Mock Drafts & The Messiah

In approximately two weeks, 32 teams will get together for one of my favorite events of the year, the NFL Draft. I have loved the draft ever since I was a kid.

The NFL Draft has hundreds if not thousands of players coming out of the NCAA seeking to get picked by an NFL team. There are players of different positions and backgrounds have been scrupulously evaluated by talent scouts on athletic ability, in-game skills, character, etc. These players all want to get drafted higher than others so that they make more money on their rookie contract.

Each NFL team has a certain number of picks based on how they did the season before. These teams can also trade picks up or down to get the player they want. In terms of strategy, some teams might take players based on positional need. Some teams take the best player available no matter what position their team needs, as was the case when Green Bay took Aaron Rodgers with pick no. 24 in 2005. Other teams might strike gold late on in the draft, as was the case when the New England Patriots took Tom Brady with pick number 199 in the 6th round in 2000. The amazing thing about the draft is that the future of entire franchises, as well as these individual players is on the line with each pick.

One phenomenon of the NFL Draft are "Mock Drafts." In these mock drafts, NFL analysts and scouts attempt to predict which team is going to pick which player at which exact pick. Each player is slotted to a team based on a prediction by the analyst. These mock drafts become indicators of the skills and knowledge analysts have. Most mock drafts turn out horribly wrong. NFL Analysts and talent evaluators prove time and time again to be unable of predicting the future.

Sample of 2017 Mock Drafts from NFL.com Analysts

Like the predictions of a mock draft, many Old Testament books offer up predictions and prophesies for what is to happen in the future. These predictions come from prophets. The words of prophets are predictions inspired by God and declared through them as human vessels. The Old Testament contains 16 books that you could say are written by prophets.

What makes someone a prophet of God?

The Bible shows us that The Holy Spirit worked through the prophets to write the Scriptures. These were regular human authors who lived extraordinary lives for God, communicating His words and His will to others. The words of these authors predict things to come, and these events always do occur.

The prophets helped Israel and help us to see God's plan of salvation. From the prophets we learn that God was sending a King called a Messiah to rule and restore all things. From the prophets in the Old Testament we learn that the Messiah was to suffer before being glorified. We learn that salvation was to come by grace through faith and through the Messiah. The New Testament tells us that the Messiah was none other than the person of Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Peter helps us understand some of the reason why God gave us the prophets:
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. (1 Peter 1:10-11 ESV)

Isaiah 53 is an incredible passage of prophesy. In the passage, the author is predicting the coming Messiah, the "arm of the Lord" who is to experience great suffering and bear the sin of many. The man whom Isaiah prophesied about was Jesus Christ. In the gospel according to John we learn:

Isaiah said these things [the prophesies] because he saw his [Jesus'] glory and spoke of him. (John 12:41 ESV)

We know that those who make predictions for mock drafts fail. Does God fail in His predictions? Let's look at the passage and see if the predictions made by the prophet Isaiah about the Messiah come to fruition in the person of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed what he has heard from us?
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. (Isaiah 53:1-2 ESV)

The Messiah was to come from humble estate, not majesty and beauty.

R. Kent Hughes tells us of Jesus' birth in a manger:
"If we imagine that Jesus was born in a freshly swept, county fair stable, we miss the whole point. It was wretched—scandalous! There was sweat and pain and blood and cries as Mary reached up to the heavens for help. The earth was cold and hard. The smell of birth mixed with the stench of manure and acrid straw made a contemptible bouquet. Trembling carpenter’s hands, clumsy with fear, grasped God’s Son slippery with blood—the baby’s limbs waving helplessly as if falling through space—his face grimacing as he gasped in the cold and his cry pierced the night." (Preaching the Word: Luke - The Birth of Jesus)

The Jews of Jesus' day lived under the foot of harsh Roman rule. They hoped for a king in the manner of Saul, a man of size, stature, and power to come and overthrow the Romans bringing them freedom and restoration. But as Kent Hughes shows us here, Jesus came as God's Messiah with no form or majesty - no beauty. Jesus came as God's Messiah from the humblest and most meager of beginnings, born among the "stench of manure and acrid straw."

As Jesus grew, nothing about him drew attention to the fact that he was the Son of God and the Messiah that the prophets had been pointing towards. Luke tells us of Jesus' growth process:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52 ESV)

Jesus grew up like a young plant before God, like a root out of dry ground. Jesus did not display the outward king-like majesty that was the hope of the Jews of the time. Rather, the appearance of Jesus was that of an average Palestinian Jew. Internally, Jesus was growing in wisdom and grace in the sight of God and man.

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.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:3-4 ESV)

The Messiah was to be a lowly man, rejected, despised, acquainted with grief.

