The Suffering Savior bore our sorrows and grief willingly — even though we despised and rejected Him. His goal was to please God. This daily devotional looks at how God not only chose the Suffering Savior to serve Him but also rewarded Him for His obedience.
Nuggets
- God not only chose the Suffering Savior, but He also chose how He would suffer.
- Even though the Suffering Savior has to suffer, He will be rewarded in the end.
- One of the rewards the Suffering Savior gains is mankind ABCDing.
Devotions in the Suffering Savior series
All Jesus did as the Suffering Savior was to please God. He was completing the plan that God asked Him to accomplish. Let’s check it out.
Let's Put It into Context
So far in this series, we’ve learned:
- We know how much trouble the Israelites had in believing that Jesus was the Suffering Savior — and we have trouble, too.
- It looked like God’s promise that a descendant of David’s would reign forever had withered and died, but the stump got an offshoot.
- Jesus didn’t just know grief’s face so He could wave as He passed by; He was on a first-name basis.
- Jesus loved us so much that He bore our griefs and sorrows.
- Even though Jesus was sinless, He became the Suffering Savior to bring us salvation.
- Disciples are told we should be sheep who follow, not sheep who go astray.
- The Suffering Savior chose to lay down His life for us and did not complain while He was accomplishing His mission.
- The Suffering Savior had to willingly be wrongly accused and arrested, follow through with the substitution, and have no regrets.
- The Suffering Savior was laid to rest among those He had come to save.
God Chose the Plan for the Suffering Savior
“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isa. 53: 10 ESV)
God not only chose the Suffering Savior, but He also chose how He would suffer.
God Himself designed the Plan of Salvation. It was necessary because mankind disobeyed Him. He had told Adam and Eve one thing — don’t eat the fruit from this one certain tree.
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve didn’t listen. Satan said bite, and they did.
Glossary
The thing is, even before God created us, He knew that we would sin. There is a reason He allowed it, but He didn’t want the separation that created to last for eternity.
So, God designed the Plan of Salvation to fix it. He knew that it was going to require a blood sacrifice.
God had required sacrifices before, only they were animal sacrifices. The laws regarding the sacrifices are given in Leviticus 1-7.
One of the main takeaways from reviewing the requirements for the sacrifices is that they must be without blemish. They must be perfect.
But we have to make sure we are using the same definitions as God. (Dictionary Chick strikes again.)
- A blemish is the stain of sin. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- The perfected state indicates the combination of the graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness.
The Sacrifice had to be a sinless Man. If the sacrifice wasn’t part man, it wouldn’t have been sufficient to remove the blemish of sin.
Jesus was part Man. In fact, He was 100% man as well as 100% God.
Crosby pointed out that this verse gives the answers to the question in verse 8. “By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” (Isa. 53: 8 ESV).
Resource
God considered the Suffering Savior stricken for the transgressions of His people. Stricken was when someone got a sudden, severe illness. Transgressions are sins such as envy and covetousness, where we are not content with being who God has made us and with what God has given us.
How did God work it so that the Savior suffered? Our human nature has problems with that. Why would God not only have His Son beaten and go through all He did, but also have Him killed?
Think about it this way. Manton wrote, “Whilst you look only to the outward meanness and sufferings of Christ, you overlook the design of God in Him.”
Resource
The Suffering Savior was the Sacrifice to restore us to the Sovereign God. He could be the only sacrifice because was the only representative of mankind who was without blemish. The whole sacrifice — from beginning to end — was orchestrated by the Sovereign God.
Remember the verse in Scriptures about good gifts? “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (Jas. 1: 17 CSB).
The Suffering Savior was the most perfect gift. Sovereign God gave that gift because of His love for us.
Jesus agreed with the plan from the start. He never once has questioned the plan or deviated from it. He loves us, too.
The Rewards of the Suffering Savior’s Pleasing God
“Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isa. 53: 11 ESV)
Even though the Suffering Savior has to suffer, He will be rewarded in the end.
The word anguish, according to Clemance, was “… used some sixty times in the Old Testament and means trouble of any, kind … It denotes strong effort, attended with pain and grief.”
Resource
We can’t stop there, though. The rest of the verse talks about how God will reward the Suffering Savior for going through the anguish.
God was very pleased with the job Jesus was doing. In fact, He said so — twice.
- “And a voice from heaven said: ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased’” (Mt. 3: 17 CSB).
- But even as he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him’” (Mt. 17: 5 NLT).
Let’s roost on the middle part of the verse: “… by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous …” (Isa. 53: 10 ESV).
Jesus is 100% God. So, He is omniscient. Omniscience means God is all-knowing.
