Well, sometimes in a book you have an appendix and usually an appendix relates directly back to the contents of the book, but it's sort of an ancillary thing to it. And so I'd sort of like to do something like that with an appendix to Dr. Barrett's Theology of Isaiah. He's dealing right now with the servant going through Jesus Christ as the servant and the servant songs going through those four songs. And he's on, I think, the fourth song in Isaiah 53 now. So what I would like to talk about is the identification of the servant in Isaiah. It's not a very simple issue. It's actually a very complex issue. And I think that as we look at some things, we're going to see that there's a real problem with the identification of the servant. But at the same time, we'll see that there is very definitely a solution to that problem. And I think the solution will be a great blessing to us. So I'd like us to look in Isaiah, and I want you to recognize what this difficulty is that we have. By the way, I want to say that God intentionally has put difficulties in the Bible for several reasons. One of those reasons, I think, is to confound those who do not want to believe. And that happens. We'll see that. But also it is to give a blessing to those who are diligent and will really seek and and search the scriptures to understand what God is saying. I think we'll see that, too. So look in Isaiah. Just I'm going to read several verses and I want to show you two things. I want to show you that the servant in Isaiah is both an individual and a corporate group, a a a multiple group of people, like, for example, a nation, the nation of Israel. When I talk about this problem, we're dealing with the chapters between 40 and 53. All the four servant songs that Dr. Barrett is going through, 42, 49, 50, and 53, all of those are in this section. And this section, Isaiah is continually referring to the servant in the singular. There is the latter half of the book from the latter section from chapter 54 on to the end of 66. There we have the word servant, but it's always in the plural servants. And it's always referring to God's faithful remnant of people within Israel who are faithful to the word of God and to his truth. So we're dealing here when we talk about the servant with that section from 40 to 53, which covers these four servant songs Dr. Barrett's going through. So look at, first of all, the nation of Israel we're going to see in chapter 41, verses 8 and 9. Isaiah says, but that God is speaking here, but thou Israel are my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend. And in down in verse 9, the end of it, he says, Thou art my servant. I have chosen thee and not cast thee away. It's very clear in this context that he's referring to the nation of Israel, the people of God as a body of people. Look at chapter 49. And look first, I'm sorry, look first at chapter 43 in verse 10, 43 in verse 10. He's speaking to the plural, the people of Israel, and he says, ye, plural, are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, or we could translate that, even my servant, whom I have chosen, in order that ye may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. So he speaks to the people, he says, they, plural, are identified also with the servant. 44 and verse one. Yet now here, oh, Jacob, my servant and Israel, whom I have chosen and verse two, the Lord that may be informed the from the womb, which will help the by the way, that's all singular. You notice the fear not. Oh, Jacob, my servant and Val just Sharon, whom I have chosen, and he's referring to the nation there. Look at verse 21. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant, I have formed thee, thou art my servant, O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. And then in the next verse, he talks about their sins and their transgressions, that he's redeemed the nation of Israel. OK, that's a important verse to remember, the sin of the nation, look at verse 26. that confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers, and saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited, and so forth. Look at chapter 45 and verse 4. For Jacob my servant's sake, for Israel mine elect, I have called thee by thy name, I have surnamed thee Though thou has not known me, and there he's speaking of Cyrus, that last phrase. But the first part about Jacob, my servant, Israel, mine elect. And then look at chapter 48 in verse 20. Go you forth of Babylon, speaking to the nation, the plural, the ye there is plural. Flee ye from the Chaldeans with a voice of singing, declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth. Say, the Lord has redeemed his servant, Jacob. So clearly, the nation of Israel is identified as the servant, the nation of Israel. But and I'm not going to go through all of these because Dr. Barrett's already gone through it and it's very clear. If you look in chapter forty nine, for example, let's just look at maybe one reference. Forty two in verse one, one of the servant songs. He starts off and he says, Behold, my servant whom I uphold, mine elect. Sounds like the nation of Israel. Same terminology. My chosen, my elect. And he's referring to who? The nation? No. He says, I put my spirit upon him. And you go all the way through this servant song and it's very clear there he's talking about one individual. And when you get to Isaiah 53, you have the individual servant. suffering for the sins of the entire nation. So how can the servant be the nation and suffer for its own sins? There's a problem there. Well, anyway, the problem is clear. I want us to look at some of the solutions that have been given by