Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
4. Surely he hath borne &c.] Render:
Surely it was our sicknesses that he bore
and our pains that he carried
The emphasis of contrast lies on the words our and he in both lines. To “bear” sickness is not to take it away (although that will be the effect of vicarious bearing of it) but simply to endure it (as Jer 10:19). In Mat 8:17 the words are applied to our Lord’s miracles of healing, but the prophet’s meaning plainly is that the Servant endured in his own person the penal consequences of the people’s guilt.
yet we did esteem &c.] Rather, while we accounted him stricken &c. The subject “we” is strongly emphasised, and the clause is circumstantial, introducing the people’s false estimate of the Servant as a concomitant of the main statement of the verse. “Stricken” is the expression used when God visits a man with severe and sudden sickness (Gen 12:17; 1Sa 6:9), especially leprosy, which was regarded as preeminently the “stroke” of God’s hand (Job 19:21; 2Ki 15:5; Lev 13:3; Lev 13:9; Lev 13:20) and the direct consequence of sin. That the Servant is pictured as a leper is suggested by several particulars in the description, such as his marred and disfigured form, and his isolation from human society, as well as the universal conviction of his contemporaries that he was a special object of the divine wrath; and the impression is confirmed by the parallel case of Job, the typical righteous sufferer, whose disease was elephantiasis, the most hideous form of leprosy. It has to be-borne in mind, of course, that the figure of the Servant is in some sense an ideal creation of the prophet’s mind, so that the leprosy is only a strong image for such sufferings as are the evidence of God’s wrath against sin.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
4 6. While Isa 53:2-3 describe the natural instinctive impressions produced by the Servant’s appearance, Isa 53:4-6 reveal incidentally the moral judgement which the people were led to form regarding him. His unparalleled sufferings had seemed to them to mark him out as a special object of Jehovah’s anger ( Isa 53:4), just as Job’s calamities were believed by his friends to be the evidence of great, though secret, sins. But it is the reversal of this judgement, and the perception thereby gained of the true nature of the Servant’s mission, that is the chief theme of this section. The people now see that although he suffered greatly he was himself innocent, and from this they have advanced to the conclusion that he suffered vicariously, bearing the penalty due to the sin of his nation. This change of attitude towards the Servant marks the beginning of repentance in the people; the consciousness of their own guilt takes possession of their minds when they read God’s judgement upon it in the chastisement borne by their substitute.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Surely – This is an exceedingly important verse, and is one that is attended with considerable difficulty, from the manner in which it is quoted in the New Testament. The general sense, as it stands in the Hebrew, is not indeed difficult. It is immediately connected in signification with the previous verse. The meaning is, that those who had despised and rejected the Messiah, had greatly erred in condemning him on account of his sufferings and humiliation. We turned away from him in horror and contempt. We supposed that he was suffering on account of some great sin of his own. But in this we erred. It was not for his sins but for ours. It was not that he Was smitten of God for his own sins – as if he had been among the worst of mortals – but it was because he had taken our sins, and was suffering for them. The very thing therefore that gave offence to us, and which made us turn away from him, constituted the most important part of his work, and was really the occasion of highest gratitude. It is an acknowledgment that they had erred, and a confession of that portion of the nation which would be made sensible of their error, that they had judged improperly of the character of the sufferer. The word rendered surely ( ‘aken, Vulgate, vere), is sometimes a particle strongly affirming, meaning truly, of a certain truth Gen 28:16; Exo 2:14; Jer 8:8. Sometimes it is an adversative particle, meaning but yet Psa 31:23; Isa 49:24. It is probably used in that sense here, meaning, that though he was despised by them, yet he was worthy of their esteem and confidence, for he had borne their griefs. He was not suffering for any sins of his own, but in a cause which, so far from rendering him an object of contempt, made him worthy of their highest regard.
He hath borne – Hebrew, nas’a’. Vulgate, Tulit. Septuagint, pherei – He bears. Chald. He prayed ( yibeey) for, or on account of our sins. Castilio, Tulit ac toleravit. In these versions, the sense is that of sustaining, bearing, upholding, carrying, as when one removes a burden from the shoulders of another, and places it on his own. The word nas’a’ means properly to take up, to lift, to raise Gen 7:17, The waters increased, and lifted up the ark; Gen 29:1, And Jacob lifted up his feet (see the margin) and came. Hence, it is applied to lifting up a standard Jer 4:6; Jer 50:2 : to lifting up the hand Deu 32:40; to lifting up the head Job 10:15; 2Ki 25:27; to lifting up the eyes (Gen 13:10, et soepe); to lifting up the voice, etc. It then means to bear, to carry, as an infant in the arms Isa 46:3; as a tree does its fruit Eze 17:8, or as a field its produce Psa 70:3; Gen 12:6.
Hence, to endure, suffer, permit Job 21:3. Bear with me, suffer me and I will speak. Hence, to bear the sin of anyone, to take upon ones self the suffering which is due to sin (see the notes at Isa 53:12 of this chapter; compare Lev 5:1, Lev 5:17; Lev 17:16; Lev 20:19; Lev 24:15; Num 5:31; Num 9:13; Num 14:34; Num 30:16; Eze 18:19-20). Hence, to bear chastisement, or punishment Job 34:31 : I have borne chastisement, I will not offend anymore. It is also used in the sense of taking away the sin of anyone, expiating, or procuring pardon Gen 50:17; Lev 10:17; Job 7:21; Psa 33:5; Psa 85:3. In all cases there is the idea of lifting, sustaining, taking up, and conveying away, as by carrying a burden. It is not simply removing, but it is removing somehow by lifting, or carrying; that is, either by an act of power, or by so taking them on ones own self as to sustain and carry them. If applied to sin, it means that a man must bear the burden of the punishment of his own sin, or that the suffering which is due to sin is taken up and borne by another.
If applied to diseases, as in Mat 8:17, it must mean that he, as it were, lifted them up and bore them away. It cannot mean that the Saviour literally took those sicknesses on himself, and became sick in the place of the sick, became a leper in the place of the leper, or was himself possessed with an evil spirit in the place of those who were possessed Mat 8:16, but it must mean that he took them away by his power, and, as it were, lifted them up, and removed them. So when it is said Isa 53:12 that he bare the sins of many, it cannot mean literally that he took those sins on himself in any such sense as that he became a sinner, but only that he so took them upon himself as to remove from the sinner the exposure to punishment, and to bear himself whatever was necessary as a proper expression of the evil of sin. Peter undoubtedly makes an allusion to this passage Isa 53:12 when he says 1Pe 2:24, Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree (see the notes at Isa 53:12). Matthew Mat 8:17 has translated it by elabe (he took), a word which does not differ in signification essentially from that used by Isaiah. It is almost exactly the same word which is used by Symmachus ( anelabe).
Our griefs – The word used here ( chaliy) means properly sickness, disease, anxiety, affliction. It does not refer to sins, but to sufferings. It is translated sickness Deu 28:61; Deu 7:15; 2Ch 21:15; 1Ki 17:17; disease Ecc 6:2; 2Ch 21:18; 2Ch 16:12; Exo 15:26; grief (Isa 53:3-4; compare Jer 16:4). It is never in our version rendered sin, and never Used to denote sin. In ninety-three instances, says Dr. Magee (On atonement and Sacrifice, p. 229, New York Ed. 1813), in which the word here translated (by the Septuagint) hamartias, or its kindred verb, is found in the Old Testament in any sense that is not entirely foreign from the passage before us, there occurs but this one in which the word is so rendered; it being in all other cases expressed by astheneia, malakia, or some word denoting bodily disease. That the Jews, he adds, considered this passage as referring to bodily diseases, appears from Whitby, and Lightfoot. Hor. Heb. on Mat 8:17. It is rendered in the Vulgate, Languores – Our infirmities. In the Chaldee, He prayed for our sins. Castellio renders it, Morbos – Diseases; and so Junius and Tremellius. The Septuagint has rendered it in this place: Hamartias – Sins; though, from what Dr. Kennicott has advanced in his Diss. Gen. Section 79, Dr. Magee thinks there can be no doubt that this is a corruption which has crept into the later copies of the Greek. A few Greek manuscripts of the Septuagint also read it astheneias, and one copy reads malakias.
Matthew Mat 8:17 has rendered it, astheneias – infirmities, and intended no doubt to apply it to the fact that the Lord Jesus healed diseases, and there can be no doubt that Matthew has used the passage, not by way of accommodation, but in the true sense in which it is used by Isaiah; and that it means that the Messiah would take upon himself the infirmities of people, and would remove their sources of grief. It does not refer here to the fact that he would take their sins. That is stated in other places Isa 53:6, Isa 53:12. But it means that he was so afflicted, that he seemed to have taken upon himself the sicknesses and sorrows of the world; and taking them upon himself he would bear them away. I understand this, therefore, as expressing the twofold idea that he became deeply afflicted for us, and that. being thus afflicted for us, he was able to carry away our sorrows. In part this would be done by his miraculous power in healing diseases, as mentioned by Matthew; in part by the influence of his religion, in enabling people to bear calamity, and in drying up the fountains of sorrow. Matthew, then, it is believed, has quoted this passage exactly in the sense in which it was used by Isaiah; and if so, it should not be adduced to prove that he bore the sins of men – true as is that doctrine, and certainly as it has been affirmed in other parts of this chapter.
And carried – Hebrew, ( sabal). This word means properly to carry, as a burden; to be laden with, etc. Isa 46:4, Isa 46:7; Gen 49:15. It is applied to carrying burdens 1Ki 5:15; 2Ch 2:2; Neh 4:10, Neh 4:17; Ecc 12:5. The verb with its derivative noun occurs in twenty-six places in the Old Testament, twenty-three of which relate to carrying burdens, two others relate to sins, and the other Lam 5:7 is rendered, We have borne their iniquities. The primary idea is undoubtedly that of carrying a burden; lifting it, and bearing it in this manner.
Our sorrows – The word used here ( make‘ob, from ka’ab, to have pain, sorrow, to grieve, or be sad), means properly pain, sorrow, grief. In the Old Testament it is rendered sorrow and sorrows Ecc 1:18; Lam 1:12-18; Isa 65:14; Jer 45:3; Jer 30:15; grief Job 16:6; Psa 69:26; 2Ch 6:29; pain Job 33:19; Jer 15:18; Jer 51:8. Perhaps the proper difference between this word and the word translated griefs is, that this refers to pains of the mind, that of the body; this to anguish, anxiety, or trouble of the soul; that to bodily infirmity and disease. Kennicott affirms that the word here used is to be regarded as applicable to griefs and distresses of the mind. It is evidently so interpreted, says Dr. Magee (p. 220), in Psa 32:10, Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; and again, Psa 69:29, But I am poor and sorrowful; and again, Pro 14:13, The heart is sorrowful; and Ecc 1:18, He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow; and so Ecc 2:18; Isa 65:14; Jer 30:15. Agreeably to this, the word is translated by Lowth, in our common version, and most of the early English versions, Sorrows. The Vulgate renders it, Dolores: the Septuagint, For us he is in sorrow ( odunatai), that is, is deeply grieved, or afflicted.
The phrase, therefore, properly seems to mean that he took upon himself the mental sorrows of people. He not only took their diseases, and bore them away, but he also took or bore their mental griefs. That is, he subjected himself to the kind of mental sorrow which was needful in order to remove them. The word which is used by Matthew Mat 8:17, in the translation of this, is nosou. This word( nosos) means properly sickness, disease Mat 4:23-24; Mat 9:35; but it is also used in a metaphorical sense for pain, sorrow, evil (Rob. Lex.) In this sense it is probable that it was designed to be used by Matthew. He refers to the general subject of human ills; to the sicknesses, sorrows, pains, and trials of life; and he evidently means, in accordance with Isaiah, that he took them on himself. He was afflicted for them. He undertook the work of removing them. Part he removed by direct miracle – as sickness; part he removed by removing the cause – by taking away sin by the sacrifice of himself – thus removing the source of all ills; and in regard to all, he furnished the means of removing them by his own example and instructions, and by the great truths which he revealed as topics of consolation and support. On this important passage, see Magee, On atonement and Sacrifice, pp. 227-262.
Yet we did esteem him stricken – Lowth, Yet we thought him judicially stricken. Noyes, We esteemed him stricken from above. Jerome (the Vulgate), We thought him to be a leper. The Septuagint renders it, We considered him being in trouble (or in labor, en poio) and under a stroke (or in a plague or divine judgment, en plege), and in affliction. Chaldee, We thought him wounded, smitten from the presence of God, and afflicted. The general idea is, that they thought he was subjected to great and severe punishment by God for his sins or regarded him as an object of divine disapprobation. They inferred that one who was so abject and so despised; who suffered so much and so long, must have been abandoned by God to judicial sufferings, and that he was experiencing the proper result and effect of his own sins. The word rendered stricken, ( nagua) means properly struck, or smitten.
It is applied sometimes to the plague, or the leprosy, as an act by which God smites suddenly, and destroys people Gen 12:17; Exo 11:1; Lev 13:3, Lev 13:9, Lev 13:20; 1Sa 6:9; Job 19:21; Psa 73:5, and very often elsewhere. Jerome explains it here by the word leprous; and many of the ancient Jews derived from this word the idea that the Messiah would be afflicted with the leprosy. Probably the idea which the word would convey to those who were accustomed to read the Old Testament in Hebrew would be, that he was afflicted or smitten in some way corresponding to the plague or the leprosy; and as these were regarded as special and direct divine judgments, the idea would be that he would be smitten judicially by God. or be exposed to his displeasure and his curse. It is to be particularly observed here that the prophet does not say that he would thus be in fact smitten, accursed, and abandoned by God; but only that he would be thus esteemed, or thought, namely, by the Jews who rejected him and put him to death. It is not here said that he was such. Indeed, it is very strongly implied that he was not, since the prophet here is introducing them as confessing their error, and saying that they were mistaken. He was, say they, bearing our sorrows, not suffering for his own sins.
Smitten of God – Not that he was actually smitten of God, but we esteemed him so. We treated him as one whom we regarded as being under the divine malediction, and we therefore rejected him. We esteemed him to be smitten by God, and we acted as if such an one should be rejected and contemned. The word used here ( nakah) means to smite, to strike, and is sometimes employed to denote divine judgment, as it is here. Thus it means to smite with blindness Gen 19:11; with the pestilence Num 14:12; with emerods 1Sa 5:6; with destruction, spoken of a land Mal 4:6; of the river Exo 7:25 when he turned it into blood. In all such instances, it means that Yahweh had inflicted a curse. And this is the idea here. They regarded him as under the judicial inflictions of God, and as suffering what his sins deserved. The foundation of this opinion was laid in the belief so common among the Jews, that great sufferings always argued and supposed great guilt, and were proof of the divine displeasure. This question constitutes the inquiry in the Book of Job, and was the point in dispute between Job and friends.
And afflicted – We esteemed him to be punished by God. In each of these clauses the words, For his own sins, are to be understood. We regarded him as subjected to these calamities on account of his own sins. It did not occur to us that he could be suffering thus for the sins of others. The fact that the Jews attempted to prove that Jesus was a blasphemer, and deserved to die, shows the fulfillment of this, and the estimate which they formed of him (see Luk 23:34; Joh 16:3; Act 3:17; 1Co 2:8).
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 53:4-6
Surely He hath borne our griefs
Christs love and mans unthankfulness
I.
CHRISTS LOVE.
