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.
6. Looking back on their former irreligious condition the people see that their rejection of the Servant was the natural outcome of the heedless and inconsiderate selfishness in which they were living. For the figure of the strayed sheep, cf. Psa 119:176; Mat 9:36; Mat 10:6; Luk 15:4.
For have gone have turned, read had gone had turned.
every one to his own way ] selfishly following his individual impulses and interests; cf. Isa 56:11.
hath laid on him the iniquity ] made to light on him the guilt.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
All we, like sheep, have gone astray – This is the penitent confession of those for whom he suffered. It is an acknowledgment that they were going astray from God; and the reason why the Redeemer suffered was, that the race had wandered away, and that Yahweh had laid on him the iniquity of all. Calvin says, In order that he might more deeply impress on the minds of people the benefits derived from the death of Christ, he shows how necessary was that healing of which he had just made mention. There is here an elegant antithesis. For in ourselves we were scattered; in Christ we are collected together; by nature we wander, and are driven headlong toward destruction; in Christ we find the way by which we are led to the gate of life. The condition of the race without a Redeemer is here elegantly compared to a flock without a shepherd, which wanders where it chooses, and which is exposed to all dangers. This image is not unfrequently used to denote estrangement from God 1Pe 2:25 : For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. Compare Num 27:17; 1Ki 22:17; Psa 119:176; Eze 34:5; Zec 10:2; Mat 9:36. Nothing could more strikingly represent the condition of human beings. They had wandered from God. They were following their own paths, and pursuing their own pleasures. They were without a protector, and they were exposed on every hand to danger.
We have turned every one to his own way – We had all gone in the path which we chose. We were like sheep which have no shepherd, and which wander where they please, with no one to collect, defend, or guide them. One would wander in one direction, and another in another; and, of course, solitary and unprotected. they would be exposed to the more danger. So it was, and is, with man. The bond which should have united him to the Great Shepherd, the Creator, has been broken. We have become lonely wanderers, where each one pursues his own interest, forms his own plans, and seeks to gratify his own pleasures, regardless of the interest of the whole. If we had not sinned, there would have been a common bond to unite us to God, and to each other. But now we, as a race, have become dissocial, selfish, following our own pleasures, and each one living to gratify his Own passions. What a true and graphic description of man! How has it been illustrated in all the selfish schemes and purposes of the race! And how is it still illustrated every day in the plans and actions of mortals!
And the Lord hath laid on him – Lowth renders this, Yahweh hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all. Jerome (the Vulgate) renders it, Posuit Dominns in eo – The Lord placed on him the iniquity of us all. The Septuagint renders it. Kurios paredoken auton tais hamartiais hemon – The Lord gave him for our sins. The Chaldee renders it, From the presence of the Lord there was a willingness ( raava’) to forgive the sins of all of us on account of him. The Syriac has the same word as the Hebrew. The word used here ( paga) means, properly, to strike upon or against, to impinge on anyone or anything, as the Greek pegnuo. It is used in a hostile sense, to denote an act of rushing upon a foe (1Sa 22:17; to kill, to slay Jdg 8:21; Jdg 15:12; 2Sa 1:15. It also means to light upon, to meet with anyone Gen 28:11; Gen 32:2. Hence, also to make peace with anyone; to strike a league or compact Isa 64:4. It is rendered, in our English version, reacheth to Jos 19:11, Jos 19:22, Jos 19:26-27, Jos 19:34; came, Jos 16:7; met and meet Gen 32:1; Exo 23:4; Num 35:19; Jos 2:16; Jos 18:10; Rth 2:22; 1Sa 10:5; Isa 64:5; Amo 5:19; fail Jdg 8:21; 1Sa 22:17; 2Sa 1:15; 1Ki 2:29; entreat Gen 18:8; Rth 1:16; Jer 15:11; make intercession Isa 59:16; Isa 53:12; Jer 7:16; Jer 27:18; Jer 36:25; he that comes between Job 36:22; and occur 1Ki 5:4. The radical idea seems to be that of meeting, occurring, encountering; and it means here, as Lowth has rendered it, that they were caused to meet on him, or perhaps more properly, that Yahweh caused them to rush upon him, so as to overwhelm him in calamity, as one is overcome or overwhelmed in battle. The sense is, that he was not overcome by his own sins, but that he encountered ours, as if they had been made to rush to meet him and to prostrate him. That is, he suffered in our stead; and whatever he was called to endure was in consequence of the fact that he had taken the place of sinners; and having taken their place, he met or encountered the sufferings which were the proper expressions of Gods displeasure, and sunk under the mighty burden of the worlds atonement.
The iniquity of us all – (See the notes at Isa 53:5). This cannot mean that he became a sinner, or was guilty in the sight of God, for God always regarded him as an innocent being. It can only mean that he suffered as if he had been a sinner; or, that he suffered that which, if he had been a sinner, would have been a proper expression of the evil of sin. It may be remarked here:
1. That it is impossible to find stronger language to denote the fact that his sufferings were intended to make expiation for sin. Of what martyr could it be said that Yahweh had caused to meet on him the sins of the world?
2. This language is that which naturally expresses the idea that he suffered for all people. It is universal in its nature, and naturally conveys the idea that there was no limitation in respect to the number of those for whom he died.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray
Astray from the fold
I.
The first part of my text is AN INDICTMENT. All we like sheep have gone astray. Says some one, Cant you drop the first word? And some one rises and looks off and says, There is a man who is a blasphemer, he is astray. Yonder is a man who is impure, he is astray. Yonder is a man who is fraudulent, he is astray. Look at home, for the first word of the text takes you and me as well as the rest.
1. I have studied the habits of sheep, and I know they lose their way sometimes by trying to get other pasture. There are many of you who have been looking for better pasture. You have wandered on and on. You tried business successes, you tried worldly associations, you tried the club-house. You said that the Church was a short commons, and you wanted to find the rank grass on the bank of distant streams, and to lie down under great oaks on the other side of the hills. Have you found the anticipated pasture that was to be so superior?
2. I have noticed also that the sheep get astray by being frightened with dogs. Oh, man, that is the way you got astray. You said, Where is God, that He allows an honest man to go down, and thieves to prosper? You were dogged by creditors; and some of you went into misanthropy, and some of you took to strong drink, and some of you fled from all Christian associations; and in that way the sheep got astray.
II. But the last part of my text OPENS A DOOR WIDE ENOUGH TO LET US ALL OUT, and wide enough to let all heaven in. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Says some one, That is not generous. Let every one bear his own burden. And there is something in that. If I owe a debt, and I have money to pay it, and I come to you and ask you, to cancel my obligations, you will be right in saying to me, Pay your own debts. If I am walking along the street with you, and we are both hale and hearty, and I want you to carry me, you are right in saying, Walk on your own feet. But suppose you and I were in a regiment together, and I was fearfully wounded in the battle, and I fell unconscious at your feet with gunshot fractures and dislocations, five bullets having struck me at once–you would say to your comrades, Here, this man is helpless. Let us carry him to the ambulance; let us take him out to the hospital. Would It have been mean to let you carry me then. You certainly would not have been so unkind as not to carry me. Now, that is Christ to the soul If we could pay our spiritual obligations we might go up to God and say, Lord, there is so much debt, and here I have the menus with which to cancel it. Now cross it all out. But the fact is we are pierced through and through with the sabres of sin. We have gone down under the hot fire, and we are helpless and undone. We will die on the field unless some help comes to us. God sends His ambulance, yea, He dispatches His only Son to carry us out, and bind up our gashes, and take us home. Is there any man who is under the delusion that he can carry his own sins? You cannot. You might as well try to transport a boulder of the sea, or carry on one shoulder the Alleghanies, and on the other shoulder Mount Washington. Then let us shift the burden. (T. de W. Talmage, D.D.)
