“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.”
– Isaiah 53:10
What a verse. This chapter is talking about Jesus. It’s a prophecy of his coming. Some of the most famous verses in Isaiah 53:4–6 about how, “Jesus has born our griefs and carried our sorrows, been pierced for our transgressions crushed for our iniquities, how we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him, the iniquity of us all.”
That’s the truth. That Isaiah 53:10 then puts an exclamation point on, “It’s the Lord who laid on his son, the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:10 says, “It was the will of the Lord to crush him that God ordained the crucifixion of his son.” Like just that phrase is mind boggling in its mystery, because we know that God is perfect, god is holy, God is the author of everything good. There is no evil in God, no sin in God. Yet, he’s sovereignly ordained the most evil sinful act in all of human history, the murder of his own son at the hands of sinful men and women.
Isaiah 53:10 Proclaims the Sovereignty of God in the Crucifixion
You see the mystery here, God’s sovereignty over the cross. God’s sovereignty over the death of his son. God’s sovereignty over the murder and crucifixion of his perfect son. It all being the will of God to crush him, to put him to grief, so that we sinners might be saved. Oh, the mystery just gets deeper, that we who rebelled against God might have the privilege of knowing God and being saved by the mercy of God. That we, as the ones who have gone astray, the Lord has taken the judgment for our sin and put it on his son instead in our place.
Oh God, we praise you for the mystery of the cross, for the wonder of the cross, for your grace in the cross for your mercy in the cross, Lord Jesus for willingly saying not my will, but yours be done. God, our father for willing the crucifixion of Jesus for our salvation, for my salvation, for the salvation of the nation’s.
This Verse Praises God for His Grace Despite Our Sinfulness
God, we praise you. We have turned away from you. We like sheep. And we like sheep have gone astray from you and yet you have put on Jesus, the judgment we deserve. We are his offspring and we are so glad to be his offspring. Lord, we praise you for taking the most evil sinful act in all of human history and turning it into our salvation. So, we say all glory be to your name today and we say, we trust you and your will, amidst all the mysterious things we don’t understand in our lives and in the world around us, especially when we see sin and evil. We praise you for your sovereignty over it all.
Lord, we put all our trust in you that you are working all things together, even the worst things together for the good of your people and the glory of your name for the accomplishment of your good, perfect, holy will. We pray, oh God, and our lives today, not our will, but yours be done. Help us to faithfully follow you, trust you, proclaim you today and abandon our lives to your will for our lives, whatever you want us to do, help us to do it.
Whatever you want us to give, help us to give it, however you want us to live, help us to live today in obedience to your will just as Jesus, our savior and king was completely obedient to your will. May it be so in our lives, in the name of Jesus, in the name of the one who was crushed on our behalf, that we might be saved. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
