Kingdom and Exile: Kings and Prophets

 

He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed. [Isaiah 53:5 NET]

 There are lots of ways I could approach today’s SOAP verse, in fact it took me two days to settle on where I wanted to go with it. There is SO MUCH in Isaiah 53, and I think this was the first time I had read it in the NET version. What made it different? The language used in this translation was more in line with the physical than the emotional or spiritual. For example, in Isaiah 53:3 most versions say, “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” The NIV takes a slightly different approach and says, “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain,” but the NET goes further in this ‘physical’ direction saying, “one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness.” Now that’s an aspect of Jesus that I had never heard nor considered. Yes, of course I know He experienced great pain leading up to and during His crucifixion, but beyond that I guess I always assumed Jesus led a healthy, pain-free life. And maybe He did. Maybe this translation just took a direction that wasn’t intended by the original author. I don’t know. What I do see here is a point of association. Jesus gets me. He knows my pain, He knows my struggles, He gets it because He felt it. Somehow that makes me feel better, less alone.

 Then we go on to read in Isaiah 53:5, “he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.” These are triggering words for me, ‘well’ and ‘healed.’ So many times people have prayed this over me and I have only continued to get worse. Oh, how I’ve wrestled with this! Is it some unconfessed sin that keeps me unwell? Am I walking apart from God’s will? Or maybe this is all for His glory and my suffering has a greater purpose? In any case, the last thing I feel is well and healed! But here’s the thing, this is a prophecy given to Isaiah by God about 700 years before Jesus even came! Isaiah was talking about a future healing, and perhaps for me that is the case as well. Maybe I will not see my healing until I receive my perfect, heavenly body. Oh, the things I will do!!!!! Cartwheels and dancing and RUNNING! I love to run, but I just can’t – it destroys me. But in my heavenly body, I will run everywhere!! In any case, I don’t think I’ve yet found peace with my present because when I read, “he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed,” I feel jipped. I feel like we are all standing in line for a promised gift and I got skipped over. I know deep down in my heart that isn’t true, but I’m being real here with you. That’s how I feel.

 All that aside, today’s study wasn’t supposed to be a deep dive into Isaiah 53, the point was to reflect on the period of time where kings ruled Israel and prophets brought God’s Word. In this study, From Beginning to Forever, we’re looking at “God’s covenants and sovereign faithfulness from beginning to end.” During this season in the history of the world, people didn’t typically have a personal relationship with God. You couldn’t just sit in your living room and talk to the Holy Spirit like we can today. They couldn’t just confess their sins to God and seek His forgiveness to be healed and washed clean as we can today thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice for us. No, in those days, when (not if) you did something wrong you had to go all the way to the temple – sometimes a multi-day journey – and sacrifice an animal to atone for the sin. Then, odds are you’d sin again on your way home 😬! In order to communicate with God you needed an intermediary, a priest, who would bring your situation to God and then come back and tell you what He said. And not all of these priests were good guys. Some of them were more interested in lining their pockets than helping you get right with God. Praise Jesus that things are different today! I am so thankful that I can, and do, come to God wherever I’m at, whatever my needs and desires are, and know that He hears me, and cares! When I see something amazing that He’s made, I can tell Him right then and there how incredible He is and how much I love seeing His handiwork. Back to the Israelites, I think so much of what they went through was to teach humanity about our need for a Savior. How would we know how wonderful it is to be able to talk to God personally if it had always been that way? How would we know about our sin if we hadn’t been given the law? How would we know we couldn’t achieve perfection and righteousness on our own if we hadn’t given it generations of tries and effort? I’m so thankful that even in the midst of this, God sent the prophets, like Isaiah, to point the people to Him and warn them about the ramifications of their choices. And how cool that He gave so many prophecies about Jesus, the Messiah, that lined up perfectly! This whole chapter of Isaiah 53, and I highly recommend that you read it, breaks down Jesus’ life and ministry in such detail that I don’t think anyone else could possibly have fulfilled it. God showed His love for us and sovereign faithfulness to us so much both through making promises through His prophets and then fulfilling them perfectly.

Here's the Thing: Nope, I’m not physically healed yet, but in some ways I believe that I am. God made us in His image (Genesis 1:27) and He is outside of time. I believe that, somehow outside of my present understanding, I exist eternally with Him outside of time as well (Ephesians 2:6). That’s a subject for another post, but I believe that in that plane of existence I am fully healed and whole. In this bubble of linear existence, I feel pain, and my pain is real, but it is not all of me. Ok, that got way too existential and forgive me if I blew your mind or made you contemplate my sanity 😂.