1. The certainty of what is averred of Christ: Surely.
2. The acts of Christs obedience, set forth in two words: He hath borne, He hath carried.
3. The objects. They are griefs, sorrows.
II. MANS UNTHANKFULNESS, in censuring Christ and despising Him; and there consider–
1. The persons: We.
2. The guilt. Esteeming Christ stricken and smitten of God. (T. Manton, D.D.)
The pressure of the burden on God
My positions are these–
1. The Lord–electing to perpetuate the sinful race, to endure all the sorrow which Heaven would look upon, and the question which would fall upon His government through the existence of a world so full of wrong and wretchedness, in a universe whose order was his charge–stooped at once, in infinite, tender pity, to lift the burden, and to become a fellow-wayfarer in the sorrowful pilgrimage to which man had doomed himself by his sin. Suffering sin to live on and reproduce itself, with all its bitter fruits, in the universe which He made to be so blest, He needs must become its sacrifice; making the atonement for the sin which He did not on the moment crush, and bearing the burden of the sorrow which He did not at once destroy. And this is Divine love. It must share the sorrow which it allows to live on, though the fountain of the sorrow be a sin which he hates; it must lift and bear the burden which most righteous necessities lay heavily upon erring souls. We none of us know, even dimly, what is meant by Emmanuel, God with us. God always with us, incarnate from the hour when He announced Himself as the womans seed, and the destroyer of her foe. God with us, our fellow in all the dread experience into which our sharing in the sin of Adam has driven us; knowing Himself the full pressure of its burdens, and infinitely more nearly touched than we are by everything that concerns the dark, sad history of mankind.
2. The fellowship of God with the race in the very hour of the transgression infused at once a tincture of hope into the experience of the sinner, and made it, from the first, a discipline unto life instead of a judgment unto death.
3. This first promise to man, this fellowship of God with the sinning, suffering race, whose existence He perpetuated, pledged Him to the sacrifice of Calvary, the baptism of Pentecost, and the abiding of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, with the world. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Christ the Burden-bearer
There are two questions which here suggest themselves–
I. WHAT BURDENS PRESSED ON CHRIST, WHICH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, UNLESS HE HAD TAKEN THEM UP?
1. By His incarnation He inserted Himself into our race, and by assuming our own nature, He felt whatever sorrows press on man as man
2. By His position He represented our race. As the Son of God, He is Heavens representative on earth. As the Son of Man, He is our Great High Priest, to intercede with Heaven. Thus all earths spiritual concerns rested on Him. Could such a work be entrusted to man, and He-be otherwise than a man of sorrows?
3. By His own personal sympathy He so felt for man, that He made the sorrows of others His own. His was no heartless officialism.
4. By suffering and sorrow, Christ not only discloses His own human sympathy, but by reason of the two-foldness of His nature, that human sympathy was an incarnation of the Divine!
5. But we have to take one more step, in accounting for the burden which lay upon Christ. He came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life, a ransom for many.
II. WHAT BURDENS DO NOT REST UPON US, THAT MUST HAVE BEEN OURS IF CHRIST HAD NOT BORNE THEM AWAY?
1. The burden of unatoned guilt rests on none! Behold the Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world!
2. The burden of hopeless corruption of nature need rest on none. When the Son of God came to be a sacrifice for us, He came to be also a Living
Root in us. He allied Himself with human weakness, and joined it to His almightiness, that in Him that weakness might be lost, and be substituted by everlasting strength.
3. The burden of unshared sorrows rests on none. Does our sorrow arise from the sin without us? That pressed more heavily on Christ than ever it can do on us. Does it come from personal trial? Christs were far heavier than ours. Does it come from the temptations of Satan? He was in all points tempted like as we are. But perhaps it may be said, By reason of the infirmities of the flesh, I am betrayed into impatience, murmuring and fretfulness and I cannot feel that Christ has lifted off that burden, for I am sure Christ never felt any fretfulness or impatience, and so He cannot sympathize with mine. But, strange as it may seem at first sight, it is just here that the perfection of Christs sympathy is seen. In this last-named course of sorrow there is a mixture of what is frail with what is wrong. But since Christs nature was untainted by sin, He can draw exactly the line between infirmity and sin, which sinful natures cannot do. Now, we do not want, and we ought not to wish for sympathy with the wrong, but only with weakness and frailty. How does Christ, then, meet this complex case! Distinguishing most clearly between the two, He looks on the infirmity, and has for it a fulness of pity; He discerns the sin, and has for that fulness of power to forgive it, and fulness of grace to remove it! In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.
4. The burden of dreaded death need rest on none. Christ passed through death that He might deliver them who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage.
5. The great burden of the destiny of the human race rests not on us. Christ has taken that up. (C. Clemance, D. D.)
The death of Christ a propitiation for sin
Two things are asserted–
I. THAT THE MESSIAH SHOULD SUFFER NOT FOR HIS OWN SINS, BUT FOR OURS (Isa 53:4-5). This indeed is what His enemies would deny, esteeming Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, for His own sins, His imposture, usurpation and blasphemy. But if we peruse the history of His life we shall find that the sum of all they had to lay to His charge was His presuming to act in a character which really did (but which they would not believe did) belong to him: that the whole course of His behaviour exemplified the most perfect integrity of heart and life, and showed Him to be the spotless Lamb of God, in whom there was no sin. Hence it follows that He must have suffered for the sins of others.
1. Some have put this gloss upon the words, He was wounded for–i.e., (they say) by our transgressions, and bruised by our iniquities. Or, that it was owing to the sins of the Jews that He suffered so much as He did. It was their malice, unrighteousness and envy that was the cause of all His suffering. But this construction is not only apparently forced, but is confuted by the whole scope and tenor of the prophecy. For He is not said to be smitten by the Jews, but for them; nay, that He was smitten of God for them, for it was the Lord that laid on Him the punishment of their iniquities.
2. Others say that He bore our sins by imputation, and was wounded for our transgressions, because our transgressions were imputed to Him, or reckoned as His. But you will say, perhaps, Were not our sins then imputed to Christ? I answer, I find no fault with the word, provided it be rightly understood and explained. If by imputation be meant, that our sins were actually made over or transferred to Him, so as to become His, I do not see how this can be conceived possible. But might they not be reckoned His? No, for that would be to reckon them what they were not, and what it was impossible they should be. But if by our sins being imputed to Christ be understood no more than that the punishment thereof was actually laid upon Him, this is easily conceived, and readily granted: that is what the sacred Scriptures everywhere say. If anything further be necessary to illustrate this affair, we may explain it by the case of the propitiatory sacrifices under the law, all which pointed at or prefigured the great Christian sacrifice under the Gospel. Those piacular victims were of Divine appointment. The sin-offerings, over the heads of which the priest was to confess the sins of the people, were substituted in the room of the offenders, and died instead of those sinners for whom they were offered. The sins of the people were not transferred over to the victim, but the victim was slain for the sins of the people. Lev 16:21-22 must of necessity be taken in a figurative construction: because the sins of a man can in no other sense be transferred to, or laid upon a beast, than by transferring upon it the punishment of them.
3. Others there are who acknowledge that Christ died for us, meaning thereby that He died for our sakes or for our good, and to set us a perfect example of patience and submission under sufferings; but not for our sins, or in our room and stead. But if Christ died for us as our Sacrifice, or as the sacrifices under the law died for the offenders (as He certainly did if they were proper types of Him), then He must have died in our room, and as substituted in our place.
4. Others think, that all those places of Scripture which speak of Christs death as a propitiation are to be explained in a figurative sense: that the apostles borrowed those sacrifical terms from the Jewish law, and applied them to the death of Christ, only by way of accommodation or analogy, not that the blood of Christ did really and properly expiate or atone for sin, any more than that of the Jewish sacrifices; but that He only died for us as a pledge to assure us that God would pardon and accept us upon our repentance. To which it may suffice to say, that the apostle does not speak of the death of Christ merely by way of analogy to the Jewish sacrifices, but as typified, represented and prefigured by them (Eph 5:2; Heb 9:13-14; Heb 10:4).
II. THAT THE GREAT END AND DESIGN OF CHRISTS SUFFERING FOR OUR SINS, WAS TO MAKE OUR PEACE WITH GOD. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, etc. These words plainly intimate to us the way whereby our peace is made with God, viz by our justification and sanctification. (J. Mason, M.A.)
Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ
In these words Isaiah declares the end of Christs sufferings. The Jews, who put Him to death, did esteem Him smitten of God, that is, crucified according to the will of God, for attempting to turn away men from the law of Moses. And, to this day, they speak of Jesus as one who suffered according to the law of God, for seducing the Israelites from the faith of their forefathers. The prophet gives a different view of Christs death. Instead of dying for His own sins, He was wounded for our transgressions.
1. There is no passage of Scripture in which the substitution of Christs sufferings, in place of those of the sinner, is more clearly revealed than in our text.
2. All agree that men are sinners, and that sin deserves punishment. But when we come to ask how it may be forgiven, and for what consideration God forgives it, we begin to differ. The Trinitarian doctrine is, that the eternal Son of God, the uncreated, and equal with the Father, became incarnate, and suffered the punishment of our sins, as our Substitute; and that for the sake of what He has done, we may be forgiven. They who are opposed to us, on the other hand, believe that Christ, a created being, but still so very exalted that He may be called a God–yet not the supreme God–took our nature upon Him, that He might teach men a purer religion than was ever before known, and set before them a perfect example, and thus draw them away from their sins; so that He saves us from our sins, not by atoning for them, but just as any merely good man does, who so teaches and practises as to lead men from sin to holiness. While engaged in this work, they assert further, that the Jews seized upon the Saviour and put Him to death; and Jesus, to show that He was persuaded of the truth of what He had taught, gave Himself up to die, just as Latimer and Ridley sealed their testimony with their blood; and that thus Christ may be said to have died for us, because He met His death in seeking to do us good. Some go a little further, and believe that God was so pleased with the holy life, and the martyr-death of His Son, that for His sake He is graciously inclined to forgive sin, just as the good conduct of one child may procure favours for an erring brother, for whom he pleads. They expect to be saved through their repentance, by the mercy of God; we expect salvation through the alone merits of the suffering Son of God.
3. Now let us go on to see how this great doctrine of our Church is sustained by Scripture.
4. But again, we ask attention to the fact, that Christs sufferings were not so much from man as from God, not bodily so much as of the soul. How do we account for this? If He was seized upon by the Jews, and died merely as a martyr, would God have withdrawn His presence from Him in His last agonies Would He not then have had, as other good men have had, the brightest views of the Divine presence and comfort? But it was just the reverse. The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It is said God made Christs soul, not His body alone, an offering for sin; it was foretold that it should be mental, not merely corporal suffering, that He should endure. And such, in fact, was the case.
5. How can these facts be explained on the Unitarian system? (W. H. Lewis, D.D.)
Redemption
I. THE NEED (Isa 53:6). Sheep, but astray; through following their own inclinations. Divine pity is on the selfish and the lost.
II. THE MEANS.
1. The reality of the redemption seen in the fact that Christ died. He did not die for His own sin; I am innocent of the blood of this just man, said His judge. He did not die through His own feebleness; I have power to lay down My life, etc., said Christ. He did not die by accident; the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all: it was the will of the Father, and foretold, and a fact.
2. The form of the redemption.
(1) The humiliation of Christ. The humiliation of Christ teaches the intensity of sin. Where sin is not felt His humiliation is misunderstood. We did esteem Him stricken, etc.
(2) The substitution of Christ. The substitution of Christ teaches the wealth in our redemption; where Christ is not known in His Divine nature the riches of salvation not fully appreciated.
III. THE EFFECT (Isa 53:5).
1. Sin atoned for, iniquity borne away.
2. Peace. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Being justified by faith we have peace.
3. Healing. We are free from sin to be the servants of God. The depth of His love the measure of our obligation. As that cannot be fathomed our obligation can never be fully realized. (R. V. Pryce, M.A., LL.B.)
Vicarious suffering
Great is the power of vicarious suffering in its endless varieties. By the struggles and the obstinate questionings of deep souls the world of ordinary men is redeemed and elevated. It is by His suffering prophets that God most truly saves the world. By the untold miseries of Job, by the deep grief of Isaiah, by the piercing sorrows of Paul, by the weary restlessness of Augustine, by the fiery agonies of Luther, by the sore trials of John Bunyan, by the spiritual travail of Wesley and Whitfield, by the brave endurance of Theodore Parker, by the torn heart of Robertson of Brighton, by the manifold diquietudes and internal gloom of the great army of bewildered doubters and baffled pioneers–by all these we have been led from the house of bondage and the city of destruction, from the valley of the shadow of death, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Luther and Bunyan
By their agony and bloody sweat. it is given to sympathetic souls in every age to deliver the world to some extent. Thus by the stripes of Luther John Bunyan was healed. From Luthers commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians Bunyan received peace and victory. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Vicarious suffering
Vicarious suffering, with its far-reaching influence, pervades the whole world. Assuredly this is not due to any after-thought of God. It is an essential part of the original arrangement. No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Society an organism
The English Deists certainly erred in rejecting the true inner meaning of the doctrine of salvation by vicarious suffering. The Deists did not realize the truth that society is an organism. And our perception of this fact in the present day enables us to appreciate the real meaning of the doctrine of vicarious suffering. This truth shines all the more clearly, owing to the light of modern science, which has discredited the old Deism even more effectually than Bishop Butler did. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Sadder and mysterious aspects of vicarious suffering
Some of these aspects are so unspeakably sad that it is only in the light of a future life that I can bear to gaze upon them. We do but skim over the surface of the deep mystery of vicarious suffering, unless we recognize the fact that the spiritual world is full of wasted lives, of marvellous abortions, of grand and heroic failures, of illustrious scapegoats dying in the bleak wilderness of ignominy and defeat, bearing away the sins of the many, and yet by them misunderstood, condemned, and anathematized. In many respects these outcast scapegoats of the spiritual world are the truest saviours of our race, though by commonplace religionists they are numbered with the transgressors, and die unhealed and unredeemed, and make their graves with the wicked. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
The worlds majestic failures
The worlds majestic failures are a sorrowful hint of Gods inexhaustible resources. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
The failure of one the gain of another
I suppose that no thoughtful person would think of denying the fact that predestined failure is the lot of many noble natures here on earth. They are stepping-stones on which others rise to higher things. Of each of them we might truly, affirm that he is thus addressed by others, Bow down, that we may go over. And, in meek obedience, he complies; so that we write concerning him, And thou hast laid thy body on the ground, and as the street to them that went over. Such souls are scapegoats of the race, bearing away the deficiencies and the sins of many into the wilderness of isolation, despondency, and disaster. They drink to the very dregs the cup of ancestral sinfulness, and their brethren thereby escape that fatal heritage of the soul. It seems as if it were necessary that they should be lost, in order that others may be saved. Consciously or unconsciously, they suck out the poison from the wounds of the human race. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Vicarious sacrifice in the intellectual world
I In the intellectual world it is often expedient that one man should be sacrificed for the race. For instance, David Humes total want of spirituality, though extremely injurious to him individually, was probably highly beneficial to the race in one way, viz by showing to what monstrous conclusions intellect by itself was likely to lead. And the very infirmities and aberrations of the intellect, in some men, are full of instruction for the race at large. Unrestrained imagination often mars or destroys the life of its possessor, as did that of Rousseau, but adds much to the worlds abiding mental wealth. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Poisons as tonics
The spiritual poisons of individuals are often turned into tonics for the race. (A. Crauford, M.A.)
Stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted
Jesus, smitten of God
Smitten as with a loathsome leprosy–the curse-mark of judicial vengeance upon Him, for so it is rendered by St. Jerome, We thought Him to be a leper. (Jr. R Macduff, D.D.)
Stricken
Stricken is the expression used when God visits a man with severe and sudden sickness (Gen 12:17; 1Sa 6:9), especially leprosy, which was regarded as pre-eminently the stroke of Gods hand (Job 2Ki 15:5; Lev 13:3; Lev 13:9; Lev 13:20), and the direct consequence of sin. (Prof. J. Skinner, D.D.)