various people or attempts. What you will find, especially among Jewish rabbis and so forth, is that they will say that the nation of Israel is the servant throughout all context. You say, how do they say that? How in the world can you have the nation of Israel as the servants, clearly an individual? Well, they would say, they would come to Isaiah 53, and they would say there that the nation has suffered itself because of things like even in modern day and Hitler's time and so forth. But even in the Old Testament, they would say that the nation suffered because of the Babylonian captivity and because of the various persecutions that came. And so it was suffering on behalf of the nation. Others would say that the servant there is talking about just a remnant, just a faithful remnant within that nation and that the faithful remnant suffered on behalf of the rest of the nation. Some have said, some scholars, liberal scholars and so forth, some have said it's the prophets. He's talking about the prophets. Others have said it's the Davidic dynasties, the kings. Others have said it's the priesthood. Well, we have all these various views about collective bodies of people who are identified as the servant. And then others have said in every context, it's an individual, it's one person. Some say it's a Jeremiah, because remember how much Jeremiah suffered or someone say it's Isaiah himself, that he's speaking of himself. And in chapter 53, Isaiah is the one suffering or other prophets. There's been so many. Moses has been proposed. Cyrus is a major one. Hezekiah, Uzziah, Zerubbabel, Eliezer, Jehoiachin, another second Moses, Ezekiel, or the wise ones of Daniel chapter 12. Jewish rabbis have said Jeremiah, Josiah, Hezekiah, or Job. So we've got all these different views. All kinds of stuff, right? Others have dealt with the problem and said that Well, it varies back and forth. It's an unknown teacher. It's some ideal prophet. It's the ideal Israel. There's all these different views. Some even divide up the songs into different people. Now, what I want to say here is that you notice I'm showing you all kinds of various views, all kinds of diverse things. The reason why there's those diverse views and why there's all kinds of people saying all kinds of different things is because If you don't understand and believe the Bible, you cannot get to the truth. You're going to come up with all these different theories, and they're going to disagree with each other. And that's what's happened. That's why there's no agreement among liberal and Jewish rabbis and these other scholars who deal with the problem, because they cannot accept the truth of Scripture. Therefore, they make a problem that cannot be resolved, and they constantly disagree with each other. Now, in pursuit of the truth here, I want us to look at some key texts because what I think that we're going to find is some clues within the text itself that will tell us who this servant is and how to reconcile the problem. Is it one person? Is it many people? Is it a nation? And who is the servant? So there's about five key texts I want us to look at. Look first of all at Isaiah 49. This is in the servant song that Dr. Barrett dealt with several weeks ago, the second song. And this is the one I think, if I remember correctly, talked about the the Isaiah, the servant of Isaiah as Christ being the prophet, the ideal prophet who speaks for the for the Lord. In the middle of Psalm number 2, in chapter 49, it says in verse 3, speaking to, this is God the Father, this is Jehovah, speaking to Jesus Christ the Messiah, and he says, verse 3, and he said to me, Thou art my servant, O Israel. He refers to him as Israel. He refers to Jesus the Messiah as Israel, in whom I will be glorified, he says. Now, by the way, I got into a discussion with this with someone, some liberal scholar. She teaches up at the University of Michigan. And she she said that, well, Israel doesn't make any sense here. So I'm going to cut it from the text and I'm going to say that some later editor went and put it in there. They have no basis for that. There's no text that has there's no textual basis for that. They just say that because they don't want to accept it. They don't think it doesn't make sense in their mind. And therefore, because they cannot understand it. They will change the text of the scripture to make it agree with what they think. And so I pointed out the fact that there was no text for it. And she said, well, I know, but, you know, she just wanted to change it because it didn't make any sense to her. Anyway, you see here, the servant Jesus Christ is referred to as Israel. That's very significant. Jesus Christ is referred to as Israel. Keep that in your mind and we'll come back to it later. Look now at chapter 43 in verse 10. If you go on, by the way, and look at those next few verses, verses 5 and 6, he clearly identifies Jesus as the servant there. And he says that the servant will bring back Jacob. So the servant is distinct from Israel in that context as well. Look at 43 in verse 10. These next two passages, there's one thing in particular that I want you to notice, and that is the change between the singular and the plural in the same verse. He changes from the singular to the plural or from the plural to the singular, from the many to the one. OK? Ye are my witnesses, speaking to the people of Israel. Ye are my witnesses, plural, saith the Lord, and my servant, singular, whom I have chosen. In order that, for the purpose that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. By the way, a very Calvinistic verse. God has chosen the people of Israel for what