- Isaiah prophesied that Jesus Christ would be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb of God.
Prophesied: ISA 53:7.
Fulfilled: 1CO 5:7, 1PE 1:18-20
I am going to use the NASB translation as well as my dad’s translation from his notes.
Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:2 For He grew up before Him like a tender [a]shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we would look at Him,
Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.
Isaiah 53:4 However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
Isaiah 53:5 But He was [c]pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our [d]well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:6 All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all
To [e]fall on Him.
Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
Isaiah 53:8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off from the land of the [f]living
For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?
Isaiah 53:9 And His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
“This chapter foretells the sufferings of the Messiah, the end for which he was to die, and the advantages resulting to mankind from that illustrious event…. This chapter contains a beautiful summary of the most peculiar and distinguishing doctrines of Christianity.” (Clarke)
We are going to look at this passage in 3 sections, first section will be:
All of these passages describes the atoning suffering of the Servant of the Lord. Keep in mind that at this time the prophet Isaiah didn’t know that Jesus was going to be the Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are going to show you that at the end of this message.
The prophet Isaiah was inspired by God the Holy Spirit to write down what the Jews were to expect of the Christ, and to show us that Jesus is the Christ. And his message is very clear.
Let’s begin with Isaiah 53:1 the first part:
Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message?
Prophetically, Isaiah anticipates at least two things here.
First, he 1. Isaiah anticipates how strange and contradictory it seems that this suffering Messiah, whose demeaner is marred (impaired) more than any man, is at the same time salvation and cleansing to the nations.
Second, he 2. Isaiah anticipates the rejection of the Messiah, that many would not believe our message.
Then in the next part of verse 1
Isaiah 53:1… To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
In this context of the Messiah’s suffering and agony, this line seems out of place.
The arm of the Lord is a picture of His strength, power, and might.
Yet we will see a Messiah weak and suffering.
But The strength, power, and might of God will be expressed in the midst of this suffering, seemingly weak Messiah.
Then in verse 2:
ISA 53:2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
The first part of vs. 2:
Isaiah 53:2 He shall grow up before Him as a tender shoot,..
Jesus did grow up, as He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52).
LUK 2:52 And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people.
But all the while, He was as a tender plant – of seeming weakness and insignificance, not like a mighty tree.
A tender plant is weak and vulnerable – unless it is before Him, that is, before the Lord our God.
In God’s presence, that which seems to be weak is strong.
If the plant is before Him, it doesn’t even matter that the ground is dry.
God will sustain it with His presence.
God will sustain you and I with His presence.
Isaiah 53:2 …As a root out of dry ground;
Jesus grew up in the Galilee region of Roman occupied Palestine.
In respect to spiritual, political, and standard of living matters, it was indeed dry ground.
The apostle John even shares some enlightenment on this:
JOH 1:46 And Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."
God can bring the most wonderful things out of dry ground.
It was Charles Spurgeon who said:
“Do not say, ‘It is useless to preach down there, or to send missionaries to that uncivilized country.’
How do you know?
Is it very dry ground?
Ah, well, that is hopeful soil;
Christ is a ‘root out of a dry ground,’ and the more there is to discourage the more you should be encouraged. (Spurgeon)
Read it the other way.
Is it dark?
Then all is fair for a grand show of light; the light will never seem so bright as when the night is very very dark.” (Spurgeon)
The last part of vs 2:
Isaiah 53:2… He has no form or majesty…no beauty that we should desire Him. …No appearance that we should be attracted to Him
Prophetically, Isaiah gives a more compelling description of Jesus than we find anywhere in the gospel accounts.
Actually when we get into our 7th Prophecy with Isaiah 50, we are going to look at our Lord in one of the most descriptive ways I have ever seen Him.
And I can’t wait to get into that part because it really brought me to a much more intimate view of our Lord Jesus Christ like never before…
Isaiah 53:2 is showing us that Jesus was not a man of remarkable beauty or physical attractiveness (comeliness).
This doesn’t mean that Jesus was ugly, but it does mean that He did not have the “advantage” of good looks.
Always remember that principle though in
1 Samuel 16:7 …for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
What this means is that when we try to attract people to Jesus through form or majesty, or beauty, we are using methods that run counter to the nature of Jesus.
We don’t need to dress up the gospel to make it attractive.
The only One who can make you me or even the gospel attractive is the Holy Spirit.