The Servant of the Lard pictured as a leper
That the Servant is pictured as a leper is suggested by several particulars in the description, such as His marred and disfigured form, and His isolation from human society, as well as the universal conviction of His contemporaries that He was a special object of the Divine wrath; and the impression is confirmed by the parallel case of Job, the typical righteous sufferer, whose disease was elephantiasis, the most hideous form of leprosy. It has to be borne in mind, of course, that the figure of the Servant is, in some sense, an ideal creation of the prophet s mind, so that the leprosy is only a strong image for such sufferings as are the evidence of Gods wrath against sin. (Prof. J. Skinner, D.D.)
The mystery of our Lords sufferings
I. THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTS SUFFERINGS–MANS EXPLANATION OF IT. We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. And it is impossible to say that this is other than a fair view to take from mans position and with mans knowledge.
1. Let us try and realize the process of mind in a man who was told of Christs sufferings and death, but had no knowledge of His personal innocence; no conception of Him as the spotless One, separate from sinners. Such a man would only decide that He was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. To such a man it would be plain enough that God has established an immediate connection between sin and suffering. And yet we know, we feel, that this explanation of the mystery of our Lords sufferings is insufficient and incorrect. It does not lift the veil. It is altogether too commonplace. Good enough if Christ were a fellow-man. Worthless–nay, wholly wrong–if He be the spotless Lamb of God; if He be the Son of God with power.
2. Then let us try to realize the process of mind in a man who has some knowledge of Christs life, and especially of His personal innocence, as one who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Such a man might say, Christs sufferings were a specially and extraordinary Divine judgment. He was smitten of God. Such a knowledge of Christs life would convince the man that Jesus must have been a most amiable and excellent person, an obedient Son, a loving Friend, a gentle-hearted Brother; one who could claim to be a firm and wise moral Teacher. The man would feel sure that the influence of such an one as Jesus must have been very great upon His age. The fast departing moral life of Judaism ought to have had its flickering flame fanned afresh by the presence and teachings of such a Master-Spirit. And then, as he saw Him despised, persecuted, and at last put to the ignominious slaves death of the cross, what could he think about it all But this? It was a sad calamity, one of those mysterious Divine judgments that seem to come in every age, and puzzle sorely the sons of men. Man can only say of the sufferer–Smitten of God. In this way a man might fairly regard the innocent Jesus. Nay; this, too, is insufficient; it is but the beginning of an explanation. A calamity! Yes, but only a seeming calamity, seeing that by dying He conquered death, led captivity captive, and opened the kingdom of heaven you to all-believers. Man cannot of himself explain the mystery of Christs sufferings. But he can be humble, and learn so much of the mystery as God may be pleased to reveal.
II. THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTS SUFFERINGS–GODS EXPLANATION OF IT. He was wounded for our transgressions, etc.
1. We may first notice that God sustains mans view, that the sufferings of Christ were His appointment; but He further declares that they were an unusual and altogether singular appointment.
2. Then Gods explanation declares that the sufferings of Christ bore no relation whatever to His own guilt.
3. God affirms, further, that Christ suffered as the Representative or Substitute, for others. Is it any wonder that an absorbing love should grow in our souls toward this vicariously-suffering Saviour? In the restoration of man to the Divine favour; in the great and gracious work of reconciliation, we can recognize three stages–
(1) A loving purpose cherished in the deep heart of the Holy Father, that He would recover, deliver, and save His lost, rebellious, prodigal children.
(2) That Divine and loving purpose effectually wrought out by God s well-beloved and only begotten Son, in His incarnate life, labours, sufferings, sacrifice and death.
(3) The third stage is yet incomplete. It is the voluntary and hearty acceptance, by the long sought children, of the redemption thus gloriously wrought for them. (R. Tuck, B.A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. Surely he hath borne our griefs – “Surely our infirmities he hath borne”] Seven MSS. (two ancient) and three editions have cholayeynu in the plural number.
And carried our sorrows – “And our sorrows, he hath carried them”] Seventeen MSS. (two ancient) of Dr. Kennicott’s, two of De Rossi’s, and two editions have the word hu, he, before sebalam, “carrieth them,” in the text; four other MSS. have it in the margin. This adds force to the sense, and elegance to the construction.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: and whereas it may seem all unreasonable and incredible thing, that so excellent and glorious, and so innocent and just, a person should meet with this usage, it must be known that his griefs and miseries were not laid upon him for his own sake, but wholly and solely for the sake of sinful men, in whose stead he stood, and for whose sins he suffered, as it here follows.
Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; yet our people, the Jews, were so far from giving him the glory and praise of such a prodigious condescension and compassion, that they made a most perverse construction of it; and so great was their prejudice against him, that they believed that he was thus disgraced and punished, and at last put to death, by the just judgment of God, for his blasphemy and other manifold wickednesses.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Surely . . . ourgriefsliterally, “But yet He hath taken (orborne) our sicknesses,” that is, they who despisedHim because of His human infirmities ought rather to have esteemedHim on account of them; for thereby “Himself took OURinfirmities” (bodily diseases). So Mt8:17 quotes it. In the Hebrew for “borne,” ortook, there is probably the double notion, He took onHimself vicariously (so Isa 53:5;Isa 53:6; Isa 53:8;Isa 53:12), and so He tookaway; His perfect humanity whereby He was bodily afflicted forus, and in all our afflictions (Isa 63:9;Heb 4:15) was the ground on whichHe cured the sick; so that Matthew’s quotation is not a mereaccommodation. See Note 42 of ARCHBISHOPMAGEE, Atonement.The Hebrew there may mean to overwhelm with darkness;Messiah’s time of darkness was temporary (Mt27:45), answering to the bruising of His heel; Satan’s isto be eternal, answering to the bruising of his head (compareIsa 50:10).
carried . . . sorrowsThenotion of substitution strictly. “Carried,” namely,as a burden. “Sorrows,” that is, pains of the mind;as “griefs” refer to pains of the body (Psa 32:10;Psa 38:17). Mt8:17 might seem to oppose this: “And bare our sicknesses.“But he uses “sicknesses” figuratively for sins, thecause of them. Christ took on Himself all man’s “infirmities;”so as to remove them; the bodily by direct miracle, grounded on Hisparticipation in human infirmities; those of the soul by Hisvicarious suffering, which did away with the source of both.Sin and sickness are ethically connected as cause and effect (Isa 33:24;Psa 103:3; Mat 9:2;Joh 5:14; Jas 5:15).
we did esteem himstrickenjudicially [LOWTH],namely, for His sins; whereas it was for ours. “Wethought Him to be a leper” [JEROME,Vulgate], leprosy being the direct divine judgment for guilt(Lev 13:1-59; Num 12:10;Num 12:15; 2Ch 26:18-21).
smittenby divinejudgments.
afflictedfor His sins;this was the pointin which they so erred (Luk 23:34;Act 3:17; 1Co 2:8).He was, it is true, “afflicted,” but not for Hissins.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,…. Or “nevertheless”, as Gussetius k; notwithstanding the above usage of him; though it is a certain and undoubted truth, that Christ not only assumed a true human nature, capable of sorrow and grief, but he took all the natural sinless infirmities of it; or his human nature was subject to such, as hunger, thirst, weariness, c. and to all the sorrow and pain arising from them; the same sorrows and griefs he was liable to as we are, and therefore called ours and hence he had a sympathy with men under affliction and trouble; and, to show his sympathizing spirit, he healed all sorts of bodily diseases; and also, to show his power, he healed the diseases of the soul, by bearing the sins of his people, and making satisfaction for them; since he that could do the one could do the other; wherefore the evangelist applies this passage to the healing of bodily diseases, Mt 8:17, though the principal meaning of the words may be, that all the sorrows and griefs which Christ bore were not for any sins of his own, but for the sins of his people; wherefore these griefs and sorrows signify the punishment of sin, and are put for sins, the cause of them and so the apostle interprets them of Christ’s bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, 1Pe 2:24, and the Septuagint and Arabic versions render the words here, “he bears our sins”; and the Targum is,
“wherefore he will entreat for our sins;”
these being laid upon him, as is afterwards said, were bore by him as the surety of his people; and satisfaction being made for them by his sufferings and death, they are carried and taken away, never to be seen any more:
yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; so indeed he was by the sword of divine justice, which was awaked against him, and with which he was stricken and smitten, as standing in the room of his people; but then it was not for any sin of his own, as the Jews imagined, but for the sins of those for whom he was a substitute; they looked upon all his sorrows and troubles in life, and at death, as the just judgment of God upon him for some gross enormities he had been guilty of; but in this they were mistaken. The Vulgate Latin version is, “we esteemed him as a leprous person”; and so Aquila and Symmachus render the word; and from hence the Jews call the Messiah a leper l; they say,
“a leper of the house of Rabbi is his name”
as it is said, “surely he hath borne our griefs”, c. which shows that the ancient Jews understood this prophecy of the Messiah, though produced to prove a wrong character of him; and so it is applied unto him in other ancient writings of theirs; [See comments on Mt 8:17]. The words are by some rendered, “and we reckoned him the stricken, smitten of God” m, and “humbled”; which version of the words proved the conversion of several Jews in Africa, as Andradius and others relate n; by which they perceived the passage is to be understood not of a mere man, but of God made man, and of his humiliation and sufferings in human nature.
k Ebr. Comment. p. 41. “verumtamen”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “et tamen”, so some is Vatablus. l T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 98. 2. m “percussum Deum”, Sanctius. n Vid. Sanctium in loc.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Those who formerly mistook and despised the Servant of Jehovah on account of His miserable condition, now confess that His sufferings were altogether of a different character from what they had supposed. “Verily He hath borne our diseases and our pains: He hath laden them upon Himself; but we regarded Him as one stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” It might appear doubtful whether (the fuller form of ) is affirmative here, as in Isa 40:7; Isa 45:15, or adversative, as in Isa 49:4. The latter meaning grows out of the former, inasmuch as it is the opposite which is strongly affirmed. We have rendered it affirmatively (Jer. vere ), not adversatively ( verum , ut vero ), because Isa 53:4 itself consists of two antithetical halves – a relation which is expressed in the independent pronouns and , that answer to one another. The penitents contrast themselves and their false notion with Him and His real achievement. In Matthew (Mat 8:17) the words are rendered freely and faithfully thus: . Even the fact that the relief which Jesus afforded to all kinds of bodily diseases is regarded as a fulfilment of what is here affirmed of the Servant of Jehovah, is an exegetical index worth noticing. In Isa 53:4 it is not really sin that is spoken of, but the evil which is consequent upon human sin, although not always the direct consequence of the sins of individuals (Joh 9:3). But in the fact that He was concerned to relieve this evil in all its forms, whenever it came in His way in the exercise of His calling, the relief implied as a consequence in Isa 53:4 was brought distinctly into view, though not the bearing and lading that are primarily noticed here. Matthew has very aptly rendered by , and by . For whilst denotes the toilsome bearing of a burden that has been taken up, combines in itself the ideas of tollere and ferre . When construed with the accusative of the sin, it signifies to take the debt of sin upon one’s self, and carry it as one’s own, i.e., to look at it and feel it as one’s own (e.g., Lev 5:1, Lev 5:17), or more frequently to bear the punishment occasioned by sin, i.e., to make expiation for it (Lev 17:16; Lev 20:19-20; Lev 24:15), and in any case in which the person bearing it is not himself the guilty person, to bear sin in a mediatorial capacity, for the purpose of making expiation for it (Lev 10:17). The lxx render this both in the Pentateuch and Ezekiel , once ; and it is evident that both of these are to be understood in the sense of an expiatory bearing, and not merely of taking away, as has been recently maintained in opposition to the satisfactio vicaria , as we may see clearly enough from Eze 4:4-8, where the is represented by the prophet in a symbolical action.
But in the case before us, where it is not the sins, but “our diseases” ( is a defective plural, as the singular would be written ) and “our pains” that are the object, this mediatorial sense remains essentially the same. The meaning is not merely that the Servant of God entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the sufferings which we had to bear and deserved to bear, and therefore not only took them away (as Mat 8:17 might make it appear), but bore them in His own person, that He might deliver us from them. But when one person takes upon himself suffering which another would have had to bear, and therefore not only endures it with him, but in his stead, this is called substitution or representation – an idea which, however unintelligible to the understanding, belongs to the actual substance of the common consciousness of man, and the realities of the divine government of the world as brought within the range of our experience, and one which has continued even down to the present time to have much greater vigour in the Jewish nation, where it has found it true expression in sacrifice and the kindred institutions, than in any other, at least so far as its nationality has not been entirely annulled.
(Note: See my Jesus and Hillel, pp. 26, 27.)
Here again it is Israel, which, having been at length better instructed, and now bearing witness against itself, laments its former blindness to the mediatorially vicarious character of the deep agonies, both of soul and body, that were endured by the great Sufferer. They looked upon them as the punishment of His own sins, and indeed – inasmuch as, like the friends of Job, they measured the sin of the Sufferer by the sufferings that He endured – of peculiarly great sins. They saw in Him , “ one stricken,” i.e., afflicted with a hateful, shocking disease (Gen 12:17; 1Sa 6:9) – such, for example, as leprosy, which was called (2Ki 15:5, A. , S. = leprosum , Th. , cf., , Mar 3:10, scourges, i.e., bad attacks); also , “ one smitten of God ” (from nakhah , root , ; see Comm. on Job, at Job 30:8), and bowed down (by God), i.e., afflicted with sufferings. The name Jehovah would have been out of place here, where the evident intention is to point to the all-determining divine power generally, whose vengeance appeared to have fallen upon this particular sufferer. The construction m ukkeh ‘Elohm signifies, like the Arabic muqatal rabbuh , one who has been defeated in conflict with God his Lord (see Comm. on Job, at Job 15:28); and ‘Elohm has the syntactic position between the two adjectives, which it necessarily must have in order to be logically connected with them both.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Humiliation of the Messiah. | B. C. 706. |
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
In these verses we have,
I. A further account of the sufferings of Christ. Much was said before, but more is said here, of the very low condition to which he abased and humbled himself, to which he became obedient even to the death of the cross. 1. He had griefs and sorrows; being acquainted with them, he kept up the acquaintance, and did not grow shy, no, not of such melancholy acquaintance. Were griefs and sorrows allotted him? He bore them, and blamed not his lot; he carried them, and did neither shrink from them, nor sink under them. The load was heavy and the way long, and yet he did not tire, but persevered to the end, till he said, It is finished. 2. He had blows and bruises; he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted. His sorrows bruised him; he felt pain and smart from them; they touched him in the most tender part, especially when God was dishonoured, and when he forsook him upon the cross. All along he was smitten with the tongue, when he was cavilled at and contradicted, put under the worst of characters, and had all manner of evil said against him. At last he was smitten with the hand, with blow after blow. 3. He had wounds and stripes. He was scourged, not under the merciful restriction of the Jewish law, which allowed not above forty stripes to be given to the worst of male factors, but according to the usage of the Romans. And his scourging, doubtless, was the more severe because Pilate intended it as an equivalent for his crucifixion, and yet it proved a preface to it. He was wounded in his hands, and feet, and side. Though it was so ordered that not a bone of him should be broken, yet he had scarcely in any part a whole skin (how fond soever we are to sleep in one, even when we are called out to suffer for him), but from the crown of his head, which was crowned with thorns, to the soles of his feet, which were nailed to the cross, nothing appeared but wounds and bruises. 4. He was wronged and abused (v. 7): He was oppressed, injuriously treated and hardly dealt with. That was laid to his charge which he was perfectly innocent of, that laid upon him which he did not deserve, and in both he was oppressed and injured. He was afflicted both in mind and body; being oppressed, he laid it to heart, and, though, he was patient, was not stupid under it, but mingled his tears with those of the oppressed, that have no comforter, because on the side of the oppressors there is power, Eccl. iv. 1. Oppression is a sore affliction; it has made many a wise man mad (Eccl. vii. 7); but our Lord Jesus, though, when he was oppressed, he was afflicted, kept possession of his own soul. 5. He was judged and imprisoned, as is implied in his being taken from prison and judgment, v. 8. God having made him sin for us, he was proceeded against as a malefactor; he was apprehended and taken into custody, and made a prisoner; he was judge, accused, tried, and condemned, according to the usual forms of law: God filed a process against him, judged him in pursuance of that process, and confined him in the prison of the grave, at the door of which a stone was rolled and sealed. 6. He was cut off by an untimely death from the land of the living, though he lived a most useful life, did so many good works, and they were all such that one would be apt to think it was for some of them that they stoned him. He was stricken to death, to the grave which he made with the wicked (for he was crucified between two thieves, as if he had been the worst of the three) and yet with the rich, for he was buried in a sepulchre that belonged to Joseph, an honourable counsellor. Though he died with the wicked, and according to the common course of dealing with criminals should have been buried with them in the place where he was crucified, yet God here foretold, and Providence so ordered it, that he should make his grave with the innocent, with the rich, as a mark of distinction put between him and those that really deserved to die, even in his sufferings.
