Suffering Servant Sacrificed

[0:00] Each week we talk about the main idea of Isaiah 53.

[0:15] ! Remember that is Jesus Christ is presented as our suffering servant whose substitutionary death and victorious resurrection are predicted seven centuries in advance.!

[0:27] Last week we looked at verses 4 through 6 in Isaiah 53 and those verses focused on what Israel will say in the future when the truth finally dawns on the nation.

[0:37] Those people will realize that the person their ancestors thought was a nobody from nowhere was and is God's perfect sacrificial lamb. The person that their ancestors wanted to see crucified actually came to die for the sins of those people who put their faith in him.

[0:54] So let's read verses 7 through 9 and actually go back a few verses to verses 4 through 6 to set the stage for tonight's verses. So here again are verses 4 through 6 and what Israel will say on that future day.

[1:07] Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

[1:20] Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

[1:34] Tonight we'll cover verses 7 through 9, and in those verses Isaiah's prophecy contrasts how the people of Jesus' day will behave versus how Jesus will behave.

[1:47] I said those last two sentences in the future tense for a reason. Remember that Isaiah did write his prophecy 700 years before the events happened, yet the prophecy was written in past tense as if it had already happened.

[2:01] As we go through the verses tonight, we'll look at how tonight's verses accurately predicted the future, just as Isaiah said they would. So now let's read Isaiah 53, verses 7 through 9.

[2:14] And the future people of Israel are continuing their confession here. They say, He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

[2:32] By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and asked for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

[2:43] And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Despite being almost totally rejected by his own people, God's perfect spotless lamb willingly died to redeem everyone who believes in him.

[3:04] That's the main idea for tonight's three verses. Despite being almost totally rejected by his own people, God's perfect spotless lamb willingly died to redeem everyone who believes in him.

[3:18] Tonight's lesson will have a long introduction, and that's intentional. Before we get into the Isaiah verses, we need to remind ourselves that the Jews of Jesus' day, and particularly the religious leaders, should have realized the significance of what happened to Jesus.

[3:34] As far back as Genesis 1, God clearly said that the penalty for sin is death. Listen to Genesis 1, verses 15 through 17.

[3:47] The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Surely you may eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

[4:06] Also in Genesis, God showed that he would accept a sacrifice for the sins of another. Listen to Genesis chapter 4, verses 3 through 5. Then in Exodus 12, God spelled out the requirements of the Passover lamb.

[4:43] Listen to what God told Moses in Exodus chapter 12, verses 3 through 13. He said, Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household.

[5:03] And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb.

[5:15] The lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill all their lambs at twilight.

[5:31] Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

[5:43] They shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning.

[5:55] Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sannuels on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste.

[6:07] It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.

[6:21] I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

[6:36] A few chapters later, God used Abraham and Isaac to show the Israelites that one day God himself would provide an acceptable sacrifice for sin. We know that God instructed Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.

[6:52] And as Abraham was preparing to sacrifice Isaac, here's the exchange between Abraham and Isaac. These verses are Genesis chapter 22, verses 7 and 8.

[7:04] And Isaac said to his father Abraham, My father. And he said, Here I am, my son. He said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

[7:17] Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they both went together. The narrative about the possible sacrifice of Isaac reaches its climax just a few verses later.

[7:33] Listen to Genesis chapter 22, verses 10 through 14. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.

[7:47] And he said, Here I am. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

[7:59] And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

[8:13] So Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord will provide. As it is said to this day, On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. Later on in Exodus, we see another picture of lambs being offered as sacrifices.

[8:31] This is Exodus chapter 29, verses 38 through 42. And God is speaking in these verses. He said, Now this is what you shall offer on the altar, two lambs, a year old, day by day, regularly.

[8:47] One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. And with the first lamb, a tenth measure of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hen of beaten oil, and a fourth of a hen of wine for a drink offering.

[9:02] The other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and shall offer it with a grain offering, and its drink offering, as in the morning, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord.

