Isaiah 53 - Jesus or Israel?
- Thread starter Musicmaster
- Start date
Those who prefer some additional explanation for a video, this one deals with objections to Isaiah 53 actually referring to Jesus rather than the nation Israel.
MM
MM
Yes.......Chapter 53 of the Isaiah may be the most hotly disputed passage in all of Scripture— with good reason. When you look it up you see that the Christian church claims that these verses in Isaiah 53 foretell a specific, individual person as the Messiah or the Christ.
While Jewish faith maintains that the chapter points instead to a faithful remnant group of the Jewish people.
Judaism's denial of Isaiah 53 as prophetic of Jesus goes back to the very nature of that religion. Judaism does not believe in the doctrine of original sin. It might ne helpful for all to understand that the Jews believe they are born good, not sinful.
Also, Judaism is a religion of works, or "mitzvah" ritual obligations.
Good teaching.
The Jewish faith or the Jewish religion?
I'm sure Isaiah was of the Jewish faith, while not being Christian per se.
Arent they the same thing?
The Jewish religion could include the Mishnah, rabbinical teachings, the Talmud, some of which don't jive with Scripture. Yet, the Jewish religion if it stuck to the Scriptures would be the same thing.
Or should I ask, 'was Isaiah born again'?
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YES........IMO he was.
"Born Again" was 1st said by Jesus to Nicodemus, however, to be born again means to have been given a new spirit through faith in the Messiah. Since the Old Testament believers were promised entry into the Kingdom, we can safely say that all Old Testament saints were “born again” in this way, because otherwise they could not see the Kingdom. So not only were Moses, Joshua and John the Baptist “born again” but so were Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, the prophets and more.
Understood, but what about the promise of a future new covenant in Jeremiah and Hebrews?...
Jeremiah 31:31,33 ESV
"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [33] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Hebrews 8:10-11 ESV
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [11] And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
I know these promises were made to Israel, but even Nicodemus didn't 'know the Lord' at his encounter with Jesus
Good point. But was the New Covenant is a series of promises that God made to Israel and Judah, promises which are unchangeable and irreversible, since they are sealed by God’s oath. Those promises made the New Covenant vastly superior to the Old Covenant, so much so that the New Covenant replaces the Old, making it obsolete but The New Covenant is not all that new is it???
The New Covenant should not be new to the student of Scripture. It is seen all through the Old Test.
I think that what we see with Nicodemus is that just knowing the Bible is not enough. He knew about God, but he did not know him!
Why does God say through Jeremiah...
I will make a new covenant, not like the old...
Jeremiah 31:31-32 ESV
"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
and then the writing on their hearts His law...
Jeremiah 31:33 ESV
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
It sounds so much like the covenant we have been grafted into as Gentiles (Rom 11).
I just saw this in Hebrews
Hebrews 8:11 ESV
And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Nicodemus had enough faith to come to Jesus, but would you say he was born again since he didn't 'know Jesus'?
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I would say that none of the OT saints were born again since they did not have the infilling of Holy Spirit. They didn't have to be born again before the Cross. Faith is how they were declared righteous.
After the cross, their being born again may very well be a different matter altogether since they were held in Sheol until AFTER the Cross.
MM
I agree with the 1st paragraph, but still scratching my head over the 2nd paragraph.
I thought these held true post Calvary...
2 Corinthians 5:6 NKJV
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
Philippians 1:23 ESV
I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
Luke 23:43 ESV
And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."
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Men were saved in the Old Test. by faith in the Messiah looking forward to Him coming.
Men in the New Test are saved by faith in the Messiah looking backwards to His coming.
I hear you but allow me to ask you.......were Old Test. saints spiritually alive or spiritually dead.????
They were not “born again” technically in the sense that they would have never heard the name of Jesus (although the Hebrews as a nation expected a Messiah to deliver them) and therefore, the way of sacrifice was not opened up to them. While they were never promised a heavenly reward for their faithfulness, they were very much acceptable servants before God in their past life and absolutely have the promise of resurrection for a future life due to the fact that they were spiritually alive looking forward to the Messiah!