II. A full account of the meaning of his sufferings. It was a very great mystery that so excellent a person should suffer such hard things; and it is natural to ask with amazement, “How came it about? What evil had he done?” His enemies indeed looked upon him as suffering justly for his crimes; and, though they could lay nothing to his charge, they esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, v. 4. Because they hated him, and persecuted him, they thought that God did, that he was his enemy and fought against him; and therefore they were the more enraged against him, saying, God has forsaken him; persecute and take him, Ps. lxxi. 11. Those that are justly smitten are smitten of God, for by him princes decree justice; and so they looked upon him to be smitten, justly put to death as a blasphemer, a deceiver, and an enemy to Csar. Those that saw him hanging on the cross enquired not into the merits of his cause, but took it for granted that he was guilty of every thing laid to his charge and that therefore vengeance suffered him not to live. Thus Job’s friends esteemed him smitten of God, because there was something uncommon in his sufferings. It is true he was smitten of God, v. 10 (or, as some read it, he was God’s smitten and afflicted, the Son of God, though smitten and afflicted), but not in the sense in which they meant it; for, though he suffered all these things,
1. He never did any thing in the least to deserve this hard usage. Whereas he was charged with perverting the nation, and sowing sedition, it was utterly false; he had done no violence, but went about doing good. And, whereas he was called that deceiver, he never deserved that character; for there was no deceit in his mouth (v. 9), to which the apostle refers, 1 Pet. ii. 22. He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. He never offended either in word or deed, nor could any of his enemies take up that challenge of his, Which of you convinceth me of sin? The judge that condemned owned he found no fault in him, and the centurion that executed him professed that certainly he was a righteous man.
2. He conducted himself under his sufferings so as to make it appear that he did not suffer as an evil-doer; for, though he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth (v. 7), no, not so much as to plead his own innocency, but freely offered himself to suffer and die for us, and objected nothing against it. This takes away the scandal of the cross, that he voluntarily submitted to it, for great and holy ends. By his wisdom he could have evaded the sentence, and by his power have resisted the execution; but thus it was written, and thus it behoved him to suffer. This commandment he received from his Father, and therefore he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, without any difficulty or reluctance (he is the Lamb of God); and as a sheep is dumb before the shearers, nay, before the butchers, so he opened not his mouth, which denotes not only his exemplary patience under affliction (Ps. xxxix. 9), and his meekness under reproach (Ps. xxxviii. 13), but his cheerful compliance with his Father’s will. Not my will, but thine be done. Lo, I come. By this will we are sanctified, his making his own soul, his own life, an offering for our sin.
3. It was for our good, and in our stead, that Jesus Christ suffered. This is asserted here plainly and fully, and in a very great variety of emphatical expressions.
(1.) It is certain that we are all guilty before God. We have all sinned, and have come short of the glory of God (v. 6): All we like sheep have gone astray, one as well as another. The whole race of mankind lies under the stain of original corruption, and every particular person stands charged with many actual transgressions. We have all gone astray from God our rightful owner, alienated ourselves from him, from the ends he designed us to move towards and the way he appointed us to move in. We have gone astray like sheep, which are apt to wander, and are unapt, when they have gone astray, to find the way home again. That is our true character; we are bent to backslide from God, but altogether unable of ourselves to return to him. This is mentioned not only as our infelicity (that we go astray from the green pastures and expose ourselves to the beasts of prey), but as our iniquity. We affront God in going astray from him, for we turn aside every one to his own way, and thereby set up ourselves, and our own will, in competition with God and his will, which is the malignity of sin. Instead of walking obediently in God’s way, we have turned wilfully and stubbornly to our own way, the way of our own heart, the way that our own corrupt appetites and passions lead us to. We have set up for ourselves, to be our own masters, our own carvers, to do what we will and have what we will. Some think it intimates our own evil way, in distinction from the evil way of others. Sinners have their own iniquity, their beloved sin, which does most easily beset them, their own evil way, that they are particularly fond of and bless themselves in.
(2.) Our sins are our sorrows and our griefs (v. 4), or, as it may be read, our sicknesses and our wounds: the LXX. reads it, our sins; and so the apostle, 1 Pet. ii. 24. Our original corruptions are the sickness and disease of the soul, an habitual indisposition; our actual transgressions are the wounds of the soul, which put conscience to pain, if it be not seared and senseless. Or our sins are called our griefs and sorrows because all our griefs and sorrows are owing to our sins and our sins deserve all our griefs and sorrows, even those that are most extreme and everlasting.
(3.) Our Lord Jesus was appointed and did undertake to make satisfaction for our sins and so to save us from the penal consequences of them. [1.] He was appointed to do it, by the will of his Father; for the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. God chose him to be the Saviour of poor sinners and would have him to save them in this way, by bearing their sins and the punishment of them; not the idem–the same that we should have suffered, but the tantundem–that which was more than equivalent for the maintaining of the honour of the holiness and justice of God in the government of the world. Observe here, First, In what way we are saved from the ruin to which by sin we had become liable–by laying our sins on Christ, as the sins of the offerer were laid upon the sacrifice and those of all Israel upon the head of the scape-goat. Our sins were made to meet upon him (so the margin reads it); the sins of all that he was to save, from every place and every age, met upon him, and he was met with for them. They were made to fall upon him (so some read it) as those rushed upon him that came with swords and staves to take him. The laying of our sins upon Christ implies the taking of them off from us; we shall not fall under the curse of the law if we submit to the grace of the gospel. They were laid upon Christ when he was made sin (that is, a sin-offering) for us, and redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us; thus he put himself into a capacity to make those easy that come to him heavily laden under the burden of sin. See Ps. xl. 6-12. Secondly, By whom this was appointed. It was the Lord that laid our iniquities on Christ; he contrived this way of reconciliation and salvation, and he accepted of the vicarious satisfaction Christ was to make. Christ was delivered to death by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. None but God had power to lay our sins upon Christ, both because the sin was committed against him and to him the satisfaction was to be made, and because Christ, on whom the iniquity was to be laid, was his own Son, the Son of his love, and his holy child Jesus, who himself knew no sin. Thirdly, For whom this atonement was to be made. It was the iniquity of us all that was laid on Christ; for in Christ there is a sufficiency of merit for the salvation of all, and a serious offer made of that salvation to all, which excludes none that do not exclude themselves. It intimates that this is the one only way of salvation. All that are justified are justified by having their sins laid on Jesus Christ, and, though they were ever so many, he is able to bear the weight of them all. [2.] He undertook to do it. God laid upon him our iniquity; but did he consent to it? Yes, he did; for some think that the true reading of the next words (v. 7) is, It was exacted, and he answered; divine justice demanded satisfaction for our sins, and he engaged to make the satisfaction. He became our surety, not as originally bound with us, but as bail to the action: “Upon me be the curse, my Father.” And therefore, when he was seized, he stipulated with those into whose hands he surrendered himself that that should be his disciples’ discharge: If you seek me, let these go their way, John xviii. 8. By his own voluntary undertaking he made himself responsible for our debt, and it is well for us that he was responsible. Thus he restored that which he took not away.
(4.) Having undertaken our debt, he underwent the penalty. Solomon says: He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it. Christ, being surety for us, did smart for it. [1.] He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, v. 4. He not only submitted to the common infirmities of human nature, and the common calamities of human life, which sin had introduced, but he underwent the extremities of grief, when he said, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. He made the sorrows of this present time heavy to himself, that he might make them light and easy for us. Sin is the wormwood and the fall in the affliction and the misery. Christ bore our sins, and so bore our griefs, bore them off us, that we should never be pressed above measure. This is quoted (Matt. viii. 17) with application to the compassion Christ had for the sick that came to him to be cured and the power he put forth to cure them. [2.] He did this by suffering for our sins (v. 5): He was wounded for our transgressions, to make atonement for them and to purchase for us the pardon of them. Our sins were the thorns in his head, the nails in his hands and feet, the spear in his side. Wounds and bruises were the consequences of sin, what we deserved and what we had brought upon ourselves, ch. i. 6. That these wounds and bruises, though they are painful, may not be mortal, Christ was wounded for our transgressions, was tormented or pained (the word is used for the pains of a woman in travail) for our revolts and rebellions. He was bruised, or crushed, for our iniquities; they were the procuring cause of his death. To the same purport is v. 8, for the transgression of my people was he smitten, the stroke was upon him that should have been upon us; and so some read it, He was cut off for the iniquity of my people, unto whom the stroke belonged, or was due. He was delivered to death for our offences, Rom. iv. 25. Hence it is said to be according to the scriptures, according to this scripture, that Christ died for our sins, 1 Cor. xv. 3. Some read this, by the transgressions of my people; that is, by the wicked hands of the Jews, who were, in profession, God’s people, he was stricken, was crucified and slain, Acts ii. 23. But, doubtless, we are to take it in the former sense, which is abundantly confirmed by the angel’s prediction of the Messiah’s undertaking, solemnly delivered to Daniel, that he shall finish transgression, make an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity, Dan. ix. 24.
(5.) The consequence of this to us is our peace and healing, v. 5. [1.] Hereby we have peace: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; he, by submitting to these chastisements, slew the enmity, and settled an amity, between God and man; he made peace by the blood of his cross. Whereas by sin we had become odious to God’s holiness and obnoxious to his justice, through Christ God is reconciled to us, and not only forgives our sins and saves us from ruin, but takes us into friendship and fellowship with himself, and thereby peace (that is, all good) comes unto us, Col. i. 20. He is our peace, Eph. ii. 14. Christ was in pain that we might be at ease; he gave satisfaction to the justice of God that we might have satisfaction in our own minds, might be of good cheer, knowing that through him our sins are forgiven us. [2.] Hereby we have healing; for by his stripes we are healed. Sin is not only a crime, for which we were condemned to die and which Christ purchased for us the pardon of, but it is a disease, which tends directly to the death of our souls and which Christ provided for the cure of. By his stripes (that is, the sufferings he underwent) he purchased for us the Spirit and grace of God to mortify our corruptions, which are the distempers of our souls, and to put our souls in a good state of health, that they may be fit to serve God and prepared to enjoy him. And by the doctrine of Christ’s cross, and the powerful arguments it furnishes us with against sin, the dominion of sin is broken in us and we are fortified against that which feeds the disease.
(6.) The consequence of this to Christ was his resurrection and advancement to perpetual honour. This makes the offence of the cross perfectly to cease; he yielded himself to die as a sacrifice, as a lamb, and, to make it evident that the sacrifice he offered of himself was accepted, we are told here, v. 8, [1.] That he was discharged: He was taken from prison and from judgment; whereas he was imprisoned in the grave under a judicial process, lay there under an arrest for our debt, and judgment seemed to be given against him, he was by an express order from heaven taken out of the prison of the grave, an angel was sent on purpose to roll away the stone and set him at liberty, by which the judgment given against him was reversed and taken off; this redounds not only to his honour, but to our comfort; for, being delivered for our offences, he was raised again for our justification. That discharge of the bail amounted to a release of the debt. [2.] That he was preferred: Who shall declare his generation? his age, or continuance (so the word signifies), the time of his life? He rose to die no more; death had no more dominion over him. He that was dead is alive, and lives for evermore; and who can describe that immortality to which he rose, or number the years and ages of it? And he is advanced to this eternal life because for the transgression of his people he became obedient to death. We may take it as denoting the time of his usefulness, as David is said to serve his generation, and so to answer the end of living. Who can declare how great a blessing Christ by his death and resurrection will be to the world? Some by his generation understand his spiritual seed: Who can count the vast numbers of converts that shall by the gospel be begotten to him, like the dew of the morning?
| When thus exalted he shall live to see A numberless believing progeny Of his adopted sons; the godlike race Exceed the stars that heav’n’s high arches grace. |
| SIR R. BLACKMORE. |
Of this generation of his let us pray, as Moses did for Israel, The Lord God of our fathers make them a thousand times so many more as they are, and bless them as he has promised them, Deut. i. 11.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 4-6 FOR OUR SINS
1. Here is the confession of a repentant Israel – not yet fulfilled; it describes the heart-attitude that is essential before they can be restored to the covenant. In the blindness of unbelief the nation viewed their rightful Messiah as:
a. “Stricken” from above, (comp. Gen 12:17; 2Ki 15:5); so strong is this word that many have viewed the Servant as a leper – His disease so far advanced that men were horrified by His very appearance!
b. “Smitten of God” – an expression that is used elsewhere of the infliction of disease as a divine chastisement, (1Sa 5:12; Psa 102:4; Hos 9:16; Joh 19:7).
c. “Afflicted”, wrapped about with suffering – which they regarded as a consequence of His own sin, (comp. Act 3:13-21; 1Co 2:8).
2. In the day of enlightenment Israel will recognize the truth: here the idea of divine substitution is perfectly expressed; it is FOR US that He suffered!
a. He has “borne OUR griefs” (sickness, weakness and distress), “and carried our sorrows” – involving the pain and punishment due OUR SINS, (vs. 4a; Isa 63:9; Heb 4:15). The word “borne” is clearly connected with sacrifices and expiation, (Lev 5:1; Lev 5:17; Lev 16:22).
1) Though Matthew sees in this a reference to our Lord’s healing of physical ailments (Mat 8:17), its main emphasis is on the spiritual.
2) The Lord did not heal everyone during His personal ministry; nor does he do so today, (comp. 2Co 12:7-10; 2Ti 4:20; 1Ti 5:23).
b. It was for OUR transgressions (those who have so wretchedly misjudged the truth concerning Him) that He was “pierced through”. (vs. 5a, 8; Psa 22:16; Heb 9:28); for OUR “iniquities” He was smitten, crushed, bruised or broken, (vs. 5-b, 10; Rom 4:25; Rom 5:6-8; 1Co 15:3; Eph 5:2; comp. Gen 3:15); Isaiah uses the strongest words possible to describe a violent and agonizing death!
c. The divinely-administered chastisement that fell upon the Suffering Servant was the very thing that provides our PEACE – not only our general well-being, but our salvation and restoration to a relationship of peace with God, (vs. 5-c; Heb 5:8; Php_2:7-8).
d. It is by, or through, His “stripes” that we are healed (from our rebellion and backslidings) – restored to spiritual soundness and fellowship with the heavenly Father, (vs. 5-d; 1Pe 2:24-25).
e. Like wandering sheep, WE are ALL GONE ASTRAY – each one demanding freedom and independence for working out his own destiny, (vs. 6-a).