[9:13] It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you to speak to you there. But that's not all.

[9:25] Listen to Leviticus chapter 5, verses 5 through 7. Again, these words come straight from God to Moses. Leviticus 5, 5 through 7 is where God says, When he realizes his guilt in any of these, and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the Lord, as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or goat, for his sin offering.

[9:51] And the priest shall make atonement for him, for his sin. But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord, as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, two turtle doves, or two pigeons, one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.

[10:10] All those sacrificed animals vividly pictured the fact that the penalty for sin is death. They also showed that God was willing to provide an innocent substitute who would die in the place of repentant sinners.

[10:25] Messiah, the Lord Jesus, was always the one ordained in the eternal counsel of God to be the ultimate sacrifice, because we know that he alone is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

[10:37] Before the cross, repentant sinners were saved by grace, trusting that God would mercifully provide for them a sacrifice that would satisfy him. Abraham's answer to Isaac epitomizes the spirit of saving faith that was shared by all Old Testament saints.

[10:53] And of course, that's the verse that said God will provide for himself the lamb. They were saved not by the blood of animals, but by divine grace through faith, in anticipation of a perfect sacrifice that the Messiah would offer.

[11:07] The animal sacrifices merely symbolized that reality and served as an expression of obedient faith. Those animal sacrifices were never effective for redemption.

[11:19] God's forgiveness in the Old Testament was an expression of his divine forbearance. We know that from other places, but also from Romans chapter 3, verses 23 through 26.

[11:33] Listen to what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3, verses 23 through 26. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

[11:53] This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

[12:11] Amidst all the symbolism in the sacrifices, Isaiah wrote the prophecy we know as Isaiah 53. And amidst all that symbolism in the sacrifices, the events that Isaiah prophesied in verses 7 through 9 of Isaiah 53 came true.

[12:30] Yet most people failed to recognize the significance. All those cross-references and even more could have led us up to this point. And it's a point by Timothy Cross.

[12:42] He said, Isaiah's prophetic foresight enabled him to foresee the coming suffering servant of the Lord as being like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.

[12:53] This is highly significant. Isaiah's prophecy here is nothing novel, but in line with the whole of the Bible, for the lamb and its significance is one of the Bible's unifying themes.

[13:04] If we wanted to summarize the message of the Old Testament, we could do so by using Isaac's question to his father Abraham, where is the lamb? Abraham's answer that God himself will provide the lamb encapsulates Old Testament prophecy in general and Isaiah's 53rd chapter in particular.

[13:25] Then he continues, John was pointing to the Lord Jesus here.

[13:42] The unanimous witness of the New Testament is that he is the lamb of God, a lamb who was slaughtered so that sinners could be saved. And then he concludes by saying, if we wanted to summarize the testimony of the Christian, both now and for all eternity, we could do so by employing the words of Revelation 5.12, worthy is the lamb who was slain.

[14:06] The Christian owes everything to Jesus, the lamb of God who died to secure the eternal redemption of God's elect. With the reminders of how prominent the picture of a lamb is in scripture, let's head to tonight's text in Isaiah and start digging into the verses.

[14:23] Like the previous lessons, we'll take tonight's text into three sections of one verse each. And in verse 7, we see the slaughtered lamb.

[14:34] So the slaughtered lamb is your first fill-in there. Here is verse 7, and we'll read about the slaughtered lamb. It says, Three times in that verse, the people making this confession are impressed by the silence of the suffering servant.

[15:06] So do you see those three times there? First, Isaiah records that they will say, He opened not his mouth. Then the people will compare Jesus to a sheep that before his shearers is silent.

[15:18] And then finally, the people will repeat again, He opened not his mouth. Similar to what we saw last week, the people keep repeating something that is virtually unbelievable so that they can begin to wrap their minds around what they are learning and what they have seen by what has happened.

