Sermon Tone Analysis

The Sprinkled Blood

Spring Valley Mennonite; February 5, 2023; Isaiah 52:13-15

In our study today we find ourselves treading on exceptional holy ground, for here we find those blessed words which predict the suffering and exaltation of the Savior of the World, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The turning point of history was the death of Jesus Christ, for at that moment, a new agreement or Covenant was initiated from heaven.

The magnificence of the Good News of the Gospel is in direct proportion to the horrific price that was willingly paid by the Lord Jesus.

Mankind was potentially redeemed and purified by the sprinkled blood of Jesus.

As a result of His obedience to the sovereign will of the Father, Jesus Christ has been exalted as Lord and King.

In this passage, which begins in Isaiah 52:13 and continues on through chapter 53, we find one of the most detailed portrayals of the death of Jesus found in prophesy.

Along with Psalm 22 these verses present the Suffering Servant Who would make a blood atonement for our sins.

To appreciate the impact of these verses, understand that to the Jewish people, the Messiah was a powerful political leader who would deliver them from all their enemies and rule from the throne of David.

During this dark period of slavery in Babylon, any hope of deliverance would have grown very dim.

The Holy city Jerusalem, as well as the Temple, lie in ruins.

All the instruments of worship-the bronze altar on which sacrifices were offered had been broken into pieces and carted off to Babylon.

The Temple was destroyed, and its treasures looted.

Everything of value ended up in Babylon, the property of pagans.

The people, crushed in spirit, had little hope.

100 years earlier, Isaiah had written a message to those who would need hope and encouragement.

His message?

It was twofold, with a near and future fulfillment.

In the near future, a Persian King named Cyrus would liberate the Jews from Babylon.

But in the future, a greater deliverer, the Messiah, the Servant of Jehovah would arrive and bring freedom.

Yet this freedom would vastly surpass what the average Israelite would expect.

This demonstrates the truth that man's solutions to the problems of life are often much too simplistic and inadequate, usually because we discount the place of sin in the equation.

That was Judah's problem in Babylon.

The average Jew in Babylon yearned for deliverance from captivity-and little else.

But think for a moment: when we find ourselves emerged in a crisis, do we not also see only the need for relief from the immediate emergency?

From my experience, observing myself and others, we all too often fall into this trap.

Mankind has a much more basic problem-that of sin, and all other problems are related in one way or another to sin.

God usually has a bigger purpose for the crisis.

C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."1

The captive Jews desired freedom from captivity, but God has a much more far-reaching plan: in these prophetic words, He gives His solution to the root problem of all mankind, man's sin.

The solution was the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son, the Messiah.

Read Isaiah 52:13-15.

This section, which continues through 53:12, contains unmistakable proof that Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled all prophetic predictions of the Messiah.

It has been said that the details are so precise that no person could fulfill them by accident, nor could an imposter fulfill them by design.

Clearly these verses refer to Jesus Christ, as the New Testament attests.

These verses are a summary statement of the humiliation and exaltation of the Messiah.

First we see:

I. THE EXALTATION OF MESSIAH

"Behold My Servant..." Look at Him, we are told.

We recall Pilate's words to the crowd: "Behold the Man!"

This also brings to mind the words of Hebrews 12 which tells us to run the race of life successfully, laying aside the sin which so easily entangles us-following are the words "Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."

Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end.

All answers, all solutions, all purpose, all encouragement are found in Jesus.

"Behold My Servant," Isaiah speaks: "He will prosper."

We must stop for a moment and ponder: God is giving us the big picture, a perspective into which we must place all that will follow The following verses paint a dreadful picture; no, an unbelievable picture, for we find God the Son horribly tortured by sinful man.

This has been pondered down through the ages-Charles Wesley captured the thought: "How can it be that Thou my God should die for me?

Amazing Love!"

God first gives an overall perspective: "My Servant shall prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.

"This is how the story ends.

That is the point of the passage: suffering will lead to exaltation.

Suffering is the means to the end of exaltation.

As this is the pathway to eternal salvation it also provides a reason for our perseverance in life.

We need desperately to be reminded of how the story ends, that God will triumph, that victory has bee won-because, frankly speaking, so often it just doesn't look that way as we deal with the personal events of life or observe the world around us.

I believe this is a big part of what faith is all about.

Faith is believing what God says is true, but what we cannot yet see.

We cannot see Jesus sitting on the throne of heaven, but He is.

We cannot see ourselves sitting there with Him in the heavenlies, as Ephesians tells us, but we are.

We cannot always see "all things working out for good for those who are called according to His purpose" but this is truth.

It doesn't seem like Satan has been defeated, and that he has been rendered powerless, but he has.

All the promises of Scripture are ours to be claimed by faith, but we must keep the end of the story in mind.

Jesus will return.

All wrongs will be made right.

Righteousness will reign on the earth.

Jesus will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.

Philippians 2:9: "Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Every Knee should bow of those who are in heaven and on earth, and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

This is present reality in heaven, but future reality here on earth.

When Jesus returns at the end of the Great Tribulation, He will reign here on earth.

We must live in light of this reality, or we stand in danger of living in fear and discouragement.

II.

BUT IN THE MEANTIME...

Verse 14 begins with the detailed explanation of events which had to transpire before the exaltation of Christ.

(Read v. 14) This begins the incredible description of the passion of the Lord Jesus.

Isaiah begins with a comparison with Israel: Just as many were astonished at you my people..." When Judah was taken in captivity to Babylon, the Jewish people were dazed.

"How could this have happened?

Are we not God's chosen people?

Where is God's promised protection?" Amos 9:10 records the words of many Jews in response to prophesies of coming disaster, "The calamity will not overtake or confront us."

Those prophets who dared to speak the truth were terribly persecuted as was Jeremiah.

The Jews were trusting the rituals of the Law, in the sacrifices which were being offered; they looked to the magnificence of the Temple: did not God dwell there?

Surely, He would not allow His Temple to fall into pagan hands!

Jeremiah 7:4, "Do not trust in deceptive words, saying 'This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.'"

Just like people today who trust in their church membership, or their heritage, or the faith of their parents for their future reward, the Jews were astonished when Jerusalem fell.

In the coming judgment, many will be dismayed to find that their church affiliation or their good works will not save them.

Most Jews scoffed at the predictions of the horror which would accompany the siege of Jerusalem.

Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian forces laid siege to Jerusalem, then just waited.

King Hezekiah had built a tunnel connecting to a source of water, but slowly the food ran out.

After 2 1/2 years the people began to die of starvation, even getting to the point that they resorted to cannibalism.

When Jerusalem finally fell, very few of the survivors of the famine escaped the swords of the soldiers.

Those who did survive were forced to march to the far country of Babylon.

Many from surrounding nations were astonished: Jeremiah 19:8-9 records, "I shall also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters."

A question: why did this suffering come upon the Jews?

The answer was sin.

Now, realize the comparison being made in verse 14: The Servant of Jehovah, the Messiah would suffer terribly-Why?

Because of sin!

Not for His personal sin, but because he would be the sin-bearer for all mankind.

Just as Jerusalem and the temple were reduced to unrecognizable rubble, Jesus' appearance as "marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men.

I fear we lightly gloss over the intense suffering of the Lord; perhaps the image which comes to mind has been overly "touched up" to remove anything objectionable.

This verse tells us that by the time Jesus was nailed to the cross, He was almost unrecognizable as human.

He had been horribly beaten; the process begun the night before by the Jewish rulers.

It continued those early hours of the morning as the Roman soldiers placed the crown of thorns on His head and then used a reed to beat on it, He then was scourged, which left the flesh on His body hanging in shreds.