Bible 101 notes for January 22 (orig planned 15), 2007: Messianic prophecies in Isaiah

Review: God punished his people for having forgotten him. The Hebrew verb “forget” is active—and their abandonment, rejection, denial of God as their protector, defender and provider was shown in their pride in their own accomplishments, and in the shallowness of their worship. But we know that God also promised that those nations who had been Israel’s enemies would be punished. And finally, after 70 years in exile, he’d restore and redeem his own people. The final section of Isaiah, Isaiah 40-66, confirms that God gave his people hope—and we are included in “his people.” The message is for us, too.

God a covenant God: We began last week reviewing the first covenant in the Bible, the one God made with Adam: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16). God said “obey me and you’ll live; disobey and you’ll die.” That was the covenant. God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect world—a world without sin, without disorder, without illness and death. But that perfect world was turned on its ear when Satan distorted God’s word; Adam and Eve chose to listen to Satan, broke the covenant with God, and were put out of the garden. From Adam and Eve’s experience (Gen. 3), we learn that sin separates us from God. God, who is holy, cannot have fellowship with sinners; their human nature must be changed. Paul says this change occurs when “We die to sin” and he pictures it this way: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism unto death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom. 6:3-4). But that’s getting ahead of the story.

God’s salvation: The next great covenant in the Bible is the one God made with Noah that he’d never again destroy the earth by flood (Gen. 9). And then God called Abraham, and it is in his covenant with Abraham that we are promised a redeemer. God promised to make of Abraham’s descendants a great nation, God told him: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen. 12:3). We recognize the latter part of this promise (“all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you”) as God’s plan of salvation—the Messiah would come from Abraham’s line. And indeed, Jesus comes in the fullness of time, born of the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham. This Messianic prophecy begun with Abraham is given more detail and more specificity as the OT moves forward, and especially in Isaiah we see it in Isa. 7:14 “A virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Matthew 1:22 assures us that the virgin is Mary and Immanuel is Jesus the Christ. Again in Isaiah 9, a much longer description of the Messiah’s birth occurs: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called wonderful, counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness, from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (Isa. 9:6-7). This wonderful promise of a deliverer, an Immanuel, God with us, hovers over and pervades the entire book of Isaiah.

Messianic prophecy fills Isaiah: A website called “Hope of Israel” lists 114 separate Messianic prophecies in Isaiah (www.hopeofisrael.net; click on the link to 324 Mesianic Prophecies). Those better in math than I have calculated the “odds of fulfillment” to be in the billions that even 7 of these prophecies would be fulfilled in one man. And yet all 324 were fulfilled in Jesus, including the 114 found in Isaiah.

Messiah is the Hebrew word; Christos is the Greek; both mean “the anointed one.” In the OT, anointing with oil first appears at the time of the Tabernacle when Moses anoints Aaron and his sons as priests. They are set apart, sanctified and consecrated for the tasks God has given them: to mediate between God and his people, presenting sacrifices and prayers on behalf of the people. Kings were anointed with oil as they were God’s representatives, meant to uphold and enforce the law (God’s law) as the human “stand in” for God who was Israel’s true king. An NIV foot note tells us that “The word Messiah carries the idea of being chosen by God, consecrated to his service, endowed with his power to accomplish the assigned task. Toward the end of the OT period the word assumed a special meaning. It denoted the ideal king anointed and empowered by God to rescue his people from their enemies and establish his righteous kingdom (Dan. 9:25-26). The ideas that clustered around the title Messiah tended to be political and national in nature. Probably for that reason Jesus seldom used the term. When he did accept it as applied to himself, he did so with reservations (e.g. Mk. 8:27-30).”

Types of Messianic prophecies in Isaiah: The prophecies concerning the Messiah in this book are in four categories: (1) birth; (2) ministry ; (3) death and resurrection; and (4) the “Messianic Age” or Messiah’s rule on earth after his second coming. We’ll look at examples of all of these tonight.

