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INTRODUCTION

      Luke sums up the mission of Jesus Christ in one quote, "For the Son of
Man came to seek and to save what was lost. "  By studying Messianic prophecy
one is able to see in particular what Christ's purposes were - just how
indeed He sought and saved that which was lost.  By comparing these details
to the record of His life as found in the four gospels, one gets a clear idea
of Jesus' mission, and what the response to this should be.

ISAIAH'S SERVANT SONG

      Undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable prophecies concerning the
promised Messiah was uttered by Isaiah, in his fourth servant song, in
particular the section which states:

    Surely he took up our infirmities
       and carried our sorrows,
    yet we considered him stricken by God,
       smitten by him, 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,
       and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
       so he did not open his mouth.
    By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.
       And 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 any deceit in his mouth.

    Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to
        suffer,
       and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
    he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
       and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
    After the suffering of his soul,
       he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
    by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
       and he will bear their iniquities.
    Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
       and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
    because he poured out his life unto death,
       and was numbered with the transgressors.
    For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
        transgressors.

      Firstly, however, it must be demonstrated that this passage is
predictive of the promised Messiah, for there are other interpretations in
current usage .  Gerald Sigal is quoted by Ankerberg et. al. as saying, "What
Jews find even more amazing and mystifying is how any person who studies this
chapter critically can possible believe it alludes to Jesus. . . . Isaiah 53
speaks of the nation of Israel. . . . "  Certainly, Ringgren, in line with
his theory that Messianism is simply king ideology, sees this passage as
concerning the relationship of Israel to the world .  Bentzen describes the
interpretation of this passage as "less soluble than most" but asserts that
"It is doubtful whether they [scholars] will ever arrive at the answer of the
Church. "  Still others believe that Isaiah is actually referring to himself .
It is surmised by some that the Ethiopian eunuch learned this interpretation
from Jerusalem rabbis when asking Philip, "Tell me, of whom does the prophet
speak? Of himself, or of somebody else? "

      These interpretations are incorrect.  The suffering servant "had done
no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. "  Yet, Isaiah said, "I
am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. "
Similarly, Isaiah confessed on behalf of Israel, "Our offenses are many in
your sight, and our sins testify against us. "  Finally, Isaiah 53:8 states,
"For the transgression of my people, he was stricken." The "my people" can
only refer to Israel, thus "the servant" cannot.  Similarly,

    Throughout this passage, the Servant is portrayed as an
    individual.  It speaks of what He has done; how He was
    despised; how He was rejected, and how the Lord laid on
    Him the iniquity of us all.  All of this the Servant did
    on behalf of "My people."

      This passage speaks of the Messiah.  This is the view applied in some
of the Targums's and Midrash's .  Ankerberg et. al. mention many Jewish
scholars who see this passage as Messianic .  In fact, many early Rabbis
conceived of two Messiahs in order to resolve this passage with their
expectancy of a triumphant and victorious Messiah .  Scholem elaborates, "The
Messiah ben Joseph is the dying Messiah who perishes in the Messianic
catastrophe. . . . By contrast. . . . all of the utopian interest is
concentrated on the Messiah ben David. "  Manson demonstrates another
Rabbinic explanation for the suffering Messiah which involves the Aramaic
text of the Targum on Isaiah 53.  In this, verse eight is rendered such,

    Out of chastisements and punishments he will bring our
    captives near; the wondrous things done to us in his days
    who shall be able to tell? for he will cause the dominion
    of the Gentiles to pass away from the land of Israel, and
    transfer to them the sins which my people have
    committed.

Of course, Manson's comments are the obvious,

    It would scarcely be possible to conceive a more complete
    perversion of the whole central idea of the Hebrew
    prophet's vision than is here revealed in the Targum.  The
    latter recognises that the Servant is the Messiah, but
    deliberately contorts everything in Isa. liii. into
    conformity with the worst excesses of Jewish nationalistic
    doctrine. . . . In place of the prophet's "He was cut off
    from the land of the living: for the transgression of my
    people was he stricken," the Targum indulges the sadistic
    reflection that the Messiah, in freeing Israel at last
    from the dominion of the Gentiles, will transfer to them
    the sins which Israel has committed - a new doctrine of
    vicarious atonement!

