God’s Perfect Servant
Matthew 12:14-21
In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we have seen that Matthew presents Jesus as the Messiah-King. But Jesus was not the Messiah or the King that many of the Jews expected or wanted. Many expected a King who would deliver them from their Roman overlords. Instead, they met a preacher who said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you—who seemed more interested in correcting the Jewish leaders than Roman authorities. Many expected a Messiah who would vindicate their religious traditions. Instead, they met a teacher who challenged their legalism and condemned their hypocrisy. They expected a King who would reward the influential and powerful religious leaders. Instead, they met a man who chose fishermen and tax-collectors as disciples and welcomed sinners and ate with them.[1]
Yet, they also could not easily dismiss Jesus as an imposter. No one ever spoke like Jesus, and no one ever did the miraculous works that He did. He could not teach what He taught or do the miracles He did if God were not with Him (John 3:2). Still, the question remains. If Jesus is the Messiah-King, why does His life and ministry look so different from what people expected? If He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Sovereign King, why is He behaving as a gentle servant?
Setting: Matthew 12:14-16
Today’s passage is wedged between two narratives where Jesus is in conflict with the Pharisees. Opposition to our Savior’s message and ministry was mounting. Jesus had just healed a man on the Sabbath in their synagogue (Matt. 12:9-13). Before that, the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath because they had walked through a grain field, rubbed heads of grain together in their hands, and ate. Taking them to the scriptures, Jesus challenged their legalistic Sabbath rules and declared that He Himself was the Lord of the Sabbath. He presented Himself as the one who had authority even over the Sabbath day. And now, He has proven His authority by the fact that He healed a man on the Sabbath in the very synagogue of the Pharisees. Jesus proclaimed Himself Lord of the Sabbath which equated Himself with God and the Pharisees knew it.
How did they react to this? Matthew 12:14, “Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.” Their opposition to Jesus takes a deadly turn as they set in motion plans to destroy Him—plans that would eventually lead to His crucifixion.
Someone who was seeking after worldly power would likely have used the advantage just won in the rebuke of the Pharisees to rally the support of the people and put an end to their power. But instead of taking up arms to protect Himself and establish His kingdom by force, Jesus quietly withdraws. Matthew 12:15 says, “But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there.” It’s what you might call a tactical retreat until the proper time.
But Jesus’ withdrawal was not an effort to run and hide in fear of persecution. We know that isn’t the case, because even in retreat He continues to heal the sick, “And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matt. 12:15). Jesus was modeling what He told His disciples to do when He sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God, “And whoever will not receive nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet” (Matt. 10:14). Or again, He instructed them, “When they persecute you in this city, flee to another” (Matt. 10:23).
Jesus didn’t stay to fight with those who opposed Him. No—He peacefully, calmly left the place where He was not welcomed. Jesus was not afraid to speak the truth to those who rejected Him. In Matthew 11, He told those in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum who rejected His message, “Woe to you . . .” and warned them of God’s judgment (Matthew 11:21-24). Jesus will have even more woes to pronounce on the religious leaders in Jerusalem in Matthew 23. Still, Jesus did not pick up arms to battle those who opposed Him. He simply left.
But just like Jesus avoided violence with the Pharisees, He also tried to avoid celebrity and stardom with the people. Matthew 12:16 says about those He healed, “Yet He warned them not to make Him known.” He refused violence and He refused ostentation, as He quietly goes about His works of mercy.
There were probably several reasons for Jesus not wanting the people to make Him known. For one, acclaim as a healer would have distorted why Jesus was here. Jesus came to save souls, not just to dispense physical healing. Jesus healed as a natural expression of His compassion and as a supernatural attestation of His Messiahship. For another, if the people made Him known it could have inflamed overzealous enthusiasm. In John 6:15, the people were so enthused after Jesus fed the 5000 that they wanted to come and take Him by force and make Him king. But Jesus did not come in His first advent to be the conquering king, but the suffering servant that would take away our sins (Isaiah 53).[2]
Scriptural Fulfillment: Matthew 12:18-21
This setting is what prompts Matthew to take Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of the Messiah and put it on display here in verses Matthew 12:18–21. Matthew writes that the reason Jesus withdrew from violent conflict and popular stardom was, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet…” (Matt. 12:17). Think about this. The LORD prophesied about the nature and ministry of the Messiah some 700 years before Jesus was born. What does this indicate? It was the Father’s plan. God told the people of Israel what kind of a Messiah He would be. And here, Matthew gives proof that Jesus came and fulfilled the kind of ministry that God said He would—and did so in the very manner that the Scriptures promised. Matthew—who wrote His Gospel primarily to Jewish readers—was proving that even though the Jewish people rejected Jesus, He truly was the Messiah that the Scriptures promised He would be.
