Be Honest About Your Theology: Disclose Your Assumptions

I’ll well into my 7th year of authoring the Kineti blog. In those discussion-filled years, I’ve seen a veritable carousel of theologies come and go. I’ve seen a lot of arguing over those theologies. I’ve seen people lose sight of brotherhood in Messiah in order to win theological arguments. But on a positive note, I’ve gained some wisdom – difficult-to-acquire, battle-earned wisdom – regarding how to approach and evaluate theology. Oh yes! I’ve gained some insight, my friends.

And today, fine and fortunate blog readers, you’re going to acquire some of this wisdom awesome-sauce.

(Just think, it took me eight years to develop this insight, but you’ll have it in a few short minutes by the end of this post – lucky you! Think of it like enjoying a nice glass of wine that someone else had aged and preserved for a few decades. )

So here’s some uncommon wisdom for the Messianic Mensch: disclose your theological assumptions.

What does that mean?

It means you first acknowledge your beliefs have assumptions. That’s surprisingly hard to do, because no one wants to admit their beliefs are based on assumptions -- and worse! -- that those assumptions could be wrong.

Those assumptions may seem positively certain to you, but it might not for everyone. When people argue for a belief, they often don’t disclose these assumptions, because it does not strengthen their position. It might even appear to weaken their position, because it allows for doubt about their position. So, the assumptions are left out of theological sales pitches, while you, the theological consumer, are left with context-less, assumption-less beliefs that seem positively certain, but truthfully are not so.

Why is disclosing assumptions important?

For clarity’s sake and for honesty’s sake.

Honesty, because it’s ultimately dishonest to show only the things that strengthen your position while withholding the things upon which that position is based.

Clarity, because without knowing the assumptions of a theology, one can be convinced of almost anything from Scripture. Removed from its context, and based on the sand of faulty assumptions, one can argue virtually any idea and claim Scriptural support. Slavery, genocides, anti-Semitism and all kinds of evil has been done in the name of theology; but if we properly understood the assumptions behind those theologies, people would not have been so easily fooled, I’m convinced.

Likewise for us: don’t be fooled by various trending theologies. Understand them at a deep level, including all the assumptions made to arrive at that theology. Only then you stake out your position.

What do you mean by “assumptions”?

The easiest way to grok it is to see an example:

I hold a general belief, a theological position, common among many Messianics, that the Torah (the first 5 books of the Jewish and Christian Bibles) contain instructions that are still relevant for God’s people.

We’ll call this “Torah Relevance” theology. (I just made that name up, so don’t use it for real stuff, mmmkay? )

Normally, if I was arguing for my theology, I’d show you all the verses and Scriptures that support my position. I wouldn’t disclose the assumptions about this theology, since that wouldn’t strengthen my argument. But today, for the sake of clarity and honesty, I’m going to disclose the assumptions behind my theology.

What are the assumptions of Torah Relevance theology?

• Jesus didn’t intend to start a new religion.
• Jesus and his disciples practiced the religion of Israel, which was and is based on Torah.
• Jesus was Torah-observant, observing the laws and commandments in the Torah.
• Disciples of Jesus observed the Torah.
• Mark 7’s “Jesus declared all foods clean” is a scribal interpretation, and a faulty one at that.
• Jesus never broke a Torah commandment nor encouraged his disciples to do so.
• The New Testament doesn’t contain any “the Torah has ended” instruction, and thus, today’s followers of Jesus are in error for discarding the Torah’s instruction.
• The Torah was given as an eternal covenant.
• Jesus was the only person to have ever kept the Torah blamelessly, that is, never breaking a single commandment.
• The Torah defines sin.
• Without the Torah, we don’t know what sin is.
• Paul’s writings that seem to contradict the Torah are mostly misinterpretations by today’s gentile audience, far removed from the context of Israel, Judaism, and the practice of Jesus.
• The Song of the Lamb and the Song of Moses spoken of in Revelation refers to those who hold to Yeshua and to Torah.
• God has one people for himself, and the Torah contains God’s instruction for that people.
• The Torah contains God’s instructions.
• Jesus was the Messiah.
• God exists.

That’s just a few from the fore stream of my thoughts; there are undoubtedly many more unspoken assumptions upon which the general “Torah is relevant for people today” theology is based.

