Stephen:
Isaiah 53 is one of the key prophecies about Jesus, and we find it talked about in Acts chapter 8 when Philip meets a man from Ethiopia. At the centre of their encounter is the unraveling and the explanation of Isaiah 53 in relation to Jesus.
Joel:
We don’t read about him anywhere other than in Acts chapter 8, but he kind of comes onto the scene. He is a chancellor, the finance minister for the nation of Ethiopia, which at that time in history was a large, prosperous, powerful country.
He’s on a journey. He’s been to Jerusalem. He’s gone to Jerusalem to worship. He’s returning to Ethiopia. He’s sitting in his chariot reading from the Isaiah scroll.
And some of those details are significant because this is clearly someone who is very successful. He’s a very intelligent guy. He’s risen so high within his nation.
Even the fact that he’s reading from a copy of the Isaiah scroll maybe doesn’t seem initially like much, but in those days when there’s no printing press, for a person to actually own their own copy of parts of the Bible was very, very rare. You need to be very wealthy.
So here’s a man, and essentially he has reached the top. He’s the summit of earthly ambition. And yet he’s empty.
He’s not happy.
There’s this soul thirst, this longing for something that nothing in this world seems to have been able to answer. And so he has turned to religion. He’s seeking God.
And he goes to the Jewish temple to worship. But the way the narrative unfolds, it seems to be pointing us to this reality that he has gone there and he’s not fulfilled. He’s not found joy. He’s not found peace.
And he’s still reading. He’s still searching. And into that kind of context steps Philip the evangelist as this man is reading.
Stephen:
So he reads these words:
“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before his shearers, so open he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.”
And of course there’s way more to Isaiah 53.
This man is grappling with this old prophecy and he has a couple of core questions.
One is: how can I understand this passage unless someone guide me?
For all his learning, he can’t really grasp what this is all about.
And then secondly, he’s trying to understand the identity of the sufferer at the centre of the prophecy.
So he asks this question:
“Who speaks the prophet about? Is it of himself, or of some other man?”
And maybe to throw in the pot, some people would also, looking at Isaiah 53 and grappling over it as the Ethiopian did as well, ask the question:
“Is this Israel? Does this represent something bigger than one man? Who is this prophecy about?”
And why is it that Jesus is the only one that can fulfil it?
Joel:
It is interesting because the sufferer in Isaiah 53 is called “my servant”, and that term is applied to different people and even the nation of Israel, as you’ve said, in the prophecy of Isaiah.
But if you read the section carefully, it can only be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
To deal with the nation of Israel particularly, in verse 8, I think it is, of Isaiah 53, it says about the sufferer that he’s cut off out of the land of the living and he’s stricken for the transgression of my people.
Now in the context, Israel is my people. So the sufferer can’t also be Israel.
And even to think of it, as the Ethiopian chancellor does, is it possibly Isaiah himself?
None of the things that are spoken about are fulfilled in the life of Isaiah or any other man.
Now Isaiah did suffer tremendously, but not in a way that redemptively addressed the transgressions and the sins of God’s people.
The only person that answers to that is Jesus Christ.
Stephen:
Help me understand, or help people understand, the significance of what Jesus did at the cross, or what this prophecy is telling us about what the sufferer is doing in his death.
Joel:
It’s sacrificial love. I think if you want to write a term over it, that’s what it is.
It’s becoming a substitute. It’s taking our place and dying for us.
And that is, as you’ve talked about, and in this series we’ve particularly been looking at, the transformative power in the gospel. Conversion genuinely, a person’s life is radically, dramatically altered.
What brings that about in the experience of the Ethiopian eunuch? It’s the sacrificial love of Christ.
So he’s reading around Isaiah and he’s coming across passages like this in chapter 56 where it says about the eunuch that God will give to this person something, a name that is better than sons and daughters, an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
For the foreigner, the person who’s excluded from the house of God, God will bring him into his holy mountain, give him joy in his house.
So he’s gone to the temple in Jerusalem looking for these things.
When he gets to the doors of the temple, the gates of the temple, they stop and they say:
“Hang on a second. You can’t come in here. You’re a foreigner. You’re a eunuch. You don’t belong here. You can’t come in. You’re barred from this place. You cannot access the presence of God.”