1) Created with the power of self-determination, mankind has persistently demonstrated a spirit of self-will – rejecting, even failing to consider, the will of God, Eph 5:18.
2) Made in the image of God, and destined to share His very nature and deity, rebellious man has become self-centered instead of God-centered.
f. But, instead of destroying the rebel race, God has caused the total weight of our wretchedness and sin to fall, with terrific impact, upon His obedient and faithful Servant – sparing not His own beloved Son, but freely delivering Him up FOR US ALL!! (vs. 6-b; Rom 5:16-17; 2Co 5:21; Rom 8:32).
3. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, Peter uses this passage to remind the household of faith that the suffering Servant is the “Shepherd and Bishop” of their souls, (1Pe 2:24-25). He is:
a. The Good Shepherd – who lays down His life for the sheep (Joh 10:11).
b. The Great Shepherd – risen from the dead and interceeding at the Father’s right hand, (Heb 13:20-21).
c. The Chief Shepherd – whose glorious second coming, to rule righteously over all the earth, is the blessed expectation of His believing people, (1Pe 5:4; Tit 2:11-14).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
4. Surely he carried our sicknesses. The particle אכן ( aken) is not only a strong affirmation, but is likewise equivalent to for, and assigns a reason of something which went before, and which might have been thought new and strange; for it is a monstrous thing that he to whom God has given supreme authority over all the creatures should be thus trampled on and scorned; and if the reason were not assigned, it would have been universally pronounced to be ridiculous. The reason, therefore, of the weakness, pains, and shame of Christ is, that “he carried our sicknesses.”
Matthew quotes this prediction, after having related that Christ cured various diseases; though it is certain that he was appointed not to cure bodies, but rather to cure souls; for it is of spiritual disease that the Prophet intends to speak. But in the miracles which Christ performed in curing bodies, he gave a proof of the salvation which he brings to our souls. That healing had therefore a more extensive reference than to bodies, because he was appointed to be the physician of souls; and accordingly Matthew applies to the outward sign what belonged to the truth and reality.
We thought him to be smitten, wounded by God, and afflicted. In this second clause he shows how great was the ingratitude and wickedness of the people, who did not know why Christ was so severely afflicted, but imagined that God smote him on account of his own sins, though they knew that he was perfectly innocent, and his innocence was attested even by his judge. (Mat 27:24; Luk 23:4; Joh 18:38) Since therefore they know that an innocent man is punished for sins which he did not commit, why do they not think that it indicated some extraordinary excellence to exist in him? But because they see him wounded and despised, they do not inquire about the cause, and from the event alone, as fools are wont to do, they pronounce judgment. Accordingly, Isaiah complains of the wicked judgment of men, in not considering the cause of Christ’s heavy afflictions; and especially he deplores the dullness of his own nation, because they thought that God was a deadly enemy of Christ, and took no account of their own sins, which were to be expiated in this manner.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
b. SUFFERS
TEXT: Isa. 53:4-9
4
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7
He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
8
By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who among them 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?
9
And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
QUERIES
a.
How did He bear our griefs and sorrows?
b.
How did Jehovah lay on Him the iniquity of us all?
c.
Did any of His generation consider that he was cut off . . . for the stroke that was due them?
PARAPHRASE
And yet, it was the suffering that should have been ours He suffered; it was our pain He bore. All the time we were thinking that His suffering and humiliation was a sign that He was a blasphemer and God was punishing Him! But He was not a sinnerwe were, and it was because of our sins He was wounded and because of our evil that He was willing to be scourged and crucified. Because of His substitutionary punishment for our sins we are vicariously justified and cleansed of iniquity and declared at peace with God. We are the ones who strayed away from The Shepherd. We are the ones who acted like dumb sheep wandering into unsafe and self-destructive pathways. We are the guilty ones, but God laid on Him the guilt of everyone of us. He was treated unjustly and cruelly, but he endured it willingly and without retaliation; He was innocent, and like an innocent lamb that is sacrificially slaughtered, He surrendered to death for us. Like a sheep that submits to being sheared without fighting back, so He did not resist His persecutors. He was tried, sentenced and led away to be crucified when He was completely innocent, and no one cared or understood that He was suffering the penalty that should have been every mans. Paradoxically, He was buried like a criminal but in a rich mans grave. He had done no wrong and had never spoken falsehood.
COMMENTS
Isa. 53:4-6 ATONING GRACE: Unusual pain, sorrow and grief was equated with unusual guilt in the ancient world. Jobs three friends told Job his calamities were punishment from God for his sinfulness. The man born blind was stigmatized as a sinner both by the disciples of Jesus and the Pharisees (cf. Joh. 9:1 ff). Jesus corrected this concept in Luke 13 by saying that those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were not worse sinners than others but that all calamities were warnings to the world to repent. And the Jews rationalized their prejudice against Jesus by mocking Him as a criminal at His crucifixion. Rather than admit their own ideas about Gods Messiah were contrary to the Old Testament, they accused Jesus of blasphemy and pointed to His violation of their traditions and His humble life-style as proof that God was punishing Him for being such a sinner.
But there was nothing wrong with Him. We (all mankind) were the guilty ones. The rejection, misunderstanding, poverty, humiliation, slander He endured should have been ours. He was finally forsaken by God, suffered the second death (Mat. 27:46) and was made to be sin on our behalf (2Co. 5:21; Gal. 3:13). He bore our sins on the tree (2Pe. 2:22-22). The Righteous died for the unrighteous (2Pe. 3:18). Christ did not deserve any of what He suffered. He was hated without cause (Joh. 15:24-25). The great capsulation of the atonement is Rom. 3:21-26. The real suffering of the Servant was spiritual, not physical. Many men have suffered physically (perhaps even more torture than crucifixion), but He was innocent, without sin, and actually became sin and suffered spiritual separation (death) from the Father for those who actually deserved it. It is interesting to note that the Hebrew verb meholal translated wounded means literally pierced, perforated, a precise prophecy of the piercing of Christs body by the Roman soldier (Joh. 19:34-37).
Do verses four and five indicate that the atonement of Christ also provided miraculous healing of physical sicknesses for all mankind? Some modern faith-healers contend that all men who believe in the atonement of Christ may expect God to heal their bodies. T. J. McCrossan in his Bodily Healing and the Atonement, pg. 16, says, Again all Christians should expect God to heal their bodies today, because Christ died to atone for our sickness as well as for our sins. Warren C. Roark, compiler of Divine Healing, pub. The Warner Press, Anderson, Ind., 1945, records a statement by a modern advocate of this view, E. E. Byers, pg. 58, God . . . in the atonement . . . made provision for the healing of mans mortal body so long as he lived in this world. Although honest exegesis must admit that the Hebrew words makeoyoth and kholiy may literally mean pain and sickness, one must understand they may also be figuratively translated griefs and sorrows. The following considerations make it clear that Isaiahs prophecy of the atonement by the Suffering Servant did not mean to include physical healing for all believers:
1.
The context (all important in proper exegesis) indicates the subject is sin, spiritual sickness, not physical sickness. If the atonement made provision for the healing of mans mortal body so long as he lived . . . he would live forever in this world! Death is the cumulative effect of one physical malady or another.
2.
In Mat. 8:16-17 a portion of Isaiahs prophecy is quoted in connection with Christs healing of some physical sicknesses. However, it is highly significant that verse five was not quoted by Matthew (with his stripes we are] healed). Furthermore, Jesus was fulfilling verse four three years before the atonement was made. Verse four was fulfilled in His divine ministry of healing, and not when He hung on the cross. Matthew was simply claiming, therefore, that Christ in performing miracles of healing, was fulfilling what Isaiah prophesied of His healing ministry and not His atonement.
3.
There is no statement in the whole Bible suggesting that Christ bore our sicknesses in his own body on the tree, or that he was made to be sick, diseased, or possessed with infirmity for us.
4.
The New Testament plainly shows that not all of the healings of Jesus demanded faith in Him. Thus, the efficacy of His atonement could not apply to the healing.
5.
The New Testament plainly shows that many people with faith in the atonement of Christ were not healed of their sicknesses, including the great apostle Paul!
Some questions on healing in the atonement:
a.
If the atonement provides for physical healing, why does not one receive healing at conversionthe place where the efficacy of the atonement is applied?
b.
If the atonement provides for physical healing, why do not all believers receive healing? (cf. Pauls thorn in the flesh 2Co. 12:7-10).
c.
Why is there as large a percentage of sickness among believers as there is among unbelievers?
d.
Why did Paul prescribe a medical treatment to Timothy for his oft infirmities? (1Ti. 5:23)
e.
Why are there so many failures among faithful, honest, believing people who so earnestly and diligently seek healing?
Case
References
Nature of Malady
Nature of Cure
Comment
Noblemans son
Joh. 4:46; Joh. 4:54
Sick at the point
of death
Healed the
same hour
Father believed,
but not the son
Impotent man
Joh. 5:1-47
Infirm 30 years;
couldnt walk
Made whole at
once
No faith, except
to walk
Demoniac in the
Capernaum
Synagogue
Mar. 1:21-28
Luk. 4:33-37
Possessed spirit
of unclean demon
Instantly
delivered
No faith
indicated
Peters wifes
mother
Mat. 8:14-15
Mar. 1:29-31
Luk. 4:38-39
Possessed of a
great fever
Fever left her
immediately
No faith
required
Many in Capernaum
Mat. 8:16-17
Mar. 1:32-34
Luk. 4:40-41
Demoniacs, sick,
diseased
Instantly
healed
No faith
indicated
Leper
Mat. 8:1-4
Mar. 1:40-45
Luk. 5:12-16
Full of leprosy
Heal at
once
Had faith;
not required
Palsied man
Mat. 9:1-8
Mar. 2:1-12
Luk. 5:17-26
Palsied, could
not walk
Instantly
healed
Faith of
others
Man with
withered hand
Mat. 12:9-14
Mar. 3:1-6
Luk. 6:6-11
Hand deformed
Instantly
healed
No faith required
but to extend
hand
Many in
Galilee
Mat. 4:23-24
Mar. 3:7-12
Luk. 6:17-19
All manner
of sickness
Instantly
healed
No faith
indicated
Multitudes
Mat. 12:15-21
Not stated
Healed all
No faith
Blind and dumb
demoniac
Mat. 12:22-24
Luk. 11:14-15
Possessed a devil;
blind and dumb
Healed at
once
No faith
required
Centurions
servant
Mat. 8:5-13
Luk. 7:1-10
Palsied, tormented,
and nearly dead
Made whole
instantly
No faith
of servant
Widows son of
Nain
Luk. 7:11-17
Dead
Instantly sat
up and spoke
No faith
possible
Demoniac
Mat. 9:32-34
Dumb and
demoniac
Instantly
delivered
No faith
evident
Two demoniacs
at Gadara
Mat. 8:28-34
Mar. 5:1-20
Luk. 8:26-40
Possessed legion of
devils. Fierce,
couldnt be bound
Devils instantly
cast out
No faith
evident
The daughter
of Jairus
Mat. 9:18-25
Mar. 5:34-43
Luk. 8:43-48
Dead
Made alive at
once
No faith
possible
Woman with the
issue of blood
Mat. 9:20-22
Mar. 5:25-34
Luk. 8:43-48
Afflicted 12 years
Grew worse,
suffered much
Made whole at
once
Faith present,
but not required
Two blind men
Mat. 9:27-31
Blind
Eyes opened
immediately
Faith
required
Healing of
many
Mat. 14:34-36
Mar. 6:55-56
Diseased
Made perfectly
whole
No faith
required
Daughter of
Syrophonecian
woman
Mat. 15:21-28
Mar. 7:24-30
Demoniac
Made whole
instantly
No faith of
daughter, but
of mother
Many near
Galilee
Mat. 15:29-31
Lame, blind
dumb, maimed
Healed at once
No faith
indicated
Deaf and dumb
man
Mar. 7:31-37
Deaf with impediment
of speech
Healed at once
No faith
indicated
Blind man at
Bethsaida
Mar. 8:22-26
Blind
Saw at once
No faith
indicated
Demoniac child
Mat. 17:14-21
Lunatic, sore
vexed; fell in
fire and water
Cured that hour
Faith of the
father, but not
of child
Blind man
Joh. 9:1-41
Blind from his
birth
Saw at once
No faith required
but to wash
Woman with
infirmity
Luk. 13:11-17
Bowed for 18
years
Immediately
made straight
No faith
required
Man with
dropsy
Luk. 14:1-6
Dropsy
Healed at
once
No faith
required
Lazarus
Joh. 11:17-46
Dead
Made alive
immediately
No faith
possible
Ten lepers
Luk. 17:11-19
Leprosy
Healed at once
No faith
required
Two blind men
Mat. 20:29-34
Mar. 10:46-52
Luk. 18:35-43
Blind
Saw immediately
No faith required,
but present
Servant of
Malchus
Mat. 26:47-56
Mar. 14:43-52
Luk. 22:47-53
Joh. 18:2-12
Ear severed
Ear replaced
immediately
No faith required
or indicated
Verse six plainly states the healing we receive from His stripes is the healing from sin. Sin is going astray (cf. Rom. 3:10-20). Sin is spiritual, psychological, mental sickness that needs healing. Paul calls sin insanity (1Co. 15:34). Sin is spiritual disorientation. Man was not spiritually created for sinit is against his spiritual nature. Spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and mentally man deteriorates when he sins. He begins to die, morally and spiritually when he begins to sin. Sin even causes some physical illnesses. Originally, of course, it caused all human illness and death as a constant reminder to man that he was not made for sin (cf. Rom. 1:27men receive in their physical and psychological selves the due penalty for their sins). Jesus came and died and was raised to make us whole. Upon Him was the chastisement that allowed us to regain our innocence (our healing from sin). He takes the guilt and frees us from the deception of Satans lies that we may come to our right minds (1Co. 15:34). We still must suffer physical illnesses and death because of Adams sin, but no longer do we have to suffer spiritual illness and death! Sin is soul-sickness. It fractures, incapacitates, ineverates and destroys the personhood of man. Forgiveness through Christs atonement heals and saves us and restores us to the wholeness for which God created us.
Isa. 53:7-9 ACOUIESCENT GOODNESS: The Lords servant was utterly innocent and totally submissive. He said nothing to answer the charges of the Sanhedrin (Mat. 26:63); He said nothing to answer the charges of Pilate (Mat. 27:14); He did not answer Herods questions (Luk. 23:9). Pilate declared Him innocent; the Sanhedrin could bring no true accusation against Him (Joh. 18:19-24). Why did Jesus not argue His case? Would it have persuaded the Jews not to crucify Him even if He had? Jesus mission as a lamb to be slaughtered was unique! He was the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world (Joh. 1:29)! He was the only Person ever with that mission. His death was preordained. He was the Lamb, foreordained from the foundation of the earth to be slain (cf. 1Pe. 1:20; Rev. 13:8; Act. 2:23). He willingly gave up His life, no one took it from Him (cf. Joh. 10:17-18; Joh. 19:11; Heb. 10:1-10; etc.). We are not obligated to follow His acquiescent surrender to be illegally executed without reasonable defense. We cannot die for the same reason He died! We should never, of course, take the law into our own hands resisting evil. We must, if the occasion arises, suffer unjust trial and death without personally and individually using force to overthrow crooked judges. But that does not mean we cannot use peaceful, rational means to insist that justice be done. The apostle Paul insisted on correcting injustices (cf. Act. 16:35-39; Act. 25:8-12, etc.); he also wrote that Christians should appeal to their civil governments to uphold justice (Rom. 13:1-7).
