Can Isaiah Answer an Age-Old Fundamental Question?

Every religion attempts to answer the Fundamental Question:

how can a sinner become acceptable to God? 

It’s the question that should resound within every man, woman, and child; but in today’s world, moral decay is distracting society from seeking to understand and resolve this question. The Fundamental Question has everything to do with our lives and what follows. 

Where can the Fundamental Question be answered?

The solution to the Fundamental Question and our shared human condition is found in Jesus Christ the Savior of the world. He tells us where to gain the understanding of what and how this condition can be resolved.

“And now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah.

“For surely he spake as touching all things concerning my people which are of the house of Israel; therefore it must needs be that he must speak also to the Gentiles.” (3 Ne. 23:1-2)

The Book of Isaiah is broken into two sections. The first 39 chapters deal with the condemnation that existed in ancient Israel – a description that fits society today. While the last 27 chapters cover the salvation offered by the Lord.

The answer to the Fundamental Question is found in Isaiah 53. In this chapter, Isaiah saw in perfect detail the life of the Savior, His Atonement, His resurrection, and our eventual salvation.

This foundational book of scripture is quoted by the New Testament writers in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, 1st Peter, and 1st John.

Even the ancient American prophets from The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, quoted the Book of Isaiah in 425 verses. A full thirty-two percent of the Book of Isaiah is quoted in the Book of Mormon, with another three percent paraphrased.

While “all scripture is given by God” (Timothy 3:16), and all carries import, the Savior singled out only one book for us to study: Isaiah.

It has become a running joke in the LDS community about the difficulty of the “Isaiah Chapters” where even church leadership has made comments about the cultural stigma against Isaiah.

As the Book of Isaiah has been quoted extensively by ancient prophets in both the old and new worlds, we need to recommit ourselves not to the reading of Isaiah, but to the understanding of Isaiah.

The book itself contains the blueprint of transformation to take us from our lost and fallen state to an exalted sphere through the merits of the Savior, Jesus Christ.