[15:37] The opening words of verse 7 tell us why the people were so surprised that Jesus remained silent. And he remained silent because he was oppressed and afflicted. The word translated oppressed in verse 7 refers to the suffering and abuse the servant endured in connection with his arrest and his trials.

[15:58] Beginning with his arrest in Gethsemane in the middle of the night, we know that Jesus suffered physical, psychological, and emotional abuse. He endured the outrageous injustice of mock trials in which he was falsely accused by false witnesses who gave false testimony.

[16:14] No proof that he'd committed any crime was ever presented. Instead of finding people who could find Jesus guilty of a crime, consider instead how many people testified to his innocence.

[16:29] Jesus' guiltlessness was formally declared both by Herod and by Pilate. His innocence was affirmed as well by Pilate's wife, the repentant thief, the centurion, and the execution squad.

[16:43] Yet Pilate nonetheless gave in to the demands of the people and their leaders and unjustly sentenced Jesus to be crucified. So severe was the physical abuse inflicted on him that his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

[17:02] And of course that is from Isaiah 52, 14. By the time the Jewish leaders and the Romans finished abusing Jesus, his injuries were severe enough to make men hide their faces, as we saw in Isaiah 53, 3.

[17:17] The servant also was afflicted, and the passive form of this Hebrew verb in Isaiah 53, 7 means that he allowed himself to be afflicted. It could be translated as he humbled himself.

[17:31] And the same word is used of Pharaoh's refusal to humble himself in Exodus 10, 3. It means to be made low or to be put down. Perhaps Paul had Isaiah 53, 7 in mind when he wrote of Christ, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

[17:54] The endless repetition of sacrifices made the point that animal sacrifices could not really atone for human guilt. Hebrews 10, 4 says, It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

[18:10] A dying animal is doing nothing knowingly or willfully. Jesus, however, knowingly and willfully died for the sins of everyone who has believed or will believe in him.

[18:22] No animal can do more than picture substitution. Only a person can substitute for a person. Only a consenting will can substitute for a rebellious will.

[18:35] The servant fulfills the stated requirements for the substitute. And think about how he does that. He identified with sinners in their condemnation. We saw that in verses 4 and 5 of Isaiah 53.

[18:48] He was without stain of our sin. We see that in verse 9. He was acceptable to the holy God. We saw it in verse 6, and we'll see it next week when we get to verse 10.

[18:59] And he also adds what no one else ever did or could do. He had the will to accept and submit to the suffering servant's substitutionary role.

[19:11] So here's a question for you to think about. Do we as believers really grasp the significance that Jesus knowingly and willfully died for our sins?

[19:23] Following on that, do we really grasp that Jesus was oppressed and afflicted for us? Let's remind ourselves of how Isaiah's prophecy came true.

[19:36] Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night as if he were a criminal. He was betrayed by Judas, savagely abused by both the Jewish leaders and the Romans, and finally led to the execution, all without any resistance or complaint.

[19:56] Throughout the entire ordeal, the New Testament repeatedly mentions his stone silence. When he was questioned by the high priest, he remained silent.

[20:07] On trial before the Sanhedrin, he also remained silent. When the Jewish leaders accused him before Pilate, he again remained silent. And when Herod questioned him, he did not answer.

[20:20] And when Pilate himself questioned him, he still did not reply. He only spoke a few necessary words in each of those situations, but he never said a word in his own defense.

[20:33] So exactly as Isaiah said, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Isaiah used the words oppressed and afflicted to speak of Christ being beaten to a bloody pulp, being spat on and being mocked with the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

[20:53] We know that he was led through the public streets of Jerusalem. He was screamed at by the crowd. He was stripped and nailed. He was lifted up. And then he was crucified in agony. So oppressed and afflicted described the single greatest display of human injustice in all of history.

[21:11] The Lord Jesus was sent into the world on a mission from his Father. And he came into the world to accomplish the salvation of God's people. When he was accused and condemned to death, he was silent.

