Isaiah 53
The Suffering Servant — Isaiah 53
Isa 53:4-6 is the Old Testament's deepest exposition of substitution: "he was pierced for our transgressions... and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." The Servant suffers not for his own sin but for the people's. Athanasius read the Servant's death as the divine Word bearing what was ours, and Calvin treated Isaiah 53 as the clearest prophecy of penal substitution. The New Testament quotes it more than any other chapter of the prophets. The sin-bearing of 53:6 illuminates the hilasterion of Rom 3:25 and the atoning blood of Lev 16:15. It is fulfilled in the Lamb of God of John 1:29, the one who takes away the sin of the world.
The Day of Atonement — Leviticus 16
Lev 16:14-22 prescribes the Day of Atonement: blood sprinkled on the mercy seat, and a second goat sent into the wilderness bearing the people's iniquities. Propitiation and removal of sin are enacted in one rite. Aquinas read the two goats as together prefiguring Christ's one sacrifice, and Owen drew on this chapter for the nature of substitution. The mercy seat (kapporet) is the meeting place of holiness and mercy. Hebrews makes this the controlling type for Christ's priesthood in Heb 9:11-14, and Paul calls Christ the hilasterion — the mercy seat — in Rom 3:25. The scapegoat's burden anticipates the Servant of Isa 53:6.