The Suffering Servant Pt 4

Chapter 53 Isaiah Chapter 53. We are in. The midst of this
fourth servant song, a fourth in a series of songs that Isaiah
is using and by way of Hebrew poetry to introduce the Savior,
the suffering servant, to introduce the Messiah. And here in this
fourth servant song, we are looking specifically at the servant and
his suffering, the suffering servant. We have begun to consider
several verses of this song. There are five, as I have suggested
in the weeks past, and the song actually begins in Isaiah, chapter
52, verse 13, where we have the first verse. The first verse
spoke of the servants astonishing reception. Here we saw the Gentile
nations largely would receive this king, and that’s what we
took when it said that many were astonished. At Christ, Even though
his appearance was marred and though some could not see Christ
for who he was. It says that Christ, His blood,
His atonement would sprinkle many nations. Kings would shut
their mouths. And we took that to be in reverence
on behalf of Christ. For they had seen what many could
not see. The second verse opens chapter
53, where we see not just the the servants astounding reception,
but we see his astonishing rejection and shockingly from his own people. Isaiah says who has believed
our message and there were some that wanted to suggest that this
was the word the testimony of the nation of Israel itself who
has believed our testimony. But Israel had not been faithful
in proclaiming Christ. They had not been faithful in
living out as a testimony to other nations. This is the testimony
of Isaiah and on behalf of the prophets who has believed Our
message and to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed, though
Israel had seen so many signs, yet they rejected Christ. He grew up before God, it’s recorded
like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground. To look
at him was not to see some physical specimen, to look at him was
not to see an absolute indication of deity. And as a result, he was despised,
forsaken, particularly by the people, the nation of Israel. We come
to the third verse in this amazing song where we see the servant’s
amazing suffering. But as we often do, let’s take
it in its completeness, this song, Paying special attention
to verses 4-6. Jump back with me, if you would,
to verse 13 of chapter 52, where Isaiah wrote, Behold, my servant
will prosper. He will be high and lifted up
and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished
at you, my people, so his appearance was marred more than any man
and his form more than the sons of men. Thus, he will sprinkle
many nations. Kings will shut their mouths
on account of him. For what had not been told them,
they will see. And what they had not heard,
they will understand. Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew
up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of parched
ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look
upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.
He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide
their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely
our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we
ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed
for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being
fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us, like
sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his
own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall
on him. He was oppressed. He was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth. like a lamb that is led to slaughter
and like a sheep that is silent before its shears. So he did
not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he
was taken away. And as for his generation, who
considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His
grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man
in his death. because he had done no violence,
nor was there any deceit found in his mouth. But the Lord was
pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render
himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring. He
will prolong his days and the good pleasure of the Lord will
prosper in his hands. 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 justify the many. as he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide
the booty with the strong, because he poured out himself to death
and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he himself bore the sin of
many and interceded for the transgressors.” We have considered the servant’s
astonishing reception and the servant’s astounding rejection
This morning, I want to take you to that third verse, verses
four through six, as we consider the servant’s amazing suffering.
You see, the problem for the nation of Israel was that this
servant was not supposed to be a man of sorrows. He was supposed
to be a conquering king. And the sorrows that Israel did
know about These were of a completely different kind. They were of
a much more severe nature than what they had planned for their
Messiah to endure. They didn’t see Christ for who
he was. They didn’t recognize him. We come to the servants amazing
suffering beginning in verse four. Verse four essentially
outlines the servants mission. Surely our griefs he himself
bore and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him
stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. In verse four. I have suggested in times past
that we are viewing a painting, as it were. It’s not a literal
picture of Christ, and I’ve told you what I think of those to
begin with, right? This is a literal painting of
Christ, but it is done with words and not. With paint and pen. In this picture of Christ, I
have suggested to you that. The style of painting is as an
impressionist might use dots of color. Where the the dots
As we come close to the painting mean very little, but as we step
back, we see the richness and we begin to see the great. Picture
of Christ painted in this section. Well, in verse four, Isaiah dips
back into the colors on the palette that he has already used in verse
three. And he does so both to refresh and enhance ideas that
he had introduced there. In verse 3, we are told that
Jesus was a man of sorrows. But in verse 4, we learn that
it is our sorrows that Christ carried. In verse 3, he tells
us that Christ was merely acquainted with grief. Likewise, here in
verse 4, we discover that it was our grief, and much more
than being merely acquainted with that grief, knowledgeable
We learned that Jesus bore our griefs, clarifying that to which
the prophet alluded way back in chapter 52, verse 13. The Christ was to be lifted up. The apostles looking back on
that, they knew that that meant that Christ was to be raised.
