The Word of Truth
The Sacrifice of Christ
The Bible is the written Word and will
of God. It is the Word of truth. And it reveals to us who God is, who we are
and why life in our world is the way it is and how to change it. We’ve learned
that when God created the first man and woman they were innocent and blameless.
They enjoyed life in harmony with God and one another.
Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and
multiply and they and their descendants were to have dominion over the earth.
But on a fateful day Adam deliberately rejected God’s authority over his life
and sin and death entered the human experience. Sin is the cause of all our
troubles, the source of all our sorrows and death is its ultimate penalty.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam was given
a choice to obey God and love Him or to disobey God’s will. Now, you might ask
why Adam was given the freedom to choose what he would do. Why make sin and
sorrow a possibility? The answer is that without freedom to choose how we live,
we are merely puppets controlled by another’s will. And without freedom to
choose there is no real love towards another. Love is not simply a feeling. It
is the decision to bring honor, respect and good to another. Adam had to choose
to love and honor God.
But even though Adam sinned and passed
that inherent sin nature on to all of us, God promised a Redeemer, the seed of
the woman[1],
who would restore all that Adam lost[2].
That Redeemer is Jesus Christ. He is the remedy for the disease of sin.[3] In
contrast to Adam, Jesus loved God fully, freely and obediently; he was without
sin. And Scripture tells us that he came not to be served but to serve and to
give his life a ransom for many.[4] In
other words Jesus chose to live a holy life before God and then to offer his
life as a sacrifice for sin so that we might be reconciled back to God.
Jesus Christ made the decision to be
our substitute paying the price for sin, which is death, because of his love
for God and his love for you and me. In the Old Testament there are two great
prophecies concerning Christ’s death for our sins. One is Psalm 22 and the
other is Isaiah 53. Psalm 22 reveals the personal agony that Jesus endured as
our substitute paying the penalty for death. Isaiah 53 enables us to understand
what was accomplished by Christ’s death on the cross. Nowhere in the Old
Testament is the sacrificial death of Christ revealed more clearly.
Seven hundred years before Jesus
Christ died on the cross God opened the eyes of a prophet to see into the very
heart of Christ’s saving work. And at the heart of Christ’s death is
substitution. The righteous one died in the place f sinners.[5]
The loving shepherd gave his life for the lost sheep. Jesus died for you and
for me. As we read the prophecy in Isaiah may God open our hearts to His love and
grace.
Who has
believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
(Isaiah 53:1, 2)
1. Rebellious
sinners
There are five truths that Isaiah
reveals to us and the first concerns rebellious sinners. The first two verses
of this prophecy tell us that despite this and other prophecies concerning the
redeemer only a few people would recognize him when he came. There was nothing
in Jesus’ appearance that made him stand out in a crowd. He looked like any
other person. There was no halo over his head. He ate a slept and was just as
human as any of us. But now Isaiah goes deeper and says the Redeemer was not
only unrecognized by many, but he was despised.
He is
despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
(Isaiah 53:3)
When Jesus ministered in Israel there
weren’t many people who realized the value of his life and what he means to all
humanity. There are still too few people who see his beauty and value today.
This is what lies at the heart of rebellious sinners. On our own we do not
think about God. We do not think about His grace to us in Jesus Christ. And so
without God in our thoughts nothing in the world seems more natural than to do
our own thing, to go our own way.
Christ is despised and rejected and
this means that God’s love and grace are rejected. On their own sinners cannot
see the poverty of their condition. This is why a substitute is needed. On our
own we can do nothing about sin.
2. The
ransoming substitute
Surely He
has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
(Isaiah 53:4)
Isaiah is predicting that Jesus would
bear the consequences of our sins. When Jesus Christ suffered and died on the
cross he carried all our heartache, all our sickness, and all our sorrows,
because he carried all of our sin.[6]
Yet, when people watched him suffer and die on the cross they thought he was
being punished for his own sins. But in reality he endured God’s wrath against
sin on our behalf.[7]
This is the heart of the good news
that God has for rebellious sinners if we are willing to lay down our
rebellion. Instead of increasing our sorrows, Christ carried them. He bore and
still carries what we find so difficult, our sorrows and grief. Isaiah then
proclaimed the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.
3. The
substitutionary sacrifice
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes 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.
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes 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 53:5, 6)
As I mentioned earlier, Isaiah had his
eyes opened to the sacrificial work and worth of Christ seven hundred years
before it occurred. So verses 5 and 6 are not only a wondrous revelation of
Christ’s saving death in the place of sinners, it is also a powerful validation
of its truth. Jesus not only died for us so that we could be saved. He died for
us in fulfillment of explicit prophecy so that we could know for certain that
we are saved. When you read the story of your redemption seven hundred years
before it happened, you not only have revelation but validation.
