Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him
and cause him to suffer.
(Isaiah 53:10)
The 53rd chapter of Isaiah is widely regarded as a poetry and metaphorical prophecy. It is written in a poetic structure, often called the “Suffering Servant” passage, and uses vivid imagery and metaphors to describe the Servant’s suffering, rejection, death, and ultimate vindication. The use of poetic language in Isaiah 53 allows for deep symbolic meanings, conveying profound spiritual truths about sacrifice, suffering, and redemption. However, one verse in particular—or, in fact, half a verse—caught the eyes of Calvinists:
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.
Isaiah 53:10a, NIV translation.
Since “Divine Abuse” is entirely absent from the New Testament, proponents of this theology have latched onto a single obscure verse, Isaiah 53:10a, to claim that the Hebrew Scriptures prophesied God would torture, bruise, and abuse Christ, sadistically taking pleasure in His suffering:
Who killed Jesus? The Father! The Father killed the Son! Feel God’s love for you revealed in Isaiah 53:10. He crushed his son for you! He crushed Him! He bruised him! He punished him! He disfigured him! He crushed him! With all of the righteous wrath that we deserved. That’s what the Father did. So great was His love.
C.J. Mahaney, reformed Baptist pastor
Likewise, former president of the Southern Baptist Missions Organization, reformed pastor David Platt, preached:
So how can God show both holy hatred and holy love toward sinners at the same time? This is the climactic question of the Bible, and the answer is the cross. At the cross, God showed the full expression of his wrath. Look at the verbs in Isaiah. He was stricken, smitten, afflicted, wounded, crushed, and chastised. Jesus was pulverized under the weight of God’s wrath — as he stood in our place.
David Platt
Reformed Baptist pastor Dan Sardinas wrote as well:
The Lord crushed His own Servant…The Lord is not only observant of the suffering, but He is also the planner and the executor of this suffering.
Similarly, in his book “The Gospel According to God,” John MacArthur claims, “The servant’s death was God’s doing.”
As I will demonstrate in this chapter, the Calvinistic interpretation could not be further from the truth.
Isaiah 53 in Light of Genesis 3:15
A pivotal point in our discussion on Isaiah 53 may lie in Genesis 3:15. If, as proposed by theologians, Isaiah 53:10 echoes the prophetic promise given in Genesis 3:15; then, an examination of the verse is warranted. Genesis 3:15 is widely viewed as a prophetic declaration from God that foretells the defeat of the serpent who gets struck by the promised one (Christ), and conversely:
He [Christ] will crush your head, and you [Serpent] will strike his heel.
Genesis 3:15
A strike to the head could be fatal, while a strike to the heel does not signify an eternal condition. Regardless, have you considered who, in Genesis 3:15, is depicted as striking Christ? It is not the benevolent God but rather the evil serpent. It is Satan who is portrayed as killing the Messiah. Ponder the irony: Calvinists attribute the act of striking Jesus to God, while Genesis predicts that Satan would be the one to strike Jesus.
We are, thus, presented with a choice: to adopt the interpretation of Divine Abuse, Calvin’s Penal Substitution theory, which asserts that God struck Jesus, or to accept the prophetic interpretation of Genesis 3:15, which indicates that the serpent struck Jesus. Which interpretation aligns more closely with the teachings of the New Testament? Do the New Testament gospels and epistles suggest it was God or Satan (through evildoers) who orchestrated the betrayal, arrest, torture, humiliation, and crucifixion of Jesus?
Isaiah 53 in Light of the New Testament
You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
Acts 3:15
The apostles believed that evildoers oppressed Jesus and delighted in his agony, yet God reversed their actions by raising Christ from the dead. Were the apostles unaware of Isaiah 53? Did they disregard it? Or perhaps they had a different—non-Calvinistic—interpretation of Isaiah 53 in mind…
Indeed, the simplest way to counter the idea that Isaiah 53 depicts the Father as the abuser of Christ is through the New Testament’s interpretation of Isaiah 53.
