Chapter 8: He Was Wounded for Our Transgressions

After Noah got off the ark, the world was repopulated and was divided into various nations as centuries went by. God in His own providence selected one nation above the others in which He would reveal Himself and from which the Savior would come. This nation was called Israel. Through this nation, the LORD revealed more of what we should expect from the Savior when He would come.

  1. The Savior would be born of a virgin. We already saw this in Genesis 3:15. This is also reiterated in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
  2. The Savior would be from the tribe of Judah. The nation of Israel began with a patriarch named Abraham. He had a son Isaac, who was born to him miraculously in his old age. Isaac also had a son, named Jacob, who in turn had twelve sons. Those twelve sons designate the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribe of Judah was to be the ancestor of the Savior.
    Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. (Genesis 49:8-10)
    This prophecy showed how a ruling dynasty of kings would come from this tribe. After those kings, the Savior (“Shiloh” or “tranquility”) would be revealed in Israel. The Savior will put peace between humankind and God.
  3. The Savior would be born in a town called Bethelhem. Micah 5:2 reads: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
  4. The Savior would come from the lineage of King David. King David was the beginning of a dynasty of kings of Israel, and later the nation of Judah. Jeremiah 23:5-6 reads, “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

    The Branch is a title for the Savior throughout the Old Testament. Other references include Isaiah 11:1-5, Jeremiah 33:14-18, Zechariah 3:8, and Zechariah 6:12-13. Also, the Savior was going to give us the LORD’s righteousness, because we ourselves are not righteous (Jeremiah 23:6).
  5. The Savior would suffer and die for humanity. Remember how innocent animals had to die to cover the sin and shame of Adam and Eve? For centuries afterward, God’s people made animal sacrifices, showing that they believed that they were sinful and that someone else had to die for them. However, even after centuries of animal sacrifice, they still needed animals to cover their sin and shame. This Savior was going to put an end to all sacrifices for sin. The Savior was going to offer Himself as a sacrifice, whose blood was going to make a covering for sin once and for all time. In Daniel 9:26, we read:
    And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
    The word Messiah (or in the Greek language, Christ) indicates one who is anointed by God. Previous kings of Israel were referred to by this name. This King, however, was going to die for the sins of His people, and in the context of this passage, it was going to be approximately 483 years (69 sevens in Daniel 9:25) after the city of Jerusalem was going to be rebuilt (Daniel 9:25). This takes us up to about the first century, A.D.
  6. The Savior would be God Himself. If the animal skins God gave Adam and Eve did not cover sin forever, and the lambs that Abel sacrificed did not suffice, how could a mere human being be any better? If all human beings such as you and me were condemned in the sin of Adam before we were ever born, how could mortal creatures finish the penalty of sin forever, once and for all? How could a regular person like you and me, if he or she were somehow sinless, be the one who would bruise the head of Satan and destroy him? God Himself would have to be the Savior.

    We read in Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” The mighty God, who created the heaven and the earth, would somehow come to earth as a human being, and be a sacrifice for the sins of every human being that has ever lived.

    The LORD says in Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”

Here is one part of the Bible that depicts the life and death of this Savior. Hundreds of years before the Savior came, Isaiah foretold the following:

Isaiah 53:1-12: Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? (2) For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (3) He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (4) Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (5) But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (6) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (7) He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. (8) He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. (9) And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. (10) Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. (11) He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. (12) Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Let us look at some of the themes that we see here:

  1. The message of the suffering servant must be believed. “Who hath believed our report?” (Isaiah 53:1). Just as Adam and Eve believed the promise of the coming Savior, we must believe that the Savior has paid for our sins. What the prophet Isaiah is about to record are the LORD’s promises in which we must trust.
  2. The Servant did not appear extraordinary. The “he” in Isaiah 53:2 is referred to as the LORD’s servant (Isaiah 52:13), who is the promised Savior. According to Isaiah 53:2, there is nothing physically appealing about Him. He was not going to be a smooth-talking orator with a striking appearance that people were going to admire Him.
  3. He would be rejected and hated. For some reason, this Savior was going to be hated (Isaiah 53:3). Later, we will see why, but the people He came to save hated Him enough to kill Him.
  4. He was punished because of other people’s wrong doings. Just as animals were punished for the sins of Adam, Eve, and Abel, and to cover their shame, this Man also was punished for others’ sins (Isaiah 53:5-6). The sins of every single human being in the world, past, present, and future, was laid upon God’s Servant.
  5. He did not retaliate against those who slew Him. The Savior voluntarily took His unjust punishment (Isaiah 53:7).
  6. The Savior was killed. Isaiah 53:8 tells us “he was cut off out of the land of the living.”
  7. He was perfect and without sin. He practiced no deceit or violence (Isaiah 53:9); He was perfect.
  8. He was associated with the wicked and the rich in His death. We will see a little later the significance of this (Isaiah 53:9).
  9. The Servant was a sin offering. As Abel offered the best of his flock to God, this Servant was the best and perfect of most offerings (Genesis 4:4, Isaiah 53:10). God requires perfection, and He was satisfied by the Servant’s offering (Isaiah 53:11). People from all over the world who trust God will be declared clean from sin and saved from hell because of this blood sacrifice (Isaiah 52:13).
  10. The Servant was exalted because of His obedience. He would be raised from the dead and placed in the highest authority because of His obedience to the point of suffering and death (Isaiah 52:13; 53:12).
  11. He made intercession for sinners’ transgressions. Not only did He pay for the sins of humankind, but He also made intercession for them before God (Isaiah 53:12). God’s wrath is appeased for the one who “believed our report” (Isaiah 53:1).

This last passage of the Scriptures is a very vivid description as to what would happen to this Savior promised of God. Throughout the Bible, there are a large amount of predictions like this one that would show what the Savior would be like, and how He would save people. We have only looked at a very small subset of these Scriptures. Psalm 22, for example, shows many more minute details about the Savior. Being that this is a short treatise, we will move onto the greatest news of all: the Savior, Jesus Christ, has already come, and fulfilled all of the Scriptures we have seen throughout this entire discussion.

Jesus Christ

Hundreds of years after these prophecies about the Savior were penned down, Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, from the tribe of Judah, in the town of Bethlehem, and as a descendant of King David. Moreover, He was God Himself. Let us take each one in turn.

  1. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin named Mary. A young girl, engaged to be married, heard this promise of God through an angel (Luke 1:28-35):
    And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
  2. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, being from the tribe of Judah. Because of taxation, Mary and her future husband Joseph went to Bethlehem, and while there, she gave birth to her Son (Luke 2:4-7):
    And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
    Jesus is also referred to as “the Lion of the tribe of Juda” (Revelation 5:5).
  3. Jesus Christ was a descendant of King David. The first verse of the gospel of Matthew reads: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1).
  4. Jesus Christ was God. The first two verses of the book of John read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” The Word always was, and did not have a beginning. If you remember from the promises to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15, and to Mary as we just saw, Jesus had no human father. God the Son, or the Word, was placed in the womb of the virgin Mary. God the Son became a human being. He was both man and God. The human race was alienated and separated from God, without hope, and filled with all wretchedness and sinfulness. No Savior could come from the human race as it was; God Himself had to become a human being, and deliver us from sin, Satan, and hell.

This answers a lot of the questions as to how Jesus was the coming Savior, except about how He would die for all of humanity. Much of the rest of this treatise will deal with this subject. We will look at two narratives that occur during the life of Jesus on earth, and then we will focus on the key event of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Next: Chapter 9: Except a Man be Born Again

Previous: Chapter 7: And the LORD Shut Him In

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