Day 172.
Centuries before Jesus Isaiah gives the most amazing description of our waywardness, and his substitutionary suffering. This chapter in Isaiah has convinced many to believe both the veracity of prophecy and the saving suffering of Christ. This was the passage the Eunuch was reading when Philip was told to come alongside his chariot in Acts 8. Philip explained that it was speaking of Jesus and the man believed and was baptized, which was significant as to the power of Jesus suffering on many levels. Not only was the Eunuch a Gentile, but he was a Eunuch, which previously disqualified him from coming into the temple (even if he had been an Israelite). While he was to be cut off from God before, now Jesus was cut off.
But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)
McCheyne’s Bible Reading Plan: Dt 26, Ps 117-118, Is 53, Mt 1
