Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? (Isaiah 53:1)

When the day of Israel’s repentance comes, the first thing they’re going to say is, “We didn’t believe it. We didn’t believe the message concerning the Messiah Jesus, the Servant of the Lord — the message of His humiliation, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and coronation. We didn’t believe the message of the gospel.”

The Hebrew of this verse literally means, “Who has believed the message that was heard by us?” It is an admission of, “We heard it, but we didn’t believe it.”

Virtually every Jewish person in the world since the New Testament has heard the message of Jesus in order that he might reject it. The Jewish religious establishment has been very busy preemptively telling the message so it can be discredited. There is probably no other ethnic group that has had such an exposure to the gospel as the Jewish people have.

Virtually every Jewish person knows Jewish history. They know the Old Testament and the prophets. And they know the New Testament history concerning Jesus. They have a view of who Jesus is, though not an accurate one.

So when the future remnant looks back, they’re going to say, “Who has believed the message we heard?” Because they heard it. And to drive the point home, there’s a second question: “And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?”

The “arm of the Lord” is a symbol of divine power. In a very real sense, the Messiah is the arm of the Lord. In another sense, the gospel is the arm of the Lord, because the gospel “is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). In other words, “God pulled His arm out of His garment and showed us His power to save, and we didn’t understand it.”

This is what John 1:11 says: “He came to what was His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”

Why didn’t they believe? Romans 10 explains:

For not knowing about the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. (Romans 10:3)

They thought they could establish their own righteousness without an alien imputed righteousness being given to them by Christ. They didn’t understand that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. They had an inadequate view of their own sin. So they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God. They were self-righteous.

That’s why when Jesus came, the remnant that did get saved during His ministry were all the riffraff. That’s what they accused Him of: “He hangs around with prostitutes and sinners and drunkards, people who have been thrown out of the synagogue.” And Jesus’s answer was, “I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

But there’s another reason why they don’t believe. Look at John 12:

But though He had done so many signs before them, they still were not believing in Him, so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, “He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and return and I heal them.” (John 12:37-40)

Why didn’t they believe? From a spiritual standpoint, they thought they could establish their own righteousness. From a sovereign standpoint, God shut down their opportunity sovereignly.

There’s one other view of their unbelief — and it’s the view of Isaiah 53:2-3, where they explain why they didn’t believe in Jesus: They looked at His life and they were unimpressed with the beginning of it, they were unimpressed with the middle of it, and they were unimpressed with the end of it. And the accumulation of all of that unimpressive reality in their minds was the historic reason why they didn’t believe.

You can find more insights into Isaiah 53 in Dr. MacArthur’s book “The Gospel According to God: Rediscovering the Most Remarkable Chapter in the Old Testament.” For a limited time, the book is available for 25% off from The Master’s University’s bookstore, here.

This post is based on a sermon Dr. MacArthur preached in 2012, titled “The Scorned Servant of Jehovah, Part 1.” In addition to serving as the pastor of Grace Community Church and the voice of Grace to You, Dr. MacArthur is the chancellor of The Master’s University in Santa Clarita, Calif. You can learn more about TMU at masters.edu.