[21:24] Nothing could ever make him open his mouth and speak up in his own defense. So determined was he to accomplish his Father's will and to fulfill his eternal plan of salvation.

[21:37] Consider this as well. Christ also was silently submissive during the three dark hours when he endured the wrath of God on the cross. His silent submission purchased our salvation, and eventually he broke his silence with the triumphant acclamation and affirmation in John 19.30.

[21:56] And here is John 19.30. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. As we move to the second section of the lesson, we'll see that the slaughtered lamb was slaughtered for his own people.

[22:14] However, most failed to believe that. And in verse 8, we see the shunned lamb. So the shunned lamb is your next blank. Listen to verse 8 again.

[22:29] By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

[22:42] We talked about the meaning of oppression when we looked at verse 7. In verse 8, oppression is paired with a different word.

[22:54] Verse 8 opens by saying, By oppression and judgment he was taken away. The judgment in view here comprises every phase of the various trials that Jesus was subjected to.

[23:07] The phrase taken away refers to the carrying out of his sentence when he was taken away to be executed. There was no attempt to give Jesus a fair trial.

[23:18] Multiple verdicts had declared him innocent and then he was handed over to the executioners at the behest of an angry mob. So in reality, his death was an act of state-sanctioned murder.

[23:32] Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would die by saying that he was cut off out of the land of the living. Isaiah foresaw that the coming suffering servant was to suffer a cruel, violent, and humanly speaking, premature death.

[23:47] A prophecy made by the prophet Daniel some years later matches exactly with this prophecy of Isaiah. Listen to just the first sentence of Daniel 9.26.

[23:58] And after the 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. The New Testament emphasis is far more on the death of Christ than on his life.

[24:12] Jesus himself also spoke of his ministry as being primarily concerned with his dying as opposed to his living. And that's in spite of the fact that nobody ever lived like the Lord Jesus Christ and nobody's life ever accomplished more than his life.

[24:28] Christ, however, always lived with his impending death in view. The Bible teaches that death for humans is physical, spiritual, and eternal.

[24:39] So let's look at what each of these three means. Physical death refers to the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death refers to the separation of the soul from God.

[24:53] And eternal death refers to the eternal separation of each unbeliever's soul from God. That's eternal separation from God's love, light, and life. And synonyms for eternal death include words as hell, God's wrath, God's curse, perdition, the lake of fire, and the second death.

[25:13] The gospel, though, is that Jesus died to save us from death in all its terrible facets. Isaiah is known as the evangelical prophet, and he foretold of Christ's suffering oppression and judgment and being cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgressions of my people.

[25:31] We're back to what we saw last week. Jesus died to provide substitutionary atonement for the sins of everyone who has believed and who ever will believe.

[25:42] 1 Corinthians 15.3 is where Paul said, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

[25:56] Listen now to what Jesus himself said to the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2, verses 8-11. In Revelation 2, verses 8-11, Jesus said, And to the angel of the church in Smyrna, write, The words of the first and the last who died and came to life.

[26:19] I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

[26:31] Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.

[26:43] He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. This reminds us again of the questions that we asked earlier.

[26:57] Those questions were, Do we as believers really grasp the significance that Jesus knowingly and willfully died for our sins? And then secondly, Do we really grasp that Jesus was oppressed and afflicted for us?

[27:11] On the cross, the Christ foretold by Isaiah died both physically and spiritually. The death of the eternal Son of God in time was a death of eternal significance.

[27:25] The Gospel proclaims that Christ died for our sins. We just saw that in 1 Corinthians 15.3. It also says that Christ died for the ungodly. Death is God's judgment on sin and when Christ died he suffered God's judgment on that sin.

[27:40] The sinless one was to die in the place of sinners as their substitute to save them from the dreadful, deathly, and damnable plight which is their just due because of their sin.

[27:52] And we could say that is our just due because of our sin. Jesus was punished so sinners could be pardoned. We need to cover one more aspect of Isaiah 53.8.

