There is a certain kind of doubt that can completely fracture a relationship. If all one can answer to whether or not their spouse is having an affair is “I doubt it,” the marriage is in trouble. If a child is asked whether they have their parents’ love and they respond, “probably,” the child will be wildly insecure. This is because certain relationships wither under anything but absolute confidence in the love of the other.
And so it is with us and God. To have anything but complete clarity regarding God’s posture toward us is to live in the darkest fog. Call it lack of assurance of salvation if you like, but that doesn’t do justice to its dreadful reality. To lack a deep and settled confidence about the heart of God toward us is to struggle to know him in any real way. And it is for this reason that the death of Christ is central to the New Testament.
The Bible works as a unity of promises made and promises fulfilled. Therefore, we should expect that the death of Christ is central to what God promised his people in the Old Testament. These promises would be a foundational piece of knowing the heart of God toward us. Indeed, Jesus himself has the utmost certainty that the Messiah dying for the people of God is a Scriptural necessity (Luke 24:44-47).
In light of Jesus’ own words about his prophesied death, I want to explore two related themes: (1) the Scriptural necessity of the death of the Servant of the Lord (from Isaiah) for justification in Romans and (2) how that acts as a surety for our confidence in God’s heart toward us. I will begin with a brief analysis of the Servant of the Lord prophecy and then turn to justification in Romans as the fulfillment of it. I will conclude by exploring how the fact that justification was prophesied can free us from doubt and help us trust that God is a loving father. We begin with Isaiah itself.
The Servant of the Lord as Justifier
Isaiah 53 falls within Isaiah 40-66, which looks forward to the comfort and redemption (Isa 40:1-11) of the people of God after discipline (cf. Isa 1-39). Central to this narrative is Israel’s sin being dealt with so that restoration can come (Isa 40:2, Isa 57:15-18). Israel had failed as God’s Servant (Isa 42:19), Cyrus, the pagan, will succeed (Isa 45:1, 13), but another Servant figure emerges, who will accomplish this redemption in a radically different way (Isa 42:1-4; Isa 49; 50; 52:13-53:12; Isa 61:1-9). The Servant (Isa 42:1-6) will not snuff out a smouldering wick. God will relent from extinguishing Israel (on the image, cf. 43:17).
This leads to Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the climactic explanation of the Servant of the Lord. A variety of expressions point toward the sin-bearing nature of the Servant: “the chastisement for our peace was on him” (53:5); “He was stricken for the transgression of his people” (53:8). The climactic expression of this sequence is perhaps Isaiah 53:11 “By his knowledge, my Servant, the Righteous one will justify many, He will bear their sins”. This is certainly a new turn in Israel’s history of failure. The prophetic writings are filled with lawsuits of Yahweh against Israel (e.g., Isa 1:1-21), and so justification (with all its legal overtones) is exactly what is needed. Everywhere else, God commands that the righteous are to be justified and the guilty condemned (Ex 23:7; Dt 25:1; Isa 5:23). But here we encounter something new: the Servant acquits the guilty because he bears their sin. And God calls us to “behold” the Servant and his work (Isa 52:13), turning from the disgust of unbelief (53:3) to the amazement of forgiveness (52:14-15).
The final note worth making about justification in Isaiah 53 is fourfold: it is the only place in the Old Testament that (1) prophesies (2) the justification of the ungodly as (3) a result of sacrificial death of (4) God’s Anointed. So, when we turn over to the New Testament and read about the justification of the ungodly as fulfillment of the Old Testament by the death of Christ, even before we find any verbal parallels, Isaiah 53 should have an initial pride of place unless another Old Testament text is indicated.
The Death and Resurrection of the Servant as Justification in Romans
When we consider the book of Romans, it becomes clear that Isaiah’s theological story is the primary piece of background literature, especially Isaiah chs. 52-53. It underlies the following redemptive arc: Israel’s sin > the coming of redemption and its proclamation > the completion of redemption.
When we focus more deeply on the theme of justification within Romans, we find that Isaiah 53 figures prominently in the structure of our salvation. We will look at three examples before turning to Romans 3:21-26 for more prolonged discussion.
