PART FOUR: The Wider Work of the Son

24    The Son - the triumphant Lamb

25    Us - redeemed from an empty life

26    Blessings & Curses

27    Us - our Freedom Bought

28    Redemption & Forgiveness

29    Repentance opens the door

30    God's revulsion at my sin

31    God's hatred of sin

32    Us - blind to the truth?

33    God has no pleasure in our death

34    Cross-centred salvation

35    Us - reconciled to God

36    The Son - Jesus the substitute

37    The Son - the lamb without defect

38    The Son - creates access to God

39    Us - put right with God

40    Surface Praise

PART FIVE : Jesus' Seven Words on the Cross

41    Sinful Ignorance

42    Death-Bed Confessions

43    Caring - Part 3!

44    The Sin Bearer Crushed

45    The Sin Bearer Exhausted

46    The Task Completed

Let's now turn away from focusing on our sin, to catch a glimpse of the truth that the Cross was part of God's big plan.

Jn 17:24 Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world .

1 Pet 1:20 He was chosen before the creation of the world , but was revealed in these last times for your sake .

Rev 13:8 the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. ( Or written from the creation of the world in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain).

Consider:

Our three verses today all have a common element – they refer back to the beginning of the world, or even to before it! Tomorrow we'll see some more; there are a number of these verses in the New Testament, coming from a variety of writers who all understood the same thing.

The first verse speaks of the love the Father had for the Son before they created this world. Jesus himself spoke a number of times about having come from heaven. His life didn't start when he was conceived in Mary; he had existed from before time. The Father and Son existed in loving communion before anything else was.

The second verse speaks about how the Godhead chose Jesus to come down and go through the thirty three years of human existence. Seen in context, we see that Peter had just been writing about Jesus dying like a sacrificial lamb so the implication is that this role was assigned him before they made the world.

The third verse, from Revelation, indicates that this plan for Jesus to die for our sins and thus create a book of the saved, was established before they created the world, thus confirming Peter's revelation of the truth.

Again and again, the message is that God planned the Cross even before He created the world. Because He is God, He could look into the future and see that His perfect creation would soon be marred by sin, as Adam and Eve used their free will to choose to disregard God. Before He created the world, He knew what the consequences of free will and of sin, and knew the separation from him that would occur. Right back then, He knew the only way to deal with this would be the Cross and right back then they agreed that the Son would be the one who would leave heaven and come in human form to bring about eternal justice. The activities in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago were no last-ditch, desperate measure by God. No, they were part of the plan and purpose of heaven that was decided upon even before He spoke and said, “Let there light”! (Gen 1:3).

Prayer:

Lord, thank you that you looked into the future and saw our plight and planned accordingly, even before you brought anything into being. Thank you that even before time began you planned this, Jesus coming and dying (Easter) for us.

Let's continue this theme we started yesterday, seeing the overall plan of God that brought about Easter.

Eph 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

2 Tim 1:9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life–not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time ,

Tit 1:2 a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time .

Consider:

We have here another three verses that take us back before the beginning of time, before God brought this existence into being. We saw yesterday how the Godhead planned then for Jesus to leave heaven and come and do what we now have recorded in the Gospels.

Depending on your level of belief about God's sovereignty, our first verse today declares that before He made the world, God either decided exactly who would become His children by divine order, who would become His children because they exercised their free will, or the nature of the people who would respond to Him through Christ. Whatever is your view, it was all part of the divine plan before He made anything else. Grace, in the second verse, might be simply described as divine ability given to us and this too was decreed before time. Finally, in the third verse, the outcome was decreed, eternal life, and this too before time. Now we can't grasp what “before time” really means. All we can say is that at some point in infinity, in eternity, the existence that is the Godhead, thought, considered, saw and understood and planned these things.

It didn't just happen in time and space two thousand years ago; the plan wasn't a last-minute attempt to salvage humanity. It wasn't something worked out as it happened. No, the whole plan had its origins in heaven before God brought this material existence into being. It wasn't an out-of-control crisis in history; it was the clearly understood and planned strategy of heaven, to meet every aspect of the need that was revealed. In viewing Easter, the events that lead up to it, the horrors of it, and the wonder of the resurrection, and the out-workings of it, it is vital that we get this bigger picture, that we understand the wider dimension. Easter was the planned activity of God on this small planet to have eternal repercussions. We'll see later how it was a combination of God's activity and man's activity, but understand that it was planned and instigated by God! It was God working to bring eternal justice into play so that you and I could be brought into an incredible relationship with the One who is the master planner.

