The Sprinkled Blood

The Sprinkled Blood Spring Valley Mennonite; February 5, 2023; Isaiah 52:13-15 In our study today we find ourselves treading on exceptional holy ground, for here we find those blessed words which predict the suffering and exaltation of the Savior of the World, our Lord Jesus Christ. The turning point of history was the death of Jesus Christ, for at that moment, a new agreement or Covenant was initiated from heaven. The magnificence of the Good News of the Gospel is in direct proportion to the horrific price that was willingly paid by the Lord Jesus. Mankind was potentially redeemed and purified by the sprinkled blood of Jesus. As a result of His obedience to the sovereign will of the Father, Jesus Christ has been exalted as Lord and King. In this passage, which begins in Isaiah 52:13 and continues on through chapter 53, we find one of the most detailed portrayals of the death of Jesus found in prophesy. Along with Psalm 22 these verses present the Suffering Servant Who would make a blood atonement for our sins. To appreciate the impact of these verses, understand that to the Jewish people, the Messiah was a powerful political leader who would deliver them from all their enemies and rule from the throne of David. During this dark period of slavery in Babylon, any hope of deliverance would have grown very dim. The Holy city Jerusalem, as well as the Temple, lie in ruins. All the instruments of worship-the bronze altar on which sacrifices were offered had been broken into pieces and carted off to Babylon. The Temple was destroyed, and its treasures looted. Everything of value ended up in Babylon, the property of pagans. The people, crushed in spirit, had little hope. 100 years earlier, Isaiah had written a message to those who would need hope and encouragement. His message? It was twofold, with a near and future fulfillment. In the near future, a Persian King named Cyrus would liberate the Jews from Babylon. But in the future, a greater deliverer, the Messiah, the Servant of Jehovah would arrive and bring freedom. Yet this freedom would vastly surpass what the average Israelite would expect. This demonstrates the truth that man's solutions to the problems of life are often much too simplistic and inadequate, usually because we discount the place of sin in the equation. That was Judah's problem in Babylon. The average Jew in Babylon yearned for deliverance from captivity-and little else. But think for a moment: when we find ourselves emerged in a crisis, do we not also see only the need for relief from the immediate emergency? From my experience, observing myself and others, we all too often fall into this trap. Mankind has a much more basic problem-that of sin, and all other problems are related in one way or another to sin. God usually has a bigger purpose for the crisis. C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."1 The captive Jews desired freedom from captivity, but God has a much more far-reaching plan: in these prophetic words, He gives His solution to the root problem of all mankind, man's sin. The solution was the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son, the Messiah. Read Isaiah 52:13-15. This section, which continues through 53:12, contains unmistakable proof that Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled all prophetic predictions of the Messiah. It has been said that the details are so precise that no person could fulfill them by accident, nor could an imposter fulfill them by design. Clearly these verses refer to Jesus Christ, as the New Testament attests. These verses are a summary statement of the humiliation and exaltation of the Messiah. First we see: I. THE EXALTATION OF MESSIAH "Behold My Servant..." Look at Him, we are told. We recall Pilate's words to the crowd: "Behold the Man!" This also brings to mind the words of Hebrews 12 which tells us to run the race of life successfully, laying aside the sin which so easily entangles us-following are the words "Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end. All answers, all solutions, all purpose, all encouragement are found in Jesus. "Behold My Servant," Isaiah speaks: "He will prosper." We must stop for a moment and ponder: God is giving us the big picture, a perspective into which we must place all that will follow The following verses paint a dreadful picture; no, an unbelievable picture, for we find God the Son horribly tortured by sinful man. This has been pondered down through the ages-Charles Wesley captured the thought: "How can it be that Thou my God should die for me? Amazing Love!" God first gives an overall perspective: "My Servant shall prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. "This is how the story ends. That is the point of the passage: suffering will lead to exaltation. Suffering is the means to the end of exaltation. As this is the pathway to eternal salvation it also provides a reason for our perseverance in life. We need desperately to be reminded of how the story ends, that God will triumph, that