Episode Transcript
[00:00:23] Let us start out with a word of prayer and offer this time to the Lord.
[00:00:28] Lord, we thank youk for the privilege to come together and to study youy Word, to study youy truth. We pray that as we look at the case from prophecy and give a sketch of it, that yout might give us clarity, you might help us through this time honored pursuit to come to greater clarity about yout truth and to have a basis for doing further study of this important issue in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:00:57] The case from prophecy is something that is time honored and that has been put forward throughout the ages. And there are certainly many passages that we could look at. Josh McDowell, in his evidence that demands a verdict, talks about 332 prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament, or 60 major prophecies.
[00:01:21] If you want to study those, you can go to Evidence that demands a verdict or there's a book by a book called the Case for Jesus the Messiah that looks at the eight major prophecies and there are many that are out there. We won't have the opportunity to do that. But I want to show you some of the lines along which we can develop this case from prophecy and then focus on a primary one, which is Isaiah 53.
[00:01:48] Because I think that throughout the Bible and throughout church history, this case for prophecy has been important. Like for instance, I'll just give you one instance in the Old Testament and one instance in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, in Isaiah 41, one of the cases for God's existence, or at least for the reality of the God of Israel, Yahweh, as opposed to the supposed gods of the nations, was that the God of the Bible could foretell the future.
[00:02:19] And there's a classic argument there where God says to the other in quotes, gods set forth your case, tell the future. I'm the one that can tell the future.
[00:02:35] They cannot. Is the way that you could paraphrase that argument, set forth your case. It's become title of a book by Clark Pinnock on apologetics, but it really comes from this statement from God on the case from Prophecy that God is the one who can tell the future. There's also a passage in Acts chapter 8 where you have the Ethiopian eunuch riding on his cart coming back from his time in the temple. And he would be one, by the way, that would normally be excluded from being able to get into the inner court because anybody that's imperfect, such as a eunuch, was not allowed to be admitted to the central concern. So that he's not Only a foreigner, but he's sort of second class in terms of the temple rituals.
[00:03:29] But God sends him Philip.
[00:03:33] And as he's riding, Philip encounters him and sees that the Ethiopian eunuch there is reading from Isaiah 53.
[00:03:42] And he raises the question, who is Isaiah speaking about? He's really utterly confused about this passage. He's speaking about himself or about another.
[00:03:53] And Philip gets up with him or goes to the text and preaches Jesus, it says to him. And he comes to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and right on the spot he's baptized.
[00:04:10] That's an amazing story, but it's particularly through in this case, prophecy. And we see prophecy time and again throughout the Scriptures. We see it in Matthew all over the place.
[00:04:20] We see towards the end of the book of Luke in the Gospels there that the two disciples on the road to Emmaus are walking up the road and they encounter one Jesus who tells them and goes through the whole history of the Law and the prophets and the writings and everything that pointed forward to him.
[00:04:48] Would have been an amazing Bible study to be part of, to hear Jesus expound those things. And. And then later, when they're breaking bread, they recognize who he is. They didn't fully recognize that at first.
[00:05:01] Then later, with all the apostles, right at the end, in Luke 24, Jesus is with all the disciples and he does go through again this Bible study through the law, the prophets and the writings, the whole of Scripture, and shows how the whole of Scripture really points forward to who he was. And I think some of the echoes of that we see within the Gospels and within the Epistles.
[00:05:25] But it would have been great again to be there and be able to hear Jesus expound those passages.
[00:05:36] That must have been a couple. I wonder how long his lecture was and exactly what points he covered and how he covered them. Of course, it would have been great to see that, but we're going to suggest some lines along which he might have gone. Although, of course, we can't be so presumptuous as to claim that we've done it as well as he would do it.
[00:05:57] In any case, this idea of prophecy is something that's been held throughout the ages in Church history. It's not surprising that very early in the Church and the Church fathers, they also pursued this argument from prophecy. And we see it in Augustine and all the way through the history of the Church.
[00:06:16] And in the first case, I want to point out that the prophecy functions like an address.
