Good morning, Great Commission church. My name is Randy Rucker. I'm
one of the church's pastors here. And today it is a great privilege for me to
bring a message to you from the word of God. We are at the beginning of a
four week series on Finding Jesus in the Old Testament.
You probably already know who the main character of the New Testament
of the Bible is. The chief character of the Old Testament is the same
answer. It is Jesus.
If you have read your Bible much, you are aware that that is true. But we
need reminders. Over the next four weeks, we're going to be reading some
of the signposts that God has left that point to Jesus. The Old Testament
repeats over and over again, saying in various ways “someone is coming!
Someone’s coming, someone's coming! Until Jesus arrives and announces
. " I'm Him and I'm here!"
Have you ever been to Chattanooga? You know about the time you get out
of Germantown on I-40. You began to see signs that say See Rock City. A
few minutes later, don't miss Rock City. See Rock city. You're 90 miles from
Rock City or whatever, and over and over again you see these signs that
say in one way or another” Don't miss the amazing Rock City. Now, before
there were GPS voices that we live with now, the voice you would hear
would be your navigator. So after all of these signs, what if you just sailed
right past the exit that says, “ Rock City, turn here”. And you keep going.
Your navigator says “you just missed it. You just missed the turn off back
there.” “ No, no, I'm convinced it’s still ahead of us.” And that’s how you
got on the crazy cycle! My point is, there were so many signs in the Old
Testament that spoke of One that was coming, but when He actually came,
most people just missed Him. The majority of the Jewish nation certainly
missed Him , though a chosen remnant did not.They say to this day “ no,
he's still up ahead. He's still going to come.”
Well, why should we try to find Jesus in the OT. I mean, is He really there?
I just have time for one quick reference for this, though there are so many
others. One day two of Jesus' disciples were walking home from
Jerusalem. They were dejected, discouraged, disappointed, and
disillusioned. They don't know it, but the resurrected Christ is about to
meet with them in person. He sees their sadness.
Luke 24: verse 21 “ But we were hoping that it was He who would redeem
Israel.”
Notice they didn’t say,” we were hoping that He would save us from our
sins? “ They were looking for a conquering King who would overthrow
their oppressors and reign. To which He replies to them in a gentle rebuke
and says
verse 25 "oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the
prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these
things and to enter into His glory? 27 And beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
Himself." Luke 24:25-27.
The Lord Jesus Christ pointed out that in the scriptures it was prophesied
that Christ must suffer first and then glory. Somehow they had all just
missed that.
Do you remember the National Treasure movies starring Nicolas Cage? He
was a treasure hunter. It's an elaborate treasure hunt with clues and keys
and maps that are mysterious and enigmatic and confusing. At one point
there is a pair of special glasses that if you get to look at this map through
this pair of glasses, things show up that were not evident before. Without
having the glasses on, you just can’t see it. So, what we're doing is we're
putting on New Testament Jesus glasses and looking at the Old Testament
through what we know now from the new covenant.
So look with me just briefly at a specific example of this. You know that all
of the New Testament preachers in the book of Acts did not have anything
except the Old Testament from which to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As far as something written down is concerned. Because the New
Testament letters and books had not been authored yet.
In Acts chapter 8: 26-39 the Bible records for us an encounter between one
of the apostles and a man from Ethiopia who was in the area of Jerusalem
. The Spirit of God tells Phillip to go catch up with the chariot in which this
man was riding. So he does. As he approaches the chariot, he hears the
Ethiopian man reading out loud from a copy of the Scroll of Isaiah. And he
asked him, do you understand what you're reading? And he says no, not
really. How can I? I need somebody to explain it to me. And this is the
place in the scriptures which he” just happened” to be reading:
Acts 8:32 "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its
shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth”...and so on. So the man
says, verse 34 " I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or
of some other man?
Acts 8:35 “Then Philip opened his mouth ,and beginning at this Scripture,
preached Jesus to him."
Wow! What a coincidence!
By God’s grace I intend to preach Jesus from this very passage in Isaiah-
so put on your Jesus tinted glasses.
I'm going to read the passage , Isaiah 53, but starting in Isaiah 52, verses
13, 14 and 15. Because the chapter break here is unfortunate. It's man-
made, of course. But these three verses go with the other 12 verses of
chapter 53.
