Isaiah 53:7 prophesied, “He was oppressed, and it was He who was afflicted, / Yet He did not open His mouth; / Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter / And like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers, / So He did not open His mouth.” According to Matthew, on the night in which Christ was betrayed, some from the chief priests and elders of the people came to seize Him and bind Him so as to deliver Him to Pilate. This was His being oppressed. While He was being judged before the Sanhedrin, people spat on Him and mocked Him. These were His afflictions. “The high priest stood up and said to Him, Do You answer nothing? What is it that these testify against You? But Jesus remained silent” (26:62-63a). He could have shut the mouths of the false accusers (cf. 22:22, 34, 46), but He did not argue, vindicate Himself, or justify Himself. Before the Sanhedrin, as a sheep being sheared before the shearers, He did not say one word for self-vindication. His intention was not to save Himself but to save us.
At the time, those who were with Him by His side did not realize that He was dying for them, just as it was prophesied in Isaiah 53:8: “As for His generation, who among them had the thought / That He was cut off out of the land of the living / For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?” Even some “esteemed Him stricken, / Smitten of God and afflicted” (v. 4b). His oppression, suffering, and persecution were all for us. He died a vicarious death.
The last part of Isaiah 53:12 prophesies that He would be “numbered with the transgressors.” This prophecy was fulfilled in Luke 23:33, which says, “When they [the soldiers] came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.” Christ was executed with two criminals. This fact indicates that the Roman ruler considered Him to be a criminal. This was done under the sovereignty of God so that the prophecy in Isaiah concerning Christ’s execution might be fulfilled.
Isaiah also prophesies that Christ “bore the sin of many / And interceded for the transgressors” (53:12b). This was fulfilled in Luke 23:34, which says, “Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (v. 34). While on the cross, Christ interceded not only for the transgressors who were beside Him, one of whom confessed and repented immediately (vv. 40-42), but also for those who were killing Him, asking the Father to forgive them for their sins committed in ignorance.
Isaiah 53:6b prophesied, “Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him.” The second half of verses 11 and 12 also prophesy that Christ would bear the iniquities of many. After God caused our iniquities to fall on the crucified Christ, God considered Him the unique sinner, even sin itself. According to 2 Corinthians 5:21, God made Christ, who did not know sin, to be sin on our behalf. In the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, Christ not only died as our Substitute bearing our iniquities; He was also made sin on our behalf and was judged by God once for all.
The first half of Isaiah 53:10 says, “Jehovah was pleased to crush Him, to afflict Him with grief. / ...He makes Himself an offering for sin.” People think that it was either men or Satan who killed the Lord; actually, it was God who was pleased to crush Him, to put Him on the cross. God “loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He makes Himself an offering for sin in Hebrew has the sense of “when His soul would make an offering for sin.” This implies that Christ volunteered to be an offering for sin. This does not refer to a sin offering but to an offering for sin in its totality—for wrongdoings, mistakes, trespasses, transgressions, evildoings, and iniquities. Isaiah 53:12b prophesies that Christ “poured out His life unto death.” Christ on the cross suffered and poured out His human life to be an offering. Philippians 2:8 says that Christ became “obedient even unto death, and that the death of a cross.”
Every offering, if it is a sacrifice, must be killed, and the blood must be poured out. Christ volunteered to be an offering for sin. For this He poured out His life unto death. Christ died for our wrongdoings, mistakes, trespasses, transgressions, evildoings, and iniquities; thus, His death is altogether a vicarious death.