The Gospel in Isaiah 53

Yesterday morning's message at JPBC was on the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah 53.

I noted that some call this passage the fifth Gospel, or the fifth passion narrative to lay alongside the New Testament Gospels. Here are a few quotes on the gospel in Isaiah 53:

Polycarp called this passage, "the golden passional of the Old Testament Evangelist."

Matthew Henry: "This chapter is so replenished with the unsearchable riches of Christ that it may be called the rather the gospel of the evangelist Isaiah than the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah."

Another said, "Here we seem to enter the holy of holies of the Old Testament prophecy, that sacred chamber wherein are pictured and foretold the suffering of Christ and the glory that should follow" (as in B. H. Carroll, Interpretation, Vol. VII, p. 221).

Texas Baptist giant B. H. Carroll: "This section contains the very heart of the gospel and the preacher who leaves it out of his preaching is a preacher of ‘airy nothings.’ The success or failure of the preacher is determined as he relates his preaching to the truth of this great passage" (Ibid.).

JTR