A Central Truth

Now before this session closes I’d just like to focus for a few moments on Isaiah 53:4–6. We’ll probably not have time to complete this but we’ll begin. All the New Testament writers agree that this is a prediction of Jesus though he’s not named.

Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows [But the correct literal meaning are sicknesses and pains] yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes [or his wounds] we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Now I want to study those verses together with you but I want to take just the remaining minutes of this particular session to analyze the structure of Isaiah. I believe you’ll find it very illuminating.

The prophet Isaiah contains 66 chapters. And by all agreement there is a tremendous break at the end of chapter 39. So it’s divided up into 39 chapters plus 27 chapters. And that, coincidentally, is the number of books in the Old Testament, 39 and in the New Testament, 27.

Now if you take the last 27 chapters of Isaiah, that is, 40 through 66, you’ll find that they fall naturally into three groups of nines. The first group of nine is 40 through 48. The second group of nine is 49 through 57. The third group is 58 through 66. Now what divides them is at the end of each group of nine there is a specific warning of God’s judgment on the wicked. If you turn for a moment to the end of 48, verse 22:

There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.
Then you turn to the end of chapter 57 and it says:
There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

You turn to the end of chapter 66, verse 24:

“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”

Every one of those three sets of nine ends with a specific warning of God’s judgment on the wicked. That’s the dividing line.

So you now take the middle set of nine which is 49–57 and you take the middle chapter. It is which? 53. So 53 is the middle chapter.

Now look for a moment at 53 and you’ll see—and I think almost all Bibles with a verse division will indicate this—it’s made up of four sets of three verses. Verses 1–3, verses 4–6, verses 7–9 and verses 10–12. So you got four sets of three verses.

Now if you go back to the end of chapter 52 you find there are three verses at the end which are an introduction to chapter 53. I’ll read them for a moment. Isaiah 52 beginning at verse 13:

“Behold, my servant . . .”

And that’s the introduction to all that follows. It’s the revelation of God’s servant.

“. . . shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them they shall see; and that which they had not heard they shall consider.”

You’ll see that is, in a way, a kind of summary of 53. It speaks of the humiliation and the suffering of Jesus, the exaltation of Jesus and the cleansing of his sprinkled blood that comes promised. So the last three verses of 52 are the introduction to 53 which contains four sets of three verses.

Now if you add in the end verses of 52 to the four sets of three in 53 you get five sets of three verses. Is that clear? All right. You don’t have to have a computer to work that.

Now if you take five sets, what’s the middle set? Three. All right. So the middle set is verses 4–6. That is the middle of the middle. It’s in the middle of the middle nine, it’s in the middle chapter and it’s in the middle three verses. Now that is no accident. What the Holy Spirit is telling us is here is the center of the revelation of the New Testament. What does it consist in? The substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. And it concludes with verse 6 which we will return to in our next session.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him [that is on his suffering servant revealed in history as Jesus of Nazareth] the iniquity of us all.

So in our next session we’ll go on to consider the full significance of that critical verse, Isaiah 53:6.