Prayer:

Lord, thank you for this staggering truth, that you planned for my salvation before you brought anything of this existence into being.

So we continue to pursue this amazing truth, that Easter was God's long term plan wrought from before the beginning of time.

Acts 2:23 This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge ; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

Acts 4:27,28 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people ] of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

Acts 3:17,18 “Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.

Consider:

We have been seeing how ‘Easter' was in the divine mind even before He created the world. Now we see how Jesus' followers understood it all after it had happened. The first verse is from Peter preaching under the power, inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He is under no illusions that the events surrounding the Cross – the arrest, the trials, the beatings, the crucifixion – were clearly all part of God's plan, a plan that He had foreseen long before. How was that plan executed? By provoking sinful men into rising up against Jesus and doing these terrible things, both Jew and Gentile, both leaders and ordinary men.

The second two verses are part of a prayer by the disciples and again they are quite clear in their thinking: ‘Easter' may have been the work of the Gentiles and Jews at Jerusalem , but it was what God had decided beforehand would happen.

The third pair of verses are again from Peter as he is preaching after moving in power healing the crippled beggar. This time he emphasises that all that had taken place had been prophetically foretold. God had given prior indication of it all through the prophets. The prophets had spoken of it but the scholars had not understood it; it had been a mystery to them, they had not been able to understand how the coming Messiah could be both a glorious king and an abused servant, all at the same time, but that is exactly what he was. The king of glory, the Son, came in human form, and putting off his glory became God's servant to achieve and fulfil the plans of heaven made before all else came into being. Having done that, the servant ascended again to His place in heaven where He is and will be heralded as king, the Saviour and Lord of the world (see Phil 2:5-11).

Prayer:

Lord, thank you again for these wonderful truths, that ‘Easter' was part of your amazing plan to reconcile us to yourself through the death of your Son. Lord, please help me understand it all more fully.

We continue to unpack the truths of the Scriptures, that Easter was all about God fulfilling the plan that He and His Son had decided upon, even before they had created anything of this universe, and this existence – for us.

Gal 4:4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law

Mt 26:18 He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.'

Consider:

We now start looking more deeply into this whole question of timing and God's plan. Paul uses an interesting phrase when writing to the Galatians: “when the time had fully come ”. At the beginning of his book “Evangelism in the early Church”, Michael Green writes, “probably no period in the history of the world was better suited to receive the infant Church than the first century A.D., when, under an Empire which was literally world-wide, the scope for the spread and understanding of the faith was enormous….. The scope and spread of Christianity would have been inconceivable had Jesus been born half a century earlier.”

Heaven had brought the earth and all material things into being, and had then spoken into the affairs of men (see the whole Old Testament). The final divine interaction seems to have been with Ezra and Nehemiah, and then came four hundred years of silence. For four hundred years the affairs of men carried on with no word from God while He waited until the circumstances were right. Could He have found another Mary, another Joseph? Perhaps, perhaps not. Whatever the truth, what we can say is that it was another four hundred years before all the players that God had in mind were on the stage of earth.

Rome (the Gentiles) were the power force ruling. Judaistic orthodoxy prevailed over a nation where there was little or no spiritual life. It was a time when Jesus' life would shine out like a bright light in a dark place (Jn 1:4-9), and it would reveal the powerlessness of modern religion (see Lk 4:32,36) and the religious leaders, exposed for what they were, would rise against him and using the weakness of the Roman authority, have him put to death.

Throughout Jesus' recorded ministry we get a continuing sense that Jesus was working to a time schedule; he knew when it was time to go to the Cross, when it was time to settle under the noses of the religious authorities in Jerusalem and provoke them with his presence just before Passover. No, all the people were in place, each one ready to perform their part in the drama we call ‘Easter'. The eternal plan was being fulfilled in time-space history.

Prayer:

Lord, as I wonder about the ‘players' that were involved in your plans as you worked them out at that point of history, so I wonder about my own role today. Open my eyes to see your plans and purposes as they affect me. Help me understand more and more of this as we go through these meditations.

