Jesus Died Once; We Must Die Daily

Today the nation of Israel cannot boast of prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah and Moses (yes, he was a prophet) and their peers. There is a prophetic and spiritual vacuum like that which existed in the years between Malachi, the last of the old line prophets, and the coming of John the Baptist. Israel had lapsed into being a spiritual derelict out of touch with, and having no desire for, their God who at this point seemed to have rejected them.  They were under the rule of the Romans, a people who created gods for their own convenience and pleasure and who would not know the true God if He came suddenly upon them.

There is no “open vision” anymore among God’s chosen people. There are no doubt good spiritual leaders among the Israelis, but they are not in a class with the aforementioned prophets, who were called of God to do whatever He told them to do no matter how extreme and odd it might seem. They would fearlessly proclaim the word God gave them and dress and act in whatever manner God commanded regardless of how bizarre it appeared to their countrymen.

A prophet of that class today would find it difficult to make the stupendous predictions that the former prophets did because all of their prophecies 1) have been fulfilled already, 2) are in the process of being fulfilled, or 3) are looming large on the horizon of human history yet to be enacted. This last group of prophecies are so overwhelming in scope that there seems to be no room for any additional significant predictions.

Moreover among the many prophecies of these doughty, rough-hewn men of God and permeating the prophecies like yeast reaching everywhere in a batch of dough, was one persistent prophecy, that universe shaking foretelling of the coming of the Messiah – no other than the Son of God. The story was told in many ways and by various symbols that the predictors themselves did not always fully understand. Isaiah proclaimed,

 (1)  Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

(2)  For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

(3)  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

(4)  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  (Isa 53:1-4 RSV)

Look at the preciseness of detail not just in the verses under discussion, but in the entire chapter. Remember this was spoken centuries before Christ came to earth, yet Isaiah sees through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, eyes that pierce through the mists of centuries and the hopeless confusion brought on by sin. In verse one He asks plaintively, “Who has believed what we are telling them?” It was a rhetorical question and Isaiah knew that not many would believe.  Unfortunately for Israel his indirect prophecy was fulfilled.

In verse two Isaiah speaks as though he were seeing the event he foretold actually happening before his eyes: “…he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground…” and the Savior did indeed spring up like a tender plant out of the spiritual barrenness all around Him.

In verse three Isaiah again asks a question, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” And again this was an indirect prophecy that God’s power would be revealed only to a relative few who did not willfully shut their eyes to the Truth.

Jesus died once, a ghastly death. The only innocent man in all history died for a world that was populated by nothing but sinners from humanity’s inception to the last person to be born in the Age of Man. But the Apostle Paul, one of the sinful humans for whom Christ died, wrote to the Corinthians,

“I protest by that glorifying in you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily”! (1Co 15:31 ASV)

It is a thought provoking fact: In order to procure our salvation Jesus was required to die just once, albeit it was the most savage and gruesome of deaths, yet we are required by our faith in Jesus to die, in a figure, many times over.

The followers of the crucified Christ have to “mortify” (put to death) their carnal selves as the Holy Spirit within them cries aloud for their crucifixion. But make no mistake: we are not saved by our constant mortifying of our carnal nature – Christ settled that once for all time – rather, we die daily with Christ because we are saved. If there be no dying, it is fully evident there is no faith in Christ and therefore no salvation.

Comments

[Aaron J. Smith]

Jack, it is so good to hear from you. I especially appreciate the comments. BTW, your remarks show that you have seriously read what I said and they have left their imprint on you.
Keep readin' and prayin' and meditatin' on the Word of God -- it will do you (and others whose lives you touch) a lot of good.

[Jack]

Thank you for pointing out, as you often do about so many things, the amazing clarity of Isaiah. The visions he must have seen to write so directly are wondrous to imagine. You could say he shared Jesus' anguish even before He suffered it. And maybe, in some sense, that's what you mean by noting Paul's "dying daily". To acquaint myself with that anguish is to recognize the burden to extinguish those elements in me that are not of Christ. Some of those things are so hard to let go that they seem to be part of the substance that binds me as a person. But I am learning to starve those things through my awareness of Jesus' agony even in His righteousness.
I only wonder how Isaiah is bearing witness to these prophesies.