But when Christ used that image, Christ knew that it meant the
crucifixion and going to the cross, Christ was going to bear
the sin of many. He would bear our sorrow and
our grief. He would bear our sin. By the
use of the word our in this passage, I should probably note that the
prophet now places himself no longer exclusively among the
nation of Israel, but now among all those whose Christ’s atonement
would reach both Jews and Gentiles. Jesus Christ for our griefs and
our sorrows. When Matthew translates this
section, and he quotes it in light of Jesus doing a series
of healings, including Peter’s mother-in-law in Matthew chapter
8, Matthew goes on to point out that this was to fulfill this
passage before us. He said this was to fulfill what
was spoken through Isaiah the prophet He himself took our infirmities
and carried away our diseases. There are those elements woven
into those two words griefs and sorrows. But is he talking about
literal sickness. Literal diseases. The word grief
means to be sick or faint and it can be translated very literally
in that regard. Genesis 48 1. It came about after
these things that Joseph was told. Behold, your father is
sick. Using the same word. It can even
mean a mortal sickness. This is a sickness unto death.
This disease is going to take the individual. Second Kings
20 verse 1. In those days, Hezekiah became
mortally ill. So it’s absolutely used in that
sense. First Kings, all the rest of
the acts of Asa and all of his might and all that he did in
the cities which he built. Are they not written in the book
of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? But in the time of
his old age, he was diseased in his feet. It was a disease.
It was going to take him. He was mortally ill. But it’s
interesting to note. That this sickness. is not just a cough or a cold,
not just a flu. This is sickness of a severe
kind. And of a completely different
kind given the context. Certainly, Jesus came and did
healings. But the healing mentioned there
in Matthew 8.17 doesn’t begin to touch all of what Christ would
do. When the Septuagint translated
the Old Testament into Greek, They simply used here the common
word for sin, not just grief, sin. Jesus bore our sin, sin
there indicated as being a sickness. See, it really isn’t just sin
literally that’s being spoken of, but it’s the evil that flows
from it. It’s the it’s the destructive
nature of it in our lives. It brings nothing but grief.
And what this essentially is pointing to this little word
griefs is the consequence of sin. The consequence of sin. Many of us enjoy sin from time
to time. None of us enjoy the consequence
of sin and sin has consequence. Sometimes they’re social and
sometimes our sin brings about a social social breach. It certainly
brings about a breach between a relationship with God, doesn’t
it? Sometimes, most times, if the
spirit is active in our heart, there is guilt associated with
it. That is the consequence of sin. Paul said that there can
even be physical sickness, even death. Sometimes there are legal
consequences. Sometimes there are just emotional
consequences, but there are consequences that come with sin, and that’s
what’s being alluded to here. One pastor wrote whatever the
nature of this disease. Of original sin, it was foreign
to man as originally created. We didn’t always have this disease.
We caught this disease and we caught it by being born. Born
of sons of Adam. It was foreign to man as originally
created. It was introduced in Eden. It
was inherited by every natural born child of Adam. Its effect
is to mortalize man’s body and corrupt man’s spirit. It is capable
of transmission from body to body by the mere act of procreation
and from body to spirit as the individual matures. Man inevitably
returns to the dust and he unfailingly becomes a sinner if he lives
to maturity. In original sin, therefore, we
have a case of acquired character which has been inherited. That’s what he’s talking about.
We have a disease. We have a disease that we’re
born with. And if we live long enough, it will take us. It is
a mortal disease. It is a terrible disease. But
it’s not just our griefs, our sin, our disease that Christ
lifted up and carried. It was our sorrows. And here
I would just suggest to you that what he’s pointing to is the
result of consequences. The consequences come and sometimes
the consequences themselves are debilitating. But then there
follows these sorrows as the result of these consequences.
