Bible Commentaries
Isaiah 53

Verse 3

THE MAN OF SORROWS

‘A Man of sorrows.’

Isaiah 53:3

I. His own personal life was a sorrowful one.—He was away from home, from His Father’s presence. He was a Stranger in a strange land. From His childhood He was full of thoughts which He could not utter, because, if uttered, they were not understood. He was a lonely Man. His sympathy with others by no means implied their sympathy with Him.

II. But His sorrows, like His labours, were for others.—(1) Jesus Christ sorrowed over bodily suffering; (2) He sorrowed over mental suffering; (3) He sorrowed over spiritual suffering.

III. He was a Man of sorrows also, and chiefly, in relation to sin.—(1) He had to see sin; (2) He had to bear sin.

IV. The subject teaches (1) that if it is as a Man of sorrows that Jesus Christ comes to us, it must be, first of all, as a memento of the fitness of sorrow to our condition as sinful men. (2) Again, only a Man of sorrows could be a Saviour for all men, and for the whole of life. (3) Sorrow, however deep, has its solaces and its compensations. ( a) Whatever it be, it is of the nature of sorrow to bring a man nearer to truth, nearer to the reality, nearer therefore to hope. ( b) Sorrow makes a man more useful. It gives him a new experience and a new sympathy.

—Dean Vaughan.