The Suffering Servant of God
Al-Masihu-Isa: The Glory of Jesus the Messiah
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As already pointed out, the Messiah came the first time in relative obscurity. Jesus was a lowly man, living in a small village in Galilee, an insignificant district north of Judea which itself was an unimportant province in the vast Roman Empire. Most of the Jews missed their Messiah because they confused the prophecies of his second coming, which all foretold his eternal glory and rule over God's everlasting kingdom, with those of his first coming which spoke of him as a humble servant destined to suffer reproach and rejection by the masses who would not follow his path of righteousness and holiness.
Throughout the prophecies in the writings of the former prophets there are predictions of his coming sufferings. Indeed, in the very prophecy in which he is called Mashiah, from which the title "Messiah" came, there is a plain statement that he would be struck down in the middle of his course.
And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing. Daniel 9:26
The prediction was quite clear: "mashiah shall be cut off, and shall have nothing." This was a direct warning that the Anointed One of God would be suddenly struck down and killed - a clear reference to the death of Jesus the Messiah on the cross which came quite unexpectedly upon his disciples.
There are many such predictions in the writings (e.g. Jeremiah 11:19, Lamentations 3:30 etc.), but we shall confine ourselves to the three most prominent passages which foretold the coming sufferings of the Messiah. The first is Psalms 22 where the spirit of the Messiah spoke through the prophet David, beginning with a cry of desolation, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Psalms 22:1). These are the exact words that Jesus himself uttered from the cross a millenium later (Matthew 27:46). The promised Messiah himself took these words on his own lips during his hour of trial, so we can see right from the outset that the Psalm is a Messianic prophecy anticipating his sorrows. The prophecy continues:
But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; "He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him." Psalms 22:6-8.
As the prophecy develops we hear the cries of a desolate man being reviled by those around him for his commitment to God. Indeed, as the chief priests stood around the cross after Jesus had duly been nailed to it, they mocked him saying:
"He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God'." Matthew 27:43
This insult was precisely that which was foreseen in Psalms 22:8. The priests seemed to be blissfully unaware that they were reviling him just as the prophecy a thousand years earlier said they would. Right from the outset we see the crucifixion and sufferings of Jesus being foretold in fine detail centuries beforehand. The suffering one goes on to cry in his heart:
Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my bands and feet. I can count all my bones - they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots. Psalms 22:16-18.
He had just cried out that all his bones were out of joint and that his tongue was cleaving to his jaws (Psalms 22:14,15), words which describe precisely those sufferings that a crucified person would undergo in his ordeal. In verse 16 there is a blunt statement, "they have pierced my hands and feet", which can only be a prediction of the crucifixion of the one thus suffering. Crucifixion was only invented some centuries later by the Phoenicians and it is remarkable to find a clear prediction of the crucifixion of the Messiah, his hand and feet duly being pierced, many ages before the form of execution was actually invented.
The last verse contains an unusual riddle. The speaker says that those gloating over him would divide his clothing among themselves and would cast lots for them. This riddle would have confused those who first heard it - were his garments to be split up and divide among the bystanders or were lots to be cast for them? It is only in the story of the crucifixion of Jesus that the riddle is solved. We read:
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be." John 19:23-24.
The garments of Jesus were duly divided among the soldiers but, as his tunic had no seam, lots for it we cast alone. The Gospel writer had no hesitation in stating that this incident fulfilled Psalms 22:18 to the very finest detail of its contents (John 19:24). We therefore see that the suffering of the Messiah, through which he would be "cut off", was clearly predicted to be by crucifixion and that its attendant events were foretold in fine detail.
Psalms 69 is a similar Messianic prophecy of the great prophet David. Agonising like a man suffocating in deep waters the same man cries: "I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched" (Psalms 69:3). He continues:
More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Psalms 69:4
On the night before his crucifixion Jesus plainly told his disciples that this very prediction in their prophetic writings was about to be fulfilled in him (John 15:25). As he had done with Psalms 22, Jesus deliberately applied the sufferings of the despised one in Psalms 69 to himself. The theme is so similar to that in Psalms 22 as we see in this cry:
For it is for thy sake that I have born reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brethren, an alien to my mother's sons. For zeal for thy house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me. Psalms 69:7-9.
The first part of verse 9 is also directly applied to Jesus in the Christian scriptures (John 2:17) and in the following section, which likewise speaks of the agonies and desolation of the suffering Messiah, another point of detail occurs which was fulfilled at the crucifixion as it had been foretold.
I looked for pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Psalms 69:20-21.
When Jesus cried out "I thirst" shortly before he expired on the cross (John 19:28), the bystanders took a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink (John 19:29). Once again we have a prophetic text written centuries before the crucifixion of Jesus which foretold his sufferings and the events around it in fine detail.
Our last passage not only predicts the sufferings of the coming Messiah but also gives the full reason for them, namely that he would suffer that others might be healed and die that others might live. It comes from the prophet Isaiah who lived some centuries before Jesus was born and begins:
Behold my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. As many were astonished at him - his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the sons of men - so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand. Isaiah 52:13-15.
The text contains clear predictions of the coming glory of the Messiah at his second advent, but in between these promises of his ultimate exaltation comes a clear warning of his rejection and suffering at his first advent - "his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance". The prophecy contains an unambiguous declaration that he would have no apparent honour at his first coming and would generally be overlooked and rejected by his people:
He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:2-3.
Almost immediately after this, however, comes a clear prediction of the atoning character of his sufferings. In this Jewish scripture written some six centuries before the coming of Jesus we find his crucifixion foreshadowed, not as a defeat, but as the means by which many would be saved:
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, be was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6.
These words clearly show that the great chosen servant of God, the long-awaited Messiah, would have the sins of the world placed on him in his hour of trial and that he would die that others might live. "Stricken for the transgression of my people" (Isaiah 53:8) he would be, dying for the sins of those he was suffering to save. Once again we not only find the sufferings of the Messiah foretold but also attendant events which were fulfilled to the letter. The next verse states:
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death. Isaiah 53:9.
Here again we have a riddle - how could a man be buried with honour among the wealthy if his grave was prepared among the wicked? In the crucifixion of Jesus we have a perfect answer. All Jews put to death by crucifixion were, upon their demise, cast into a large pit reserved only for criminals. But when Jesus died, a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea came and took the body of Jesus and buried it is his own tomb which he had hewn out of a rock (Matthew 27:60). The prophecy continues with a similar detail: "he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:12). As with Psalms 22 and Psalms 69, Jesus directly applied this prediction (and thus the whole prophecy) to himself the night before he was crucified, saying to his disciples as he sat at table with them:
"For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, 'And he was reckoned with transgressor for what is written about me has its fulfillment." Luke 22:37.
We see quite plainly, therefore, that the prophets of old foretold that the coming Messiah would suffer and die for the sins of the world at his first coming and, to give substance to their predictions, they recorded fine detail events surrounding the climactic hour of desolation to come upon him, all of which were duly fulfilled in the crucifixion of Jesus. These great prophecies, made and recorded centuries before his coming, are incontrovertible proofs that Jesus the Messiah came not simply as a prophet to teach the people but as God's anointed Saviour to save them from their sins.