Who is the Servant?
The argument is often made that the “servant” of the Servant’s Song is in fact Israel — and the argument is not without weight.
(Isa 41:8-10 ESV) 8 But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; 9 you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; 10 fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
(Isa 44:1-2 ESV) But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! 2 Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
(Isa 44:21-22 ESV) 21 Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. 22 I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.
(Isa 45:4 ESV) 4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.
(Isa 48:20 ESV) 20 Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!”
(Isa 49:3 ESV) 3 And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
If the “servant” of these passages is also the servant of Isaiah 53 — the “Gospel according to Isaiah” — where does Jesus fit in? Take another look and try to imagine that Isaiah 53 speaks of the suffering of Israel as the world’s servant —
(Isa 53:2-12 ESV) 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
6 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. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Were we to interpret this passage as though Israel were the suffering servant, then we’d take Israel’s sufferings at the hands of the Babylonians, Seleucids, and Romans to be sufferings endured for the sins of the world. Israel would have suffered and died and been crushed to “bear the sin of many.”
Wright therefore opts for a dual interpretation: “[Jesus] would turn out to be himself, the Servant, representing the Israel that was called to be the light of the world but had failed so signally in this vocation.” In other words, Israel did indeed suffer at the hands of the nations, and Israel was supposed to demonstrate God’s glory by their faithfulness in the face of such suffering.
But because Israel had failed to be a light to the world, seeking to defeat Rome with the sword rather than by faithfulness, Jesus became the Suffering Servant for Israel and accomplished for Israel the task they failed to finish. As Wright explains in Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2)
And Jesus determined that it was his task and role, his vocation as Israel’s representative, to lose the battle on Israel’s behalf. … He took upon himself the totally and comprehensibly Jewish vocation not only of critique from within; not only of opposition from within; but of suffering the consequences of critique and opposition from within. And, with that, he believed — of course! — that YHWH would vindicate him. That too was comprehensibly Jewish.
Yes, but radically new within that framework, and that in two ways. First, Jesus … had announced and was enacting a programme aimed not at nationalistic victory over the pagans, but at making Israel what she was called to be, namely, the light of the world. … Israel was called, he believed, to be the people of the creator god for the world. …
Unlike [the Maccabees], he saw as pagan corruption the very desire to fight paganism itself. Israel had become a hotbed of nationalist revolution; suffering would come of it, specifically in the form of Roman swords, falling masonry, and above all crosses planted outside the capital city. He would go, as Israel’s representative, and take it upon himself. As in so many of his own parables, he would tell Israel’s well-known story one more time, with a radical and multiply subversive twist in its tail. Only he would tell it, not as wordsmith, swapping aphorisms in the marketplace, but as the king, exiled outside the gate of his own beloved city. …
[The crucifixion] would be the new exodus, the renewal of the covenant, the forgiveness of sins, the end of exile. It would do for Israel what Israel could not do for herself. It would thereby fulfil Israel’s vocation, that she should be the servant people, the light of the world.
(emphasis in original.) Now, this brings us to an astonishing conclusion.
(Rom 11:12-15 ESV) 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! 13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
The trespasses of Israel led to the salvation of the world — because the inability of Israel to be the Suffering Servant of God led to God himself, in the flesh, becoming the Suffering Servant for them. Just as God had passed through Abraham’s trail of blood promising to take on the punishment for Israel’s covenant violations, God himself entered the world to do what Israel could not do.
(Rom 11:17-19 ESV) 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
And this led to the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to bless the nations. They were grafted into Israel. But understand this well: they were grafted into Israel; they do not replace Israel. And being grafted into Israel means becoming a part of Israel. And Israel’s role in this world is to be both a suffering servant as well as a light for the world. They are, in many ways, the same thing.
We are called to follow the example of Jesus, not just because he was a moral man, but because this is the only way God can reign in this world. We are baptized “into” Christ. We become a part of him, and so we suffer and die with him — not just to get to be saved, but to be like him. Salvation is not a free pass to heaven; it’s a transformation into the image of the Suffering Servant.
(Rom 6:17-19 ESV) 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Remember: “righteousness” as applied to God means “covenant faithfulness.” And when we become slaves of righteousness, we agree to honor God’s end of the bargain. We, too, die for the sins of the world — not as an atoning sacrifice, but but to be like Jesus and so to be like God and to fulfill the role God always intended for Israel. There is no other way to be restored to God’s image, because Jesus is God’s image.
(Luk 9:23-24 ESV) 23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
(Rom 6:6-8 ESV) 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
(Gal 2:19-20 ESV) 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
(Gal 6:14 ESV) 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
That’s the dying part. Next comes being a light of the world. Israel was the light of the world. Then Jesus. Now us — as his body. As people baptized into Jesus. As crucified people. We can’t be a light until we’re like the Light.
(John 8:12 ESV) 12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
When Jesus made this declaration, he was claiming to stand in Israel’s shoes. His hearers well knew that Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations. Jesus said he was doing their job for them! And now Jesus calls us to be the new Israel, to also be children of light —
(Mat 5:14-16 ESV) 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
(Phi 2:12-16 ESV) 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
(Eph 5:1-10 ESV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. … 7 Therefore do not become partners with [the sons of disobedience]; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
Ponder this one well. Turn it around in your mind and consider what all the ramifications might be. More in the next post in this series.
