Sometimes there are opportunities just too good, that must be taken up.
The batsman who sees a juicy medium pace full toss outside off stump, or the leg spinner who bowls a rank long hop. It's a gift, served up on a platter, just begging to be hit into the stand. And only a fool wouldn't fully capitalize.
In business negotiations in 1987, Kerry Packer said that he would only sell Channel 9 if Alan Bond offered him 1 billion dollars. Sure enough, Bondy did, and Kerry sold it. But in 1990, Alan Bond got into financial difficulties and Packer bought it back for $700 million. In 2003, Packer was reputed to have said, 'You only get one Alan Bond in your life, and I've had mine'.
It's such a good opportunity that you cannot say no. There is no catch, no trap, no strings, just a highly attractive offer.
It's the art collector who finds the masterpiece at the garage sale.
Or the car enthusiast who finds as part of a deceased estate a fellow enthusiasts 1962 model, his pride and joy, in mint condition, driven only on Sunday, and his widow has been wanting to sell it for all these years to clear out the garage.
The gospel has reached Samaria through Philip the Evangelist, one of the 7. With the taking of Samaria, the Davidic King, the Risen Jesus Christ, now reigns over the united Kingdom of both North and South. The fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of One Shepherd over One people of God has begun, and will be consummated at Christ's return.
And so the question is, 'where next?' Where will the gospel go now? What is the next theatre of operations where the gospel will be victorious, and Jesus Christ named Lord..
And at this point, we see some unusual and counter-intuitive instructions from mission HQ. The Apostles return to Jerusalem. Again, they aren't at the front line, the cutting edge of Luke's story. That place is left to Phillip. Chapter 8 verses 26 and 27:
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road–the desert road–that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. ” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship (NIV)
The Mission Director, the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, directs Phillip to new ground. The initiative in the mission rests entirely with the Heavenly Jesus Christ, for the mission is the mission of the risen and exalted Jesus Christ.
Humanly speaking, Phillip travelling along the desert road looks like a strategically poor decision. Phillip leaves the scene of recent success to go into the a deserted place where there is practically speaking no-one living. How is that furthering the mission, to go where there is no-one?
Well, of course, this is Jesus' Christ's mission. And it is not quantity, it is quality. And there is someone out there on the barren desert road.
There is an Ethiopian. Ethiopia in biblical times was the land of Cush, now part of modern day Sudan.
But he is a Eunuch. Normally, this means he was emasculated, castrated from birth, so that he could serve, for example, in the kings harem, and adopt other positions of trust in the kingdom. Importantly, according to the Old Testament, Eunuchs were prevented from becoming full proselytes in Israel or fully enter into Jewish life. He couldn't even be circumcised, should he desire it[1].
Deuteronomy 23:1 says:
No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord. (NIV)
What a faithful God-fearer this man is! He travels from a far off land to worship at a temple he cannot enter and whose people he cannot join.
This is faith. He is one of the last who will be first. We might well be ashamed at how low a level of faith we have achieved in comparison, with the breadth of the promises we have received compared to him.
What has created such a faith in this man? Well, he is a bible reader. Faith comes from hearing the word of God, and this man is a reader of his Old Testament. And in the providence of God, he is reading from Isaiah 53 verses 7 to 8, about the suffering servant of Yahweh. And Philip the Evangelist, instructed by the Spirit, runs alongside the chariot and begins to talk with him. And in the eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else? ”
There is Packer's Alan Bond. There is the full toss outside off, or the long hop. There is the Piccaso or the Reubens at the garage Sale. Phillip would hardly be an evangelist if he didn't take it.
In my first year or so as a Christian, I discovered Isaiah 53. It was one of the famous Servant Songs, written hundreds of years before Jesus. It was almost too good to be true. But it is true.
So I went over my best mate's place from school. We had hung out together, played sport together, sat together in classes, spent recess and lunch together, discovered new music together, gone to the cricket together, gone on schoolies together, played in a band together. But here was the best thing I'd ever discovered. So I went over his house, got my bible out and sat down with him and read to him from Isaiah's most famous servant song.
10 years later, I was in 4th year at Bible College. I'd learnt a bit of Hebrew at Bible College. And I got to translate Isaiah 53, the passage that I had loved for the last decade. And what did I discover? That I hadn't been deceived. That the NIV got it right. That it was all there.
5 years ago, I noticed my Bibleworks program that gave me access to the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the 1940s by some herdsmen around the Dead Sea. They are manuscripts that are 1100 years older than our oldest Hebrew manuscripts. We think they were copied 100 years before Christ. And what did I discover about Isaiah 53? That at almost every point, it confirmed our existing Hebrew Manuscripts and the NIV translation. In other words, the text couldn’t have been changed by Christians, because they didn't exist when they were written. In other words, it's not a Christian conspiracy. It was actually there. It's not too good to be true. It's true.
