The Gospel According to Isaiah, a sermon for Trinity 5

The Gospel According to Isaiah

Trinity 5, July 21^st, 2019

Psalm 42

Joshua 24:1-5, 13-25

Acts 8:26-end

My sermon title this morning may be causing some raised eyebrows.  If I were really naughty, I would ask you to turn to the Gospel According to Isaiah.  You may find it between the Book of Hezekiah and 3^rd Philipians. But, of course, there is no book in the Bible called The Gospel According to Isaiah.  But is there a Gospel according to Isaiah?  Yes, there is.

Isaiah, perhaps more than any other Old Testament prophet, set forth the good news of what God was doing to do through Jesus Christ, and that over 600 years before Jesus walked the Earth.  This is why when we get into the Advent and Christmas seasons, so many of our readings are from Isaiah.  And Handel’s great work The Messiahquotes Isaiah several times. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was very much proclaimed centuries before by the prophet Isaiah.

So it was God’s providence that when St. Philip came to the chariot of that Ethiopian court official, as told in Acts 8, he found him to be reading from Isaiah, from the Greek Septuagint translation of Isaiah 53 to be exact.

And when the Ethiopian asked about whom Isaiah was writing, Philip began with Isaiah 53 and told him the good news about Jesus Christ.

We do not have much detail in Acts 8 of exactly what Philip said, but the Ethiopian official was convinced.  So much so that when he saw some water – and being in the desert it might have been a very small body of water – he asked, “What prevents me from being baptized?” Apparently, nothing.  For St. Philip baptized him right then and there.

Now I said that we don’t have much detail of what Philip told the official.  But we do know that he taught from Isaiah 53.  So let’s look back at that chapter and see part of what so convinced the Ethiopian.

We’ll start with verse 3:

       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.

Jesus was certainly despised and rejected.  The religious leaders despised and rejected him.  His teaching sometimes drove away more people than it attracted. In his hometown, his teaching nearly got him thrown off a cliff!

Reading on:

       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.

       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.

Years ago, I read this passage to a group of bright Junior High kids.  But I was tricky.  I did not tell them from what book I was reading.  So I read and then asked them, Is this from the Old Testament or the New Testament?

The kids rightly perceived that this is the Gospel; here is taught that One would die for our sins, taking the penalty for our sins upon Himself.  So most answered that this passage is from the New Testament.

Of course, they were incorrect. Isaiah is in the Old Testament. I had managed to trick even those clever teenagers.  But in a very significant way, their thinking was right on target.  For here we see Jesus dying for our sins . . . over six hundred years before he did so. 

Even the significant detail of Jesus being “pierced for our transgressions” is here in Isaiah. On the cross, Jesus was pierced at his hands and feet.  And after he died, while still on the cross, a soldier pierced him on the side with a spear to see if we were dead.  Out of that wound came blood and water.  A whole sermon could be preached about that wound alone. But a prevalent ancient interpretation has the blood and water signifying the benefits of Christ’s passion being poured on us through the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Communion. But we will have to leave that subject for another day.

Isaiah also wrote, “Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.”

We can have peace with God only because Jesus became our peace by going through the Hell of that crucifixion for us.  

St. Paul frequently referred to the peace with God that we have through Christ.  For example, in Romans 5:1, he wrote that “since we have been justified by faith, we have peacewith God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In Ephesians 2:14, he wrote that “He Himself is our peace.”

Being an excellent Jewish scholar, St. Paul no doubt was greatly influenced by Isaiah.  And Isaiah frequently used the word “peace,” the Hebrew word “shalom”,in his prophecies. The familiar title for Jesus, Prince of Peace, comes from Isaiah, earlier in chapter 9.

Reading on in chapter 53:

       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.

Again, that is the Gospel right there.  And both the bad news and the good news is presented.  We have all gone astray by choosing our sinful ways over God’s ways.  But Jesus took the penalty for our sin.  The scripture here and elsewhere even describes it as Jesus taking on our sin upon himself.  St. Paul did this in a particularly radical way in 2 Corinthians 5:21:

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The Father so “laid on him the iniquity of us all” that Jesus became “sin on our behalf.” To go too much deeper into that would be to go into great mysteries that have not been revealed.  But what great torment and anguish Jesus must have experienced on the cross as he bore all our sin.

Look at how much of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we have seen in Isaiah already!  And we’ve only looked at a very few verses.  Time will not permit us to look at all the rest of this 53^rdchapter.  But lets look at some highlights.

Verse 9 is remarkable:

       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.

That is a strange prophesy: “They made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.” Yet this was fulfilled with remarkable detail in the death and burial of Christ.

Those who were crucified were those the Roman authorities considered the lowest of the low among criminals.  So when the crucified finally died on their crosses, they usually were not given honorable burials, but were disposed of in an area set apart for executed criminals.  Their graves would have been with the wicked.  And that’s where Jesus’ body was going if a few of his friends and followers did not intervene.

