The Gospel According to God By John MacArthur – Chapter 6 Summary:
In your own words, summarize chapter 6.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth. (Is 53:7-9)
This idea of substitutionary atonement was nothing new to the Jewish people. The old testament law and sacrificial system required the blood of animals to atone for the sins of man. It was a system they had been practicing for centuries. So the imagery used in these verses, of a lamb remaining silent as it is lead to the slaughter, and of substitutionary atonement, would have been very familiar to Isaiah’s audience.
One day, Israel will confess that Jesus was the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29). However, for the time being, the vast majority of Jews, and Gentiles, have missed the connection between Isaiah’s words and the life and death of Christ.
Early Christians were quick to make the connection, and the necessity of Christ’s suffering was common among the apostilles’ teaching. The Jewish leaders, on the other hand, were quick to explain away or ignore the connection between Christ and Isaiah 53. So much so that they have excluded this section of Isaiah from public readings and teachings worldwide. Despite acknowledging Him as a Rabbi (teacher) and witnessing miracles (both performed by Him and by His apostles after His death), they refused to accept Him for who He was. “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29)
However, not all Jews rejected Him. The Book of Acts records “about 3 thousand souls” (Acts. 2:41) that were added to the church at Pentecost. It also stands to reason that the vast majority of Christians in the first few years after death and resurrection of Christ were Jewish. Even today, thousands (if not more) of messianic Jews recognize Christ for who He indeed was.
In silence, Christ humbled Himself and submitted to the will of the Father. Not that he didn’t speak at all, but that he never once raised His voice in protest. He never once proclaimed that He should not die because of His innocence, even though he was indeed innocent. His silence speaks to His willingness, not only to die but also to suffer. He knew what was coming. The beatings, the torture, the agonizing death on the cross, nothing would stop Him from carrying out His Father’s will. It was why He came into the world in the first place. To voluntarily lay down His life and die as the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world.
At His trial, Jesus was proclaimed innocent multiple times, and yet, due to pressure from the Jewish religious elite, Pilate still sentenced Him to die. No one stood in his defense. No one claimed he was treated unjustly. His trial (or lack thereof) was a mockery of Jewish law.
The whole thing is incredibly suspicious, and when early Christians began to ask questions, the Jewish leaders produced more false testimonies. However, these false testimonies couldn’t withstand the consistency of the Gospels or their proximity to the actual event.
Still, to this day, there exists intense hostility, among the Jewish people, toward Jesus. Many won’t even speak his name and some often substitute it with derogatory expressions. The claims of Christ are rejected by every single major branch of Judaism today. There are some that no longer even consider messianic Jews to be still Jewish. Others practically hold a week-long funeral for members of their community that trust in Jesus.
Despite their harsh treatment, both then and now, none of this changes the fact that He did it for them. They believed that he was “stricken” for His own transgressions, and He died for His own sins. But in reality, it was all for theirs, and ours, for the Jew and the Gentile.
After His death, Jesus’s body would have usually ended up in the Valley of Hinnom, but only after hanging on the cross until the birds and other scavengers had their way with Him. It was common practice for Rome to leave the bodies out, as a form of intimidation and humiliation, until their bones had been picked clean. At which point, they would throw them into the valley that was once used for infant sacrifice to the false god Molech. In Jesus’s time, it was used as a garbage dump, where a continuous fire burned. But similar to His trial, things didn’t exactly go like they were supposed to.
Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, together with Nicodemus, a Jewish Pharisee, both secret followers of Jesus, had His body taken down and they laid Him in Joseph’s tomb just as Isaiah had prophesied about seven hundred years before.