This should take about three minutes, if I can refrain from commenting .
13 "Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently (or wisely); He shall be exalted
and extolled, and be very high.
14 Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more
than any man, And His form more than the sons of men;
15 So shall He sprinkle (or startle is a better word) many nations. Kings
shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall
see, And what they had not heard, they shall consider.
53:1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD
been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of
dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is
no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised and we did
not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we
esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised (better,
crushed) For our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his
own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He
was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is
silent, So he opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His
generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the
transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9. And they made His grave with the wicked- But with the rich at His death,
because He had done no violence nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise( crush) Him; He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall
prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My
righteous servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great. And He shall divide
the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, and
He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, and
made intercession for the transgressors."
Now, is there anyone in the room who thinks that this sounds like it is
describing anyone other than Lord Jesus Christ? When was this written?
When did the Prophet Isaiah live? He prophesied during the Babylonian
captivity of Israel, about 700 years before Jesus arrived. Think about that!
There are some details so specific in here that many have said it
impossible and so they say someone added it to Isaiah's writings after the
days of Jesus. But in the mid –20
th century a young shepherd boy was
wandering around a desert in Turkey and found some scrolls preserved in a
cave. One was Isaiah and was dated 250 years BC!
I found several quotes from Jewish rabbis that lived before Christ and they
all said without hesitation , “this suffering servant described by Isaiah can
only be the Anointed One, that is The Messiah.” Another said of Behold My
Servant “This is the King,Messiah, Who is more exalted than
Abraham,more elevated than Moses, higher than any of the angels!” And
they all said that UNTIL, Until He actually showed up! Now they say it
refers to the nation of Israel and its sufferings or to Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or
Ezra- just as long as it is NOT that Jesus that Christians use this passage
so successfully to point to Him.
In our remaining time , we are going to look at the descriptions given of the
Person and work of Jesus. Some have said there is no more clear
description of the substitutionary atonement of Christ than here in this
chapter. It is often called “ The Gospel according to Isaiah”.
.
There are depths in this passage that have caused me to ” stand amazed
in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene , and wonder how He could love me,
a sinner , condemned unclean”, as the old hymn writer put it.
Isaiah 52:13-15.
"My servant will deal prudently " or " act wisely." He SHALL be exalted,
extolled, and be very high. At the very onset of the passage God declares
there is no possibility of His Servant failing to accomplish what HE set out
to do.The degree of suffering we are going to see affords no possibility that
this servant will go unrewarded! Ultimately, God is guaranteeing the
exaltation of His Son to the absolutely highest place. The three words
“exalted, extolled, and be very high” refer to the fact that He will be raised
from the dead, ascend into heaven and be seated on its throne at the right
hand of the Majesty on high.
Now from that mountaintop we are immediately plunged into the very
depths of suffering in the next verse. Which says.
14 "Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more
than any man, and His form more than the sons of men."
What these phrases convey is that His face was so marred, disfigured to
the point that it no longer was identifiable as a human face. Some of your
translations may say " His appearance was so marred, beyond human
resemblance" others say "He was so disfigured that He no longer looked
like a man". It's hard to move past this- but I will.
15 "So shall He sprinkle (the better word here is " startle" ) many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths at Him. For what had not been told them ,
they shall see, and what they had not heard, they shall consider."
Paul quotes this verse in Romans 15:21 using it to explain why he had
such a burning desire to make Christ known among peoples that had never
heard! Because some will see! Because God will reveal His salvation to
some!
53:1“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord
been revealed?”
The gospel is a report. A message. It's an announcement, a proclamation
of what God did: Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again
on the third day. Well, who believes it? ” To whom has the arm of the Lord
been revealed? “The arm of the Lord” is one way God describes His work
of salvation. Look just across the page in your Bible.
52:10. "The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the Earth, shall see the salvation of our God''. In Psalm
8: 3, David describes the heavens, that is the stars and the planets, as the
work of God's " fingers." Oh, but when it comes to saving lost, ruined
sinners, God has to roll up His sleeves, as it were, and bare His arm, to do
such a mighty work!
