Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: There are so many depictions that are out there that are just completely wrong and unaware of what the facts were and the history of all of it was from. It's amazing because I actually believe that if more people were to actually understand what Christ went through, they would develop a much deeper appreciation for what it was that he actually suffered.

Guest (Male): There is so little that surrounds the death of Jesus that is known, yet the information is readily available. Why is that? There are many reasons and we'll talk about those today on Light on the Hill. We'll also give you a vivid picture of what happened on that day in 33 AD. Here's Pastor James Kaddis and Isaiah chapter 53.

James Kaddis: I entitled the series that I was working through for these studies that I've done starting three studies ago, The Prophecies That Changed the World. I think that there have been several iterations of how I've entitled it because they've been such a struggle to think about in terms of its presentation.

One of the issues that I've had a very difficult time doing is trying to take the word of God that requires so much more than we can give it and being able to give it the justification that it deserves in a world and in a society of people that see things for about a half a second and move on to the next thing. Even when I apply the title that I just explained to you in this moment, it is still not even near as consequential as what it really means and what it's really about.

I think there is so much to be said on so many different levels about what happened on this day and what we can do to understand what it all means. I think it has to start with not just the description that I'm about to read to you. That's why I have my iPad here because I'm going to read to you a description that I think is really important and critical for your growth and understanding. I think it's the last part of what we're going to do today.

In order to dig deep into this, we have to understand why salvation? Why do you even need it? What is it even about? Do you know that amongst the group of young people that are running away from the Protestant Church and running to the Catholic Church, one of the teachings that they're constantly hearing—not from the Catholic Church but from the Protestant Church—has been the Old Testament is not valid? That we have a new covenant, the new covenant is the only thing that matters.

By the way, you're hearing lots of people in mainstream media who claim to be conservative talking heads that will say the same thing because they use that assertion to justify them actually destroying Israel as it's represented in the Bible concerning their stand for the future. One of the things that's really interesting is the fact that they continue to stand on this broken foundation that says that the Old Testament has no relevance with respect to what we're experiencing in the New Covenant.

I have news for you and I'm going to say something without getting into all the deep-rooted mechanics of it because literally this could end up being a seven-hour lecture if I do that. But without getting into the deep level mechanics of it all, let me just simply make this statement. Jesus did not have the authority to provide for you the forgiveness of sins if the Old Testament is to be ignored today.

If the Old Testament is no longer valid, then Jesus does not have the authority to forgive you of my sins, of your sins, and everybody else's sins. It cannot be done. Absolutely cannot be done. Why? The simple, perhaps more uneducated mind might assert the fact that Jesus can forgive us of our sins because he's God and he chooses to be able to do that. The problem is God won't contradict his own word.

If God makes a very clear statement regarding our sin and the consequence for our sin, then the price must be paid, and without the price being paid, there is no redemption for sin. It's impossible. The Bible tells us that without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin. There can be no covering of sin. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that the kopher, as it is described in Hebrew, the covering that's created by the blood of bulls and goats is only temporarily suited to cover you for a very specific moment in time and not for what may be an all-inclusive permanent atonement that we know and understand to be today.

As a matter of fact, the very Old Testament speaks to us concerning the validity of the requirement for a perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world to then be put on the cross and executed for your sake and for mine. As a matter of fact, dare I even use the word cross? Yes, it's predicted in the Old Testament. But the one thing that I should say and perhaps more significantly and more importantly, if you ignore the validity of the Old Testament, if you ignore the context of the Old Testament, if you ignore the words of the Old Testament, you will never understand the New Testament.

You will never understand any part of the New Testament. Can I give you one example of this? I have lots of people who love Bible prophecy who come to me and they tell me all the time, "Well, I love the book of Revelation, James, and that's all I'm into. I don't read the Old Testament. I don't get into any of that stuff. I just really love the book of Revelation." Do you know the book of Revelation actually quotes or references either directly or indirectly to the Old Testament over 800 times? How in the world can that even be? It does. In one way or another, it brings insight at that level.

Why? Because it points us to stories that we hear about, and those stories point us to other things, and those other things point us to other things, and all of those are points of information that the book of Revelation will refer to in one way or another. Can I give you just one simple example of this? When you look at the churches that Jesus writes to, he writes to seven different churches. When he writes a letter to one of the churches, he says, "This I love about you or this I believe in you concerning you've held my word." He says that. Even the way he says that is tied to an Old Testament passage.

How about we take it a step further? He speaks about the doctrine of Balaam with Balak. If you don't know the Old Testament, you're never going to be able to understand what that means. You completely lose the value of what he's saying to the church, and if you lose the value of what he's saying to the church, you're going to lose everything else that sits within the book of Revelation. You have to know what happened with Balaam. You have to know who Balak was. You have to be able to understand what the Bible says in the book of Numbers concerning that moment.

You have to be able to understand what the Bible says in other places regarding that moment. You cannot invalidate, you cannot throw away the Old Testament in the name of saying we hold to this New Covenant, the New Testament. They are all valid and they all tie to one another because God designed it that way. As a matter of fact, most of us already know this, but there are many declarations that Jesus makes concerning that very truth.