The Hebrew word is macabre, which means sorrow, grief or pain. And oftentimes it can be used
and is used to describe physical suffering. Physical pain, but
much more often it has to do with a mental anguish. Sometimes there are passages
where it’s almost impossible to separate these, and we know
that sin can bring on these things. Sin and its consequences ultimately
brings not only physical pain, but absolutely mental anguish
as we wrestle with our own guilt and conscience. Here’s how this
work is used, Exodus three, seven interesting passage. The Lord
said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are
in Egypt and have given heed to their cry because of their
taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. I know the
pain that they’re experiencing and it’s pain not only physical. In the course of their beatings
as slaves but it was also also a mental anguish to think that
God had forsaken. Isaiah 65 a very poignant translation
here fitting for the occasion. Isaiah 6514 uses this word when
it says, behold, my servants will shout joyfully with a glad
heart, but you will cry out with a heavy heart. We often speak
of that, don’t we? And unfortunately, we often speak
of a heavy heart with regards to some episode of sin with which
we’re dealing. Some event that has taken place
in our life, something that we’ve done, something that someone
has done to us in sinfulness, and it brings about a heavy heart. Well. It’s good news when it says,
surely our Greece. He himself bore and hit our sorrows
he carried. It was Jesus Christ pointed purpose
to come down and to lift that burden off of us and to take
it upon himself. That’s what those words mean,
bore, he bore, he carried. The interesting thing is when
the Septuagint translated this, they rolled both terms into one.
Pharaoh was the Greek word they used to bring or to bear. Jesus
took it. He took it willfully upon himself
and he bore it willfully. The first of those Hebrew words
Nassau means to lift up or carry to bear away and it could be
used literally or figuratively. Bearing of guilt bearing a punishment. That’s often how it’s used especially
in redemptive passages. The second word is used to actually
transport to carry away. Jesus not only took our grief
and our sorrows on a temporary basis, as if to say, let me let
me give you some relief from those. But he gave us absolute
relief, he gave us absolute freedom from those things and the suffering
that he took on. In describing this series of
words, what’s being pointed to, as one said, is the toilsome
bearing of a burden. This wasn’t easy for Christ. This wasn’t without His own pain
and suffering, as we’ll see. When Jesus Christ came and took
your grief and your sorrows, they were to Him real grief and
real sorrows. And when He took them all, when
He took the sin of the world upon Him, it was the weight of
the world upon our Lord, One pastor said it this way,
the meaning is not merely that the Son of God entered into fellowship
with our sufferings. That’s kind of what we got from
verse three, wasn’t it? When it said that he was acquainted.
Oh, I know that guy. That’s kind of how we use that
word, right? I’m acquainted with him. That’s not at all what the
word means. We showed you last week that
the word means knowledgeable, full knowledge, absolute knowledge. And here we have it much more
graphically when it says he took it. Took it upon himself. The meaning is not that the servant
of God entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, which we had
to bear and deserved to bear, and therefore not only took them
away, but he bore them in his own person that he might deliver
us from them. That’s exactly what Peter says
in testimony of Our Savior. 1 Peter 2.24 says, He bore, He
Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross. He took them. Romans 4.25, Paul says in similar
fashion, He was delivered over because of our transgressions.
God put them on Him. Christ took them willingly. Our
griefs, our sorrows, our sins, How absurd them. How absurd for
the Christian, especially. To continue to bear up under
these things. To continue to sin and continue
to face the consequences and face the sorrows that come from
the sin. But how foolish. To bear up under those needlessly.