Salvation for the straying sheep
I. LOOK AT THE SHEEP THAT HAVE GONE ASTRAY. The text implies they were once in the fold. You cannot go astray except you have been in the right place first.
II. EACH SHEEP WALKS ITS OWN PATH. There is almost an infinite variety in sinning. Some go along a path of licentiousness; others the money-making road; others the gamesters path; others take the Christless morality road.
III. WHAT IS GODS WAY OF SALVATION? The Lord laid on Him, etc. Who is that Him? The One described in the previous verses. Let Christ be the object of your trust, and you shall be saved. (A. G. Brown.)
Our misery and its remedy
I. OUR MISERY BY SIN.
1. Our sin is charged upon us collectively in common: we have all gone astray.
2. Distributively. Every one to his own way. We all agree in turning aside from the right way of pleasing and enjoying of God; and we disagree, as each one hath a by-path of his own, some running after this lust, some after that, and so are not only divided from God, but divided from one another, while every one maketh his will his law.
II. OUR REMEDY BY CHRIST. The Lord hath laid, etc. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Departing from God
This departing from God and His ways is fitly represented by the straying of sheep. In the general it implieth–
1. That we are brutish in our sin and defection from God: it could not be expressed but by a comparison fetched from the beasts.
2. Proneness to err. No creature is more prone to wander and lose his way than a sheep without a shepherd.
3. Our inability to return, or to bring ourselves into the right way again.
4. Our readiness to follow evil example. Sheep run one after another, and one straggler draweth away the whole flock. Austin saith, I could wander by myself, and could not return by myself. And God saith as much Hos 13:9).
5. The danger of straying sheep, which when out of the pasture are often in harms way, and exposed to a thousand dangers (Jer 50:6-7). (T. Manton, D.D.)
We have turned every one to his own way
Every man to his own way
Though there be one path to heaven, yet there are several ways of sinning and going to hell. The reasons how this cometh to pass are–
1. Because of the activeness of mans spirit. It is always a-devising wickedness.
2. It happeneth through diversity of constitution.
3. It happeneth from their business and occasions in the world. Many men are engaged to ways of sin because they suit best with their employments, the sin of their calling, as vainglory in a minister.
4. Custom and education.
5. Company example. (T. Manton, D.D.)
His own way
This is the sin of men in their natural condition, that they turn to their own way. The phrase implieth these two things–
1. A defect or want of Divine guidance.
2. A rejection of the ways of God when made known to us. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Caiaphas: Cephas: Jesus
The forms of human sinfulness are as numerous and varied as are mens natural inclinations: but near the cross may be found a representative of every one of these. Three figures will demand our attention–Caiaphas, the high priest, with his surroundings; and then, amidst the obscurity of the twilight scene, and the crowd of spectators, we must single out the figure of Simon, then at the moment of his deepest shame. And then, turning our eyes away from these subordinates, we must fix them lastly on Jesus of Nazareth Himself.
I. CAIAPHAS is the president of the High Ecclesiastical Court then assembled, and no judge ever could produce higher credentials than he. The Gospels all acknowledge him, without the slightest apparent doubt, as the legitimate successor of Aaron. He is descendant of a priestly dynasty some 1,500 years old, whose origin was confessedly Divine. Besides, the highest power of all had owned his legitimate position, by giving to him the spirit of unconscious prophecy. Now the priesthood of Aaron, which he bore, had never been a bloodthirsty one. There are, I think, only two examples of that priesthood shedding blood. One of these was the stroke of the spear of Phinehas–an act of wild justice, suited to the times, which received praise and blessing from above; and the other, the just punishment by Jehoiada of Athaliah, who had murdered all the royal family but one. Whatever other faults they may have had, the priests, the sons of Aaron, had never erred before on the side of intolerance and cruelty. And Caiaphas himself was no fanatic. Like all the family to which he belonged, he was a Sadducee. He had the views of a politician rather than of an ecclesiatic; and, having coolly judged, several weeks before, that the proceedings of Jesus of Nazareth were politically dangerous, he had determined that it would be well to put Him out of the way. But, in the council that surrounded him, there were many, and perhaps a majority, of strong religious belief and feelings. So, for their sakes, he affected a horror which he could hardly have felt himself. The high priest asked Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes–the original word in St. Mark seems to imply that one of these was the seamless tunic of the high priest–in sign of a horror, which can hardly have been otherwise than hypocritical in a cool man of the world like him, and said, What need we any further witnesses. Ye have heard the blasphemy. What think ye? And then the question being thus put, they all–the whole council, all the scribes, all the elders, all the chief priests, the whole representative body of the universal Church of God–condemned Him to be guilty of death. What a lesson for us arises out of this fact, that our Lords death was wholly a sin of the religious world under the guidance of their Divinely-appointed leaders. And in that religious world we may distinguish all the chief tendencies both of that time and of all times–the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the liberal and the orthodox, the men with the minimum of belief in the supernatural, and those with the maximum of that belief, the traditionists and the anti-traditionists–in fact, the High Church, and the Broad Church, and the Low. The lesson is for our times. In those days authority and tradition utterly failed those who relied upon them, while the light within the heart lighted those who possessed it to the cross and to the glory of the Lord of Truth.
II. Let us turn our eyes away now from Caiaphas and the splendid array around him to the lower end of the courtyard near the door, where the lower classes are collected. All these are within sight of the proceedings at the upper end of the hall, which no doubt is well lighted. Perhaps they are also near enough to hear. Amongst them is one whose speech betrays him to be a Galilean. We know his name (though those around him do not) to be SIMON, SON OF JONAS, who has also the surname Cephas. He is thrice recognized as a follower of the accused, and thrice denies the charge. Then the cock crows at early morning, and the Master turns on him with a glance which he feels to single him out, even in the darkness and the crowd; and he goes out at the door, weeping bitterly. This strange character, so made up of contradictions as to have been pronounced by that Being who knew him best, at one moment a rock, and at the next a Satan, full of boldness and full of cowardice, the first to confess and the first to deny; this picture of the weakness of all human strength, of the frailty of all earthly goodness, is now at the very depths of his weakness and shame. He stands there a sinner who has just committed a sin–a very mean and cowardly sin. Yet there is an eye upon him, searching for him, busied with him. We who have betrayed Him and denied Him, the Lord hath turned and looked on. He is seeking, let Him find.
III. We see JESUS in the midst of all this crowd of representative sinners, amongst whom a little honest search will soon enable each of us to detect himself. Betrayed by covetous Judas, forsaken by unwatchful, unprayerful, and therefore easily tempted disciples, denied by self-confident, self-willed Simon, condemned by worldly-minded, unscrupulous Caiaphas, condemned again by timid time-serving Pilate, persecuted to the death by sanctimonious, theologically-hating Scribes and Pharisees, shouted at by a rude, ignorant multitude, tortured in cruel sport by barbarous soldiers–what species of human sin is absent there? Let us consider the exceeding beauty of the figure presented to us, and also how that figure is produced. Compare for one moment any character in a work of fiction. These, too, are beautiful, but how is their beauty produced? By word-painting of the most exquisite kind. But in the narratives of the Gospels there is no word-painting at all, except perhaps a little in St. John. It is not the narratives that are sublime, but the Being who becomes known to us through their simple inartificial language. And now the end of this should be, that every one of us should bring the matter as closely as possible home. It was all done for me; it was I that created the necessity. Let Him, in each of us, see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. (W.E.Rawstorne, M.A.)
