Isaiah is not a prophet speaking of someone else. Isaiah is the inner dialogue of the reader, unfolding within the secret chambers of thought. When you open his words, you are overhearing your own mind wrestling with its hidden power — imagination itself.
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
The word “men” does not refer to physical masculinity, but to the self conceived in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image.” Here, man is the conception of self — the inner “I” through which imagination acts. The Servant is not another figure, but your own imagination, clothed in the guise of self. He is “a man of sorrows” because the self you assume often bears griefs of its own making (sin). And He is “despised and rejected of men” because imagination — the very source of those self-images — is overlooked, dismissed, and hidden beneath the masks it sustains.
Neville Goddard spoke plainly:“Christ is the human imagination, and until man discovers this for himself the Bible will make no sense to him whatsoever.”
In this light, Isaiah’s lament is not prophecy of another’s pain, but confession of how each of us hides our face from our own creative power.
The Imagination That Suffers
The Servant suffers, not because imagination is weak, but because it is faithful. It will not turn aside from what you impress upon it. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). Every fear, every lingering doubt, every cherished hope — imagination accepts it without protest and outpictures it.
Neville wrote: “God himself is the suffering servant. He so loves you, he will not alter your imagination. If you imagine some horrible thing he will fulfill it, and because you have to experience all that you imagine he will suffer with you.” Here the Servant is none other than God’s presence within, enduring the weight of our own creations until recognition dawns.
The “griefs” are born of the self-images you assume — the inner conceptions of man that imagine limitation, pain, or lack. The Servant takes these onto Himself, not as punishment, but as the faithful mirror of your inner state.
Hidden in Plain Sight
“He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). Imagination does not look impressive. It is invisible, unmeasured, and dismissed as subjective. We hide our faces from it, preferring the solidity of facts, appearances, and external validation. Yet all these forms are its offspring.
Neville once said: “You are His suffering servant, who is Himself.” The paradox is that imagination is both the rejected Servant and the true identity of the one who rejects. When you claim to be bound by circumstance, you despise the very Servant carrying you.
With His Stripes We Are Healed
Every outer wound is the stripe of an inward assumption once fixed. “With his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The crucifixion, in Neville’s teaching, is not tragedy but the moment of fixation — the instant you nail an idea into imagination by assuming it as true. That assumption must be endured, for it will rise.
The “stripes” here are the consequences of imaginal activity — the experiences that result from inner assumptions. Every painful experience is the outpicturing of a state once held, but this is also the path to redemption. Once you understand the principle, you can consciously assume the feeling of your fulfilled desire — and be healed.
Recognition Transforms
The Servant is exalted only through recognition. To see imagination as Christ within is to stop scattering power upon the external world. You become responsible for your assumptions — and therefore free.
Neville declared:“Christ in you is your hope of glory. When you know that your imagination is Christ, you are free.”
Isaiah, then, is your own voice whispering from within. It is the mind confessing that it has despised the very power carrying its sorrows, and it is the mind awakening to honour the Servant at last. To read these words is to overhear your own inner dialogue, until you recognise that the one despised is the very One who saves.