Messiah’s birth: Isaiah 7:14 is the first time in scripture we read that the Messiah’s birth will be miraculous: “A virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.” Jewish scholars dispute the translation of almah as “virgin” rather than “young woman.” They contend that if God meant literal “virgin” the word would have been betulah, a word which has no other meaning. These scholars also say that the prophecy of a son’s birth in Isaiah 7 refers to a literal contemporary fulfillment when Isaiah’s wife or King Ahaz’s wife had a son. But as we’ve seen throughout Isaiah, many of the prophecies have a two-level fulfillment, both near-term and long term. This is one of them. For Christians, then, Isaiah 7:14 means “a virgin will be with child” as confirmed by Matthew and Luke. Matthew explicitly states “All this took place [Mary having a son] to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel—which means, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:22-23). Why is a virgin birth essential? Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:36) had to be born sinless; in other words, he was unique in that he was not born into a condition of sin as the rest of us were. He therefore fulfilled the requirements of the law that a sacrifice be without spot and blemish. Isaiah 9:6 adds more weight to 7:14: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” Additional facts about the Messiah follow: “the government shall be upon his shoulders,” an everlasting and peaceful government; he’ll have the names “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” and his human ancestry is that of David. (“He will reign on David’s throne.”) In both Matthew and Luke’s genealogies, Jesus’ human ancestry is traced to David and back to Abraham. This Isaiah 9 passage shows us why the crowds in Jerusalem at Jesus’ entry at the beginning of Passover week called him king. They expected him to be a king, to rule as David did, overthrowing the Romans and taking back government of Israel by a native son. But they did not understand that this prophecy was two-fold: part would be fulfilled at Jesus’ first coming and the rest at his second coming. We will see him reigning “with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever” (9:7c) at the millenium, or thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. One more passage is Isaiah 11. Here the Messiah is a “shoot” from the “stump of Jesse.” Jesse was David’s father and so the Messiah will come from David. In addition, this chapter shows us that “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him” and that “Spirit of the Lord” will give him wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge and fear of the Lord. This is all fulfilled in Jesus’ earthly ministry: he has wisdom even at a young age; recall his time in the Temple with the teachers at age 12 (Luke 2). His power is exhibited as he heals and casts out demons, and forgives sin; his knowledge is shown in his teaching and preaching, knowledge about God and the Kingdom of God he conveys to his disciples. The rest of Isaiah 11 (vv. 4-end) describe the Messiah’s earthly rule at his second coming. And a glorious reign it will be.

Messiah’s ministry: Isaiah 40 tells us that Jesus the Messiah will be announced by a forerunner: “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God . . .” and John the Baptist himself quotes this passage in response to questions from the Pharisees asking who he is: “I am the voice of one calling in the desert . . .” (John 1:23). In addition, Matthew and Luke confirm John the Baptist as the promised herald. Isaiah 35 shows us in part what the Messiah will do: “Then will the eyes of the blind are opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy” (vv. 5-6); this is reiterated in Isaiah 42:6-7: “I the Lord have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” Over and over in the Gospels we see Jesus literally fulfilling these passages by healing the blind and deaf, the crippled, and the lepers imprisoned in the isolation of their condition. John the Baptist, then in prison, sends his disciples to Jesus asking “Are you the one who was to come, or should we look for another?” and Jesus tells them “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have lerosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are reaised and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matt. 11:4-5). And that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy to be a “light for the Gentiles” is clear not only in our experience, but in Simeon’s prayer over Jesus at his dedication: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to theGentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk. 2:29-32).

