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The Messiah Jesus and Isaiah 53
One of the pastors I met had a neighbor who was Jewish. This Jewish man vehemently rejected Jesus being the prophesied Messiah. One day while he was visiting the pastor, and they were having their usual theological discussion, the pastor opened his Bible and said, “I am going to read something from God’s word. Tell me if it is from the Old Testament, or the New."
The pastor read him the fifty-third chapter from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. When he was finished, the Jewish man promptly exclaimed. “That’s obvious. It’s from the New Testament. It’s all about Jesus.” Then the pastor showed him that what he had read was actually from the Old Testament.
The pastor told me that the man’s face turned as red as the carpet and he quickly fled the house.
It was sad that he could not remain to honestly and humbly admit that what he had been shown was an accurate prophetic declaration that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the Redeemer of mankind.
While Isaiah’s prophecy is such an accurate description of the Messiah’s suffering for the souls of mankind, the Jews for the most part are taught to believe that Isaiah is actually referring to the nation of Israel as mankind’s redeemer. Because of the reference in verse eleven to God’s righteous servant, and the fact that Israel is also called God’s servant in other places in the Old Testament, the assumption is made without really consulting any other texts. But that was not always the case. The bulk of Jewish scholars recognized that the prophet Isaiah was writing about the Messiah. This correct interpretation is abundant in their writings and was the accepted interpretation.
In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98b), it says, “The Rabbis said that Messiah’s name is the Suffering Scholar of Rabbi’s House (or ‘Leper scholar’). For it is written ‘Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted’ (Isaiah 53:4).
In a commentary on Genesis, Rabbi Moses (The Preacher, 11th century), wrote; - From the beginning God has made a covenant with the Messiah and told Him, “My righteous Messiah, those who are entrusted to you, their sins will bring you into a heavy yoke’…And He answered, ‘I gladly accept all these agonies in order that not one of Israel should be lost.’ Immediately, the Messiah accepted all agonies with love, as it is written: ‘He was oppressed and He was afflicted.”
There are many other references to the suffering Messiah, but the traditional view began to change when it was noted that the Christians were using Isaiah 53 as an effective tool to bring Jews to the Messiah Jesus. The concept of the nation of Israel being the suffering servant of Isaiah’s prophecy began to emerge from the shadows. Then a Rabbi named Rashi (1046-1105) promoted the budding concept that Isaiah was somehow speaking about the nation of Israel as the suffering servant. Many of the Rabbis of his day rejected Ravi’s interpretation. One of them, Rabbi Moshe Kohen Ibn Crispin of Cordova, (1350), called it “forced and farfetched.” He was absolutely right.
One of the Rabbis who refused to depart from the correct interpretation wisely noted; “Since Messiah bears our iniquities which produce the effect of His being bruised, it follows that whoso will not admit that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities, must endure and suffer for them himself.” (Rabbi Elijah de Vidas (16th century) – Driver and Neubauer pg. 331).
I think that it’s important to understand how the Jewish scholars choose to interpret scripture. They have a concept called “Takenot.” This allows them to take a scripture out of context and build an entire doctrine around it. If all the other Rabbis are in agreement with it, then it becomes “law” even if it contradicts the Bible. So we can see why it is easy for them to ignore verse eight in Isaiah’s prophecy that contradicts their interpretation that the nation of Israel is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and not Jesus.
In verse eight God makes a very definite designation between His people, Israel, and a specific individual, the Messiah: – “…for the transgression of my people (Isaiah's people, Israel) was He stricken.”
It is also fairly ludicrous to believe that sinners can atone for the sins of another sinner, when all have sinned. Every human being is standing on the same feet of clay that fell in Eden’s garden.
The pattern and means that God established for the remission of sins in the Old Testament, has also been removed or diminished. God stated very clearly that, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it upon the altar to make atonement for the soul, it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” – Leviticus 17:11. God has never changed or altered this requirement for the remission of sin, which is foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament.
When Jesus declared the Gospel to Nicodemus in John 3:16, He wasn’t really stating anything new. The concept of grace, or having one’s sins covered by sacrifice had already been established in the book of Genesis when God made the first sacrifice to cover Adam and Eve, showing us that their futile attempts to cover their own sin by self-effort was worthless and could never be accepted by God (Genesis 3:21). In view of this, to say that Israel could be the redeemer of mankind in Isaiah’s prophecy, is ludicrous.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all the foreshadows, similitudes and typologies relating to the Messiah throughout the writings of Moses, the Psalms and the prophets. No else has ever, or will ever duplicate what the Messiah Jesus has fulfilled. Jesus is the prophesied Messiah
Grace in Genesis
Revelation 13:8 declares that Jesus was “slain from the foundation of the world.” This means that God’s plan for the redemption of mankind was instigated before the world began. It was already in place when God’s first children, Adam and Eve, were birthed in Eden’s garden. Let’s return to the first illustration of grace in the Bible found in the third chapter of Genesis.
Many of you may know this story very well. God told Adam not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree or he would die. Adam and Eve only had to obey one simple commandment. They blew it, and when they realized that they were naked, they tried to cover their nakedness by sewing fig leaves around them in verse seven. Fig leaves of course, were never a permanent solution for the problem, because eventually they would dry up, become brittle and fall away. In other words, man’s attempts to cover their sin are worthless. The prophet Isaiah may have had this event in mind when he wrote, But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6).
God finds His shivering, naked children hiding in the bushes. Then God does something remarkable. An animal is slain and God made clothing for His children from the skins of the first sacrifice Genesis 3:21. God replaces man’s frail attempts to cover his sin with a more permanent solution. In this act of God’s grace we are shown a similitude of the grace that is instigated by Jesus’ sacrifice. There is nothing that man can do to save himself. We cannot cover ourselves or remove our sins; it must be done for us through an act of God alone; only by a sacrifice instigated by God: Messiah’s sacrifice.
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father, but by Me" - Jesus (John 14:6).
Copyright 2019 by H. D. Shively
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