A Servant Saving a Servant

Observations From My Study (Isaiah 42:1-43:7)

This section of Isaiah talks a lot about the servant of God. But a close reading shows that there is more than one servant in view here.

First, read 42:1:

Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
     my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
     he will bring forth justice to the nations

This servant sounds pretty great, huh? He is indwelled with the Spirit of God and will bring justice to all. What could be better?

But read later in the chapter:

Hear, you deaf,
     and look, you blind, that you may see!
Who is blind but my servant,
     or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated one,
     or blind as the servant of the LORD? (Isaiah 42:18, 19)

This doesn't sound at all like the glorious servant from earlier in the chapter. He is blind and deaf; he can't follow the Lord. The two passages simply cannot be referring to the same servant.

The context reveals this for certain. We discover in later verses that this second servant needs redemption. In contrast, the first servant comes to bring redemption. This first servant, as the New Testament reveals (Matt. 12:28-30), is none other than Jesus himself. Jesus became a servant to save God's fallen servant, Israel. Jesus is really the ideal Israel who fulfilled that which Israel could not fulfill and obeyed the Father in her place that she may be redeemed.

I think the best way to end this is with Paul's passage to the Philippians addressing that very topic:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)