I'll STOP Being Christian After Watching THIS?! | Pastor Reacts

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So if you are watching me right now listening to my voice, if you want to remain a member of your church in good standing, do not read

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Isaiah 41 .8 .9. If you read Isaiah 83 in context, be prepared to resign from your church tomorrow.

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But wait a second, I'm a Christian. So let's see what happens. We're going to take this rabbi's challenge, we're going to read Isaiah in its context, and we're going to see if we are in fact still

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Christians by the end of this video. Welcome to an interesting video.

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There's a challenge that we're going to wrestle with that comes from a Jewish rabbi named Tovia Singer. I think that's how you pronounce that.

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Rabbi Singer suggests that none of us will be Christians if we accept his challenge. When I saw the challenge,

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I thought to myself, wait a second, I'm a Christian. So let's see what happens. By the way, my name is Nate Sala, and I'm the president of Wise Disciple, where we're helping you become the effective

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Christian that you were meant to be. I've worn various hats in ministry. I was a pastor, I was a preacher, and a

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Bible teacher. I still do that, actually. So let's see if I remain a Christian after this.

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Anybody else nervous? You know, there's a commercial actually running in the United States right now, in which a person who claims to have been converted from Judaism to Christianity makes a pitch for the suffering servant prophecy in Isaiah, Isaiah 53 -54.

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I think I've seen this commercial, and it's a good one. To remind viewers, this is this person who is to be pierced for the transgressions of people who stand silent, who's guiltless, but takes the terrible punishment.

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And that is one of the most frequently used parts of the Tanakh by Christians to demonstrate that Jesus, as described in the

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Gospels, is the fulfillment of messianic prophecy in Isaiah. And the commercial is running quite widely, and the person makes it seem as though it's some sort of revelation.

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All you have to do is go read Isaiah, and you'll see that the Jesus of the Gospels is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy.

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And he seems to think it's a messianic prophecy, which I'm not sure the suffering servant is at all, but I am dying to hear

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Rabbi Singer's view of this. Right. So right off the bat, I'm not too familiar with Rabbi Singer. I recently came across a debate that he did with a

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Christian professor. The debate took place in Nashville a few years ago. I don't even remember offhand what the debate was, but just looking at Rabbi Singer's YouTube channel, it looks like this person is low -key trolling

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Christians, okay? Just my take. If you want to take a look at his channel, maybe

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I'll leave a link there. Some of the titles here in the content of the videos, this guy's trolling Christians, okay? This video says, don't watch this powerful program if you plan to remain a

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Christian, okay? Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do right now. I bet this is going to go super fast through the

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Bible, so you're going to need to know your text. The second thing is, the word Tanakh was referred to.

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The Tanakh refers to the Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the Ketuvim. These are the first five books of Moses, the books of the law, as they are otherwise known.

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These are the writings of the prophets, and they also refer to what is simply known as the writings.

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Some of these writings in this third category are the Psalms, the Proverbs, Job, you know,

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Song of Songs, stuff like that. Now, we Christians tend to refer to these collected books as the

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Old Testament, but Jews refer to them as the Tanakh. Isaiah chapter 53 is a beautiful passage that absolutely describes

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Jesus Christ. Let's just take a look at it for reference really quick. It's just a beautiful passage that absolutely describes

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Jesus Christ. I mean, like, I don't know how you would not see the person and work of Jesus in Isaiah 53, but just for reference, that's what we're looking at in terms of this video.

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So let's pick it back up. You know, James, it's a very good point. So as it turns out, it's very important if someone wants to remain a

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Christian to just read Isaiah 53. That's what you want to do. Here's what you don't want to do.

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So what I hear is a conciliation, which is, yeah, Isaiah 53 sounds like Jesus. If you want to be a

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Christian tomorrow, don't read Isaiah 41, 42, 43.

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Don't read the chapters that introduce it. Don't read the whole book of Isaiah.

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Because if you read the whole book of Isaiah—so I'm just going to point out the verses quickly—41, 8, and 9, 42, 6, 43, 10, 44, 1, 21, 45, 4, 48, 20.