[28:06] The piece we have yet to cover explains why this section is headed as the shunned lamb. Isaiah said and asked for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people.

[28:23] We've talked about Jesus being cut off and being stricken for the transgressions of sinners. The remaining thing we need to consider is this. Isaiah prophesied that few people would witness Jesus' suffering and death and few would understand that Jesus suffered for them.

[28:41] Virtually no one would protest what Jesus endured. Listen to this comment from John MacArthur. The telling statement and as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living was all too true.

[28:59] Who gave serious thought to the injustice being committed against Jesus? Who protested his brutal treatment and execution? Where were the upright men among the religious leaders of the nation?

[29:13] Where were the high priest and the rest of the leading priest? Where were the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and all others who proclaimed their devotion to God's law?

[29:24] For that matter, he continues, where were Jesus' own disciples? They had all deserted him just as Zechariah 13.7 had predicted. Only John returned to join a handful of women at the cross as a silent witness.

[29:40] Why weren't the strict procedural rules required in capital cases followed instead of turning Christ's trial into a kangaroo court? We know that even today, few of his own people believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

[29:56] Every major branch of Judaism rejects the claims of Christ and repudiates the claim that he is the Messiah. Devout Jews regard Messianic Jews, ethnic Jews who believe in Jesus, as apostate and therefore no longer truly Jewish.

[30:13] Orthodox Jews will often sit Shiva observing a week-long ritual of tantamount to mounting a funeral for the dead if one of their community trusts in Jesus.

[30:27] The Jews were the nation to bring Messiah into the world and the scriptures were given through them and they possessed spiritual advantages and a relationship with God that no other nation was ever privileged to enjoy.

[30:40] And yet, as scripture says, when the promised Messiah came, his own people did not receive him. That's John 1.11. Indeed, their chief priests were the architects of the conspiracy that took Jesus' life instead.

[30:56] That's why future Jews who finally will realize that Jesus is the Messiah will marvel that few of his own generation believed in him. The future repentant Jews will realize that Jesus was the shunned lamb.

[31:10] They will say, as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people. Israel collectively misjudged Jesus.

[31:23] They believed that he was struck dead by God for sins and blasphemies as his accusers had claimed. In reality, he was stricken by God but for the transgressions of his people to bring salvation both to Jews and to Gentiles.

[31:40] So we've seen the slaughtered lamb and the shunned lamb. Jesus was those things but he was more than just those things. In verse 9 we see that Jesus was the sinless lamb.

[31:52] So the sinless lamb is your last blink. Listen to Isaiah 53.9 again and he'll tell us about the sinless lamb. 53.9 says, And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

[32:16] We'll look at how each phrase of the verse written more than 700 years before Jesus walked the earth was perfectly fulfilled in Christ. First the prophecy says, And they made his grave with the wicked.

[32:32] So listen to Luke chapter 23 verses 32 and 33. Luke 23, 32 and 33 say this about Jesus.

[32:44] Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called the skull there they crucified him and the criminals one on his right and one on his left.

[32:59] Matthew 27, 38 describes the two criminals as robbers. Here is Matthew 27, 38. And actually let's go ahead and skip that verse.

[33:11] We'll just go straight to Christ being treated as the lowest of the low. His innocence notwithstanding he received the same treatment as the two thieves. Thieves who have been tried and considered worthy of the ultimate punishment.

[33:25] The next prophecy in that verse says, And with a rich man in his death. Crucified people normally were dumped into a common grave and Jesus received a different treatment that was highly unusual.

[33:40] Listen to Matthew chapter 27 verses 57 through 61. These verses describe what happened after Jesus died on the cross.

[33:51] Here are Matthew 27, 57 through 61. When it was evening there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph who also was a disciple of Jesus.

[34:03] He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb which he had cut in the rock.

[34:17] And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there sitting opposite the tomb. Notice how precisely Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled there.

