With the four Gospels in existence, no one doubts or can doubt that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the cry, _Behold My Servant_. With Him it ceased to be a mere ideal, and took its place as the greatest achievement in history.
3. In the earliest discourses of the Apostles, therefore, it is not wonderful that Jesus should be expressly designated by them as the Servant of God,--the Greek word used being that by which the Septuagint specially translates the Hebrew term in Isa. xl.-lxvi.[168]: _God hath glorified His Servant Jesus. Unto you first, God, having raised up His Servant, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.... In this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel foreordained to pass. Grant that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Thy Holy Servant Jesus._[169] It must also be noticed, that in one of the same addresses, and again by Stephen in his argument before the Sanhedrim, Jesus is called _The Righteous One_,[170] doubtless an allusion to the same title for the Servant in Isa. liii. 11. Need we recall the interpretation of Isa. liii. by Philip?[171]
It is known to all how Peter develops this parallel in his First Epistle, borrowing the figures but oftener the very words of Isa. liii. to apply to Christ. Like the Servant of the Lord, Jesus is _as a lamb_: He is a patient sufferer in silence; He _is the Righteous_--again the classic title--_for the unrighteous_; in exact quotation from the Greek of Isa. liii.: _He did no sin, neither was found guile in His mouth, ye were as sheep gone astray, but He Himself hath borne our sins, with whose stripes ye are healed_.[172]
Paul applies two quotations from Isa. lii. 13-liii. to Christ: _I have striven to preach the Gospel not where Christ was named; as it is written, To whom He was not spoken of they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand_; and _He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin._[173] And none will doubt that when he so often disputed that the _Messiah must suffer_, or wrote _Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures_, he had Isa. liii. in mind, exactly as we have seen it applied to the Messiah by Jewish scholars a hundred years later than Paul.