It gets complex from here: there are more intricate extrapolations of this theology: One Law (Torah for everyone), Divine Invitation (Torah obligation for Jews, invitation for gentiles), Bilateral Ecclesiology (Torah obligation for Jews, gentiles are separate people and no observance needed), Moral Law Only (Torah’s moral laws are applicable to all) – we’re barely scratching the surface here. These complex differences arise out of assumptions being interpreted in different ways.

Bottom line: assumptions matter. If enough of the assumptions are incorrect, the theology itself might, just might, be wrong.

Next time you’re presented with a theology, consider the assumptions it makes. Ask the person pitching you the theology what are the assumptions behind it. It’ll cause introspect in the proponent of the theology, and, best yet, it will let you judge a theology not on trends or personal tastes, but on the merit of its foundations.

Internet Fight!

Having run this Messianic blog for 7+ years, and having been through numerous theological battles with other religionists of all stripes, and having been involved in political sites on the web over the last decade, this made be laugh. Hard.

Internet fights – why do we do it?

Back in the earlier days of the web, I was involved with a now-defunct site called Christdot. (It’s now under changed ownership, with a new name, Theophiles.) It was a website geared towards technologically-inclined Christians.

One problem, of course, was with the newly-granted anonymity by the internet, religious people were free to whack each other over the head.

And whack we did.

Imagine posts with many hundreds (thousands?) of comments, ugly theological battles played out between the veterans, the newcomers, the trolls, all that. A bunch of angry nerds, religious ones, furiously pecking away at their keyboards as they wipe droplets of sweat from their nerdly brows, trying to convince others of the rightness of our causes via insults and passive-aggressive insinuations.

The end result? One of the owners of the site, encouraged by all the fighting, abandoned his faith. Went the agnostic/atheist route, IIRC.

The site shut down, transferred ownership, and we were left wondering – did we cause a person to abandon his faith by our stupid internet fights?

That’s a sobering thought.

And what, exactly, did we accomplish with all that fighting? The veterans dug their trenches deeper, the outside world saw how vitriolic we could be. Real good fruit.

Causes

To be sure, it’s not limited to Christian or Messianic talk. This same kind of problem exists on Jewish forums, secular forums, and political forums, I’ll attest. So it’s not a Messianic thing.

In my Veteran Intarweb Experience, there are 2 main causes of internet fights:

1. Anonymity granted by the internet.
2. Ambiguous intent due to lack of facial expressions & body language.

The second one’s an old problem, older than the internet. Only now it’s ubiquitous: everyone and their grandma is on the internet. And even your senile aunt Fannie is blogging.

It’s made worse by imprecise writing; the ease at which a person can take a single sentence and pick it apart ad nauseum. What did you really mean, “faulty logic”? Hey, you’re no better than the Nazis!

(Brevity prevents lazy, stupid, mean readers from taking this too far.)

But the first one, anonymity, is kind of unique to the internet. There aren’t many outlets where you’re given an ongoing voice, but remain anonymous and accountability-free.

But meet one of those angry, vitriolic posters in real life…and guess what? Harmless as a baby unicorn. Suddenly all those hard line stances are softer. Suddenly, the humanity of the other side sinks in, and we’re singing kumbaya and downing Guinness.

Analyzing some debates

This very moment, fine blog readers, I’m engaged in 3 exciting internet debates:

• Yahnatan is contends Yeshua was not a heretic of Judaism, since heretic implies a religious orthodoxy installed.
  
• Monique contends my statement that Reform Judaism “threw off the stringent observance of the Orthodox” is unengaged, lacking, and misleading.
  
• Gene and Derek are totally tearing me a new one for posting J.K. McKee’s video on Jew/gentile equality in the Messianic movement and amplifying it as theological clarity.

Now, those first two arguments are resulting from a low-quality, short post musing on a comment from another blog. I was imprecise, off-the-cuff, gunslinger poster, and now I’m reaping what I sowed.

(But I already told you I’d be doing more short, cheap posts like this in 2010, so take that, you mean blog readers.)

The second debate with Gene and Derek, well, I knew people would be upset about that one.

None of these arguments build off previous arguments. Rehashed stuff, I think.

None of these arguments are likely to win others.

