Isaiah 53:3,4
Author: Steve Amato
Keywords: bible study,bible, isaiah

Translations: 简体中文 繁體中文

## The Messiah Despised and Rejected

Isaiah 53:3,4
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

## Comment

Jesus was despised. He was familiar with suffering. And while people like to associate with happy people, Jesus was not a "happy" person but rather a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Such people are shunned by society. People hide their face from those who are illegitimately despised. It doesn't satisfy their flesh. Yet he came for our benefit and yet he was reckoned cursed of God.

Now consider, should these verses also reflect the Christian life? Modern Western Christendom seems to be into a happy health and wealth gospel. It focusses on feelings and experience, but does not reflect the life of the Biblical Christ. Paul expresses contempt for such attitudes in 1Corinthians

> Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings— and that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. 1Co 4:8-13

This is how real Christians experience life in this world. And as Jesus said, "All men will hate you because of me."Mt 10:22 So do people love you or do people hate you?

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