Peter
In his writings, Peter refers to Jesus as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, yet in a dramatically different way than how preachers of Divine Abuse do:
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
1 Peter 2:23–25
Here, Peter implies that Jesus could threaten and retaliate when he suffered on the cross. Is Peter saying Jesus could have fought back and taken revenge against…his Father?! Of course not. Peter understood evildoers (“they”; “their”) to be those who crushed Jesus.
Acts
The Book of Acts, which chronicles the apostles’ preaching of the gospel, consistently emphasizes two points: that evildoers—wicked humans—were responsible for the death of Christ and that God responded to this evil by resurrecting Christ:
It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
Acts 4:10
And again:
The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.
Acts 5:30
In fact, the Book of Acts documents twenty-five instances of the apostles preaching the gospel. They were convinced that God’s sole act towards Jesus was resurrecting him. Similarly, the great theologian and rabbi, the apostle Paul, affirmed this belief in his epistles. In essence, the New Testament authors attribute the responsibility for Jesus’ death entirely to humanity while ascribing the credit for his resurrection exclusively to God.
Any other New Testament quotation, reference, or allusion to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah (e.g., Matthew 8:14-17; John 12:37-41; Luke 22:35-38; 1 Peter 2:19-25; Acts 8:26-35; Romans 10:11-21), not once suggested that God was behind Christ’s suffering and death. None of the apostles suggested that “the Father killed the Son” or that “the Father bruised, punished, disfigured, and crushed him.” If the Apostles heard someone preaching that message, they would likely declare it a heretical (if not demonic) gospel.
In light of the Gospels
The New Testament gospels portray Satan, not God, as Christ’s killer. Herod’s massacre of innocent babies in his attempt to kill baby Jesus serves as further proof that the devil, not God, is behind the rejection, abuse, humiliation, and murder of Christ, as this act reflects the evil forces at work behind the very first attempt to murder Christ.
Likewise, in the events leading up to the Passion, it is recounted that during Jesus’s last supper with his disciples, Satan, not God, entered Judas, prompting him to betray Jesus, ultimately leading to Jesus’s death (John 13:2, 13:27; Luke 22:3).
The God of the living did not cause the death of Jesus, nor does He find joy or pleasure in evil, as stated: “You are not a God who delights in wickedness; no evil resides with You” (Psalm 5:4; also see Psalm 92:15 and Romans 9:14). Thus, if the rejection, humiliation, torture, and killing of Christ were evil, unjust, and sinful, which they certainly were, then God could not have desired them. Instead, God permitted these events to occur within the scope of human free will.
Thomas H. McCall, a professor of biblical and systematic theology, summarizes it profoundly:
The earliest apostolic preaching of the cross insists that the death of Christ was the result of the sinful actions of the very sinners Christ came to save. There is no ambiguity about it: again and again, the gospel proclamation insists that “you killed him” (e.g., Acts 2:23). And it draws a sharp contrast between the actions of the sinful humans who are responsible for the death of Jesus and the actions of God: “You killed him—but God raised him from the dead” (NIV; Acts 2:24)…. The earliest Christian preachers do not say that God killed Jesus; to the contrary, the responsibility for the death of Christ clearly falls upon sinful humanity. At the same time, however, in the early apostolic preaching there is no indication that this was in any way a senseless accident or an unforeseen tragedy. To the contrary, this proclamation of the gospel includes the affirmation that this was within the providence of an omniscient God. Jesus Christ was “handed over” according to “God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge.” (Acts 2:23)
Similarly, the 19th-century Christian commentary on Isaiah 53 by Hebrew scholars Franz Delitzsch and Carl Friedrich Keil attributes the entirety of the servant’s suffering exclusively to mankind:
It was men who inflicted upon the Servant of God such crushing suffering, such deep sorrow.