ISA 53:3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
The first part:
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;…
Jesus was not a “life of the party” man.
Although, it would be wrong to think of Him as perpetually sad and gloomy.
Indeed, He certainly showed great joy for example in Luke 10:21.
LUK 10:21 At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for doing so was well pleasing in Your sight. Amen to that!
Yet He knew sorrow and grief so intimately that He could be called “a Man of sorrows”.
This, among other reasons, made Him despised and rejected by men.
Most of our sorrow is really just self-pity.
It is feeling sorry for ourselves.
This was not the case with our Lord, however.
Jesus never once felt sorry for Himself.
As we saw recently in the gospel of John when He became agitated:
His sorrow was for others, and for the fallen, desperate condition of humanity.
Notice that in:
Isaiah 53:3… “He was also ‘a man of sorrows,’
For the variety of His woes; He was a Man not only of sorrow, but of ‘sorrows.’
All the sufferings of the body and of the soul were known to Him, our Lord;
the sorrows of the man who actively struggles to obey;
the sorrows of the man who sits still, and passively endures. The sorrows of the lofty He knew, for He was the King of Israel;
the sorrows of the poor He knew, for He ‘had no where to lay His head.’
Sorrows relative, and sorrows personal; sorrows mental, and sorrows spiritual; (Spurgeon)
In 1 Timothy 3, the bible tells us that one of the requirements for leaders in the church is that they be sober-minded.
This word is used to describe the person who is able to think clearly and with clarity.
They do not constantly joke but know how to deal with serious subjects in a serious way.
It doesn’t mean solemn and somber, but it does mean an appropriate seriousness. --- Especially when dealing with the Word of God.
Isaiah 53:3 goes on to say:
Isaiah 53:3… And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. One version says “we had no regard for Him”.
This is a really good principle:
Because there was nothing outwardly beautiful or charismatic about the Messiah, mankind’s reaction was to withdraw from Him, to despise Him, and hold Him in low esteem. Or to have no regard for Him at all.
What this shows us is that:
People value physical beauty and charisma far more than God does, and when we don’t see it, we can reject the ones God accepts.
We have to be careful not to fall into this trap of rejecting those God places in our lives for our benefit and sadly we end up missing out…
Lets look at the 2nd part (section) of our passage:
Isaiah 53:4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried …
At this point, the prophet Isaiah does not have in mind the way the Messiah took “our guilt and God’s wrath” upon Himself.
Here, instead Isaiah has in view how the Messiah took “our pain” upon Himself.
This is a good principle to remember when we are dealing with pain or grief.
Speaking of our Lord here:
He made our griefs His own, and our sorrows as if they were His.
The image is that He loaded them up and carried them on His back, so that we wouldn’t have to. Really we tend to forget that part: so we wouldn’t have to.
How many of us carry around pain – griefs and sorrows – that Jesus really carried for us?
He took them from us, but for it to do us any good, we must release them… right???
God wants us to hand over our problems to Him!
When we don’t hand over our problems to God, we are in effect saying that His Son didn’t do enough work, or He didn’t do it right… and we can end up falling into the trap of arrogance here.
I love what Peter says in 1 Peter 2:23 and we are going to see some more of this from Peter throughout this message but he puts it like this in verse 23 of 1 Peter chapter 2:
1PE 2:23 and while being abusively insulted, He did not insult in return; while suffering, He did not threaten, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;
This also shows us the strength of our Lord, true strength that is the arm of the Lord.
In this verse, Peter builds on the theme of previous verses.
Christians are called to suffer for doing good because we follow in the steps of Jesus.
He endured extreme suffering while being completely innocent.
He serves as our example of how to live the Christian way of life even when we are being mistreated though guiltless.
This verse explains how the innocent Christ responded when He was victimized.
One version says “to be reviled” and that is “to be abusively insulted”.
Our human instinct is to throw insults back.
Jesus refused to retaliate to the angry insults of Jewish religious leaders, the Roman guards, or those taunting Him while He was on the cross.
More, when physically attacked, beaten, tortured, and crucified, He refused even to threaten those who were hurting Him.
And Jesus would not have had to rely on bluffs, or empty threats, of course.
After Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant in a foolish attempt to defend Jesus from being arrested, Jesus said to him, "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53).
Instead, Jesus exercised great self-control.
He resisted any urge to retaliate, insult, or even rightly describe the coming judgment of God.
How did He do it?
It wasn't just self-control.
