The New Gospel

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel ... The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light ... For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace ... Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.&nbsp; Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing ... He shall feed his flock like a shepherd ... The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.&nbsp; Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain ... I [“He” in the Messiah] gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I [“he” in the Messiah] hid not my [“his” in the Messiah] face from shame and spitting ... 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 ... Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ... But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our inequities: the chastisement for our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed ... And the Gentiles [non-Jews] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">You will rarely find phrases in the Psalms that do not refer to Christ and the Church.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">The evangelists quarry the descriptive details of Jesus’ death from Isaiah, Psalms, Zechariah.&nbsp; Thus Jesus submits to calumny in silence (Isaiah (53:7)) and abuse (Isaiah (50:6)).&nbsp; He refuses wine and myrrh (Proverbs (31:6)) or wine and gall (Psalms (69:21)).&nbsp; His garments are divided (Psalms (22:18)); he cries from the cross (variously Psalms (22:1) or (31:5)).&nbsp; Once he is dead, the soldiers do not break his bones (Psalms (34:20)) though one does pierce his side (Zechariah (12:10)).&nbsp; These narratives serve a theological rather than historical purpose.&nbsp; They demonstrate that Jesus, quite literally, died “according to the Scriptures.”</em></p>