Israel Confesses Her Unbelief
Isaiah 53
The Gospel According to Isaiah: Why Was Jesus Rejected?
Have you ever wondered why the very people who had been waiting centuries for their Messiah would reject Him when He finally came? It’s one of history’s most puzzling questions, yet the answer lies hidden in a passage that Jewish synagogues still skip over today.
“If you would attend a Jewish synagogue the third week of August, you will hear Isaiah 52 all the way through verse 12. Read. And the next day that you come back, the next Sunday that you come back, they will skip over Isaiah 52, 13, 14 and 15, and all of Isaiah 53, and they will read then Isaiah 54.” There’s a reason for this deliberate omission, and understanding it will transform how you see Jesus.
The Forbidden Chapter
Isaiah 52:13 through Isaiah 53:12 contains what Biblical scholars call “the fourth servant song” – a prophetic passage so clearly pointing to Jesus that it creates “great tension” in Jewish interpretation. “At the top of this particular chapter, you could literally write the Gospel according to Isaiah.”
When the Apostle Paul, “who was trained by the best of rabbis, converted believing in the Jewish Messiah,” declared in 1 Corinthians 15 that “Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” he was referencing passages exactly like this one. “Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53 tell of Christ dying for our sins.”
The passage begins with God the Father speaking about His servant in Isaiah 52:13-15: “Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—so shall he sprinkle many nations.”
The Complaint of Preachers
But then something remarkable happens in Isaiah 53:1. The speakers change, and we hear a haunting question: “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
“This complaint is uttered today by Gospel preachers. It was uttered by Old Testament prophets Zechariah and Malachi and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Moses and David.” Picture faithful preachers throughout history asking the same heartbreaking question: “God, who has believed what you’ve laid on our heart to preach your word? Has anybody believed? Has anybody responded?”
“There will be men who will go to sleep tonight in every time zone of this world. And they will say, Lord, has anybody believed what you’ve laid on our heart to preach your word?”
The second question cuts even deeper: “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” This refers to God’s demonstration of His strength and power. Even when people witnessed Jesus’ miracles and authority, they failed to recognize God’s mighty arm at work.
The Confession of the People
The rest of Isaiah 53:1-6 reveals Israel’s confession – their admission of how badly they misjudged their Messiah. “What we find out here, folks, is really this particular portion of Scripture is Israel’s confession in their misunderstanding of who this Messiah was.”
AN UNREMARKABLE UPBRINGING
Isaiah 53:2 explains their first reason for rejection: “For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground.”
“When you think of someone or a characteristic of someone, you think of like an oak tree that is strong and mighty, and the wind comes and it’s there in strength. But when they saw Jesus, it was like he was just like a little twig. A little twig would be what would be a little shoot off of a tree that you could just walk up and you could just pop it off.”
But it gets worse. Not only was He like a fragile plant, but He grew “like a root out of dry ground.” “We want something fertile. We want this twig to be very promising because it has something that it’s going to grow. But the Bible says that he grew up out of dry ground.”
QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS ORIGIN
This led to the questions people asked: “Can he, the son of the carpenter? Can the arm of the Lord be revealed in him? Can he who dwells hidden, unknown in the humble home in Galilee, can the arm of the Lord be shown in him? Does anything good come out of Nazareth?”
AN UNIMPRESSIVE APPEARANCE
The third strike against Jesus was His physical appearance. Isaiah 53:2 continues: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
“As Americans, we love to see people put together. And there’s an industry where millions and millions, if not billions and billions of dollars is spent on making us look and feel better. But when they looked at Jesus, there was nothing that attracted them to him.”
“He didn’t look like a king. I mean, if we’re going to have someone to follow, he needs a look and he needs to walk and he needs to talk like a king. And they said, not this man.”
The Tragic Results
Isaiah 53:3 reveals the devastating consequences of this rejection: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Here’s what makes this even more tragic: “Do you understand that throughout scriptures everyone and everything acknowledged the Lord when he was here on earth.” Angels announced His birth, magi worshiped Him, Satan knew who He was, “winds and the waves acknowledged Jesus,” fish obeyed Him, and “demons threw themselves down at his feet and acknowledged who he was. Everything acknowledge the Messiah except this nation, the nation of Israel.”
“Christ. It’s interesting that humanity despises what God exalts. They despised him. Humanity turns away from the very one that they need.”
The Mathematical Calculation
The phrase “we esteemed him not” uses “a mathematical term in a sense. If they’re doing a judging and a 10 here and an 8 here and a 7 here, they did all the calculations on Jesus and what they thought of him, and they esteemed him not.” Their conclusion? “This man has nothing to offer.”
Putting It Into Practice
“How about you this morning? How do you esteem the Messiah? How do you evaluate Jesus? Does he have a perfect ten and a 10 and a 10 and a 10? Or do we minimize Him? Do we not value him as we ought to?”
The same tendency that caused Israel to reject their Messiah still exists today. “Those who desire to gain heaven’s favor by doing and earning and working for their salvation, they will be rejected from the God above. See, sometimes we think that we need to add something to what God has already done.”
But remember Jesus’ final words from John 19:30: “It is finished” – tetelestai in Greek. “When Jesus died on the cross and he yelled the words it’s finished, that tells us that he has done everything that we need to be saved.”
Don’t make Israel’s mistake. Don’t let an unremarkable background, humble origins, or unimpressive appearance fool you. “Let’s make sure that Jesus is truly precious in our sight and that we love him. We long to be with him. We worship him. We bow down to Him. We can’t wait to tell other people about him.”
The question remains: Who has believed what they heard? Will you?
Man By The Pool
When You Meet Jesus
The Suffering Servant’s Success
When The Crowd Leaves
Where Are You Really Heading
Look to Christ and Live
We hope you enjoyed the sermon and would love to see you in person. Plan your visit to Community Baptist Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee today!