Delitzsch and Keil
Isaiah 53:10
Along with Psalm 22, Isaiah 53 is perhaps the most apparent messianic prophecy foretelling the Messiah’s rejection, torture, and death. Isaiah 53, however, is an unusual and challenging text. It is a poetic prophecy written from the perspective of the nation of Israel in the future, looking back in time and finally understanding it was wrong all along, mistakenly rejecting its own Messiah. In verse four, Israel looks back in repentance and says:
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:4
When considering Isaiah 53:10 in the context of Isaiah 53:4, it appears that Israel misunderstood the Messiah’s suffering as punishment from God. Ironically, this misinterpretation is echoed by many fundamentalists today, who also erroneously believe that it was God who punished Christ. However, Isaiah foretold that Jesus would be struck, disfigured, spat upon, mocked, and killed—not by God but by human hands—as detailed in the gospels (e.g., Mark 15:17-19 and Matthew 27:39-44), centuries before the crucifixion of Christ.
Why is it so confusing?
When we speak with people, we don’t stop to analyze what genre the conversation is or what each word means. According to context, our mind interprets language automatically when we listen and talk to one another. It is, however, much more challenging to do so when we read a text; therefore, we sometimes re-read parts to ensure we understand them correctly. Understanding the text’s unique genre is one of the most basic rules of biblical interpretation. But for some reason, some Christians make an exception with the Bible and insist on taking every word in it literally as if the Bible is one big textbook or manual, written in the 21st century and their mother tongue language.
Overlooking the genre and context of ancient biblical narratives, parables, metaphors, symbols, and figures of speech in Hebrew can lead to bizarre literal interpretations. For instance, believing that women are saved from hell by childbirth (1 Timothy 2:15), that one should literally gouge out their eyes (Matthew 18:9), or that the consumption of Christ’s blood and flesh is literal (John 6:54).
In the case of Isaiah 53, a bizarre interpretation can sound like:
He crushed his son for you! He crushed Him! He bruised him! He punished him! He disfigured him! He crushed him!
C.J. Mahaney
Isaiah 53 (actually starting in 52:13) does not attempt to give a literal historical account of events that took place (histography). Instead, we read it as a poetic prophecy written using many metaphors, symbols, and figurative language to describe Israel’s future point of view in retrospect. Poetry, metaphors, and figurative language are NOT meant to be interpreted literally. They use symbolic and imaginative expressions to convey deeper meanings, emotions, or ideas beyond the literal sense of the words.
Thus, it is understood that Isaiah is not providing a literal account of events; otherwise, we might erroneously believe that God literally extends a physical hand from the heavens to touch people (Isaiah 53:1), that the Servant (Christ) is an actual plant in the desert (Isaiah 53:2), that humans are livestock (Isaiah 53:6), or that Jesus was mute (Isaiah 53:7) and fathered biological children (Isaiah 53:10). Instead, we recognize these descriptions as metaphors, employing figurative and symbolic language.
DAKA
The first half of verse 10 reads:
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.
(NIV)
The word crucial to our discussion here is “crush,” a translation of the Hebrew word “DAKA.”
Historically, the word “DAKA” in Isaiah 53:10 has sparked a linguistic debate concerning its meaning. In saying ‘debate,’ I’m referring to how the ancients understood and translated this verse and word. For example, the Septuagint translation (one of the most influential translations, also known as the “LXX”) is a 3rd-century BCE Greek translation from the original Hebrew. In it, the word DAKA in Isaiah 53:10 was translated as “cleansed.”
Jeremy Schipper, Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Princeton Theological Seminary, explains:
The LXX has the servant’s disability removed by translating 53:10 as “Yet the LORD determined to cleanse him [the servant] of his disease.”
Jeremy Schipper
English translations that used the Septuagint, like the ABP, translated:
God was willing to cleanse him from the wounds.
Isaiah 53:10, ABP
Here, the DAKA is understood as ‘cleansed’ as well.
However, suppose, for argument’s sake, we reject the ‘cleansed’ option. In that case, we have to figure out what DAKA meant to the original readers of the Hebrew text.
The Suffering Servant
Numerous Bible translations introduce the title “The Suffering Servant” at the start of Isaiah 53, whereas some include it earlier, in Isaiah 52:13.