He even tells us in the book of Matthew he didn't come to destroy the law, he came to fulfill it, every jot and tittle. By the way, when he talked about every jot and tittle, you know what he was talking about? He was talking about the marks that were made by the original manuscript writers who actually wrote down indicators as to where they could start or stop when they were making copies as copyists. Jesus says, "I fulfilled every bit of that. I didn't come to destroy any of it."

Which is why we have to understand the bigger picture. If we don't understand the bigger picture, we're not going to understand lots of other things. It's very interesting. I've heard preachers, even in this time period recently, talk about the moment that Jesus said, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." We talked about that. We talked about the agony that Christ must have felt when he cried out those words. That's a very valid point. But they go on and on talking about that without explaining that it was a direct fulfillment of exact words that were actually spoken of in the book of Psalms.

When Jesus said, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," he was even using the same terminology, tone, and iteration that you would find in Psalm 22, just like many other passages that Jesus actually ends up quoting throughout the time of his life. If you'll understand all of those things, it will begin to make a lot of sense why this is so special. Now, don't even get me started on understanding the Old Testament and the New Testament and the importance of getting into the word and knowing it deeply and being aware of it. It's also knowing some of the facts that are oftentimes completely thrown away because of what tradition teaches us.

Oftentimes we say, "Oh, we're going to have our Good Friday service and we're going to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ." Yet we know for a fact that Christ was actually crucified on Thursday. He wasn't crucified on Friday. Many people will say, "Well, James, that's impossible because the Sabbath starts on sunset on Friday, not sunset on Thursday." But if you understand the culture, if you understand the law of God, if you understand the Jewish Passover and the celebration, you would also know that there was a special Shabbat that would take place that oftentimes would happen on very specific years.

Basically, when the termination of the celebration of the Passover would take place, you would have another Shabbat and that Shabbat would actually take place on sunset Thursday. When Jesus was crucified, he was crucified on sunset Thursday. Then of course, if you will remember, you have to honor the daytime during Friday—there is no activity daytime on Friday—then you've got a sunset on Friday which takes you into the other Shabbat day that you have to go through and then of course it's the sunset on Saturday.

Which is why they didn't go to take care of Jesus until it was Sunday morning, because they can't go to the grave at night to take care of him and you know all the other rules and things that go by that. The thing is, if you know those facts, you're going to be able to better appreciate everything that falls in play. By the way, if you know that and you could appreciate that, then you'll also appreciate the many prophecies that get tied to the moment of his crucifixion and the moments leading into his resurrection.

These are all things that we clearly don't have time to go over but they're all facts that are clearly stipulated to by a whole bunch of people. Not that we need any kind of groupthink to validate the conclusions of the Bible, but it is an important point to note. So when we get to Isaiah 52, I want you to understand this and I want you to appreciate it for what it is. You are seeing Isaiah doing something that is very, very heavy here. Isaiah is going to give us insight into the Messiah. He is going to show us the suffering that the Messiah must take on.

By the way, I want you to note this. To this day, Jews that choose to reject Jesus as their Messiah completely ignore the end of Isaiah 52 and all of Isaiah 53. They do not consider it to be a part of or a significant part of their Bible. They ignore that portion of the prophet's words because of how stunningly accurate those words are. A lot of people have described it as though Isaiah was in the midst of Jesus' crucifixion and then he wrote the passage in the end of 52 all the way through 53 after he saw it all happen.

It would appear to be the case, but that's not what happened. As a matter of fact, to be clear here, this actually happened roughly 740 years before Jesus was crucified. 740 years, folks. Very important that you understand that. So let's look at this. This is very consequential here in the Bible. Isaiah chapter 52 and we'll actually start at verse 13 because I think this is important. It says this, "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high."

Of course, we know what this is talking about, right? We're talking about the fact that Christ will carry that place of remarkable prominence and we know where that's going to end up going. Right now he is our priest and he is the one that is our intermediary. He's the one that gives us access to the Father. One day he will come back as king and he will as king—he's already been anointed as king, but he'll come back as king taking over the title deed of the earth and in essence bringing in for us what we will experience through the ages into eternity.

Look at this verse 14. "As many were astonied at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men." We're going to get into that, by the way. We're going to get into just how marred his physical body was. It was so marred that undoubtedly it was unrecognizable. When you actually translate this from the Hebrew language, it's very difficult to categorize what's actually being spoken of here. Basically what he's saying here is that Christ is going to be beat by the time he's on the cross so bad that in essence he will not be recognizable, not even as a human person per se, which is a pretty significant statement to be made here.

Look what it says. "So shall what? He sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at him for that which had not been told them shall they see and that which they had not heard shall they consider." We know what's going to happen with him. They beat him, they brutalized him, they did the most terrible things, but yet there's going to come a point in time where all are going to know exactly who he is. They are going to see him for the King of kings and the Lord of lords and some things are going to happen and they're going to be reproved, and that's a very nice way of putting it.

Look at this verse one. This is Isaiah 53 verse one. "Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" By the way, I do want to say this because it is important. There is no way in the world that I'm going to do justice to this passage in the next 20 minutes. It's not happening. Which is why I'm reading through it very quickly. If you want to get into my in-depth analysis on this passage, I do believe I took my Bible college recordings from teaching through Isaiah 53.

