A remarkable characteristic of this entire prophecy is the frequent repetition of expressions conveying the idea of sufferings borne for others. In one form or another that thought occurs, as we reckon, eleven times, and it is especially frequent in the last verses of the chapter. Why this perpetual harking back to that one aspect? It is to be further noticed that throughout there is no hint of any other kind of work which this Servant had to do. He fulfils His service to God and man by being bruised for men's iniquities. He came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and the chief form of His ministry was that He gave His life a ransom for the many. He came not to preach a gospel, but to die that there might be a gospel to preach. The Cross is the centre of His work, and by it He becomes the Centre of the world.
Look once more at the sorrowful, august figure that rose before the prophet's eye--with its strange blending of sinlessness and sorrow, God's approval and God's chastisement, rejection and rule, death and life, abject humiliation and absolute dominion. Listen to the last echoes of the prophet's voice as it dies on our ear--'He bore the sins of the many.' And then hearken how eight hundred years after another voice takes up the echoes--but instead of pointing away down the centuries, points to One at his side, and cries, 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' Look at that life, that death, that grave, that resurrection, that growing dominion, that inexhaustible intercession--and say, 'Of whom speaketh the prophet this?'
May we all be able to answer with clear confidence, 'These things saith Esaias when he saw _His_ glory and spake of _Him_.' May we all take up the ancient confession: 'Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.... He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.'