victory has bee won-because, frankly speaking, so often it just doesn't look that way as we deal with the personal events of life or observe the world around us. I believe this is a big part of what faith is all about. Faith is believing what God says is true, but what we cannot yet see. We cannot see Jesus sitting on the throne of heaven, but He is. We cannot see ourselves sitting there with Him in the heavenlies, as Ephesians tells us, but we are. We cannot always see "all things working out for good for those who are called according to His purpose" but this is truth. It doesn't seem like Satan has been defeated, and that he has been rendered powerless, but he has. All the promises of Scripture are ours to be claimed by faith, but we must keep the end of the story in mind. Jesus will return. All wrongs will be made right. Righteousness will reign on the earth. Jesus will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Philippians 2:9: "Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Every Knee should bow of those who are in heaven and on earth, and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." This is present reality in heaven, but future reality here on earth. When Jesus returns at the end of the Great Tribulation, He will reign here on earth. We must live in light of this reality, or we stand in danger of living in fear and discouragement. II. BUT IN THE MEANTIME... Verse 14 begins with the detailed explanation of events which had to transpire before the exaltation of Christ. (Read v. 14) This begins the incredible description of the passion of the Lord Jesus. Isaiah begins with a comparison with Israel: Just as many were astonished at you my people..." When Judah was taken in captivity to Babylon, the Jewish people were dazed. "How could this have happened? Are we not God's chosen people? Where is God's promised protection?" Amos 9:10 records the words of many Jews in response to prophesies of coming disaster, "The calamity will not overtake or confront us." Those prophets who dared to speak the truth were terribly persecuted as was Jeremiah. The Jews were trusting the rituals of the Law, in the sacrifices which were being offered; they looked to the magnificence of the Temple: did not God dwell there? Surely, He would not allow His Temple to fall into pagan hands! Jeremiah 7:4, "Do not trust in deceptive words, saying 'This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.'" Just like people today who trust in their church membership, or their heritage, or the faith of their parents for their future reward, the Jews were astonished when Jerusalem fell. In the coming judgment, many will be dismayed to find that their church affiliation or their good works will not save them. Most Jews scoffed at the predictions of the horror which would accompany the siege of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian forces laid siege to Jerusalem, then just waited. King Hezekiah had built a tunnel connecting to a source of water, but slowly the food ran out. After 2 1/2 years the people began to die of starvation, even getting to the point that they resorted to cannibalism. When Jerusalem finally fell, very few of the survivors of the famine escaped the swords of the soldiers. Those who did survive were forced to march to the far country of Babylon. Many from surrounding nations were astonished: Jeremiah 19:8-9 records, "I shall also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its disasters." A question: why did this suffering come upon the Jews? The answer was sin. Now, realize the comparison being made in verse 14: The Servant of Jehovah, the Messiah would suffer terribly-Why? Because of sin! Not for His personal sin, but because he would be the sin-bearer for all mankind. Just as Jerusalem and the temple were reduced to unrecognizable rubble, Jesus' appearance as "marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. I fear we lightly gloss over the intense suffering of the Lord; perhaps the image which comes to mind has been overly "touched up" to remove anything objectionable. This verse tells us that by the time Jesus was nailed to the cross, He was almost unrecognizable as human. He had been horribly beaten; the process begun the night before by the Jewish rulers. It continued those early hours of the morning as the Roman soldiers placed the crown of thorns on His head and then used a reed to beat on it, He then was scourged, which left the flesh on His body hanging in shreds. He didn't even look human. But Jesus, being fully human, felt the pain just as you or I would have felt it. There was no divine anesthetic given. Why do I share these things with you? I do it to emphasize the tremendous price Jesus paid to redeem you and me. All the wrath of God toward sin, as well as all the wrath of man toward God was focused and concentrated upon our Lord that day. All the events beginning at Gethsemane and culminating at the cross were part of the redemption process; every drop of blood from Gethsemane to Calvary was