Here is a brief description of the early part of Jesus’ life. From the
viewpoint of His Father. It says
53:2 ” For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out
of dry ground." Jesus grew up before God like a tender plant. He was
nourished by his mother and taught a trade by Joseph the Carpenter, his
Adoptive dad, you could say. He learned the Torah, like all Jewish boys. He
grew up in stature and in favor with men and God. ”And like a root out of
dry ground.” Earlier Messiah is called “ a Rod from the stem of Jesse and
a Branch shall grow out of his roots.” Isaiah 11:1,2” So Christ would be in
the lineage of Jesse's son, King David, which at the time of Christ was
indeed dried up in reference to influence and power.
The next verses give us an appraisal of this Servant of God, with a capital
S. from fallen man’s view.
53:2 " He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no
beauty that we should desire Him." The word translated comeliness here is
elsewhere in the NKJV translated splendor, majesty, glory, honor. This is all
regarding His outward appearance. There was nothing outstanding about
the way Jesus looked. Nothing really to cause anyone to stop and admire
Him. You wouldn't have looked twice at Him! Contrary to what we see from
Hollywood or painters . Not ugly, but nothing special outwardly.
53: 3: "He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was
despised, and we did not esteem Him."
But why? Why would HE be despised and rejected by men? Why would
One so absolutely perfect, be despised and be rejected by men? It's
precisely BECAUSE He's absolutely perfect. He's absolutely sinless, holy ,
not like the rest of us! Jesus gives us an explanation for this in
John 15:22 He says " if I had not come and SPOKEN to them, they would
have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me
hates my Father also. Earlier in
John 7:7, Jesus said of the world " But it hates Me because I testify of it
that its works are evil."
It is because of what He SAID! There is no justifiable cause for any human
to despise Jesus Christ. Even His enemies could not find fault with Him.
But if you don't love Him , if you are indifferent to Him, it is the same as
hating Him.
53:3 continues” A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”
The suffering servant is described as a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Let's think about this for a moment. The Eternal Son of God,
once adored and enjoyed in heaven the glory of fellowship with the Father
and the Holy Spirit, is now in a human body experiencing things he never
experienced before. He experienced all the limitations associated with
being a human. He got hungry. He got thirsty. He experienced what it was
like to be tired. In fact, he experienced everything that we do that is not
inherently sinful. But consider the life of Jesus as a man of sorrows.
Plural. Was there ever a man who was more misunderstood than Jesus?
When he preached his first hometown message,the audience wanted to
murder Him and would have thrown him over a cliff, but He was
supernaturally protected. (Luke 4:29) His own family said. In John 7:5 Hey
Jesus, you're kind of embarrassing us, perhaps even endangering us.
Would you mind leaving this area and going to Judea? It says “ for even
his brothers did not believe in him.” He was accused of being in cahoots
with the devil. That he was casting out demons by the Prince of Demons-
That he had a demon himself! He was accused of being the illegitimate son
of an unknown father. He was accused of blasphemy. And even though he
was immensely popular, it was only because His hearers wanted to get
more out of Him. So the great multitude followed Him, and He healed their
sicknesses and cast out their demons. But when it came down to it, He tells
them, I tell you the truth, you just hang around me for what you think I can
give you, like that food. And He begins to preach about the cost of
following him. The crowd of 20,000 shrinks to 12. The vast majority walked
away. His own people that should have welcomed Him, received Him not.
One of His closest associates betrays him in the middle of the night. In a
garden where He was praying. And turns Him over to a mob of soldiers who
arrest him. After He was arrested all the disciples who were with Him fled
when they saw what was happening to Jesus, including the one who had
boasted that even if all the others deny You, Lord, I never will. But he did.
Would these things and more not combine to qualify Jesus as a man of
sorrows and associated with grief?
And I wonder from this, if you think that Jesus was melancholy and sad all
the time. That is not true. His grief was not for Himself, not self-pity , but
compassion for the loss to those who reject Him. Like when He lamented
over the city of Jerusalem for not recognizing Him. His joy was in doing
the will of his Father. Did you know that the Bible describes several
occasions where Jesus grieves, weeps. But it never says that He laughed.