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You can see where this is going. This is the fourth of four servant songs. No matter what you believe, it's axiomatic that the author,

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Isaiah, had in view that if you're reading Isaiah 53, you've read the chapters that introduce it.

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So if you are watching me right now, listening to my voice, if you want to remain a member of your church in good standing, do not read

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Isaiah 41, 8, and 9. Don't read— David - Just so I understand, if I want to remain a

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Christian, Rabbi Singer says, don't read Isaiah 41, Isaiah 43, 44, 45, right, 48, because Isaiah, those chapters, they're going to shape and inform my reading of Isaiah 53.

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Which is also, I suppose, to suggest implicitly that Christians only know Isaiah 53, but they don't know about these other chapters.

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You with me? I think that's what he's saying, right? Rabbi Singer - Read Isaiah 49, verse 3, where it says explicitly that Israel is

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God's servant. Don't read Isaiah 48, verse 20, Israel's God's servant. Just read

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Isaiah 53. So this is a helicopter theology, where you just land in the 53rd chapter of a 66 -chapter book.

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So when I went to yeshiva, when I went to Jewish school, when I went to rabbinical school, we learned the whole book of Isaiah.

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In fact, I'm teaching the book of Isaiah here in Jerusalem. David -

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Well, that's a great point to make here, you know. Hopefully, those of you who watch this channel, you are avid students of the

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Bible, and you read it in its totality, and you pay close attention to its context. I mean, come on!

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Like, most of the video reactions that I do trade on the proper understanding of the context of Scripture.

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So this is a good point to make, I fully agree with Rabbi Singer here. Rabbi Singer - It's on YouTube. So if you read it in context, the servant is

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Israel, and those who are speaking in the 53rd chapter are the

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Gentile kings of nations. They're astonished, because as it turns out, at the end of days,

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Israel, God's servant, is vindicated. So just one caveat about—

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David - Okay, so there's the claim. Did you catch it? Let me play it one more time.

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Rabbi Singer - So if you read it in context, the servant is Israel, and those who are speaking in the 53rd chapter are the

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Gentile kings of nations. They're astonished, because as it turns out, at the end of days,

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Israel, God's servant, is vindicated. So just one—

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David - Okay, so claim number one. The servant in Isaiah 53. You're probably going to have to have your

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Bible open, or your Bible app, or whatever, open as we have this conversation.

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I do. So, again, this is going to be a quick conversation. The servant in Isaiah 53 is

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Israel. Not an individual. It's the nation of Israel. And then claim number two.

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Those who are speaking in Isaiah 53 are the Gentile nations. Okay?

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So stick with me, because we're going to take this rabbi's challenge, we're going to read Isaiah in its context, and we're going to see if we are, in fact, still

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Christians by the end of this video. One caveat about the book of Isaiah. You both know this.

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The book of Isaiah is not like other books. It's almost all poetry, very exquisite poetry, possibly the best example of biblical poetry in all of the

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Hebrew Bible. Out of 66 chapters, only six of them read anything like Joshua, using standard prose.

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That means it's almost all of Isaiah is using this very dense biblical poetry.

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When I say poetry, I don't mean Shakespearean poetry, but it's symbolic. So, therefore, when you have—so, you could theoretically open up the book of Joshua and just go to chapter 5 and read it and get a sense of what's going on.

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Joshua's encountering an angel, and you could get away with reading that out of context. You could read

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Leviticus 11 alone, and out of context, you could figure out which animals are clean and unclean, because there's no poetry in these chapters.

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Isaiah is almost all poetry, and therefore it's almost always using figurative language.

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So if you read— well, I'll make it worse than that, you know. I'll complexify this even further.

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Isaiah is also an apocalyptic text, because there are portions of it that refer to the end times.

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Portions of it are eschatological in nature. So, of course, there are going to be uses of figurative language in Isaiah.

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That makes sense. R. Chast is going to introduce—you know, immediately, Israel is in view here, not of all of Israel, but the righteous servant of Israel, who's not one individual, but as Isaiah 43, verse 10 says, you are my witnesses, saith the

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Lord, my servant whom I have chosen. So the servant is God's witnesses, and that's what's going on here.

