Okay, I want to spend just a minute actually reviewing some things we talked about last time,

and then having that launches into some things we want to talk about for this time.

So you remember last time we started to talk about this servant,

and this becomes an increasingly important theme as we go along.

So we have this servant sometimes called the suffering servant, but sometimes it's not suffering, just the servant that we keep encountering again and again.

And we need to make sure we understand something about this servant and the different ways that it's used.

So really from this point on, the theme of God's servant, it just becomes more and more

important.

And in many ways, Christ really is the servant that is continually the one that's represented

when it talks about a servant.

He's the primary fulfillment of this, especially in the passages about the suffering

servant, but really all the time.

So Christ is the servant, but in a lot of ways, Israel is the servant, and Israel is actually

the one that is identified in the writings as the servant at one point.

The servant can also be anyone who is called to serve God, so in a way, Isaiah is a fulfillment

of it, or any of us prophets, or you.

But I would say the primary fulfillment, Isaiah or any of us prophets or you. But I would say the primary

fulfillment is Isaiah, kind of, but mostly Christ or the Messiah and Israel itself, right? And

there's a reason why it's both Christ and Israel. These aren't mutually exclusive ideas. They

are in fact mutually inclusive ideas because Israel is a

symbol or a type of Christ. We understand Christ, but therefore we understand Israel. Israel is a group

that's chosen from even before the world began because they were willing to do God's will

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