He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)

“Oppressed” is a word that suggests brutality and enslavement. It is a word that refers to being arrested and abused. And it was severe.

So severe was His treatment when He was arrested and abused that Isaiah 52:14 says His appearance was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. He didn’t even look human.

By the time they were finished with Him, in terms of the physical beating that He took on His body and the abuse that He took on His head and His face, He didn’t even look human.

It started with His arrest in the middle of the night in the garden. Then it continued through the mockery of trials, false witnesses, the abuse that came to Him there, the psychological torture that He underwent there, the outrageous injustice of turning Him over to the Romans, and the way they handled Him and abused Him physically.

No crime was ever validated, no proof ever given, no guilt ever established. According to Luke 23:15, Herod declared His innocence. Three times in Luke 23 Pilate says He’s innocent. Still, the Jewish leaders, with consent from the people, pushed Pilate to follow his triple declaration of the innocence of Jesus with a call for execution.

And then Isaiah says He was “afflicted.” It’s a passive verb, with the sense that He allowed Himself to be afflicted.

This is not normal for innocent people who are being tortured. Normally an oppressed, tortured person who is innocent and knows that this is a gross injustice cries out — cries out about the injustice and cries out about innocence. But not the Servant of Jehovah. He doesn’t say a word. In spite of the fact that this was all evil, wicked, wretched injustice against a perfectly holy and righteous man, He didn’t open His mouth.

Sinners don’t suffer silently. When we suffer for our sin, we cry out, as David did in the Psalms, “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned. Wash me, purge me, make me clean.” That’s the cry of the guilty sinner.

The cry of the innocent sinner is Job, who repeatedly cries out to God about his innocence. He says, “God, why is this happening? I’m an innocent man. I am not guilty of what even my own friends are accusing me of being guilty of.”

Sinners don’t suffer in silence. When we suffer because of guilt, we cry out to God for forgiveness. And when we suffer for innocence, we cry out to God and ask why.

But this is a silent sufferer. He has been hunted down in the middle of the night and found in the Garden of Gethsemane after midnight. They have come to Him with a massive crowd of temple police, religious leaders, and Roman soldiers to arrest Him. He is taken into custody, ill treated, tortured, tormented, harassed, abused in every way imaginable and unimaginable, and then led to execution without any resistance or complaint.

He was silent before the high priest and the Sanhedrin. He was silent before Pilate. He was silent before Herod. He never said a word in defense of Himself and His innocence.

The issue here is the willingness of the Messiah to die. This is not a good plan gone wrong. Seven hundred years before Jesus showed up, the prophecy is crystal clear that when He comes He will come as a lamb for slaughter.

When Jesus died at the end of the three years of His ministry, that was not — as some have tried to portray it — a good thing gone bad. That was the very reason He came in the first place. There was plenty He could have said before His accusers. But He didn’t.

It was the silence of submission to the will of His Father. But it was also the silence of judgment. The silence said, “You wouldn’t listen, and now I have nothing to say to you. When I did speak about life and salvation, when I did speak about forgiveness and the Kingdom of God, you would not listen, and now I have nothing more to say to you.”

He not only accepted the unrighteous judgment of men, but He accepted the righteous judgment of God on behalf of unrighteous sinners in order to make them righteous. No sacrifice was ever so perfect or pure. Here is the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, acceptable to God, chosen by God and elect, dying for sinners.

It is here that Old Testament soteriology reaches its apex. This is the high point of the Old Testament. The Messiah is the sacrifice, slaughtered by God for us.

The suffering, silent, submissive, slaughtered, scorned Servant of Jehovah takes on Himself the punishment of God for the enormous moral debt of the elect of all human history and pays the ransom price with His life.

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 Silent Servant, 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.