Now, personally, I believe that he did laugh. And that He was full of joy. But
the Bible just never says that He laughed. If you can find a place
specifically where it says that, I will publicly repent and confess that.
There was never a greater display of His sorrow than when He describes it
Himself. Matthew 26:37-38. “And He began to be sorrowful and deeply
distressed.”
And He shares what He is “feeling” with them! He tells His friends what is
going on in His soul.
Verse 38 "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and
watch with Me."
In His great, loving, perfect soul, He was in deep distress. So much so that
it bordered on His death. But wait a minute, I thought He knew what was
going to happen! Yes, He did! He'd been saying repeatedly to His disciples.
I came to seek and to save the lost and to give My life a ransom for many.
He had prophesied that He would be betrayed, turned over to the Gentiles,
beaten, mocked, and spit upon and scourged, and then crucified. So what's
the big deal?
Though He is called the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world,
now He is on the very edge of this precipice! Looking down at the horror
that He will face the next day. It's here, it's now. Whereas before He had
said. My time has not yet come. Now His time had come. And He knows
that there is more than meets the eye in His death. He has not yet felt the
physical, excruciating pains of physical torture at the hands of men. And
never, ever had He been abandoned by His Father! And it is anticipation of
that great separation that is weighing on Him. He cries out. And He sweats,
as it were, great drops of blood in His distress. He knows He is making
Himself an offering for sin, but He has not felt it yet.
Verse 3 continues-
" And we hid as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did
not esteem Him."
If you turn your face from someone, you're giving them your back. In the
eastern cultures, that is an insult. And it goes along with the phrase that
follows:” we did not esteem Him” . To esteem something is your
assessment of its value. How valuable Is Jesus Christ to you? How do you
evaluate His worth? In the world, by and large He’s given no consideration.
How is He evaluated? He is ignored! Do your favorite television shows
extol the virtues of Jesus Christ? Does your favorite music artist's lyrics
magnify him? Do your pastimes and hobbies bring glory to his name?
Ya'll okay? Are we still friends?
Verses 4-6 set forth as clearly as any passage in the Bible the reality that
Jesus died as a sin offering – that He did no sin of any kind of His own, but
that what He endures is in the place of, or instead, of sinners.
Here are 4 statements of substitutionary suffering:
53:4-6 “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we
esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded
for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement
for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we, like
sheep , have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and
the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
At the time of His death, those around Him considered Him stricken and
smitten and afflicted by God, assuming that He was a guilty sinner just like
the two other men being crucified. So they esteemed Him as being a
criminal and worthy of what He was receiving from the hands of men. Yet
there is a very real sense in which He WAS stricken and smitten and
afflicted by God. But just not for the reasons that they thought! As these
verses make crystal clear, yes, He was being wounded, but for our
transgressions, not His own. The word wounded isn't like a mere bruising,
as translated here. It means a crushing- like what you have to do to a grape
to get grape juice. Yes, He was being crushed, but not for Himself! But for
many. Do you see the language of substitution here in these phrases?
He was fatally wounded for our transgressions
He was crushed for our iniquities
The punishment that brings us peace was upon Him!
The LORD God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all!
He was dying in the place of sinners. Our transgressions and our iniquities
deserve what He suffered. The word chastisement here is penal. That is, it
is punishment. He is actually being punished in our place. That is what it
takes for sinners like us to have peace with God! It was necessary for
God's wrath for our sins to fall on an innocent substitute. There is no
means by which we have to measure the greatness of the penalty that He
bore for us. For us to bear it would require an eternity in hell. Because the
debt would never be paid. Hell is not a means of reformation for sinners. It
does not make them better. It is a place of punishment.
A word on the phrase” and by His stripes we are healed.” These stripes
are actually lacerations. Gashes in the skin. As you recall, He received
severe beatings at the hands of the Roman soldiers, along with a barbaric
scourging. Now this phrase has been used by many to say that it is always
God's will to heal every sickness of every believer. I would say that it
cannot be used to prove that, because in fact all believers are not
healed. And further, all believers die, usually of some sickness. The rest of
the context of this passage tells us that primarily what Jesus is doing is far
more than the healing of our various illnesses- He is healing from a worse
disease : sin. However, I would say because of Matthew 8:16 and 17, That
His suffering did, in fact, include all the healings we will ever receive. That
verse says.