Jesus made a choice in the moment to trust God, His Father, to be the perfect judge at the perfect time.
He trusted that His Father would vindicate Him, would execute justice, would provide all that was needed.
So Jesus was free to fulfill His purpose and not make justice for Himself.
Moving along Isaiah 53:4 … Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Curiously, this estimation was accurate.
Certainly, the Messiah was stricken.
He was smitten by God.
He was afflicted.
The problem was not in seeing these things, but in only seeing these things.
Man saw the suffering Jesus but didn’t understand the reasons why.
Isaiah 53:5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well being fell upon Him,
And I want to show the KJV here as well:
Isaiah 53:5, KJV: "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed."
Yes, the Messiah was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But now, the prophet explains why.
It was for us – for our transgressions…for our iniquities.
It was in our place that the Messiah suffered.
Wounded is literally “pierced through.”
Isaiah 53:5…And by His stripes we are healed.
Here, the prophet Isaiah sees through the centuries to know that the Messiah would be beaten with many stripes (Mark 15:15).
More so, the prophet announces that:
That provision for healing is found in the suffering of Jesus, so by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
Because there has been much debate as to if Isaiah had in mind spiritual healing or physical healing we decided to look into that in more detail.
As this passage is quoted in the New Testament, we see some more of the thought.
In Matthew 8:16-17, the view seems to be of physical healing.
MAT 8:16 Now when evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.
Then in verse 17:
MAT 8:17 This happened so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled: “He Himself took our illnesses and carried away our diseases.”
Matthew 8:16 describes an evening of healing and casting out demons at Peter's house in Capernaum (Matthew 8:16).
Jesus welcomed all who needed help in either of these ways and took care of their issue in a moment.
Now in verse 17, Matthew points to this evening, along with all the other healing Jesus did during His ministry on earth, as the fulfilment of this specific prophecy found in Isaiah 53:4.
Matthew quotes that verse in this way, “He Himself took our illnesses and carried away our diseases.”
Matthew's primary audience for this gospel is the nation of Israel.
Points such as this are meant to tell Jewish people, in particular, that Jesus truly is the Messiah.
Other portions of Isaiah chapter 53 describe the suffering Messiah would experience as part of His ministry (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24; Mark 10:33).
In His eager willingness to heal all in Israel who were sick and to cast out their demons, Jesus demonstrated the compassionate nature of God and showed that He came to serve Israel, even as her King.
Then In 1 Peter 2:24-25, the view seems to be of spiritual healing.
1PE 2:24 and He Himself brought our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you were healed.
We just noted how in the previous verse, 1 Peter 2:23, Peter described Jesus' refusal to retaliate against those who mistreated Him.
Jesus chose this path because He trusted the Father to be the just judge, to make all things right.
Jesus suffered for doing good, without fighting back, so He could fulfill His purpose.
Verse 24 describes exactly what that purpose was.
If Jesus had not willingly endured unjust suffering, we would have remained lost in our sin.
Instead, Jesus bore, or "carried," our sins on the cross.
He actually died in order to pay the penalty for our sinful actions.
He became our substitute, dying the death we deserved.
God, the one who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23) judged Christ for our sin in that moment, pouring out His wrath on His own Son to satisfy the payment for our sin.
He endured suffering so we could die to sin.
In that action, by God's grace and through our faith in Christ, we have been freed. Freed of what?
Believers are free from the price of our own sin, and from the power of sin to poison our choices.
Now, thanks to Jesus' suffering, --- Christians can live righteously. That is freeing!
We don't have to sin; we are free to make right choices that please and honor our God (1 Corinthians 10:13), and when we do sin all we have to do is name and cite it and He is faithful and righteous to forgive us (1 John 1:9)
Of course, there is a fine balance - we should always try to avoid becoming arrogant or careless about our standing in Christ, especially when we consider what He went through on the cross.
1 Peter 2:24 ends by quoting our familiar verse Isaiah 53:5, a profound play on words.
As Christians, we have been healed from the penalty and power of our sin by Christ's wounds, by His death in our place, by His suffering for our good.
The wounds—the suffering—of Jesus are the means by which Christians are healed—forgiven by God for our sins.
This reference is not about physical conditions, but our spiritual destiny.
Through faith in Christ, we have been healed by His wounds.
Then in:
1PE 2:25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
In this verse, Peter again references Isaiah 53 to make the point that we were not asking to be healed.