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So again, if you're a Christian, you want to stay a Christian, just stay with 53 and Isaiah 9 and Isaiah 7.

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Just those three chapters, you should know them by heart, and you'll stay in your church. If you read

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Isaiah 83 in context, be prepared to resign from your church tomorrow.

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Pete Well, you bring up an outstanding point. It is highly poetic language, it is metaphorical language, and the suffering servant here actually is not any particular individual who's being predicted will come.

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It's a metaphor for the Jewish people as such. Well, so they forgot to make an important clarification that this is their interpretation of the text.

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They forgot to mention that there are other Jews who have not agreed with their interpretation and have read

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Isaiah 53 and recognized that it is obviously about an individual, like if you read it.

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So, interesting that they forgot to mention that part. And that brings up another, maybe the most widely used prophecy from the

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Tanakh by Christians, and widely misused prophecy from the Tanakh by Christians, is Daniel's son of man prophecy.

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And there again, it's always struck me that just like the other beasts that are being described, the image and the figure like a man is again a metaphor, picking up exactly what you were saying before, is a metaphor for all of Israel.

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It's not simply meaning a particular human being like a Messiah or a God -man like a

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Messiah Jesus to come. Would that be your take on Daniel as well? So, it sounds like we're starting to stray a bit from Isaiah 53.

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I'm pretty sure I did a video on the son of man about, you know, the son of man referring to Jesus.

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I'll have to find that video and leave that in the notes too. Well, anyway, so let's go ahead and take

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Rabbi Singer's challenge. Let's get into Isaiah. Once again, I'm going to pull up Logos here, and we'll start by making some observations.

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By the way, Wise Disciple has recently partnered with Logos Bible Software. This is an amazing program.

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It's going to help you go deeper into your studies of God's Word, especially if you are a pastor. You're going to want to check out

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Logos' tool called Factbook. It's absolutely amazing. It's going to cut your sermon prep in half.

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I encourage you to click the link in the notes. We have some special discounts for you there. Okay, well, let's go ahead and take this one at a time, okay?

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So remember the two claims that we identified, right? Claim number one, the servant in Isaiah 53 is the nation of Israel.

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It's not an individual servant. In order to answer this, you're going to have to zoom all the way out, okay?

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You're going to have to get a 30 ,000 -foot view of Isaiah. Specifically, you're going to have to see and appreciate how the surrounding chapters of Isaiah connect and guide and inform chapter 53, okay?

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So a couple things. Remember, Isaiah, he's writing these things at a time of great upheaval and confusion and uncertainty about the future of Israel.

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The nation of Israel didn't know what was going to happen to them. They had these neighboring pagan nations at the time that were seeking to flex their own power and authority, and God was allowing all of this to happen.

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Why? Well, because the leaders of Judah were ineffectual. They were a huge hot mess, and on balance,

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Israel was just not living in accordance with the God of their forefathers. This is the same

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Israel, however, that God had chosen to be his servant, and that concept goes all the way back to the book of Exodus.

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This is what the Lord famously says to the Pharaoh. Verse one, this is

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Exodus 9 .1, Then the Lord said to Moses, Go into Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of the people, go, that they may, here it is, serve me.

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That's where Isaiah is coming from when he writes that Israel is the servant of the Lord, but Israel has sinned.

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That's literally how Isaiah starts off. Look at this right here. Isaiah chapter one, it's right in the beginning. Verse two,

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Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children have

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I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know.

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My people do not understand. Here it is. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.

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They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are utterly estranged.

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These are incredibly harsh words coming from the Lord, and so when we start reading basically the latter half of the entire book of Isaiah, we start reading these supernatural predictions of bad things that are going to happen to Israel, but there's a promise that these bad things are going to lead ultimately to God's redemption.

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God is going to redeem Israel once again. Okay, so this is kind of a 30 ,000 -foot overview of the book of Isaiah.

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The reason why I bring all this up is if you look at chapter 49 of Isaiah, after Isaiah has been going on and on about Israel's iniquity and disobedience, now all of a sudden

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Isaiah writes what is known as the four servant songs, okay? And this particular servant that is mentioned by Isaiah, mentioned by the

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Lord, is a righteous servant that brings about the redemption of others.

