One of the most powerful lessons of the OT is its emphasis on humiliation and exaltation. Over and over, you see God “humbling” his people – not always because of their sin! – sometimes it is simply to show them that the way of suffering is the only way to glory.
Think of Job. He was blameless and upright, a man who feared God and turned away from evil. But what happened? God asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?” In other words, God was the one who “set Job up” – in order to demonstrate the righteousness of his servant.
That’s what Isaiah speaks of in Isaiah 52-53. Normally we think of the prophets emphasizing the guilt of Israel – and they do! But here, Isaiah says that it is the innocent servant of the LORD who must suffer.
Because if the guilty deserve judgment, then the only way for God to be just and the justifier of the ungodly, is if the innocent suffers on behalf of the guilty.
But if God destroyed the innocent on behalf of the guilty, then how can God be just?
That’s why Isaiah begins to see that it is only if God takes our guilt upon himself that he can be just and the justifier of the ungodly....
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