purpose? That they may know and believe in the Lord. He chose them so that they would know him, so that they would believe him. But anyway, that's an aside. The point is that I want to get at, ye are my witnesses, even my servant. The servant singular is equivalent to the witnesses plural. OK, so God is saying in his word that there can be an equivalence between the singular and the plural. That's all the only point I want to make here, the singular and the plural, the one servant and the plural witnesses. They can be the same thing. They can be the same thing. Now, look at chapter 44 and verse 26. This is speaking of, it's the Lord speaking here, and Jehovah in verse 24, Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord Jehovah that maketh all things and that stretcheth forth to heavens alone and that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself. And in verse 25, he's talking about the false doctrine, the false visions of people's own mind. They come from themselves. He says he's going to refute that and make it foolish. And then verse 26 is the true prophecy, the true word of God. Verse 26. So I am Jehovah who or that confirmeth the word of his servants and that performeth the counsel of his messengers that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited and so forth. The Lord confirms the word of his servants and performs the counsel of his messengers. This is what we call In Hebrew, it's synonymous parallelism. All that means is that he's using two phrases exactly the same to mean, to indicate the same thing. Now look here. God confirms, and look down, God performs. He confirms what? He confirms the Word. He performs what? He performs the counsel. The Word of who? The Word of his servant, singular, The council of who? The council of his messengers, plural. The messengers and the servant is the same thing. The singular and the plural can refer to the same thing. It's a clue to us that the singular servant and the plural people of the nation can be referred to and should be referred to and thought of under the same term as the servant of God. Now, what's the point? One more verse, chapter 42 and verse 19. It says, Who is blind but my servant? Or death as my messenger whom I have sent? Who is blind as he who that is perfect and blind as the Lord's servant? He speaks there of the Lord's servant as being blind. Now, remember, this is in the context of chapter 42. This is right after he talked about Jesus Christ, the servant, the Messiah. And he follows up by saying that his servant is blind. How can the Messiah, Jesus Christ, be blind? In fact, if you look back in verse 7 of chapter 42, it says that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, is sent to do what? To open the blind eyes and to bring out the prisoners from darkness and so forth. So, this servant here in verse 19 is clearly not referring to the Messiah, the individual person of Jesus Christ. It's clearly not referring to him, is it? It's referring to the people of the nation who are themselves blind. So what is the solution to our problem? Well, I want to mention the view of Dalich, who is a conservative Old Testament scholar back last century, well, two centuries ago now, who wrote about this. And he described it in terms of a pyramid. He described it two ways. One way was in terms of a pyramid. He said that at the top of the pyramid, There is there's these three parts to it. It can be the servant can be the majority of the people of Israel, the nation in total, the whole nation, or it can be referred to the living members. That is the colonel who is the faithful remnant true to the Lord or the servant. The can be the one individual Christ, the Messiah. But all of that is referred to as the servant, or it can be referred to as even Israel, as we saw in the one verse. So this servant, Israel, is all put together into one thing, whether it be the majority of people, the entire nation, the wicked ones, the deaf ones, the blind ones, whether it be only the faithful remnant, or whether it be finally the Christ who is that ultimate one servant who, by the way, fulfills what that servant in Toto was supposed to do. And we're going to look at that, the mission of that servant. He also described it in terms of concentric circles, with the outer circle being the broad picture of the entire nation, the corporate body, a circle coming in being the faithful remnant, or finally in the middle, that one Christ, that one individual who was the servant. All of that is viewed as the servant, and you can refer to the servant and all of these different concepts at the same time. They're all acceptable, even though the different parts are distinct. As we see this, I want you to recognize the blessing and the point of why this is in the Bible this way. Why is it presented? Why does Isaiah present the servant in these terms? You see, what was the mission of the nation of Israel? What was their mission? What was their purpose? Their purpose was to be the glory of God on this world, to be the witness and the testimony of God to this world. Their purpose was to present and to get out the gospel of life through Jehovah, through the Messiah, to the world, to the Gentiles. That was their purpose. That was the mission. What does the word servant mean? Well, it means several things. Dr. Barrett talked about the honor and the responsibility and so forth, but one of those key things is the responsibility. A servant does the work of another person. If you have a servant, that means you got it easy. He does your work, right? A servant does someone else's work and he's responsible for that work. What was the work? What was the