[00:06:26] Prophecy starts from the very earliest chapters of Genesis and goes right up through the various stages of the Old Testament. And as I say, it functions like an address. We'll just use the address of the C.S. lewis Institute here as an illustration that the C.S. lewis Institute's offices are in Virginia. Of all of the states, perhaps we could even put even further down here that of all the countries in the world, the C.S. lewis Institute is in the USA.
[00:07:08] Of all of the states, 50 states that are in the USA, the offices are in Virginia.
[00:07:16] Of all the zip codes in Virginia, we're at 22151.
[00:07:22] Of all the cities or localities within Virginia, we're in Springfield.
[00:07:29] Of all of the streets in Springfield, were on Braddock Road, 8001 Braddock Road.
[00:07:39] Of all of the suites in 8001 Braddock Road, we're in suite 301. Although you got to change your address. It used to be 300, will be 301.
[00:07:53] Of all of the many organizations on the third floor, we are the C.S. lewis Institute. And of all the massive staff at the C.S. lewis Institute, I'm Art Lindsley. So you see how you move from the most generic USA to Virginia to Springfield to Braddock Road, to the sweets, to C.S. lewis to Art Lindsley, you move down into the increasingly specific, from the more generic to the increasingly specific. And that's the way the prophecies of the Scriptures go. It kind of draws the lines along which we need to see who Jesus was. Like, for instance, in Genesis 3:15, it talks about how this is called the proto euangelion, how the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head, be decisive in dealing with this problem of evil that has begun there as a result of the fall in Genesis 3. And then we see that the Messiah, the deliverer, the seed of the woman, will come through the seed of Abraham in Genesis 22:18, that out of the children of Abraham, Genesis 21:12, the Messiah is going to come through the son of Isaac, and then of Isaac's sons through the son of Jacob in Genesis 35, 10:12 through the tribe of Judah, as is prophesied by Joseph of the tribe of Judah in Genesis 49, 10 out of the line of Jesse in Isaiah 11, 10 out of the house of David in 2 Samuel 7:12, 16.
[00:09:41] He's to be born at Bethlehem. Micah 5:2.
[00:09:47] He's to be a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:18.
[00:09:52] He's to be David's Lord.
[00:09:55] Psalm 110. 1. He is to be a priest, a high priest, after the order of Melchizedek. Psalm 110, 4. And we see that the lines along which Jesus would come, and it becomes increasingly more specific along the way, like in Zechariah 9, 9 used to be like a king entering Jerusalem on a donkey.
[00:10:17] So you see more and more of the shapes, first of all through the general lines and then an increasing specificity.
[00:10:27] I heard an interesting story this last week. I met a man who had taught us study. He was a Jewish messianic believer. He's a Jew that has come to believe in the Messiah. And he started to read the New Testament. And he started with Matthew with the genealogies. And those are the. That's the chapter we usually skip. We don't bother to read the genealogies. We just skip a little bit later and start reading where the Sermon on the Mount or something like that, or earlier.
[00:10:59] But he said by the time he finished Matthew chapter one, he was a believer.
[00:11:05] So that was very striking. I never heard that before. I have heard how the genealogies have been helpful before. But that was very interesting for him to say that it comes through those lines that he knew already so well, along which the Messiah would come.
[00:11:25] There's also a very interesting phenomena with regard to these prophecies is that you have a number of different passages where it's quite clear that the Messiah himself would be divine, the Messiah would be God himself.
[00:11:45] Perhaps the clearest of these is in Jeremiah, chapter 23, verses 5 and 6.
[00:11:55] And here's what it says. It says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I shall raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.
[00:12:13] So here's the one that's to come out of David. He will reign as king. And it seems this is a messianic prophecy. He will come to do justice and righteousness. And that goes on in verse six. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. Now who is this Messiah, this one that's come out of the branch of David? It says at the end of verse six, and this is his name by which he will be called.
[00:12:41] And what's this name by which he'll be called?
[00:12:44] The Lord Our righteousness.
[00:12:48] And the interesting thing in your English Bible, you'll see that the words there in English are not capital L, small O, small R, small D, but capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
[00:13:12] And when you see the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D in the Old Testament, it's the translator's indication that the word behind that is not Adonai or something else, but the word is Yahweh.
[00:13:28] So what it says about the name of the Messiah here, this one that comes out of the branch of David, is that his name, by which he will be called, is the Lord our righteousness, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Yahweh, our righteousness, that he will be God Himself, our righteousness.