Every one of us should suffer the
sorrows of our sins and pay the penalty which is death; a death which is real
and not a passing from this world to the next, but a death that leads to
destruction and annihilation.[8]
But through God’s mercy and love Jesus Christ bore the consequences for the
sins that we deserved. God placed all of our sins upon His Son and treated him
as if he had committed every sin committed by every person in the world.
Jesus Christ who was sinless and
undeserving of death gave his life to satisfy the demands of divine justice.[9]
Jesus Christ is the ransoming substitute! Instead of avenging our transgressions,
Christ is wounded for them. Instead of bruising or crushing us for our
iniquities, Christ was crushed for them. All of the chastisement that we
deserved Christ took on himself that we might be healed and have peace.[10]
The LORD, Yahweh, laid on Christ all
of our iniquity. In the New Testament 2 Corinthians 5:21 declares that God made
Christ “who knew no sin to be sin for
us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The fourth truth
revealed to Isaiah was that the ransoming, redeeming substitutionary sacrifice
was according to the will of God.
4. The
sacrifice of Christ was according to the will of God
Yet it
pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
He has put Him to grief.
(Isaiah 53:10a)
Do you feel the weight of this, the
heaviness of this truth? Do you understand that it pleased God to punish His
Son instead of you? Do you rejoice in the reality that God’s heart does not
desire your suffering or your sorrow or your grief or your death? He desires
your redemption from sin and its penalty. According to the good and loving and
righteous will of God, Jesus Christ gave his life for us that we might be
justified and delivered from this sinful and evil age.
5. Justified
and delivered
He shall see
the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
(Isaiah 53:11)
Jesus Christ understood from his
knowledge of Scripture that he would live again to see the benefit of his
sacrifice. May people would be justified, they, we, would be cleared of all the
guilt of sin. Isaiah understood all of this seven hundred years before it
happened. How good God is to give His people hope! Let’s turn to the New
Testament, to Galatians 1, and read about the affect of Christ’s sacrifice
after it was accomplished.
Grace to you and peace from
God the Father and our
Lord Jesus Christ, 4
who gave Himself for our sins, that He
might deliver us from this
present evil age, according to
the will of our God and
Father, 5 to whom be glory
forever
and ever. Amen.
(Galatians 1:3-5)
On account of Christ’s sacrifice for
sins grace and peace are extended to us. Grace is God’s loving and merciful
favor and good will towards us. It includes our having His wisdom, power, care
and protection. And because of His grace we have peace. We have been delivered
from this present evil age.
What does it mean for us to be
delivered from this present evil age? The present age is evil because sin has
such a grip on people and on the institutions of society. 1 John 5:19 declares
that “the whole world lies under the sway
of the wicked one.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4 the Bible says that the “god of this
age has blinded” the minds of people to keep them from seeing the truth about
Christ. But for those of us who trust Christ, liberation from this captivity
and blindness has taken place. Colossians 1:13 boldly asserts that God has “delivered
us from the power of darkness and conveyed us
into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
We no longer need to be enslaved to
the fear, guilt, anger, pessimism, selfishness, greed and the false pride of
this world. We can bear witness by our love, faith and hope in God that we
belong to Jesus Christ and his coming kingdom. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,
Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation;
old things have passed away;
behold, all things have
become new.
So the message of redemption is
this—you are free![11]
Loose yourself from this world. Don’t feel, think or act like this world
thinks.[12]
Jesus Christ died and rose again to cleanse you of all your sins so that a holy
God could come to you and give you grace and peace. And Jesus Christ ever lives
to empower us to be free of a mindset that leads to destruction[13].
Have faith in Christ[14].
Rejoice in Christ[15].
Grow to be more like Christ[16]
and set your hope in his return.[17]
[1]
Genesis 3:15
[2]
God knew that Adam would fail and therefore even before the creation, God’s
plan of salvation envisioned Jesus Christ and his redemptive work. Revelation
13:8 speaks of “the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world.” This does not mean that Jesus’ sacrifice
occurred before the foundation of the world, but that it was known to God
before the foundation of the world. God was not surprised by Adam’s sin nor was
He ever at a loss as to how to redeem humanity from the power and penalty of
sin.
[3]
Matthew 1:21
[4]
Mark 10:45 – The word “ransom” refers to the price paid to free slaves or
hostages. Christ’s life was sacrificed for others, in their place.
[5]
1 Peter 3:18 – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit”.
[6]
2 Corinthians 5:21
[7]
Romans 5:8, 9 – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now
been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
[8]
John 3:16; Philippians 3:19; 2 Thessalonians 1:9
[9]
Romans 3:21-26
[10]
1 Peter 2:23-25
[11]
Galatians 5;1
[12]
Romans 12:1, 2
[13]
Hebrews 7:24, 25
[14]
Galatians 2:20
[15]
Philippians 4:4
[16]
Romans 13:11-14
[17]
1 Peter 1:13
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