How foolish to carry them without confessing them. How foolish
to think that we’ve burdened the Lord already too much. If
you’re in Christ, He’s already paid for them. He’s already borne
the burden of those things. I wonder one faithful pastor
said, while some trust in chariots and some in horses, in physical
strength, knowledge, reputation, prestige, position, Magnificent
and impressive machinery influential friends intrepid generals none
of these whether operating singly or in conjunction with all the
others is able to deliver man from his chief enemy. The foe
that is little by little destroying his very heart. Namely sin. If you don’t know Christ. That’s
what you’re trying to do. If you don’t know the Lord Jesus
Christ, if you haven’t placed your faith in him, you’re trying
to carry those griefs, those sorrows, that sin by yourself
and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ paid for the sin
of sinners. glance down if you would again
at verse 3 though. Because here too, Isaiah refreshes. He dips his brush back into the
color and he refreshes a word that he already used here in
verse 3. We did not esteem him. And I told you last week that
Isaiah there is putting himself in with the nation of Israel,
and he’s confessing it to God that we did not treat Christ. We didn’t evaluate him for who
he was. We didn’t respond to him based
on who he was. We did not esteem him. But here
in verse four, if you glance down, we discover that it isn’t
that the nation of Israel didn’t esteem Christ at all. They just
didn’t measure up. They didn’t esteem Him for who
He was. They didn’t respond properly. They didn’t value Him as God
incarnate and fall on their faces in worship. Instead, they had
a different valuation of Christ. They esteemed Him differently. Look at verse 4. It says that
they esteemed Him. We ourselves esteemed Him. Stricken, smitten of God and
afflicted. Now, for our purposes, we’ll
take those apart this morning, but they really do belong all
together. We’ll look at them individually
for just a moment, but they really are part of one overall sentence
and one overall thought. Stricken, smitten of God and
afflicted. It’s one malady. The first word,
glance at it, stricken. The now literally referred to
a physical blow, but the interesting thing is with this is God was
usually the one delivering that blow. This isn’t talking about
necessarily the fact that Christ was beaten. We know that he was. We know that he took those blows
for us. But what is harder for us? To
acknowledge. Is that God? Delivered those
blows as well. God allowed that God. It was viewed. Allowed him to undergo these
things. And in the eyes of men, Christ
was nothing because of it, he was abandoned by God himself.
Psalm 89 uses these words that will punish their transgressions
with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Stripes being our
word. It was a blow that God was going
to deliver there in Psalm 89. Proverbs 6, 33, wounds and disgrace
he will find a reproach will not be blotted out. Essentially,
what they viewed Christ as they saw him go through all of these
things is that he was abandoned by God himself over to a shocking
disease, a shocking treatment by men. He was afflicted. The Messiah, essentially, though
he was bearing our sin, was viewed by the majority of people as
having been abandoned by God, undergoing severe pain. The second word, smitten of God. That’s where it really comes
now down to echo this point that’s already been made. But this is
God’s doing. And the Jews, as they looked
upon him, they saw basically he’s getting what he deserves.
We don’t know exactly what he’s done, but he can’t possibly be
the Messiah if God himself is treating him in this way. This second word from the root
word, Naka, to smite or to strike, to hit, to beat, to slay, ultimately
to kill. Blend of that word meant to deliver
a plague. An epidemic often sent by God,
a disease. It’s used in scripture in that
precise fashion. Second Kings 618. When they came
down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, strike this
people with blindness, I pray. And so people as they looked
on Christ they just saw him as one who had been stricken smitten
by God himself. What did you do to deserve this
Jesus. That’s how they thought. That’s
how they treated him. That was part of the thought
process as they set about to esteem him. How could we possibly
value Christ when he’s being treated thusly by God himself. Deuteronomy 28, 22, the Lord
will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation
and with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, with mildew.
They had built up a mindset that if anybody went through this,
remember John chapter nine. If anybody suffered any kind
of difficulty or malady in the world, what did you do? Who sinned,
this man or his parents, that he should be born this way? They looked at Christ. Just as
one who was plagued. You brought this on yourself
somehow. They ultimately judged him as
being afflicted. Just oppressed. The word just
means oppressed, afflicted, humbled by God himself. So it’s not that the nation didn’t
esteem him at all. It’s not that they didn’t value
him. They just looked at him through the prism. That they
were accustomed to looking at everything. And when they saw
Christ being mistreated, they said there surely can’t be a
Messiah. Surely can’t be the one that God is sending to free
us. Glanced down at chapter five.
It gets worse. As we look to not only the mission
of what he was here to accomplish, but the propitiation that he
made. And here Isaiah suddenly introduces a series of new thoughts.
We’ve talked about color and we’ve talked about how, especially
in Hebrew poetry, the artist will go back and reuse color
over and over again in that punctiliar fashion. Placing little dots
of color here and there, but here suddenly he introduces a
whole series of new things, new thoughts. That the Savior who was to suffer. Was doing so on behalf of others.