This passage tells us the character of our Savior’s ministry.[3]
It helps us understand why Jesus, for much of His earthly ministry, kept distant from the Jewish leaders who opposed Him. In Matthew’s Gospel, the first time we see Jesus go to Jerusalem is Matthew 21—Palm Sunday! And why did He go then? To submit Himself to death on the cross. Even though great multitudes of people followed Jesus, He didn’t come to overthrow those who opposed Him. Instead, He came to teach the truths about His Father’s kingdom to those who would hear Him, and then die on the cross so that sinners may become citizens of that kingdom. He came as God’s humble, gentle servant who gave Himself up to death to save sinners.
In Matthew 12:18-21, Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42:1-4. This, by the way, is the longest quote from a single Old Testament passage in all of the Gospel of Matthew. The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to give it to us here in the heart of His Gospel to show who Jesus is and why He came to cause us to place our hope in Jesus Christ.[4]
First we see…
1. The Person of Christ – Chosen and Beloved (Matt. 12:18)
Matthew 12:18 says, “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!” The Lord God says through the prophet Isaiah, “Behold! My Servant…” He wants us to “Behold!”, to look carefully and consider the person of Christ. Each one of us—stop, look, listen. God Himself is describing His Messiah.
First, God says He is “My Servant”. That’s the prophetic name that God gave to the Messiah in the book of Isaiah—“My Servant”. The word “Servant” here is unusual. It is the Greek word “pais”. It can refer to a king’s closest and most trusted attendant or minister. It can also refer to a child or son. It is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament, in Genesis 24, to speak of Abraham’s chief servant. It is used to speak of a royal servants. And it is used in Job 4 to speak of God’s angelic servants. Jesus is God’s Son-Servant, the intimate, trusted, chief, royal servant.[5]
This particular quotation is from the first of what we call the four Servant Songs in Isaiah. Each of these songs reveals aspects of God’s Servant who would come to redeem His people. And each of these songs find their fulfillment in Jesus in the New Testament.
In the first song, He is the gentle servant who brings justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1-4). This song focuses on Jesus’ ministry. In the second song (Isaiah 49:1-6), He is the prepared servant who brings God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. This song focuses on Jesus’ incarnation. In the third song (Isaiah 50:4-9), He is the obedient servant who trusts God to help Him face His accusers. This song focuses on Jesus’ obedience in the face of opposition. In the final song (Isaiah 52:13—53:12), He is the suffering servant who dies for our sins and rises again triumphant over sin and death.[6]
Isaiah 53 is the most well-known of all the Servant Songs, because it focuses on the Servant’s suffering and death. We will look at this passage in our Good Friday service this week. Jesus is the fulfillment of all four Servant Songs in Isaiah. Jesus will say in Matthew 20:28, “. . . the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Now look back to Matthew 12:18. God says, “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen…” Yes, Jesus came to serve us and to give His life as a ransom for many, but Jesus was primarily God’s servant. He came in obedience to God the Father. He said what the Father told Him to say. He did what the Father told Him to do. He perfectly fulfilled His Father’s will.
Jesus was the Chosen One. Some of you have watched the series “The Chosen” which portrays Jesus with His chosen disciples. But Jesus is truly “The Chosen” of God. Peter wrote that we come to Him “as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious . . .” (1 Peter 2:4). Even Jesus’ enemies recognized this about Him. At the cross, the rulers mocked Him and said, “He saved others, let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God” (Luke 23:35). Jesus alone is the one whom God has “chosen”. How important, then, that we “behold” Him!
God also calls Jesus, “My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased” (Matt. 12:18). At His baptism, the Father declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17; cf. 2 Peter 1:17). Jesus was the object of divine choice, divine love, and divine pleasure. God the Father will repeat these words at Jesus’ transfiguration in Matthew 17:5, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” What we must see is that the Father does not love the Son because of His obedience in coming to suffer for sinners. No—God sent His Son into the world to suffer for sinners because the Son is His beloved (John 10:17). The Father has always loved the Son from eternity past (John 17:24). We might love someone because of what they have done for us, or the potential they have to do things for us. But the Father loves the Son with an inexhaustible, selfless, joyous, all-satisfying love! John 3:35 says, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.” Paul spoke of the Father’s delight in the Son when he called Jesus, “the Son of His love” (Col. 1:13) and “the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6).
So we see the person of Jesus Christ. He is God’s chosen and beloved servant. From that eternal, divine, love relationship flows everything that Jesus is and does.
Second we see …
2. The Spirit of Christ – Humble and Gentle (Matt. 12:18-20).
The quote from God in Isaiah 42 continues in Matthew 12:18, “I will put My Spirit upon Him, And He will declare justice to the Gentiles.” In Isaiah 11:1-2, we’re given this promise about the Lord Jesus Christ: “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:1-2). The Father made this clear to those who witnessed Jesus’ baptism. John the Baptist bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God” (John 1:32-34).