[34:32] Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man and he had means at his disposal. Means which were used by the Almighty God to fulfill his word. Out of this rich man's tomb the crucified Christ arose.

[34:46] The Christ who died for and alongside sinners who were the wicked that Isaiah talks about was buried in a rich man's tomb and he also conquered the grave on the third day.

[34:58] The last part of verse 9 says that Jesus suffered the punishment and death although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Isaiah here is asserting the servant's total innocence.

[35:13] He did not deserve to be put to death because he was innocent. He had done no wrong at all. Isaiah's assertion is an important one. Only a sinless one could save sinners.

[35:27] Just as the Passover lamb had to be without blemish and perfect the Savior too had to be morally without blemish and perfect if his life given up in sacrifice was to be of a saving benefit to sinners.

[35:41] Let's look at a few New Testament scriptures that show that Jesus met the requirements of being sinless. Think about 2 Corinthians 5.21 For our sake he talking about God made him talking about Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

[36:05] Hebrews 7.26 says this about Jesus For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest holy innocent unstained separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.

[36:21] In the introduction we talked about how Pilate and others said Jesus was innocent and Peter wrote these words about Jesus in 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 22 and 23 1 Peter 2 22 and 23 say He committed no sin neither was deceit found in his mouth when he was reviled he did not revile in return when he suffered he did not threaten but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly John made this comment about Jesus in 1 John 3 5 1 John 3 5 says You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin the comments made by Peter and John are particularly telling here Peter and John were part of Jesus' inner circle they had traveled and lived with Jesus for three years yet they affirmed that Jesus had never sinned can you imagine living with somebody for three years and realizing that the person never sinned if anybody could testify if somebody had sins it would be somebody that you lived with day and night for that long and yet his disciples testified that he committed no sin

[37:44] Isaiah's prophecy clearly points out that both Jesus' actions and his speech were sinless and now that we've looked at verse 9 phrase by phrase let's consider its significance as a whole and here is that significance God arranged for his son's honorable burial to demonstrate to the world that his servant Israel's Messiah was innocent God would not allow any further humiliation of his son the closing words of this section he had done no violence speak of sin of action and the words there was no deceit in his mouth speak of sin in the heart and they were a testimony by the father to Jesus' complete sinless perfection remember the main idea despite being almost totally rejected by his own people God's perfect spotless lamb willingly died to redeem everyone who believes in him that of course is good news for us early in the lesson we talked about how the words oppressed and afflicted in verse 7 summarize the greatest display of human injustice in all history however one commentator noted that the oppression and affliction of Jesus was also the greatest display of God's justice in all history and here's the reason he said

[39:10] God would rather slaughter his own beloved son than allow guilty sinners like us into heaven unatoned for there has never been a greater display of God's justice in all history nor of humanity's injustice and that's a pretty hard hitting sentence isn't it when you think about God would rather slaughter his own beloved son than allow guilty sinners like us into heaven unatoned for that's the message of the gospel and it's a message of sin and judgment but also of substitutionary atonement the gospel's a message of forgiveness and above all God's love it includes the fact that the true Messiah the silent servant here in Isaiah 53 is the only acceptable sacrifice for sin and he was slaughtered for us by God as our Passover Lamb the Passover Lamb which brought deliverance from death and judgment in Moses' day is one of the clearest types of Christ in the Old

[40:12] Testament if we are sheltering under Christ's blood to save us we are safe from eternal death and judgment Christ died in our place to save us from that death and sin and judgment and if we belong to Jesus God sees us in Christ saved by virtue of what he has done considering considering that the work of Christ at Calvary has so many parallels with the Passover Lamb the New Testament often views Calvary in terms that relate to the Passover Christ is the Passover Lamb and his death has bought an even greater redemption than any lamb ever could the only appropriate response for this is the response documented in Revelation chapter 5 verses 11 through 14 and those verses say then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the voice of many angels numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing and I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever and the four living creatures said amen and the elders fell down and worshiped let's pray and and and and and and