Well, this would be news to the Jews for sure. We learned early
that he was the suffering servant we. along with the Jews had to
know that he would suffer in some fashion. We learned initially
that he was astonishingly received by some and astoundingly rejected
by others, even his own people. We learned further that this
suffering would be great, even as told us in the most recent
verse. But here we learn for the first
time that the suffering he faced was not only purposeful, It was
for us. It was for us. Note the kind of suffering that
he endured. Pierced through. Crushed. Chastened. Scourged. One commentator said there were
no stronger expressions to be found in the language. to denote
a violent and painful death. The meaning is not that it was
our sins and iniquities that had pierced him through like
swords and crushed him like heavy burdens, but that he was pierced
and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities. It was not
his own sins, but ours, which he had taken upon himself, that
he might make atonement for them in our stead. Let’s look at each
one briefly. pierced through, halal, really
meant just to fatally wound someone. To pierce them through, true,
but to pierce them, but there’s a coupled meaning with it. That
in piercing them through, you were profaning, defiling, desecrating
them. You were ruining them. In a section so rich with reiterations
and word plays. I think a blend of both meanings
is entirely appropriate here. He was pierced through and as
they pierced him through, as they wounded him fatally, they
thought that they were defiling him. They thought that they were
ruining him. He was crushed. The word t’ka
means to crush, to be broken, And here as well, God is frequently
the subject of the verb. God is frequently the one doing
the crushing. They looked upon him and they
saw that God was doing this ultimately. When the Septuagint translated
this, they used a word that referred really to a debilitating disease.
God crushed him to nothing. Psalm 51.8, make me to hear joy
and gladness. Let the bones which you have
broken. There’s our word. Rejoice. Psalm 90. One of my favorite
Psalms. Use it almost at every funeral.
I didn’t know this word was there. You turn men back into dust and
say return, O children of men. It’s God, the one that grinds
us back into dust. Psalm 72, 4. May he vindicate
the afflicted of the people, save the children of the needy
and crush the oppressor. Both of those words translated
in most of our translations pierced and bruised or crushed refer
ultimately to the death that Jesus was going to face as the
suffering servant. But Isaiah isn’t done with this
description. Not only pierced through, not
only crushed, but chastened. Chastened. We chastise children. And it’s fascinating that this
particular word, especially when the Septuagint translated it,
they use the word paideia. A paideia was a children, a child. And so when you would instruct
or discipline a child, you would use this word. Christ was chastened. Christ took on our chastening
as if He were a child going before God to bear our sin and to suffer
its consequences for us. One of the frequent means of
translating that little word, both in the Hebrew and in the
Septuagint, was the word humility. Listen to Deuteronomy. You should
remember all the ways that the Lord your God has led you in
the wilderness these 40 years that he might humble you. That’s
what we do as parents, don’t we? We bring our little children
along and they’re so arrogant, they’re so thoughtless and we
want to teach them. We want to instruct them. And
it says that Christ underwent that process for you and I. He
took on our process of chastisement. Not only was he pierced through
and crushed and even chastised, he was scourged. Well, you know
what this means. Stripes. Many of your translations
have stripes from a whip or a blow. He took it for us. 1 Peter 2,
24, again, as we’ve already read, he himself for our sins in his
body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live. For
righteousness, for by his wounds, by His stripes, by His scourging,
you were healed. We have that rich testimony in
Scripture, don’t we? Of the Gospels. Of what Christ
experienced. And now we know why He experienced
it. He did it for us. He experienced it for us. It
wasn’t purposeless suffering. It wasn’t just happenstance.
It didn’t just occur. It was designed this way. It
was for a purpose. Luke 22 records that the men
who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him and beating
him, and they blindfolded him and were asking him, saying,
prophesying, who is the one who hit you? They were playing a
game with our Lord. Put a hood over his face, punched
him in the face and then say, OK, who hit you? Luke goes on to. Detail an interview before the
Sanhedrin and John provides much more insight into that section
when he says that the Jews wouldn’t even go in the praetorium because
they didn’t want to defile themselves here, they are plotting murder.
Luke picks it up and it says when the whole body got up and
came before Pilate, they began to accuse him, accuse him. falsely
accuse him. He’s again interviewed by pilot.
