Dear RTB’ers,
In John’s first quote today, he is quoting Isaiah: LORD, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? (Isaiah 53:1) The rest of Isaiah 53 is worth reading. That chapter, together with Psalm 22 is very often quoted with respect to Jesus’ Crucifixion. But it was the earlier verses in Isaiah 53 that hearkened to me today. Here is the whole of the first three verses in that chapter:
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
Isaiah 53:1-3
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him,
and no beauty that we should desire Him.
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.
Clearly, in today’s reading, Jesus is despised by the chief priests and Pharisees, rejected by them, and they certainly esteemed Him not. But the question in my mind today was Jesus maturing, His growing-up. Isaiah foretells Him above as a root, a young plant. Surely, when He was first born He was much like any other human baby. And I suspect that Mary related to Him stories of His birth. At age 12 He was …in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at His understanding and His answers (Luke 2:46b-47), so He was clearly maturing in His relationship with His Father, and that would continue, up to and including when He began His public ministry, when it was “His time”.
So now we have today’s closing verses: For I have not spoken on My own authority, but the Father who sent Me has Himself given Me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. … What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told Me. (vv. 49-50) Presumably the Trinity had planned man’s salvation long before Jesus’ birth, but when Jesus came to Earth, I’m guessing that the fullness of this salvation plan was “forgotten” by Him, possibly “repressed” by the Father (as it were), and revealed to Jesus as He grew. Thus we have today’s final verses, the final words in Jesus’ public ministry, spoken directly by the Father through Jesus. That’s powerful!
Blessings.
See also: