| Chapter 8. Concluding Remarks part 2: continued from How does a person receive this gift? The above verse teaches us that it is by coming to know Him. We will discuss this later. Finally, the chapter concludes,
strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. God is going to greatly honor this person, because He poured out His soul unto death as He bore the sin of many and because He made intercession for the transgressors. Friend, the Servant of God is willing to intercede before God on your behalf, that you might become clean in God’s eyes and counted by Him as righteous—not because of what you have done, but because of what the Servant did for you out of God’s love. Who is the Servant who offered Himself up for you? Isaiah talks about Him a few chapters earlier, in chapter 42: 1 "Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, my Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. The Servant is One whom God has chosen to bring forth justice to the Gentiles. The Servant is none other than the Old Testament Messiah, an anointed King that God has promised to send and rule the entire earth, both Jew and Gentile, in peace and justice. We could say more about this passage, but this is sufficient for now. A sacrifice had to be perfect. Any blemish in a sacrifice made it unacceptable. Both Jew and Gentile need the benefits of such a sacrifice, for we all have sinned before God. There is only One who is perfect, who is without sin. That is God Himself. Somehow, then, God would need to be the one who was sacrificed. How could this be? The Bible teaches that God has a Son. The Son is God, but separate from Him. We read about the Son in the Psalm 2 of the Bible:
LORD and against His Anointed.... 7 "I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. 8 Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. These verses teach us that the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, is also the Son of God. It is His own Son that God will send to rule on the earth. In Deuteronomy 29:29 we read that,
to us and to our children forever....” In other words, there are some things that God reveals and some things He keeps secret. He has revealed that there is only one God. He has revealed that He has a Son. The Old Testament of the Bible ascribes deity to His Son (Psalm 45:6-7, Micah 5:2), so His Son is God. How can there be only one God, and yet God have a Son who is also fully God? To the human mind, these things are contradictory. However, the problem lies in our understanding, not in God’s nature. A person with a submissive spirit towards God will accept what God has revealed and respond to it in faith. He will be content to recognize that God’s ways are higher than our ways and that there are some things that God chooses not to reveal to us. By contrast, the one who has a rebellious heart will come across something he does not understand. He will then use that as an excuse to rebel against God and reject what He has revealed. Continuing in Psalm 2 we read, 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. will kindle His wrath. However, those who are willing to put their trust in Him will be blessed. We will discuss a little later what it means to put our trust in the Son. Even though the things we have just looked at are remarkable, there is more. Who is the Servant? Well, lets look at some more verses. In Micah 5:2, we come across something really interesting: 2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." This passage speaks of the Messiah, the One who is to be Ruler in Israel. He has existed forever (He is God.) Yet, He shall be born in the tiny city of Bethlehem. Another interesting passage is found in Isaiah 7:14, 13 Then he said, "Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? 14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. How was an eternal God with an eternal Son going to have that Son be born into the world? To God the solution was simple. A virgin would conceive and bear a Son. He would be called, “God is with us” (Emmanuel). Although modern scoffers have claimed in their disbelief that the word translated virgin should be translated “young woman,” their error is easily refuted. The Septuagint is a translation of the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, into the Greek language. It was made several hundred years before the birth of Jesus. It was made by people who actually spoke both languages in their daily living. They had a choice between translating the word into the Greek as “young woman” or “virgin.” They chose a word which explicitly means “virgin” because that is what the Hebrew word means. God was going to give a sign to the House of David. The virgin would conceive and bear a Son, who will be called, “God is with us.” A God who can create the universe and who can create life at will would certainly have no difficulty in fulfilling this verse. There is another key to the puzzle of the identity of the Servant. In Daniel 9:25-26 we read, 25 "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. 26 "And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.... The command to rebuild both Jerusalem as well as its wall took place in approximately 446 B.C., during the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. It is recorded in Nehemiah 2:1-8. From the time of this command until the Messiah is killed (cut off) will be 69 weeks. A study of related passages shows that a week in this context is a period of seven “almost” years—seven periods of 360 days each. Calculations place the time of the Messiah’s death as somewhere in the timeframe of 31 A.D. However, His death would not be for Himself. Indeed, the death of the Servant was to be a sacrifice for us, ones who have gone our own way and sinned against God. So, we have learned a lot about the Messiah. We have learned that He is the Son of God, but will literally become God in the flesh after a virgin birth. He will ultimately rule over the entire earth, although the time for that is still future. However, He will offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of men, will be raised from the dead, will be satisfied that it was worth the grief and suffering when He sees those who were saved, and was to die somewhere around 31 AD. He was to be born in the city of Bethlehem. Is there anyone who fits the description of these things? Yes, Jesus of Nazareth, a man who went about doing good, who demonstrated the power of God in His life by working many miracles, who has had a greater impact on world history than any other single man. He is the One described in all of these various verses. Furthermore, He is the only person in history who could fulfill the various prophecies, for the decreed time of His death has long since passed. continuation |
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