Christ Is “the Servant of the Lord [God the Father]”
Psalm 116:16–19
16 O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
18 I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people,
19 In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:
“Jesus came to do the will of His Father because His Father sent Him. (3 Ne. 27:13–14.) He was the Servant, not the master, in His relationship with His Father. ‘I am among you as he that serveth,’ He said. (Luke 22:27.) Also: ‘The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.’ (John 5:19.) Submissive, willing, obedient, walking only in the path charted for Him by His Father—such was the course pursued by the Son.
“How natural it is to find Christ serving both the Father and His fellowmen, for so it had been predicted. The introductory sentence of the longest single Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament (and one of the greatest and most comprehensive of them all) says: ‘Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.’ (Isa. 52:13.) Another of Isaiah’s long and plain predictions about the coming of the Messiah begins: ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.’ (Isa. 42:1.) ‘I will bring forth my servant’ (Zech. 3:8) is the scriptural promise, as also: ‘O Lord, truly I am thy servant: I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.’ (Ps. 116:16–19.)
“And so, truly, did our Lord act during His mortal ministry! Truly, this is He of whom it is written: ‘He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; . . . for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.’ (Mic. 5:4.)”
(The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ [1978], 181–82.)