[00:13:51] Striking, is it not?
[00:13:54] Another passage that's often pointed to is Isaiah, chapter nine, verses six and seven. I won't take time to go back and read the whole context for that passage, but we'll see some of the names by which the Messiah will be called.
[00:14:10] He will be called Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
[00:14:17] So this Messiah again will be called Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
[00:14:25] Yet very striking.
[00:14:27] Or there's another passage in Zechariah 12:10 where again, I'll speak about it generally without reading it. Exactly.
[00:14:38] It prophesies a time in the future where the Lord will pour out the spirit of grace and supplication. He will pour out again the spirit of grace and supplication. And in that day they will it says in this verse, look on me whom they have pierced on the day where the Lord or at the time in this time where the Lord will pour out grace and supplication, they will look on me whom they pierced. Now, who's speaking in that passage? If you look back, it's God himself speaking.
[00:15:16] Now that must have been a strange passage for someone to read without knowing what would eventually happen.
[00:15:26] They will look on me whom they've pierced. God allowing himself to be pierced. What is this? What does this apply to?
[00:15:35] Seems very strange and difficult to figure out.
[00:15:40] We see it again, this idea of the deity of the Messiah, at least hinted in Isaiah chapter 53 at the very beginning. In fact, we're going to look at Isaiah 53 for the rest of our time here.
[00:16:00] But notice, particularly in verse 1 of Isaiah 53, which is this great prophecy of Christ in the Old Testament. It's the one that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading. And Philip interpreted many echoes of this passage in Isaiah 53 within the New Testament. It says, In Isaiah 53, one who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
[00:16:28] Starts out with a statement of incredulity. Who could believe it? Who could believe that he, this one who doesn't appear to be so, is actually the arm of the Lord, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Now, what is this phrase, arm of the Lord. I don't have time to go through all the Old Testament passages on the arm of the Lord, but perhaps one in the very close context will do to make the point. I believe that the arm of the Lord throughout Scripture is God himself at work in salvation. Again, the arm of the Lord means equals God himself at work in salvation. And we see that particularly in Isaiah 52. If you just turn back a little bit from Isaiah 53. In Isaiah 52:10 it says this, the LORD has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God. The Lord has bared his holy arm, and he's, so to speak, rolling up his sleeves and he's getting ready to do a particular kind of work. And what kind of work is he going to do that it's a work of salvation.
[00:17:47] Again, the arm of the Lord equals God himself at work in salvation. So in Isaiah 53:1 we could put in this meaning, and so it would read, who has believed our message? And who could believe that he, this Messiah, was God himself at work in salvation?
[00:18:12] Who could believe that that's the case?
[00:18:16] And why is this so counterintuitive? Why does it go against the grain?
[00:18:22] Well, we see that echoed in Isaiah 52, 13, 15. It says, Behold, my servant will prosper and will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. So that's one side, the sort of kingly, exalted nature of the servant. But it goes on. Just as many were astonished at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man in his form, more than the sons of men.
[00:18:46] Now that's strange.
[00:18:48] He's high and exalted, but his appearance is marred.
[00:18:53] Thus he will sprinkle many nations, and the kings will shut their mouths on account of him. What has not been told them, they will see, and what they had not heard, they will understand. So that there seems to be not a contradiction but a tension. You can't figure out exactly how both of these could be the case, that he could be high and lifted up, and also have his appearance be marred. It says that same kind of thing in Isaiah 53:13 says, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground.
[00:19:34] He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him well. Why is it so difficult to believe this message, to believe that he is the arm of the Lord? Because he doesn't appear to be so. In fact, he looks like very different than what we might expect. He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root in the middle of parched ground. If I were to take you out in the desert somewhere, say in New Mexico or in Mexico somewhere, where there's a desert place, or Arizona or Texas, and I would take you out in the middle of parched ground, cracked ground. You see cracks going through the ground. I were to find a little root popping up in the midst of the crack in the midst of parched ground. And I were to walk up to you and say, come here. I brought you all this distance to show you this little root in the middle of parched ground. And you know this root here, this is God's cosmic act of redemption.
