Pierced for Our Transgressions
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
As a sheep before her shearers, he was silent.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was their any deceit in his mouth...
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. |
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--Isaiah 53.3-9,12
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In Isaiah 53, with clarity and specificity, is a haunting prediction wrapped in exquisite
poetry. Here was the picture of a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of Israel and the world - all
written more than seven hundred years before Jesus walked the earth.
It has been calculated that the chances of Jesus fulfilling just eight prophecies is one chance
in one hundred million billion. Jesus fulfilled 330 specific prophecies pointing to the Messiah. The odds alone say
it would be impossible for anyone to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies. Yet Jesus, and only Jesus - THROUGHOUT
ALL OF HISTORY - managed to do it.
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