Isaiah, Another Witness of Christ

Isaiah is heavily quoted in the New Testament as another witness of Christ.  Just as Abinadi used Isaiah as his second witness to testify of Christ when he stood before King Noah and the priests, the gospel writers as well as Paul used Isaiah’s words over and over to validate their own claims about the Savior. 

Matthew wrote of Jesus being in Galilee "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light" (Matt. 4:14-16, see Isaiah 9:1-2).  Matthew described how Christ healed the sick “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17, see Isaiah 53:4).  John wrote of how the people “believed not on him” despite his many miracles and that this was a fulfillment of Isaiah’s words “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them” (John 12:37-40, see Isaiah 6:10).  Philip taught the Ethiopian about Christ using the words of Isaiah.  When the man was reading these words of Isaiah: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth,” then “Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus” (Acts 8:32-35, see Isaiah 53:7).  To the Romans Paul wrote how “Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust” (Romans 15:12, see Isaiah 11:10).  He used this to teach them of the Savior as “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles” (Romans 15:16).  All of these examples—and there are others—show how much the early Church leaders used Isaiah to be another witness of the Savior.  The Old Testament surely speaks much of Christ, but it does so in a somewhat oblique way and is not as explicit as other scriptures like Nephi’s writings.  Of the Old Testament writers, Isaiah contains the most straitforward witnesses of the mortal Messiah and His life, and the gospel writers used this to help the Jews see that He was indeed the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.  Nephi knew this as well as anyone and he said, “my soul delighteth in his words… for he verily saw my Redeemer” (2 Nephi 11:2).  That is why he also quoted Isaiah so extensively in the Book of Mormon, and it should give us more impetus to search deeper in the words of Isaiah ourselves to understand his witness of the Savior that was so important to all of these prophets.