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So what Isaiah—and it starts as we start moving through Isaiah 49—so what

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Isaiah paints for us in terms of a picture, so try to get this, is the overall nation of Israel who was chosen by God to be his servant, but who has been disobedient, you know?

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They have not obeyed the Lord their God, is utterly estranged from God, and now we see a servant of the

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Lord who acts wisely. Isaiah 52, verse 13 says, Behold, my servant shall act wisely.

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He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. This is someone who has done no violence.

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This is someone who has no deceit in his mouth, okay? This is a righteous one, verse 11.

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By his knowledge shall this righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous and bear their iniquities.

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So the fruit of this righteous servant being crushed for our transgressions is that ultimately we are going to have peace.

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Hey, real quick, I'm so grateful that you're watching. If I've earned the right to get your sub, I'd love it if you would just click the like and subscribe button.

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It would really help me to get the video out to more and more people. I really do appreciate you. That's what flows out of the sacrifice of this servant in chapter 53.

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As a matter of fact, if you look at chapter 54, it talks about the eternal covenant of peace.

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So here's the question that you have to ask yourself. Is this disobedient servant of God, which is the nation of Israel—again, that's how

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Isaiah starts off—is this the same servant of God who Isaiah says is righteous, no violence in him, high and lifted up and exalted, and his sacrifice will bring about redemption?

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And the answer is no. How can disobedient, utterly estranged

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Israel all of a sudden be righteous, wise, no violence, no deceit at all?

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How is that even possible? So clearly there are two distinct categories.

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They're connected, but they're distinct. Even Rabbi Singer admits this in the video that we just watched. So if you read the chapters that I introduced, you know immediately

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Israel is in view here, not of all of Israel, but the righteous servant of Israel, who's not one individual.

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But as Isaiah 43 verse 10 says, you are my witnesses, saith the Lord, my servant whom

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I have chosen. So it's not all of Israel—that's what Rabbi Singer just said—that is in view when

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Isaiah writes about God's servant. Isaiah has split this picture into two types.

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The overall nation of Israel, who is a rebellious and disobedient servant, and this righteous servant of Israel.

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He's righteous, he's wise, he brings redemption through sacrifice. Now Rabbi Singer says the righteous servant of Israel has to be talking about more than one person.

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Why? Why is that the case? Because in all these other places when a servant is mentioned, it's talking about the nation of Israel.

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That's Rabbi Singer's argument. So Rabbi Singer talked about Isaiah 41 verse 8, but you,

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Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend. So Israel, my servant, got it?

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Which by the way, this is a great passage. I love this passage. But the question that you have to ask yourself is, well, wait a second, which servant is this about?

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Is it about the disobedient servant or is it about the righteous servant? Look at verse 11 in the same, just a couple verses down from Isaiah 41 8.

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Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded. Those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.

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You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them. Why are these people contending?

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Why are they against this servant? Those who war against you, why are they warring?

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These are nations striving against this particular servant. It's because this is not the righteous servant.

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This is God making a promise to the disobedient servant that right now currently is seeing the consequences of their disobedience.

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And what God is doing is he's saying, he's making a promise to this disobedient servant, the nation of Israel, who is utterly estranged, that he will one day redeem them.

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Okay, can you see that in the passage? So far, just read Isaiah 41 8, still a

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Christian. Let's read Isaiah 44 and let's see if I'm still a Christian. Verse 1 and 2, but now here,

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O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen. Okay, okay, Rabbi Singer, but wait, let's go down to,

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I think it's also 21 and 2. Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant.

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I formed you, you are my servant, O Israel, right? Okay, again though, here's the question.

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Which servant is this? Is this the disobedient servant or the righteous servant?

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By the way, none of these passages that I just read are actually part of the four servant songs.

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Why is that? Because the servant who brings about the redemption that disobedient

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Israel needs is righteous. But this right here, what we're reading, it's not the same servant.

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So by now, you should be thinking to yourself, well, hold on a second, wait a second. How can God promise redemption to blot out transgressions, to remove sins like a mist or however it says, right?

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And the answer is through the sacrifice of the righteous servant in Isaiah 53.