I understand that men were always justified by faith, but in Jeremiah God is promising a better/new Covenant where He writes His law on their hearts (new nature?/new birth).
I am in no disagreeing. I think that you would agree that there is the covenant of grace, and both the old covenant and the new covenant are administrations of the covenant of grace.
Then if we think about it, the Mosaic economy, or The Law of Moses as an administration of the covenant of grace, has a particularly legal quality to it. Part of the function of the Mosaic law, as Paul says over and over again, is to teach the reality of sin. It’s impossible to keep all the law of Moses, so it impinges on the people of God to know their sinfulness and their need of mercy.
2 Corinthians, speaks of the old covenant as an administration of death and the new covenant as an administration of glory. It’s a relative contrast in absolute terms, but clearly, one of the aspects of the old covenant was to reinforce our inherited depravity. By maximizing the laws, they revealed sin.
So then, a cornerstone of the New Covenant is God's promise to "put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts" in Jeremiah 31:33 as you stated!
Then In Ezekiel 36:26-27 He tells us how He will accomplish this: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I am not speaking for MM, only giving a thought. All the Saints spirts who had believed in God and looked forward to the Messiah, went to PARADISE side of Sheool or Abrahams bosom.I agree with the 1st paragraph, but still scratching my head over the 2nd paragraph.
I thought these held true post Calvary...
2 Corinthians 5:6 NKJV
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
Philippians 1:23 ESV
I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
Luke 23:43 ESV
And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."
All of the blood shed by animals could NOT satisfy God's demand that only Christ could do on the cross. Those Old Test. saints had to wait on the shed blood of God to be cleansed of sin and be able to enter heaven.
Consider Romans 3:25. Here Paul is saying when Jesus died on the cross, he was being displayed publicly as a propitiation -- appeasing the wrath of God and being reconciled to him -- in his blood through faith. This was to "demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished"-- which was prior to the cross.
Today, when an unbeliever dies, he follows the Old Testament unbelievers to the torment side of Hades.
when a believer dies today, he is “present with the Lord” in heaven. There, he joins the Old Testament saints who have been enjoying their reward for thousands of years.
So I guess this all points to the fact that OT saints were not yet born again, as Jesus had not been raised from the dead.
I agree with the 1st paragraph, but still scratching my head over the 2nd paragraph.
I thought these held true post Calvary...
2 Corinthians 5:6 NKJV
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
Philippians 1:23 ESV
I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
Luke 23:43 ESV
And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."
The physically dead before the cross were held in captivity because they could not enter into Paradise until after their full and complete redemption was fulfilled at the cross. This part you may know very well, so I won't belabor the point.
So, some questions can come up about what comes after the cross for them. I'm sure we can agree that they are now, although not before, in paradise with Christ. They do not yet have their glorified bodies, but will receive those immediately before the rest of those who are alive at the point of the rapture, since we are told that the dead in Christ rise first, and then the living at the point of the rapture.
Given that the Lord declared to us in His word that one must be born again to enter into the Kingdom of God, it follows that the OT saints received their new birth at the point of the cross. I'm not saying that's a hard core fact, but it seems that their final and complete redemption was at or after the Jesus declared "It is finished."
Bottom line, of course, is that no matter when they were born again, we are going to one day be gathered up with them in the clouds with Christ, and to be with Him thereafter for eternity.
There may be some out there who think they know exactly when the new birth of the OT saints took place, and I won't take issue with them since we are not told that sliver of information...possibly because the Lord might say to us, "What is that to you. You go and be about My business."
I'm thankful for the Lord's correction, because I need it so much of the time. The hinges and latch on the wood shed are pretty much worn out because of me. I'm just thankful the Lord is patient with those such as myself.
MM