Sep. 01, 2024

Believe Again

The Gospel of the Crucifixion

Primary Text: Isaiah 53:9-12    

This Week’s Teaching:

1)  Crushed For Our Iniquities

Isaiah 53:2-6:  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering….  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.  

DQ 1) Identify Old Testament prophecies that foretold the coming of Jesus the Messiah.

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2)  The Lord’s Will

Isaiah 53:9-12:  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.  

DQ 2) How can we best understand and attempt to explain the will of God the Father to submit Jesus the Son to the agony of the crucifixion?

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3)  The Cross

Psalm 22: 1, 6-8, 16-18:  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?...  But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.  All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: “He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him.  Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.”…  Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.  I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.  They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.  

DQ 3) How is it possible that events of the actual crucifixion specifically followed the words of Psalm 22, which were recorded around 1,000 years earlier?

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4)  The Sacrifice of Atonement

Romans 3:21-26:  But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.  He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 

DQ 4) What is the “sacrifice of atonement” executed and finished by Jesus?

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5)  Who Had No Sin

2 Corinthians 5:17–21:  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.  And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

DQ 5) How was Christ made “to be sin”?

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