The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all
Sin laid on Jesus
1. The verse opens with a confession of sin common to all the persons intended in the verse.
2. The confession is also special and particular.
3. This confession is very unreserved. There is not a single syllable by way of excuse; there is not a word to detract from the force of the confession.
4. It is, moreover, singularly thoughtful, for thoughtless persons do not use a metaphor so appropriate as the text: All we like sheep have gone astray. I hear no dolorous wailings attending this confession of sin; for the next sentence makes it almost a song. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It is the most grievous sentence of the three; but it is the most charming and the most full of comfort. Strange is it that where misery was concentrated mercy reigned, and where sorrow reached her climax there it is that a weary soul finds sweetest rest. The Saviour bruised is the healing of bruised hearts.
I. EXPOSITION.
1. It may be well to give the marginal translation of the text, Jehovah hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all. The first thought that demands notice is the meeting of sin. Sin I may compare to the rays of some evil sun. Sin was scattered throughout this world as abundantly as light, and
Christ is made to suffer the full effect of the baleful rays which stream from the sun of sin. God as it were holds up a burning-glass, and concentrates all the scattered rays in a focus upon Christ. Take the text in our own version, The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all; put upon Him as a burden is laid upon a mans back all the burdens of all His people; put upon His head as the high priest of old laid upon the scapegoat all the sin of the beloved ones that he might bear them in his own person. The two translations are perfectly consistent; all sins are made to meet, and then having met together and been tied up in one crushing load the whole burden is laid upon Him.
2. The second thought is that sin was made to meet upon the suffering person of the innocent Substitute.
3. It has been asked, Was it just that sin should thus be laid upon Christ? We believe it was rightly so.
(1) Because it was the act of Him who must do right. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
(2) Remember, moreover, that Jesus Christ voluntarily took this sin upon Himself.
(3) There was a relationship between our Lord and His people, which is too often forgotten, but which rendered it natural that He should bear the sin of His people. Why does the text speak of our sinning like sheep? I think it is because it would call to our recollection that Christ is our Shepherd. It is not that Christ took upon Himself the sins of strangers. Them always was a union of a most mysterious and intimate kind between those who sinned and the Christ who suffered.
(4) This plan of salvation is precisely similar to the method of our ruin. The fall which made me a sinner was wholly accomplished long before I was born by the first Adam, and the salvation by which I am delivered was finished long before I saw the light by the second Adam on my behalf.
4. Lying upon Christ brought, upon Him all the consequences connected with it. God cannot look where there is sin with any pleasure, and though as far as Jesus is personally concerned, He is the Fathers beloved Son in whom He is well pleased; yet when He saw sin laid upon His Son, He made that Son cry, My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?
5. Think of the result of all this. Sin meets on Christ and Christ is punished with sin, and what then? Sin is put away.
6. The us here intended.
II. APPLICATION. There is a countless company whose sins the Lord Jesus bore; did He bear yours? Do you wish to have an answer? Let me read this verse to you and see if you can join in it. If there be in you a penitential confession which leads you to acknowledge that you have erred and strayed like a lost sheep; if there be in you a personal sense of sin which makes you feel that you have turned to your own way, and if now you can trust in Jesus, then a second question is not wanted; the Lord hath laid on Him your iniquity.
III. CONTEMPLATION. I will give you four things to think of.
1. The astounding mass of sin that must have been laid on Christ.
2. The amazing love of Jesus which brought Him to do all this.
3. The matchless security which this plan of salvation offers.
4. What, then, are she claims of Jesus Christ upon you and me? (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Going astray as sheep
1. The sheep is a creature exceedingly quick-witted upon the one matter of going astray.
2. The sheep goes astray, it is said, all the more frequently when it is most dangerous for it to do so; propensities to stray seem to be developed in the very proportion in which they ought to be subdued. Whereas in our own land a sheep? might wander with some safety, it wanders less than it will do in the Oriental plains, where for it to go astray is to run risks from leopards and wolves.
3. The sheep goes astray ungratefully. It owes everything to the shepherd, and yet forsakes the hand that feeds it and heals its diseases.
4. The sheep goes astray repeatedly. If restored to-day it may not stray to-day if it cannot, but it will to-morrow if it can.
5. The sheep wanders further and further, from bad to worse. It is not content with the distance it has reached, it will go yet greater lengths; there is To limit to its wandering except its weakness. See ye not your own selves as in a mirror! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sin meeting on Jesus
I. THE MEETING-PLACE OF SIN IS THE CROSS OF CHRIST. In the margin these words are rendered, The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all. The Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Persian, and Egyptian tongues were spoken about that cross. The inscription was in different languages that all might read. This is the representation of the world now looking upon the Crucified. His embrace encircled the race of man.
1. The cross was the focus of sins.
2. The burdens of sin here meet.
3. Here the responsibilities of the sinner are assumed by one competent to discharge them.
4. The sufferings of the sinner are gathered in the agonies of the cross.
II. THE MEETING-PLACE OF SIN IS THE MERCY-SEAT OF SINNERS. Conclusion:
1. The imperative claim Christ has upon the soul.
2. If you will not consent that your iniquities shall meet on Christ, bear them you must yourself. (S. H. Tyng, D.D.)
The nature and power of the atonement
1. It has been suggested that there was injustice in the sacrifice of One who had never sinned in the place of sinners, and that it involved the idea that God liked suffering for its own sake. This statement is one-sided: it forgets mercy, it shuts its eyes to the truth that the power of any sacrifice is in its voluntary and representative character. Facts must be respected, and what is the fact which is before us all? Pain and sorrow!
2. The vicarious sacrifice of Calvary is the work of the Three Persons of the Trinity. Men speak as if the Son devised the plan of His own death to save man from the Fathers wrath. It was the work of the whole Three Persons in the Godhead. If the justice of the Divine life demanded the atonement, the mercy of the Divine love devised the means of pardon and the sacrifice on Calvary.
3. There is yet another thought which illuminates the gloom. We know the power of sin which, like some mysterious shape, some wild and wandering shadow in a forest, stands or flits about the portals of the opening life of man. Nature brings us within its reach, our own will places us in its iron grasp, it paralyzes the spiritual power, it chills our desires for better things; we cannot rise up as once we could when we are lying under the weight of unforgiven sin. This sense of the awfulness of sin illuminates the power of the atonement, for the sacrifice of the Son of God must at least be commensurate in its awfulness with what we know of human sin.
4. If the awfulness of sin and the majesty of God bring home the sense of what vicarious sacrifice is, and we are able in its power to raise our hearts to God and to feel renewed life and holier aspirations, how about the past? Florence rose and wept over the grave of Dante, but Florence could not then undo the edict which banished the man, and Dantes ashes rest beside the pinewoods and the Adrian Sea, and Florence is undone. And for each of you there was a day when you told your first lie, a day when you acted your first pretence, a day when you did your first act of dishonesty, when you first degraded yourself with some burning vice and destroyed the innocency which God had given you. In your better moments you look back to such a day, and you feel as if you were standing by an open grave, as you remember the hard words, the unkind looks, the want of sympathy, to him or her who lies beneath. The past is gone beyond recall. How will you meet it? With scorn? Will you turn away and drown its memories in pleasure? You cannot. You have a spirit born for eternity. But there is one other way. Christ on the Cross bore mans sin in all its intensity, gave Himself as a sacrifice, and purchased for the race complete forgiveness. No sorrow is so deep but He can assuage it, no memory so black but He can cleanse it. (W. J. Knox-Little, M.A.)