responsibility of the nation of Israel? The nation of Israel was responsible to be a testimony for the Lord to the world. God was not in the business of just saving a nation. That was never his purpose. His purpose was to save the world. And of course, by that, we're not talking about every individual. By world, we mean not just Jews. We mean the world generally, the entire planet. God wanted the gospel to go out to all mankind, to all the Gentiles. And that was the reason why God chose Israel, not as an end in itself, not that Israel alone would be brought into salvation. but that the world may hear and know of the glory of God and may see the glory of God through the nation of Israel. Israel is like, I describe it like this sometimes, Israel is like a signpost, a great big huge signpost in the world for all to see. The church is like people who go out all over, not like a signpost so much, though that's still true too. But anyway, Israel is like a signpost to tell all the world that there is one true God, Jehovah. and that there is salvation in Him. That was the mission of Israel. Now, did Israel fulfill the responsibility that they had? Well, certainly not. Not very well, though at times they did. We just talked about Jonah. Jonah had a very hard time doing it, though, didn't he? He didn't want to do it. And that was basically true for all the people of Israel in general. They didn't fulfill that mission. In fact, they sinned very much. They went against God. They did their own thing. And they didn't glorify God. So, how does God solve, if I can put it in those terms, how does God solve the problem of the nation of Israel, who is not a good witness for Him, who is not a good testimony, who does not glorify God, and who, on the other hand, sins and rebels against God? How does God solve that problem? Well, He solves the problem of the servant, the nation, by bringing in a servant, one servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be and to fulfill everything that Israel was supposed to do. And so that's why we have, for example, him opening those blind eyes. Let me just look here at a few of these specific things. that the Christ does. He opens those blind eyes of the nation. In chapter 42 and verse 19, we just looked at the blindness of the nation. In 42 and verse 7, we saw that He opens their blind eyes. So His purpose is to restore the nation of Israel. 49 and verses 5 and 6 talk about this also, that He restores that nation, to bring back the nation, to gather them and to restore, to raise up the tribes, to restore the preserved, the faithful of Israel. So that's one purpose of the Messiah. Another purpose of the servant, the Christ, is to bring that gospel to the Gentiles. That's in chapter 49 and chapter 42, both of those songs. Chapter 49 and verse 6, he says to the servant, Messiah, I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth. Israel was supposed to be God's salvation to the ends of the earth. But instead, Jesus Christ was that salvation to the ends of the earth. He fulfilled that mission. Chapter 42 emphasizes the same thing. Let's see. In verse 6, He says at the end of the verse, and I will give the singular for a covenant of the people, for a light to the Gentiles. So the mission that Israel was supposed to fulfill and did not do, Jesus Christ did it. The message to the nations went out. He was supposed to be, the nation of Israel was supposed to be the glory of the Lord. Look at chapter 43 and verse 7. Says there, You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe. This is not the verse I had. But there is a verse here that says that Jesus, that the nation of Israel was to be the glory of the Lord in the world. So verse seven. Yes, I'm sorry. That's it. Thank you very much. Verse seven. Even everyone that is called by my name, for I have created him for my glory. Speaking of the nation, this context, not of Jesus, the Messiah. I've created him for my glory. I formed him. Yeah, I've made him. So the nation was supposed to be the glory of the Lord. That's why he created that nation. But the nation was unfaithful. So then we look at the other side. Forty nine and verse three. He says, of the individual, here in the servant song, and he said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. And speaking here of the individual, Jesus Christ, but referring to him as the nation. Look at verse 5, he also says the same thing. Though Israel shall be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord. Referring to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Jesus Christ would be glorious. There would be glory fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ in his ministry. So what is my point? My point is that Jesus Christ came to fulfill the mission vicariously that Israel was supposed to do. And the problem that Israel had of its sin, Jesus Christ again fulfills or takes that sin vicariously. This is chapter 53, of course, for the nation. And why does it go back and forth saying that the servant is the person individually, the servant is the nation corporately? Why does it keep doing this? Why does it keep giving us this problem? Because of the union of Christ with his people. That's the doctrine. That's the point. You can say that the people of God is the servant, and we are. And you can say that Jesus Christ is the servant, and he is. Because we're not talking about two different things, ultimately, yes, there's a different role. By no means does the church atone for the sins of the servant Jesus. No, there is a distinction in their role. But you see, in terms of the theology of the servant and what he's supposed to perform, he