[00:20:44] The world will be shaken and the whole cosmos will be different as a result of this little root in the middle of parched ground.
[00:20:56] Come on. I don't believe it. That's incredible. That's where verse one actually starts. I mean, who could believe because he grew up before him like a tender root in the midst of parched ground, he has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.
[00:21:16] Now, that doesn't mean that this one who's to come will be ugly, but it does mean that there's nothing, particularly the markings or trappings of deity immediately around this one.
[00:21:33] He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
[00:21:42] It's kind of like the passage there in Zechariah 12:10 that I mentioned. He will look on me, they will look on me whom they've pierced.
[00:21:53] If this one, who has no stately form or majesty is actually God himself at work in salvation, why would God himself allow himself to be pierced in the previous verse, or to be despised and forsaken? If he has all power, if he's omnipotent, if he has the angels at his beck and call, why wouldn't he come in and just win the victory?
[00:22:15] Seems very different than the way we might do it. In fact, one of the powerful things actually about the gospel is that it's so counterintuitive. It turns upside down the Power and riches of this world. Remember, there was a guy in Pittsburgh I worked with Young Life as a volunteer and then later on staff. And I've been teaching Young Life for a long time, ever since. But there was a guy there, Reed Carpenter, who is, I would say, the Pied Piper of Pittsburgh. He was phenomenal Young Life leader. And he would. He was a model for many of us. And he would get up every Sunday, we'd have a staff meeting where there'd be 50, 70 people there. And he would hold forth on the nature of leadership. And he had a famous talk that many people would kind of plagiarize or take over in one way or another. And it was, if I were God, this was his talk. And I'm not going to give the whole talk, but it would go along these lines. If I were God, how would I have done it? And part of the images he would use is that I think I would have done it a whole different way. I would send in the Blue Angels, the jets that come over the super bowl or something like that. The Blue Angels come streaking in with great sound and do skywriting in the sky and have Jesus parachute out in a blue sequined suit with music blaring and spotlights on him. And he would arrive in all the trappings of majesty, sort of a Hollywood production.
[00:23:51] That's the exact opposite of the way God did it. Coming to a humble servant woman, Mary, born where there's no room in the inn in Bethlehem, coming up, growing up as a carpenter, as a carpenter's son and as a carpenter himself, not from a place of power, not with a PhD in terms of education.
[00:24:25] So all these things go totally against.
[00:24:28] These first visitors were some foreigners, astrologers, wise men or shepherds, who in that day were the despised. The lowest level of society in that contemporary setting. So it seems so totally turning upside down the values and standards of this world. And yet that's the way God did it. That's part of the beauty and the power of the Gospel, and that he allows this one who is his Son not only to go through that inauspicious beginning, but actually to be crucified. And that's a stumbling block for many.
[00:25:05] It's not the victory of power that you might expect.
[00:25:10] It seems like a defeat, except in light of the resurrection and the ascension and the sending of the Spirit. It seems to go so totally against what we might expect if I were God, or the scenario we might create for how we wanted to deliver the Messiah. But God told us about it. Way in advance in Isaiah 53. So we might not be surprised, but by the lack of appearance.
[00:25:35] If we look on the surface, we might stumble at the fact that this is God himself at work in salvation. We might not believe it. We might think, this is incredible.
[00:25:48] And the next verses make it even more incredible. I think on the surface, surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.
[00:26:28] Now, this is a strange message. And it seems like this was the passage that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when Philip came up to him. And it has to do with this. I mean, he was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, chastened for our well being. I mean, who is this one who is pierced, crushed, chastened. But this passage, you see something that's perhaps shocking and appalling on one level, but it's very different.
[00:27:08] It rises to the height of what we see later in Hebrews, that the blood of bulls and goats, it says in Hebrews, will not take away sin. That what it takes to take away sin ultimately is, to put it shockingly, a human sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Messiah himself.
[00:27:32] Now that's shocking.
[00:27:34] I remember one time, RC Sproul tells a story of a time where he was speaking to a more liberal theological seminary and various professors were out there, and he was speaking on the substitutionary atonement of how the death of Christ and all the suffering, the passion of the Christ, you get in that film, the picture of the blood and gore of the cross.