The universal burden and its bearer
It is of prime importance to mark that the only office which the prophet describes the Servant as filling is the function of suffering. He is neither Teacher nor Conqueror nor Lawgiver nor, here, King; he is only a Sufferer. That is what the Saviour of the world has to be, first of all. The rabbis have a legend, far wiser than most of their follies, which tells how Messias is to be found sitting amongst the lepers at the gate of the city. The fable has in it the deep truth that He who saves the world must suffer with, and for, the world He saves.
I. CONSIDER THE UNIVERSAL BURDEN. Of course the speakers in my text are primarily the penitent Jewish nation, who at last have learned how much at first they had misunderstood the Servant of the Lord. But the we and the all may very fairly be widened out so as to include the whole world, and every individual of the race, and iniquity is the universal burden of us all. I believe that almost all of the mistaken and unworthy conceptions of Christianity which have afflicted and do afflict the world are directly traceable to this–the failure to apprehend the radical fact affecting mens condition that they are all sinful, and therefore separated from God. The evil that we do, going forth from us as deed, comes back upon us as guilt. And so, we are all staggering under this burden. The creatures that live at the bottom of the doleful sea, fathoms deeper than plummet has ever sounded, have to bear a pressure upon their frames all inconceivable by the men that walk upon the surface of the earth. And the deeper a man goes in the dark ocean of wrongdoing and wrongbeing, the heavier the weight of the compressed atmosphere above him, crushing him in. And, yet, like those creatures that crawl on the slime, miles down in the dreary sea, where no light has come, they know not the weight that rests upon them, and never have dreamed of how blessed it is to walk in the lighter air with the sun shining above them. There are some of you, grovelling down at the bottom of the ocean, to whom the liberty and illumination, the lightness and ligntsomeness of the pure life which is possible, would seem miraculous. If these things be at all true, then it seems to me that the fact of universal sinfulness, with all its necessary, natural, and inevitable consequences, must be the all-important fact about a man. What we think about sin will settle all our religious ideas.
II. LOOK AT THE ONE BEARER OF THE BURDEN. The Lord has made to light upon Him the iniquity ,of us all.
III. MARK THE MEN THAT ARE FREED FROM THE BURDEN. Us all. And yet it is possible for a man included in the all to have to stagger along through life under his burden, and to carry it with him when he goes hence. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, says the foremost preacher of the doctrine that Christs death takes away sin. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Every man shall bear his own burden. So your sins, taken away as they are by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, may yet cling to you and crush you. There is only one way by which the possibilities open to all men by the death of Jesus Christ may become the actual experience of every man, or of any man–and that is, the simple laying your burden, by your own act of quiet trust, upon the shoulders of Him that is mighty to save. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Gods fofgiving love in Christ
Rev. G. Barber, assistant to Dr. Dale of Birmingham says: I remember going to him on one occasion in great distress; I wanted to preach on Christ died for our sins, and I thought that if I could only show how, through the death of Christ, it was made possible for God to forgive sin, many whom I knew might be led to believe. He replied: Give up troubling, my friend, about how it was possible for God to forgive sin, and go straight and tell the people that God does forgive sin, and tell them straight that Christ died for their sins. It is the fact the people want most to know, and not your theory, nor mine, as to how it was or is possible. (Life of R. W. Dale.)
Peace in the true knowledge of Jesus
I was sent for to see a lady–a stranger–who was dying in Brighton. I found her to be a person of means and education, but quite ignorant of the salient facts of the Christian faith. To her, Jesus was simply a great moral teacher, standing in line with other religious masters. Of Christianity, as the religion of redemption, she had no knowledge. Her life story had been a sad one, stained deeply by both sorrow and sin. Oh, she sighed, that it were possible for some great, strong friend to take my conscience as though it were his own, that I might have a little peace! I learned more from that sentence concerning the mystery of redemption than up to that moment I had ever thought of. Here was a soul who knew and stated the need of just such a salvation as we are bidden to proclaim. She asked, without knowing that there was any answer, for the Saviour who was made sin for us, who could take mans conscience as though it were His own and leave in its place His peace. The sense of guilt had awakened with power in this poor dying woman. To have told her that the Most High could forgive her sins would have carried no comfort to her heart. The only possible relief for her was to hear of Him on whom the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all (R. J. Campbell, M.A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. The iniquity of us all.] For avon, “iniquity,” the ancient interpreters read avonoth, “iniquities,” plural; and so the Vulgate in MS. Blanchini. And the Lord hath hiphgia bo, caused to meet in him the iniquities of us all. He was the subject on which all the rays collected on the focal point fell. These fiery rays, which should have fallen on all mankind, diverged from Divine justice to the east, west, north, and south, were deflected from them, and converged in him. So the Lord hath caused to meet in him the punishment due to the iniquities of ALL.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
All we, all mankind, the Jews no less than the Gentiles,
like sheep, which are simple and foolish creatures, and exceeding apt to straggle and lose themselves, have gone astray from God, and from the way of his precepts, in which he put our first parents, and in which he commanded us to walk.
To his own way; in general, to the way and course of sin, which may well be called a mans own way, as sins are called mens own lusts, Jam 1:14; 2Pe 3:3, and elsewhere, because sin is natural to us, inherent in us, born with us, and very dear to us; and in particular, to those several paths of divers lusts which several men choose and follow, according to their differing opinions, inclinations, occasions, and circumstances.
Hath laid, Heb. hath made to meet, as all the rivers meet in the sea.
The iniquity; not properly, for so he knew no sin, 2Co 5:21; but the punishment of iniquity, as that word is most frequently used, as Gen 4:1:3; Lev 20:17, &c.; that which was due for all the sins of all his people, whether Jews or Gentiles, which must needs be so great and heavy a lead, that if he had not been God as well as man, he must have sunk under the burden of them. This was actually verified in Christ. And both this and divers other passages here do as manifestly and fully point at Christ, as if they were not a prophetical representation of things to come, but an historical relation of them after they were done. Nor do I see how they can be excused from the fearful wresting of the Scripture that expound these places of the prophet Jeremiah, of any other person but Christ.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. Penitent confession ofbelievers and of Israel in the last days (Zec12:10).
sheep . . . astray(Psa 119:176; 1Pe 2:25).The antithesis is, “In ourselves we were scattered; in Christ weare collected together; by nature we wander, driven headlong todestruction; in Christ we find the way to the gate of life”[CALVIN]. True, also,literally of Israel before its coming restoration (Eze 34:5;Eze 34:6; Zec 10:2;Zec 10:6; compare with Eze 34:23;Eze 34:24; Jer 23:4;Jer 23:5; also Mt9:36).
laid“hath madeto light on Him” [LOWTH].Rather, “hath made to rush upon Him” [MAURER].
