I'm going to dive into that in just a little bit. Jesus propitiated God's wrath against sin. He bore the agonizing pain we deserve because of his love for us. This cup no longer threatens us. For Romans 8 says, Therefore there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The next verse, the next part of verse 4 starts with, yet. Yet we consider him punished by God. At my school, it's a small private Christian school, so um a thing seniors do is we have like senior interviews where it's it goes over a packet we learned throughout the year about different truth strands. Um it's more of just like if you come in contact with people in the real world who don't know God, are you able to spread the gospel of that? Like, are you prepared? That's essentially what this interview was measuring us on. I was asked this question, many other were probably asked this question. Why does a good God allow suffering? It's a very common question asked amongst a bunch of people in society, both believer and unbeliever. Because even the believers don't understand why a good God allows suffering. Take Habakkuk, for example. Habakkuk knows God is good, but he's questioning, golly, God, why are you sending the Babylonians to come and destroy everything? To make this answer short, as short as possible, because I already did an entire episode on this. We have a micro view while God has a macro view. The people saw that Jesus suffered greatly, but did not understand why. Micro. But Jesus suffered because he wanted us to be made right in the sight of the Father. That's the macro. We say, oh, he was punished by God. God punished him. This is something God did. Why would God do this to such a perfect man? Why would God do this to someone? And the people just didn't understand why. But God wanted us to be made right in his sight. So he sent his son to die for our sins. He put his son through that torture so that we may be justified. We have peace for the ages to come through the death of Christ. Remember the phrase I mentioned earlier, by his wounds we are healed, healed. Well, that phrase is also said like by stripes we are healed. It mentions in the song, Son of Suffering, your stripes are my healing. During the Jesus' beatings, Roman soldiers would beat Jesus with what was called a flagrum. This was a whip with metal or bone pieces. You could probably already think of what this might look like or think of the pain that this would inflict on someone. This material resulted in deep lacerations known as stripes. We do not know exactly how many times Jesus was whipped, but we're gonna but the assumption is 39. This is this can be depicted based on Jewish tradition and what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 11. And mentions that we are like sheep, have gone astray. We have gone astray and went to different voices, went to different shepherds who would only bring us death. We absolutely did not like this this is all our fault. Jesus had n Jesus was perfect, no blemish within him. He was perfect. It was us and us loving our desires. That is why sin was brought into the world. Straight away from the shepherd, that was good, because we loved our own desires instead of loving the good shepherd. Jesus truly didn't have to do this for us. This is all our fault. But Jesus loves us and said, I will drink this cup. Now, this text will still keep going like down points, but there is some high notes towards the end of this. More likely so verses 11 and 12. 9 and 10 though. Or 7 through 10. Um we see that he did not open his mouth. Despite all his pain and suffering he went through, despite everything, all the torment, torture he went through, he didn't even open his mouth. When one of the sinners on the cross said, Oh, you're you're the Messiah, you can just bring yourself down from there. Jesus easily could have done whatever. He's so pleased, and he could have broken the chains, he could have done whatever, this, that, but he didn't. We see this in Mark 15, where Jesus was being tested before Pilate, and Jesus was silent before Pilate, and this amazed him. Jesus was also led like a lamb to the slaughter. This is another point of how Jesus was silent before his accusers. Jesus was not helpless. He was not a helpless lamb. Jesus was still fully in control. It's showing the humility and the willingness to follow what his father had for him. Now, many would assume this suffering servant will be beaten severely. Yes, that is true. Now, Jesus was cut off from the land of the living. He was destined for death. Luke 23 reveals slight fulfillment of this prophecy here in Isaiah 53. For Jesus was assigned a grave with the wicked, and he was with the rich in his death. You're wondering, Corbin, what is the correlation? Like, how are these all intertwining? That's the word I'm looking for, definitely. Now, Jesus died on the cross with two wicked men. Their crimes around that time that would put them on there was most likely rebellion or violence. The intention was to bury Jesus with these two men. But Joseph of Arimathea, I think that's how you say it. Please don't. I probably butchered that. But this man, Joseph, was a wealthy man, and he had a tomb for Jesus. So instead of dying with the wicked, Jesus died with the rich. And I'm realizing the point the up until now. Many assumed he'd be beaten. That is, yeah. I just like it all clicked in my head when I was reading through it. I'm sorry. Let me clarify that real quick. G many they would see this prophecy and reading it up so far. I'm assuming, oh, he'd be beaten severely. You know, he'd be disfigured, not disfigured, he would be so brutally beaten that no one could recognize him, he would just bear a bunch of pain. But no, Jesus was actually destined for death. He was he was destined to die. And this is kind of where it's like, whoa. But why would Jesus be buried with the rich? Why did Jesus deserve to be buried with the rich and not just die with the two wicked men? It mentions because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Despite all temptations, pain, suffering, Jesus remained the Holy One through and through. This plan brought both grief and joy. Grief because of the pain his only son would suffer greatly. But joy because the work of reconciling the world has been accomplished. Jesus poured out everything onto the cross and numbered himself with sinners, revealing these truths. We can share the spoils of Jesus' victory, and we can receive salvation because Jesus made intercession for us. The suffering servant was not rejected for his own sins, but for ours. He was pierced, crushed, and led like a lamb to the slaughter. Yet he opened not his mouth. Why? Because love chose the cross. Because grace refused to leave us broken. Because God saw us at our worst and still made a way. We can understand this victory of the Lamb, but we have to respond. I know I've said it multiple times how much Jesus was beaten and he was mocked and tortured. I know I've repeated those three different verbs multiple times through this. I know you're annoyed of me saying those multiple times through this, but to emphasize like these three verbs being consistent through Jesus, his ministry, he was mocked. But just to see this through him leading up to the cross, yes, it should be repeated. Because you can either you can't stand at the foot of sacrifice and stay neutral. You can't stand foot at the foot of this son of the servant who was beaten, afflicted, and tortured and be neutral. You're either going to receive this or you're going to reject it. You're either going to carry your own burden or trust the one who already carried it for you. Isaiah 53 ends with a picture of victory. He will see the light of life and be satisfied. That suffering was not the end. There's redemption, there is restoration, there is hope. So two questions. Two simple questions that you could probably think about, maybe right now, and maybe take time to think about. First one, what will you do with the one who suffered for you? A second one, will you walk away unchanged? Or will you surrender, trust, and be made new? Because this prophecy of Isaiah 53 is not just about what he has done, it is about what he is offering you right now.