He shall see of the
travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he
shall bear their iniquities. (Isa 53:11)
Commenting on Isa 53:11 and how it is the Servant’s knowledge, not
believers’ knowledge concerning the Servant, that, in Isa 53:11, is the means
of the Servant justifying many, John Murray wrote:
V . . . There are
numerous respects in which knowledge may be viewed as an essential part of the
equipment of the righteous Servant in the expiatory accomplishment which is the
burden of this passage. It could be the knowledge of his commission the knowledge
of its implications as they bore upon the discharge of the precise action
denoted by the verb “justify” which immediately follows. It could be the
knowledge of the purpose to be served by his undertaking and of the successful
issue of his accomplishment. Or the understanding by which he was able to carry
out his commission could be reflected on. From whatever angle the task assigned
to him and perfected by him as the Servant of the Lord may be viewed, knowledge
is an indispensable ingredient of the obedience which his servanthood entailed.
For obedience without knowledge would have none of the virtue which attaches
itself to his unique and transcendent fulfilment of the Lord’s will. To be
obedience of that quality it had to be obedience of intelligent will. If the justification in view is that which falls
within the application of redemption, then knowledge would likewise be
requisite to that continued activity on the part of the Servant. His own
knowledge can therefore be conceived of as not only relevant to the Servant’s
justifying action but also as indispensable to its discharge, whether the
action is that of his once-for-all expiatory accomplishment or that of his
continued work as the exalted Lord.
VI. We may not
overlook the fact that in this prophecy elsewhere and more particularly in this
same passage distinct emphasis is placed upon the knowledge which the Messiah
possesses. In Isa. 11:2 our attention is drawn to the act that the spirit of
knowledge rests upon him as well as the spirit of wisdom and understanding. In
50:4 are we not justified in applying to the Servant the words: “The Lord God
hath given me the tongue of the learned that I may know how to speak a word in
season to him that is weary”? In 52:13, when we are introduced to the Servant
in his specifically expiatory undertaking, there is express mention of the
Servant’s wisdom and understanding. “Behold my servant shall deal prudently”.
To quote Edward J. Young, “In its primary signification, it merely means to act
with the understanding or intelligence. Since, however, such intelligent action
usually results in success, the verb comes also include the idea of effective
action. Thus, we are to understand that the Servant will act so wisely that
abundant fruition will crown His efforts” (Isaiah
Fifty-Three, Grand Rapids, 1953, p. 10). Surely it is appropriate that
knowledge should likewise be associated with his justifying action in such a
way as to condition its exercise and insure its effectiveness. Furthermore, in
53:3 the expression rendered “acquainted with grief” (וידוע חלי) means
literally that he is “known of grief” and reflects upon the extent to which he
experienced grief; it accentuated the depth of his knowledge and grief. He was
thoroughly conversant with it and grief was, as it were, at home with him. That
there should be this reflection upon the Servant’s experience in this passage
indicates one way in which his experiential knowledge bore upon his expiatory
work or how his expiatory undertaking made necessary this experiential
acquaintance with grief. Is not the fact that he was “known” of temptation and
that he learned obedience by the thing which he suffered integral to the
accomplishment of expiation and to the fellow feeling with our infirmities in
virtue of which he continues to be a merciful and faithful high priest? And,
finally, in the immediate context there is reflection upon psychological
activities of the Servant as a result of the travail of his soul—“he shall see,
he will be satisfied.”
Hence we may conclude
that the emphasis in the passage as a whole upon the experiences of soul
involved in the work of the Servant would make it signally appropriate that the
state of experiential cognition involved in these experiences and resulting from
them should be brought into effective operation in his justifying activity,
indeed that it should be causally active in the justification of the many. And
this we must reckon with whether the justifying action contemplated is the
once-for-all expiation of sin or the continued activity in actual justification.
The latter cannot be conceived of apart from the knowledge that belongs to him
in the capacity in which he exercises this prerogative. Furthermore, we must
make allowance for the pregnant meaning so frequently associated with knowledge
in the usage of the Old Testament . . . This concept in such cases is not
barely cognitive; it has its emotive and volitive ingredients. And there is no
reason why we should not find that notion in this instance as expressing the
cognitive, emotive, and volitive activity which lies back of and is brought to
bear upon the Servant’s justifying action, the knowledge of loving interest and
decision. It may be the counterpart in the Old Testament of Heb. 10:10, “By
which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all”. When viewed in the light of all these considerations there does
not appear to be any good reason for the summary dismissal of the subjective
interpretation, the Servant’s own knowledge in all the reaches of its reference
as it applies to the work of the Servant as the sin-bearer, as the trespass-offering,
and as the high priest offering himself. (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The English Text with Introduction,
Exposition and Notes, Volume 1 Chapters 1 to 8 [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 1959], 379-81)