The Servant was cut off from life in this world (cf. our comments on Dan. 9:24-27 where the same phrase cut off is used in connection with the atoning death of the Messiah). And although there were a few plain announcements from Christ Himself that He was to die for the ransom of mans sins (cf. Joh. 1:29; Mat. 20:28; Mat. 26:26-29; Joh. 14:1-31; Joh. 16:10; Joh. 17:11), and many Old Testament types and prophecies (Luk. 24:25-49), none of His contemporaries (not even His own disciples) would accept the doctrine that the Messiah was to die as a substitutionary sacrifice for mans sins. The O.T. has at least four plain prophecies that the Messiah will die (Isa. 53:1-12; Dan. 9:24-27; Zec. 12:10 to Zec. 13:1; Psa. 22:1-31). Still, even those honest, courageous, Jewish fishermen and tax-collectors who confessed that He was the Son of the Living God, refused to accept the predictions of Jesus Himself that He was to die as a ransom (Mat. 16:21-23; Mat. 26:30-35; Mar. 8:31-33; Mar. 14:26-31; Luk. 9:43-45; Luk. 24:13 ff; Joh. 12:27-36 [the crowd said, We have heard from the law that the Christ remains foreverdoes not die]; Joh. 8:32-36). Isaiah graphically foretells that the Messiah would be slain as if He were a wicked persona criminaland yet, paradoxically, He would be buried in a rich mans grave. History records the exact fulfillment of this! Jesus was sentenced as a blasphemer by the Jews, a seditionist by the Romans and executed on a criminals cross between two thieves. But He was buried in the rock-hewn tomb of the rich man, Joseph of Arimathea.
It is rather astounding that not one of Jesus own generation comprehended that He was to die an atoning death. Especially since a few of them confessed that He was who He claimed to be, The Son of the Living God. The prophet, overwhelmed by the importance of the substitutionary atonement involved, falls back once more upon it as the only explanation of an outcome so strange. It was the Messiahs own people who had all the revelations of it in their Law and Prophets, and yet they are the ones who, at first totally rejected it; and ever since only a very small minority of Jews will accept it.
QUIZ
1.
Why did the Jews esteem Jesus as smitten of God?
2.
Why do we say that the real suffering of the Messiah was spiritual?
3.
Do verses four-five indicate Jesus atoning death also provided physical healing to all believers? Why not?
4.
How is sin sickness?
5.
Are we to follow Christs example of acquiescing to death if illegally prosecuted and sentenced? Give examples.
6.
How plainly does the O.T. and Christ Himself predict His atoning death?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(4) Surely he hath borne our griefs . . .The words are spoken as by those who had before despised the Servant of Jehovah, and have learnt the secret of His humiliation. Grief and sorrow, as before, imply disease and pain, and St. Matthews application of the text (Mat. 8:17) is therefore quite legitimate. The words stricken, smitten of God, are used elsewhere specially of leprosy and other terrible sicknesses (Gen. 12:17; Lev. 13:3; Lev. 13:9; Num. 14:12; 1Sa. 6:9; 2Ki. 15:5). So the Vulg. gives leprosus. The word for borne, like the Greek in Joh. 1:29, implies both the taking upon himself, and the taking away from others, i.e., the true idea of vicarious and mediatorial atonement.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Another turn occurs here. Already it seems to have been implied that when, in the prophetic outlook, the Messiah should come, he would not come in the form or aspect expected. Now the confession is:
Surely That is, actually.
He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows It is, indeed, an actual burden he has borne that of our sorrows; also, that of expiation for our sins.
Did esteem him Our opinion was, indeed, that he was, or had been, stricken. But struck with leprosy, as it were, for so the original may mean, or what was equal to the worst of diseases. He knew in his experience the suffering due to every form of evil.
Smitten of God Visited of God, and thus to be looked upon as worthy to be despised and rejected.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,
Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions
He was bruised for our iniquities,
The chastisement of our peace was on him,
And with his stripes (‘open wounds’) we are healed.’
There are always two ways of looking at things. Men will esteem Him as stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, considering that it must be because He was paying for His own sins. But God will see Him as bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, as wounded for our transgressions, our overt outward behaviour, and bruised for our iniquities, our deepest inward sins. For that was the question at the cross, ‘why was He there by God and man forsaken?’ And here was God’s answer, and man’s.
‘Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.’ ‘Surely.’ It was a matter of complete certainty (see Isa 40:7). It was part of the king’s acknowledged responsibility to bear the burden of his people. But he did not do it as personally and realistically as this. For this One will bear the sufferings and griefs of His people on His own shoulders. And as the thought expands we are made to recognise that He bears what we deserve to bear. He shoulders it Himself. And that is why our own suffering is not as devastating as it might have been.
The word for ‘griefs’ might also be rendered ‘sicknesses’ as it regularly is. Bearing someone’s sicknesses means bearing the guilt of their sin which resulted in the sicknesses. As the idea of this comes in the following verses, perhaps ‘griefs’ is the better translation.
Suffering is in the end a consequence of sin, not individually but in total. And He had come to shoulder that suffering and sorrow, so that He might alleviate it and help others to bear it. We do not know what the world’s suffering would have been if He had not come, but it would have been multiplied compared with what it is. For He stood between the world and God’s own natural antipathy against sin, giving the world chance to repent. And in a secondary way He was helped to relieve men’s sufferings as the Servant by the fact that central to the Christian message through the ages has been the alleviation of pain and suffering, and none have contributed so much to it as God’s people.
‘Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.’ The general view would be that the Servant was suffering because He was especially sinful. They would consider that He had reaped the consequences of His false claims, and they would therefore have little sympathy. ‘Stricken’ was often applied to men afflicted with severe skin disease, but here refers to all the most dreadful things that come on men (see its use in Psa 73:14), seen as coming from the hand of God because of a man’s deserts (see Joh 9:1-2). ‘Smitten of God’ becomes even more specific. God Himself has taken note of this man’s evil and blasphemy and has smitten him. ‘Afflicted’ refers to the man’s experience of the smiting. He finds himself suffering the blows of God. So this is how men would account of the Servant’s sufferings. But God would see otherwise.
In Isa 1:5 Israel was depicted in her sinfulness as being like a dreadfully sick person, ‘stricken’, with the head ‘sick’ and the heart faint, with no soundness from head to foot, covered in wounds and ‘bruises’ (= ‘stripes’) and festering sores. She was bearing her sin. And now this One Who in Himself is ‘Israel’ (Isa 49:15), He too is ‘stricken’, He is bearing their ‘sickness’ and carrying their diseases. He is bearing their sin and its penalty. The depicting of the Servant as a sick man is precisely because He is standing in for sinful Israel. By His ‘bruises’ they will be healed of their ‘bruises’.
‘But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was on Him, and with His stripes we are healed.’ Note the piling up of verbs to cover the suffering He faced. Wounded, bruised, chastised, scourged. It is the ultimate in punishment. And here there is a moving on from sorrow and suffering to its cause, sin and transgression. This is the root of the matter. Here was total representation, the One suffering for the many, and total substitution, by the One in place of the many, with a complete satisfaction thus being made possible. His wounds were for our transgressions, His being bruised was for our iniquities, all that militated against our deepest wellbeing was put on Him, and by the scourging He bore, ‘being made whole’ was made available to us. Have we transgressed? He bore the wounds of it. Do we sin deeply in our inner hearts? He was bruised because of it. Do we lack peace and well being because of our sin? He was chastised that we might be restored to peace with God and a sense of wellbeing in His presence. It involves the removal of ‘wickedness’, for there really is no peace to the wicked, they cannot know peace (Isa 48:22). Do we need to be healed, restored, delivered, made whole? Then because He was scourged and wounded we can be. It is the One in contrast to the many, and the One has taken all and suffered all for the many. It is a picture of One Who was abused in every possible way.
While any one of these statements might metaphorically have been applied to a prophet or to the faithful in Israel, the gathering together of them all to depict the total and deepest need of mankind, borne and paid for, goes far beyond that. No prophet or group of faithful men could bear this load, or be thought of as doing so. Even Isaiah could only look on and wonder. It could only be done by One Who was the Arm of Yahweh, and He could only do it because He was unique and like no other man, because He was the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father (Isa 9:6), and had no sins of His own to suffer for.
As we read these words it becomes crystal clear that One would come into the world Who would uniquely bear the sins of the world and, as we learn later, make full atonement for them and meet the deepest needs of mankind. As we meditate on it, it should truly fill us with awe.
But it is all only potential as far as man is concerned. The benefit to man is not automatic. If we are to really benefit we must come and receive it. We must look to Him and trust Him for it. And then it will be ours.
‘Wounded.’ Compare Psa 109:22 where it means wounds of the innermost being. The word can mean ‘polluted’ (e.g. Zep 3:4) or ‘profaned’ (e.g. Amo 2:7; Mal 2:10-11) or ‘pierced’ (Job 26:13) or ‘cut in pieces’ (Isa 51:9). It represents wounds of the deepest kind.
‘Bruised.’ This too is a strong word. In Job 5:4; Lam 3:34 it is rendered ‘crushed’, in Psa 72:4; Psa 89:10; Psa 94:5 ‘broken in pieces’, in Psa 143:3 ‘smitten down to the ground’. It thus represents a heavy battering.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
DISCOURSE: 968
THE TRUE CAUSE OF OUR LORDS SUFFERINGS
Isa 53:4-5. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
WHATEVER difficulty there may be in ascertaining the precise import of some passages of Scripture, the fundamental doctrines of our religion are all so plainly revealed, that he who runs may read them. There is not any truth indeed, however strongly declared, which has not been controverted by those who exalt their own reason above the word of God. But to the humble mind, that is willing to receive instruction, and that looks to God for the teaching of his Spirit, the general doctrines of Christianity, and that of the atonement in particular, are as clear as the sun at noon-day. The wisdom of some has been so perverted, that they could not see any reference to Christ in this whole chapter. But no person that is not either blinded by prejudice, or intoxicated with the pride of human learning, can fail of applying the words of our text to him, who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification. The prophet spake not as a matter of doubtful disputation, when he declared the cause of the Messiahs sufferings: but with the fullest confidence asserted, that Surely he hath borne our griefs, yea, he died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. In his words we may observe
I.
The apprehended cause of our Lords sufferings
It was a commonly received opinion, that heavy afflictions were indications of Gods displeasure on account of some enormous sin.
This idea prevailed much among the Jews: their history abounded with instances of Gods immediate interposition to punish sin; from whence they inferred, that every signal judgment proceeded from the same cause. It should seem that they had adopted this uncharitable mode of judging respecting those on whom the tower in Siloam fell, or whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, as though they were sinners above all others of their own nation [Note: Luk 13:2; Luk 13:4.]. On one occasion they openly avowed this principle, ascribing the blindness of a man who had been born blind, either to some peculiar wickedness in his parents, or to some heinous crimes, which he himself had committed in a former state of existence [Note: Joh 9:2.]. Indeed this sentiment was the foundation of all the dispute between Job and his friends: they argued on the presumption that no good man was ever left to endure very grievous trials; but that the wrath of God against hypocritical or audacious sinners would be visibly displayed in this world [Note: Job 4:7-9.]. This idea also obtained among the heathen world. When Paul, after his shipwreck on the island of Malta, was bitten by a viper which fastened on his hand, the inhabitants instantly exclaimed, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, vengeance suffereth not to live [Note: Act 28:4.].
Now this construction was put upon the sufferings of our Lord. The people saw Jesus dying under a more accumulated weight of misery than ever had been endured by man. No one since the foundation of the world had been so universally execrated, or had met with so little compassion from his fellow-creatures. They therefore concluded, that God had marked him out as an object fit to have every species and degree of cruelty exercised towards him; they esteemed him stricken, judicially [Note: This is the import of the words.] smitten of God himself. What a shocking indignity was this! That they should not merely regard him as a sinner, but as the most atrocious sinner in the universe, who deserved to have a murderer preferred before him!
But this was both foretold by the prophets, and fully obviated by the occurrences of his life.
In two different Psalms, confessedly relating to Christ, it was foretold that his enemies would conspire against him, and vindicate their conduct towards him from this consideration, that God himself had pointed him out by his judgments as deserving every thing that could be inflicted on him: All that hate me whisper together against me, against me do they devise my hurt. An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth, let him rise up no more [Note: Psa 41:7-8.]. And again, Mine enemies speak against me, and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him; persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver [Note: Psa 71:10-11.]. This vile imputation on his character therefore becomes, in this view, a testimony on his behalf; since it was ordained that such indignities should be offered to the Messiah; and in this, as well as in a thousand other instances, the Scriptures were literally accomplished in him.
But God provided a further antidote to this impression in the occurrences of his life. Even while his enemies were conspiring to take away his life, our Lord appealed to them respecting his own innocence, Which of you convinceth me of sin [Note: Joh 8:46.]? And the very judge who pronounced the sentence of death against him, was constrained no less than three times to acknowledge publicly, that he could find no fault in him [Note: Luk 23:4; Luk 23:14; Luk 23:22.].
The supposed cause of our Lords sufferings being thus evidently founded in misapprehension and prejudice, we shall point out,
II.
The real cause
This is stated in general as originating in our wretchedness and misery.
St. Matthew, quoting the first words of the text, says, that they were accomplished when our Lord healed the multitudes of those who flocked around him [Note: Mutt. 8: 16, 17.]. And this was true, inasmuch as the maladies under which men groan, are the consequences of sin; and his removing of bodily disorders was emblematical of the spiritual diseases, which he also came to heal. But the evangelist must not be understood to say, that the prophecy related to nothing more than the sympathizing with the afflicted, and the healing of their disorders; for St. Peter, quoting the very same passage, declares that Jesus bare, not our sorrows merely, but our sins, in his own body on the tree, and healed them by his stripes [Note: 1Pe 2:24.]. Hence, then, we perceive that as sin had introduced all manner of temporal, spiritual, and eternal miseries into the world, it was for the removal of them that Jesus submitted to all the sufferings which were inflicted on him.
But mare particularly the prophet informs us that Jesus suffered,
1.
For the expiating of our guilt
It is certainly true, that, wherever suffering is endured by an intelligent creature, there guilt must have previously been either contracted, or imputed. The brute animals would never have felt pain, if they had not been subjected to it on account of mans transgression [Note: Rom 8:20.]. Now our Lord himself knew no sin; and yet endured infinitely more from God, from men, and from devils, than ever had been inflicted on any human being. But he had undertaken to redeem us from the curse of the broken law. He had engaged to pay the debt, which a whole world of sinners had contracted; and so to discharge it, that not one farthing should ever be exacted of those who should trust in him. Here then was the true cause of all his sufferings. Is it asked, What it was that occasioned him such diversified and unutterable torments? We answer, Men and devils were the executioners; but our sins were the meritorious cause: He was wounded for our transgresions, and bruised for our iniquities. There is not a sin which we have ever committed, that was not as a sword in his bones; and it was only by his bearing of our sins in his own body on the tree, that the guilt of them, and the curse due to them, could be taken away from us. Nothing less than this sacrifice could satisfy the demands of divine justice. As for the blood of bulls and of goats, it was not possible that they should take away sin: nor could we remove it by any offerings we could bring: rather, therefore, than we should perish for ever, Christ laid down his own life a ransom for us.
2.
For the effecting of our peace
God was filled with indignation against his guilty creatures: nor could he, consistently with the honour of his moral government, be reconciled to his offending people, without manifesting in some way or other, his abhorrence of their evil deeds. What then should be done? What expedient should be found for the punishing of sin, and yet saving the sinner? Behold, the Son of God himself offers to become our substitute! On me be their curse, O my Father: let thy sword awake against me, who am thy fellow: inflict their punishment on me, and let them go free; yea, be reconciled to them for my sake. The offer is graciously accepted; and, agreeably to the prediction before us, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; so that God is now reconciled to every believing penitent: he embraces the returning prodigal in his arms, and feasts him with the richest tokens of parental affection. To this agrees the testimony of the great Apostle [Note: Col 1:20-22.]; and it is confirmed by the happy experience of multitudes in every age.
