Marring Of A Servant (part 2)

As the implications of the suffering servant and its relation to both Israel and humanity are considered, one does well to bear in mind that the Creator God referred to Israel as His firstborn son, and that Israel can also be thought of as a replacement for Adam---chosen as a people that would be the specific means by which the Creator God would deal with the problem of evil in the world. 

However, because their narrative suggests that they failed to rightly act in and for the world as the image of their covenant God, it would eventually be the person of suffering servant, the messianic Son of God that would be looked upon as the Creator God’s firstborn son (Son of God and firstborn son being titular rather than literal, which is how these terms would have been understood in the ancient near east and in the world of Jesus’ day), that would come to be understood as the actual representation of the divine image in and for the world, completely fulfilling the role that was rejected by Adam (the one originally looked upon as the son of the Creator God, as indicated quite notably by Luke). 

Tying the firstborn, divine-image-representing suffering servant with Israel’s self-understanding at the time of Isaiah, as dictated by the Torah narrative, it is understood that the suffering servant becomes marred so as to share in the horror-inducing cursing of Israel, as it is realized that this is a seminal part of his being their representative.  It is the marring that allows him to stand in the place of all peoples, as representative of a marred humanity as well. 

Thinking about these things in this way allows an observer to consider that not only was the messiah of Israel to be the servant of the Creator God, but that Israel was to be their God’s servant, and that mankind as a whole was also supposed to be the servant of that same God.  Mankind, in Adam, was the first to be marred, taking the whole of the good creation with him.  Israel followed Adam’s footsteps in that marring. 

That being the case according to the historical narrative by which Isaiah’s worldview makes sense, it then also makes sense that the suffering servant, as representative of both Israel and humanity, had to undergo a marring as well.  By this, the suffering servant (the suffering servant would eventually be recognized as messiah, and therefore Jesus would eventually be read back into the suffering servant) would be able to sympathize with the situation and ultimately redeem both Israel and mankind (and then all of creation by extension) from out of that state of cursed marring.        

Putting these thoughts in play allow for a movement to the second half of the theme text, and to the suggestion that the suffering servant of Israel will “startle many nations” (Isaiah 52:15b).  When this startling of the nations is considered, one cannot help but think about the statement in the book of Acts, in reference to the preaching of the Gospel of a crucified and resurrected Jesus as the Christ (messiah) by Paul and Silas, concerning the “people who have stirred up trouble throughout the world” (17:6a).  That stirring up of trouble is often rendered as “turning the world upside down.”  It could be said that Rome itself was startled by this world-transforming message.