He was despised and rejected by men . . . Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds 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.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth . . . Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. He poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:3–7, 11-12
Last week, I explained that when I first read Psalm 22, I had “very little understanding” of what I’d just read. Multiply that by 1,000 when it came to reading Isaiah 53. But, once again, I turned to the old search engine, AltaVista, after reading about Jesus’ life and death in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I flipped the pages back to Isaiah 53, reread it, and gained a little clarity on its prophetic nature and fulfillment found in the Gospels.
Isaiah 53 (written about 700 years before Christ) is the heart of prophetic atonement in the Old Testament. Atonement is simply the process of bringing two estranged parties together. Biblically, it is the means of reconciliation between God and people. In the Old Testament, atonement was generally accomplished through the sacrifice of an animal. Leviticus 4-6, and 16, lay it all out.
As God’s Word unfolds into the New Testament, atonement wraps around the sacrificial death of Jesus of Nazareth. His death is seen as a once-and-done event that brings satisfaction and fulfillment to the old sacrificial system.
Many would argue that the Gospel is “all over” Isaiah 53. In fact, Darrell Bock wrote a great book titled The Gospel According to Isaiah 53. While I do not necessarily see a prophecy of the resurrection in Isaiah 53, 1) our need for atonement is clearly there, and 2) Jesus being the Atonement Maker profusely bleeds off the text. God majestically connects the dots between Genesis 3, Leviticus 4-6 and 16, and the Gospels, via Isaiah 53.
You and I need to have a right view of who we are as human beings and what God, in Jesus, did in response. Isaiah observes, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (v. 6). The Lord paints an image here, through Isaiah, of you and me wandering around autonomously, yet aimlessly, lost in the wasteland of sin.
For Isaiah 53, the focus of man’s #messedupness is the disease of narcissistic self-centeredness. Rather than turning to the Lord for help, healing, and restoration, we all have turned to ourselves for the cure. This is doomed from the get-go; it’s always an exercise in futility. Stop reading for a minute and look into the nearest mirror. Look at the person staring back at you and repeat the following, “You ain’t all that. You do not have the cure.”
Don’t freak out. Just because you can’t fix yourself, don’t be deceived into thinking you’re unfixable. Reconciliation between you and God can be made. It is available to you. Atonement can be applied. Isaiah tells us that once-for-all atonement is on the messianic horizon in the form of a Suffering Servant. He describes Messiah:
He was despised and rejected (v. 3). He has borne our griefs and was smitten by God (v. 4). He was afflicted (v. 4). He was pierced for our transgressions (v. 5). He was crushed for our iniquities (v. 5). His punishment meant peace for us (v. 5). His wounds healed us (v. 5). The Lord laid all our sin on Him (v. 6, 11, 12). He was oppressed and afflicted (v. 7). His righteousness allows us to be counted as righteous (v. 11). He intercedes for us law-breakers (v. 12). What an incredible description of Jesus’ life and death. To deny that this is pointing to Jesus is patently nonsensical.
Jesus’ death was not an accident. God didn’t wake up on the first Holy Saturday and say, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming yesterday.” Jesus did not die as a martyr. He did not die fighting ferociously against the Cross. He died willingly for you. He died willingly for me. Vicariously for us, in our place. He took the hit that was really ours to take.
In Things New and Old: Old and New Testament Studies, C. I. Scofield wrote, “There is but one explanation of the death of Christ which satisfies the Scriptures: ‘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.’ ”[1]
Lord, thank You for breathing Your Word through the prophet Isaiah. Thank You that what Isaiah penned led me to the One to whom he was pointing. Thank You, Lord, that You came as a man and died for me when I’m the one that deserved it. Father God, I pray that if the person reading these words right now doesn’t know You, that You would reveal Yourself to them in an undeniable way. Amen.
[1] C. I. Scofield, Things New and Old: Old and New Testament Studies, ed. Arno C. Gaebelein (New York: Publication Office “Our Hope,” 1920), 10.
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