[00:28:00] And he talked about the substitutionary atonement, how the blood of Christ took away our sin. And one of the men in the back of the room jumped up one of the professors and said, that's primitive.
[00:28:14] Obscene.
[00:28:16] You can imagine. RC Was taken back by this. How do you respond when someone first of all interrupts your lecture and then secondly says that kind of thing? And he stepped back a little bit and he thought, okay, okay. He said, I'll take that first word, primitive.
[00:28:36] That this sacrifice does go back to that which is very earthy and primitive.
[00:28:43] He didn't use this language. But CS Lewis spoke about it, spoke about two different kinds of religious perspectives, the thick and the clear.
[00:28:54] The thick. It's like. He used the analogy of soup religion, that one kind of religion is thick. It's like a thick beef stew.
[00:29:05] Now, you can think of a beef stew that has very thick cuts of beef in it. It's very dark, it has lots of vegetables. It's a very thick soup. And he said the thick religions are ones that involve blood and sacrifice. They go back to that which is primitive and seems perhaps on the surface, superstitious.
[00:29:26] Seems very different than what he would call the clear religious systems. The clear religious systems are involved with philosophy and ethical teaching and principles.
[00:29:41] And the examples of the thick religions, he says. Africa, C.S. lewis says, is full of thick religions that go back to that which is primitive.
[00:29:50] And you could think of the clear religion, some aspects of Buddhism or Stoicism, the ethical church. Some are examples that Lewis uses of the clear religions.
[00:30:02] And what he argues there is this, that there's something very thick and clear about the true religion, that the true religion must be, he says, a combination of the thick and clear. I'm just sketching his argument here. You'll have to go back to see it in more detail. But he says the reason for that is that God has made both the child and the adult, both the savage and. And the citizen, both the unlearned and the learned.
[00:30:32] And so basically, it's particularly the true religion, and particularly Christianity takes the pagan in Africa, the thick, and calls them to come to a clear, enlightened ethic, like the Sermon on the Mount or other teachings that are there in Scripture.
[00:30:50] And he says it also calls. Christianity, also calls those that are clear, he says, like an academic prig like me, and calls him to go fasting to a mystery to drink the body and blood of the Lord.
[00:31:07] It's not surprising that in the lion, the Witch and the wardrobe, C.S. lewis appeals to a magic and an even deeper magic that goes back to. To the origin of time, that there's something mysterious and deep and earthy and thick at the very root there. In fact, if you want to look at C.S. lewis book that he regarded as his best book, Till we have Faces, you probably won't understand it unless you understand this idea of the thick and the clear, because it's one of the motifs that runs right throughout the book, that the true religion has both aspects, but it causes the believer perhaps to go to a religion that will sacrifice chickens and read its entrails and perhaps a Western secular Sociologist might look down on that and say, that's very superstitious and very naive.
[00:32:05] But a believer might come up and say, perhaps it is, but there's something true there, that there is a need for blood and sacrifice to atone for sin.
[00:32:19] There's something very thick about our faith. There's something shocking.
[00:32:26] The offense of the cross it talks about.
[00:32:30] And Isaiah here rises to the height to see it. This is really the time where you see that it will take the sacrifice of the Messiah to atone for our sin.
[00:32:44] And it says in verse 6, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. And then in verses seven to nine, it says this.
[00:32:55] He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that's led to the slaughter. And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.
[00:33:14] And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. His grave was assigned to be with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death because he'd done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. Now notice that this one, who is the Messiah, who is God himself at work in salvation, will go to his death without making a major protest.
[00:33:45] He'll do it in a way that even his own generation, if they're watching, wouldn't really know what was happening. It says by oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due.
[00:34:03] There's another sort of famous young life talk that's been given by many generations of young life leaders. And it's basically, you tell the story of the Gospel and of the cross and of the death of Christ through the eyes of Barabbas. You dramatize the beginning where you have the choice. They're between Barabbas and Jesus that Pilate gives the people, and they call for Barabbas. And then Barabbas is released from prison, and he's utterly amazed. He doesn't understand at first why he's released. And he finds out it's because this choice was between Barabbas and Jesus. And you have you dramatized through this whole story. Barabbas going up to and seeing the cross, and you see Barabbas looking at the events that happened there. And do you think that if Barabbas were standing there watching what happened, I mean, he might know something? He certainly knows that as you see Jesus up there, it should have been instead of Jesus.
