2. UNTYING THE CORDS OF THE YOKE

2. UNTYING THE CORDS OF THE YOKE

Isaiah 61:1-4

Christ will come and release you from your prisons. He had to come, first of all, as the Suffering Servant, so that He could fulfill the ministry that God had given Him. Had He never known what it was like to be in prison, or oppressed; how could He then know the heart of the prisoner, the heart of those who are oppressed, and know the joy of being set free.

 Isaiah 53:1-12

It is imperative if we desire to be a people liberated in Christ that we become a people that take God at His Word.

Isaiah 53:1

In speaking of His Son, Jesus Christ; God says “I revealed to you my arm.”

 Hebrews 2:6-10

This is the suffering we see in Isaiah 53, perfectly foretold centuries before Christ was ever on this planet walking among man.

Hebrews 2:7, 9

Making Christ “lower” than the angels in verse 9, is the Greek word “brachion” meaning “power of God.” This particular word means “a certain part of the arm – from the shoulder to the elbow. When God made Christ a little lower than the angels, He pushed Him down from the heavenlies. This is the same part of the arm that Isaiah 53:1 is speaking of.

Literally, the muscle of God, of the omnipotent Godhead, had to be used to push the divine perfect fullness of the Godhead bodily from His position in glory down to this earth. It took all the muscle of God to simply get God to come down to earth, and to descend in order to live as man.

There will be a growing awe, or reverence, the more that we get to know the One, True God; not pride and arrogance – that is carnality; but a growing reverence for the One we worship.

Isaiah 61:1-4 could only be fulfilled through Isaiah 53.

1. Christ was like a root out of dry ground so we could be a planting of the Lord

(Isaiah 53:2; 61:3; Psalm 1:1-3).

The promise in Psalm 1:1-3 is what He calls us to put our hands to will not fail, if they are in His name and strength. We have to come to a place where we love God’s truth and have a thirst for His Word (Psalm 119:97). No matter where you are planted, God planted you, unless you are in a sinful situation.

2. Christ’s beauty was veiled so ours could be revealed (Isaiah 53:2; 61:3).

Isaiah 52:14; Psalm 45:10-11

Our way of thinking is that God would have made His Messiah to be perfect in every physical appearance; yet He purposely made Him where He was not physically beautiful; so that the heart could draw instead of the physical appearance.

He came with no beauty, easily despised, so that we can find a beauty in Him (Ecclesiastes 8:1). As God teaches us; as we gather His truth, and become a Spirit-filled people, he will radiate from us.

There is a beauty that comes in the lives of people who love God’s Word, and have been set free; because the sternest of the face has been changed. When we walk with Christ in His Word, the King is enthralled by our beauty.

3. Christ was despised and rejected so we could be favored and accepted (Isaiah 53:3; 61:1-2).

The Hebrew word “ratson,” means “delight, good will, favor, grace, kindness, willfulness.”

He makes the choice of His will to do you a favor. It is His sovereign right to treat you like the favored child you are. Only in Christ, can we all be His favorite. There is something in our lives that He wants to give a new freedom to.

4. Christ became a man of sorrows so we could become people of gladness (Isaiah 53:3; 61:3).

He was a man of sorrows, but he was totally familiar with every single one of our sufferings. Christ sees straight into the heart, and He knows where your sorrow differs from someone else’s sorrow.

5. Christ was oppressed and imprisoned so we could be released from prison

(Isaiah 53:7; John 19:8-10).

Christ was crucified so that He could free captives.

6. Christ was crushed by our iniquities so we could become His righteousness (Isaiah 53:5; 61:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

What makes Christ’s suffering worse; what makes the difference is “he who had no sin became sin for us.” The loss and pain came from the fact, that God, Himself, His holiness in the form of humanity, the fullness of the Godhead bodily, was hung upon a cross; and on Him was laid every iniquity, sin, perversion, and everything that you could ever imagine. He had to become sin, and that is why His Father turned His face; and Christ had to be penalized with death.

7. Christ suffered so that God could be satisfied and we could be saved (Isaiah 53:11). This is the Good News preached to the poor!

Christ had to suffer because the penalty of sin had to be paid. It was the only way God could be satisfied. Because God said “yes,” we can be saved, and that is the Good News.

8. Christ remained silent so we could proclaim His great salvation.

Christ was silent, so that we could proclaim His praise; the One who has taken us from darkness into His glorious light.