12th June 2026

In the pages of the New Testament, the prophet Isaiah is the most often quoted Old Testament witness to the validity of the gospel message. Throughout his long prophecy, he speaks repeatedly of the Christ who is to come: Chapter 42 being one place where the person and work of Christ (vv.1-9); the progress of the gospel (vv.10-16), and the abject futility of any and all opposition to the unfolding Messianic Kingdom (vv.17-25) is set forth in distinctive prescient and poetic magnificence.  

Such is the entire thrust of the chapter – however, the principal and primary portion, on which our focus lies (vv.1-9), is central and key to the whole. In these opening verses, seven centuries before the child Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, the person and work of the coming Christ is vividly portrayed.

The spiritual realities which stand behind the divine declarations disclosed in this brief, partial revelation are the two great mysteries of the Christian church: The doctrine of the Trinity, anchored in the ‘threeness and oneness of [God’s] eternal unchangeable personal Being’ ¹  and the doctrine of the Incarnation, by which the one true God is made known to the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  

In these nine short verses, the person and work of Christ is movingly and gracefully foretold, yet, without the New Testament revelation of Jesus, the essential elements of this prophecy would prove exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to grasp.

We see first how the Father beholds the incarnate Son: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight…” (v.1), and we perceive a foreshadowing of the heavenly voice that greeted Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan, announcing the ‘beloved Son’ with whom God was ‘well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17), with the ‘servant’ designation anticipating the time when the eternal Son would choose not to cling to his divine status, but rather take to himself our mortal, fallen flesh, that, as a man, he might become obedient, even to the point of death (Philippians 2:5-8). The one who would light the way for the gentiles (Isaiah 42:6), would restore sight to the blind and tear down the gates of oppression (v.7).

Humanity, in all its fallenness, is like a crooked reed or a smoking flax, yet the Christ is not sent to break or quench, but to deal mercifully, tenderly and compassionately: to bind up, restore faith, and rekindle hope (vv.3-4). The Christ will not come with the pomp and clamour of worldly power, but in meekness, and in the power of the Spirit, he will complete the work the Father has sent him to perform. His voice will not bear the marks of an alarmist or firebrand (v.2), but his teaching will stir up Godly desire and establish the truth and justice for which the world has long been yearning (v.4).

Though, at the time of Isaiah’s writing, the gentiles, steeped in idolatry, were without any knowledge of God (v.8), this situation will utterly change when Christ is preached, and the ‘new things’ declared in the gospel will be for the enlightening of the nations: “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you” (v.9).

¹   T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons, p.155.

Local congregation:
Grace Communion Peterborough
Farcet Village Hall
Main Street
Farcet
Peterborough
PE7 3AN

Meeting time:
Sunday 11.00 am

Local congregational contact:
Richard Dempsey
Email:  richard.dempsey@btinternet.com
Local church website: GRACE COMMUNION CHURCH PETERBOROUGH – Landing Page

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church