The Lord's Servant.
Various suggestions have been made by way of explanation of this term. Some regard the Lord's servant as the Hebrew nation, distinguished from the heathen; or as a new Israel opposed to the old; or as the righteous part of the Hebrew nation; or as the Israel which suffered for its religious testimony to the heathen; or as an i, teal Israel; or as the order of the Hebrew prophets. Bishop Wordsworth says, "The 'Servant of Jehovah,' as represented by Isaiah, is a Person; he is a Prophet, Priest, and King. He is more than a prophet, as teaching the world; he is more than a priest, as offering himself for all; he is King of kings, and Lord of lords; he is God." Dean Stanley finely says, "In the foreground of the future stands, not the ruler, or conqueror, but the Servant of God, gentle, purified, suffering—whether it be Cyrus whom he had anointed; or Jacob whom he had chosen; his people with whom after all their affliction he was well pleased; or Jeremiah and the prophetic order, the victim of their country's sins, led as a lamb to the slaughter; or One, more sorrowful, more triumphant, more human, more Divine, than any of these, the last and true fulfilment of the most spiritual hopes and the highest aspirations of the chosen people." Delitzsch says, "The conception of the Servant of Jehovah is, as it were, a pyramid, of which the base is the people Israel as a whole, the central part Israel 'according to the Spirit,' and the summit the Person of the Mediator of salvation who arises out el Israel." Cheyne says, "In the sublimest descriptions of the Servant I am unable to resist the impression that an historical Person is intended, and venture to think that our general view of 'the Servant' ought to be ruled by those passages in which the enthusiasm of the author is at its height. 'Servant of Jehovah ' in these passages seems about equivalent to 'Son of Jehovah' in Psalms 2:7 ('son' and 'servant' being, in fact, nearly equivalent in the Old Testament), viz. the personal instrument of Israel's regeneration, or the Messiah." The whole passage, Psalms 2:1-4, is applied to Christ in Matthew 12:17-21, as illustrating Christ's mild, silent, and uncontentious manner of working. We shall come again upon the representation of Christ as "Servant," when we reach the great chapter of this prophecy, the fifty-third. The passage now before us directs attention to three points in relation to this "Servant of the Lord," the Christ.
I. HIS ENDOWMENT. "I have put my Spirit upon him." The expression calls to mind the endowments of the Spirit, as a Spirit of rule and judgment, which followed the anointing of Saul and David. In precise adaptation to work required, God gives spiritual endowment. The scene of the baptism of Christ has been misunderstood, as the time when the special endowment of the Spirit came upon him for his life-ministry. It is a truer and deeper view of that scene of the descending dove and heavenly witness that sees in it only an outward manifestation and expression of a fact which already existed—the Spirit already dwelt in Christ beyond measure. The outward expression in symbol was graciously accommodated to the comforting of his humanity, and the conviction of those who believe in his Divine mission. It may be shown that every endowment of the Divine Spirit is
II. HIS COMMISSION. To "bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." "Judgment" here is not used in its magisterial sense. It is the equivalent of "righteousness," or, more precisely, of the "truth that makes for righteousness." That truth is conceived as having been for a time the special possession of Israel; but by Messiah it is to be opened to the whole world. "Every man that doeth righteousness is accepted of him." The point that Isaiah sets in such clear light is, that the commission of the great "Servant of Jehovah" is a distinctly moral one. It is only in a secondary or derived sense anything but moral. It concerns righteousness. It glorifies righteousness. It breaks soul-bondages. It dispels prejudices and errors. It proposes to bring men together in a brotherhood of common goodness, of which the bloom will be mutual love and helpfulness. The world's separations and woes can never be mastered until men arc made right, and that is Christ's work.
III. HIS CHARACTERISTICS. Unpretentious, uncontentious, trusting wholly to moral influences for securing moral ends. "He shall not strive nor cry." As Matthew Arnold well expresses it, "He shall not clamour, shall not speak with the high vehement voice of the men who contend. God's Servant shall bring to men's hearts the word of God's righteousness and salvation by a gentle, inward, and spiritual method." Illustrating the parable of the leaven, Dr. Marcus Dods says, "According to the Head of the Church, his religion and Spirit are to be propagated by an influence which operates like an infectious disease, invisible, without apparatus and pompous equipment, succeeding all the better where it. is least observed. Our Lord bases his expectation of the extension of his Spirit throughout the world, not upon any grand and powerful institutions, not on national establishments of religion or on any such means, but on the secret, unnoticed influence of man upon man." The characteristic silences of the great "Servant" may wisely become the characteristics of his servants. Moral forces make no noise.—R.T.