One of the debates has already caused discouragement among one of Messiah’s followers, she says she was “discouraged and frustrated” by one of the comment threads on this very blog. Youch.

What if I don’t partake in the arguments? Well, then the other side wins. (Ohhhh noooesss!) But more importantly, folks like me are isolated and pushed out. I don’t want that for me or people like me. More importantly, I want to shape the Messianic movement positively, and leaving harmful ideas unchallenged doesn’t jive with this goal.

An unanswered accusation suggests the accusation is true. Let those things slide, and you’ll be convinced I’m the synagogue of Satan and a cult leader. Oh, and an evil demon clown with a penis lacking in length & girth. (By the way, anybody have some spare eXtenze?)

Building atop previous arguments? Or rehashing same old stuff?

In this week’s weekly bracha, one highlight was Daniel from ChristianForMoses who was fed up with Messianic blog discussion. Why?

For the most part, interaction on the blogs I visit tends to be quite poor. There’s much circular debate and it’s hard to find a quality dialogue that builds on what is discussed before.

I recognize this too. It stems from an unwillingness of Side A to acknowledge arguments from the Side B. Also, sometimes it’s just easy to miss a response in the sea of comments. And other times you’re just infuriated and insulted by that one nasty statement he made, and you just can’t focus on anything else at the moment but telling him how damn wrong he is.

Why do it?

I’ve tried avoiding all conflict. Tried it for several months last year. The result was the “other” side declares victory and isolates you further, almost expects you to get in their soup line. If you don’t stand up for your beliefs, prepare to be steamrolled.

Keeping silent isn’t the answer.

What is the answer? Beats me.

Since I don’t know the answer to this internet fighting problem, I’ve focused more on contributions to the Messianic world: Greatest Commandments project, weekly bracha, Messianic music guitar chords, Chavah, Epistles of Paul, and others. Focus less on internet arguments. Feels better contributing something tangible. At the very least, it’s not subtracting from the Messianic good, nor damaging/frustrating/alienating people in the process.

What do you, fine blog reader, think of all the internet arguments on these blogs? Should we just shaddup? Close comments? Not get so personal? Yes, you may interpret this as a cry for help.

How it really goes down

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this:

Step 1 – Grrr! Say it!

 

Step 2 – Sigh. Delete:

Step 3 – …be gracious:

Thank God for his extended grace.

God and suffering – live debate tonight

UPDATE: here is the audio recording of the debate:

 

-----

Hey fine blog readers.

Tonight (April 15th, 2010), agnostic scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman will be debating Hebrew Christian apologetic Dr. Michael Brown on the question:

Does the Bible provide an adequate answer to the question of suffering?

The two will debate at Ohio State University, and the event will be streamed live over the internet for your viewing pleasure.

Dr. Ehrman is a former Evangelical and a critic of the New Testament who turned to agnosticism after the question of suffering pushed him away from his former faith. He has written popular books since then including Misquoting Jesus, and Jesus, Interrupted. He has appeared on popular television shows like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, and has made a number of appearances on National Public Radio.

Dr. Michael Brown has a few words to say about the debate before tonight:

Blog-as-philosophy paper

MIT's Guideline on Writing a Philosophy Paper: “pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean.” 

In fact, you can profitably take this one step further and pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean. He's lazy in that he doesn't want to figure out what your convoluted sentences are supposed to mean, and he doesn't want to figure out what your argument is, if it's not already obvious. He's stupid, so you have to explain everything you say to him in simple, bite-sized pieces. And he's mean, so he's not going to read your paper charitably.

What wisdom in this guideline! And not just for writing philosophy papers, this is true even for blogging and internet discussions.

When in a discussion, I usually shoot for the most concise words I can use. Nothing more. Without this, people pick apart your argument and split hairs.

Example: 

Me: "I'm celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary."

Them: "Peace is the way to go, man, and Israel is a violent, racist nation. Are you saying you love war, celebrate the death of Arabs, and are a racist?"

Me: No.

Notice the antagonist putting bait out there with all kinds of inflammatory language. How tempting to write a full essay refutation!

I could respond with paragraphs about how wrong that view is and how terrible a worldview that demonizes the world's only Jewish state.

Alas, had I said, "No, because X...", the antagonist would invariable find fault over X.