sends the nation sends the people sin. So Jesus vicariously atones for their sin. The Messiah atones for their sin. They don't fulfill their mission. They don't glorify God. And so the individual servant, Jesus, performs that role because they're not two, they're one. They're one. The Lord Jesus Christ and the people of God, the church and the nation of Israel in that time are one. And that's why we referred, Dr. Barrett talks about the mystical union of Christ and the believer. That's not just a New Testament doctrine. That's in the Old Testament, too. And that's what he's talking about. There is this union between Christ and the people of God. And so what a blessing it is to think that we truly do not fulfill all of the role that God has given to us, just like Israel did not. And we have many, many sins and many, many rebellions that we have all done. But the point is, Jesus Christ, who is in God's sight as us, He represents us. He has fulfilled that. He has done the mission. He has carried out the light, the message to the Gentiles. I want us to look to one more verse, another key verse. I want to show you that Paul understood this in the same way that I'm talking about. Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13. I'm not going to go through all of the New Testament passages. I'll give them to you if you want to write them down. I think I have them all here. The New Testament talks about Jesus as the servant. And there are many quotations from the servant songs, from various songs, that quote the song and ascribe it specifically to the person of Jesus Christ. Let me give you the references quickly. It's Matthew chapter 12, verses 17 through 21. Luke 22, verse 37. John 12, 38, Acts 8, 32 through 35, Romans 10, 16, and Romans 15, 21, 1 Peter 2, 22 through 25. All of those refer to the servant songs and quote those songs and ascribe them to the person of Jesus Christ as an individual. And so the New Testament is very clear, the servant is Jesus Christ. But I want you to see also that the servant is the people of God in the New Testament. Acts chapter 13 and verse 47. This is Paul here. And he says, for so the Lord commanded us, plural referring to the apostles and the church, The Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee, singular, to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." What is he quoting there in verse 47? He's quoting from that servant's psalm, actually from both of them, from 42 verse 6 and from 49 verse 6. where it says, Jesus individually, the Messiah, would be the light of the Gentiles and he should bring forth the salvation to the ends of the earth. Paul quotes that verse that clearly is referring to Jesus, the Messiah. And he says that God has commanded us, the church, with this verse. You see, the mission of Jesus Christ, it comes back, it comes full circle here. The mission of Jesus, he is the one who will take the light. will be the light to the Gentiles, and he is the one who will be the the salvation to the ends of the earth. But that command, that promise that Jesus would be that light and that Jesus would be that salvation is not just for Jesus to worry about, if I can put it to you in those terms. That is the command that applies to us as the church. We're responsible for the mission of the servant. The servant mission is still upon us as the people of God. And so God is saying here, Paul is saying here, God, the Lord has commanded us that I have set thee as a light to the Gentiles, that thou should be for salvation to the ends of the earth. So the responsibility that we have as the people of God, we are still, we are still the Lord's servant, just like Israel of old. And that responsibility that we have, even though truly we don't perform it perfectly, we still have that responsibility to get out The message of Jesus Christ to the world. So it's a blessing and it's also responsibilities. We consider this servant. Yes, we are the servant of the Lord. Israel's the servant of the Lord. Jesus is the servant and he is the one who perfectly fulfills that mission because there is the union between Christ and the church. They are so united that God can speak of the two in terms of one thing, the servant of the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you for its power. We thank you for the blessing of it. Thank you, Lord, that we can be admonished and that we can see that because of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we, too, have a responsibility to get out the message of the gospel to all the ends of the earth. Lord, we pray that you may give us grace to be a faithful servant for you as a church, as a people of God, as individuals who are part of that faithful remnant. Lord, that we may be true to the Word of God and obedient to your commands. We thank you, too, Lord, that in spite of all of our failures, our fear and intimidity as we give forth the gospel and our sins as we fail, Lord, we thank you that we have that one promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, who has perfectly for us fulfilled the role of the servant. And we will not be condemned for our failures because Jesus has already been condemned in our place. Lord, we thank you for the grace of the gospel. We thank you for the blessing of the gospel. We pray that as we go through this day that we may be encouraged by that gospel to know it and to believe it and to proclaim it to others as we go through the new week. So help us now as we go to pray and to worship that we may know the presence of God, that the Spirit of God may fill the one who preaches to us and that you may give to us a blessing this day. In Jesus name, Amen.