"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." (Isa.53 7).

In all His sufferings the Saviour never offered a word of complaint. That is the thought behind "opened not his mouth". Jesus said so often emphatically that He came to do His Father's will, without protest or unwillingness. There was no shadow of impatience or reluctance, no whisper of complaint or question. His meat was to do the will of the One who had sent Him and to finish His work. Nothing else mattered. That is a lesson for ourselves. Too often we accept with thanksgiving and gladness the sunshine and flowers of the Christian way, but directly the shadow of adversity falls across our pathway we grumble and complain.

We so need to prepare ourselves in the sunny days, that if in His providence, dark and stormy come, we take those seasons of adversity in just the same thankful and loyal spirit in which we formerly received the good things. Not all of God's children are oppressed and afflicted for their faith. Few of us have suffered as our forbears or as some of our brethren do now in other lands. We do well to be humbly thankful that our Master has seen fit to withhold such experiences from us. We must be ready to bear without complaint, without opening our mouths, if such things come. If we tend to become impatient and quarrelsome with each other, we must learn how to endure the harder things of the Christian life without opening our mouths.

This prophetic picture of one brought as a lamb to the slaughter is the basis upon which the entire later picture of Jesus as the "Lamb of God", the Lamb "slain from the foundation of the world", is built. Isaiah's words here are taken from the Passover sacrifice, the lamb that was slain to become the symbol of deliverance from Egypt. Grammatically the phrase should be translated "He is brought as the lamb to the slaughter," and it is a reference, not to any lamb taken to slaughter, but to the Passover lamb itself, slaughtered so that Israel could be delivered. Without the blood of that lamb on the portals and lintels of their houses there could be no salvation. Without the Divine acceptance of that sacrifice there could be no call to come out of Egypt and meet with God before the holy mount. Without the outward evidence that the Lamb had been slain, the destroying angel had no mandate to withdraw his sword. . It was supremely important for every Israelite that he not only trusted in the blood of the slain lamb but that he made a public exhibition of the fact on the door-posts and lintels of his house so that the angel could see it. So we should heed the exhortation to be his witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth and confess Jesus before men.

It is even more important that in the privacy and sanctity of our homes we confess Jesus before God. Our knowledge of the Divine plan will not save us; nor will our wonderful works; and our profession of consecration before God will not be accounted of any worth, if we have not accepted and confessed Jesus the Son of God, the Saviour of us all.

That confession needs to be of Jesus the despised and rejected, the oppressed and afflicted. It is not sufficient to own Him only when He appears as the chief among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely, or when He is seen a King, mighty to save, travelling in the greatness of His strength. These things are true of Jesus but for the present He is still despised and rejected of men, and the servant is not to be greater than his Lord.

Our continual rejoicing should find outward expression. We should be pleasant and cheerful with everyone. But these do not necessarily denote a true follower of the Master. There is sorrow and sadness for the sin and misery of mankind in the Christian life, ‑ and they become an evidence of the "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" (Col. 1.24) ‑ as well as joy in the Gospel which is the possession of us all. Shoulders bowed with other people's burdens, and health and vitality given in the service of others is evidence that we walk "as He walked" and are pouring out our lives to death as He did. This modern world takes little heed of such. We do well to remember that we are followers of the One who went quietly, silently but resolutely, as the lamb to the slaughter.

"He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken." (v 8). This is a description of the trial, death and burial of Christ, written some seven hundred years before the event. It is impossible to read vv 7- 9 without noting how accurately the prophecy was fulfilled in history. His passive acceptance of arrest; His silence before the judges; the injustice of His trial are all here. The sentence and execution, innocent though He was of any crime, and the burial of His body in the tomb of the rich Joseph of Arimathea, are accurately foreshown in this remarkable prophecy. Unbelievers have been hard put to it to explain this chapter away. There is no way of accounting for it but by admitting that the words were given by One who has the power to see into the future

Perhaps here and there a loyal heart, grappling with the problem of this tragedy which had shattered all their hopes, began to wonder if, after all, the story was indeed finished, whether the last three verses of Isaiah 53 yet remained to be fulfilled in some wonderful manner that would reverse the entire position and turn their sorrow into joy.

There remained now only one last prophecy of dark things to be fulfilled before the tide was to turn and the meaning of all things be made plain. "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth."(v 9) but after that the world was to see the salvation of God.

This word was literally fulfilled when Jesus was buried in the tomb of the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea. That is a surface interpretation which can be accepted as true since so many of the Old Testament prophecies are declared by the Apostles to have been literally fulfilled in the experiences of our Lord. But there is more to it. The sublime words of Isa.53 contain a deeper theme than the burial of the Lord's body in a particular tomb. The expression is really a continuation of the theme that runs through the chapter from verse one. It tells of the apparently inexplicable and yet undeniable fact that the Lord of all righteousness, spotless in his unblemished purity, became so identified with sin and sinners that in the end He suffered and died and was buried just like the grossest of sinners. No penalty that men could visit upon evil and evildoers was wanting in his case—who knew no sin. The Old Testament abounds with assurances of Divine favour and watch care exercised toward the righteous, but none of that was extended towards Him. He suffered as though He was the vilest of sinners and He died as though He were not fit to live. He was cut off from the land of the living. One assigned or appointed for him a grave with the wicked; that is the literal meaning of the first phrase of the verse. He was appointed to that destiny. In the sight of men He was as the evil king of Isa.14 who is "cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch..., thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet". That was the viewpoint from which the world looked upon Jesus and the people of His day were as little concerned about Him after His death as they were over the bodies of criminals thrown into the fires of Gehenna, the burning valley.

The Father took a different view. "The wages of sin is death" says the Divine law and although in the sight of men this one had gone into death like the wicked and with the wicked, He did not remain in death. "It was not possible for him to be held by it" says the Apostle. The Father gave testimony to the righteousness of the Son by raising Him from the dead. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but that grave did not hold him, because He Himself is righteous.

The people had treated Him with the same contempt as did their ancestors to Uriah the prophet in the days of Jeremiah when they "cast his dead body into the graves of the common people" (Jer.26.23) So they thought to make an end of Jesus and His inconvenient teachings. So man proposed, and God disposed, and on the third day the stone was rolled back and the Lord of Glory came forth.

The expression "with the rich in his death" looks beyond the literal fact of Joseph of Arimathea's tomb and the costly spices and fine linen in which the Lord's body was enshrouded. That may very well have been the immediate fulfilment but there is something more fundamental. The Scriptures refer several times to the fact that even the rich man—in the riches of this world—must eventually leave everything behind and go down into the land of forgetfulness. "If his children are multiplied" says Job "it is for the sword; and his offspring have not enough to eat. Those who survive him the pestilence buries; ...Though he heap up silver like dust, and pile up clothing like clay; he may pile it up, but the just shall wear, it, and the innocent will divide the silver… The east wind lifts him up and he is gone, (Job 27.14-19). Psa.49.6-9 is similar. Despite his riches, he lies down in death and is forgotten. To the world it seemed that the death of Jesus was like that. True, He had not accumulated earthly riches, but it seemed equally true that all He had striven for during His lifetime had been wasted. He died without having achieved His purpose. "We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel" said the two disciples sadly on the road to Emmaus. They had expected, but now all hope was gone and His life was as if it had never been spent. In that sense He made His grave with the rich, in His death, the fruits of His life's endeavour dissipated to the four winds and He Himself, lying, like all men of all preceding generations, lifeless in the grave.

(To be concluded)

TH