In the Orthodox liturgical tradition, the third Old Testament reading during Vespers of Holy Friday is taken from Isaiah 52.13-54.1 – often called the fourth servant song of Isaiah.[1]On the same liturgical day, in the service of Matins of Holy Friday, typically served the night before, twelve different Gospel accounts of the passion of Jesus are read.[2]That the Orthodox liturgical tradition would draw an interpretive link between the death of Jesus and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is not surprising.[3]Such a connection is to be expected in Christian circles. Interpreting the death of Jesus through the fourth servant song, or perhaps more accurately, interpreting the fourth servant song through the death of Jesus, has a rich Christian interpretative tradition dating back to the New Testament, as articulated in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Official (Acts 8:26-35). While the interpretive link is clear, the theological meaning is less so.[4]What meaning should be drawn from this connection? In the modern era, many interpreters have read Isaiah’s fourth servant song in order to explore the theological meaning of atonement or to expound a substitutionary understanding of the death of Jesus.[5]But is such a reading justified by the text?
To answer these questions, I propose we ask another: how did the New Testament authors receive and interpret the fourth servant song of Isaiah? In exploring this question, I will examine each of the instances of a direct quotation from Isaiah’s fourth servant song in the New Testament.[6]Through a close reading of each text in context, I will demonstrate that none of the New Testament authors quoted Isaiah’s fourth servant song to articulate a substitutionary theology of atonement. Rather each had different theological points to make that were dependent largely on their context.
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[1]The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002), 614. The Orthodox tradition includes Isaiah 54.1 in with this reading which is not recognized by modern scholars as part of the fourth servant song. The term "servant songs" comes from Bernhard Duhm’s commentary on Isaiah, Das Buch Jesaja4th ed., (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1922), 311.
[2]For a complete list of the twelve readings see: The Lenten Triodion, 565-600.
[3]The same readings are used in the Roman Catholic lectionary and the revised common lectionary. Cf. “Liturgical Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States of America 2019,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Divine Worship, accessed April 2, 2019, http://www.usccb.org/about/divine-worship/liturgical-calendar/upload/2019cal.pdf; “The Revised Common Lectionary,” Vanderbilt Divinity School, accessed April 2, 2019, https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php?year=C&season=Holy%20Week.
[4]For a history of interpretation see, Isaiah: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, trans. and ed., Robert Louis Wilken with Angela Russel Christman and Michael J. Hollerich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007); Brevard Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004).
[5]Robert B. Chisholm Jr. “The Christological Fulfillment of Isaiah’s Servant Songs,” Bibliotheca Sacra 163 (October-December 2006): 387-404; Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015); Peter J. Gentry, “The Atonement in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13-53:12),” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 11, no. 2 (Summer, 2007): 20-47; J.I. Packer, “What did the Cross Achieve?: The Logic of Penal Substitution,” Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3-45; Thomas D. Petter, “The Meaning of Substitutionary Righteousness in ISA 53:11: A Summary of the Evidence,” in Trinity Journal 32, no. 2 (Fall, 2011): 165-189. Particularly challenging for many people is the penal substitutionary atonement model in which it is assumed that God character means that he must punish someone for sins committed. In our place, Jesus takes upon himself the wrath of God that was stored up for us sinners.
[6]This methodology rests on a more sure footing than one which also considers allusions to Isaiah 53, because in the instances of direct quotation we know the biblical authors are drawing on the text in question.
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Deacon Philip Maikkula is a deacon in the Orthodox Church in America and is assigned to St. John of the Ladder Orthodox Church in Greenville, SC. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Central Florida, a Master of Divinity from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, and is a currently working on a graduate certificate in religion, peace, and justice from the Institute for Religion, Peace, and Justice at St. Stephen’s University. Since 2017, Deacon Philip has been a volunteer for the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. He is passionate about issues of peace, justice, and violence, especially in the Scriptures.
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