COPYRIGHT WARNING

365 Prophecies: Prophecy 259

The Eternal promise of God that the Soul of the Messiah would redeem all men.

Old Testament Prediction:

Isaiah 53:10b Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You 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.

New Testament Fulfillment:

Matthew 20:28 “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Application:

Isaiah continues his theme of the Messiah’s suffering by informing us that He will not only suffer in His body for the sins of the world but in His innermost being—His very soul.

Some have stated that the suffering that Jesus endured was not as severe because He is God; and therefore, it did not affect Him in the same way that it would a normal man. We must not forget that Jesus, as God, was also fully man. The Bible describes Him as—feeling and suffering the same emotions that all men feel.

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

If we consider the testimony of those who observed Jesus’ torture, we understand that He suffered more than any man has ever suffered. He was bearing the sins of every person who have lived. The night before Jesus was crucified, as He considered “the cup” full of all our sins, His human body experienced a phenomenon that is reserved only for those who are subjected to the most severe moments of stress and anxiety.

Luke 22:44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

The phenomenon of sweating drops of blood is called Hematidrosis. Tiny capillaries in the sweat glands break open and mix blood with sweat in moments of intense stress. For a detailed description of how much Jesus suffered for us while in the body of a man, see The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Isaiah records an amazing prophecy of the Messiah that He will suffer for us in His “Soul.” The seat of our emotions, feelings, and the deepest recesses of who we are as a person, is found in our soul. This indicates that what Jesus went through for us affected Him in the deepest part of His being. He felt every searing sting, for every sin that we have committed.

We should consider that any further sins we commit after we come into this knowledge of Jesus’ suffering are sins that He also had to suffer and die for. If we would meditate on this truth, it may be sufficient to encourage us to sin less, as we love Him more.

Many people do not realize that the salvation of man did not begin at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God planned that His Son should die for the sins of the world, even before He made the heavens and the earth. Those who have lived on the earth before Jesus made His sacrifice for all sins were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. Those who were born after Jesus’ sacrifice, look back to His death on the Cross as the payment for their sins. In the same way, all people for all time are saved by looking to the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross. His death fully exonerated us from all our sins and removed all future judgement.

The first promise of a Savior was given to Adam and Eve, shortly after they sinned and disobeyed God, Prophecy 1.

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

A promise by God that the seed of the woman, the Messiah, will bruise the head (deal a fatal blow) to the serpent (satan). Satan will bruise the heel of the Messiah. An attempt by satan to thwart God’s plan of salvation for us is described as having only the effect of bruising the Messiah’s heel. The death of the Messiah will only be a minor obstacle as three days later, He will raise Himself from the dead, defeating sin and death once and for all.

When Abraham took his son Isaac up on the mountain in obedience to offer his son as a sacrifice, he told Isaac that God Would provide Himself a sacrifice.

Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”

We should understand that everything we discover in these 365 Old Testament Prophecies was in the mind and heart of God from eternity. You were not an afterthought to God. He has contemplated you and known you for millions and millions of millennia. It was because of the joy that Jesus saw before Him, as you would be forgiven for your sins and finally live together with Him in heaven, that He endured the horrors of the cross.

Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus not only made His body an offering for our sins, He surrendered His soul for all the anguish and suffering that we have endured throughout our lives. As sin destroys the beauty and peace that God earnestly desires to give us, Jesus suffered within His innermost being in order to make our joy possible.

How much He loves us!