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There is an important concept that we need to recognize because the fact is, throughout the

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Tanakh, it was understood that both Israel was a servant of God, but also

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Moses was a servant of God. So this notion of there being two servants of the

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Lord, it's not novel. It's not, this is not some kind of ad hoc response from some Christian, right? This is nothing new.

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Take a look at Exodus chapter 14, right at the very bottom. Verse 31,

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Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord and they believed in the

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Lord and in his, here it is, servant Moses. But wait a second, it's not just Exodus.

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Look at this, Deuteronomy 34 verse 5. So Moses, the what?

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Servant of the Lord, died in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. Right here in the first verse of Joshua 1, after the death of Moses, the who?

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Servant of the Lord. The Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, okay? So we have to appreciate what

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Isaiah is doing here. He's noting what God is telling him. Israel has become utterly estranged, that's chapter 1 of Isaiah.

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They have disobeyed their God, but one day God will bring about their redemption.

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But it's going to be through a servant of God, okay? What's interesting is,

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I don't know if you met, Isaiah, he remembered Moses' promise, okay?

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Before Moses died, he said that one like him would come, Deuteronomy chapter 18.

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This is what Moses says to the nation of Israel. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.

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It is to him you shall listen, just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the

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Lord my God or see this great fire anymore lest I die. And the Lord said to me, they are right in what they have spoken.

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I will raise up for them a prophet like you, like Moses, from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

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When Jesus came to earth, the Jews were waiting for this new Moses. And they were waiting for, because if the new

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Moses comes, there will be a new Exodus. Many of the Jews were waiting for this new

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Exodus that would lead to their redemption. Rabbi Singer knows this, okay? This is, again, nothing new.

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I'm not making this up, all right? Many believed that the coming Messiah would be this same new

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Moses figure. So this idea that Rabbi Singer is trying to promote, that the righteous servant of the

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Lord described in the four servant songs can't be an individual, guys. But it's a remnant of the nation of Israel.

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What Rabbi Singer does in order to say this is completely disregard all of these other expectations of Jews in and around the time of Jesus.

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As a matter of fact, what's really fascinating is the prophet Jeremiah did not see a group of people applied to Isaiah chapter 53.

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He understood this to mean one individual. I actually don't have the time to get into this, but this is a great

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Bible study for you. Go to Jeremiah 11 and look at how Jeremiah quotes from Isaiah 53 and applies it to one individual.

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In other words, Jeremiah does not interpret Isaiah's suffering servant as a group of people, but as one righteous individual.

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Okay, so here I am, Isaiah 53, reading it in its context, still a

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Christian. Not sure where you're at. Let me know in the comments. Are you swayed by Rabbi Singer yet?

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Have you resigned from your church yet? Let's go to claim number two. Those in chapter 53 of Isaiah who are speaking are the

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Gentile nations. Well, how did he get there? Doesn't really say, but if you go back to—this is probably how it gets there—if you go back to chapter 52 for a moment, and you look at verse 14, here's what it says.

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As many were astonished at you—many were astonished at you, this is the suffering servant—his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations.

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Kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.

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So a couple of references here, just trying to articulate Rabbi Singer's position, you have the many up here, you have many nations right here, and you have kings here, okay?

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These are the Gentiles that are in view, so that when you get to somebody speaking in chapter 53, verse 1,

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Rabbi Singer says, oh, these are Gentiles talking. Who has believed what he has heard from us?

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To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of a dying—out of a dry ground.

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Okay, these are—who are speaking in this whole chapter has to be the Gentiles, right?

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A couple interesting things about this. First, the Gentile nations—if you think about this specifically as a

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Christian—the Gentile nations are part of those whose iniquity is healed because of the piercing, because of the affliction of the suffering servant, okay?

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I'm a Gentile, I was born on a small island in the South Pacific, and by God's grace, here

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I am, saved by the sacrifice of this suffering servant, okay? But wait a second, here's the question you need to ask.

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Why is not Israel a primary voice in chapter 53? And the reason I ask that question is

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Isaiah has spoken so many times about the redemption of Israel. Again, you have to have that 30 ,000 -foot view throughout the entire book.