Romans 4:25. “[Jesus the Lord] was handed over on account of our transgressions and raised on account of our righteousness/justification.” The Servant makes sense of this awkward verse. First of all, in the first half of the verse, the vocabulary of being “handed over” (Gk. paredothē) on account of sinners finds a close parallel in the Greek Old Testament translation of Isaiah 53: “the Lord gave him over for our sins” (Isa 53:6, 12). Secondly, the parallel nature of both halves of the verse makes clear that Jesus’s resurrection happened because he had been given over for sinners. It is hard to find a better background for this verse than Isaiah 53:10, “If my Servant will offer his sin as a guilt-offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days.” The death of the Servant underwrites the Abrahamic promise and paradigm of faith-based righteousness in Romans 4.
Romans 8:3. In speaking of God dealing with humanity’s sin problem, Romans 8:3 says, “God condemned sin as a sin-offering in his flesh.” Of course, “his flesh” is that of the prophesied Divine and Davidic Messiah (Rom 1:3-4). The phrase “as a sin-offering” (Gk. peri amartias) is drawn from the Old Testament sacrificial system (Lev 4:3, 14, 28), but, perhaps not surprisingly, this is exactly how the Servant’s self-offering for sin is described in Isaiah 53:10 (Hb. asham, Gk. peri hamartias). Moreover, both Isaiah 53:8 (Gk. krisis) and Romans 8:3 (Gk. katakrinen) speak of the judgment of the Servant by God.
Romans 8:33. In speaking of the certainty and unfailing nature of God’s love, Paul asks, “Who will convict the elect of God? God is the one who justifies.” This is a clear echo of Isaiah 50:8, where the Servant asks, “The one who justifies me is near. Who is the one condemning me?” It seems that Paul’s thought is this: If the Servant’s vindication from God (through resurrection) is certain, so also is the justification/vindication of those who are in the Servant. This reference to the Servant of the Lord’s death is confirmed by the surrounding verses: Romans 8:32 speaks of the Servant being “handed over” by the Lord (Isa 53:12), again borrowing from the Greek Old Testament. Romans 8:34 has Christ interceding for sinners, even as promised in Isaiah 53:12. In both of the above examples from Romans 8, Isaiah 53 is used to drive home the freedom from judgment and condemnation the believer has before God.
Having surveyed these examples and established Paul’s use of Isaiah 53, we now return to Romans 3:21-26, Paul’s clearest explanation of justification in Romans. Contextually, Paul’s gospel is focused on the prophesied Messianic Son and the obedience of faith in him among all nations (Rom 1:3-4). However, this gospel is also God’s power to save (Rom 1:16-17). How so? The revelation of the righteousness of God, which is connected to faith. Taken together, these texts show us that the gospel is about salvation in the coming of God’s Messianic Son, who brought the righteousness of God, which comes by faith.
When Paul returns to his discussion of the gospel a couple of chapters later (Rom 3:21-26), it is no surprise that Paul reiterates that the righteousness of God (and the consequent justification of humans) is prophesied in the Old Testament (Rom 1:2-4). The mention of the righteousness of God (God’s putting things right) is a reminder of Isaiah 40-66, where it serves as a major theme (42:21; 51:1-8; 56:1; 59:16). And, although future forgiveness may be anticipated in a variety of ways in the Old Testament passages (e.g., Zech 3:1-10; 12:10-13:2), God justifying sinful humans as an expression of his righteousness only has one text to which it can clearly point to for support: Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (cf. Isa 42:6).
Moreover, Isaiah 53 has the Christ-Servant dying (Rom 3:25; Isa 53:8, 12) as a sin-offering (Rom 3:25; Isa 53:10) by the will of God (Rom 3:25; Isa 53:10) to justify the ungodly (Rom 3:22-23; Isa 53:11). The vocabulary for sin-offering/propitiation (Gk. hilastarion) may be different in Romans 3:25, but conceptually it is not different from “Yahweh has placed on him the sin of us all” (Isa 53:6). In addition, the terminology of free redemption (Gk. apolutrosis) in Romans 3:25 echoes the Servant’s redemption (Gk. lutroō), described in Isaiah 52:3 as “without cost.”
