Christ Through the Eyes of Isaiah
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your Word, in which we see your marvelous plan for our salvation unfold in Jesus Christ, our Immanuel! Grant us faith to trust in this humble Savior, whose lowly and miraculous birth, was for us and our salvation. In whose name we pray. Amen.
Dear Christians, whose Savior has come,
Our Advent series for this year is: “Christ through the Eyes of Isaiah.” The word “advent,” means coming or arrival. The prophet Isaiah, more than any other prophet, foretells in remarkable detail how the Savior would come and through what means he would accomplish our salvation. Isaiah writes as one who has seen the Savior’s birth, his suffering, and death.
But Isaiah wasn’t there. The Savior would not be born for another 700 years! Isaiah was a prophet. He was God’s spokesman—proclaiming to God’s people the coming Messiah—the Immanuel, “God with us!” Isaiah prophesied by Divine Inspiration, as Scripture states, “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (II Peter 1:21).
One of God’s greatest blessings to us is the Bible. He has faithfully handed down this Word from Moses, David, and the Apostles. What you have now are the very words the Holy Spirit inspired these men to write. Beyond this, in the Scriptures we have the amazing prophecies concerning how Christ would come. In our lesson today, Isaiah explains the great miracle that Christ would be born of a virgin!
But many people do not believe in the Bible. They consider it to be a religious book that has been added to and amended over thousands of years, which has created some fanciful story for us to believe. Liberal scholars have suggested that early Christians amended the Biblical texts to fit the life of Christ. They claim that many of the prophecies about Jesus were later additions.
Tonight, as we begin our series on Isaiah, I’d like to tell you about one of the remarkable proofs that we Christians have showing that our Bible has been faithfully handed down to us. I’d like to talk to you about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
After World War II, Arab shepherds stepped from a cave near the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. They carried several ancient artifacts found in the cave. In a large jar was a leather scroll over 24 feet long. It was made from 17 sheepskins sewn together with linen thread. The shepherds journeyed to Bethlehem, where they sold their discovery. They did not realize that they had made the first find of the greatest archaeological discovery of the twentieth century: the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The scroll that the shepherds discovered was almost a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah. It was arranged in 54 columns, dating from the second century before Christ. These artifacts belonged to a community of Jews at Qumran known as the Essenes. They would have lived before and during the time of Jesus. Archeologists have discovered that this community had in their possession every book in the Old Testament, except for Esther. Until this discovery of the Isaiah manuscript, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of Isaiah were copies from Russia dating to AD 1000.
When scholars began the study of the manuscript, they expected to find great differences between what they found and what we had since these manuscripts were copied more than 11 centuries apart. The researchers had been taught by people who doubt the Bible that the ancient books developed over long periods of time through the efforts of many authors. And so, with 11 centuries of time lapsed, they expected a much different manuscript. But that was not the case! Instead, the scholars discovered that the Isaiah scroll nearly matched the later manuscripts. The most numerous changes were variations in spelling, which were done in the 2nd century to help readers correctly pronounce the words. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls proves that scribes had been faithfully copying Isaiah’s text, so that we today have the very words of the prophet!
But what exactly did this prophet prophecy 700 hundred years before Christ? Isaiah 7:14 states, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
We are impressed if someone predicts the stock market, gets the amounts correct on the Price is Right, or accurately predicts the weather. But even those who use solid logic or technological tools get many predictions wrong. But not with God. The prophecies we have recorded for us in Scripture are not best guesses—but God’s Divine prophecy. What’s more, God’s prophecies were fulfilled—he has proved himself to be true. The Lord keeps his promises. Accurate weather predictions may help us with a successful outing, but because Jesus has fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, it has changed our eternal trajectories.
Here, we have a two-fold prophecy. First, Isaiah is giving a sign to King Ahaz that within nine months’ time, God would deliver Jerusalem from their enemies, the Syrians. King Ahaz would live to see this unfold. However, the second part of the prophecy, Ahaz would not live to see. For this sign referred to the birth of the Savior 700 years later.
The greatness of this prophecy is surpassed only by its fulfillment. The Savior would be born of a virgin. The angel Gabriel said to Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus” (Luke 1:31). How could this be? Mary hadn’t even known a man. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. But Mary’s Son was no ordinary child—for he was also the Son of God. Immanuel means, “God with us.” While conceived in a supernatural way so that he could be sinless, he was born of a natural birth just as we are. He went through the same things we have—he experienced what every child has. The Son of God did this for you.
Jesus was born in a manger—away from people and prestige. He did this so that he might bring us to God. His birth, away from things noble and proper, is a picture of how we were cast out from God. Our sin created separation from God and all that is good. For our sin, we deserve to be cast away forever. But our humble Lord Jesus was born in poverty and lowliness, in a stable, so that he might bring us back to God. So that he might redeem us.
The Son of God became man so that he could save us from sin and death. As a man, Jesus could live a perfect life in our place and suffer the death we deserve. As true God, his sacrifice had eternal value—so that Jesus could pay for the sins of the whole world with his death on the cross. The Old Testament believer looked with hope for the coming Savior. We are blessed because we know he has come.
This is a cause for rejoicing! God is with us. He is our Immanuel! And he comes in such a way that we do not need to be afraid of him. Our Savior’s ordinary and humble birth is a great comfort to us. Your Savior is the child who was bounced on Mary’s knee. Mary held in her arms her Creator and Savior. Sin, death, and hell have been overcome. When Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead, remember this child, this gurgling babe, who will not come to condemn you, but to save you.
It is a great blessing to have the discovery of the Isaiah scroll by the shepherds in the cave at Qumran. Yet, the greater blessing which gives us a reason to rejoice is that the prophecies of Isaiah have been fulfilled by the One whom the shepherds discovered in Bethlehem: Jesus Christ, our Immanuel. Amen.