Creation to Christ: Reading 33 – September 9, 2016 – Isaiah 52:7-53:12 The Suffering Servant

Today’s Readings

Context 

It's always amazed me that an orthodox Jew who believes the Old Testament could read Isaiah 52 and 53 and still not end up believing in Jesus as their Messiah. It is an amazing description of Jesus' death for the sins of the world. The Jews interpret the Suffering Servant here as Israel herself and view the vivid descriptions not as a prophetic vision of Jesus' suffering but as a more figurative portrayal of the hardships of Israel in the world.

But there are few passages, even in the New :Testament, that as clearly describe the intense and awful sufferings of Christ for the sins of the world. 

Devotional - Wounded for Me

There is much about the gospel we believe that is not revealed in the Old Testament. Many of our doctrines are only seen in seed form and are not fully developed until the New Testament era. The Trinity is a doctrine that is only hinted at in the OT until its full revelation in the New. The concept of salvation by grace through faith alone apart from the law was always key to God's ways, but the OT only gives us the hints of the doctrine.

But the Old Testament builds a strong foundation of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. Of course, it was bulls and goats that were the substitutes but Hebrews makes it plain that these all served as foreshadowings of Christ's great work on the Cross.

n Isaiah 52-53 we have one of the great passages of the Old Testament, a prophetic tour of the Cross of Christ. It is hard to imagine that a passage written hundreds of years before Christ was born could so accurately describe the sufferings of Jesus as he bore our sins so that by his stripes our sins could be healed.

 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 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.

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.. Isaiah 53:4-6

I was weighed down by the griefs of sin, but Jesus bore my sorrow.
I was in line to be smitten for my sins, but Jesus took the blow.
He was wounded and crushed because of the sins I committed.
And because of all of that the effects of sin in my life can be healed. What sin breaks, Jesus fixes. 

I went astray, he brought me to the Father in peace. 

It is the most amazing story of grace, love, mercy and restoration ever, and it was promised to Israel and to us hundreds of years before the events took place, the clearest prophecy of the climactic moment in human history.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Thank you, Lord for bearing the weight of my sin, for being my substitute to atone for my sins. 

Think and Pray

Read through this passage with pen and paper, and write down all the blessings of the work of Christ - all that he did for you.
Spend time thanking God for his blessings in Christ.