The Book Of Isaiah. Day 141, The Suffering And The Glory Of The Servant, Part Three

We are in Chapter 53 which deals with the suffering and the glory of the "Servant": the Lord Jesus Christ. Until the advent of Christ I am sure it was difficult to understand this passage, but in the church age we can clearly see that it describes the things Jesus endured in the gospel records.

Yesterday we looked at verses 1-3 and now we pick up at verse 4. "Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted." (Isaiah 53:4) It is my opinion that when Isaiah uses the word "we" he is speaking primarily of the people of his own nation, many of whom (though not all) reviled Jesus and believed He was a liar and a blasphemer. Those who wanted Him crucified viewed His death as the proper punishment for stating He was the Son of God, the Messiah. They believed He was being punished by God for making what they considered untrue statements and for pronouncing what they considered false prophecies. According to the law of Moses, this made Jesus worthy of death, for blaspheming the name of the Lord was a capital offense (Leviticus 24:16) and proclaiming false prophecies in the name of the Lord was a capital offense (Deuteronomy 18:20).

If Jesus had not been who He said He was, the people would have been correct in declaring Him guilty of capital offenses. These would have been very grievous sins. But, since Jesus is who He says He is, and since He is incapable of sin, He was nailed to the cross for some other reason. He was nailed to the cross because He is who He says He is and because He is sinless: only the sinless Lamb of God could make a sacrifice capable of saving our eternal souls. He suffered for our sins, not His, as we see below.

"But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:5-6) I don't know what Isaiah made of this information. I don't know how he reconciled the idea of a suffering Messiah with the idea of a victorious Messiah. What I do know is that he believed all of this. He may not have understood how God would put all these pieces together and fulfill the plan of salvation through a Servant who would die for our sins and yet be an eternal King, but he trusted that God could and would do it.

The blood sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed forward toward the blood sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Those had to be made year after year after year. But when Christ came, He made a far more perfect and enduring sacrifice---the sacrifice of Himself---the sacrifice of "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". (John 1:29) Now that this perfect and eternal sacrifice has been made, there is no other way to obtain forgiveness from our sins except to accept in faith what Christ did for us on the cross. Therefore, "How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3) Christ is our hope, our only hope, "For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)