" When evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon
possessed. And he cast out the spirits with a word. And healed all who
were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the Prophet
saying, "He himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses. "
So, tuck that away for later and make it food for thought.
53:6" All we, like sheep, have gone astray;" You see we aren't compared to
the smartest of animals , right?
This is a comprehensive , sweeping indictment of the entire human race.
No one escapes this – we all have wandered willfully away from God. This
is what it means to be a sinner. Just doing what we naturally want to do ,
out of a sinful nature.
The next phrase highlights the individualistic ways in which we manifest
this wandering.
6b" We have turned , every one, to his own way."
This is to say that not everyone sins in the same way. I suppose there are
no two people on Earth whose paths have strayed from God in exactly the
same way. Your sinful path does not look exactly like mine or anyone
else's. Though there are, of course, similarities. The thing in common is
that each one of us has gone his or her OWN way. Everyone has done
basically what they wanted to do. It's your way. Your own way. To do what
is our own way is the very essence of the definition of what it means to be
a sinner before God! I just want what I want. And I want it the way I want it,
and I want it when I want it. What's wrong with that? Well, if your “wanter”
was perfect, there wouldn't be a problem! You'd only want what God wants
in every case, at all times. Which is only true of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember the story of the two brothers? One lived a life of open,
rebellious, scandalous sin and the other couldn’t believe how good the
Father treated his brother when he came home?
You may have been raised in a godless home. And you learned your evil
ways from watching your parents and their evil ways. On the other hand,
you may be like the older brother who was a strict rule follower in a good
home. He thought his brother ought to be also. But the older brother would
never have considered his own sins as bad as his younger brother’s.
Some of you may think, “ Well, I'm just not as bad as most people.” The
problem is that all the people you're talking about are no worse than you!
Their sins just aren’t the same as yours. And in every case, what does it
take to forgive your sins? The death of the Sinless Son of God ! However
little or small your sins may be in your own eyes; be assured that they are
not so little in the eyes of the One who sees everything. So whatever form
your sin has taken, whether moral superiority or moral degradation, it is
still called collectively iniquity, transgression. And it was all laid on Jesus
Christ as our substitute.
Who lays the sin of us all on Jesus? Are you looking at
verse 6? “And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
It is the Lord God of heaven. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lays
all the weight, the defilement , all the guilt of all of our iniquity on Jesus
Christ, the Lamb of God.
We come now to verses 7-9.
"He was oppressed and He was afflicted.”
Both of these words refer to physical brutalities inflicted upon Jesus. And
if you recall the gospel writers detail these acts of wicked men against
Jesus. Have you seen any of these slapping matches where strong men
with thick necks take turns winding up and using their palms, strike their
opponent? Can you imagine if one of them just let many others take their
turn doing that. When soldiers blindfolded Jesus, and took their turns
slugging Him, Jesus did not resist. But not out of weakness! But a display
of the most sovereign self-control , restraint, and love ever! With a word He
could stop them all! Yet He is carrying out the will of God! And He will not
stop at anything in order to die for us!
Jesus is compared to a lamb being led to a slaughter. Only lambs don't
know they're going to a slaughter. They're just dumb the whole time. But
Jesus does not resist. He is so submitted to the will of His Father. He's not
forced by any outside influence to submit to this. His delight is to do His
Father's will. He loves His father and His father loves him. We read in the
gospels how Jesus was silent before His accusers. Though he could have
offered a fantastic defense of himself.
Verse 8 " He was taken from prison and judgment and who will declare his
generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living.; for the
transgressions of my people, he was stricken."
It is clear that this suffering servant actually suffers to death. He's cut off
from the land of the living. So the question, “ Who will declare his
generation?” is a reference that He'll have no offspring. He'll have no
physical descendants, no children. Of course, it was never intended for
Him to do that, but as we're about to see as we conclude, He will be given
seed. Spiritual ones. Many of them. They will be His heirs.
Verse 9 contains a remarkably detailed prophecy fulfilled when Jesus was
hung between two criminals as He died and yet was in HIs death buried in a
tomb of a rich man, named Joseph of Arimethea. Fulfilled in Matthew 27:57
Go check it out
Now we come to the last of the stanzas of this passage.
