# “The severe hammer-blow of justice cleft open the fissure through which heavenly mercy would flow” by L. Michael Morales

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2020/12/18/the-severe-hammer-blow-of-justice-cleft-open-the-fissure-through-which-heavenly-mercy-would-flow-by-l-michael-morales/
- Published: 2020-12-18T12:30:12-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“Coming to the fourth song (**Isaiah 52:13-53:12**), we enter through the veil of
divine mystery and onto hallowed ground– we behold the Servant led like a lamb to
the slaughter, despised by men and crushed by Yahweh. Here the eternal plans of 
divine wisdom– infinitely vast– for the redemption of Israel and the nations unfold,
like so many rungs of a celestial ladder unrolling down onto the earth-and-dust 
of human history.

While **Isaiah 49-52** resounds with the anticipation of Israel’s salvation, and**
Isaiah 54-55** comprises a divine invitation for people to participate in Yahweh’s
salvation, **Isaiah 53** forms the bridge from anticipation to invitation. This 
Servant song sets forth the _means _of redemption, the unexpected, divinely orchestrated
way of humanity’s restoration to God– namely atonement through the sacrificial suffering
of the Servant of Yahweh.

Structurally, the song has five stanzas, beginning and ending with the Servant’s
exaltation. Enveloped by this frame his rejection is described, with the heart and
center of the poem unfolding the significance of the Servant’s suffering (**Isaiah
53:4-6**). ‘My Servant,’ Yahweh declares in the song’s opening verse, ‘will be high
and lifted up and very exalted,’ using terms of glory by way of contrast to the 
depths of lowliness His Servant has endured.

In the last stanza the Servant’s exaltation is presented as his seeing his offspring,
obtaining life, and succeeding in his mission, with Yahweh’s will prospering in 
his hand. After his suffering, death, and burial, he is raised up, living and victorious,
and ‘will divide the spoil’ with the strong.

The Servant, therefore, fulfills the hope prophesied of the Messiah earlier in Isaiah,
when the people are said to rejoice as when they ‘divide the spoil,’ a joy ushered
in with the kingdom of the child who is born for us, the son who is given for us(**
Isaiah 9:3, 6**). What a son given _for us_ means finds an awe-inspiring answer 
in this fourth song.

The Servant’s rejection and suffering is described with language both unrelentingly
brutal and intensely sympathetic, describing him as despised and rejected, acquainted
with grief, a man of sorrows who was smitten, stricken, afflicted, wounded, and 
bruised, who bore chastisement and was lacerated with stripes.

Surprisingly, aside from the Servant’s rejection by people, the ultimate actor against
the Servant– the one who planned the smiting, afflicting, wounding, and striking–
is none other than Yahweh God Himself, for it was ‘the will of Yahweh to crush him,
to make him grief-stricken’ (**Isaiah 53:10**).

Nevertheless, the Servant was thoroughly rejected by many among Israel. Yahweh had
judged Israel for its rebellion, hardening the people in their blindness and deafness(**
Isaiah 6:10**) so that the Servant’s rejection is understood as an outworking of
Israel’s own spiritual blindness (**Isaiah 53:1**) but also as the ordained means
for Israel’s remedy.

God’s own judgment on Israel, having given them over to their willful blindness,
led to the despising and abuse of the Servant, which in turn opened up the channel
of divine forgiveness of Israel.

The severe hammer-blow of justice cleft open the fissure through which heavenly 
mercy would flow, for the Servant is God’s own sacrificial provision, the promised
Lamb of God given as Abraham’s seed, Israel.

Just here it is crucial to understand how the Servant as new Israel relates to his
servants as the renewed Israel. Aside from Yahweh’s speeches in the frame, the fourth
song is written from the later perspective of this renewed Israel.

We hear, as it were, the confession of Israelites who had once despised and rejected
this Servant, assuming him damned of God. They have since discovered to their shock
that this same one, from whom they had hidden their faces, has been exalted, vindicated,
and set forth by Yahweh as His faithful Servant, the One through whom Israel would
be raised up– even the speed of Abraham through whom the nations would be restored
finally to God.

That is the incredible proclamation of the central stanza as it unfolds the significance
of the Servant’s life (**Isaiah 53:4-6**). With the awe-filled understanding of 
hindsight, through the lens of the Servant’s divine vindication and exaltation, 
these Israelites turn their faces to look once more, fully on the sufferings of 
the despised One.

Healed of their blindness by the Servant’s exaltation, they are enabled now to see
clearly the wonders of Yahweh’s profound wisdom and provision: it was, in fact, 
_our _sorrows that he bore, it was for _our _transgressions that He was wounded!

Although we had all gone astray, each one of us to his own way, yet Yahweh has laid
on him all our iniquity. The scorned Servant was actually born for us; he was the
Son given for us.

No mere substitution, the Servant dies for Israel to die with him; he is raised 
up for Israel to be raised up with him– herein lies the _crux _of Zion’s transformation.”

–L. Michael Morales, [_Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0830855394?tag=toletaupanre-20)(
Essential Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 
141-143.

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