Instead, we were moving away from God like wandering sheep.
As Paul writes in Romans 5:10, we were still God's enemies when Christ died for us.
Now, though, those who trust in Christ have turned around.
The innocent Shepherd endured unjust suffering, without retaliation, to make it possible for us to come back to Him.
The One who died on the cross for us now oversees our very souls.
Christians now acknowledge Him as our leader and final authority.
We are secure as members of His flock.
So, we can safely say that
God has both aspects of healing in view, and both our physical (Matthew 8:16-17) and spiritual healing (1 Peter 2:24-25) is provided for by the suffering of Jesus.
However, some have taken this to mean that every believer has the right – the promise – to perfect health right now, and if there is any lack of health, it is simply because this promise has not been claimed in faith. This is not true!
In this thinking, great stress is laid upon the past tense of this phrase – by His stripes we are healed.
The idea is that since it is in the past tense, perfect health is God’s promise and provision for every Christian at this very moment, even as the believer has the promise to perfect forgiveness and salvation at this moment.
The problem of this view – not even counting how it terribly contradicts the personal experience of O.T. saints in the Bible and through history – is that It (this incorrect view) misunderstands the “verb tense” of both salvation and healing.
We can say without reservation that Perfect, total, complete healing is God’s promise to every believer in Jesus Christ, paid for by His stripes and the totality of His work for us.
But we must also say that It is not promised to every believer right now, just as the totality of our salvation is not promised to us right now.
The Bible says that we have been saved (Ephesians 2:8), that we are being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18), and that we will be saved (1 Corinthians 3:15).
Even so, there is a sense in which --- we have been healed, are being healed, and one day will be healed.
God’s ultimate healing is called “resurrection,” and it is a glorious promise to every believer.
Every “patch-up” healing in this present age simply anticipates the ultimate healing that will come.
Basically we have a taste of that healing…
What Christians must not do is foolishly “claim” to be healed, despite “mere symptoms” that say otherwise, and believe they are standing on the promise of Isaiah 53:5.
What Christians must do is pray boldly and trust God’s goodness and mercy in granting gifts of healing now, even before the ultimate healing of resurrection.
Again:
What Christians must not do is foolishly “claim” to be healed, despite “mere symptoms” that say otherwise, and believe they are standing on the promise of Isaiah 53:5.
What Christians must do is pray boldly and trust God’s goodness and mercy in granting gifts of healing now, even before the ultimate healing of resurrection.
Prayer works but you have to pray in order for your prayer to be heard and they have to be according to His will, not ours.
Think of it like this, don’t just assume someone else is going to pray for you or a certain situation, we must pray and ask God ourselves.
That last part of verse 5: Isaiah 53:5… And by His scourging we are healed.
Or as another translation puts it “With his stripes we are healed.”
Will you notice that fact?
The healing of a sinner does not lie in himself, nor in what he is, nor in what he feels, nor in what he does, nor in what he vows, nor in what he promises.
It is not in himself at all; But there at Golgotha, where the place of a skull beholds the agonies of Christ.
It is in His stripes that the healing lies.
Next we have Isaiah 53:6
Isaiah 53:6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way;
Here the prophet
Isaiah describes our need for the Messiah’s atoning work.
Sheep are stupid, headstrong animals, and we, like they, have gone astray.
We have turned – against God’s way, every one, to his own way.
Even today, we mentioned it on Sunday, believers are not executing the spiritual life.
Many believers today are wrapped up in who is right and who is wrong and we lose focus on what is important and that is living the spiritual life, your own spiritual life and not others.
We all have our own way of sin.
The constant temptation is to condemn your way of sin, and to justify my way of sin.
But each way that is our own way instead of the Lord’s way is a sinful, destructive, damned way.
This falls under the principle of a right thing must be done in a right way…
Then Isaiah 53:6…But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
Here we see the partnership between the Father and the Son in the work on the cross.
If the Messiah was wounded for our transgressions, then it was also the Lord who laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
The Father judged our iniquity as it was laid on the Son.
And now here we see our prophesy
- Isaiah prophesied that Jesus Christ would be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb of God.
Prophesied: ISA 53:7.
Fulfilled: 1CO 5:7, 1PE 1:18-20
This is our 3rd and last section of our 7th prophesy.
Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth;...
This is where we see the arm of the Lord in action, His strength --- by simply not taking any action and allowing God’s will to be done.