There are also a variety of other ideas that tie Romans 3:21-30 to Isaiah 52:13-53:12. For example, the idea of responding with faith to the Messiah (Rom 3:22) is certainly Isaianic (Isa 11:10) and appears significantly in Isaiah 53:1. Indeed, “faith” means truly recognizing the meaning of the Anointed’s death in both passages. Likewise, Gentiles are included in the people of God by means of this death in Isaiah 52:13-15 and in Romans 3:21-31, as Paul will note again later in Romans (Rom 15:21). Finally, both of these passages have God setting forth (Isa 52:13; Rom 3:26) the Anointed to the people of God as the means of atonement (Isa 52:13; Rom 3:25-26).
Simply put, when we look at this myriad of connections between Isaiah 53 and Romans 3:21-26, as well as Paul’s usage of Isaiah 53 elsewhere in Romans, it becomes difficult to believe that the prophecy of the Servant of the Lord does not dominate the vision and heart of Paul when he thinks of justification. When Paul thinks of a justified believer, confident in promised justification and the grace of God, he thinks about the death of the Servant of the Lord. We now turn to consider what all this means for us.
The Heartening Gift of Prophesied Justification
If Isaiah 53 is central to Paul’s vision of justification, this has several important consequences for our spiritual lives.
To begin with, it is worth noting that justification was not a late development in the church’s doctrine (cf. Gal 1:11-12; Acts 13:39), nor a fringe development (it figures prominently in Romans and Galatians!), nor an afterthought (Paul’s defence of it rests on Old Testament fulfillment). Isaiah 53 and Paul’s central usage of it remind us that God’s desire to justify the ungodly is an essential part of God’s plan long before Paul was born. God spoke about it beforehand so that we would come to the obedience of faith when Christ came. The justification of the ungodly by the Servant is key to the massive vision of God’s eternal plan to redeem humanity.
God foregrounded justification in this way because it is so important for our understanding of him. Calvin argued that until we are sure of God’s heart toward us, we cannot trust him. “If we do not want faith to tremble and waver this way or that, we must underpin it with a promise of salvation which is made willingly and generously by the Lord.” And this settled affection of God is best known in his prophesied justification. Part of the gospel fruit Paul longs for in Rome (Rom 1:8-15) is this certainty about grace (Rom 5:1-2, Rom 8:1-2). In prophesied justification, we have “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s goodwill.” In other words, we know our father loves us (Rom 5:6-8).
This truth dovetails well with another part of Isaiah 53. In the book of Isaiah, it is God who hides his face in displeasure (cf. Isa 8:17; 45:15; 57:17; 59:2; 64:6), and so Isaiah 53:3 likely describes the Servant as “one from whom God hides his face.” This prepares for the soaring statement that follows regarding God’s people: “In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you” (Isa 54:8). God hid his face from the Servant so we would be certain of his compassion toward us. The opening of the human heart in trust toward God stands or falls on how clear we are about the Servant’s finished work of justification. God told us it would be so.
Thankfully, this connection between heartening faith and justification is not just a hypothetical reality, but rather what the “we” of Isaiah 53 has come to experience. The “we” figure begins with disgust for the Servant (“he was disguised, we esteemed him not” [Isa 53:3]) and ends with delight. What could explain this reversal? It seems that it springs from a radical re-understanding of the meaning of the death of the Servant. The “we” of Isaiah 53 sings the song of the Servant because he has come to realize that “by his wounds we are healed” (Isa 53:5). Both in Romans and in Isaiah, conversion is a settled conviction in the justifying work of the Anointed One. It is by faith.
In conclusion, J.I. Packer has argued that sonship is chief among the ways a Christian should understand themselves: “a Christian is one who has God as Father.” We who are in Christ are God’s children. And justification must be regarded as the sure means to the end of happy sonship, because justification ensures us what kind of heart our Father has toward us. Paul himself often travels the path from sonship to justification (Rom 8:18-33) and vice versa (Gal 2:15-3:29). Confidence in justification resolves our doubts and leads to settledness in sonship. We are only happy children if we know without any doubt that we are beloved in the death of Christ (Romans 5:3-8). The justifying death of the Servant, declared beforehand for our benefit (1 Pet 1:12), is the standing testimony of God’s love for us, who are sinners become sons and daughters.
