Post by Admin on Mar 14, 2020 3:43:20 GMT
We turn our attention to what Jesus accomplished with his sacrificial death. Several famous chorus' from Messiah use Isaiah 53:1-10 (NIV):
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 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.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
A bit of background from a sermon by John Piper:
This chapter was not written by Christians after Christ's coming, trying to distort or failing to understand what really happened on Good Friday and Easter. This chapter was written by a Jewish prophet 700 years before Christ came. And what he saw in the future was not a Messiah who escapes death and resurrection, but a Messiah who dies – and dies explicitly in the place of sinners – and then rises again to make intercession for his redeemed and forgiven and justified people for ever.
So let's go to Isaiah 53:3-12 and see the prophecy that the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, would die and would rise again, and that this death and resurrection are planned by God and necessary. And as we look at this, keep in mind, it has to do with you here and now and for the rest of your life and eternity. What becomes clear from this chapter and from its fulfillment in the New Testament is that your sins can be forgiven, you can be declared righteous before God, and you can have eternal life with the risen Christ in everlasting joy.
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 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.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
A bit of background from a sermon by John Piper:
This chapter was not written by Christians after Christ's coming, trying to distort or failing to understand what really happened on Good Friday and Easter. This chapter was written by a Jewish prophet 700 years before Christ came. And what he saw in the future was not a Messiah who escapes death and resurrection, but a Messiah who dies – and dies explicitly in the place of sinners – and then rises again to make intercession for his redeemed and forgiven and justified people for ever.
So let's go to Isaiah 53:3-12 and see the prophecy that the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, would die and would rise again, and that this death and resurrection are planned by God and necessary. And as we look at this, keep in mind, it has to do with you here and now and for the rest of your life and eternity. What becomes clear from this chapter and from its fulfillment in the New Testament is that your sins can be forgiven, you can be declared righteous before God, and you can have eternal life with the risen Christ in everlasting joy.