[Note: The Great Isaiah Scroll has been uploaded and translated by Fred P Miller. The Hebrew of Isaiah 53 of the Scroll is available at http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qum-44.htm. An English translation is provided at http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qa-tran.htm#c44. Miller says, 'This scroll (which has been named by scholars as "Q") is dated at 100 BC': http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qumdir.htm. Also note the considered judgment of Fred Miller: 'There are no words in the Masoretic text of Isaiah 53 without its mate in a corresponding word in The Great Isaiah Scroll. There is only one extra word in the Scroll text that is not in the Masoretic text. The texts of both are nearly identical.': http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/isa53trn.htm]
20 years ago, I sat down in my mate's house and went through Isaiah 53. And I want to do that same thing with you today. If you have even a Sunday School knowledge of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, it speaks for itself. So I hope I won't get in the way of it.
Let me give you a bit of context. In the first two Servant Songs, the servant of YHWH is Israel (Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6). But in the second Servant Song, a change occurs. During the second servant song, the Servant is no longer Israel, but instead ministers to Israel. Israel as God's servant has been disobedient, so has failed as God's servant. But the Servant, in the place of Israel, is obedient and redeems and rescues Israel. Isaiah 49 verse 6 we read Yahweh speaking to his servant:
'It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth'. (Isaiah 49:6 NIV)
Israel as God's Servant has sinned and rebelled. But then another servant sets his face to obediently suffer. And in chapter 52 verse 13 we read from the fourth servant song: Starting from Isaiah chapter 52 verses 13 and 14:
See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness – (NIV)
Here is the Servant's meekness and majesty, glory and suffering. He is exalted. But many are appalled at him. He was tortured and made mince meat. But in the process he was lifted up from the earth.
Verse 15:
so will he sprinkle [or 'spatter'] many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. (NIV)
Just as Moses took the blood of young bulls and sprinkled it on the people at Mount Sinai and called it 'the blood of the covenant' (Exodus 24:8), and just as the High Priest on the Day of Atonement took the blood of the sacrificed lamb and sprinkled it on the Ark of the Covenant in the most Holy Place of the Temple, so will the Servant sprinkle the Kings of the Gentiles.
Chapter 53 verses 1 to 3:
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (NIV)
And remember Jesus' own words:
'The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life' (Luke 9:22 NIV)
And the question is, why should such suffering be required of the Servant? Verses 4 to 6 give us the answer:
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 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. 6 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. (NIV)
Here is 'Penal Substitionary Atonement'. It is penal, because the servant bears penalty. He takes punishment. His sufferings are not accidental. They are retribution from wrongdoing.
But secondly, it is not the Servant's wrongdoing. The servant has done nothing wrong. It is our wrongdoing, our sin, our iniquity, our transgression, that he bears. So it is 'Penal Substitution'. The Servant bears our punishment in our place.
And thirdly, it is 'atonement'. To bring enemies together -- 'at one'. So the servant brings 'at one ment' or 'atonement'. The objective of the servant suffering is to make us right with God, to remove our sins from God's sight so that we can be accepted by him. So 'the punishment that brought us peace was upon him'.
Isaiah continues to describe the servant's sufferings in verse 7:
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. (NIV)
And Luke tells us of Jesus before Herod:
'He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. The Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate' (Luke 23:9-11 NIV)
Jesus in the face of mockery and his suffering and his trial before Herod was silent. Verse 8:
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. (NIV)
The servant was killed. He died childless, a terrible thing in Jewish culture. He was cut off from the land of the living. Verse 9:
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. (NIV)
And we remember that Jesus Christ was crucified between two criminals, one of whom said 'We are getting what our deeds deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong'. And then after Jesus died, the wealthy Pharisee and member of the Jewish Ruling Council, Joseph of Arimathea gave his own tomb for Jesus to be buried in.
Why? Who did all this happen? Verse 10:
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. (NIV)
Why did all this suffering happen to the Servant of Yahweh? Because of Yahweh. It is God's will. It was the Lord's will to crush and pulverize the Servant.
Why such strong language? Because the Servant is a guilt offering. The book of Leviticus talks about the guilt offerings, livestock that is sacrificed to take away sin. God ensured that every worshipper who went to the temple, like the Ethiopian Eunuch, and every subsequent bible reader knew exactly what 'guilt offering' meant'. God set up the Old Testament sacrificial system by which livestock symbolically took the guilt of guilty sinners, and were then slaughtered.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1) Jesus, the Son of Man, came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45 NIV)
But death was not the end. Verse 11:
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. (NIV)
The Servant will ‘see’ gain after his suffering and death. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek translation have an extra word there, 'light'. He will see ‘light’. In other words, after he suffers and dies, he will see the light. He will live to see again after he dies. This is resurrection. The Servant will rise again after he dies.
