Isaiah 46 – 53

The prophetic writings of Isaiah have been called the gospel in miniature for good reason. In sum, God tells us He is the Creator of the universe and of mankind. Despite His teaching and guidance, people have strayed away in sin. The punishment for sin is harsh and just. Even though people are lost in sin, God desires above all to redeem lost souls to fellowship in righteousness. No mortal can accomplish this, so the Holy One of Israel is the only hope. Messiah will come as a lowly servant and take the sins of people upon His body and offer His life as a ransom. The redeemed will be restored to fellowship with the Creator. Beautiful.

Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit. Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.” Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!” They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out. “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

Isaiah 48:16-22

Each step of the way, Yahweh made it clear – not secretly – that both the Hebrew and the Gentile would be redeemed in fulfillment of the Promise to Abraham. Notice that the “Holy One of Israel IS Almighty God. Also, appreciate that because the All-powerful Creator is accomplishing the redemption, a sacrifice for just the Hebrews is too small for Him. The redemption must be as encompassing as His love.

He says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Isaiah 49:6-7

Surely the exiles in Babylon had to be asking how this would all look. They knew how Elohim Shaddai had opened the earth to swallow His enemies, sent one angel to kill 185,000 soldiers and caused the walls of Jericho to fall flat to the ground. They knew Yahweh Elohim had simply spoken and the universe was. How would He defeat sin, the enemy of mankind? Fire from heaven, like at Mount Carmel? A single word of banishment? A David-like warrior with Samson-like strength?

Actually, our majestic God would use a non-descript average Jew from a region known for nothing good…

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

Isaiah 53:2

The Creator and sustainer of the universe would present Himself for ridicule…

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:3

The One with all power knew that men held no power over Him, so He paid the only price that would suffice so that sin would hold no power over us…

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; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:4-5

The Lion of Judah would come as a sheep to be slain…

All we like sheep 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 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. 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? 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. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when 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; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:6-12

The words of a beautiful, yet simple song rush through my mind … “Amazing love, how can it be, that You, My God, would die for me?” Question asked, question answered. It has never been a secret.

Consider His nature.  Consider His ways.  Strive to love Him more!