So consider for one more day, this sense that the New Testament gives us, that all of Jesus' life, death and resurrection were being worked our according to a divine plan.

Mk 1:15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Jn 2:4 Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied, “My time has not yet come.”

Jn 17:1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son.

Consider:

Sometimes there are words in Scripture that we hardly notice. The first phrase in our first verse today is rather like that. We tend to focus on Jesus' declaration that the kingdom is coming so the need is to repent, but his first statement is vital: the time has come! They planned it before the world began and for countless millennia had waited – and now the waiting is over. The Son has been on the earth for thirty years, waiting – but now the waiting is over! It is like the starter's pistol is fired and the race begins. The rule of God's kingdom through His Son on earth is about to start and, even more importantly, the countdown to Calvary has just begun. It is now merely a matter of time.

The ministry starts, the Son is released into activity and things happen. His mother is watching and at a wedding in Cana , when a crisis ensues, she nudges him into action. It's as if he says, hold on mother, this is too early for me to be doing stuff here, I haven't been asked for help. Wait for the right time. There was that sense of right timing about Jesus throughout his three years of ministry.

But then comes that fateful last week and that dramatic last night – and Jesus knows it is as he prays and acknowledges, “Father, the time has come.” If the first verse was like the crack of the starter's pistol and the launch of the race, this last verse seems to move everything into slow motion. It is the acknowledgement of the coming of the most ghastly hours of the human life of the glorious Son of God. He goes across to the Garden of Gethsemane and prays again where now the awareness of the awfulness of the human experience ahead of him almost crushes him. He, more than most, knows the future and knows what is coming and knows that, humanly speaking, what is about to happen is the last thing on earth that any human would want to experience – yet it is part of the plan agreed before the foundation of the world. There is no stepping back now! The plan has been agreed. Now is the time for it to be fulfilled.

Prayer:

Lord, it's easy to read about how you formulated this plan before you created anything of this world, but as it draws near to the climax, the awfulness of it becomes more apparent. Lord Jesus, how you must have loved your Father, how you must have loved us to go through with this most ghastly of executions!

As we continue to consider God's plan for Easter, we now turn to His declarations of it through His prophet, Isaiah, spoken some seven hundred years before Christ came.

Isa 52:13,14 13 See, my servant will act wisely he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.

Consider:

Isa 52:13 – 53:12 is what is referred to as the fourth ‘Servant Song', the fourth prophetic song about the coming Messiah. Isaiah kept referring to a coming ‘servant' who initially appears could be Israel , but as the prophecies unfold, can only be a separate, distinct individual who is coming at God's behest. When we examine the prophecy in detail (and we won't cover it all) we see that it could only apply to Jesus. We'll make that assumption from the outset and prove it as we go along.

These verses confused the Jewish scholars because on one hand they appear to speak of success and on the other failure. First the prophet says this figure will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Well that sounded like this person was going to be highly esteemed, but then he continues and says that he will be so disfigured and marred, that people will be appalled at him. The two things didn't seem to make sense! When we see Jesus as this messianic figure it all becomes clear – in retrospect!

Yes he was raised– hung on a Cross at Calvary (e.g. Lk 23:33, Acts 2:23). Yes he was lifted up – raised from the dead (e.g. Mt 28:6, Acts 2:24). Yes he was exalted – as he ascended into heaven and is seated at his Father's right hand (e.g. Mk 16:19 , Eph 1:20). In the process he was beaten and scourged (e.g. Mt 27:27-32) so badly that it needed another's help to carry the cross. No, by the time it came to the execution, he was already a mess, cut to shreds by the beating, disfigured and blood covered by the thorns. No, it wasn't just the crucifixion, as bad as that was (possibly one of the worst and most agonising forms of execution ever devised), it was the utter violent degrading that went on before that left this victim utterly weak, defenceless and less than a man.

This was the work of sinful mankind, prodded by the agents of Satan, utterly degrading and humiliating the glorious Son of God, as if to say, see what we can do! This was, without doubt, the most shameful episode in human history – and God spoke about it happening centuries before through His prophet. Why all this? That will come later.

