Christ in the Old Testament

Isaiah 53:10

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. (NIV)

Today’s Reading: Isaiah 53:10-12

The second reward for the Suffering Servant was to prolong his days. Again, we see Isaiah allude to the fact that death would not have the final say. The Messiah must be alive to have prolonged days. And since we know that Jesus was resurrected, this prophecy makes sense.

The Hebrew word for “prolong” is ārak which carries the idea of something lasting longer than expected. This verb always implies that this extra time is not by chance but by God’s design. Furthermore, ārak is in the imperfect tense signifying that the Messiah’s days would be prolonged continually. In Jesus, ārak points beyond time to eternity and life everlasting.

This makes me think about the phrase found in Hebrews:

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).

We see the promise to Jesus would be that he would see millions of people be welcomed into his family as children of God and he would live with them for all eternity in the presence of the loving Father God. This is clearly the joy that was set before him.

What motivates you to dig a little deeper? When life gets really hard, what is it that you visualize and tell yourself so that you can take the next step? For many of us, it’s our family – our kids or our grandkids. Knowing these people depend on you to be strong and to carry on can get us through some hard times. I can see Jesus looking ahead to a great day in heaven where he celebrates with his family that helped him overcome the pain and suffering to endure the cross.

“Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

‘Hallelujah!
    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
    was given her to wear’” (Rev 19:6-8).

There will be a wedding in heaven when the followers of Jesus – represented by the bride – will be given to the groom who is the Lamb Jesus. It will be more glorious than any wedding ever had on the face of the earth. There will be a great feast and a party like no other.

This will be a great day and certainly something that can give us great joy to set before us in hard times. So whether it is family, friends or the great day we meet Jesus face to face, we can endure the troubles of this world if we set also set this joy before us.

Today’s Prayer: Thank you Jesus for enduring the cross so that we could meet you in heaven. I am overwhelmed by the thought that this gave you so much joy that you endured the cross for me.