John provides a great amount of detail on that in Chapter
18, Luke picks it up and sees him sent to Herod and Herod receives
him and immediately begins quizzing him. Questioning him at some
length, but he answered him nothing. The chief priests and the scribes
were standing there accusing him vehemently. barking out,
calling out all kinds of crimes, all of them false. Herod with
his soldiers, it says, after treating him with contempt and
mocking him, dressed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him back to Pilate. Pilate ultimately takes him,
and it says in verse 19 that he took and had Jesus scourged,
even though he would ultimately declare him to be innocent. Soldiers twisted together a crown
of thorns, put it on his head, a purple robe. They began to
come up to him and say, Hail, King of the Jews. To give him slaps in the face.
Luke records that even after Pilate insists on releasing him.
He said, I will punish him and release him. But ultimately,
Pilate gave in to their demands and it says in Luke 23, 24, that
Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted. He would
be put to death. After all of this abuse. Pierce through. Crushed. Chastened. Scourged. For what? He was innocent. It’s for you. was for me. Look at the passage. This pierced through for our
transgressions. It was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being. By his scourging, we are healed. Look at each of those just briefly.
Transgressions. The fascinating thing with this
particular word is that when the writers of the Septuagint
translators tried to find a Greek word to accommodate the Hebrew
word, which meant transgressions, a transgression of the law. They
just picked the general word lawlessness. These were lawless. Men for whom Christ died. People
who did not love God did not love his law were not inclined
to obey God in the least. The interesting idea with this
is the core of this word means to rebel to revolt and what’s
it what’s in view here is a breach of relationship that we didn’t
want him. We didn’t want God lording it
over us. We didn’t want to have to listen
to his law. We didn’t want to have to obey Hosea 8.1, put the trumpet to
your lips like an eagle. The enemy comes against the house
of the Lord because they have transgressed my covenant and
rebelled against my law. That was the heart of every sinner.
The second word used are iniquities. The translators just used the
Greek word hamartia, the most common word for sin. The Hebrew
word means to bend or twist or distort, and it just speaks of
life being twisted and lived completely in crooked fashion,
perversion, perversion of what God had intended. That describes
sinners, doesn’t it? The Christ came and he was not
only pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities, but the chastening for our well-being fell upon
him. We took occasion Christmas Eve
to look at that little verse where the angel brought a message,
not only glory to God, but peace. Peace. To those whom God favors. And it’s that same thought here. The word you’ll be familiar with
is Shalom peace. But Shalom meant more than just
kind of a national peace or a social peace within communities. It
talked about just well-being, completeness, a wholeness. And
certainly this is one of the words, a very important theological
word in the Old Testament. It’s a complete absence of strife
and the strife here being between God. Christ came to be chastised
for the sake of restoring peace between us. And God. It’s the
chastisement that he points to that leads ultimately to our
peace. So what follows when he says
by his stripes we are healed, the healing is much more than
just a physical healing. That’s how Matthew recorded it
in 817. He recorded it as a physical
healing, but he’s got much more in mind here than just a physical
healing. The word is used in that sense,
but it’s also used of spiritual deep healing. Isaiah 1922 says
the Lord will strike Egypt striking, but healing so that they will
return to the Lord and he will respond to them and will heal
them. See, we were sick. In our natural
state, we are sick unto death, we are dying, physically dying. From the moment we’re born, we’re
on a death watch. But Jesus Christ, the only sinless
one that ever lived, came and He took that suffering unto death
upon Himself. Took it upon Himself so that
He could restore to us a healing of a completely different sort.
Not just a physical healing in the here and now, but ultimately
a spiritual lasting peace with God. And it’s for everybody. Everybody needs it, we know. Glad to stand at the passage,
if you would. This mission that Christ finds himself on and the
propitiation for sinners. He’s got a large pool to attend
to, doesn’t he? Here in verse six, no former
concepts are casually revisited. No new concepts really are introduced,
as we saw in verse five. But here instead, by way of a
solemn summary. Isaiah caps off this third verse
of the song. The servant’s suffering was not
for his own sin. It was for ours. Every single
one of us had carelessly veered off the path of righteousness
designed for us. We were astray. We were not what
we were designed to be. We are not who we were designed
to be. Instead, we are all who we want
to be doing what we want to do. Doesn’t that describe how you
were? And the only way out of the pit that we had dug for ourselves
was for God to intervene. And to place our guilt upon the
Savior for that purpose. When Isaiah says that all of
us like sheep have gone astray, he included himself. He said that our natural tendency
was to wander away. Certainly away from God. Each
has turned to his own way. We wanted to do what we wanted
to do, not what God wanted us to do. And that’s exactly what
Adam did. Right. Adam wondered, but Adam was our spiritual representative. He was our. Spiritual head, his
fall was our fall, his sin was our sin, his guilt is our guilt,
his sentence is our sentence. Remember the four dreadful effects
of the fall. We covered these some time ago.
