By: Joyce K. Picker
February 2025 Blog
Happy 2025 all my friends out there. May it be a year full of expansion! While reading the Word the other day, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian struck me in a way like never before. It was what I call an Ah-Ha Moment. Let’s pick up telling the story in Isaiah 53:
Who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of Adonai revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, nor beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, one from whom people hide their faces. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our pains. Yet we esteemed Him stricken,struck by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities. The chastisement for our shalom was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us turned to his own way. So, Adonai has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. Because of oppression and judgment, He was taken away. As for His generation, who considered? For He was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people— the stroke was theirs. His grave was given with the wicked, and by a rich man in His death though He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased Adonai to bruise Him. He caused Him to suffer. If He makes His soul a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days and the will of Adonai will succeed by His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul. He will see it and be satisfied by His knowledge. The Righteous One, My Servant will make many righteous and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoil with the mighty— because He poured out His soul to death, For He bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.
and was counted with transgressors.
The Holy Spirit commanded Philip to meet a man from Ethiopia. He was the queen’s treasurer and had been to worship in Jerusalem. As he sat in his chariot on his way home, travelling the lonely road, he was reading from the book of Isaiah. The passage he was reading when Philip ran up to his chariot and greeted him, was Isaiah 53:7-8. The words he read were about to change his life forever, look at Acts 8:26-39.
Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Get up, and go south on the road going down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) So he got up and went. And behold, an Ethiopian eunuch—an official who was responsible for all the treasure of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians—had traveled to Jerusalem to worship and was now returning. Sitting in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. The Ruach said to Philip, “Go, catch up with this chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So, he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of Scripture that he was reading was this: “He was led as a sheep to slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opens not His Mouth. In His humiliation justice was denied Him. Who shall recount His generation? For His life is taken away from the earth.” The eunuch replied to Philip, “Please tell me, who is the prophet talking about—himself or someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he proclaimed the Good News about Yeshua. Now as they were going down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, water! What’s to prevent me from being immersed?” He ordered the chariot to stop. They both got down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and Philip immersed him. When they came up out of the water, the Ruach Adonai snatched Philip away. The eunuch saw no more of him, for he went on his way, rejoicing.
Philip and the Ethiopian’s Questions
Philip and the Ethiopian ask each other the most direct questions Acts 8:30-31,34 which get right to the heart of the words of Isaiah 53:7-8.
Philip doesn't ask, "Nice day, isn't it?" but rather, "Do you understand what you are reading?"
The man in the chariot doesn't come in at a tangent either. He fires three questions at Philip:
· A rejoinder, "How could I understand unless someone guides me?"
· An invitation. He asks Philip if he will sit beside him in the chariot and explain?
· Then the heart of the matter, "Please, of whom does the prophet speak, of himself or of someone else?" This dialogue is full of question marks, but not in any sense that it is vague or uncertain. Both men know exactly what they want. Philip wants to teach the man from the scripture, and the man wants to understand the scripture. Both have their hearts in the word of God. So, Philip starts talking, and the Ethiopian starts listening, each having the highest regard for the other’s part in the process.
Philip’s Response to the Ethiopian
Philip responds in exactly the right way. "Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this scripture (in Isaiah) he preached Yeshua to him." Acts 8:35.
We don't know what other passages Philip used, but he showed the Ethiopian that Yeshua is the Lamb of God led to the slaughter for the sins of the world. In the passage from Isaiah that the Ethiopian was reading, Philip could have pointed out the prediction of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Yeshua, and shown the Ethiopian that Yeshua died to bear the sin of many, including him Isaiah 53:9-12. There is something that Philip taught as "he preached Yeshua to him." which we observe from the Ethiopian's fourth question which was a response to what Philip had been saying.
The Ethiopian’s Response to Philip
The chariot is making its way along the road and comes upon "some water" Acts 8:36. This prompts a fourth question from the Ethiopian... "Look! Water! What prevents me from being immersed?" Acts 8:36.
This sudden question from the Ethiopian implies that Philip had been preaching immersion as a part of preaching Yeshua. I will be blunt here. Nobody preaches Yeshua if they do not preach baptism.
Immersion and Messiah’s Death
Now how does immersion relate to the passage in Isaiah and to the preaching of the death, burial, and resurrection of Messiah? Paul explains this in Romans 6:3-11. Messiah died for the forgiveness of our sins, and when we are immersed into Messiah, we are "immersed into his death... buried with him through immersion into death, in order that as Yeshua was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" Romans 6:3-4.
We see then that immersion is "for the remission of sins" Acts 2:38 because through it we come into Messiah’s death which was "a guilt offering" by which he "bore the sin of many" and was able to "justify the many" Isaiah 53:5-12. Magnificent plan, don’t you agree?
Philip’s Next Response
Philip did not hinder the Ethiopian from his wish to be immersed, nor did he try to delay it. If the Ethiopian believed with all his heart what Philip had preached to him, then Philip was ready to immerse the Ethiopian there and then. The Ethiopian confessed faith in Messiah saying, "I believe that Yeshua the Messiah is the Son of God" Acts 8:37. The chariot was halted, and Philip went down into the water with the Ethiopian, and Philip immersed him in the water Acts 8:38. Wow, this is incredible. This is what I call the Ah-Ha Moment.
The Right Result
The Ethiopian’s Joy
In one moment, the Ethiopian progressed from puzzling over who the "lamb led to the slaughter" might be, to a saving faith in Yeshua the Messiah, which led to his obedience to Yeshua in immersion for the forgiveness of his sins. No wonder he "went on his way rejoicing" Acts 8:39. His life would be forever changed. The words of Isaiah which had been explained to him had totally changed his life. Your life can be changed in the same way. Anyone who professes Messiah and lives sold out to Him can have this same experience. This whole chapter in Acts is a total Ah-Ha moment. This is the life that really matters. It’s what we do on this earth after we become Believer’s that matters to God. Let’s all go find that Ethiopian lost soul and let’s teach him/her about the wonderful gift of salvation.
Father, I thank you for your Son, Yeshua. I thank you that you sent Him to earth to minister, perform miracles, signs and wonders that are all available to us today. Thank you for giving us the boldness and scriptures to minister to a lost and dying population. Thank you for enabling us to bring many people to the saving knowledge that Yeshua is the Messiah and to see them immersed. We pray for our world, our State, friends, family and for Israel. We love you, Lord. Amen.
Much love in Him,
Pastor Joyce
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*Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.
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