[00:35:07] Instead of Jesus, on the name, the nameplate above there, it should have said Barabbas. But do you think if Barabbas would have been standing there, and even if he would have seen the darkness at noonday, even if he were to have seen the veil of the temple ripped in two, even if he would have seen the Gentile soldier at the foot of the cross, say, indeed, this man is the Son of God, even if he'd have seen all these things, do you think that Barabbas would have immediately come to the conclusion that the sins of the cosmos were being taken on Jesus that day?
[00:35:47] And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due, I mean, that would have been, it seems incomprehensible even to someone watching without later interpretation and confirmation and without actually the great confirmation of the great sign of the resurrection. You have two great signs, one at the beginning of Jesus life, the virgin birth, and the other at the end, the resurrection that provide the bookends that mark out who Jesus was. And without the resurrection of Jesus, you wouldn't see clearly that Jesus death on the cross was actually a victory rather than a defeat.
[00:36:35] But in any case, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due, goes on to say, his grave was assigned to be with wicked men, yet with a rich man in his death. Notice the word, the plural. His grave was assigned to be with wicked men too. You remember Jesus on the cross with the two thieves on each side, yet he was with a rich man, singular.
[00:37:03] And we know that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Nicodemus, no, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea with Nicodemus help, Nicodemus. They're both leaders of the Sanhedrin. And even though it was Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, Nicodemus and Joseph wrapped Jesus body and put 100 pounds of spices as part of it, and then buried Jesus in Joseph's tomb, yet with a rich man in his death. And it goes on to say, because he'd done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. And that would certainly make you puzzled, would it not? I mean, why would he be put to death, cut off out of the land of the living.
[00:37:46] Why would he be pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities?
[00:37:51] Why would he be put to death if he'd done no violence and if he'd never done anything, never had any deceit?
[00:38:02] The mystery is compounded. Who could believe this story? It seems rather amazing.
[00:38:08] And it goes on to say in verse 10, but the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief, if he would render himself as a guilt offering. He will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hands. So the Lord crushed him, put him to grief, it seems as a guilt offering. A guilt offering is one who in the Old Testament, guilt offering an animal sacrifice had to be an animal, pure and spotless and without blemish. And it seems that this one, the Messiah, was offered as a guilt offering. But notice, it not only says that, but it says at the end of verse 10, he will see his offspring, he will prolong his days. Now, what does that apply to? How can we interpret that? Well, I suppose you could say the servant will see his own offspring, or God will see the servant's offspring. Could be read either way with that first line. But the second line seems unambiguous. He will prolong his days.
[00:39:18] God will prolong the servants days. In other words, this one who is put to death, crushed for our iniquities, cut off out of the land of the living, will be what? Resurrected.
[00:39:31] Now, I remember having a talk with a more liberal professor at the seminary that I went to, and he would really wonder about the prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament and try to explain them away.
[00:39:46] And he would often wonder about whether there's even the idea of resurrection or life after death being established in the resurrection.
[00:39:55] Sorry, being established in the Old Testament.
[00:39:59] But this is one passage where it's clear. I remember coming across one liberal scholar that said, this is one of the clearest passages that speak about the resurrection of the dead in the whole Old Testament. He will see his offspring, and he will prolong his days. This one that's put to death will be resurrected.
[00:40:20] And it goes on to say, and as a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied by his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, and he will bear their iniquities.
[00:40:34] Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong, because he poured out himself to death. And was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors. Now, notice even just the idea of praying for sinners there at the end of verse 12, at the end of the chapter there of Isaiah 50.
[00:40:58] Well, there's much more that we could look at in this passage, and it really is worthy of even more careful and slow consideration than what I've done. But how could this be evaded? How could people interpret it otherwise? Well, one way that people could do it, and this is what the Ethiopian eunuch first went to in his interpretation, is to say, well, this passage, Isaiah 53, pertains to Isaiah, Isaiah himself.
[00:41:30] It's figurative language, like in Jeremiah. Jeremiah uses something similar to this about himself by Jeremiah himself in Jeremiah 11:19 says, I'm like a sheep led to the slaughter. But that's an analogy that's given.
