{"id":5532,"date":"2014-07-11T00:05:46","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T07:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5532"},"modified":"2014-07-10T19:40:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T02:40:50","slug":"your-punishment-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/11\/your-punishment-is-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Punishment Is Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>Our God has said: <br \/>\n\u201cEncourage my people! <br \/>\nGive them comfort. <br \/>\nSpeak kindly to Jerusalem <br \/>\nand announce: <br \/>\nYour slavery is past; <br \/>\nyour punishment is over. <br \/>\nI, the LORD, made you pay <br \/>\ndouble for your sins.\u201d <br \/>\nSomeone is shouting: <br \/>\n\u201cClear a path in the desert! <br \/>\nMake a straight road <br \/>\nfor the LORD our God. <br \/>\nFill in the valleys; <br \/>\nflatten every hill <br \/>\nand mountain. <br \/>\nLevel the rough <br \/>\nand rugged ground. <br \/>\nThen the glory of the LORD <br \/>\nwill appear for all to see. <br \/>\nThe LORD has promised this!\u201d <br \/>\nSomeone told me to shout, <br \/>\nand I asked, <br \/>\n\u201cWhat should I shout?\u201d <br \/>\nWe humans are merely grass,<br \/> <br \/>\nand we last no longer <br \/>\nthan wild flowers. <br \/>\nAt the LORD\u2019s command, <br \/>\nflowers and grass disappear, <br \/>\nand so do we. <br \/>\nFlowers and grass fade away, <br \/>\nbut what our God has said <br \/>\nwill never change.   (Isaiah 40:1-8)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The stain of sin has been washed clean for good.  John the Baptist was identified as the one calling in the wilderness, to make a straight way for God.  The one that John made a straight way for was Jesus: the Messiah and the Son of God whom the Gospel writers and John, by the use of this passage from Isaiah, identified with Yahweh, the God of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>In the context of Isaiah\u2019s original prophesy, God was offering comfort to the Israelites: he was letting them know that their time in captivity was over and that they could now return to their land.   Their sins were paid for; their punishment was completed.  <\/p>\n<p>How could that prophesy be applied by the New Testament authors to Jesus?  Jesus was the one who would save his people from their sins.  As God had rescued his people, first from Egyptian bondage and then from Babylonian bondage, so God was going to make those mere pictures of redemption a reality: Jesus would save them from the far more serious bondage of their sin.  The captives would truly and completely be set free.  God has rescued us from our slavery.  We have been set free.<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our God has said: \u201cEncourage my people! Give them comfort. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and announce: Your slavery is past; your punishment is over. I, the LORD, made you pay double for your sins.\u201d Someone is shouting: \u201cClear a path &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/11\/your-punishment-is-over\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5534,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions\/5534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}