The Doctrine of Salvation In The Book Of Isaiah

Tom:

The topic that we have been looking at for a number of weeks, and we’re going to continue to look at because it is so foundational to the faith and that’s the Doctrine of Salvation.  Last week we started to look at the book of Isaiah, particularly chapter 53, which is just an awesome passage.  Not that you could pick and choose and say one verse is better than another, these are all inspired by God but this is particularly awesome to me because it really deals with the God of the universe becoming a man and dying for our sins.  Last week I quoted it from Charles Wesley:  “Amazing love, how could it be, that thou my God wouldst die for me.”  That’s just tremendous and these passages in Isaiah 53, spell it out in a way that is overwhelming.  Again, we’re talking about God here.  Now, Dave, we left off with verse 3, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid, as it were, our faces from him.  He was despised and we esteemed him not.  Now, last week we talked about that there was no beauty in him.  We went to the previous verse but—

Dave:

No beauty from our standpoint but this was God’s beloved Son in whom He was well pleased.  The perfect man without a blemish and yet He’s despised and rejected of men.  There was something about him that was so Godlike, because He is God.  It’s staggering that God comes to His world that He made to the creatures that He has made and the God that made them is hated.

Tom:

You know, it’s funny but in terms of godly purity, that can be offensive to us.  I think that’s what you were getting at last week.  You know what I am saying?

Dave:

It’s condemning.

Tom:

Yes, that’s what I mean.  If I’m a sinful person I’m not going to be attracted to something even physically that brings conviction.

Dave:

Yes.  Christ is, but of course, that He walked this earth in a special way, He was the light of the world and His very demeanor, His very conduct, everything that He said and did must have been frightening really, to face perfection and it shows up every flaw in our character.  Something about Christ that was just beyond anything that we could be and yet, something about Him—He’s the last Adam—that would hark back to what God wanted man to be that we all know that we ought to be.  So, His very presence would condemn us.

Tom:

Now, the next part of the verse:  A man of sorrows.  Could this have something to do with just what we were talking about?  We have Jesus, who is absolutely pure looking upon sin, seeing the results of what sin has done to a Creation that He said:  It is good, it is good, it is good, it is very good.  The other verse that I am thinking about, the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept.  Why did He weep?  Why was he a man of sorrow?  Because death had entered in and took the life of Lazarus.

Dave:

He had a sorrow that goes beyond any sorrow that we could have.  Incomprehensible to us because He understands the awesomeness of sin and the eternal consequences of it.  Furthermore, because He loves us.  There is nothing so heartrending as being rejected by someone that you love and wanting to help this one that you love and everything that you try to do for them, they reject it.  And here he is, he’s despised, he’s rejected.  He wants to bring life.  I am come, he said, that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly.  He said to the rabbis:  You search the Scriptures for then you think you have eternal life.  But they testify of me but you won’t come to me.  So, His sorrow must have been just beyond our comprehension, although we can understand some of the elements of it.  But it says, surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.  Amazing, that He would enter in to our humanity and that He would, as the man—He’s the second man the Bible says, the last Adam because this isn’t going to happen again and again, He’s the progenitor of a new race—but He’s the second man.  There was never anyone who walked this earth, since Adam, who deserved to be called a man because Adam was created in the image of God and that image had been warped and defiled.  Man was a fallen creature; he was dead where he was supposed to be alive.  And now, here comes the second man and He saw the horror, the tragedy of warped, deformed, defiled individuals all around Him.  He created Adam and here these are the descendants of Adam and He sees into their hearts, He sees into the, you could say, the cesspool of iniquity in the mind and in the soul, in the spirit of man, a man of whom God had to say that the imagination of his heart is only evil continually.  And, I believe there is a greater sorrow about that.  He saw the blight that Satan had brought upon this world and men following a liar.  I mean, if you have a loved one who is following a liar who is deceiving them and leading them to destruction, you’ve got a lot of sorrow and I think that was the sorrow that He had.  But He came to bear our griefs and to pay the penalty for sins, to bring us back to God.

Tom:

Now, this verse 4, as you quoted most of it, we’re starting to enter in here.  We’re starting to see a picture of the Cross and this is particularly amazing, demonstrating this is God’s Book; this is God’s Word, because Isaiah writes this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit some 750 years before the Cross—crucifixion was a form of capital punishment.

Dave:

Yes, we don’t have the Cross in as much detail as we have in Psalm 22, of course, They pierced my hands and my feet—

Tom:

Right and that’s one thousand years before—right.

Dave:

—but he was wounded, verse 5, for our transgressions—well, verse 4:  We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.  We thought what He was enduring was God’s judgment and when the rabbis nailed Him to the Cross, or had Him nailed to the Cross, they mocked Him and they were putting Him up there because He said He was God.  Some people say, Well, Jesus never claimed to be God, indeed that’s why He was crucified.  In John 10, they take up stones to stone him and Jesus said:  I’ve done many good deeds, for which of these good deeds do you stone me?  They said:  For a good deed we stone thee not but because thou being a man maketh thyself out to be God.  That was blasphemy.  That was the ultimate blasphemy.  So, they considered that God’s judgment was upon Him and indeed God’s judgment was upon Him because He took our place.  He was wounded for our transgressions.  He was bruised for our iniquities.  The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed.  By the way, we need to come back next week or some week after that, this is not healing in the atonement.  Healing of sickness is in verse 4, but this is the healing of sin.

Tom:

This is reconciliation.

Dave:

Right.  Tom, maybe we could make a suggestion.  People out there, type this out on a piece of paper, give it to your Jewish friend and ask them who they think it is talking about.  I guarantee you that they would almost all say, that’s Jesus.

Tom:

You mean, when you type it out don’t put where you found it, just put the words and ask them who this may be referring to.

Dave:

Right.  And they think it is written by some Christian and it’s about Jesus, undoubtedly.  Then you can tell them, No, this is your great prophet, Isaiah and this is what he said about the Messiah because the servant is the Messiah, you can’t get away from it.  Somebody is going to be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.  Someone is going to die in our place.  Verse 9, He made his grave with the wicked, with the rich, in his death.  I’m jumping ahead, but this one is going to die in payment for the penalty of our sins and it pleased Jehovah the Lord, to bruise Him, it says.  So, God’s judgment is coming upon Him, not just what men are doing to Him but God’s judgment is going to be upon Him in our place to pay the penalty for our sins so that we could be forgiven.  What a picture we have of the Cross, of Christ and of our redemption and I don’t think you can escape it.

Tom:

Dave, I just want to add one thing to that.  Of all the religions, of all the gods who are being presented as being true gods, is there any who are dying for those who are to worship them?

Dave:

Not one, not one, only Jesus himself.