      Thus, having confidence that this prophecy refers to the promised
Messiah, we can immediately see Jesus' purposes.  The Messiah would rise from
obscurity and humiliation and be exalted high above all others.  This
humiliation would be so devastating that He would be grossly disfigured and
considered to have been rejected and smitten by God.  He would be despised.
Indeed, this is what had happened to Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the
four gospels.  Yet this was all for a purpose.  As Smith states, "His
suffering would be on behalf of others.  At least twelve times in this
[verses 4-6] and the next three verses Isaiah emphasizes that the Servant's
sufferings were vicarious.  He suffered to save men from the terrible
consequences of sin. " And indeed, the consequences of sin are terrible.
James Strong defines the Hebrew word for grief (ykx, choliy) in verse four
as a malady, or a calamity .  Similarly, the Hebrew word for sorrows
(hbakvn, makobah) is defined as anguish and afflictions, grief and pain .
Anyone would be deceiving themselves to think that Christ's sufferings were
'sad' - they were inconceivable sufferings - He was rather the man of
sorrows, acquainted with grief (verse 3), indeed He was "cut off from the
land of the living."  It is important to note, however, that the Messiah is
not, and does not become, a sinner, so that He might remove sin - rather, He
removes the consequences of sin, as seen by the verbs borne (asn, nasa, to
lift or carry away ) and carried (lbc, cabal, to bear a burden ) in verse
four.  This He has done only be bearing them himself.

      Further, Jesus' sufferings were substitutionary.  "Our transgression,
our iniquities demanded the death penalty from the eternal Judge.  He
absorbed the punishment rightfully due us. "

      His sufferings were redemptive - Isaiah refers to them as chastisement.
All have sinned - and fallen short of the glory of God  - and the wages of
sin is death , the Scriptures declare.  Yet, "He himself bore our sins in his
body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by
his wounds you have been healed.  For you were like sheep going astray, but
now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. "  By His
sufferings, Jesus has reconciled us to God - the Son is the propitiation for
our sins .

      His sufferings were essential.  Like sheep, mankind had strayed away
from God.  As the straying is a metaphor for sin, the danger comes from God
Himself - who must punish sin.  Thus, "the human need triggers the divine
action " - the Father lays upon the Messiah the punishment for iniquity of us
all.  As Peter said so long ago, "Salvation is found in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. "

      Finally, His sufferings were acceptable.  In spite of His innocence, it
pleased God to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, because "a guilt offering
had thereby been offered before God.  This would make possible the redemption
of the fallen sons of Adam. "

      Dr. Walter Kaiser summarises the relevance of this prophecy thus:

    Men would reject the Servant's message (53:1), His person
    (verse 2), and His mission (verse 3).  But His vicarious
    suffering would effect an atonement between God and man
    (verses 4-6); and though He would submit to suffering
    (verse 7), death (verse 8), and burial (verse 9), He would
    subsequently be raised to life, exalted and richly
    rewarded (verses 10-12).

THE PROTOEVANGELIUM

      When declaring His punishments upon the actors in the Garden of Eden,
God declared to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will
strike his heel. "  Whereas it is true that the full meaning of this
prophetic statement would not have been known until after Adam and Eve's
time, this is still a meaningful Messianic prophecy.  Smith states of it,

    All subsequent Messianic promises are but amplifications
    of that which is implicit here.  The verse is commonly
    called the protoevangelium (first Gospel).  Here in embryo
    state is the whole of God's program for the human race.

      Of course, as with all Messianic prophecy, indeed any supernatural
aspect of God's revelations, this verse has its critics.  Smith lists several
scholars who see in this verse nothing more than an explanation of why people
hate snakes .  Mowinckel is another, stating further that "there is no
allusion here to the Devil or to Christ" .  Edersheim, however, mentions
several Targums which describe it as Messianic .  Ankerberg et. al. quote
Martin, a scholar who determined the earliest pre-Christian interpretation of
this verse and "demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, on philological
grounds, that the Jewish community - at least the one in Alexandria -
understood this to be Messianic and this well in advance of the birth of
Christ. "  This has also been the Christian viewpoint since early in Church
history .

