The Suffering Servant
The same god who wrote the new testament wrote the old testament, that’s the way I see it from Isaiah 53. I am a Christian because of the Old Testament, without Isaiah 53, idk whether I could believe the New Testament. How can I be confident if Jesus is the messiah if I don’t have all of the predictions of the OT defining him when he shows up.
Isaiah 53 addresses Jesus
Arrival
Rejection
Death
Resurrection
Ascension
Coronation
Isaiah 53 explains the gospel more articularly than any chapter in the NT:
Arrival and Rejection
v2 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.
We saw nothing special about him. We saw him as a root our of dry ground that we would trip over. There was nothing spectacular because he didn’t fit the cultural expectations of the Messiah, he didn’t fight off the Romans, didn’t create an earthly conquering kingdom and so we considered him as nothing. This is exactly what happened because Israel rejected him and the romans crucified him.
Justification:
v5 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.
Wow, that sounds like God declaring us righteous on someone else’s account.
Resurrection
v8 By oppression and judgement 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
v10 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.
Jesus life was cut off in v8 but then he will see his offsprings in v10. How does that make sense? If his life was cut off how can he see his offspring? When we die we don’t see our offspring because we are dead. This is in reference to Jesus resurrection
Zachariah 12:10 They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child
This is repentant sinners will say! We thought he was stricken by God, we thought we were doing the right thing by having him put to death. Now we see he was was bruised for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities! A fountain of salvation is available.
What’s interesting about Isaiah's prophecy is that he isn’t saying it’s going to happen, he’s saying it has happened, because he was looking past christ to when sinners looked back on the one whom they’ve pierced.
