Tag: Sacrifice

The Arm of the Lord

Posted on by scott

 

“And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” – Isaiah 53:1a

Suffering Servant

After asking this question, Isaiah portrays a suffering Servant.  The description is not impressive.  A young plant growing out of dry ground.  No form or majesty.  No beauty.  A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  The reaction?  Men don’t want to look at Him.  Men don’t desire Him.  He was despised and rejected by men.  Men hid their faces from Him.  He was despised (repeated) and was not esteemed.  He was esteemed stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  He was oppressed, he was afflicted. By oppression and judgement He was taken away.  He was cut off out of the land of the living.  His grave was made with the wicked. He was numbered with the transgressors.  His sorrowful condition must have been a punishment from God for His sin.  Appearances must be right.  Right?  Wrong!!

The truth.  Isaiah further says, “He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.  He was pierced for our transgressions.  He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace.  With His wounds, we are healed.  Like sheep, we 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 stricken for the transgression of the people.  He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth.  His soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see His offspring.  He shall prolong his days.  The will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.  Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied.  He will make many to be accounted righteous and shall bear their iniquities.  He bore the sins of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”  Things aren’t always as they appear.

Our Salvation

The Suffering Servant is our salvation.  In His suffering, He reveals His humanity.  He reflects us.  It is we who are frail.  We are sorrowful and acquainted with grief.  We are subject to God’s wrath because of sin.  We are oppressed.  We are afflicted.  In His servanthood, He reveals His divinity.  He bears our sorrows and griefs.  He is pierced for our transgressions.  He is crushed for our iniquities.  He brings us peace.  We are healed by His wounds.  He makes us accounted righteous.

The Arm of the Lord

The Suffering Servant is the arm of the Lord.  The arm of the Lord is the revelation of God’s strength.  Born in a manger to a lowly couple.  A wandering teacher with no place to lay his head.  He made His triumphal entry on a borrowed donkey.  He was betrayed by the kiss of a friend.  In His hour of need, He was denied by his “bravest” follower and abandoned by most of the rest. He was savagely beaten, He was mocked, and He was crucified naked on a Roman cross.  The cruelest form of execution.  When dead He was buried in a borrowed grave.  “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”  To those that claim this Suffering Servant as their Savior.  Before we can recognize the true identity of the Servant, we must recognize our sinfulness.  When we think of a strong arm we envision one that is flexed with a clenched fist.  God’s strength was revealed in humility with extended arms and open hands.  Nailed to a cross.  When we are so proud, how could we expect to see a Messiah as a suffering Servant? Never confuse humility with weakness.

The stone was rolled away.  The borrowed tomb is empty.  Sin and death were defeated.  Captives were set free.  The Holy Spirit was “unleashed”.  The Church was born.  That baby in the manger was God in the flesh.  That wandering teacher was the living Word.  On earth, He had no place to lay His head until the cross, because Heaven is His home.  When He returns the borrowed donkey will be exchanged for clouds and angels. Instead of being betrayed, every knee will bow before Him.  That is the proper reaction to the arm of the Lord.

We could have never imagined the arm of the Lord revealed as a Suffering Servant.  Wouldn’t fit our “style”.  But a drowning man is in no position to critique life preserver fashion.  Drowning in sins we couldn’t save ourselves, only God could.  In our weakness, He revealed His strength.  He stretched out His arms and opened His hands.  Grab them!

“He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was on one to intercede; then His own arm brought him salvation, and His righteousness upheld him.”  Isaiah 59:16

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’  Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?…For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18-20, 25

Crushed for Our Iniquities

Posted on by scott

 

“He was crushed for our iniquities.” – Isaiah 53:5

Christ Crushed

He was Crushed.  “If you offer a grain offering of firstfruits to the LORD, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits fresh ears, roasted with fire, crushed new grain” (Leviticus 2:14).  In Leviticus chapter two, the grain offering is instituted.  The grain offering is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.  When Isaiah wrote of the suffering Servant, he did so seven hundred years before the birth of Christ.  Yet his words are written in the past tense.  The fatal decision in the Garden of Eden led to the struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane.   Satan would bruise the heel of Jesus.  Jesus would crush the head of Satan.  But Jesus also would have to be crushed.

Our Iniquities

For our iniquities.  “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”  “Sin is crouching at the door.  Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”  “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’  “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars.”  Mankind has a terrible disease.  Sin.  Iniquities. Written with a pen of iron, engraved with a point of a diamond on the tablet of our deceitful and desperately sick hearts.  Examine your thoughts for one day and take note of the sinful ones.  When it comes to our iniquities does the Bible exaggerate?  We might deceive others.  We might deceive ourselves.  We will never deceive God.  He searches the heart and tests the mind.  His verdict?  Guilty.

God’s Will

Will of God.  “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10).  “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).  Jesus committed no iniquities.  He was sinless.  The only one qualified to be our sin bearer.  The only one qualified to be our Savior.  The consequence of our iniquities?  Jesus was crushed by the millstone of God’s wrath.  A righteous God has to judge sin.  Punishment must be meted out. We deserve it.  It was the will of God to crush Him!  Eden’s ban became Gethsemane’s invitation.  The desire of the forbidden fruit led to the necessity of the crushing of our Firstfruits.  The disobedience of Adam brought death, the obedience of the last Adam brought a life-giving spirit. Because of Adam’s sin, he would eat bread by the sweat of his face.  Because of Adam’s sin, the Bread of Life would sweat drops of blood. The temptation yielded to in Eden led to banishment.  The submission offered in Gethsemane led to restoration.  “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him.”  Jesus surrendered to God’s will.  He drink of the bitter cup.

Firstfruits

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive…And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.”  Christ was crushed for our iniquities.  He was crushed for our redemption.  When our “kernels of grain” are buried in the ground, our souls will join Christ.  Because He has been crushed, we have been made pure.  The angels that guarded Eden will welcome us into Heaven.  Our crushed Savior will be sitting at the right hand of the Father who crushed Him.  The millstone of God’s wrath will not be there, because our iniquities have been crushed and cast to sea.  Crushed by God’s steadfast love.

“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of His inheritance?  He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love.  He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities underfoot.  You will cast all of our sins into the depth of the sea.” -Micah 7:18-19