Despite the pain and the suffering of the Messiah, He never opened…His mouth to defend Himself.
He was silent before His accusers (Mark 15:2-5), never speaking to defend Himself, only to glorify God.
Isaiah 53:7… Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.
The prophet Isaiah repeats His previous point, that the Messiah will suffer without speaking to defend Himself.
When Isaiah uses the phrase, He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, we should not take this as indicating that Jesus was a helpless victim of circumstances and was helpless as a lamb.
Quite the contrary; Even in His suffering and death, Jesus was in control (John 10:18, 19:11 and 19:30).
Isaiah’s point is that Jesus was silent, not helpless.
Quoting Charles Spurgeon: “If I were to die for any one of you, what would it amount to but that I paid the debt of nature a little sooner than I must ultimately have paid it?
For we must all die, sooner or later.
But the Christ needed not to die at all, so far as He Himself was personally concerned.
There was NO CAUSE within Himself why He should go to the cross to lay down His life.
He yielded Himself up, a willing sacrifice for our sins.” (Spurgeon)
In Isaiah 53:8, He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation?
This not only refers to the confinement of the Messiah before His crucifixion, but it also speaks of the fact that the Messiah died childless.
There was no one to declare His generation.
Isaiah 53:8… He was cut off out of the land of the living, For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
This is the first indication in this passage that the suffering Servant of the Lord, the Messiah Himself, would die.
Up to this point, we might have thought He would only have been severely beaten.
But there is no mistaking the point:
He is to be cut off from the land of the living.
“The phrase ‘cut off’ strongly suggests not only a violent, premature death but also the just judgment of God, not simply the oppressive judgment of men.” there is a difference.
Again this is not a death that we as believers will ever endure, we will never be cut off or separated from God.
This, among many aspects of this prophecy, demonstrates again that Isaiah cannot be speaking of Israel as the suffering Servant.
As badly as Israel has suffered through the centuries, she has never been cut off from the land of the living.
She has always endured, even as God promised Abraham.
And even still today!
The prophet brings the point home again and again.
The Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, suffers, but not for Himself, but for the transgressions of My people.
Please turn to 1 Co. 5 - Now we are going to look at the fulfilled part:
- Isaiah prophesied that Jesus Christ would be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb of God.
Prophesied: ISA 53:7.
Fulfilled: 1CO 5:7, 1PE 1:18-20
1CO 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, namely, that someone has his father’s wife.
1CO 5:2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
1CO 5:3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.
1CO 5:4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
1CO 5:5 I have decided to turn such a person over to Satan for the destruction of his body, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
1CO 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
Here is our 1st part fulfillment verse:
1CO 5:7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
Before we go any further, I just want to point out that while this passage gets into the beginning of our prophecy, I just want to appreciate its value as it also touches upon what many churches are going through today.
First Corinthians 5:1–8 contains Paul's primary example of how the Corinthian's pride and self-sufficiency is hurting their community.
He has just asked if they would prefer he come in gentleness, or ''with a rod,'' symbolic of harsh judgment.
Here, Paul details a grievous sin: the believers in Corinth have failed to rebuke a member who is committing incest with his father's wife.
They must remove him from the church and turn him over to Satan in hopes of his ultimate salvation.
This is also crucial for the health of the church—Just as tiny bits of leaven eventually spread to an entire batch of dough, sin left unconfronted can poison an entire church.
Again: 1CO 5:7 Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
In this passage verses 1-5 Paul is using bread metaphors to help his readers understand why they must remove the man who is committing incest from among them (1 Corinthians 5:1–5).
In the previous verse, he described sin in the church as leaven that is contaminated.
It must be removed or it will infect the whole batch of dough, making the bread worthless.
Just as is done with certain breads today, a small piece of an earlier batch of dough would be reserved to "seed" the next batch.
Fermenting agents in that piece would be spread around the new dough and continue the cycle.
A small influence would grow and become universal.
Here, Paul adjusts the metaphor to one best understood by those familiar with the Jewish Passover. And he does this for a reason, basically he uses this metaphor because they can relate to it…
In preparation for that celebration, Jews scour their homes to remove any hint of leaven.
They would make and eat, instead, unleavened bread.
In addition, they would sacrifice a Passover lamb and put its blood on their doorposts before eating it.
Paul's metaphor puts the Corinthian Christians in the place of the Passover dough.