the iniquitythat is,its penalty; or rather, as in 2Co5:21; He was not merely a sin offering (which woulddestroy the antithesis to “righteousness”), but “sinfor us”; sin itself vicariously; the representative of theaggregate sin of all mankind; not sins in the plural,for the “sin” of the world is one (Rom 5:16;Rom 5:17); thus we are made notmerely righteous, but righteousness, even “therighteousness of God.” The innocent was punished as ifguilty, that the guilty might be rewarded as if innocent. Thisverse could be said of no mere martyr.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
All we like sheep have gone astray,…. Here the prophet represents all the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles; whom he compares to “sheep”, not for their good qualities, but for their foolishness and stupidity; and particularly for their being subject to go astray from the shepherd, and the fold, and from their good pastures, and who never return of themselves, until they are looked up, and brought back by the shepherd, or owner of them; so the people of God, in a state of nature, are like the silly sheep, they go astray from God, are alienated from the life of him, deviate from the rule of his word, err from the right way, and go into crooked paths, which lead to destruction; and never return of themselves, of their own will, and by their own power, until they are returned, by powerful and efficacious grace, unto the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls; see 1Pe 2:25 where the apostle has a manifest respect to this passage:
we have turned everyone to his own way; and that is an evil one, a dark and slippery one, a crooked one, the end of it is ruin; yet this is a way of a man’s own choosing and approving, and in which he delights; and it may not only intend the way of wickedness in general, common to all men in a state of nature, but a particular way of sinning, peculiar to each; some are addicted to one sin, and some to another, and have their own way of committing the same sin; men turn their faces from God, and their backs upon him, and look to their own way, and set their faces towards it, and their hearts on it; and which seems right and pleasing to them, yet the end of it are the ways of death; and so bent are men on these ways, though so destructive, that nothing but omnipotent grace can turn them out of them, and to the Lord; and which is done in consequence of what follows:
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all; that is, God the Father, against whom we have sinned, from whom we have turned, and whose justice must be satisfied; he has laid on Christ, his own Son, the sins of all his elect ones; which are as it were collected together, and made one bundle and burden of, and therefore expressed in the singular number, “iniquity”, and laid on Christ, and were bore by him, even all the sins of all God’s elect; a heavy burden this! which none but the mighty God could bear; this was typified by laying of hands, and laying of sins upon the sacrifice, and putting the iniquities of Israel upon the head of the scapegoat, by whom they were bore, and carried away. The words may be rendered, “he made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all” r; the elect of God, as they live in every part of the world, their sins are represented as coming from all quarters, east, west, north, and south; and as meeting in Christ, as they did, when he suffered as their representative on the cross: or “he made to rush, or fall upon him the iniquity of us all” s; our sins, like a large and mighty army, beset him around, and fell upon him in a hostile manner, and were the cause of his death; by which means the law and justice of God had full satisfaction, and our recovery from ruin and destruction is procured, which otherwise must have been the consequence of turning to our own ways; so the ancient Jews understood this of the Messiah. R. Cahana t on these words, “binding his ass’s colt to the choice vine”, Ge 49:11 says,
“as the ass bears burdens, and the garments of travellers, so the King Messiah will bear upon him the sins of the whole world; as it is said, “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”,” Isa 53:6.
r “fecit occarrere in eum iniquitatem omnium hostrum”, Montanus; “occurrere fecit ei, vel irruere fecit in ilium”, Vatablus. s “Incurrere fecit in eum”, Cocceius, Vitringa, Forerius; “irruere fecit in ilium”, Vatablus; sic Syr. “fecit ut incurreret iniquitas”, Piscator. t Apud Galatin. de Cathol. Ver. I. 10. c. 6. p. 663, and Siphre in ib. l. 8. c. 20. p. 599.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thus does the whole body of the restored Israel confess with penitence, that it has so long mistaken Him whom Jehovah, as is now distinctly affirmed, had made a curse for their good, when they had gone astray to their own ruin. “All we like sheep went astray; we had turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” It is the state of exile, upon which the penitent Israel is here looking back; but exile as being, in the prophet’s view, the final state of punishment before the final deliverance. Israel in its exile resembled a scattered flock without a shepherd; it had lost the way of Jehovah (Isa 63:17), and every one had turned to his own way, in utter selfishness and estrangement from God (Isa 56:11). But whereas Israel thus heaped up guilt upon guilt, the Servant of Jehovah was He upon whom Jehovah Himself caused the punishment of their guilt to fall, that He might make atonement for it through His own suffering. Many of the more modern expositors endeavour to set aside the paena vicaria here, by giving to a meaning which it never has. Thus Stier renders it, “Jehovah caused the iniquity of all to strike or break upon Him.” Others, again, give a meaning to the statement which is directly at variance with the words themselves. Thus Hahn renders it: Jehovah took the guilt of the whole into His service, causing Him to die a violent death through their crime. Hofmann very properly rejects both explanations, and holds fast to the fact that , regarded as a causative of , signifies “to cause anything to strike or fall upon a person,” which is the rendering adopted by Symmachus: . “Just as the blood of a murdered man comes upon the murderer, when the bloody deed committed comes back upon him in the form of blood-guiltiness inflicting vengeance; so does sin come upon, overtake (Psa 40:13), or meet with the sinner. It went forth from him as his own act; it returns with destructive effect, as a fact by which he is condemned. But in this case God does not suffer those who have sinned to be overtaken by the sin they have committed; but it falls upon His servant, the righteous One.” These are Hofmann’s words. But if the sin turns back upon the sinner in the shape of punishment, why should the sin of all men, which the Servant of God has taken upon Himself as His own, overtake Him in the form of an evil, which, even it if be a punishment, is not punishment inflicted upon Him? For this is just the characteristic of Hofmann’s doctrine of the atonement, that it altogether eliminates from the atoning work the reconciliation of the purposes of love with the demands of righteousness. Now it is indeed perfectly true, that the Servant of God cannot become the object of punishment, either as a servant of God or as an atoning Saviour; for as servant of God He is the beloved of God, and as atoning Saviour He undertakes a work which is well pleasing to God, and ordained in God’s eternal counsel. So that the wrath which pours out upon Him is not meant for Him as the righteous One who voluntarily offers up Himself but indirectly it relates to Him, so far as He has vicariously identified Himself with sinners, who are deserving of wrath. How could He have made expiation for sin, if He had simply subjected Himself to its cosmical effects, and not directly subjected Himself to that wrath which is the invariable divine correlative of human sin? And what other reason could there be for God’s not rescuing Him from this the bitterest cup of death, than the ethical impossibility of acknowledging the atonement as really made, without having left the representative of the guilty, who had presented Himself to Him as though guilty Himself, to taste of the punishment which they had deserved? It is true that vicarious expiation and paena vicaria are not coincident ideas. The punishment is but one element in the expiation, and it derives a peculiar character from the fact that one innocent person voluntarily submits to it in His own person. It does not stand in a thoroughly external relation of identity to that deserved by the many who are guilty; but the latter cannot be set aside without the atoning individual enduring an intensive equivalent to it, and that in such a manner, that this endurance is no less a self-cancelling of wrath on the part of God, than an absorption of wrath on the part of the Mediator; and in this central point of the atoning work, the voluntarily forgiving love of God and the voluntarily self-sacrificing love of the Mediator meet together, like hands stretched out grasp one another from the midst of a dark cloud. Hermann Schultz also maintains that the suffering, which was the consequence of sin and therefore punishment to the guilty, is borne by the Redeemer as suffering, without being punishment. But in this way the true mystery is wiped out of the heart of the atoning work; and this explanation is also at variance with the expression “the chastisement of our peace” in Isa 53:5, and the equally distinct statement in Isa 53:6, “He hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” It was the sin of all Israel, as the palindromically repeated kullanu emphatically declares, which pressed upon Him with such force when His atoning work was about to be decided, but is used to denote not only the transgression itself, but also the guilt incurred thereby, and the punishment to which it gives rise. All this great multitude of sins, and mass of guilt, and weight of punishment, came upon the Servant of Jehovah according to the appointment of the God of salvation, who is gracious in holiness. The third turn ends here. It was our sins that He bore, and for our salvation that God caused Him to suffer on our account.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
6. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. In order to impress more deeply on our hearts the benefit of the death of Christ, he shows how necessary is that healing which he formerly mentioned. If we do not perceive our wretchedness and poverty, we shall never know how desirable is that remedy which Christ has brought to us, or approach him with due ardor of affection. As soon as we know that we are ruined, then, aware of our wretchedness, we eagerly run to avail ourselves of the remedy, which otherwise would be held by us in no estimation. In order, therefore, that Christ may be appreciated by us, let every one consider and examine himself, so as to acknowledge that he is ruined till he is redeemed by Christ.