[00:41:46] So it could be Isaiah himself. Or probably the more popular way of evading Isaiah 53 pertaining to the Messiah is to say that it's the nation of Israel that is being spoken about in Isaiah 53. And there's @ least some contextual evidence in Isaiah to make this point. Like, for instance, in Isaiah 44:21, it says, and Israel, for you are my servant. I have formed you, you are my servant. So sometimes the servant of the Lord is spoken about in terms of Israel.
[00:42:24] In Isaiah 49, 3, it says, and he said to me, you are my servant Israel. So again, another passage where Israel is the servant. But there's one thing you have to realize, and this is going by a complex thing pretty simply and pretty quickly, is that often you find within the Old Testament and in a number of cultures, the importance of the corporate being present. You know, the idea of Israel being a servant. But you also have in many cases an individual or someone that rises up to represent the nation, like Moses, certainly, was that a representative for the people that prayed for the people in the wilderness. Or you see in Daniel the idea of the Son of man and an individual. Sometimes Israel is spoken about as the Son of man, but then an individual comes to represent the nation. I think that what you have in Isaiah 53 is an individual, namely Jesus or Messiah, that comes as a representative for the nation. And I would suggest that the reason we could deal with both the idea that Isaiah himself is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 and the idea that the nation of Israel is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 by looking at some of the passages that are here, for instance, Isaiah 53, 9:10 says, he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth.
[00:44:02] He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. Could that pertain to Isaiah?
[00:44:10] Could that pertain to the nation of Israel or even to the remnant of Israel?
[00:44:16] I think not. Remember Isaiah 6:5, way back towards the beginning of Isaiah says, I'm a man of unclean lips. Isaiah says, and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips. So he's not one without deceit, that has no deceit found in his mouth.
[00:44:33] Or in Isaiah 59:12 it says, Our offenses pertaining to the nation are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us.
[00:44:46] Now this one, in verse 10 of Isaiah 53 it says it's a guilt offering, a trespass offering. Again, I mentioned that it needs to be a lamb without blemish or perfect. Is that Isaiah? Is that the remnant? Is that the nation of Israel?
[00:45:02] Certainly not.
[00:45:04] Or in verse 8 it says that this one goes to death for the transgression of my people. Who does that pertain to? Who's the transgression of my people?
[00:45:15] Seems to be at least Israel that's involved there. So it doesn't seem that Israel could die for the transgressions of Israel, especially offer itself as a guilt offering throughout the ages. It's interesting, even within Jewish circles, at least early in the first thousand years after the death of Christ, Isaiah 53 was spoken about as pertaining to the Messiah.
[00:45:47] In fact, there was sometimes confusion, as in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, like for instance in the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.
[00:45:57] We'll see there that they believe that there were two Messiahs. The question is, how do you have this victorious Messiah? Like in the passage in Jeremiah that I mentioned, Jeremiah 23 that I read earlier. And then how do you deal with Isaiah 53? Well, one way you could look at it is not see it fulfilled in one person, but in two people. And that's actually what the people of the Qumran did at the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, they said that there was a Messiah, Ben Joseph, who's a suffering Messiah, and then another Messiah, who's a Messiah, Ben David, a conquering Messiah.
[00:46:35] So the question is, how do you pull together these. It seems separate track perspectives on the Messiah. Seems contradictory, seems very different. How do you pull that all together in one person? So they chose the Messiah, Ben Joseph, the suffering Messiah, and Messiah Ben David, the ruling Messiah. But in early Judaism, immediately following the time of Jesus, Rabbi Maimonides And Rabbi Crispin thought that Isaiah 53 applied to the Messiah, as did the Targum Jonathan, the Sanhedrin and the Zohar.
[00:47:16] Some of the early texts that we see, they thought it wrong to refer Isaiah 53 to the nation of Israel.
[00:47:27] About the year after 1000 you had a guy, Rashi, a rabbi, that applied Isaiah 53 to the nation of Israel. And Rashi lived from 1040 to 1105.
[00:47:45] But Rabbi Crispin, who lived in 14th century, opposed this interpretation of Rashi that Isaiah 53 applied to Israel. Here's what Rabbi Crispin said. Notice the strong language this is in Judaism. This is Jewish interpretation.