3.
For the renovating of our nature
As sin has incensed the wrath of God, so has it disordered all the powers of man. There is not a faculty either of body or soul, which is not filled with this dire contagion, and rendered incapable of exercising its proper functions to the glory of God. But the same expedient that was devised for the expiating of our guilt, and the effecting of our peace, was also the most proper for the renovating of our nature. The blood which Jesus shed upon the cross is as a balm, which heals the disorders of our souls, and restores to man the free and legitimate use of all his powers. This, no less than the foregoing, was a principal end of all his sufferings. Did he give his back to the smiters, so that they even ploughed it up with scourges, and made long their furrows? It was that by his stripes we might be healed: he gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works [Note: Tit 2:14.]. And it is worthy of observation, that St. Peter, quoting the text, omits all mention of other ends, and fixes upon this alone; he bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead unto sin, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed [Note: 1Pe 2:24.].
It would be unpardonable, if, on such a subject as this, we did not lead you to consider,
1.
What obligations we lie under to love the Lord!
If a fellow-creature should submit to excruciating torments for us, how deeply should we feel, and how gratefully acknowledge, our obligations to him! We should wonder at such a proof of affection even from the dearest friend or relative. What then shall we say to these tokens of love from one, to whom, in the whole course of our lives, we had shewn ourselves the most determined enemies? What shall we think of the Lord Jesus, leaving the bosom of his Father on purpose to endure these things for us; to endure all that men or devils could inflict, and all that our sins had merited? Shall we feel no grateful emotions rising in our bosom? Shall our hearts be still frozen and obdurate? O let us contemplate the wounds and bruises, the chastisements and stripes which he bare for us. Let us follow him through the whole scene of his sufferings, and say, with confidence and wonder, Surely it was all for me; to redeem me from destruction, to exalt me to glory. Base as human nature is, it could not long withstand the influence of such a sight: at the view of him, whom we have pierced, our unfeeling hearts would relent [Note: Zec 12:10.]; and constrained to admire the unsearchable heights and depths of his love, we should burst forth into acclamations and hosannas, to him who loved us and gave himself for us.
2.
What obligations we lie under to put our trust in him!
What does the self-righteous Pharisee declare, but this? I will not trust in the Lord Jesus: he was indeed wounded for my transgressions; but I despise the way of healing by his stripes; I can heal myself better by my own works; and I will rather wage eternal war with heaven, than owe my peace to the chastisement of another. Can any thing exceed the ingratitude which such a disposition involves in it? As for all the mockings and revilings of the Son of God, when he hung upon the cross, they were as nothing in comparison of this, because they were vented through an ignorance of his real character; whereas we acknowledge him as our Saviour, and yet rob him of his glory, and make his death of none effect. Let us then turn from such conduct with abhorrence: let us look to him, that we may be justified by his blood, and experience the full efficacy of his atonement: so shall Jesus himself be satisfied when he beholds this fruit of his travail, and we shall be distinguished monuments of his love and mercy to all eternity.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Nothing can be more decisive than what this verse contains of the causes and ends of Christ’s sufferings and death. They were wholly as the surety and representative of his people; nor can anything be more satisfactory to the confirmation of the faith of the believer, than when we do esteem the Lord Jesus in this gracious character, as stricken and smitten of God, as the sinner’s surety.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Ver. 4. Surely he hath borne our griefs. ] He took our infirmities natural, though not sinful; or, He suffered for our offences. And his satis sufficient passion is our satisfaction, as Luther phraseth it. He suffered, saith Peter, “the just for the unjust.” He “bore our sins in his own body on the tree.” 1Pe 2:24 He, the true scape goat, “taketh away the sins of the world,” Joh 1:29 bearing them into the land of forgetfulness. This is his continual act, and this should be as a perpetual picture in our hearts. “Surely” he did all this for us; iuramentum est vere. This surely or truly is an oath, for better assurance and satisfaction to any doubting conscience. For which cause also the same thing is said over again, Isa 53:5 and herewith agreeth that of the apostle in 1Ti 1:15 , “This is a sure saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”
Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God,
Smitten a of God.] Percussus Dei, saith the Syriac. The apostle saith, “God spared not his Son”; Rom 8:32 and because the creature could not strike a stroke hard enough, himself was “pleased to bruise him.” But that this was done for his own proper sins, and in a way of vengeance, was a gross mistake.
And afflicted.
a Flagellatum a Deo, Whipped by God. – Theodotion.
Isaiah
THE SUFFERING SERVANT-II
Isa 53:4 – Isa 53:6 The note struck lightly in the close of the preceding paragraph becomes dominant here. One notes the accumulation of expressions for suffering, crowded into these verses-griefs, sorrows, wounded, bruised, smitten, chastisement, stripes. One notes that the cause of all this multiform infliction is given with like emphasis of reiteration-our griefs, our sorrows, and that these afflictions are invested with a still more tragic and mysterious aspect, by being traced to our transgressions, our iniquities. Finally, the deepest word of all is spoken when the whole mystery of the servant’s sufferings is referred to Jehovah’s making the universal iniquity to lie, like a crushing burden, on Him.
I. The Burdened Servant.
Following Matthew’s lead, we may regard Christ’s miracles of healing as one form of His fulfilment of the prophecy, in which the principles that shape all the forms are at work, and which, therefore, may stand as a kind of pictorial illustration of the way in which He bears and bears away the heavier burden of sin. And one point which comes out clearly is that, in these acts of healing, He felt the weight of the affliction that He took away. Even in that region, the condition of ability to remove it, was identifying Himself with the sorrow. Did He not ‘sigh and look up’ in silent appeal to heaven before He could say, Ephphatha? Did He not groan in Himself before He sent the voice into the tomb which the dead heard? His miracles were not easy, though He had all power, for He felt all that the sufferers felt, by the identifying power of the unparalleled sympathy of a pure nature. In that region His pain on account of the sufferers stood in vital relation with His power to end their sufferings. The load must gall His shoulders, ere He could bear it away from theirs.
But the same principles as apply to these deeds of mercy done on diseases apply to all His deeds of deliverance from sorrow and from sin. In Him is set forth in highest fashion the condition of all brotherly help and alleviation. Whoever would lighten a brother’s load must stoop his own shoulders to carry it. And whilst there is an element in our Lord’s sufferings, as the text passes on to say, which is not explained by the analogy with what is required from all human succourers and healers, the extent to which the lower experience of such corresponds with His unique work should always be made prominent in our devout meditations.
II. The Servant’s sufferings in their reason, their intensity, and their issue.
The reason for the Servant’s sufferings was ‘our transgressions.’ More is suggested now than sympathetic identification with others’ sorrows. This is an actual bearing of the consequences of sins which He had not committed, and that not merely as an innocent man may be overwhelmed by the flood of evil which has been let loose by others’ sins to sweep over the earth. The blow that wounds Him is struck directly and solely at Him. He is not entangled in a widespread calamity, but is the only victim. It is pre-supposed that all transgression leads to wounds and bruises; but the transgressions are done by us, and the wounds and bruises fall on Him. Can the idea of vicarious suffering be more plainly set forth?
The intensity of the Servant’s sufferings is brought home to our hearts by the accumulation of epithets, to which reference has already been made. He was ‘wounded’ as one who is pierced by a sharp sword; ‘bruised’ as one who is stoned to death; beaten and with livid weales on His flesh. A background of unnamed persecutors is dimly seen. The description moves altogether in the region of physical violence, and that violence is more than symbol.
It is no mere coincidence that the story of the Passion reproduces so many of the details of the prophecy, for, although the fulfilment of the latter does not depend on such coincidences, they are not to be passed by as of no importance. Former generations made too much of the physical sufferings of Jesus; is not this generation in danger of making too little of them?
The issue of the Servant’s sufferings is presented in a startling paradox. His bruises and weales are the causes of our being healed. His chastisement brings our peace. Surely it is very hard work, and needs much forcing of words and much determination not to see what is set forth in as plain light as can be conceived, to strike the idea of atonement out of this prophecy. It says as emphatically as words can say, that we have by our sins deserved stripes, that the Servant bears the stripes which we have deserved, and that therefore we do not bear them.
III. The deepest ground of the Servant’s sufferings.
Can one man’s ‘iniquity,’ as distinguished from the consequences of iniquity, be made to press upon any other? It is a familiar and not very profound objection to the Christian Atonement that guilt cannot be transferred. True, but in the first place, Christ’s nature stands in vital relations to every man, of such intimacy that what is impossible between two of us is not impossible between Christ and any one of us; and, secondly, much in His life, and still more in His passion, is unintelligible unless the black mass of the world’s sin was heaped upon Him, to His own consciousness. In that dread cry, wrung from Him as He hung there in the dark, the consciousnesses of possessing God and of having lost Him are blended inextricably and inexplicably. The only approach to an explanation of it is that then the world’s sin was felt by Him, in all its terrible mass and blackness, coming between Him and God, even as our own sins come, separating us from God. That grim burden not only came on Him, but was laid on Him by God. The same idea is expressed by the prophet in that awful representation and by Jesus in that as awful cry, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’
The prophet constructs no theory of Atonement. But no language could be chosen that would more plainly set forth the fact of Atonement. And it is to be observed that, so far as this prophecy is concerned, the Servant’s sole form of service is to suffer. He is not a teacher, an example, or a benefactor, in any of the other ways in which men need help. His work is to bear our griefs and be bruised for our healing.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 53:4-6
4Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5But 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.
6All 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.
Isa 53:4 griefs The word literally means sickness (BDB 318, cf. Deu 28:59; Deu 28:61), but is used in a much wider sense in Hebrew (Isa 1:6; Isa 6:10). This speaks of Jesus’ substitutionary work (cf. Mar 10:45; 2Co 5:21).
Many have tried to interpret this strophe and Isa 53:5 d as teaching that Jesus’ death dealt with believers’ sins and sicknesses, but this is to misinterpret the parallelism (cf. Psa 103:3). Sickness is a Hebrew idiom for sin (cf. Isa 1:5-6). My favorite charismatic author, Gordon Fee, has written a powerful booklet on this issue entitled The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels.
SPECIAL TOPIC: HEALING
bore. . .carried These two VERBS are parallel.
1. bore – BDB 669, KB 724, Qal PERFECT, used of bearing one’s guilt, Gen 4:13; Lev 5:1; Lev 5:17; Lev 7:18; Num 5:31; Num 14:34; Eze 14:10; Eze 44:12, but it is also used of someone or some animal bearing another’s guilt, cf. Lev 10:17; Lev 16:22; Num 14:33; Eze 4:4-6 and of the suffering Servant’s redemptive ministry in Isa 53:4
2. carried – BDB 687, KB 741, Qal PERFECT; this is literally bear a heavy load, it is used of the Servant in Isa 53:4 and Isa 53:11 (Qal IMPERFECT)
Notice the series of VERBS in Isa 53:4-6 of what YHWH did to the Servant for humanity’s benefit.
1. smitten by God, Isa 53:4 – BDB 645, KB 697, Hophal PARTICIPLE
2. afflicted (by God), Isa 53:4 – BDB 776, KB 853, Pual PARTICIPLE
3. pierced through for our transgressions, Isa 53:5 – BDB 319, KB 320, Poal PARTICIPLE
4. crushed for our iniquities, Isa 53:5 – BDB 193, KB 221, Pual PARTICIPLE
5. the chastening for our well being (no VERB) upon Him, Isa 53:5
6. by His scourging we are healed, Isa 53:5
This is the textual foundation for the doctrine of the vicarious, substitutionary atonement.
Smitten of God It was God’s will that Jesus die (cf. Isa 53:10; Joh 3:16; Mar 10:45; 2Co 5:21). Jesus’ trial and death were not accidents or mistakes, but the plan of God (cf. Act 2:23; Act 3:18; Act 4:28; 1Pe 1:20).
Isa 53:5 pierced. . .crushed As bore and carried in Isa 53:4 were parallel, so too, these VERBS.
1. pierced – BDB 319, KB 320, Poal PARTICIPLE usually by a sword in battle, but not here. The same root means polluted for mankind’s purification and forgiveness.
2. crushed – BDB 193, KB 221, Pual PARTICIPLE; this VERB is used several times in Isaiah
a. Isa 57:15 – Niphal PARTICIPLE, the heart of the contrite
b. Isa 3:15 – Piel IMPERFECT, crushing My people
c. Isa 19:10; Isa 53:5 – Pual PARTICIPLE, to be crushed
d. Isa 53:10 – Piel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT, to crush
It denotes one who is humbled. In this context by YHWH Himself for the greater good of all mankind.
Isa 53:6 This is the OT counterpart to Rom 3:9-18; Rom 3:23; Rom 5:12; Rom 5:15; Rom 5:18; Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22. This shows the terrible development of the Fall of Genesis 3 (cf. Gen 6:5; Gen 6:11-12; Psa 14:3; Psa 143:2).
the iniquity of us all to fall on Him Jesus died for the sins of the entire world. Everyone is potentially saved by Christ (cf. Joh 1:29; Joh 3:16-17; Rom 5:18; Tit 2:11; 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:14). Only willful unbelief keeps anyone from God.
Some commentators have tried to make a restrictive distinction between the all [twice] of Isa 53:6 and the many of Isa 53:11 d and 12e. However, the parallelism of Rom 5:18, all and the many of Isa 5:19, clearly shows that they refer to the same group (i.e., fallen humanity made in the image and likeness of YHWH, Gen 1:26-27).
God desires all humans to be saved – Joh 1:12; Joh 3:16; Joh 4:42; 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10; Tit 2:11; 2Pe 3:9; 1Jn 2:1; 1Jn 4:14.
He [and no one else]. Emphatic. Quoted in Mat 8:17.
borne . . . carried = borne the punishment for. See note on Eze 4:4. Mat 8:17. Compare verses: Isa 53:11, Isa 53:12
griefs . . . sorrows. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Cause), for the judgment which was brought about by their sins.
of = by. Genitive of Agent. App-17.
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
afflicted = humbled.
Isa 53:4-6
Isa 53:4-6
THE THIRD STANZA
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.”
This is the heart of the Song of the Servant; here we learn why Jesus suffered, that it was not for himself but for us that he suffered. Note the emphatic recurrence of the word “our,” as in our griefs, our sorrows, our transgressions, our peace, and our healing. “The atoning significance of the suffering is expounded here.
Right here is the vital heart of Christianity: The case of Adam’s race was hopeless. All had sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. The penalty of sin is death, and the justice of God required that the penalty be paid; otherwise all of the human race would have been lost forever. But there was no one who could pay it. What was the solution? God Himself stepped into the human race; and, in the person of his Son, paid the penalty himself upon the Cross! Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift! No wonder that Satan executed every cruelty possible upon Jesus; because without the sacrifice of Jesus in paying the penalty of human transgressions, Satan would have achieved his purpose of the total destruction of Adam’s race.
The words “borne our griefs” in Isa 53:4 in the Hebrew are literally “borne our sicknesses”; but this is not a reference to Jesus’ suffering from all our sicknesses, but to his healing all diseases. It was to make this point clear that the translators rendered the word “griefs.” Thus, “The rendition griefs is justifiable.
“We did deem him stricken of God, and afflicted …” (Isa 53:4). There is an inadvertent condemnation of the whole human race in this. No tendency among men is any more prevalent than that of attributing all the sorrows on earth to the fault and sins of the suffering people. This unhappy trait of men is often noted in scripture. The parents of the man born blind, asked, “Who sinned this man, or his parents, that he should have been born blind?” (John 9); and the citizens of Malta attributed Paul’s snakebite to the supposed criminality of the apostle (Act 28:4). This indicates that the terrible and unlawful punishments, even death, that befell Jesus were considered by the people as being the natural result of the sins of Jesus. How wrong and misguided were the people!