We see that here none are excepted, for the Prophet includes “all.” The whole human race would have perished, if Christ had not brought relief. He does not even except the Jews, whose hearts were puffed up with a false opinion of their own superiority, but condemns them indiscriminately, along with others, to destruction. By comparing them to sheep, he intends not to extenuate their guilt, as if little blame attached to them, but to state plainly that it belongs to Christ to gather from their wanderings those who resembled brute beasts.
Every one hath turned to his own way. By adding the term every one, he descends from a universal statement, in which he included all, to a special statement, that every individual may consider in his own mind if it be so; for a general statement produces less effect upon us than to know that it belongs to each of us in particular. Let “every one,” therefore, arouse his conscience, and present himself before the judgmentseat of God, that he may confess his wretchedness. Moreover, what is the nature of this “going astray” the Prophet states more plainly. It is, that every one hath followed the way which he had chosen for himself, that is, hath determined to live according to his own fancy; by which he means that there is only one way of living uprightly, and if any one “turn aside” from it, he can experience nothing but “going astray.”
He does not speak of works only, but of nature itself, which always leads us astray; for, if we could by natural instinct or by our own wisdom, bring ourselves back into the path, or guard ourselves against going astray, Christ would not be needed by us. Thus, in ourselves we all are undone unless Christ (Joh 8:36) sets us free; and the more we rely on our wisdom or industry, the more dreadfully and the more speedily do we draw down destruction on ourselves. And so the Prophet shows what we are before we are regenerated by Christ; for all are involved in the same condemnation. “There is none righteous, none that understandeth, none that seeketh God. All have turned aside, and have become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good; no, not one.” (Psa 14:3) All this is more fully explained by Paul. (Rom 3:10)
And Jehovah hath laid upon him. Here we have a beautiful contrast. In ourselves we are scattered; in Christ we are gathered together. By nature we go astray, and are driven headlong to destruction; in Christ we find the course by which we are conducted to the harbor of salvation. Our sins are a heavy load; but they are laid on Christ, by whom we are freed from the load. Thus, when we were ruined, and, being estranged from God, were hastening to hell, Christ took upon him the filthiness of our iniquities, in order to rescue us from everlasting destruction. This must refer exclusively to guilt and punishment; for he was free from sin. (Heb 4:15; 1Pe 2:22) Let every one, therefore, diligently consider his own iniquities, that he may have a true relish of that grace, and may obtain the benefit of the death of Christ.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
WANDERING SHEEP
Isa. 53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.
Comparisons in Scripture are frequently to be understood with great limitation: perhaps, out of many circumstances, one only is justly applicable to the case. Thus, when our Lord says, Behold, I come as a thief (Rev. 16:15)common sense will fix the resemblance to a single point, that He will come suddenly and unexpectedly.
So, when wandering sinners are compared to wandering sheep, we have a striking image of the danger of their state, and their inability to recover themselves. Sheep wandering without a shepherd are exposed, a defenceless and easy prey, to wild beasts and enemies, and liable to perish for want of pasture; for they are not able either to provide for themselves, or to find their way back to the place from whence they strayed. Whatever they suffer, they continue to wander, and if not sought out, will be lost. Thus far the allusion holds.
But sheep in such a situation are not the subjects of blame. They would be highly blameable, if we could suppose them rational creatures; if they had been under the eye of a careful and provident shepherd, had been capable of knowing him, had wilfully and obstinately renounced his protection and guidance, and voluntarily chosen to plunge themselves into danger, rather than to remain in it any longer.
Thus it is with man.
1. His wandering is rebellious. God made him upright, but he has sought out to himself many inventions (Ecc. 7:29).
2. God has appointed for mankind a safe and pleasant path, by walking in which they shall find rest to their souls; but they say, We will not walk therein (Jer. 6:16).
3. They were capable of knowing the consequences of going astray, were repeatedly warned of them, were fenced in by wise and good laws, which they presumptuously broke through.
4. When they had wandered from Him, they were again and again invited to return to Him, but they refused. They mocked His messengers, and preferred the misery they had brought upon themselves to the happiness of being under His direction and care.
Surely He emphatically deserves the name of the Good Shepherd, who freely laid down His life to restore sheep of this character.John Newton: Works, p 712.
We are like sheep,
1. In our proneness to err. No creature is more prone to wander and lose his way than a sheep without a shepherd. So are we apt to transgress the bounds whereby God has hedged up our way (Jer. 14:10). This has been manifest in every period of our life (Psa. 25:7; Psa. 19:12).
2. In our readiness to follow evil example. Sheep run after one another, and one straggler draweth away the whole flock; and so men take and do a great deal of hurt by sad examples. Sheep go by troops, and so do men follow the multitude to do evil; what is common passeth into our practice without observation (Eph. 2:2-3).
3. In our danger when we have gone astray. Straying sheep, when out of the pasture, are in harms way, and exposed to a thousand dangers. Oh, consider what it is for a poor solitary lamb to wander through the mountains, where, it may be, some hungry lion or ravenous wolf looketh for such a prey. Even so is it with straying men: their judgments sleepeth not; it may be in the next hour they will be delivered to destruction (Jer. 7:6-7; Rom. 3:16).
4. In our inability to return into the right way. Other animals can find their way home again, but a strayed sheep is irrecoverably lost without the shepherds diligence and care. I could wander by myself, but could not return by myself (Augustine).
5. In our need of a redeemer.
CONCLUSION.Has the Good Shepherd brought us back? Then,
1. Let us magnify His self-sacrificing and tender mercy, in following us, and bringing us into the pastures where there is at once safety and true satisfaction.
2. Let us remember for ourselves, and preach to others, that the sheep do not fare the better for going out of the pasture. In departing from God, we turn our back upon our own happiness. The broad and easy ways of sin are pleasing to flesh and blood, but destructive to the soul. Adam thought to find much happiness in forbidden fruit, to mend and better his condition, but was miserably disappointed. The prodigal did not fare well in the far country (Luk. 15:14).
3. Let us pray for grace that we may be watchful in the future. Alas, which of us has not sad need to make our own the Psalmists confession and prayer (Psa. 119:176)? Though our hearts be set to walk with God in the main, yet there is still in them a proneness to swerve from the right way, either by neglecting our duty to God, or by transgressing against His holy commandment; against this let us be on our guard, that we may not again grieve our Good Shepherd!Thomas Manton, D.D.: Complete Works, vol. iii. pp. 300303.
We wander, I. Like sheep, without reasonthe pasture was rich, the shepherd kind, the food scarce.
II. Like sheep, aimlessly. The lion prowls for food, the hart in search of water, the sheep without aim.
III. Like sheep, persistently, despising the coming shades of evening, the distant bleatings of the abandoned flock, the loss of fleece and smarting wounds.