They must cleanse out all the old leaven and become a new, unleavened piece of dough.
Then Paul says something surprising:
They are already the unleavened dough.
This is true because Christ, the Passover lamb, was sacrificed on the cross to pay for their sin.
The leaven has already been removed from them.
Paul is urging them to live up to what they already are, the forgiven and set-apart people of Christ.
On a personal note - I love this prophecy and fulfillment study because we are getting so much more out of it - than meets the eye -- and it is almost overwhelming for those of us who are studying and preparing these messages because – speaking for myself, my husband, my father, DJK --- like never before we are seeing how the Holy Spirit does His job!!! Okay… maybe not my father --- because he has been doing this for so long, I can’t even imagine what he has seen through the Holy Spirit’s guidance…but he definitely feels the effects from his ministry and all of you who have been reaching out, your encouragement, your prayers have been so refreshing to us all.
Back to our study and our last passage for #7.
1 Peter 1:18-21 (we are going to go to verse 21 because there is something really cool we want to close with)
1PE 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
1PE 1:19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
1PE 1:20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you
1PE 1:21 who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
We all know how I like to set the stage:
1 Peter 1:13–25 describes how Christians - those God has caused to be born again - should live now.
We must mentally engage in setting all of our hope in God’s future grace for us.
We must choose to act as those who are God’s own people, rejecting the evil desires that drove our actions before we knew better.
One thing that this prophecy is bringing out is that:
Our choices matter.
Here is a very important principle and we don’t want anyone to miss out on it:
Our God placed a high value on our lives, paying for them with the blood of Christ.
Since God has made us able, we must now strive to earnestly give love to each other.
This is something that we as a church, here local and our internet, actually do excel at and I’m noticing that more and more with all that we experience together…
1PE 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
In verse 17, Peter has revealed that our loving Father God judges the actions of His saved children.
This is not to decide our eternal fate, but to weigh whether our choices are those of a holy, set-apart (sanctified) people.
Peter writes that We should live out our lives on earth as foreigners and with "fear," meaning "reverence."
One could ask, why fear?
In part, the idea is that we should carry solemn awareness of the great worth God has placed on our lives.
We should appreciate the great expectation He has to make use of us, as His children, for His plans and for His glory (Philippians 2:12–13).
We should appreciate every opportunity that He gives to us.
That awareness should motivate us to be cautious about making worthless choices.
Peter demonstrates the value God has placed on us by showing the price He paid for us.
He didn't pay mere cash: "silver or gold."
He didn't pay temporary currency for an eternal transaction.
Verse 19 will reveal that He paid for us with the blood of His own Son, a currency of limitless value.
We cannot overestimate our worth in our Father's eyes.
Here is another question you could ask, What did He redeem us from?
The answer is - Worthlessness.
He didn't just save us from hell; he bought us out of the futility of human existence that we had inherited from our ancestors.
He bought us out of an empty, meaningless waste of time --which is all that the world can truly offer us.
Peter's point in all of this is that our choices now, after that transaction, truly matter.
As people of great value to God—holy people—set apart people – sanctified people – we – should - be - TERRIFIED that we will squander our days continuing to invest ourselves in worthless things.
Verse 19 tells us we were bought with something truly spectacular:
1PE 1:19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
Continuing the thought begun in verse 18,
Peter is showing the great value Church-age believers, God's children, carry in the eyes of our Father.
It can be measured by the price He was willing to pay.
He made a great sacrifice in order to possess us, to call us His own people.
Peter has already shown that God didn't pay for us in mere human currency like silver or gold.
Our worth to Him can't be weighed in pounds or dollars.
Instead, in verse 19, Peter writes that we were redeemed with something that will still hold value long after this world's economies are forgotten.
Our Father purchased us with the blood of Christ.
How about this principle right here:
The value God place on our lives was equal to that of the very life of His "only begotten Son" (John 3:16). There’s your positional truth…
Peter describes Christ as a lamb free from blemish or defect.
His Jewish readers, especially those who grew up participating in the sacrificial system, would have immediately understood the reference.
In fact, some may even have carried a memory of watching as a perfect, beautiful year-old lamb was killed, understanding that its blood was being spilled to cover their sin for a time.
It is one thing when you image that scene in your mind, but it is quite another when you image Christ, the ultimate Passover Lamb, who was sacrificed for our sin.
As the sinless, perfectly righteous Son of God, the life of Jesus - His blood - was of such great value that He became the final offering required under that Old Covenant system.