      The Apostle John declared, "For this purpose the Son of God was
manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil " and this is the
very purpose described in this Messianic foregleam.  Smith refers to a
"paramount battle" - "A terrible battle between the satanic Serpent and the
Saviour is implied in this verse.  The outcome of that battle, however, was
not in doubt.  The promised Saviour would crush the head of satanic
Serpent. "  Shortly before offering Himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the
world, Jesus said, "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince
of this world be cast down. "  Indeed the reign of Satan came to an end with
the victorious death, resurrection and ascension of Christ - "And having
spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly triumphing
over them in it. "  The second part of the prophecy is explained by Smith:

    Satanic serpent would not go down without a bitter
    struggle.  He would crush the heel of the Savior.
    As a reptile writhes and twists and sinks his fangs into
    his adversary, so satanic Serpent tries to defend himself
    against the deadly tread of mankind's Savior.  Here the
    important point is that the victory over satanic Serpent
    would be accompanied by, if not accomplished through, the
    suffering of the Savior.

      Ankerberg et. al. summarise the passage thus,

    God says there will be, first of all, conflict that takes
    place and reaches into the future.  The conflict will
    result from enmity (hatred) between Satan and the woman.
    Second, this hatred will extend to Satan's seed and the
    woman's seed.  Third, someday the woman's seed, One
    specifically - a "he" - will victoriously defeat Satan by
    bruising his head; yet Satan will bruise his heel.

THE BLESSING THROUGH ABRAHAM'S SEED

      On several accounts, God spoke to Abraham, saying variously, "I will
bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. . . . and in
you shall all families of the earth be blessed ", and "And in your seed shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed. "  Smith makes an important
distinction between the usage of the word "blessed" in these passages.  In
the second verse, the Hithpael form is used, a Hebrew reflexive verbal form.
Smith explains,

    Genesis 22:18 and 26:4 are not to be interpreted as a
    salutation with which people would greet each other in the
    future (e.g., May the Lord bless you as he blessed
    Abraham).  The basic idea conveyed by this form is that
    the nations would regard themselves as blessed in the seed
    of Abraham.  They would realize how fortunate they were to
    have some association with this seed.

      Similarly, the Niphal form is most naturally rendered in English in the
passive voice, and is used in Genesis 12:3; 18:18 and 28:14.  Again, Smith
explains,

    The notion is not that the nations will be blessed as
    Abraham was blessed.  Rather, the idea is that the nations
    will, as a matter of fact, be blessed in or through
   Abraham.

      This blessing was to come through Abraham's seed.  Regarding the
meaning of "seed", Smith points out that:

    The promise made to Abram cannot refer to all the seed of
    the Patriarch taken collectively.  There is no sense in
    which Abram's son by Hagar or his sons by Keturah have
    been a blessing to all the families of the earth.  On any
    supposition, therefore, there must have been some
    limitation of the promise; or the word seed was intended
    to include only some portion of his descendants.  Seed
    must have referred to a part only of the posterity of
    Abram, but to what part can be determined only by
    subsequent revelation.

Indeed, the apostle Paul saw significance in the fact that the promise was
made to Abraham's seed (singular), and not his seeds (plural), saying "Now to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made.  He does not say, And to seeds,
as of many; but as of one, And to your seed which is Christ. "  This seed
then, this individual, of whom God spoke about in the promise was the
Messiah.  Abraham's destiny was to be a blessing to all nations, and that
could only be fulfilled in his descendant, Christ.  Hence, part of Christ's
purposes were, in some way, to be a blessing.  In fact, the full scope of
this blessing granted to mankind may only be ascertained from a study of the
New Testament , which gives five overlapping areas.

      Firstly, the Christ was born.  John the Baptist's father, Zacharias,
related this to the promise when he uttered the words, "Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel for he. . . . has raised up an horn of salvation for us in the
house of his servant David. . . . to remember his holy covenant, the oath
which he sware to our father Abraham. . . . "

      Secondly, Jesus was resurrected.  Paul makes this connection, saying,
"And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise was made unto the
fathers, God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he has
raised up Jesus again. . . . "

      Thirdly sinners are converted.  Peter preached that the blessing
offered by Jesus was the very blessing in the well-known promise to Abraham,
saying, "You are the children of the prophets and of the covenant made with
our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in you seed shall all kindreds of the
earth be blessed.  Unto you first, God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent
him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. "

      Fourthly, and chiefly, mankind may be justified by faith.  Paul
actually equates the Abrahamic blessing with "the gospel", "And the
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith,
preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In you shall all nations be
blessed. "