IV. Like sheep in perildefenceless, surrounded by dangers and foes.
V. Like sheepsought; the Good Shepherd calls to us, Return.Stems and Twigs, second series, pp. 267.
It is acknowledged here by the person speaking, that all had, like sheep, broken the hedge of Gods law, forsaken their good and ever blessed Shepherd, and wandered into paths perilous and pernicious. We are not likened to one of the more noble and intelligent animals, but to a silly sheep. All sin is folly, all sinners are fools. You will observe that the creature selected for comparison is one that cannot live without care and attention. There is no such thing as a wild sheep. The creatures happiness, its safety, and very existence, all depend upon its being under a nurture and care far above its own. Yet for all that the sheep strays from the shepherd. If there be but one gap in the hedge, the sheep will find it out. If there be but one possibility out of five hundred that by any means the flock shall wander, one of the flock will be quite certain to discover that possibility, and all its companions will avail themselves of it. So is it with man. He is quick of understanding for evil things. But that very creature which is so quickwitted to wander is the least likely of all animals to return. And such is manwise to do evil, but foolish towards that which is good. With a hundred eyes, like Argus, he searches out opportunities for sinning; but, like Bartimeus, he is stone blind as to repentance and return to God.
The sheep goes astray ungratefully. It owes everything to the shepherd, and yet forsakes the hand that feeds it and heals its diseases. The sheep goes astray repeatedly. If restored to-day, it may not stray to-day, if it cannot; but it will to-morrow, if it can. The sheep wanders further and further, from bad to worse. There is no limit to its wandering except its weakness. See ye not your own selves as in a mirror?C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 925.
DIVERSITY AND INDIVIDUALITY IN TRANSGRESSION
Isa. 53:6. We have turned every one to his own way.
I. A NOTICEABLE FACT.
We all resemble each other, in that we all like sheep have gone astray; but we all differ from each other, more or less, in the manner of our departure from God. There are many ways of sinning; though there be one path to heaven, there are many roads to hell. Each man chooses his own road and the choices vary for several reasons:
1. Because each mind is more or less individually active. While in an unrenewed condition, it is active in devising means for its own gratification (Psa. 64:6).
2. Because of the diversity of our constitutions. We see plainly that the body hath some indirect influence on the mind, and that the condition of the mind follows the constitution of the body. Moreover, Satan adapts his temptation according to what he perceives to be our constitutional tendencies (H. E. I. 4680).
3. Because of the variety of our businesses and position in the world. Many men are engaged in ways of sin because they best suit with their employments; it is the sin of their calling, as vainglory in a minister (1Ti. 3:6). So worldliness suits a man of business, or deceitfulness in his trade. Callings and businesses have their several corruptions, and into these, through the wickedness of their hearts, men slide.
4. Because of the differences in our education. Their education in the home as well as in school!
5. Because of the differences in the company into which we are drawn, and of the examples that are thus set before us. Men learn from those with whom they converse. Hence come national sins, partly, as they run in the blood, but more by way of example. Of the German we learn drunkenness and gluttony; of the French wantonness, &c. Hence also come individual sins. Hence the importance of shunning the society of the evil, and consorting only with the godly (H. E. I. 21232148, 4693, 4700).
II. PRACTICAL USES TO BE MADE OF THIS FACT.
1. Do not be too ready to bless yourselves, merely because the sins of others do not break out upon you; do not flatter yourselves because you do not run into the same sins that others do. The devil may take you in another snare that suiteth more with your temper and condition of life. Some are sensual, some vainglorious, some worldly, &c.; many meet in hell that do not go thither the same way. A man may not be as other men, and yet he may not be as he should be (Luk. 18:11). For many reasons men made light of the invitation to the marriage feast (Mat. 22:5), but each excuse ruined. One hath business to keep him from Christ, another pleasures, another the pomps and vanities of the present world, another his superstitious observances; but each of these things obstructs the power of the truth, and the receiving of Christ into the soul. Thou hatest this or that public blemish, but what are thy faults? (Joh. 8:7.) Do not rashly censure others, and descant on their faults; look within!
2. Stop your way of sinning; pluck out thy right eye, cut off thy right hand (Mat. 5:29-30). Your trial lieth there, as Abraham was tried in the call to offer up his Isaac; and David voucheth it as a mark of his sincerity (Psa. 18:23).
3. As we look back upon our past, and humble ourselves before God, let us penitently confess, not only the sinfulness of our nature, which we have in common with all men, but also the personal transgressions by which individually we have grieved Him.
4. As to our future, there are two things we must do.
(1.) We must walk circumspectly. We must look carefully at and around our way, and make sure that it is also the way of God (Pro. 4:26-27; Pro. 14:12); remembering that while there are many evil paths, there is but one right one. To save us from mistake, four waymarks have been mercifully given us. First, at the entrance of the way which leads to life everlasting there is a strait gateso strait that we can enter it only by putting off all our sins, and giving ourselves entirely to the Lord. Secondly, it is a narrow way, and sometimes a very rugged way, so that much self-denial is needed to enable us to continue in it. Thirdly, it is a way in which you have little company (Mat. 7:14). Fourthly, it is a way in which, if we look carefully, we can discern Christs footsteps (1Pe. 2:21).
(2.) We must walk prayerfully, day by day asking God to keep us in His way. It is pleasanter the further it is pursued, and it conducts to a glorious resting place (Pro. 3:17).Thomas Manton, D.D.: Works, vol. iii. pp. 304308.
GUILT CONFESSED, MERCY ACKNOWLEDGED
Isa. 53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray, &c.
Our text expresses the sentiment of those, and of those only, who are acquainted with the misery of our fallen state, feel their own concern in it, and approve of the method which God has provided for their deliverance and recovery. It contains
I. A CONFESSION OF GUILT AND WRETCHEDNESS. All we way.
1. It is a sufficient proof of our depravity, that we prefer our own ways to the Lords; nor can He inflict a heavier judgment upon us in this life, than to give us up entirely to the way of our own hearts.
2. There is only one right way, but a thousand ways of being wrong. If you are not following Christ, you are wandering from God. The profane and the self-righteous, the open sinner and the hypocrite, the lover of pleasure and the lover of gold, the formal Papist and the formal Protestant, though they seem to travel different roads, though they pity or censure each other, will meet at last (unless the grace of God prevent) in the same state of final and hopeless misery. Whatever character you may bear amongst men, if you have not faith and holiness, you certainly are not in the way of life (Mar. 16:16; Heb. 12:14).
3. As wandering sheep are liable to innumerable dangers which they can neither see nor prevent, such is our condition, until, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are stopped, and turned, and brought into the fold of the Good Shepherd.
II. AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MERCY.
Where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded. Man sinned, and Messiah suffered. The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. On what grounds! On the ground of His voluntary substitution for sinners, as their covenant head and representative (H. E. I. 396).John Newton: Complete Works, pp. 712, 713.
In few words, this text contains the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It consists of lamentation and consolation.
I. LAMENTATION.
It is a lamentation over human sinfulness. All we way. Here is sinfulness
1. In its nature. It is a departure from God. It is transgression of the law which defines the boundaries within which Gods responsible creatures should keep. If they overleap or break them down, if they trespass into the territories beyond, they become sinners. Man has strayed from God.
2. In its reality. It is no ideal thing. It has passed into history. It is the sternest of living facts. From the fatal hour when the first transgression was committed, the holy God has witnessed the perpetration of sins beyond the power of any intellect other than His own to enumerate or estimate. But He numbers and estimates them with unerring accuracy.
3. In its universality. There are no exceptions. All. The whole flock has followed the leader. The manner in which this is to be accounted for may be disputable, may be mysterious. The fact is neither. Scripture, history, observation, experience unite in the testimony that, with the exception of the incarnate Son of God, all have sinned.