No more animal sacrifices are needed to temporarily cover human sin (Hebrews 9–10).
Instead, the Father paid the ultimate price to redeem us, giving limitless value to lives that would otherwise have been futile and empty.
And then here is the last part of our 6th Prophesy Fulfillment.
Jesus Christ would be sacrificed as the Passover Lamb of God.
1PE 1:20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you
The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross wasn't improvised.
God didn't make it up in response to the unfolding events of history.
Peter writes that - Christ was known before the world was founded.
As God, Jesus existed in eternity past as the One whose blood would cover the sins of all who receive salvation.
Without a doubt, Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and return - ascension to the Father were always God's plan to save us. Always…
Jesus was always the answer to the questions asked by the prophets and the angels investigating what the Holy Spirit's Old Testament prophecies were pointing to (1 Peter 1:10–12).
1PE 1:10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries,
This idea of salvation by God's grace was not new to Peter, or the other apostles.
It had been described and predicted by Israel's prophets generations before, in the Old Testament Scriptures.
Peter now reveals to us something about those prophets.
Though these men were deeply respected by his readers, they need to realize that these prophets themselves did not fully understand – yet - the message God had given them.
Even they had to live and act by faith.
And these ancient writers knew full well that they were missing part of the puzzle.
The prophets, inspired by the God the Holy Spirit, wrote of God's coming grace for those of Peter's time (and ours).
Then, these prophets searched and asked questions, hoping to understand what they had written.
Verse 11 describes specifically what they wanted to know.
1PE 1:11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.
The prophets wanted to know the "who" and "when" Christ's Spirit was referring to as they were directed to write the words of their prophecies.
Who was the person who would bring this salvation, the Christ who would suffer and then be glorified?
And when would it happen?
Isaiah chapters 11 and 53 are examples of these prophecies.
In verse 12, Peter gives us the answer they received, but verse 11 is important.
It is a clear statement that the Old Testament prophets were not writing their own ideas.
Christ's Spirit—the Holy Spirit—was in them, directing as they wrote the very words of God.
It's a truth that Peter will state even more clearly in 1 Peter 1:20–21.
Peter reinforces another crucial idea in this verse:
In the ancient prophesies, God promised a Savior who would suffer and then be glorified.
Jesus' life and death and resurrection fulfilled those prophesies.
That same God has now promised that, even though Christians may now suffer, we will also be glorified.
Our God has proven Himself, even though He didn’t have to, trustworthy to keep such a promise. --- And we know why He did so, because He loves us and He wants us to live an abundant life through Christ. How much more proof do we need, right?
1PE 1:12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.
What was revealed to them was this:
As they wrote the words of God under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they were serving not themselves but future generations.
They did so for us, because they loved as Christ loves.
The Christ would come after their time.
Peter means for his readers (and for us) to understand what a huge deal it is that the message of salvation by God's grace has been revealed to us now.
God didn't tell the prophets—or, apparently, the angels, even when they asked—but He has shown us.
Hundreds of years after the prophets' time, this good news, or "gospel," about salvation through faith in Christ, was delivered.
It was given to Peter's audience by that same Holy Spirit, through the preaching and teaching of others.
And now, thousands of years later, it has been delivered to us by that same Holy Spirit.
In Peter's lifetime and those of his readers—The beginning of what Peter calls the "last times"— God revealed the mystery.
Let’s look at it one more time:
1PE 1:20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you
He showed Himself and His plan to the world by coming to earth as a baby, a man, God in flesh, the final sacrifice for sin. Why?
For our sake.
God's great gift of mercy, and the timing of that gift in human history, demonstrates God's great love for us (John 3:16; Romans 5:8).
And finally our last verse of this prophecy passage:
1PE 1:21 who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
What this verse is showing us is that God's plan didn't stop with the sacrifice of His only born Son as the payment for sin.
Peter says that God also raised Christ from the dead and gave Him glory.
Describing that glory given to Jesus by the Father, Paul wrote that God "…highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:9).
So our faith and hope are in God.
And I just want to leave you with something we can all really look forward to in hopes to have an abundant life through Christ.
And that is:
In the same way that God had a plan for Christ's life and death and resurrection and glory, He has a plan for our life, death, resurrection, and glory.
We trust the God who did all of that in and through Christ and know He will do the same in and through us.
Our hope is in exactly the right place.