Prayer:

Lord, we so often talk so easily about the crucifixion and yet for any human being it must have been indescribable agony, and yours was pushed to the extreme. How you must have loved us. Father, forgive us that we take it so lightly. Help us understand more fully.

We continue to focus on truths from Isaiah's fourth servant song, in our quest to understand Easter.

Isa 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Consider:

A staggering truth, that we frequently miss, is that Jesus existed in heaven before he came to earth in the guise of a tiny baby. Jesus referred a number of times to this, though it took the apostle John decades of meditating on what happened to realise the significance of Jesus' words (Jn 1:1-3,14, 6:33,38,41, 46, 50,51,58, 17:5,18,24). This glorious second person of the trinity came from heaven and lived in human form but we despised and rejected him! In practical terms it was the religious people of the day who despised him. Surely, they said, this is just the son of a carpenter, a lowly, uneducated person. Why should we take any notice of him? (see Mk 6:3). In the course of his ministry even some of his apparent followers couldn't stomach what he was saying and drew back from him (Jn 6:66). At his arrest in Gethsemane his closest disciples deserted him and fled (Mt 26:56). The religious and secular Jewish authorities (Mt 26:59) rejected him and tried him, Pilate the symbol of Gentile authority refused to stand up for him and for justice, and the crowd bayed for Barabbas to be released instead of him (Mt 27:20-25).

But more than this Jesus knew men, knew what they were thinking and understood both their potential and their frequent failings (e.g. Jn 13:21). When you see such potential and yet such folly, it is impossible not to feel sorrow. When he saw the effect of sin at Lazarus's tomb (Jn 11:33) he was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Suffering in the New Testament is often equated with persecution, another aspect of rejection, and Jesus knew that again and again as the authorities came to trap him (e.g. Lk 20 generally) seeking ways to pull him down. Here was Jesus, the source of all wisdom, and yet again and again he is being looked down upon by those who think they know better. It's easy for us to say we wouldn't have been like that, but I wonder, if he had come to our church (and you knew nothing of who he was) and he started saying and doing things that revealed the barrenness of your own spiritual experience, and started making you feel uncomfortable, how you would have felt? Are you so sure you wouldn't have had feelings of criticism and rejection. You had to be a really spiritually hungry person to accept Jesus – but then that it still exactly true today.

Prayer:

Lord, the more I think about how people didn't respond well to you, the more uncertain I am about my own responses. I suspect there are days when you try to speak to me and I am ‘too busy' or I don't like the sound of what you are saying, and so I reject you. Please forgive me. May your Spirit within me stir a hunger and a thirst in me during this time of Lent.

Today we continue to meditate on a further aspect of Jesus' coming as revealed in the fourth servant song of Isaiah.

Isa 53:4     Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

Col 1:26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints

Consider:

Surely we move into areas of mystery here in today's Isaiah verse. The apostle Paul spoke about the Gospel being a mystery a number of times (Rom 16:25, Eph 1:9, 3:3,4,6,9, 5:32, 6:19, Col 1:26,27, 2:2, 4:3). He meant that until Christ had come, then followed by the revealing Holy Spirit, the truth as previously displayed in the Scriptures had been a mystery to its readers. Every word in this Isaiah verse is significant.

“Surely” means “Actually in reality he did this” and that is set against our confusion as a human race “Yet we considered him stricken by God.” We thought one thing was happening, when in reality the opposite was happening.

“he took up” means “he lifted off us and carried away.” This was what Jesus was doing on the Cross in ways that previously eluded our understanding.

“infirmities” are usually thought of in physical terms, and as much as that may be true, it is much bigger than that. Older versions speak of ‘griefs' which take us beyond the merely physical. An infirmity is simply a weakness or instability, anything that makes us less than the whole people God designed us to be. This is what sin has done to us: it has made us weak and unstable and because we are this we also sorrow – have disappointments, sadness, unhappiness, anguish, worry, fear, tension, stress – all of these thing constitute the ‘sorrows' that come from living in this fallen world.

Yet Jesus came, and in some mysterious way on the Cross lifted them off us and carried them away. All the things that mar our lives, Jesus took away, so we would no longer be a disappointment to the Father. This is the mystery that was there in the Isaiah prophecy that has now been revealed in Christ and by his Spirit; that on the Cross Jesus came to take off us all the things that mar us and spoil us and make us less than the people God has designed us to be. He has come to make us whole, complete people, people who know who they are ‘in Christ'. Why aren't we like that the moment we came to Christ? We were! The only thing is that it needs receiving and working out in our lives. When we believe he has done this, we will then find in experience that it is true and our lives will be transformed. This is the work of the Cross.

