Jesus' Death: The Risen Christ -- Satisfied with His Sufferings Isaiah 53:3-12
Therefore Muslims in general believe that the central message of the New Testament and of Biblical Christianity is built on a mistake: Christ did not die, and Christ did not rise. Therefore, the very heart of Christianity is false.
There are significant historical reasons why the Islamic reconstruction of the life of Jesus is not true. But here's the point in taking our text from
Isaiah 53 this morning. This chapter was not written by Christians after Christ's coming, trying to distort or failing to understand what really happened on Good Friday and Easter. This chapter was written by a Jewish prophet 700 years before Christ came. And what he saw in the future was not a Messiah who escapes death and resurrection, but a Messiah who dies -- and dies explicitly in the place of sinners -- and then rises again to make intercession for His redeemed and forgiven and justified people forever.
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So let's go to
Isaiah 53:3-12 and see the prophecy that the Servant of the Lord (
52:13;
53:11), the Messiah, would die and would rise again, and that this death and resurrection are planned by God and necessary. And as we look at this, keep in mind, it has to do with you here and now and for the rest of your life and eternity. What becomes dear from this chapter and from its fulfillment in the New Testament is that your sins can be forgiven, you can be declared righteous before God, and you can have eternal life with the risen Christ in everlasting joy.
The Promised Servant of the Lord Was to Die
First, let's notice that the promised Servant of the Lord was to die and why.
The death is made explicit in
verses 8, 9, and 12. First verse 8. After verse 7 says he was led "like a lamb to the slaughter," verse 8 says that the slaughter actually was successful: "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?" He was "cut off out of the land of the living." He was killed. It was execution, not accidental.
Then
verse 9 makes the death clear by referring to His burial: "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." He died, and He was buried, and if we had time we could draw out the details of fulfillment in the life of Jesus here in relation to where and how He was buried. But I focus now simply on the fact that the death of God's redeeming Servant is predicted clearly.