ISAIAH 53: & psalms 22: JESUS SUFFERED IN OUR PLACE 4-26-08
As we think about how Jesus suffered and died on the cross, people have their own thoughts about what His crucifixion must have been like, but I’m sure that most of us really can not comprehend what He actually endured, including my self.
There were many people in those days that died on a cross as that was the Roman way of the death penalty for every one that was not a Roman, but Jesus death on the cross was different, as He bore the sins of all mankind, passed present and future.
Today for a little while I want to bring a few thoughts on what He went through and what His death accomplished. Listen as I read today’s text:
1Who hath believed our report? -- It’s clear to Isaiah that this is a reference to the Messiah but he says that it will not be believed and received by the majority of the people. and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? --“The arm of the LORD” points out the mighty power of God, only God could have conceived such a wonderful plan.
Isaiah 52:10 The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
2For He shall grow up before Him** as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground:--
The term tender plant refers to the “shoot” that would spring up out of the decayed stump of Jesse (the Davidic line), the Messiah would come on the scene with out recognition and with humble beginnings when it is least expected.
3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus on the cross was a horrible sight to see. His suffering was unimaginable; He died a horrible death. He suffered as no other man had ever suffered there on the cross. He had been beaten with a cat of nine tails**, His flesh was torn wide open, He was a mass of unsightly flesh.
Isaiah 52:13-- his visage “appearance” was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5But 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.
This is speaking of spiritual healing, God can heal us physically if He so wills to, but here its to do with our spiritual healing.
6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8He was taken from prison and from judgment:
. Jesus was taken from prison and from judgment, as we all realize that Jesus had a mock trial in the nighttime by the Sanhedrin and in the early morning by Pilate, the Roman official,
and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
1st pet. 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death;** because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; this don’t mean that God the Father took pleasure in seeing Jesus suffer and die, it means that the results of His death would provide pleasing results, its not His will that any should perish but have ever lasting life.
This refers back to the same condition in verse 5, where He was bruised for our iniquities.
Both verses, 5 & 10, tell of His bruising, and points out that the substitutionary atonement of Christ was always the master plan of God the Father.
He hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, his seed was to be the people that would believe on Him and become the children of God, and by doing so he shall prolong his days,
The phrase he shall prolong his days indicates that the Lord Jesus ministry will not end with His death. His truths go marching on as the song says.
and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Its Gods good pleasure that Jesus give His life for all lost sinners, and His mission was going to be prosperous. The pleasure of the LORD refers to God’s ultimate purposes, which would be accomplished by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
11He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: Heb. 12:2, for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross”
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. That’s to say, because of knowing and understanding what Jesus accomplished on the cross, and accepting what He did there as dying in our stead, we are “justified” and its because He bore our iniquities.
12Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Listen as I read from the 22nd psalm, it fore told of His crucifixion;
6-18 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. 7All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, “8He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.”
9But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. 10I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.
11Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
12Many bulls They gaped upon me with their mouths: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. When the Lord Jesus looked down from the cross He saw the priests, rulers, scribes, Pharisees, and others gathered around Him like an infuriated herd of wild bulls.-- Bashun in Palestine, had good pasture land and was known for its big and powerful bulls.
13They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
From the threatening bulls to the ravenous lions that are eager to devour their prey with their monstrous jaws. Like roaring lions, the crowd howled and longed to tear the Saviour to pieces.
14I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: all his bones slipped out of joint, what a painful time He went through.
my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. He died of a broken heart. Doctors have said that a ruptured heart would have produced what John recorded in John 19:34 “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” not just blood but blood and water. Jesus died of a broken heart.
We cannot imagine the helpless and abandoned feeling that the Lord Jesus must have experienced with the howling mob on every hand making all kinds of cruel and hateful remarks. And along with the intense pain and suffering of the cross, there was also the intense pain of bearing the sins of mankind.
~~Its important for us to realize that Jesus had never sinned, not a single time in His 33 years on earth, it was an experience that He had never known, that is why in the Garden of Gethsemane, that His sweet was as great drops of blood as He ask the Father if it be the Fathers will to “let this cup pass from me”,Matt. 26:39-- it was not the cross that so terrified Jesus, but the thought of all the sins of the world being placed on Him. Jesus did not ask the Father to remove the plan of the Cross-, that is why He was born, and He knew that.
John 12: 27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour
15My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
Jesus had sweated all His fluids out during this frightful and horrible happening; He was so weak that it was unbearable. Have you ever witnessed a person that was completely dehydrated? They’re so weak and lifeless that they literarily can’t lift a finger.
His mouth was so dry that his tongue swelled and stuck to His jaws. and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. He could get no lower.
~~Listen to what I’m about to say, when the Psalms were pinned down the crucifixion was unknown, because the Roman Empire was not even in existence as yet, and be mindful that it was Rome that instituted crucifixion. And yet here is a picture of a man dying by crucifixion! Another rock sold evidence that this Bible is true. Wonder how the skeptics can try and get around this one?~~
16For dogs have compassed me: this was a reference to Gentiles, every one that is not a Jew, namely the Roman soldiers there around the foot of the cross as they gambled for His vesture. the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. 18They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
Let me say right here that Jesus did not die because of anything that He had done, instead He died because of our sins, we are natural born sinners, you and I and all mankind have inherited sin from our parents, it goes all the way back to the parents of us all, Adam & Eve there in the garden of Eden in Gen.3:
Rom. 5: 6-8 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. --vs. 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Paul said in 1st tim.1: 15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners;
We read in John 8: 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
No dear heart Jesus Himself had no sin to die for, He died to pay our sin debt. Did you know that man owes a debt that he cannot pay?
Rom. 6: 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We all have inherited this terrible blood disease called sin. Its true Jesus did die because of sin, but not His sins, but ours.
2nd. Cor. 5: 21 For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