      Fifthly, and finally, the Holy Spirit may be given.  Paul goes on to
state, "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus
Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. "

      Truly Jesus spoke when He said, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he
saw it, and was glad. "

CONCLUSION

      By appealing to but three of the Messianic prophecies contained in the
Old Testament, one finds a clear picture of the purposes of Jesus of
Nazareth, the Christ.  Truly He came "to seek and save what was lost. "  He
"did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom
for many. "  Indeed, He has "freed us from our sins by his blood " and now
"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven
given to men by which we must be saved. "


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ankerberg, John, John Weldon and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. The
     Case for Jesus The Messiah. Melbourne: Pacific College
     Study Series, 1994.

Becker, Joachim. Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament.
     Translated by David Green. Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
     1980.

Bentzen, Aage. King And Messiah. 2d ed. Edited by G.W.
     Anderson. London: Lutterworth Press, 1970.

Bruce, F. F., ed. The Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Vol. 2,
     Messiah, by J. A. Motyer. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,
     1980.

Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah.
     Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993.

Manson, William. Jesus The Messiah. London: Hodder and
     Stoughton, 1943.

Mowinckel, Samuel. He That Cometh. Translated by G.W.
     Anderson. New York: Abingdon Press, 1954

Ringgren, Helmer. The Messiah in the Old Testament. London:
     SCM Press Ltd., 1956.

Scholem, Gershom. The Messianic Idea in Judaism. London:
     George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1971.

Smith, James. The Promised Messiah. Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
     1993.

Zodhiates, Spiros. The Complete Word Study Old Testament.
     Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1994.


REFERENCES

         Luke 19:10.
         Isaiah 53:4-12, New International Version.
         Of course, the New Testament supports this claim, applying it to
Christ in many passages.  However, such evidence is insufficient for those
who deny the inspiration of the Scriptures.
         John Ankerberg, John Walter and John Kaiser, The Case for Jesus
the Messiah (Melbourne: Pacific College Study Series, 1994), 109.
         Helmer Ringgren, The Messiah in the Old Testament (London: SCM
Press Ltd., 1956), 66.
         Aage Bentzen, King and Messiah, edited by G.W. Anderson, 2d. ed.
(London: Lutterworth Press, 1970), 48.
         Ankerberg et. al., op. cit., 52-53.
         Acts 8:30-35.
         Isaiah 53:9-10.
         Isaiah 6:5.
         Isaiah 59:12.
         Ankerbeg et. al., op. cit., 54.
         Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah
(Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993), 997-998.
         Ankerbeg et. al., op. cit., 57-60.
         Ibid.
         Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1971), 18.
         William Manson, Jesus the Messiah (London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1943), 169.
         Idem, 170.
         James Smith, The Promised Messiah (Nashville: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1993), 311.
         Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, s.v. 2483.
         Idem, s.v. 4341.
         Idem, s.v. 5375.
         Idem, s.v. 5345.
         Smith, op. cit., 312.
         Romans 3:23.
         Romans 6:23.
         I Peter 2:24-25.
         I John 4:10.
         Smith, op. cit., 314.
         Acts 4:12, emphasis added.
         Smith, op. cit., 316.
         Ankerberg et. al., op. cit., 52, emphasis added.
         Genesis 3:15.
         Smith, op. cit., 38.
         Idem, 39.
         Samuel Mowinckel, He That Cometh, translated by G.W. Anderson
(New York: Abingdon Press, 1954), 11.
         Edersheim, op. cit., 981.
         Ankerberg et. al., op. cit., 109.
         Smith, op. cit., 38.
         I John 3:8.
         Smith, op. cit., 42.
         John 12:31.
         Colossians 2:15.
         Smith, op. cit., 42.
         Ankerberg et. al., op. cit., 23, emphasis added.
         Genesis 12:2-3.
         Genesis 22:18.
         Smith, op. cit., 49.
         Ibid.
         Idem, 51.
         Galatians 3:16.
         Smith, op. cit., 52-54.
         Luke 1:68-75.
         Acts 13:32-33.
         Acts 3:25-26.
         Galatians 3:8.
         Galatians 3:14.
         John 8:56.
         Luke 19:10.
         Mark 10:45.
         Revelation 1:5.
         Acts 4:12.

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