redemptive. And that redemptive process is emphasized in the next verse. Verse 15a: "Thus He will sprinkle many nations..." III. THE RESULT OF SUFFERING: HE WILL SPRINKLE MANY NATIONS We go to the Law of Moses for the picture of blood being sprinkled for the purpose of purification. Turn to Exodus 24:3-8 (read). This sprinkling by Moses initiated the Old Covenant of the Law. Included in the Old Covenant were instructions for the Day of Atonement, where once a year the High Priest on this special day carried blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it upon the Mercy Seat, which sat upon the Ark. They symbolism of this sprinkling is too significant to pass over: think for a moment-what was contained within the Ark? Was it not the Tablets on which God had inscribed the Law? Those tablets represented the entire Law, the commandments and ordinances which no man could keep! Therefore, there had to be atonement, and the blood of the sacrifice "covered" the sin of the people, symbolized by the atoning blood sprinkled over the mercy seat. But this sacrificial atonement was only temporary, for it had to be repeated year after year. Jesus through His blood initiated a New Covenant, as we read of in Hebrews 9:13-15-listen as I read: "For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God, And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." It is this New Covenant, this new agreement with God, that brings us into a saving relationship with God. We are included in the "many nations" in Isaiah 52:15! Appreciate the radical nature of this concept to the Jews: not only was Israel to be sprinkled and brought under this New Covenant, but also the Gentiles! This was difficult for the infant church to accept at first; recall the opposition the Jews had at first to Paul's ministry to Gentiles. But it was not many years after the Resurrection that gentile believers outnumbered Jewish believers. The distinction between the two groups soon disappeared. Romans 9:25-26: "As He also says in Hosea, 'I will call those where were not my people, 'my people' and he who was not beloved, 'beloved,' and it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they shall be called sons of the living God." This describes the "sprinkling of many nations." This thought continues with the rest of Isaiah 52:15: "Kings shall shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand. John MacArthur remarks: "At His exaltation, human leaders in the highest places will be speechless and in awe before the one-despised Servant." Can you imagine Russian Premier Putin or the leaders of Iran and China being rendered speechless? Imagine all the politicians of the United Nations kneeling in silence before the King of Kings! That is exactly how it will be! Every knee will bow before the Exalted Jesus. Paul uses the latter part of verse 15 to apply to his mission of preaching the gospel of Christ to those to whom the Good News was unknown in Romans 15:20-21: And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named that I might not build upon another man's foundation; but as it is written, "They who had no news of Him shall see and they who have not heard shall understand." We live in the days of a partial fulfillment of this prophesy, as increasingly, those who have never heard are hearing the Gospel proclaimed. During the Great Tribulation, it will be perfectly fulfilled as all will hear; unfortunately for many it will be a hearing of a Christ who they have rejected. IV. SO WHAT? What should be our personal application from these verses? * These perfectly fulfilled prophesies should strengthen our faith as they confirm that Jesus Christ was the Messiah who died for the sins of the world. * We can take encouragement that Jesus will be exalted at the proper time. We are on the winning side, and our faith should reflect that. There is no need to ever go around with our head hanging low as if we are losing in this war. The war has been won. We know the end of the story. (if time, share about Chief's game replay) * We are to be humbled and very grateful for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for or sins, realizing that without the shedding of His blood there could be no forgiveness of sin. * We should never be ashamed of speaking about the blood, and be encouraged to tell others that Christ has died for them, His blood covering and atoning for our sins. * If we do not know God's forgiveness for or sins, today is the day of salvation. Jesus shed His precious blood and underwent horrible torture to prove His love for you. * We should be reminded that we are not our own, but we have been bought with a price. The worth of something is determined by its price: What was the purchase price of our souls? It was the most precious thing in existence-the blood of Jesus. We should never feel worthless! 1 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain; 1940 San Francisco: (reproduced) 2001, Harper San Francisco; p. 91. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ 2