“Les Feldick taught that Isaiah 53:2 doesn’t mean the Lord Jesus was ugly, but that there was nothing in Him that would attract the Jews to Him as their King and Messiah. What do you say?”

I never thought about it that way, but Les is right! Isaiah wrote:

“…when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”

In the context, we find a description of the Lord just a few verses earlier that has to be taken into consideration to determine what the prophet meant:

“…His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (Isa. 52:14).

This is a picture of the Lord after the scourging they gave Him just before nailing Him to the cross. This somber image of what He endured to pay for our sins is what believers have in mind when the world observes “Good Friday”.

But that means Isaiah was saying there was nothing in Him that the “people” of Israel (53:8) would desire in a king. They rejected Him because they were looking for more of a “champion on a white horse who will save us from our enemies” kind of Messiah. The Lord may or may not have been a handsome man, but Isaiah wasn’t talking about the features that make up physical attraction.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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