Prayer:

Lord, help me believe, help me believe this truth that on the Cross you lifted away from me all the aspects of me that make me less than the person you designed me to be. Help me to believe it and to start living as your child who has been freed from all those things. I AM freed; help me to believe it.

So we continue looking at some of the amazing truths that God spoke through Isaiah that appeared as a mystery but which have now been revealed.

Isa 53:5     But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Consider:

Yesterday we thought about ‘infirmities' and ‘sorrows' – the things in our lives that mar us and make us less than the people God has designed us to be, and the accompanying anguish that goes with those things, and noted that Jesus took them from us on the Cross. Again this verse is laden with significant words.

First the prophet speaks about this one as being ‘pierced'. Psa 22:16 speaks of his pierced hands and feet. Jn 19:34 records the piercing of his side. Some have suggested that the mixture of blood and water that poured out indicates that the heart and its surrounding protection was breached. These were physical piercings – something alien entering his body – nails and a spear where they should not be! Yet his spirit was pierced – the knowledge of the awfulness of sin and the knowledge of separation from the Father, these pierced his experience in the same alien way – he was the last person to know that experience surely – so utterly good was he, and in such communion with the Father.

But it also speaks of him being ‘crushed'. Crushed usually refers to the spirit (Psa 34:18), not the body, for Jesus' body was not physically crushed, but his spirit certainly was. When something is ‘crushed' it means a great weight has come upon it and squashed it completely out of shape, e.g. a car in a crusher. In this case Jesus, who was so strong in spirit was totally crushed so that his spirit was so distorted in shape that even his awareness of his Father (which is what the spirit in us does) was devastated – hence, My God, My God…..

In these 2 descriptions he was both devastated FOR and BY. He was devastated as he took our punishment FOR our sins, but also devastated BY our sins coming on him. Note the two descriptions of OUR activities.

First there is ‘transgressions'. To transgress means to go astray, to wander from the truth, from what is right. This is a continual tendency in the human race, to “wander off the straight and narrow”, a careless, negligent wandering away. There is a careless dimension to sin, but carelessness is not an excuse – we are still responsible. In the Law of Negligence, if any person could reasonably foresee the consequences of their actions then a duty of care arises, and they will be liable for those consequences if they fail to exercise that duty of care. i.e. if you could have reasonably thought about it, you are responsible for it. No excuses!

Then there are ‘iniquities'. Iniquities are total failures, purposeful sinful acts. They are wilful wrongs as against careless wrongs, things we intended openly to do. It's bad enough, if you are God, for people to be careless about you. It is much worse when they purposefully do wrong against you, knowing it is wrong, knowing it goes against everything you are, against everything that is good and true. These purposeful wrongs scream for punishment and scream into Jesus' spirit man's rejection of him. They were utterly devastating.

The Cross was Jesus carrying our sins – careless transgressions and purposeful iniquities – and carrying our punishment. Thus he brought peace to us – peace with God, and peace with ourselves – and healing, a making whole. All we have to do now is believe it and receive it and live it.

Prayer:

Lord I acknowledge and confess my wayward tendency, that leads me into carelessly wandering away. I confess my iniquities, that tendency to purposefully ‘do my own thing' which is wrong. I affirm that Jesus died on the Cross for all my sins, whether they be transgressions or iniquities and I am so grateful. Lord, help me to grasp the wonder of what you have done, that you were pierced and crushed on my behalf, so that I could live as a new person today, your child!

Yet again we look at the prophecy of Isaiah to see the wonder of the things Jesus did on the Cross at Calvary .

Isa 53:6     We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Consider:

We like to make excuses; we always have done. We like to blame others, anything to avoid the truth about ourselves. We blame our childhood, our parents, the bully at school, our bad education, our employer, the government, anyone except ourselves. Adam blamed Eve (Gen 3:12) and she blamed the serpent, but God wasn't sidetracked – He blamed them! There were consequences, painful ones that affected their lives. Sin has that effect!

