 We are now ready to take a careful look at what is supposed to be the most impressive proof text of them all. Isaiah chapter 52 verse 13 through to chapter 53 verse 12. The passage describes a servant of the Lord who will suffer from or for the sins of others. And, quote, place his grave among the wicked and, quote, see his seed and live a long life. Now, this was probably the most important passage found by early Christians struggling with the paradox of the crucifixion and the idea that Jesus died for the sins of others probably originates from this chapter. In other words, it's not that Jesus' death for the sins of others is a remarkable fulfillment of Isaiah 53. It is because of Isaiah 53 that people attributed this purpose to Jesus' death. In a way, the point is even clearer in this case than it was when we made a similar point about Micah chapter 5 verse 1. In that case, either Jesus was born in Bethlehem or he was not. Here, no one saw Jesus die for the sins of others, they only saw him die. The interpretation of his death is a result, not a striking fulfillment of Isaiah 53. We must be careful not to get caught in circular reasoning. Actually, before getting involved in such problems, we have to ask ourselves the most basic questions of all. Who is the servant of the Lord? That we quoted earlier. Do we have any reason to think that he is the Messiah? Well, one way of trying to answer these questions is to see if the term servant of the Lord appears elsewhere in Isaiah where the identification might be clear. Another way is to examine Isaiah 53 itself and see whether or not the descriptions of the servant there give us any reason to identify him with the Messiah. With respect to the first approach, we are rather lucky because a servant of the Lord is mentioned in eight chapters between Isaiah 41 and 50. In five of the chapters, the servant is clearly and unambiguously the people of Israel. You'll find this in chapter 41 verses 8 and 9, chapter 44 verses 1, 2 and 21, chapter 45 verse 4, chapter 48 verse 21, chapter 49 verse 3, chapter 49 verse 5 and 6 is problematical and could be either Israel or the Prophet depending on the translation. Now, one reference is probably to the Prophet and that would be chapter 50 verse 10. The references in the other two chapters are uncertain, but they can easily refer to Israel. What all this means is that when we get to Isaiah chapter 52 and 53, we should be strongly predisposed to regard any servant of the Lord as the people of Israel. To say that the servant in Isaiah 53 is the Messiah would need an extraordinary persuasive reasons. Instead of such persuasive reasons, we have no reasons at all. How do we go about deciding whether a particular biblical passage refers to the Messiah? Well, we've already seen that the Messiah is simply another way of saying the king of the house of David will rule over a redeemed Israel in an age of peace, prosperity and justice. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in Isaiah 53 to indicate that the servant is the king. Incredibly, this is really all that needs to be said about Isaiah 53 as a Christian proof text. Nevertheless, the chapter has become so central that a few more remarks are necessary. We've seen that our most reasonable expectation ought to be that the servant is the Jewish people. As a collective symbol, the servant can be said to suffer any fate suffered by many individual Jews and he can be said to enjoy the rewards of any large number of Jews. Hence, although the prophet makes no mention of an intervening resurrection, the servant can go to his grave because of the martyrdom of so many Jews and later see his seed and live a long life. So far, we've been arguing that any messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 is improbable. It's time to note that a specifically Christian reading is even more difficult. First of all, whatever a complex relationship between the father and the son might be, is it really reasonable for God to call himself his own servant? If not for this chapter in Isaiah, would a believer in the Trinity even consider to use such an inappropriate term? And secondly, a straightforward reading of see his seed and live a long life doesn't fit either the first coming of this or the second. Since no Christian expects Jesus to have children and long life does not normally mean eternal life. A forced non-literal understanding of seed and long life becomes the only way out. Thirdly, the Hebrew phrase, Ish machavot vidu aholi, a man of pains and familiar with illness, refers to a man of constant long lasting afflictions and cannot refer to anguish, however intense which lasted but a few hours or even days. Finally, the lack of any explicit reference to a resurrection makes a Christological reading all the more difficult. In other words, even though parts of the crucifixion story may well have been written with Isaiah 53 in mind, there remains a residue of material in that chapter that cannot be squared with Jesus' career or with the later belief that he was divine. Isaiah's suffering servant is the Jewish people and it is a terrible irony that their sufferings through the ages were made even more intense because of the belief that they are the villains rather than the victims in Isaiah chapter 53. We could go on to deal with other verses that have been quoted to support Christian doctrines. The 70 weeks of Daniel, for example, don't really culminate in the time of Jesus and the 70th week in particular works out so poorly that even the most ingenious calculations require the assumption that God granted the Jews a last minute delay of several decades. And there's no reason to believe that Psalm 22 refers to the Messiah and the translation quote, They pierced my hands and feet in Psalm 22 verse 17 is really not based on the standard Hebrew text. The central point is that the intense effort to turn the Hebrew Bible into a Christian book just doesn't work. The Bible must therefore be read as it really is, as a purely Jewish work. Jews who become interested in Jewish Christianity are often led for the first time to revere the Hebrew Bible as the product of divine inspiration. We ask such people to retain that reference, not as Jewish Christians, but simply as Jews.