Aug 18
5
“Behold My Servant”
Isaiah 42:1-3
Behold him with the eye of faith. To behold him is to trust him. Behold him with an admiring heart. To behold the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Scriptures is to admire him. Behold him whatever your need is. Whatever your soul needs you will obtain as you behold the Son of God. Behold him with grateful memory. “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!” As all God’s saints in the Old Testament beheld him in expectation, let us now behold him in holy remembrance.
BEHOLD CHRIST’S GREAT HUMILIATION. Though our Savior is himself the Son of God, in every way equal to the Father, he took on him the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil.2:5-8).He came into this world to do his Father’s will. As our covenant Head and Representative he voluntarily subjected himself to the will, work, and law of his Father to save his people (Heb. 10:5-14). In doing so, he both saved us and gave us an example to follow. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” God calls his Son, “mine Elect.” God the Father saw his Son as the only one suitable for and able to perform the work of redemption and chose him to do it. The humanity of Christ was chosen,ordained, and sanctified by God the Father for the purpose of saving his people.The words, “whom I uphold,” might be translated, “upon whom I lean.” The triune God placed complete confidence in the God-man as the Surety and Savior of all the elect. Christ alone is the One of whom God says, “in him my soul delighteth.”He is delighted with Christ from eternity (Prov. 8:24-30), in his life of obedience (Matt. 3:17;17:5), and in his sacrifice (Eph. 5:2). And he is delighted with us in Christ (Eph.1:6;I Pet. 2:5).
BEHOLD THE WORK CHRIST CAME TO PERFORM. “He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” The word “judgment” means “righteousness”.Christ came into this world to bring righteousness and salvation to God’s elect scattered among the nations of the world. He has done this by magnifying and honoring the law (v. 21). By his obedience to the law he magnified it. By his death he satisfied the penalty of the law for his people and made it honorable, so that God might be both just and the Justifier of chosen sinners. Even now Christ brings forth judgment (righteousness and salvation) to his elect by the preaching of the gospel (Rom. 1:15-17).
Don Fortner