Isaiah, in his prophecy, saw us like sheep. Why? Because sheep have one common tendency: left to themselves they wander off and get into trouble! Note the two aspects to that: a) wandering off and b) getting into trouble!

Isaiah identifies both of those things. We saw them in the previous verse we examined yesterday. The first one is the tendency to wander off. What is it in us that means we forget the presence of The Shepherd and go wandering away. Ultimately it's a failure to realise the wonder of the Shepherd and His love, care and provision for us. Thus we disdain Him, forget Him, ignore Him, and move away from Him. Because of our stupidity we do it without realising it. As Christians we think we can do without the Church, or without daily interaction with the Lord through His word or in prayer, and before we know where we are, we've drifted away and God seems in another world.

Then, in the ‘other world' we find ourselves thinking like them, speaking like them and even acting like them, and we quickly justify why it's ‘all right'. But it's not! We know it's not deep down. We know that we're in a bad place and what we're doing isn't right. The person justifying their adultery tries to justify it, but deep down, we know it's wrong. This is ‘iniquity' and God took and placed every iniquity upon His Son on that Cross. In the courts of heaven it was as if every accusation of the accuser (and that's what ‘Satan' means) was turned upon Jesus. It was as if every wrong action was being attributed to him and he was paying the price – separation from the presence of God and consignment to hell (1 Pet 3:19 suggests this, and if hell is the ultimate of punishment and Jesus took the ultimate of punishment, then this is where he went between the Cross and the resurrection). This is the message of the Isaiah prophecy: that Jesus had all of our wrong doings put upon him and he took the blame and the punishment, every ounce of it! But let's not make excuses, let's not justify our badness; it was our Sin that put him there!

Prayer:

Lord, thank you that you stepped in and took my place, carrying on yourself every wrong thing I've ever thought, said or done wrong. Thank you that you took the awfulness of the punishment that was due, there on the Cross and in hell, so that I would not have to take that. Thank you so much, Lord.

Today we're going to take our last look in the Isaiah 53 prophecy. We could continue on and work our way through every verse, but in order to look at other Scriptures, we will move on after today.

Isa 53:7     He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

Consider:

Yesterday's verse from the Isaiah 53 prophecy referred to us as sheep. Today's verse, which follows straight on, now refers to the Messiah as a sheep. The first thing to note about that is the identification of the Messiah with the other sheep. Jesus came as a man and experienced all that we experience as humans beings yet without sinning (Heb 4:15). Even in that there is similarity yet distinction. This sheep was perfect, but this sheep, Isaiah tells us, was led to the slaughter to be put to death, and in his going it was without complaint.

Let's note, though, how Isaiah said he was taken. First, “oppressed”. Oppression is more something that is done to the mind and spirit. The word for oppressors is the same word as for slave drivers. When you are slave driven you are made to do something you don't want to do. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus revealed just how much he didn't want to do this (Mt 26:38,39). He knew what this would mean – beyond physical pain it would mean separation from his Father, something that had never happened before. The awfulness of this made him shrink back from the path ahead – yet he took it.

Second, he was “afflicted”. When someone is afflicted with a disability it is imposed on them, so this is just another way of saying the same thing – it was put upon him! This path to and through the Cross was something agreed within the Godhead before the foundation of the world as something the Son in the flesh would have imposed upon him – because he would not (in the flesh) willingly agree to this! Jesus knew what would happen and no one in their right mind would willingly agree to the awful things that would be imposed upon him in what was coming.

Let's go back and consider this sheep some more now. In the Old Testament, a lamb figured prominently at key points in Israel 's life. At the Passover they were instructed to take a perfect lamb (Ex 12:3,5,6,13) and kill it and put some of its blood on the doorposts of the front door. Thus when the destroying angel passed over Egypt that night, whenever he saw the blood he would pass over that house and the eldest son would be spared. So it was that night that in every house there was a dead body, either that of a lamb or the eldest son. When the Israelites obeyed God and took a lamb and killed it, they were spared God's judgement on the land. Thus it is with Jesus!

Prayer:

Lord, you sent your Son to die as a sacrificial lamb in my place, to avoid your judgement on Sin. In the flesh Jesus understood the awfulness of this and hesitated before perfect obedience. Lord, thank you for doing that for me.