Verse 10 "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall
prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. 11
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied .By His knowledge My
righteous servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. I am
changing to the Holman Christian Standard Bible here because it captures
what most accurately is being conveyed by the next phrase 12 Therefore I
will give Him the many as a portion and He will receive the mighty as spoil,
Back to the NKJV
Because He poured out His soul unto death , and He was numbered with
the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for
the transgressors.”
I find this incomprehensible! That it pleased the Lord God to crush His
only Son! It is clearly not a sadistic pleasure God is having in this. No.no.
no. Oh what it must have been for God to count His Son as a sinner! The
Son is carrying out the will of His father and Your father, if you know the
Lord Jesus Christ. For you see it was God himself Who Has put the son to
grief. This was the eternal plan of God. This plan was drawn up by the love
of God before the world’s were made, in order to satisfy the Justice of God
for the sins of His people. That Jesus yielded Himself to the Father’s will
even unto death on the cross greatly pleased the Father.
The question is not how can God send wicked men and women to hell-
that's never been a "problem" . The problem is how can God who is just in
the absolutest of sense allow sinful men and women into heaven! The
wrath of God was actually, not figuratively , poured out upon Jesus. It is
one thing to see what men , at their worst, would do to Him. But when they
are done, God caused darkness to fall over the land. And we can never
know what anguish of the soul our Savior experienced when God made
Him to be sin for us, the One who knew no sin. The most agonizing
suffering of the Son of God was inflicted by His Father-not men. The One
who had said repeatedly of Jesus , " This is my son, my only Son , Whom I
love and in Whom I am well-pleased. And Jesus could look into His
Father's face and say I always do the things that please My Father. And on
the cross it pleased the Father to pour out His judgment on Jesus – for you.
So what does Jesus get for all this ? Well, He gets you. I don't mean just
you. He gets a people. And He gets the highest position of glory!
Look at verse 10 again – He shall see His seed and prolong His days. But I
thought He was cut off , killed. Yes , He was , but somehow His days are
prolonged after He dies! Almost like He is raised in victory because He has
finished what the Father sent Him to Do! And now the Father rewards Him .
God saw the travail of His soul and He is satisfied! Oh, it is enough that
Jesus died! But anything less than that would not , can not satisfy God
concerning you. Do you know that as sinners we aren't qualified to know
what is the appropriate penalty for sin? We simply can't properly evaluate
our condition. We don't know what absolute holiness requires. It's like a
football defensive back who gets called for Pass interference. The referee
says pass interference. That will be 15 yards from the spot of the foul and
an automatic first down! The DB runs over and says hold on here, that's a
bit much don't you think? I mean he didn't even catch the ball and they get
a 40 yard gain, plus 15 yards, plus a first down? That's not fair. So the
referee says you're right , let's half the distance gained, and we'll make it
2
nd down. Absurd! The players don't get to decide what the appropriate
penalty is .
Nor can we say that to God. Our sins appear to God in all their sinfulness
and He knows. He made the rules. The soul that sins shall die. Unless a
qualified substitute voluntarily takes the wrath in our place we would all be
hellbound. It took the slaughter of His Only son to pay the penalty for us.
Listen to a hymnwriter’s words as he reflected on this passage:
How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
So what is the application from this? I know how it has affected me to study
this passage and reflect on it:
1.Rejoice in the Lord! Behold the Lamb of God. Look at Him, Focus on Him.
Adore Him. If you have been forgiven much , you will love Him much. Thank
Him!
2 . Your sins and my sins are much worse than we ever think they are. And
conversely, God's grace and God's love, God's mercy for you and me is
greater than we've ever imagined. Because He loves the unlovely, He loves us.
Though we were by nature children of wrath. He loves us. Even though we
despised Him. And were at one time His enemies.
3. If you're going to be concerned about sin around you, first, be most
concerned about the sin that is still in you. After all, if God were to be just with
you, you would go to hell.
4. If you are going to boast, or brag, or glory in anything, may it be in the
Cross of Jesus Christ. As Paul said in Galatians 6:14
“But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ , by whom the world has been crucified to me , and I to the world.