“Chastisement …” (Isa 53:5). Little did Pilate know, when he ordered the chastisement of Jesus that his command caused the fulfillment of this specific prophecy of the Christ. That the chastisement was indeed for “our sins” and for “our peace” is certain; because the Roman Procurator declared upon the occasion of his command that it was not indeed for anything that Jesus was guilty of; and he declared him innocent on that very occasion!
“Stripes …” (Isa 53:5) is another reference to the chastisement; and modern treatment of criminals has no indication whatever of the terrible and sadistic brutality that accompanied such “scourgings.” Excavations of the old judgment seat of Pilate have discovered the very truncated pillar upon which our Lord might have been chained, while two Roman soldiers, standing one on each side, with the brutal whips made lethal and bloody by small pieces of bone or glass chips attached to the cords of the whips, applied the awful punishment, first to the back, and then after turning the victim over, to the chest and face, each soldier smiting the victim with all his strength, and taking time about with their blows, tortured the victim within an inch of his life. No wonder the Lord fainted under the weight of the cross. After that chastisement, Jesus presented such a pitiable spectacle, that Pilate actually thought the Jews would declare that he needed no more punishment; and so he brought Jesus out and presented him to the mob, saying, “Behold the Man”! How pitifully wrong was Pilate’s underestimation of the sadistic hatred of that Jewish mob screaming for his crucifixion!
“Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all …” (Isa 53:6). No greater declaration from Jehovah was ever given than this affirmation that Jesus Christ suffered for the sins of all men. The perfect, sinless life of Jesus was a sacrifice sufficiently adequate to atone for the sins of all mankind.
Note here that the prophecy states that Jehovah laid the sins of all men upon Jesus. This corresponds with Paul’s statement that “God set forth his son to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood” (Rom 3:25). Thus the initiative lay with God in the sufferings of Jesus upon the Cross. (1) God so loved the world that HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. God was not the only one, however, who had a part in Jesus’ sacrifice upon the Cross. (2) Satan did indeed bruise the heel of the Seed of Woman. (3) Christ himself engineered his death upon Calvary (Luk 9:31). (4) The Jews crucified him. (5) the Romans crucified him. (6) The human race crucified him. (7) Every man crucified him. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Isa 53:4-6 ATONING GRACE: Unusual pain, sorrow and grief was equated with unusual guilt in the ancient world. Jobs three friends told Job his calamities were punishment from God for his sinfulness. The man born blind was stigmatized as a sinner both by the disciples of Jesus and the Pharisees (cf. Joh 9:1 ff). Jesus corrected this concept in Luke 13 by saying that those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were not worse sinners than others but that all calamities were warnings to the world to repent. And the Jews rationalized their prejudice against Jesus by mocking Him as a criminal at His crucifixion. Rather than admit their own ideas about Gods Messiah were contrary to the Old Testament, they accused Jesus of blasphemy and pointed to His violation of their traditions and His humble life-style as proof that God was punishing Him for being such a sinner.
But there was nothing wrong with Him. We (all mankind) were the guilty ones. The rejection, misunderstanding, poverty, humiliation, slander He endured should have been ours. He was finally forsaken by God, suffered the second death (Mat 27:46) and was made to be sin on our behalf (2Co 5:21; Gal 3:13). He bore our sins on the tree (2Pe 2:22-22). The Righteous died for the unrighteous (2Pe 3:18). Christ did not deserve any of what He suffered. He was hated without cause (Joh 15:24-25). The great capsulation of the atonement is Rom 3:21-26. The real suffering of the Servant was spiritual, not physical. Many men have suffered physically (perhaps even more torture than crucifixion), but He was innocent, without sin, and actually became sin and suffered spiritual separation (death) from the Father for those who actually deserved it. It is interesting to note that the Hebrew verb meholal translated wounded means literally pierced, perforated, a precise prophecy of the piercing of Christs body by the Roman soldier (Joh 19:34-37).
Do verses four and five indicate that the atonement of Christ also provided miraculous healing of physical sicknesses for all mankind? Some modern faith-healers contend that all men who believe in the atonement of Christ may expect God to heal their bodies. T. J. McCrossan in his Bodily Healing and the Atonement, pg. 16, says, Again all Christians should expect God to heal their bodies today, because Christ died to atone for our sickness as well as for our sins. Warren C. Roark, compiler of Divine Healing, pub. The Warner Press, Anderson, Ind., 1945, records a statement by a modern advocate of this view, E. E. Byers, pg. 58, God . . . in the atonement . . . made provision for the healing of mans mortal body so long as he lived in this world. Although honest exegesis must admit that the Hebrew words makeoyoth and kholiy may literally mean pain and sickness, one must understand they may also be figuratively translated griefs and sorrows. The following considerations make it clear that Isaiahs prophecy of the atonement by the Suffering Servant did not mean to include physical healing for all believers:
1. The context (all important in proper exegesis) indicates the subject is sin, spiritual sickness, not physical sickness. If the atonement made provision for the healing of mans mortal body so long as he lived . . . he would live forever in this world! Death is the cumulative effect of one physical malady or another.
2. In Mat 8:16-17 a portion of Isaiahs prophecy is quoted in connection with Christs healing of some physical sicknesses. However, it is highly significant that verse five was not quoted by Matthew (with his stripes we are] healed). Furthermore, Jesus was fulfilling verse four three years before the atonement was made. Verse four was fulfilled in His divine ministry of healing, and not when He hung on the cross. Matthew was simply claiming, therefore, that Christ in performing miracles of healing, was fulfilling what Isaiah prophesied of His healing ministry and not His atonement.
3. There is no statement in the whole Bible suggesting that Christ bore our sicknesses in his own body on the tree, or that he was made to be sick, diseased, or possessed with infirmity for us.
4. The New Testament plainly shows that not all of the healings of Jesus demanded faith in Him. Thus, the efficacy of His atonement could not apply to the healing.
5. The New Testament plainly shows that many people with faith in the atonement of Christ were not healed of their sicknesses, including the great apostle Paul!
Some questions on healing in the atonement:
a. If the atonement provides for physical healing, why does not one receive healing at conversion-the place where the efficacy of the atonement is applied?
b. If the atonement provides for physical healing, why do not all believers receive healing? (cf. Pauls thorn in the flesh 2Co 12:7-10).
c. Why is there as large a percentage of sickness among believers as there is among unbelievers?
d. Why did Paul prescribe a medical treatment to Timothy for his oft infirmities? (1Ti 5:23)
e. Why are there so many failures among faithful, honest, believing people who so earnestly and diligently seek healing?
CaseReferencesNature of MaladyNature of CureComment
Noblemans sonJoh 4:46; Joh 4:54Sick at the point of death Healed the same hourFather believed, but not the son
Impotent manJoh 5:1-47Infirm 30 years; couldnt walkMade whole at onceNo faith, except to walk
Demoniac in the Capernaum SynagogueMar 1:21-28 Luk 4:33-37Possessed spirit of unclean demonInstantly deliveredNo faith indicated
Peters wifes motherMat 8:14-15 Mar 1:29-31 Luk 4:38-39Possessed of a great feverFever left her immediately No faith required
Many in CapernaumMat 8:16-17 Mar 1:32-34 Luk 4:40-41Demoniacs, sick, diseasedInstantly healedNo faith indicated
LeperMat 8:1-4 Mar 1:40-45 Luk 5:12-16Full of leprosyHeal at onceHad faith; not required
Palsied manMat 9:1-8 Mar 2:1-12 Luk 5:17-26Palsied, could not walkInstantly healedFaith of others
Man with withered handMat 12:9-14 Mar 3:1-6 Luk 6:6-11Hand deformedInstantly healedNo faith required but to extend hand
Many in GalileeMat 4:23-24 Mar 3:7-12 Luk 6:17-19All manner of sicknessInstantly healedNo faith indicated
MultitudesMat 12:15-21Not statedHealed allNo faith
Blind and dumb demoniacMat 12:22-24 Luk 11:14-15Possessed a devil; blind and dumbHealed at onceNo faith required
Centurions servantMat 8:5-13 Luk 7:1-10Palsied, tormented, and nearly deadMade whole instantlyNo faith of servant
Widows son of NainLuk 7:11-17DeadInstantly sat up and spokeNo faith possible
DemoniacMat 9:32-34Dumb and demoniacInstantly deliveredNo faith evident
Two demoniacs at GadaraMat 8:28-34 Mar 5:1-20 Luk 8:26-40Possessed legion of devils. Fierce, couldnt be boundDevils instantly cast outNo faith evident
The daughter of JairusMat 9:18-25 Mar 5:34-43 Luk 8:43-48DeadMade alive at onceNo faith possible
Woman with the issue of bloodMat 9:20-22 Mar 5:25-34 Luk 8:43-48Afflicted 12 years Grew worse, suffered muchMade whole at onceFaith present, but not required
Two blind menMat 9:27-31BlindEyes opened immediatelyFaith required
Healing of manyMat 14:34-36 Mar 6:55-56DiseasedMade perfectly wholeNo faith required
Daughter of Syrophonecian womanMat 15:21-28 Mar 7:24-30DemoniacMade whole instantlyNo faith of daughter, but of mother
Many near GalileeMat 15:29-31Lame, blind dumb, maimedHealed at onceNo faith indicated
Deaf and dumb manMar 7:31-37Deaf with impediment of speechHealed at once No faith indicated
Blind man at BethsaidaMar 8:22-26BlindSaw at onceNo faith indicated
Demoniac childMat 17:14-21Lunatic, sore vexed; fell in fire and waterCured that hourFaith of the father, but not of child
Blind manJoh 9:1-41Blind from his birthSaw at onceNo faith required but to wash
Woman with infirmityLuk 13:11-17Bowed for 18 yearsImmediately made straight No faith required
Man with dropsyLuk 14:1-6DropsyHealed at onceNo faith required
LazarusJoh 11:17-46DeadMade alive immediatelyNo faith possible
Ten lepersLuk 17:11-19LeprosyHealed at onceNo faith required
Two blind menMat 20:29-34 Mar 10:46-52 Luk 18:35-43BlindSaw immediatelyNo faith required, but present
Servant of MalchusMat 26:47-56 Mar 14:43-52 Luk 22:47-53 Joh 18:2-12Ear severedEar replaced immediatelyNo faith required or indicated
Isa 53:6 plainly states the healing we receive from His stripes is the healing from sin. Sin is going astray (cf. Rom 3:10-20). Sin is spiritual, psychological, mental sickness that needs healing. Paul calls sin insanity (1Co 15:34). Sin is spiritual disorientation. Man was not spiritually created for sin-it is against his spiritual nature. Spiritually, psychologically, emotionally and mentally man deteriorates when he sins. He begins to die, morally and spiritually when he begins to sin. Sin even causes some physical illnesses. Originally, of course, it caused all human illness and death as a constant reminder to man that he was not made for sin (cf. Rom 1:27-men receive in their physical and psychological selves the due penalty for their sins). Jesus came and died and was raised to make us whole. Upon Him was the chastisement that allowed us to regain our innocence (our healing from sin). He takes the guilt and frees us from the deception of Satans lies that we may come to our right minds (1Co 15:34). We still must suffer physical illnesses and death because of Adams sin, but no longer do we have to suffer spiritual illness and death! Sin is soul-sickness. It fractures, incapacitates, ineverates and destroys the personhood of man. Forgiveness through Christs atonement heals and saves us and restores us to the wholeness for which God created us.
he hath: Isa 53:5, Isa 53:6, Isa 53:11, Isa 53:12, Mat 8:17, Gal 3:13, Heb 9:28, 1Pe 2:24, 1Pe 3:18, 1Jo 2:2
yet: Mat 26:37, Joh 19:7
Reciprocal: Gen 3:15 – thou Gen 22:9 – bound Lev 1:4 – put Lev 1:15 – wring off his head Lev 3:11 – burn Num 7:15 – General Num 7:45 – General Job 21:19 – iniquity Job 30:28 – General Psa 18:4 – sorrows Psa 31:11 – I was Psa 69:4 – then I Psa 69:26 – whom Psa 88:16 – fierce Psa 116:3 – I found Pro 21:18 – wicked Ecc 7:4 – heart Isa 53:3 – a man Zec 3:9 – remove Zec 13:7 – smite Mar 14:34 – My soul Mar 15:24 – crucified Joh 10:15 – and I 2Co 5:21 – he Phm 1:18 – put that Heb 4:15 – we have 1Jo 3:5 – to
Isa 53:4-5. Surely he hath borne our griefs Whereas it may seem an incredible thing, that so excellent and glorious, and so innocent and holy a person should meet with this usage, it must be known that his griefs and miseries were not laid upon him for his own sake, but wholly for the sake of sinful men, in whose stead he stood, and for whose sins he suffered: yet we did esteem him Yet our people, the Jews, were so far from giving him the glory and praise of such astonishing condescension and compassion, that they made a most perverse construction of it; and so great was their prejudice against him, that they believed he was thus disgraced and punished, and, at last, put to death, by the just judgment of God, for his blasphemy and other manifold acts of wickedness. But, &c. This was a most false and unrighteous sentence. He was wounded
Which word comprehends all his pains and punishments, and his death among the rest; for our transgressions The prophet does not say by, but for them, or, because of them, namely, for the guilt of our sins, which he had voluntarily taken upon himself, and for the expiation of our sins, which was hereby purchased. The chastisement of our peace Those punishments by which our peace, our reconciliation to God, was to be purchased, were laid upon him, by Gods justice, with his own consent. With his stripes we are healed By his sufferings we are saved from our sins, and from the dreadful effects thereof.
53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried {f} our sorrows: yet we did esteem him {g} stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
(f) That is, the punishment due to our sins, for which he has both suffered and made satisfaction, Mat 8:17, 1Pe 2:24 .
(g) We judge evil, thinking that he was punished for his own sins, and not for ours.
The Servant wounded 53:4-6
It becomes clear in this stanza of the song that the Servant’s sufferings were not His own fault, as onlookers thought. They were for the sins of humankind and resulted in our healing. Furthermore, He would not merely suffer because of the sins of the people, because He was one of them. He would suffer in their place. The substitute nature of His sufferings is clear in the descriptions Isaiah presented, in the context of the arm of the Lord references, and in view of the nature of sin. Since sin is against a holy God it does not just require physical suffering, which Israel had experienced in abundance, but spiritual suffering: separation from God. Animal sacrifices covered human sin only temporarily, but a perfect sinless human sacrifice was necessary to remove the sin of humanity (cf. Heb 9:13-14).
The Servant’s humble appearance and unattractiveness were for the benefit of humankind. It was the consequences of our sins that He would bear, not those of His own sins (cf. Mat 8:17). Yet onlookers would consider that God was striking, smiting, and afflicting Him for His own sins. This is a typical response to suffering. People often conclude that a person is suffering because he or she has done something bad, and God is punishing him or her. This was the viewpoint of Job’s friends. Because the Hebrew word for stricken, nagua’, refers to smiting with leprosy in 2Ki 15:5, a tradition arose among the Jews that Messiah would be a leper. This view also appears in some of the ancient Greek versions. [Note: Young, 3:346.] The Servant did not just suffer with His people but for them. His atonement was substitutionary.
Who were the people that Isaiah had in mind when He described the benefits of the Servant’s work? Were they only those who would become the people of God by faith in the Servant, or were they all people? Isaiah did not make this distinction in His prophecy. He did not contribute to the debate about limited and unlimited atonement. What he wrote does not enable us to solve the question of for whom Christ died.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)