Context for Isaiah 52:13-53:12
There are times when, especially in hindsight, the words of prophecy are startlingly clear. For those first Jews who first trusted in Jesus, the Son of David, the words of prophecies like the one recorded in these verses clearly pointed to Him as the Messiah. We today have the gift of the testimony of those first witnesses, both to prophecy and it its fulfillment in Jesus Christ our Savior.
[H]e 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.
Isaiah 53:5 NIV
It may seem strange to some, but here is an exposition of the entire Gospel, rivaling even famous verses like John 3:16, in a prophetic book written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Yet, here it is, a direct statement that we are saved through the brutal suffering and death of our Savior.
Anyone who has seen The Passion of the Christ can identify, at least viscerally through the imagination of a filmmaker, the circumstances that Isaiah describes here. Why is this image so important? Because we need to understand that our salvation was won by blood.
In Isaiah 53:10, we see the nature of the sacrifice Jesus paid. Jesus was the final guilt offering, the last and absolute offering for the sins of all mankind- one death for the forgiveness of all. That is the nature of the Gospel in which we believe, that our Savior, the Son of God, died so that we can be saved.
Therefore, we share in Isaiah’s quiet awe at what was revealed to Him, sharing in the same Gospel he foresaw now fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
DLH
