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Read 49:5: He formed Me from the womb to be His Servant.

As we might remember we handled in chapter 42 the subject “The Servant of the Lord”. We will now have a closer look at the Servant in coming chapters (chapter 49, 50, 52, 53).

It is so clear that God’s people, Israel, were miles away from that what the Lord wanted them to be. Instead of worshipping His name, they committed idolatry. Instead of trusting Him, they relied on mighty nations. Instead of obeying His commandments, they followed their own heart desires. Instead of leading a life of righteousness and justice, they choose for doom and destruction.
If we are honest to ourselves and we know our hearts we simply have to acknowledge that we are not different than Israel. Our human nature cannot cope with God’s requirements. Our flesh naturally rebels against all what has to do with the Divine thoughts.
Although we are reborn and have got life, we still seem to be able to follow our flesh.

Rm 7:21-24 reflects this struggle. We see that evil can still be present in us. Like the Israelites we know the law and the commandments of God, but we seem to be forced to act according the law of sin. Since we are believers sin does not control us completely as with the unbelievers, but it does hold captive our fleshly body. Sin contaminates us and frustrates our inner desire to obey the will of God.
But then Rm 7:25 gives the relieving answer on the question how we can be delivered from this law of sin: through Jesus Christ!
There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus we do not need to feel guilty anymore since our sins are forgiven. That means that in Christ Jesus we are set free from the walk in the flesh. Through Him the Spirit of God dwells in us. Instead of concentrating in pleasing God by trying to keep His commandments we can now walk in the Spirit.
Rm 8:14 gives us the right definition of true sonship: “For as many are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. Now we truly can say: “Abba, Father”.

We have to admit that only through our Lord Jesus we have become what we are now: sons of God. His Person is of utmost importance in our salvation. We cannot emphasize enough on this aspect. We cannot take enough time to concentrate on our precious Saviour. And this is exactly what we are going to do now in the coming studies in the next chapters of Isaiah: we will have a close look on Jesus Christ as the Servant of the Lord.

Let us return now to the book of Isaiah.
After many chapters of warnings Isaiah starts to prophesy about One Who will set the things right. Since human beings are not capable to please God He provides for Someone who pleases Him completely and in addition saves all the people who recognize that they are not able to serve God. He is the One Who will change history; will change destination of mankind; will conquer death and destruction, will arrange eternal life in God’s holy presence.
When thinking of such a person which such a great task we will imagine someone who is powerful, ruling with strong hand, gathering influence, radical, having arrogant charisma, enforcing obedience, ignoring the poor and weak, concentrating on the head lines and neglecting details, egocentric, demandingly, hard to satisfy and attracting attention.
But in Isaiah this Person is called “The Servant of the Lord”. This description does not match our perception of the world-saviour at all! But our thoughts are not the thoughts of the Lord and our ways are not His ways (Is 55:8). Where we would expect a mighty monarch He presents a servant; and we know that Isaiah points at the person of the Lord Jesus.

Isaiah describes the person of this Servant 4 times in his book. Each description highlights a different aspect. Do we recognize this pattern? Do we remember the study we did about the Tabernacle and the one about the four Gospels? It is so nice to see that the Word of God time after time emphasises so much on the colourful picture of the Lord Jesus.
Let’s look again at these descriptions.

To repeat shortly what we learned about the veils in the Tabernacle, representing Christ as the way towards the Father:
As we saw both veils have several colours and these colours are telling us about the quality of our Lord Jesus.

1. White points at His holiness, at the fact that He was without sins
2. Sky-blue points at His divine origin
3. Purple points at the fact that He was born as king
4. Scarlet points at His flesh and blood by which we get saved

Now we can add what we learnt in the study about the Gospels: the four colours in the veils are represented by the four gospels. The qualities of the Lord Jesus are described in the four gospels but each gospel highlights a different aspect:

1. White is the perfect human nature of Christ, described in the Gospel of Luke
2. Sky-blue is describing Christ as Son of God in the Gospel of John
3. Purple is the colour of the King described in the Gospel of Matthew
4. Scarlet is the colour of blood pointing at Jesus Christ as Servant in the Gospel of Mark

Taken together, the 4 gospels weave a complete picture of the Christ Jesus!

An analogical structure we discover in Isaiah: 4 chapters are used to emphasis a different detail of the varied personality of the Servant:

1. Chapter 42:1-9 tells about the Servant Who will bring righteousness and justice and His gentle manner. This can be seen as the royal task of Jesus as described in the Gospel of Matthew.
2. Chapter 49:1-13 tells about His mission and spiritual success. Although a human being the Servant presents a holy attitude and perfect adherence to the will of God. This theme we find again in the Gospel of Luke, showing Jesus as the Son of Man.
3. Chapter 50:4-11 tells about the Servant’s obedience to God. The Gospel of John writes much about Jesus’ obedience to God as the Son of God.
4. Chapter 52:13-53:12 tells about the suffering and humiliation of the Servant. This aspect can be applied typically on a servant and we herewith identify the Gospel of Marc.