So we assume the reader is impatient and uncharitable and will pick the worst possible interpretation of our words; we answer as succinctly as possible, in this case, a single word of dismissal!

When writing, omit unnecessary details. Then before committing, remove all but the essentials. Useful for brevity; also for preventing lazy, stupid, mean readers from nitpicking your argument to death!  

The original forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English.

As Strunk & White's Elements of Style put it,

13. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

Eliminate all but the essentials to withhold ammunition from your antagonist.

That said, during the last 5 years of writing on this blog, I’ve really enjoyed writing for, arguing with, learning from, and talking with you lazy, stupid, mean fine blog readers.  Here's to another 5! :cheers:

Hat tip to Atwood.

I'm Offended That You're Offended!

I've been offending a lot of people lately.

1. Wezlo, a Baptist pastor of Christdot.org fame, was offended at my statement on Barack Obama's pastor, "Shame on the fools who equate the murdering of children with the acts of a nation against the murderers." I further suggested Israel is morally right in its war against the murderers of these kids, and that there are times when God uses righteous anger, even righteous violence.
   
   So offended was the Protestant pastor that he ended up deleting several posts, closing the comments on one blog post, and finally hinted it as a reason to close his blog. "That was out of line", he tells me. "You're coming here trying to pick a fight", he asserts. "You should have said, 'I think it's foolish...' rather than 'Shame on the fools...'", so as not to offend anyone, he tells me in a now-deleted post.
   
   
2. A pluralistic man of the secular world was offended after I mentioned that the names of the months of our western calendar are named after "false gods". "False gods?", he asks, "How is my god any more false than yours?!"
   
   I suspect his was a rhetorical question; there are not too many people nowadays worshipping Aphrilis, namesake of the month of April.
   
   
3. Pakistani Muslim and long time acquaintance Adnan Siddiqi and his Muslim friends were offended by the implication that the Jewish people have survived 4000 years thanks to God's preservation, despite at least 8 different civilizations attempting to destroy them. I then suggested that Hamas et al will go the way of the dodo, as did the groups prior that tried to destroy the Jewish people. Needless to say, that didn't soothe his wounds.
   
   
4. Even some Jewish friends took offense after I pointed out the modern Jewish calendar differs from God's calendar in Scripture. All-around nice guy, dad of 8 kids, and friendly Messianic Jewish rabbi Derek Leman, found it wise to publicly distance himself from me for my remarks on the Jewish calendar.
   
   [Update: in the comments to the same post, another Jewish reader, Gene Shlomovich, is engaged in a debate with me over the merits of Messianic Israel theology, the theology that states both Jews and gentiles are part of Israel, either by descent or by Messiah's grafting-in.]
   

Combine those with the respectful theological disagreements with a Christian friend, Brian, regarding the dissolution of the Levitical priesthood, a debate with comments long enough to write a short novel, a debate which continued on privately for a few more back-and-forths.

In addition, I've recently discovered another Christian friend privately took deep offense at the recent assaults on Easter, finally admitting he "didn't want to hear anymore about it". Ignorance is bliss!

In the last few weeks, I've offended at least 4 Christians, 2 Jews, 2 Muslims, and a man who in all likelihood is an atheist. And those are just the people who've spoken up. :-)

All that said, here's some more red meat for the easily-offendable. :-) I suspect it will offend Jews, Muslims and atheists more than Christians, for it contains something most Christians believe, something I consider the Christians to be absolutely and entirely correct in. (Shocking, ain't it? Not too often I can agree with Christianity!)

It's a quote from an intellectual Jewish man, a former atheist, who turned to Messiah in his mid-life, Art Katz. He had this to say regarding the easily-offendable nature of the pluralistic western world. In some ways, it gives me reassurance through all these debates and arguments and offend-ings and disagreements,

Have you heard of pluralism? The whole modern western world is pluralistic. That is to say, "many paths to God." There's no single truth.