True, if Jesus emptied Himself, how was He still 100% God? The “… gave up his divine privileges …” (Phil. 2: 7 NLT) makes it more understandable. But what does that mean? It means that the divine attributes of everlasting, sovereign, all powerful, good, holy and righteous, and love, etc. were removed from His being.
Oh, yes. Jesus was still holy, righteous, and loving. It was not at divine level.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Jesus’ all-knowing turned into an all-trusting of God. He gained in knowledge of God, just as we are to do (II Pet. 3: 18).
No, I probably have some of this wrong. My point is that Jesus went into this all-knowing. However much He did or didn’t know while He was here in human form, He knew because He knew God had a plan for Him.
That obedience highlighted that Jesus the Man, not just Jesus the God, was righteous. Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
All the way down the line, Jesus followed God’s Will and was obedient.
Because of that, we have the opportunity to be made righteous. We do that by ABCDing.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Because the Suffering Savior accomplished God’s plan, we are justified. Justification is the act through the merits of Christ that makes us free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws. Jesus justifies us when we put our lives in His hand.
God’s Reward to the Suffering Savior Benefited Us
“Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53: 12 ESV)
One of the rewards the Suffering Savior gains is mankind ABCDing.
God Himself, told Isaiah that He would reward the Suffering Savior. He would take the sacrifice He made and apply it to many.
Meyer made an interesting statement. He wrote, “That He should attain His commanding position, not as the founder of a new school of thought, nor as the leader of a social reformation, nor as possessed of exceptional saintliness — but as a Sufferer.”
Resource
What hit me was the phrase “… possessed of exceptional saintliness …” It reminded me of the meme that showed up on my Facebook timeline lately.
Worldview people complain that disciples don’t act like Christians. God doesn’t want actors. He is concerned about our hearts.
It isn’t about what we do or don’t do. It is about us submitting to Him and making Him the Sovereign God of our lives.
More than that, it is what the Suffering Savior did for us. He did what we could never do — be the perfect sacrifice. Even if we did all the do’s and didn’t do the don’ts, we would still be separated from God.
Our sacrifice wouldn’t be acceptable, even if we cleaned up our acts.
The sermons I read equated the distribution to an army dividing the spoils of a battle. Crosby wrote, “Much better is it to consider ‘the strong,’ or the ‘mighty ones,’ to represent the powers of darkness, who have made spoil of the human race, and the division of the spell with them by Messiah to be the rescue of souls from their grasp. The ‘many’ (ver. 11) whom He saves will then be the spoil He snatches from the great enemy, and we can read the whole passage: ‘By the knowledge of Him shall My righteous Servant give righteousness to many, and He Himself shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him the many as His portion, and he shall divide the spoil with the mighty ones.’”
Resource
Hmmmm. Okay. When I first read that, I wasn’t sure. The “… he shall divide the spoil with the mighty ones” threw me for a loop. But I think I figured out what Cosby was talking about.
There is this battle between Jesus and Satan. We are the spoils.
Jesus will get some of the spoils. Some of us have ABCDed.
But not everyone will. They will suffer with Satan for eternity. So, in this discussion, those that do not ABCD go to Satan as spoils.
The great thing about the Suffering Savior is He was the sacrifice for all mankind. He didn’t pick or choose who could ABCD. Everyone has the opportunity.
It is our choice whether we ABCD or not.
Making the Connections
We’ve talked about the delusion we experience when we think we are in a good place in our relationship with God when things are smoothly sailing along. It is when there is pain that we think we have sinned.
Enter Jesus blasting that to pieces. He didn’t sin, so under that way of thinking, He shouldn’t have experienced pain.
Ooo, baby. If He would talk with us, Jesus would probably tell us what He told Thomas. “Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe’” (Jn. 20: 27 NIV).
Sometimes, we are in the best possible place when the spiritual tornado is swirling around us, wreaking havoc on our physical lives. It is then we are sticking ourselves to God’s side.
Yet, when we read words like “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush …” (Isa. 53: 10 ESV), we think God is always playing bad cop.
God loves us. I’m sure He would rather we hadn’t sinned.
But we did, so God has to judge us.
How Do We Apply This?
We need to prayerfully consider why Jesus was willing to be the Suffering Savior. What was more important than His comfort? What was more important than Him maintaining the status quo in Heaven?
We were. We were more important than anything to Him.
So we need to put our hearts in His hands we need to live for Him.
Father. We admit our sins, believe on Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, and confess You as Sovereign Lord. We submit our lives to You and will demonstrate that commitment by following our job description. Amen.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email daily or weekly providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.