[00:48:05] Rabbi Crispin said that this distorts the passage Isaiah 53 from its natural meaning. It was given of God as a description of the Messiah, whereby when any should claim to be the Messiah, to judge by the resemblance or non resemblance to it, whether he were the Messiah or not. So very strong language. Or Crispin said that those who apply Isaiah 53 to the nation of Israel have forsaken the knowledge of our teachers and inclined after their own opinions.
[00:48:36] Yet pretty much since the year 1000, that's been more the interpretation of Judaism that They interpret Isaiah 53 with regard to the nation of Israel. But that was not so for the first thousand years. And some rabbis when they came across that interpretation were very strong in opposition to it. Like Rabbi Vitus says this about it, he says the meaning he was wounded for our transgressions. He's wounded for our iniquities. In Isaiah 53, which produce the effect of his being bruised, it follows that whoso will not admit that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities must endure and suffer for them himself.
[00:49:17] Again, very strong language. Or Rabbi Halakir, a 9th century poet, in a prayer for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, says, we are shrunk up in our misery even until now.
[00:49:33] Our rock hath not come nigh to us, Messiah, our righteousness hath turned from us. We are in terror and there's none to justify us. Our iniquities and the yoke of our transgressions he will bear, for he was wounded for our transgressions. He will carry our sins on his shoulders, that we may find forgiveness for our iniquities. And by his stripes we are healed.
[00:49:59] Who is this speaking of, except the Messiah, of course we know who that's speaking of with respect to Jesus.
[00:50:07] Even so, that some contemporary Jewish scholars, like there's an orthodox Jewish scholar who also has a PhD in New Testament, a Dr. Lapid that argues this similar to the days of Qumran, that Jesus is the Messiah for the Gentiles, but there's yet to come a Messiah for the Jews.
[00:50:31] So he's compelled by some of these Old Testament passages to consider Jesus to be the Messiah.
[00:50:40] But again, this idea of two Messiahs being present, what other way could you evade this text?
[00:50:51] Well, one way, I suppose, is to say it wasn't part of the original text. It was put in later by Christians as an apologetic or arguments for the faith.
[00:51:02] But that was until little shepherd boy was running around in the wilderness and throwing rocks and he heard something break and went into a cave and found this cave with a bunch of scrolls in it. According to the story, he took the scrolls home, put some on a shelf where the story goes, use some to start a fire, which appalls us.
[00:51:23] Later took, I guess a year later, took one of these scrolls to a professor who probably almost had a heart attack, because this was by far the earliest text of Isaiah ever found. In fact, prior to this, the Masoretic text was dated somewhere around 1000 or 900 AD and in this discovery, they found, for instance, a text of isaiah dated around 200 BC. And that led, of course, to the discovery of the Dead sea scrolls in 11 caves and many of the books of the Old Testament, as well as the writings of the Essenes. But they found in this text of Isaiah that Isaiah 53 was there intact in this early manuscript there from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[00:52:21] So doesn't seem like that evasion works at all.
[00:52:26] So what do we say about Isaiah 53? What's the job description of the Messiah or this one who's to come? Well, he'll be the servant of the Lord, and he'll both be high and lifted up, but also come in obscurity.
[00:52:43] He'll be the arm of the Lord and yet have no stately form or majesty. Allow himself to be despised and forsaken, that he will offer himself as a sacrifice for sinners. He'll allow himself to be pierced for our transgressions. He'll do it without making a major protest.
[00:53:02] He will do it in a way that even his own generation, if they were looking, wouldn't know what was happening.
[00:53:08] He will have his grave designed to be with wicked men, plural, yet be with a rich man, singular. He'll never have done any violence nor any deceit. He'll be raised from the dead and pray for sinners.
[00:53:21] Now, I ask you, who fits this job description?
[00:53:27] Well, of course, I've been saying all along, and you know the answer to that.
[00:53:32] It's Jesus. And what's to be our response to this passage in Isaiah 53? Well, I would suggest that the response is the response of the first verse of Isaiah 54.
[00:53:46] And here's what it shouts for joy.
[00:53:52] That's the response we should make.
[00:53:57] Let's close at this point.