Jesus made a remarkable statement: "If you see me, you see the Father, I and the Father are one. No man comes to the Father but by me. If any man comes any other way, that man is a thief and a robber." You guys realize what a scandal the gospel is? You realize how abrasive the gospel is? Do you realize that God has chose the foolish things? That there's nothing about the gospel that's intellectually credible? God has given us something calculatingly foolish, compared to the wisdom of the world. The world that is pluralistic and likes to consider many paths to truth has got to contend with a gospel that insists upon itself, and the Jesus of that gospel, as the only truth. It is uncompromising in its insistence. It is absolute in its expression. And the very question of absoluteness and singularity itself runs right across the whole tenet and grain of the modern world. You understand that? Do you understand how pluralistic the whole mindset of the world is, how many options -- I don't know's, the maybe's, the grey's, who's to say's -- and into that whole mucky world of vagaries, and choices, and nuances, comes one statement out of the heart of God: "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me."

If I hear anything from my Jewish kinsmen in conversations I have been involved with my people, invariably they bring up, "What about the other people of the world? What about Buddhists, what about Muslims, what about Hindus? Don't they have a religion, isn't it a world faith? Aren't there redemptive elements in these religions? And you feel a blush coming up to the roots of your being, when you have to insist and say, "No, these are satanic deceptions and false alternatives that lead unto death." To insist on the singularity of the gospel, to insist on the absoluteness of it: this is not just an issue of religion, it's hitting the world head-on in a confrontation of wisdoms, of moral systems, of mentalities.

I've found this to be true, that one bold statement goes against the grain and tenet of the world and induces all kinds of anger and offense: No man comes to God but through Yeshua the Messiah. Speak that truth, and you're a bigot by the world's standards. The world will slander you and attack you and mock you to no end should that tiny statement be uttered in public. It is the ultimate offender in this easily-offendable, politically correct world.

For the record, I'd like to say that none of the disagreements have created a cold between myself and any of you who know me personally. I always prefer clarity to agreement, and I think honest debates help bring about that clarity.

So if you're offended or disagree with me, I want to hear from you, I want to discuss it, I want to find the truth of the matter. Even if we can't attain agreement, at least we can find clarity in exactly where each side stands.

What "messiah" means, and is Jesus the Messiah?

I had the pleasure of conversing with an acquaintance, Chris Kaiser, on my favorite software development website, codeproject.com, recently, regarding who Jesus was, and whether he was Messiah. Chris is persuaded that Jesus was a good teacher who emphasized the "son of Man" title over the "Messiah" title in an effort to divert worship away from himself and to God. Chris does not believe Jesus is Messiah, and believes certain parts of the New Testament are fabricated and edited. Chris believes that Paul, a writer of many of the books of the New Testament, and the first big Christian missionary, was an agent of Rome who wanted to build his own kingdom by currying favor with Rome.

Interestingly, the conversation started on the political movement of socialism, moved on to helping poor people, then moved to the role of Paul, then the authenticity of the Christian gospel books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), and finally moved onto the Messiahship of Jesus. We sure covered a wide range of topics! You can read the original conversation here

I want to post some of the coversation here, I hope you all find it interesting.

But first, some background of the term "messiah": what is this title, "messiah"? Messiah is the anglicized version of the Hebrew term "moshiach", a term meaning "anointed one". Jesus was both Ben Adam (Son of Man) and Moshiach, which is why he and his followers call Jesus both in New Testament. ("Christ", by the way, comes from the Greek "Kristos", which is simply a translation from the Hebrew moshiach.) The name "Jesus" is a middle English translation of the Greek Ieosus, which derives from the Hebrew "yeshua", literally meaning "salvation" or "Yahweh saves". Thus, the phrase "Jesus Christ" literally means "Yahweh Saves, [the] Messiah". Interesting, eh?

The big question on everyone's mind is, is Jesus the Messiah; that is, is Jesus the annointed One, the one who was prophesied in the Tenakh/Old Testament to do big big big things? (I'll discuss some of the prophecies below.)

Isaiah speaks of the Messiah in the Old Testament, saying, God will put the sin of many people on his shoulders, and through him, God's plan will deeply prosper. Hosea prophesies this person will open God up to the whole world -- instead of being closed to a chosen few, the God of Israel makes himself freely available to the whole world through this person, making an "Israel" of the nations. Taking even those dirty non-Jews and washing them clean, grafting them into the tree of promises given to Abraham and passed dow to Israel. Isaiah says the Messiah will atone for the sins of many -- that's a huge deal in Judaism. If we don't have a Messiah to shed blood for the atonement of sins, then we're still obligated to live up to the old contract of manually shedding blood to cover sin. As I mention to Chris, this shedding of blood is not something God desires, but rather, is something God set in place to make us utterly certain that doing evil has a terrible cost: death. The Messiah, then, is supposed to fulfill this contract himself: have his own innocent blood shed, his life taken, so that the sin of the world could be covered. That's huge.