There's about four hours of material that's there that I have available that you can listen to because it is very involved and we get into some very deep-rooted technical analysis that's really important for you to understand. It carries through some things that will not only agree with what we read in Genesis—as early as in Genesis—but it will also agree and carry through all of not only the synoptics but John's account of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as well as what we read about in the book of Revelation. It's very heavy stuff. We don't have the time to do that.

Look what it goes on to say. It says, "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not." It's interesting. I want you to look at a description that it says here. It says that he was acquainted with grief. It says that he was a man filled with sorrows.

There's something really important to point out and that's the fact that Jesus was a man who was deeply and well-acquainted with suffering because he watched the suffering of people around him and it broke his heart. He's the creator of the universe and he saw that and it's very interesting to see what that looks like. I do want to back up one point and I want to point something out about Jesus that I think is also critical to point out. It says this. It says that there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Prior to that it says he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. This speaks very directly of Christ's humiliation and we know that and it speaks very directly of how he was treated and how people wanted to stay away from him. But it also gives us a very interesting inference in that it tells us that Jesus was not somebody that stood out in the crowds physically speaking. He wasn't somebody that was seven feet tall or he wasn't somebody that you would look at in a crowd and be able to identify him.

The New Testament confirms what Isaiah prophesied here because in the New Testament we recognize the fact that Judas, when he was paid to betray Jesus, Judas actually had to walk up to Jesus and kiss him so that the temple guards knew who to arrest. So Jesus was that common. He blended that much in, which I think is very interesting. I would like to think that if we went back in those days, we'd be able to instantly recognize him having the Holy Spirit living inside of us. I would think so.

But it is interesting to see that even when he was resurrected and in the garden he was not recognized by the people that were the closest to him, or even in some of the stories that we read where he was accompanying people that they did not recognize him initially, including his own disciples. There's some real interesting aspects of this that you have to pay attention to and take a look at. Look what it goes on to say verse four. "Surely he hath borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted."

Many people looked at Jesus when he was hanging on the cross and said he can't be the Messiah because he was cursed by God because he was hung on a tree. The Bible even says that. Cursed is that person who hangs on a tree. That was the mindset of the people in that time. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him 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 hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he openeth not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before their shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Look what it says here. This is so heavy. Watch this verse nine and then we'll jump in to something else before we read the rest of this passage.

"And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth." Isn't that interesting? He made his grave with the wicked. How did he die? He died with wicked men right by him. And then when he was buried, he was buried in the grave of a wealthy man. Isn't that funny? The Bible sees it. We were told this. It's all here. The Bible predicted that this would happen. By far one of the greatest Bible prophecies ever to be read in the Bible is all being fulfilled here.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Pastor James Kaddis on Light on the Hill and part of our new study, Prophecies That Changed the World Forever. Pastor James will be right back with more. There are a few ways you can listen to today's message or the entire five-part series again. We post all our programs to lightonthehillradio.com as well as oneplace.com. You'll also find Light on the Hill on most major podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google.

We also have an app that makes listening to messages easy to do on any of your mobile devices. Just search for Calvary Chapel Signal Hill in the App Store or Google Play. Pastor James, you made the point today that Jesus didn't come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. You beautifully tie the Old Testament into your new book on Revelation. Can you tell us a little bit about the book and why an understanding of the Old Testament helps us better understand Bible prophecy, such as what we find in the book of Revelation?

James Kaddis: Well, as I've said many times before, the purpose of this book is to allow people to fully understand what the book of Revelation is saying based upon the foundation by which it is presented. And it is presented based on the foundation of the Old Testament. So the better you understand the Old Testament, the easier it will be for you to understand and discern what is being said in the book of Revelation. So the hope is to bring this about.

I mention this in the book in the very beginning where the Bible tells us that the law was given to us by Moses. This is quoted in John. But grace and truth—this is how it's translated—realized in the law through Jesus Christ. So the realization of that grace and truth in the law is what we spend a lot of time emphasizing that you might be able to take that as the foundational tool and really understand and discern what's being said in the book of Revelation, and it opens up a whole new world. I promise you, it will be a tremendous help in understanding and knowing what God's word says as that very last book has been written to us for a very specific reason.

Guest (Male): The Last Book by Pastor James Kaddis is available now on Amazon or at lightonthehillradio.com. We'll continue our series on the prophecies that change the world forever all next week on Light on the Hill. Here's a preview of our next study in Isaiah.

James Kaddis: Let me read the last part of Isaiah 53 to you. And it says this, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him." Can you please compute that for just one second? Allow your brain to process that. I love you guys. I'm your pastor. I would like to think that I would be willing to give my life for you. But you know the one thing I won't do? I will never allow my boy to suffer for you, ever. Or my two girls. I'm sorry, I just can't. He's my baby. There's no way, you guys. There's no way. But Jesus, it said it pleased him to let that happen. It literally pleased him. Think about that for a second. It pleased the Father.

Guest (Male): Come back next time when we'll tell you the real story of Jesus and his death. Light on the Hill is presented by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.