emand, every Christian should have
committed _verbatim_. Christ is here, with wonderful clearness,
described to us in His highest work--His atoning suffering.

In vers. 13-15 of chap. lii. Jehovah speaks. These verses contain a
short summary of what is enlarged upon in chap. liii. The very deepest
humiliation of the Servant of God shall be followed by His highest
glorification. In consequence of the salvation wrought out and
accomplished by Him, the nations of the earth and their kings shall
reverently submit to Him. In chap. liii. 1-10, the Prophet utters the
sentiments of the _elect_ in Israel. At first, in His humiliation, they
had not recognized the Redeemer; but now they acknowledged Him as their
Redeemer and Saviour, and saw that He had taken upon Him His sufferings
for our salvation, and that they had a vicarious character. The
commencement forms, in ver. 1, the lamentation that so many do not
believe in the report of the Servant of God, that so many do not behold
the glory of God manifested in Him. In vers. 2 and 3, we have the cause
of this fact, viz., the appearance of the Divine, in the form of a
Servant--the offence of the cross. In lowliness, without any outward
splendour, the Servant of God shall go about. Sufferings, heavier than
ever befel any man, shall be inflicted upon Him. In vers. 4-6, the
vicarious import of these sufferings is pointed out. The people, seeing
his sufferings, [Pg 261] and not knowing the cause of them, imagined
that they were the well-merited punishment of His own transgressions
and iniquities. But the Church, now brought to believe in Him, see that
they were wrong in imagining thus. It was not His own transgressions
and iniquities which were punished in Him, but ours. His sufferings
were voluntarily undergone by Him, and for the salvation of mankind,
which else would have been given up to destruction. God himself was
anxious to re-unite to himself those who were separated from Him, and
who walked in their own ways. To the vicarious import of the sufferings
of the Servant of God corresponds, according to ver. 7, His conduct: He
suffers quietly and patiently. In vers. 8-10 we have the reward which
the Servant of God receives for His passive obedience. God takes Him to
himself, and He receives an unspeakably great generation, ver. 8, the
ominous burial with the rich, ver. 9, numerous seed and long life, and
that the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand; ver. 10. In
vers. 11