Isaiah Talks about Christ

Isaiah 53


I would like to take eleven things that Isaiah said about Christ, and expound on them.

In chapter 53, verse 2, Isaiah said that Christ had no form nor comeliness. Now comeliness means handsome, good looking , or attractive. In fact Isaiah said that there was no beauty in him that we should even desire him. God didn’t make Jesus Christ look like some knock out movie star, or some Holy Wood hunk for people would swarm around him and follow him where ever he went. This goes to show you what God thinks about good looks. Good looks don’t mean anything at all to God. What he cares about is if your heart is obedient to him. God knew that if your heart is right, you’ll love someone for what he cares about, not what he looks like. God purposely made Jesus Christ without beauty, so he could tell who his real friends were. Not only that, the Bible says in Proverbs that beauty is vain. There was nothing vain about the Savior at all.

He was despised and rejected of men. He still is to this day. There are some people today that don’t even want to hear about what Jesus did for them. They reject him. Despise means,” to have the lowest opinion of, or to abhor.” Can you imagine God Almighty’s Son despised, thought the lowest of, and rejected of men? How could someone despise and reject such a perfect gift? How could people abhor the Lord Jesus Christ? How do you think that makes God feel? Just think about this for a minute. What if you had an only son, and he went into your neighbors burning house to try to save them. Your son saved your neighbors, but he died in the process. Now that’s bad enough, but what if they laughed at him, made jokes about him, and despised him. Wouldn’t that just make you mad? I praise God that Jesus Christ is not like we are. He still has his arms out ready to save any sinner who will believe on him. What a Savior!

He’s a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Acquainted means to have a personal knowledge of something or someone. Our Savior knew what it was like to have grief in his life. He knows what were going through when we have grief in our lives too. He was well acquainted with it. How could we say to him, “Lord, you don’t know what I’m going through, you can’t possibly understand because you’re God Almighty.” Well, yes he can, because he went through everything at some time or another in the thirty- three years of his life down here on this earth. If fact, he went through so much more than we could ever go through, and he never quit on us. Praise God. He had God the Father’s desire on his mind. He had saving dirty rotten sinners on his mind. He never gave up on us, and we are sinners. How could we give up on him? No matter what grief we are going through, if we have Jesus Christ on our minds, we can get through it.
In verse 3, the Bible says , “We esteemed him not.” To esteem means to set a high value on, or to regard with reverence, respect, or friendship. Let’s try harder, from this day on to esteem him. Let’s put a high price on him. Let’s try to value him above anything else in our lives.

Verse 4 says “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. He was smitten of God, and afflicted. Afflicted means a state of pain, distress, or grief. It can also mean to distress with mental or bodily pain.” You know what? Think about this the next time you are going through grief and sorrow in your life. Jesus Christ has already borne that sorrow. He knew ahead of time what grief and sorrow you would have. Hanging on that cross, I’m sure it all went through his mind. And yet he was smitten of God and afflicted because all God saw on his son was the wicked sins of the whole world. God had to turn his back on his own son, because he’s a Holy God, and he cannot look upon sin.

Verse 5 says, “He was wounded for our transgressions.” Transgression means the act of passing over or beyond any law or rule of moral duty; the violation of law or known principal. Transgressor is one who breaks the law or violates any command. Boy, if you think about it, you’ll see that you’re a transgressor everyday. When I break the speed limit, that’s a transgression. The Bible says that we ought to obey the laws of the land. There are so many more ways that we transgress, and we don’t even think about it. Well, Jesus Christ was wounded for all those transgressions that we commit everyday. Every time you disobey, you are breaking a commandment that God put in the Bible. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” You know, you might not like the laws that dad and mom lay down sometimes. Maybe you think they’re ridiculous, and if you disobey this one little law, it won’t matter. But it matters to God. You know, it’s just like all those speed limit signs. I might not like someone telling me how fast I can drive. But it’s the law, and if I break the law, I’ll have to pay a fine. So for all those times you disobey, you need to visualize the Savior being wounded for those transgressions. It doesn’t matter how hard we try to imagine how Jesus Christ looked on that day, our imagination couldn’t even fathom the sight. But we at least need to try to imagine what he went through for us. It might lesson our transgressions a little.

The Bible says in verse 6, that we went astray. We turned to our own way, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. There have been times when I went astray, and I turned to my own way. I wanted to do things my way. I took control of my life. But I found out, when I go astray and go my own way, I just made a mess. I thank God he laid those iniquities on Jesus Christ, because I wouldn’t be able to pay for those sins myself.

Verse 7 says that he went through all of this for us, and never opened his mouth. Oh, if it would have been you or me, we would have probably screamed out , “Why did they transgress, why did they commit that ugly sin, I’m wounded, I’m hurting because of that sin!” There’s no way we could have gone through what Jesus went through and not opened our mouths at one point or another.

Verse 9 says, “He made his grave with the wicked.” Here is God almighty, in the flesh dwelling among sinners, and then he makes his grave with the wicked. What a God! And some Christians, being sinners themselves, can’t even visit a nursing home or even go up to an old smelly bum on the street and shake his hand, and tell him about the one who died to save his soul from hell.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him, it says in verse ten. For my sake, my sin, it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

Verse 12- He did all this to make intersession for the transgressors. The word intercessor means a mediator; one who pleads in behalf of another. Praise God he pleaded for my case. I thank God I can go straight to him with all my cares, with all my trials. I have God almighty as my heavenly Father, thanks to Jesus Christ. He went through all the above, just so we would have a way to get to God the Father. He was born to die for us, and I thank him so very much.