The Atonement Part 4: Isaiah 53 & The Suffering Servant

3 views: 

•   PSA view of bearing sin and wrath. Sees this as a direct prophecy about the Messiah 

•  Historical view sees the servant as Israel as it is defined elsewhere in Isaiah. 

• The context is about Israel, Christ is the fulfillment of Israel. We only use this text in the way the NT writers apply it and nothing further.   

LXX (Septuagint)  

•When it comes to Isaiah 53 when it is quoted in the NT it shows that God is not killing the servant, but people are. God heals the servant. 

•Usually, the best practice is to go with the oldest manuscript (LXX here) for interpretation

Context 

•Exile: The historical situation and canonical context of Isaiah—exile—suggests a background, that of a people burdened under the weight of their own iniquity and bearing the wounds of their own transgressions. Isaiah understood Israel’s exile in Babylon as the consequence of the nation’s sins (Deut 4:25–31; 28:15–68; 2 Kgs 23:26–27; 24:3–4, 19–20; Is 1; 40:1–2; 42:24). 

•Now, were the Servant’s death a penal substitution, he would suffer in place of the people and dies to pay the penalty for their sins. We would expect that the people for whom he suffers, and dies would not be suffering the consequences of their own sins (by the logic of substitution, those consequences would be transferred to the Servant instead, sparing the people the suffering they deserve). Therefore, we would expect the Servant to suffer exile in place of the people. To the contrary, the people do suffer exile for their owns sins, which reveals God’s judgment upon his people. And having suffered exile as the consequence of their own sin, the people need redemption by God from the captivity into which their own sin has delivered them (Is 42:18–25; 43:25–28; 49:13, 24–26; 50:1; 51:21–23).

Takeaways from Isaiah 53: 

•“For our transgressions” is “on account of” or “because of”, not “in place of” based on the language (min and dia). Representation and not substitution. •The context is about exile. The servant enters into their exile in order to heal them (this is bearing their sin). 

•The LXX writers also seem to notice this as it has God removed from the actions against the Servant where the MT makes that a little muddier. •There is no mention of propitiating the wrath of God in the context. This must be read into the passage 

•We need to be aware of the before and after perspective in the chapter. The before perspective is deemed incorrect based on the grammar and context. When the people look back on the servant, they see that their POV was incorrect about God punishing the servant. That was their POV and not reality. 

•The guilt offering Is about repairing relationships and has no penal aspect to it in the sacrificial system. This is applied more to the life of the servant than the death in the context. 

•God and the servant are not pitted against each other. There is no wrath against the servant, there is no rupture in the Trinity. 

•The NT writers never apply Isaiah 53 in a context of PSA when quoting it. It’s usually more a Recapitulation, Scapegoat, or Moral Influence Theory with a hint of Exodus motif (Christus Victor- healing of demons [Matt 8]), but never PSA.