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Isaiah says that God will be with Israel, that they should not fear—that's

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Isaiah 41, right? We just read some of these passages. God said he would restore them again, so if redemption is what is being offered in Isaiah, how come when we finally get to redemption, which is the primary focus of the sacrifice of the suffering servant in chapter 53, now it has nothing to do with Israel?

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And the answer is, well, because the nation of Israel—this is

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Rabbi Singer's interpretation—it's the nation, the righteous group of Israelites that are being crushed.

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These are the ones who are being crushed, so of course they're not in focus here. There's a problem if you accept this interpretation.

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It presents a new problem, and this actually plays out in a fascinating discussion from One for Israel.

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So let me cue this up for you. If you want to say it's the Gentiles that are speaking in Isaiah 53, then you create this really weird problem.

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Watch this play out on this discussion. Which is

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Rabbi Singer's position, so they're conceding that for argument's sake, but watch what happens when this problem arises.

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redemption of Israel, but now suddenly the point of this passage is the redemption of the nations, okay?

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But let's talk about why there's a problem here.

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If this is about Israel, then we have a serious issue with God's morality.

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Yeah, and this is what we scholars call in Hebrew Yes, so what

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Rashi is saying, what other anti -missionaries are saying, is that innocent

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Israel, godly Israel, let's say the remnant of Israel, the nations finally recognize that even though they've abused

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Israel, and they have, and even though they have mistreated and murdered innocent

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Jews who were godly and did nothing wrong, which is true, but what

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Rashi is saying, and these anti -missionaries are saying, is that these nations suddenly realize that all of Israel's sufferings,

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God had a purpose. It was ordained by God. To what? To bring atonement for them.

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In other words, you've got this notion of national penal substitution. That's what we call in Hebrew.

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Exactly. Say it again in English. It's national penal substitution, but the problem here, listen to this, let's assume once again, this is about innocent

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Israel, innocent remnant, they've kept the Torah, they've been godly, and now God has a plan, he has a plan to atone for anti -Semites.

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Wow, that's the implication of Rashi's position. Yeah, so the way to atone for anti -Semites is through anti -Semitism, and in fact, did you catch that?

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The way to atone for Gentile nations, remember, Isaiah writes at a time when pagan nations are surrounding

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Israel, they are causing trouble for Israel, they are warring against Israel, right?

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We know about, as Christians, we know about Babylon, we know about Nebuchadnezzar, they come to destroy

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Jerusalem and the Temple, and they carry off Israelites as slaves. So, if Rabbi Singer is correct, are we really to believe that Isaiah chapter 53 is about God crushing the remnant of innocent

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Israelites? They were not disobedient guys, they were righteous, they were without deceit, so that their very oppressors can receive atonement?

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Is that how that reads? What happened to the redemption of Israel that was promised? The description of Israel's redemption is taken away, and it's given to the

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Gentiles, all because Rabbi Singer cannot admit that the suffering servant is an individual, that it is about the

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Messiah, that this individual is going to be considered high and lifted up, right?

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Which is the only language used to describe God. You don't use that language to describe the nation of Israel, okay?

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And all of this is to deny that this is about the new

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Moses that Jews were waiting for, it's about the new Exodus that they believed would one day come.

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And guess what? All of this was fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth.

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Okay, well, look, I have an announcement to make, okay? I read

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Isaiah like Rabbi Singer told me to, and I'm still a Christian. The best, most consistent reading of the beautiful text of Isaiah, it is beautiful,

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I agree with him. Poetic, all of that. But the best reading is that the suffering servant was an individual who was pierced, he was afflicted, he was crushed for our iniquities, and by his wounds, we all have been healed.

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Well, now it's your turn. What do you think about the rabbi's challenge? Did this persuade you at all? What's your take on Isaiah 53?

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Let me know in the comments below. As always, I will wander off in my ugly Christmas sweater, but I will return soon with more videos.

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Hey, if you made it this far, you need to join my Patreon community. Even if it's for free, you can start reading the

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Bible with me. Did you know that? We're doing a Bible study together right now. We're going to the Gospel of Matthew, and you can get exclusive access to videos like this before they make it onto YouTube.

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