Prophecies: Check These Off The List

Hello again. Thank you for checking out today’s blog. We are following up on yesterday’s topic of rejection. If you recall, we took our lesson from Isaiah 53:1-12. Today, I would like to list out for you eight prophecies Jesus fulfilled in our feature passage.

Let’s review those verses again.

1 Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
²He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸By oppression^[c] and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.^[d]
⁹He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes^[e] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life^[f] and be satisfied^[g];
by his knowledge^[h] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
¹²Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,^[i]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,^[j]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Below is a summary of the verses.

Israel rejected Jesus for being too plain. Verses 1-3
Jesus’ suffering was considered to be a punishment for His sin by Israel. Verses 4-6
Jesus suffered and died without resistance, accepting God’s will to provide atonement for Israel and the world. Verses 7-8
Jesus was buried in a rich man’s tomb. Verse 9
Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Verses 10-11
Jesus was given innumerable followers (spiritual seed) Verse 10
Jesus is satisfied today with the forgiveness his death provided. Verse 11
Jesus has been rewarded by God the Father as the victor over sin. Verse 12

Now let’s look at how each of those prophecies was fulfilled in the New Testament. I will list the verses from the Old Testament along with their New Testament counterpart.

Old Testament Prophecies (OT) New Testament Fulfillment (NT)

1. Isaiah 53:1-3 (OT)

(NT) John 10:33, “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
(NT) Mark 6:3, “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon?”

2. Isaiah 53:4-6 (OT)

(NT) Matthew 27:42, “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him.”

3. Isaiah 53:7-8 (OT)

(NT) Matthew 27:14, “But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge – to the great amazement of the governor.”

4. Isaiah 53:4-6 (OT)

(NT) Mark 15:43, “Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body…So Joseph brought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut of the rock.”

5. Isaiah 53:10-11 (OT)

(NT) Luke 24:5b, “but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”

6. Isaiah 53:10 (OT)

(NT) John 20:21-22, “Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that, he breathed on them and said, “receive the Holy Spirit.”

7. Isaiah 53:11 (OT)

(NT) Romans 3:22, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

8. Isaiah 53:12 (OT)

(NT) Philippians 2:9, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”

The above is a small sampling of passages from the New Testament showing how Jesus Christ, the Messiah, fulfilled Old Testament prophecies in Isaiah 53. The Bible is full of prophecies Jesus Christ has fulfilled.

I once heard a pastor say that if the Jewish people read the Old Testament AND the book of Revelation, they would see that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah.

I am so thankful for what Jesus has done and all he has given so we can have eternal life. To think that God loved us so much, he sent his Son to die on the cross for our sin. What a gift, a gift given to you and me. It’s a gift for everyone, all people. You have to be willing to receive it.

Blessings!

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