1. Celebrating the Servant-Savior
The Gospel of Isaiah
Jason S. DeRouchie, PhD
Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology
Bethlehem College & Seminary
Bethlehem Baptist Church, 2017

2. A Plea for God to Save as in the Exodus (51:9–11)
The Appeal (51:9a–d)
“Awake, awake”
Ps 121:3–4. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

3. The Arm of the LORD (51:9c)
God’s arm rules. Isa 40:10. Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him.
God’s arm fights. Isa 48:14. The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
In God’s arm the coastlands hope. Isa 51:5. My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.
God’s arm is the Servant-Savior. Isa 53:1–3. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4. God’s arm is the only means to save the world.
Isa 59:16. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.
Isa 63:5. I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me.

5. God’s arm has worked salvation in the past, which gives promise that he will do so again.
Isa 63:11–14. Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, 12 who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, 13 who led them through the depths? Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. 14 Like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. So you led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name.

6. Exod 6:6. Say therefore to the people of Israel, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.”
Jude 5. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
Deut 7:17–19.  If you say in your heart, “These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?” 18 you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, 19 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. (Cf. Deut 4:34–35)

7. The Comparison (51:9b–10) “Who cut Rahab” = Egypt (51:9e)
While the ESV just transliterates the Hebrew, the term “Rahab” means “rage, violence,” and it’s related to the word for “arrogance.” This explains why it is associated with Egypt, the “Raging/Arrogant One.”
Isa 30:7. Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”
Ps 89:10. You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. (Cf. Job 26:12)

8. “Who pierced the dragon” = Pharaoh was a small picture of the serpent (51:9e)
Isa 27:1. In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Ezek 29:3. Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of the streams, that says, “My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.”

9. The original exodus account already compared Pharaoh to the serpent.
Gen 3:15.  I will put enmity between you [serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Exod 3:20. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.
Exod 4:3–4. And [the LORD] said, “Throw [your staff] on the ground.” So [Moses] threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. 4 But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail.”
Exod 9:15. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you [Pharaoh] and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.

10. The certain triumph
Rom 16:20. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
Rev 20:2, 7, 10. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years…. 7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison…. 10 And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

11. The Hope: A Second Exodus with the Complete Defeat of the Serpent (51:11)–– Realization in the Life of Christ
Matt 1:21–23. “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
Isa 7:14. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isa 9:6. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

12. Isa 11:6–12. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child [= tender shoot; cf. Isa 53:2] shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. 10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples––of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people…. 12 He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Cf. Isa 2:2–4; Jer 23:5–8)

13. Matt 2:13–15. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
Hos 11:1, 5, 10–12.  When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son…. 5 They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me…. 10 They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.

14. Luke 9:30–31. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Rev 12:9–11. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.