Almost immediately in Jesus' ministry he begins to experience hatred, scorn and rejection.
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Mark 2:16 ESV)

The more teaching and healing Jesus did, the more of a threat he was becoming. Mark tells us of how after healing on the Sabbath, the Pharisees began to hold counsel on how to destroy Jesus. The life of Jesus was marked by rejection. The man who associated himself with sinners and taught about the Kingdom of God spent his life as an outcast.

"Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Jesus was a lonely and forsaken outcast, the King descended from heaven and rejected, despised by his people.

Truly Jesus was also acquainted with grief, the man knew grief for it followed him every day of his earthly life. Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, his heart longing for his people to accept him:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19:41-42 ESV)

Sorrow and dejection clung to Jesus like a shadow, and the scene of the garden of Gethsemane paints a vivid portrait:

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:36-39 ESV)

In the garden of Gethsemane the crucifixion and fulfillment of Jesus' life on earth began to loom larger and larger for him. Prayer became his only hope as he desired fellowship with the Father. Jesus knew of the terror that was to come and his soul became very sorrowful, even to death. He knew that he was to take on the weight of God's wrath for sin, and to feel the great void of separation from the Father! Truly there has never been more raw anguish in a man than in this prayer of Jesus in the garden, yet he says, "Thy will be done."

Jesus has surely borne our griefs. There is no anguish common to man that wasn't felt by Jesus in his flesh. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus has borne our griefs:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 ESV)

Jesus can sympathize with every anguish, turmoil, and pain we feel in our lives. His life of anguish and the prayer in Gethsemane show us a man who truly was acquainted with grief.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5 ESV)

God's plan of salvation is that sinners would attain righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. We see here in Isaiah that the Messiah was to be pierced for our transgressions. The Messiah of God was to be crushed for our iniquities and through his sacrifice comes peace and healing.

[Jesus] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(Romans 4:25 - 5:1 ESV)

Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses. On the cross Jesus paid the penalty for sin for all who believe in his name. He was raised from the dead for our justification, if we receive him by faith. When we are justified by faith we find ourselves at peace with God. The wounds of Christ - his suffering and death, are the wounds with which 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 53:6 ESV)

The Messiah was to come because all have gone astray, and the LORD would lay on the Messiah the iniquity - the sin of us all.

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.” (Romans 3:9-12 ESV)

further


So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. (Luke 15:3-7 ESV)

Jesus proclaims that he is the good shepherd, come to find his wandering sheep and in rejoicing bring repentant sinners home, by laying down his life for our sake.


I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:11 ESV)

And Jesus has paid the penalty for sin:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7-9 ESV)

The Messiah was to be led like a lamb to slaughter, under oppression and affliction yet opening not his mouth. The Messiah was to die and be cut off from the land of the living and to make his grave with the wicked, and be with the rich man in his death.

Jesus was betrayed by Judas, taken away by force, and denied and abandoned by his friends.
Jesus was falsely accused, mocked, derided, and lied about - yet he opened not his mouth.

And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” (Mark 14:60-61 ESV)

Jesus was condemned, spit on, beaten, delivered over to authority, stripped, crucified with two robbers.
Jesus was reviled, forsaken by God, and died on the cross. His side was pierced by the Romans, and laid to 
rest in a rich man's tomb.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10 ESV)

It was God's will that the Messiah's soul would make an offering for guilt, but he the Messiah was also to live to see his offspring.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

Jesus was made to be sin, to die as a sinner. But Jesus knew no sin, rather he was righteous before God in his flesh. Therefore, in Jesus we can become the righteousness of God.

The writer of the Hebrews sums this up perfectly:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,


“Behold, I and the children God has given me.” (Hebrews 2:10-13 ESV)

Jesus is the founder of our salvation, bringing many sons to glory. All those who put their faith in Jesus become his brothers, offspring according to the promise.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:11-12 ESV)

The Messiah was not to remain in anguish, but to be satisfied. The Messiah was to be the righteous one dividing the spoil.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:8-11 ESV)

Jesus is exalted by God to the place of King! In his exaltation, Jesus divides the spoil:

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”


(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesians 4:7-10 ESV)

Jesus is the Messiah predicted in Isaiah 53. The prophesies attributed to the Messiah are fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the righteous servant of God who makes many to be accounted righteous. Jesus is the one who bore our sins. Jesus was numbered with sinners and bore our sin, and now lives to make intercession for us.

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (Romans 8:34 ESV)

Jesus is God's Messiah. As we track his life, death, and resurrection we see that everything matches perfectly with the prophesy of Isaiah 53 for who God's Messiah was to be.

God's plan of salvation begins and ends with the person of Jesus Christ. When we receive Jesus by faith, we enter into God's Kingdom, under the sovereign rule of King Jesus forever. 

[Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 16:15-17 ESV)

Jesus is the Christ! God's Messiah and King!

Do you confess him like Peter? Is Jesus your King?

Happy Easter!