How did the Holy Spirit manifest Himself in Jesus’ ministry? First, in humility. The end of Matthew 12:18 quotes, “And He will declare justice to the Gentiles.” Jesus will proclaim righteousness to the peoples of the world. He will not be like other earthly kings—who rule in accordance with their own will for their own ends, and thus oppressed the people under them. Isaiah tells us when the Lord comes, “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
And what a humble and righteous ruler He will be! Again Isaiah 11 says,
His delight is in the fear of the LORD,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,
And faithfulness the belt of His waist (Isaiah 11:3-5).
Notice in Matthew 12:18, how He would bring this about. We’re told that, when this promised one comes, He will declare justice with great patience and modesty.
Isaiah prophesied, “He will not quarrel nor cry out, Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.” (Matt. 12:19). Remember, Matthew is quoting this Servant Song from Isaiah to show how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in His response to the Pharisees who were plotting to kill Him. Jesus did not quarrel or cry out in arguing with His enemies. To do so would have drawn undue attention to Himself, something which we have already seen Jesus did not do. Yes, Jesus spoke out against evil. But He avoided conflict for as long as possible. He did not argue with others to justify Himself or in order to make others look bad. No—He spoke the truth of God with all the humility of one who serves God and others rather than Himself.
He will also bring righteousness for the nations with gentleness. MAtthew 12:20 says, “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, Till He sends forth justice to victory.” And Jesus is the gentle servant who cares for the helpless and hopeless.
Reeds were used for a variety of purposes in Biblical times. They were cheap and plentiful, and so if you had a bad one or a bruised one, no worry, you just threw it out. You could always get another one. But Jesus doesn’t do that with us. Jesus cares for the helpless. Jesus cares for those the world can’t be bothered with or troubled over, those the world doesn’t pay any attention to. Jesus cares about all the hurting, all the failures, all the rejects, all the drop-outs, all the little people, all the weak links in the chain that everyone else sets side.
The “smoking flax” represents those whose hope is flickering, those who know they don’t have much to offer, those who don’t know if they can keep going, those who don’t know if they will make it another day. Those whose spiritual light was so small it was about to go out, Jesus would not quench. Far from it! Rather, He would blow upon them and cause them to burn even brighter in Himself.
A few weeks ago we looked at Jesus’ words in Matthew 11 where Jesus said: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:28-29). Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. He is the lowly, gentle servant gives the righteousness of God by faith to those who are unrighteous through His death and resurrection.
We have seen the Person of Christ, the Spirit of Christ and finally we see…
3. The Victory of Christ – Justice and Hope (Matt. 12:20-21)
The last two lines in Matthew’s quote from Isaiah are: “Till He sends forth justice to victory; And in His name Gentiles will trust.” (Matt. 12:20-21). Jesus, God’s Chosen and Beloved Servant, the Spirit-empowered Servant who is humble and gentle, will also be victorious. This is the same picture that Zechariah 9 gives us in prophesying about our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:9-10).
The mighty King who brings righteousness and salvation comes lowly and riding on a donkey. He comes to bring peace—peace with God through His sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
And what will be the result? “And in His name Gentiles will trust” (Matt. 12:21). That would have been the furthest thing from the mind of any Jewish person who was looking for a conquering Messiah. But that’s the plan of God through Christ.
This is the marvel of the plan of God! It required that the promised Messiah come to His people; but that His own people reject Him. The reason the Jews continually rejected Jesus is because He didn’t look like what they were expecting. But their expectation was wrong, for all they had ever seen was the legalistic dominating religion of the Pharisees and the worldly, corrupt religion of the Chief Priests.
But Jesus didn’t come like them. They came in arrogance, He came in humility. They came in power, He came in meekness. They came dominating people, He came serving people. They trampled on the weak, He picked them up. They offered threats, He offered hope. They brought a burden, He brought rest.
Jesus was the Messiah-King God had promised. The good news is that Jesus, having been rejected and crucified, was raised from the dead in power and glory, so that, now, bruised reeds from all nations may find salvation by trusting in Him! By His patience and endurance, He has opened the way for all peoples—Jews and Gentiles—to come to God.
What is the message for us? Trust in Jesus. Put your hope in Him. Righteousness is only found in Jesus. Justice is only accomplished in Jesus. Any attempt to find these things for which we hope in any other will ultimately disappoint and condemn you. The only hope we have is Jesus.
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[1] Richard Caldwell, Sovereign Servant, Sermon on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xWkIdZtS1o
[2] Ray Fowler, God’s Gentle Servant, https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/gods-gentle-servant/
[3] Greg Allen, The Unquarrelling Conqueror, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2006/062506.htm . I drew from several points that Allen made in his sermon.
[4] John Piper, The Spirit Is Upon Him Gentle for Now, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-spirit-is-upon-him-gentle-for-now . I adapted Piper’s outline with help from Phil Newton, GOD’S SERVANT, https://web.archive.org/web/20220616062146/http://archive.southwoodsbc.org/sermons/matthew_12.15-21.php
[5] John MacArthur, God’s Beloved Servant, https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2291/gods-beloved-servant
[6] Fowler, ibid.