Inherently sinful. From that point on, we had a
tendency towards sin. Inherently sinful. Sinful. Temporally
vexed. Everything becomes frustration.
Sweat of the brow. Pain in childbirth. Everything
is touched and tainted by sin. Inherently sinful. Temporally
vexed. Physically dying. You’re born to die. You’re born
and you’re already in the process of dying. inherently sinful,
temporally vexed, physically dying. And the worst one of all,
spiritually dead. See, that’s the testimony of
Romans three, isn’t it? It’s a summary of the Old Testament
teaching on the fallen nature of humanity. And essentially,
it’s a long version of all of us like sheep have gone astray. Verse 10 of Romans 3, as it is
written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who
understands. There is none who seeks for God.
All have turned aside together. They have become useless. There
is no one who does good. There is not even one. Their
throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep
deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. And the path
of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. See, the testimony of God’s word
echoes with that With what Isaiah says here, all
of us like sheep have gone astray. There isn’t a single one of us
that doesn’t need God’s abundant grace. It’s the testimony of Romans
5, isn’t it? As Paul enters in there, remember
that discussion of the effect of Adam’s life and the effect
of Christ’s life. He draws his conclusion in verse
12 of chapter five, therefore, just as through one man, Adam
sin entered into the world and death through sin. So death spread
to all men because all sin. One faithful pastor. Pointed
to. Our universal need when he said
through the fall and through our own sin, the nature of man
has become so debased and so depraved and corrupt that it
is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance
of God and the Holy Spirit. That’s what total depravity means.
You can’t move, you’re not alive. You’re spiritually dead. Now,
the reason why a man cannot come to Christ is because his nature
is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to come
to Christ unless he is drawn by the Spirit. We declare upon
scriptural authority that the human will is so desperately
set on mischief so depraved and so inclined to everything that
is evil and so disinclined to everything that is good that
without the powerful supernatural irresistible influence of the
Holy Spirit no human will ever be constrained toward Christ. That is not good news. That is a desperate painting
of our predicament. That unless God moves, we are
hopeless. But the passage isn’t finished.
And the last sentence says, but the Lord has caused the iniquity
of us all to fall on him. There’s hope. The Lord has taken
our sin and he’s placed it onto Christ. God doesn’t allow those who have
sinned. To just wander and to try to
remedy their own condition, he’s provided it for them and he he’s
provided it in the suffering servant who’s already done it
all. He’s provided it in the one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who’s
taken our wrath upon himself? Charles Spurgeon. challenged
each one of us when he said, stand at the foot of the cross.
Look at Isaiah 53 is essentially what he points to. Look at what
Christ endured. Look at what Christ did for you. Stand at the foot of the cross
and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed.
See the thorn crown. Mark his scourge shoulders still
gushing with in crimson drills. See hands and feet given up to
the rough iron and his whole self to mockery and scorn. See
the bitterness and the pangs, the throes of inward grief showing
themselves in an outward frame. If you do not lie prostrate on
the ground before that cross, you’ve never seen it. If you
are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know him.
You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice
of God’s only begotten Son. Think of that. And as Jesus stooped
for you, bow yourself in lowliness at his feet. A sense of Christ’s
amazing love to us has a greater tendency to humble us. Than even
a consciousness of our own guilt. Our merciful God. We think of Christ and all that
He endured on our behalf. He was pierced through for our
transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being
fell upon Him. Thanks be to God that by His
scourging we are healed. Father, If there are any in this
room who have not placed their faith, their only hope in what
the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished for sinners. May this today be
the day of salvation. Draw them and pray. Bring them to repentance. And may every one of us who names
the name of Christ already Go home with utter gratitude for
what Christ did on our behalf. We thank you and praise you in
Jesus’ name.