was cut off out of
the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom
the stroke was due?--Isaiah 53:4-8.

In the latter part of Isaiah are a number of sections describing the
character and mission of "the servant of Jehovah." Whom did the writer
mean? A single great personality? The suffering and exiled Hebrew nation?
A godly and inspired group of prophets within the nation? The Christian
Church has always seen in this servant of Jehovah a striking prophecy of
Christ. The fact that the interpretation has long been in question
indicates that the characteristics of the servant of Jehovah can be traced
in varying degrees in the nation, in the prophetic order, in single
prophets, and preeminently in the great culminating figure of all
prophethood. Isaiah 53 describes the servant of Jehovah as rejected and
despised, misunderstood, bearing the transgressions and chastisement of
all. It is the first great formulation of the fact of vicarious suffering
in humanity.

Why and how can the sins of a group fall on one?

Third Day: A Contemporary Prophet

And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the
multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness
to behold? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out to
see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft
raiment are in kings' houses. But wherefore went ye out? to see a
prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This
is he, of whom it is written,

Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
Who shall prepare thy way before thee....

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto
children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows
and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and
ye did not mourn.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a
demon. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say,
Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans
and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works.--Matt. 11:7-10;
16-19.

To Jesus prophetism was not merely an historic fact, but a living reality.
He believed in present-day inspiration. He and his contemporaries had seen
one great prophet, fearless, heroic, with all the marks of the type, a
messenger of God inaugurating a new era of spiritual ferment (vs. 12, 13).
But John had