And it’s a kind of a picture of how what religion can do for us.
All it can do is condemn. All it can do is show us that we are wrong. It has no power to change us. It has no power to deliver us.
And yet this man, he’s reading about these promises about access to the presence of God, joy found in connection with him.
How does he get it?
And he realises it’s all fulfilled in this sufferer, in this person taking my place, suffering for my sins.
And as he asks this question to Philip, Philip responds by turning to the same Scripture and preaching from that passage about Jesus, telling him the good news about Jesus.
The reality is this: we are all sinners. We have tried to exalt ourselves to the throne of God.
And so God’s response to that is, in the person of Christ, to come down from that throne and go to the cross that should have been ours to die in our place.
All of these promises that God made in the Old Testament 700 years before Jesus came, 200 years before crucifixion is invented by the Medes and the Persians as a form of execution, all of these things can be fulfilled through faith in this person.
Stephen:
At the centre of Isaiah 53 is the greatest verse, isn’t it?
Just in relation to making it so clear what happened when Jesus died.
It’s Isaiah 53 verse 5:
“But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. With his stripes we are healed.”
What a verse that is.
Joel:
Yeah. And that is what produces the power to change. It’s sacrificial love.
It’s seeing, and that’s what this man sees. It’s not just the fulfilment of prophecy as a historical phenomenon.
Incredible. Wonderful. It gives evidence to the belief in the facts presented in the gospel.
But it’s more than that.
It’s love. It’s relationship.
“He did that for me.”
And that is where salvation is found.
It’s not just in believing that Jesus died, or believing that Jesus died for sins as a concept. All true.
But this man appreciates: he died for me.
And in that he finds transformation.
Stephen:
Because of Christ there’s such a release available that I can release that burden of sin.
We don’t know what this man was carrying. I know for my life, I know the experience of carrying guilt, carrying shame because of my sin.
But because of Christ, he has done something for me. He has borne something that I deserved.
So I can lay everything with him, knowing that he has taken my sin, has died for me, and so I go free.
And so the Ethiopian eunuch responds that day to the message of Jesus as the sacrifice, Jesus as the substitute, and he believes on him.
He accepts him and he will go away that day rejoicing.
But there’s something that happens before that, which is his baptism.
So he sees water and he says, “What hinders me to be baptised?”
And so Philip and the man, they go into the water and he’s baptised.
What’s significant about that little act though before we finish up today?
Joel:
Because in one sense, baptism doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t change a person’s status before God.
And yet it’s very important because this speaks again to the nature of what it means to trust in Christ.
This man doesn’t turn to Philip and say:
“Look, well, now I do believe all this, but I’m just going to keep it to myself. I’ve had this religious epiphany or whatever, but this is private, so off you go and we’ll say no more about it.”
Though he doesn’t do that.
The change in his life is such that he wants people to know where he stands.
Baptism is an outward demonstration of an inward change that has already taken place.
This man is prepared to say:
“I now stand with Jesus Christ. I am with him. I am made new in him.”
So he’s prepared to go down into the waters of baptism so that everyone who is there can see that his life has been changed.
And that’s really important in relation to the nature of salvation.
It is something that alters your status before God, but it also changes your character, changes your condition.
Now that status before God takes place in a moment.
The instant a person believes, they’re translated from death to life.
That change of character is a progressive thing.
But if Christ is going to come into your life, he comes in as Saviour, yes, but also as Lord.
And this man is willing to say to the world:
“I have been changed, and I am going to be changed because of my relationship with Jesus Christ. Things are not going to be the same for me.”
And if a person really wants to experience the transforming converting power that is found in the gospel, then you have to be open to that transformation, to genuine change.
Stephen:
So the man is changed and he walks away.
So he’s rejoicing.
And this man who’d been searching for fulfilment was clearly on this journey with questions unanswered, looking for something, looking for whatever it was he was looking for.
He has found it in Christ.
And I think anyone that has come to Christ experiences that themselves.
Wherever righteousness is established in life, sin’s taken away. There’s now peace with God.
And there’s a great verse which then talks about how we joy in God through Jesus Christ.
That’s his experience here.
So that’ll do us for today.
The Ethiopian eunuch and the Christ that he discovered in Isaiah 53.
