Isaiah 53:8 - He was cut off from the land of the living

53:8

“By oppression and judgement”. Jesus was oppressed by the Jewish religious leaders and by the Roman authorities. The case was a show trial, sentencing an innocent man. And no one objected to His unfair treatment. But He was also taken away by judgement. Our sin was laid upon Him, so He received the punishment, the judgement, that we deserved. He was “cut off from the land of living”. Islam cannot cope with idea of the Messiah dying, but this was essential for our salvation. Jesus died on the cross, but not without purpose. He died for the sins of God’s people. There are arguments about “limited atonement”, ie did Jesus just atone for the sins of the elect, or did He die for everyone, just providing the possibility of salvation. There is, of course, much more to be said on this matter than I will say here, so go and read about it if you wish. The strength of limited atonement is that Jesus died specifically for you and me, and died effectively. Ie His sacrifice was 100% effective. And Scripture seems to be fully support this contention. The “downside” is that it raises the question, can we make the evangelistic claim that “Jesus died for you”. It seems that limited atonement would say no, but I believe that that is a flawed deduction. We are deducing this conclusion from a temporal, human perspective, but the atonement is an eternal action and some of our deductions may therefore be invalid. Moreover, the Bible tells us to preach the gospel to everyone. So in effect we can proclaim “Jesus died for you”.