And what will the result of this righteous suffering be for the many sinners who have iniquities. He will justify many. The just servant will justify many.
No wonder Peter says 'Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God' (1 Peter 3:18 NIV). No wonder Paul says: 'He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him' (2 Corinthians 5:21). Or 'He was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification' (Romans 4:25).
When the Apostle Paul taught we are justified by faith through the blood of Jesus Christ, he was only teaching Isaiah 53:11. For Isaiah 53:11 says the Just servant with Justify many by his death. By his death he will suffer the punishment their sins deserve, so that they don't have to, and can be forgiven. And when the Servant is vindicated by resurrection, so are the many. So the Servant of Yahweh will 'justify many' by his death and resurrection.
Verse 12:
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. (NIV)
Jesus will live again to reap the reward of his obedient and righteous suffering. And he now lives to intercede for us before his Father. We have one who speaks to the Father in our defence, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not for our only but the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2)
Jesus earnt his reward. He bought you and your allegiance at the highest price. We confess Lord because he owns us twice. First by making us. Then by buying us back with his own blood.
Well, this was the Servant Song that Philip the Evangelist explained. This was the passage I explained to my mate 20 years ago, and sometime later he became a Christian, praise God. How could I explain this passage with such certainty? Not because I’m cleverer than others. But because I knew the gospel, that Jesus had lived, died and rose again. I had learnt what Jesus had said: 'These are the Scriptures that testify about me'.
I knew, not because I had some secret knowledge, but because the Risen Jesus Christ had said on the Emmaus Road, 'Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' and then he began with Moses and all the prophets and explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself'. (Luke 24:26-27)
You can do the same. You don't have to be particularly clever. You just need to know about the Lord Jesus Christ, and see the Old Testament is his book. And that because we know about Jesus Christ, we can understand what the Old Testament is about. It's about Jesus.
Well, the Ethiopian Eunuch was convinced. He understood the Servant Song he had been reading. Because he had learnt about Jesus Christ.
He had just been to a temple he couldn't worship at. He had been on pilgrimage to worship a God who had said he couldn't be a member of his assembly. Does the fact that Jesus Christ has died and risen again change any of this? Do I get to be part of God's people now? Acts 8 verse 36:
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptised?" (NIV)
Is there any reason to keep me out of God's assembly any more? Can I be given full membership rights now?
And Philip's answer is 'Yes'. There is nothing stopping him from being baptised. For he has come to faith in Jesus Christ. The Old has gone now, the New has come. The Old Testament looked forward to the day when Ethiopians and Eunuchs became full members of God's Assembly.
As Isaiah 11:10-11 said:
10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush [that is, Ethiopia]….
The Root of Jesse is the Risen Jesus Christ the Messiah, and through Philip the Evangelist he is reaching out to his people in Ethiopia
Or as Isaiah 56:3-5 says:
3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people. ” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree. ” 4 For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant – 5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. (NIV)
The faithful Eunuch who loved the Law and the Prophets has come to the Risen Jesus the Christ, the one who gives true rest. And in Christ, he fulfills the promise of Isaiah, that the Eunuch too will be given full membership with the people of God.
Here is the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old Covenant. This is the superiority of the New Testament over the Old Testament. The Old Testament excludes and condemns. The New Testament welcomes in and justifies, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. With Jesus Christ, the promised change has come about. For there is a new temple, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is a new Jerusalem, heaven. And there is a new Assembly of God's people, the church, open to all who repent of their sins and believe in the Risen Jesus Christ as Lord.
If you aren't part of it, why don't you become part of it. What's stopping you being baptized? If you believe in Christ with all your heart, you may.
[For an argument that Acts 8:37 is the original text see http://www.moellerhaus.com/studies/EUNUCH.HTM].
And if you are part of God’s renewed people, why don't you share with someone who isn't the news about the Suffering Servant? Because you know the 'someone else' who the prophet predicted hundreds of years before. You know the Risen Jesus Christ.
Let's pray.
[1] Philip Kern notes, “’The eunuch’ represents the ultimate outsider, not even capable of circumcision should he desire it, and inadmissible to the temple.’: P H Kern, ‘Paul’s Conversion and Luke’s Portrayal of Character in Acts 8-10’, Tyn Bul 54:2 (2003) 63-80 at 67