And one of those who intervened was Joseph of Arimathea.  He was a wealthy man with a new, unused tomb; and after getting Pontius Pilate’s permission, he had Jesus buried in his new tomb.  Thus the body of Jesus was “with a rich man in his death.”

So we see a strange prophecy fulfilled in detail by the burial of Christ.  Moving on from the burial, verse 10 is also a perplexing prophesy:

       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.

So “it was the will of the Lord to crush him.”  Yet “he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;” and “the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”  That is perplexing.  And when this prophesy was fulfilled it perplexed many yet again.  For this is a prophesy of the death andresurrection of Christ condensed in one verse.  For he suffered a crushing death – in fact, one of the awful tortures of crucifixion is that it was difficult to breathe. But then he lives to see his offspring, which includes us children of God saved by his grace.

And Christ’s work of saving us is wonderfully summarized in verse 12, the last verse of Isaiah 53:

       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;

        and he bore the sin of many,

              and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Christ was victorious, is victorious, and will be victorious at his second coming. But first, on the cross, “he poured out his soul to death” for us; he “was numbered with the transgressors” for us; “and he bore the sin of many” including us.  And now, having paid the price for our sins, and having defeated death for us by rising from the dead and then ascending into heaven, he now “makes intercession for the transgressors,” including us.

All this in just one chapter of Isaiah.  No wonder God arranged it so that the Ethiopian official was reading from this 53^rdchapter of Isaiah when St. Philip came along.  For the Gospel is right here.

And we haven’t gone through the rest of Isaiah, much less the rest of the Old Testament.  

Such detailed prophesies of Isaiah and of the rest of the Old Testament raise a bold question – why did God do this?  Why did God practically proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus Christ?  God wasn’t just showing off, you know.  Why did God do this?

Now we should be careful and reverent about asking such questions.  For who knows the mind of God?  But with some careful confidence, I think we can see part of what God was doing.

In Isaiah’s day, one important purpose of God was to give hope during a dark time.  Yes, God’s people were being ravaged by their own apostasy and by invasions and exile.  But God was not finished with them yet, and through them would come the Messiah who would be the hope of the world.  So God foretold his purposes to give them hope.

When Jesus did die and rise from the dead, Jesus sought to enable his followers to grasp fully what he had done, and that he was for real, that he really did rise from the dead. And he used the Old Testament in doing so.

Now we might think that would not be necessary.  After all, between the Resurrection and the Ascension, Jesus was right there with his disciples a number of times.  Yet what Jesus had done in dying for sins and then rising from the dead was so outside the expectations of the disciples that they needed help to see that the risen Christ and all he had done was for real.  This sometimes happens to us, that some event can be so awful or so wonderful that it can take a while to sink in that it’s for real.

That was the case with the disciples.  We see this in the Gospel of Luke, beginning in 24:36:

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.

So you see that even with him standing before them, they needed some help to comprehend that it really was Jesus, and that he had bodily risen from the dead.  Let’s see how Jesus helped them to comprehend. 

And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

So we see that he gave them a very physical demonstration, letting them touch him, showing them his wounded hands and feet and even having snack before them.  Now look what Jesus did.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance forthe forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem….”

Jesus taught them the Gospel from the Old Testament.  He used the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms to verify that what they were seeing and experiencing was for real.  Even while the risen Christ was with them, the Old Testament served as verification of the Gospel and indeed taught the Gospel. 

And so it is with us today.  As we’ve seen this morning in Isaiah 53, the Old Testament proclaims the Gospel.  And we impoverish ourselves, as some Christians do, if we neglect the Old Testament.

Today, the Old Testament still serves as verification of the Gospel.  God proclaimed centuries ahead of time what he was going to do through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection.  And not in vague terms but in detail, such as Jesus being pierced, such as Jesus being buried in a rich man’s tomb although executed as a criminal. And we haven’t even mentioned other details prophesied in the Old Testament, such as the virgin birth, such as he being born in Bethlehem, such as his betrayal for thirty pieces of silver, such as the soldiers casting lots for his clothing at the cross, and more. God proclaimed the Gospel in marvelous detail centuries beforehand.  And then he did it.

The Old Testament thereby serves as a great weight of evidence and assurance that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the invention of man.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not even the invention of the church. Instead, as St. Paul wrote, “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” For in it the righteousness and love and grace of God Almighty is revealed.  As Rich Mullins sang in his great song “Creed”:

I did not make it, no it is making me
It is the very truth of God
And not the invention of any man.

Thanks be to God that he has so wonderfully confirmed the truth of Gospel, not only through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ – although that is more than wonderful enough – but also through proclaiming the mighty and humble acts of Christ hundreds of years before he walked the Earth.

Thank God for the proclamation of the Gospel in the Old Testament.  And, yes, thank God for the Gospel according to Isaiah. Amen.

Let us pray.

BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.