The Servant as the King

This Sunday instead of handling Chapter 49, that will come next time, I want to focus on the first description of the servant of the Lord. We saw this already in Chapter 42, and I want to have a look at it again.
Read Is 42.1-9.
We recognize that the theme of this section is ‘justice’. Three times it is said here that the Servant of the Lord will bring justice. This is the One who will set things right. Because that is what the term ‘justice’ means: He will establish things as they ought to be, as they were originally thought of by God.
So when Isaiah says the Servant of the Lord will bring justice in the world, he is saying the Servant will establish things according to the right standard; things will finally be as they originally ought to be. Whether we are talking about our society, our homes or ourselves, it is the Servant of the Lord only Who can bring things aligned with God’s standard. No one else can, there is no alternative to the Servant of the Lord.

Let us now draw a line to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew focuses on the Kingdom of Heaven. The phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” occurs 32 times in this Gospel and nowhere else in the Bible at all. We easily understand that this major theme is directly connected to Matthew’s own view on the Lord Jesus: he focuses on Jesus as King Who justly reigns in the Kingdom of Heaven. The properties of the Kingdom of Heaven therefore are based on justice.
The Kingdom of Heaven is already reality today in our hearts, although not clearly visible by the world. The world is in practice still reigned by the ruler of this world: Satan.

Matthew records 5 major sub-themes related to the Kingdom of Heaven:

1. The Sermon on the Mount (Ch 5-7)
2. The commissioning of the apostles (Ch 10)
3. The parables about the Kingdom (Ch 13)
4. The discourse about the childlikeness of the believer (Ch 18)
5. The discourse of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus (Ch 24,25)

In the first theme, the Sermon of the Mount, the Lord Jesus explains the full meaning of the Law, as given by Moses in the Old Testament. He shows that the demands of the Law are full of righteousness but humanly impossible to keep. He makes clear that there is no single human merit but only Divine grace giving salvation. Or in other words: only by justification we can be brought in accordance with God. It is only through Him, the Servant of the Lord, that we are not condemned by the Law. He has fulfilled the Law for us and now we live in the Kingdom of Heaven in Christ. The King of the Kingdom Himself has arranged citizenship for all its citizens.

In the second theme with the commissioning of the apostles the Lord Jesus delegates His power to the apostles to forgive sins, to heal sicknesses and to cast out daemons, showing clearly that the Kingdom of Heaven is supreme over sin and Satan. We are put in the same position: not through are own power but by the power of the Lord only we are ambassadors in this world to proclaim the Gospel and to announce the coming King.

The parables about the Kingdom of Heaven in the third theme are a way to teach the properties of the Kingdom. The parables were actually analogies that reveal in hidden manner the truth of the Kingdom that only could be understood by the believers. In Mt 13:11 the Lord Jesus talks about the “mysteries” of the Kingdom.
Although the Gospel is spread all over the world it does not imply that all the people will become members of the Heavenly Kingdom. The Gospel offers the mean for salvation by faith; but it is still the human responsibility to act upon this call. Only those who surrender completely and give-up their human desires are able to see and to understand.

Related to the previous theme the fourth theme describes one of the major heavenly principle’s in the Kingdom: becoming like small children. It pictures faith as the simple, helpless, trusting dependence of those who have no achievements and means of their own.
Read Mt 18:4, 5: Whoever humbles himself as a little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.

Verse 4 says that first of all we should become like a child in the sense that we should become humble. A child does not consider himself as important and trusts what his parents arrange for him. Similarly we should be reminded that we are nothing, do not contribute anything by our own power to the Kingdom of Heaven, that we fully depend on our Father in heaven. And this is the way our Father wants us to be. The Kingdom exists out of children…

The last sub-theme describes when the Kingdom of Heaven will be effectuated on earth during the thousand years of Reign of Christ. Today already we are part of the Kingdom by faith. We carry the principles of righteousness and justice in our converted hearts. But in the future, when the Lord Jesus comes for the second time in the world He will literally establish His Kingdom.
Let us read Rev 19:11-16. At His coming the world will recognize Him as the true Ruler. They have rejected and despised Him, but then they shall admit their wrongness. Every knee shall bend, freely or forced, for the King.
But let us focus now on our position as described by verse 14: we are the armies of heaven, following the King at His arrival, clothed in fine linen, white and clean!
Remember that we started with realizing our daily struggle to do His will and to neglect our sinful human nature, as described by Rm 7. But when the Kingdom will be established we will not stumble anymore; we will have holy lives, represented by our white clothes.

Let us worship the Servant of the Lord, our King, Who arranged all the things so perfectly.