Servanthood and humility are deeply connected because true service requires putting others’ needs before your own. To serve others, you must humble yourself, recognizing that you are not above the people you’re helping. Humility allows you to approach service with a selfless attitude, free from pride or the desire for recognition, making genuine servanthood possible. Without humility, serving others would be driven by selfish motives or superiority, undermining the essence of true service.
First, we know that Jesus was not crushed but nailed. Thus, DAKA must be taken figuratively, symbolizing an attitude or a character trait.
In Psalm 34:18, for instance, the same Hebrew word, DAKA, is used to figuratively speak of those who are humble:
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
Here, God saves the lowly (“crushed in spirit”).
Jeremiah 34:10 is another example whereby the Hebrew DAKA was translated ‘humble’:
To this day they have not humbled themselves or shown reverence, nor have they followed my law and the decrees I set before you and your ancestors.
Jeremiah 34:10
In this light, ‘DAKA’ should be understood as God’s desire for the Servant-Messiah to be humble despite being in greater authority (being the Son of God) and suffering unjustly. God intended for Christ to exhibit humility and non-resistance—the very opposite of acting in violence. While evildoers “crushed” Jesus, it was God’s will for Christ to stay obedient and humble in the midst of terror:
Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place.
Philippians 2:5-9
Why humble?
Humility is both an attitude and a character trait. As an attitude, it reflects a mindset of modesty and self-awareness, often expressed through actions and behavior. As a character trait, humility is a fundamental aspect of a person’s personality, representing a disposition to value others above oneself and acknowledge one’s limitations without arrogance.
Christ’s humility is seen in his willingness to serve others, obedience to God’s will, and his sacrifice on the cross for humanity’s sake.
God allowed men to abuse Jesus, yet He used that evil to advance His plan of salvation. Christ’s humility, in setting aside his divine glory and “crushing” his own pride, resulted in the salvation of mankind. Think about that—the Son of God humbled himself before wicked, evil men, allowing God to come to his rescue by resurrecting him. It was this profound humility which brought pleasure to God. God does not abuse, torture, humiliate, punish, or kill the innocent. Instead, He uses all things, including evil, to further His plans and bring glory and redemption. This is a comforting reminder for us all, no matter our situation.
Isaiah 53:10 in Light of Isaiah
Author and theologian Greg Boyd does a great job summarizing who is crushing Christ in Isaiah 53:
It was humans who “despised and rejected” this servant as they “hid their faces” from him (v. 3). It was before accusing humans that this servant “did not open his mouth” (v. 7), and it was violent humans who “oppressed and afflicted” this man (v. 7). So too, it was by human “oppression and judgment” that this man “was taken away … cut off from the land of the living” and “was assigned a grave with the wicked” (vs. 8-9). And it was humans from among “his generation” who failed to protest this man’s unjust treatment at the hands of other humans (v. 8). It is thus clear that for Isaiah, as much as for New Testament authors, Christ was “afflicted” by God only in the sense that it was God who delivered him over to violent humans to experience the death-consequences of our transgressions.
It is inconceivable and unprecedented to think that God would find satisfaction in the rejection, abuse, humiliation, and murder of His innocent and righteous Servant. It’s even worse to attribute such evils to God Himself. It must be emphasized: God did not crush Jesus; it was the actions of wicked men—evildoers—who took Jesus’ life and abused him. Humanity is responsible for the death of Jesus, not God. The omniscient, all-loving God foresaw this yet permitted Christ to become the ultimate sacrifice for atonement. This was for our benefit, not for the sake of relaxing His own wrath by committing a cosmic suicide. Sinners ended Jesus’ life; God resurrected Him. This is the gospel that the apostles proclaimed.
The Servant’s Aroma
As we covered earlier in the book, the Scriptures often describe God as one who receives satisfaction and pleasure from the “aroma” of sacrifices. The sacrifices produced a “pleasing aroma” that God enjoyed “smelling” because, among other things, they symbolized humility. Bearing this in mind, consider the very beginning of the book of Isaiah, where God declares he is not pleased with the smell coming from Israel’s sacrifices:
“The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.”
