“But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush Him and cause Him grief.
Yet when His life is made an offering for sin, He will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life, and the LORD’s good plan will prosper in His hands.
When He sees all that is accomplished by His anguish, He will be satisfied.
And because of His experience, My righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous, for He will bear all their sins.
I will give Him the honors of a victorious soldier, because He exposed Himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.”
- Isaiah 53:10-12
In our journey through the Suffering Servant passage, we have explored how Jesus was the Man of Sorrows, one who was acquainted with every bit of grief that we experience. Then, speaking of our experiences, we took a deep dive into our fragility, seeing why every bit of us needs redemption. Then last week we saw Jesus as a Righteous Criminal, who was truly innocent but in our fragile eyes, we pinned to the cross. This week the Suffering Servant text is wrapped up with a big victory!
God’s Redemptive Plan:
All the verses that proceed 10 are clarified now as part of God’s good plan to cause Jesus this grief. The Son needing to suffer is part of a good plan? Couldn’t God just snap His fingers and made it impossible for evil and sin to happen?
It’s important to remember that God created with His power but out of His love. Sure, God is all-powerful and the originator of all could have done anything. Yet, God knew what He wanted to be about, and that was genuine love and goodness. If we are to genuinely love God and worship Him, being in an endless relationship with Him, we have to have the opportunity to genuinely despise and rebel against God. This meant that evil was going to wave its head in the garden at some point and bring about our fragility.
Further, if we are ever going to be truly free of such fragility again, it must require genuine love and return to God. Of which, we see Israel be called to it, worship for it, and fail at it. Hence the great need for Jesus, the only man who could ever fulfill these plans because He is also God. Jesus is the only one who could see these good plans into fruition.
It’s through His suffering and fulfillment of God’s plan and love that we can be counted as sons and daughters of God. Having been adopted into God’s family, nothing can easily pluck us away ever again. Jesus, whose life on earth was cut short and without descendants, then gets to live with those who believe as His brothers and sisters forever.
Imputed Righteousness:
We are not only made sons and daughters because of Jesus’ death on the cross. Adoption is great, but His death on the cross also enables us to become like Him, it allows us to be counted as righteous despite all our fragility.
All His anguish and suffering He sees as worth it and the work satisfies Him. Think about the woman Jesus met at the well in John 4. After she goes off overjoyed but the good news of Jesus being the Messiah who redeemed even her, a sinful Samaritan woman, the disciples walk up confused. They offer Jesus some food, but He declines because He was satisfied. He was satisfied not by food or water but by the joy and righteousness that was added to the woman.
In becoming man, taking on all our fragile nature, He was able to restore and perfect every bit of it, making it righteous by His righteousness. This is a key part of God’s Redemptive Plan that we cannot forget about. Most who question why Jesus had to die a brutal death tend to forget that after the fall we are inherently fragile and broken, meaning we aren’t good and fit to be in a relationship with God. Through Jesus’ sacrifice and redeeming of human nature, His righteousness becomes our righteousness. All of our sins, He destroyed and forgave.
Christus Victor:
Not only, are we adopted into the family of God, and not only are we made righteous via Christ’s righteousness; but we are further under the ultimate rebel soldier who defeated death and wickedness of the world. This is Christus Victor, Christ our victor.
It may help to jump back to Isaiah 52. Part of that chapter is describing a Jerusalem that is sitting in shambles and awaiting the return of their God from battle. This was a common religious narrative in the ancient world, one group's god going to war with another to protect the people. Then in verse 7, a messenger comes running along the mountains with the good news that God had won the battle, a war against another nation to restore His people under His reign. This is Jesus, the victorious soldier.
Who did Jesus fight? Liberals? Conservatives? My group's enemy? No. Jesus came and fought against the powers of sin and death, a war not against flesh and blood but a rebellion against the powers of the world that no human controls. Christus Victor is about a war we never tried fighting because we have always been too busy since Cain and Abel fought against flesh and blood. My Christus Victor is not against humanity, but for humanity against the powers of sin and death.
Final Blessing:
What’s so beautiful about this text as we look to Christmas is that all are present in the manger. Jesus, though merely a baby, was the one who would adopt all who may believe into God’s family. Though appearing like any one of us, He was righteousness, unlike all others. Though laying silently in the hay, He was a rebel against the powers of death ready to free and win humanity from its clutches. This is our Christus Victor, who in a few short days we will celebrate His birth.
Now may the Lord of Life and Redemption be with you in every step, every breathe, and every heartbeat of your journey.
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