Messiah as Servant: Isaiah contains what are called the “suffering servant” passages, depicting the Messiah as humble and non-violent—certainly not the militant Messiah many Jews of Jesus’ day anticipated. These begin in Isaiah 42 and reach their culmination in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. It is in these latter chapters that we see Jesus’ suffering as he’s arrested, tried and crucified. The words are so familiar, and yet so significant that we are moved as we read “Just as there were many who were appalled at him—his appearance was so disfugured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness” (Isa. 52:14) and “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 eseteemed him not” (Isa. 53:3). Jesus’ disfigurement and suffering was made vivid in The Passion movie. And in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ beatings and scourgings, his falling on the way to Golgotha, his crucifixion itself, we know that all Isaiah saw in his visions of the suffering servant was fulfilled in Jesus. And Isaiah 53 tells us why Jesus did this: “He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . 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” (vv. 4-5). And the passage continues to say that because we have sinned, God “laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . for the transgression of my people was he stricken. . . Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prlong his days.” He did it for us. Paul puts it this way: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Cor. 5:21). Remember back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned, they were tossed out of their paradise; sin separated them from God. Jesus the Messiah became the sacrifice for sin, the “once and for all” sacrifice “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10) to reconcile us to God. Isaiah 53 concludes: “After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many and he wll bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” What a hymn of salvation this is! Can you hear Handel? He did it for us! We ought to give thanks daily, hourly for such a sacrifice and the way of salvation thus provided.

Isaiah 59: Throughout Isaiah, hope is offered to the people of Judah in Isaiah’s day. They were under threat from the Assyrians and then from the Babylonians. They had seen the destruction of Israel. And yet, Isaiah said “don’t give up; your salvation will come. God will not forget you.” In this chapter, we see a picture of sinful Judah: no justice, no righteousness within their borders, and yet God, their merciful king takes charge: “His own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head. . . The redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares the Lord.” And God then speaks of a new covenant, one written on the hearts of the people. That new covenant, the writer of Hebrews tells us, was instituted when Jesus died for us and rose again.

Isaiah 60-66: The final chapters of Isaiah depict an age when Jesus the Messiah will reign on earth. A preview of this time is first given in Isaiah 2 where we read “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills and all nations will stream to it” (2:3). Now in Isa. 60, we read “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. . . Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” A new day, a new way of life and worship will be centered in Jerusalem. Who is the light? Jesus himself. He tells us in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” In Revelation 21, we read of a “new heaven nd a new earth” in which there is no need for sun or stars or moon because “The glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it” (vv. 23-24). Why this talk of a Zion to which all the nations of the world are attracted? It’s the hope and consolation God offers to those who will soon be beseiged by Babylon’s armies, who will see their city and temple destroyed, and who will be carried into captivity. But be of good cheer, God says, someday, this city will be restored and you will be here along with believers from all the nations of the world. This, too, is both a near-term and long-term prophecy. We know that the captivity in Babylon lasted 70 years; once the Persians defeated the Babylonians, Cyrus the Great decreed that the exiles could return to their own country and he even financed the trip and the rebuilding of the Temple. This, too, was prophesied in Isaiah 45 where Cyrus (and his freeing the captives) is mentioned by name a full 150 years before he was born. Isaiah 61 continues this theme of hope and restoration, and note that Jesus quotes the first two verses when he visits the synagogue in Nazareth. There his own people reject him when he says “this passage is fulfilled today” (Lk. 4:16-20)

Our hope: we, too, can rejoice in the prophecies of a new Jerusalem, a time of just rule and peace on earth. Yes there is judgment for sin; yes, God punished his people and the nations whom he used to punish them. We know that a holy God must, since he cannot tolerate sin, judge sinners. But we also know that God sent his son to redeem us and that one day, he will come again and reign on earth. It will be a time of rejoicing for all who have accepted Christ as Savior and Lord.

Isaiah overview: This poetic and wonderful book is the most frequently quoted OT book by NT writers—and by Jesus himself. It is therefore a book of significance for Christians. In it there are more Messianic prophecies than any other OT book. In it there is end-times prophecy. In it there are hope and songs of praise and hymns of salvation. Perhaps we’ll return to it in the future; we’ll certainly see it in John’s gospel which is where we’re going next.

Next week: We’ll begin a study of the Gospel of John.

Homework for those who want to go deeper:

1. Choose any of the chapters from Isaiah 60 to the end to study in depth. What truths are especially directed to Christians in it?

2. Read Isaiah 65:17 to the end for a description of a “new heaven and a new earth.” What specifically will be the characteristics of this new world?

3. Read Isaiah 53 and ponder the significance of Jesus’ suffering. Substitute your name for “our” and “we”; note the difference.