Question is, is Jesus this person? I discuss this below with Chris.

Chris S Kaiser wrote:

[Early Judeo-Christian sects, such as the Essenes, were] closer [than modern Christianity] to the truths that Jesus taught. Remember that the apostles received teachings that the public was not privy to.

Closer to the truths that Jesus taught, perhaps. (In some ways, at least, in other ways, not so much. Some Essene sects actually rejected the Law wholly, which is something Jesus clearly did not do [see Matt 5].)

Chris S Kaiser wrote:

Jesus said to "worship him who sent me".

Didn't Jesus also say, "I and the Father are one", and again, "No one comes to the Father but through me"? Or didn't he say, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."? And again, "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." Or even, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." Chris, I could give you another 25 similar Scriptures if I had to. Yet you inferred we're supposed to worship God, not Jesus, and that the "son of Man" title was meant to divert worship away from Jesus, to God. Given that God and Jesus are a unity, are one together, it is incorrect theology to imply that Jesus was not Messiah, not God.

Now, one could easily say, "those are fabricated", sure. But what reason am I to believe your citations of Scripture as authentic, while still assume the above quotations are fabricated? It's silly to quote Scripture then say other pieces are fabricated; doing so is selectively choosing only what agrees with your particular brand of theology, so as not to uncover that theology as flawed.

What's more, you forget that the title of Messiah is not solely given by the New Testament. Have you read Josephus? Josephus was a Jewish historian; certainly not a Roman-ized Paul-follower or Roman shill by any means. Yet Josephus, in his historical writing, says this:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Chris S Kaiser wrote:

After Pentacost Peter was fixated on the resurrection.

[Here, Chris is trying to persuade me that Jesus did not raise from the dead, as the New Testament claims, nor did he show himself alive and well to the disciples and others after his death, as the NT also claims.]

Give me some evidence to support that claim and I would gladly consider it. Look, according to the gospels (which, by the way, means Good News) is that Jesus appeared to all the disciples. See above, even Josephus the Jewish historian mentions this! Given that Peter and other disciples talked about this amongst themselves and in the presence of others and to others, this leads one to believe this was not an invention of Peter.

If one was to suppose that the salvation work of Messiah-atoning-for-sins is a fabrication, what of all the prophecies in Tenakh/Old Testament? Take, for example, Isaiah 52[^]:

Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Who, if not Jesus, is this person God is speaking of through Isaiah? Chris, the prophets in the Old Testament, the stories in the Torah/first 5 books of the Bible, the prophecies in the psalsm, heck, even the Law itself point to Messiah, someone that would make the final sin atonement so that sins are forgiven if we've faith in God and a humble heart that is repentant of the wrongs and evil things all of us do, myself absolutely included. That is the Good News.

If that wasn't the good news, then we should all still be following the Law, and offering blood sacrifices for sin. After all, that was the agreement humanity reached with God during Moses' time. It's not that God desires blood sacrifice -- even the psalmist says this! -- no, it's for our sake, so that we realize the seriousness of doing wrong. Do wrong, and death comes, blood is shed. That's the contract that was set in place and that we agreed to.

That is the reason Jesus came: to complete this contract. He shed his blood for the sin of others, completing the contract and justifying billions of people in the process. Because of this, the good news you speak of is right: all we need is faith in God, knowing that our sin is atoned for, no manual shedding of blood required by the contract; it was already done for us.

If the good news was solely, "hey, have faith in God, we're all his children", God just as well could've sent a prophet, instead of Jesus. But God, having planned all along this amazing work of saving billions of people, sent his Son. Son of Man (born of humanity), Son of God (He's one with God). Doing this, he fulfilled all the Law, the prophets, the psalms; God used this to put the finishing touches on what he started so long ago. As Isaiah put it, "God's plan will deeply prosper through him" -- what an understatement! Billions upon billions of the unwashed masses, whether Jew or non-Jew, put their faith and trust in God through this guy, this Messiah, God making those people righteous followers of God in the process. God's plan is deeply prospering, indeed. :-)