"He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him." Isaiah 53:3 NAS

So here we are trying to put to reason and understand a glimpse of what our Savior Jesus Christ endured for us so that we would be reconciled to the Father, be able to come into His presence without fear and even better to be able to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus.

The word ‘despised’ in the Hebrew is bazah (baw-zaw') and means to disesteem. The KJV usage is to despise, disdain, contemn, + think to scorn, vile person (1). So the context here is that Jesus was looked at with contempt. He was considered low, worthless and vile.

He was vehemently scorned and hated and He knows exactly what complete and utter rejection feels like. He was forsaken it says, rejected by all even rejection by His own. Think about this for a moment: The very heart of God was marred and beaten the day that He died from Gethsemane to His last breath on that wooden cross.

Jesus had to take on the full blunt of what we deserved which was total separation from God and even forsaken of God the Father (Matt 27:46). He chose nails, chose to be despised and chose to be forsaken because His love was driven to reconcile us for all eternity.

He had to be despised to become the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10 says, "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." This means He was the approved perfect satisfaction needed by the Father to make atonement. Remember God the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased (Matt 3:17, Matt 17:5).

He became despised and forsaken so that you and I would overcome the world in Him and by Him. 1 John 5:4-5 says, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

We did not esteem, yet in Him He would esteem us as justified and glorified (Rom. 8:30). We were as it were the joy set before Him (Heb. 12:2). Only because of Christ is the Father able to look down on us with utter delight, as He does not see us but His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased.

That is why He gives us the promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Jesus will never reject you no matter what is going on in your life and He was despised and forsaken to prove it. Nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).

Maybe you feel despised and forsaken right now? Maybe it seems that your family has rejected you because of your faith in Jesus? You might be a spouse who is struggling in your marriage because your husband or wife has utterly scorned you as you try to serve your heavenly Father?

Remember always that Jesus went through more than we can truly fathom and He is intimately aware of our forsaken hearts. He knows and is always ready to meet us when we are forsaken by men. His heart was marred on account of us so that He could call us His own.

In His Amazing Grace,
Adam

Notes:
[1] Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary (OT:959). Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.