Isaiah 1:11
God took no pleasure in Israel’s sacrifices because they were marked by pride, evil, and abuse rather than humility and righteousness (Isaiah 1:16-17). As a result, their offerings, metaphorically speaking, “smelled bad” and were rejected by God. In contrast to these empty sacrifices, the offering of the righteous Servant in Isaiah 53 brings a pleasing aroma to God. It was a high-quality sacrifice, not due to the amount of fat Jesus had in his physical body but due to his character, faith, humility, etc.
The Servant, representing the true and faithful Israel, humbled himself and offered his life in self-sacrifice. You have to really humble yourself to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others, let alone for your enemies. By humbling himself, Christ, the Servant of the Lord, embodied the ultimate act of love—giving his life for sinners.
Christ could have retaliated, but instead, he humbled himself. In this sense, God’s will was for him to be “crushed” (humbled) by his own voluntary submission, not by divine wrath. When we serve others, especially those who hate us, we offer a pleasing aroma to God. Thus, Isaiah 53 is not about an angry deity with a Split Personality, Borderline Personality, or NSSI disorder, where it crushes, abuses, or tortures itself in anger to appease its wrath, but about a loving Messiah who humbles himself before sinners in order to atone and save them.
Christ’s sacrifice reminds us that we, too, are called to sacrifice for those who hate and persecute us. If we humble ourselves through self-sacrifice for our enemies’ sake, as Christ did, the result will be a pleasing aroma to God. Thus, Christ’s self-sacrificial act is not a call to retreat into underground shelters while criticizing the sinful world as if we are somehow better (that’s pride).
Christ’s humility “makes many to be accounted righteous” (Isaiah 53:11), teaching us what it truly means to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1; see also Philippians 4:18). When we serve others and sacrifice for their sake—regardless of whether they deserve it or not—we create that pleasing aroma God gets so excited about. This is how we live out God’s love, the very Gospel Jesus preached and lived!
Conclusion
It is blasphemous to assert that God, instead of Satan, humiliated, abused, and killed Jesus to satisfy His own anger. To attribute such demonic actions to God is the height of blasphemy. Earlier, I referred to a statement by reformed pastor Jared Wilson of The Gospel Coalition, who said that “a wrathless cross” (meaning a gospel whereby God did not abuse and kill Jesus) is a “satanic doctrine.” Considering Moses and the apostles taught that it was Satan (through wicked men) who killed Jesus, I think irony just died a thousand deaths.
The rejection, abuse, humiliation, and murder of Christ represent the gravest sins ever committed by mankind. It is shameful that these acts are attributed to the God of Israel by those who identify as Christians. This attribution is personally offensive to me as a Jew.
The Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, identified as Christ, exhibited a form of humility and obedience that starkly contrasted with the devout yet legalistic obedience for one’s own sake commonly seen in fundamentalist groups. Through Isaiah 53, we learn that Godly obedience is the eagerness to bless others as an expression of love and respect that comes from the heart and is freely chosen. In contrast, religious-legalistic obedience is often driven by compulsion, fear, and external pressures.
Religious-legalistic obedience often revolves around a checklist of rules driven by a desire to meet external standards or earn approval. People love to enforce laws and judge others by them, but God’s law urges us to love others, and His judgment is rooted in mercy.
While many religions practice self-flagellation or harsh rituals to demonstrate obedience, Godly obedience calls for a different mindset. We are not to endure suffering for our own sake, to glorify ourselves, or to display piety. Instead, we endure suffering in obedience for the sake of others—so that others may experience redemption through our sacrifices. An example of this is when a parent sacrifices sleep, personal time, and comfort to care for a sick child—not out of obligation or fear of judgment but out of deep love. The parent’s willingness to endure discomfort for the child’s well-being reflects true, self-sacrificial love, just as humility and Godly obedience do. These acts of self-sacrificial love create the “pleasing aroma” that God desires, which is the essence of what Isaiah 53—and the gospel—teaches.
This article is a copy-paste from my book, ‘The “Gospel” of Divine Abuse,’ available on this Amazon page.
A free sample is available here.