4. In its variety. It does not run onwards in a straight line, as the sinfulness which appears in action would if it were merely imitation of example. The various modes of sin show that it results from a radical tendency to sin in the present state of human nature. According to peculiarities of circumstances, taste, temperament, men transgress. Ten thousand paths of sin strike off in as many directions, each possessing its peculiar attraction to different characters and dispositions. A lamentable ingenuity is displayed in the invention of various ways in which God may be sinned against.
5. In its degrees. The universality predicted of it does not imply that every one is equally sinful. Every sheep of the flock has wandered from the fold, some further than others. But let not this be made a refuge from the accusations of conscience. Because some one has committed fewer crimes than his neighbour, he persuades himself that his case calls for no alarm. He imagines that because wickedness is universal, it has overgrown the power of God to punish it; that there is something in the crowd which lessens the wretchedness of the individual; that the sin and misery of others will be greater than his own. He deems it impossible for himself to fall over the precipice, because it is not so near the point of departure as the pit which opens to engulph another who has chosen a different and swifter road to ruin. One transgression constitutes a sinner. Perhaps you underrate your own transgressions and overrate those of others. The degrees of guilt God alone understands. He sees and knows the hearts wickedness.
All, then, have gone astray. All are guilty. All need mercy. This is the lamentation of the text. But it contains also
II. CONSOLATION.
The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It is found in the substitution of the suffering Saviour. This truth may be
1. Explained. Our iniquities have been laid on Christ the Son of God. No inferior person could bear such a load. The story of Jesus is the story of Him who has placed Himself, although innocent, in the sinners position before the law. His death was instead of the death the sinner deserved.
2. Confirmed. Those who by wicked hands crucified Him were the instruments by whom the determinate counsel of God was carried out. The Lord appointed Him. He prepared the way by type, and prophecy, and history. He has accepted the atoning sacrifice. He declared it openly by the resurrection from the dead. He was thus proclaimed in the preaching of apostles (2Co. 5:21).
3. Applied. Is this consolation for you? Are you drinking life from this fountain? Have you, as a penitent sinner, applied for this mercy? Is Jesus your trust? Then your debt is paid. You owe it no longer. What you owe is gratitude and love to Jesus. Dismiss distress and fear. Enter into the liberty which shows itself in loving services.J. Rawlinson.
SIN LAID ON JESUS
Isa. 53:6. 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.
The verse opens with a confession of sin common to all the persons intended in the verse. The confession is also special and particular. It is the mark of genuine repentance that while it naturally associates itself with other penitents, it also feels that it must take up a position of loneliness. We have turned every one to his own way is a confession importing that each man had sinned against light peculiar to himself, or sinned with an aggravation which he at least could not perceive in his fellow. It is very unreserved. There is not a single syllable by way of excuse; there is not a word to detract from the force of the confession. It is moreover singularly thoughtful, for thoughtless persons do not use a metaphor so appropriate as the text: All we like sheep have gone astraylike a creature cared for, but not capable of grateful attachment to the hand that cares for it; like a creature wise enough to find the gap in the hedge by which to escape, but so silly as to have no propensity or desire to return to the place from which it had perversely wandered; like sheep habitually, constantly, wilfully, foolishly, without power to return, we have gone astray. I wish that all our confessions of sin showed a like thoughtfulness, for to use words of general confession without our soul entering into them may be but a repentance that needeth to be repented of, an insult and mockery to high Heaven vented in that very place where there ought to have been the greatest possible tenderness and holy fear.
I. Let us consider the text by way of exposition.
1. It may be well to give the marginal translation of the text, Jehovah hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all. The first thought that demands notice is the meeting of sin. Sin I may compare to the rays of some evil sun. Sin was scattered throughout this world as abundantly as light, and Christ is made to suffer the full effect of the baleful rays which stream from the sun of sin. God as it were holds up a burning glass, and concentrates all the scattered rays in a focus upon Christ. That seems to be the thought of the text, The Lord hath focused upon Him the iniquity of us all. That which was scattered abroad everywhere is here brought into terrible concentration; upon the devoted head of our blessed Lord all the sin of His people was made to meet. [1632]
[1632] Before a great storm when the sky is growing black and the wind is beginning to howl, you have seen the clouds hurrying from almost every point of the compass as though the great day of battle were come, and all the dread artillery of God were hurrying to the field. In the centre of the whirlwind and the storm, when the lightnings threaten to set all heaven on a blaze, and the black clouds fold on fold labour to conceal the light of day, you have a very graphic metaphor of the meeting of all sin upon the person of Christ; the sin of the ages past and the sin of the ages to come, the sins of those of the elect who were in heathendom, and of those who were in Jewry; the sin of the young and of the old, sin original and sin actual, all made to meet, all the black clouds concentrated and brought together into one great tempest, that it might rush in one tremendous tornado upon the person of the great Redeemer and substitute. As when a thousand streamlets dash down the mountain side in the day of rain, and all meet in one deep swollen lake; that lake the Saviours heart, those gushing torrents, the sins of us all who are here described as making a full confession of our sins. Or, to take a metaphor not from nature but from commerce, suppose the debts of a great number of persons to be all gathered up, the scattered bonds and bills that are to be honoured or dishonoured on such and such a day, and all these laid upon one person who undertakes the responsibility of meeting every one of them without a single assistant; such was the condition of the Saviour; the Lord made to meet on Him the debts of all His people, so that He became responsible for all the obligations of every one of those whom His Father had given Him, whatsoever their debts might be. Or if these metaphors do not suffice to set forth the meaning, take the text in our own version, The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all; put upon Him, as a burden is laid upon a mans back, all the burdens of all His people; put upon His head, as the high priest of old laid upon the scape-goat, all the sin of the beloved ones that He might bear them in His own person. The two translations are perfectly consistent; all sins are made to meet, and then having met together and been tied up in one crushing load the whole burden is laid upon Him.Spurgeon.
The expression laid on Him is rendered in the margin hath made to meet on Him, and allusion is supposed to be made to the scape-goat (Lev. 16:8-14). This ceremony was typical of the Great Sinbearer; but it is only a part of Christs atoning work, the other part being represented by the other goat which was slain in sacrifice. The scape-goat alone is not an adequate representation. Besides, the verb has a stronger meaning than the laying of hands on the head. It conveys the idea of violent collisionto strike, push, urge. Jehovah hath made to strike or rush upon Him the iniquity of us all. Our sin was the procuring cause of Christs death, and actually brought it about. He was appointed to occupy the place of sinners, and to bear the punishment which they had incurred, and which, but for His enduring it, they must have suffered in their own persons.
Other interpreters see a different figure in this clause. The verse, they think, would be disjointed and broken, unless the image introduced at the beginning be regarded as underlying the whole. As mans transgression is exhibited as a strayed flock, the atonement made for them would naturally be represented as the means employed to bring them back to the fold, or to avert the evils to which they are exposed. Our iniquity is like a band of ravening wolves, but Jehovah appoints His Son to come in between us and our destroyers. This is the very picture which Jesus Himself draws (Joh. 10:11). But we cannot understand the passage in this light, without doing violence to the language of the prophet. Were the figure carried out in the last clause, we should have some such statement as that of Peter (1Pe. 2:25). We, therefore, take the words in their literal sense. The statement, no doubt, is obscure, and could not be fully comprehended until its fulfilment; but, viewed in the light of Gethsemane and Calvary, it has a fulness of meaning and a completeness of realisation. We must remember that the prophet views the death of Christ as just over; all His agonies are vividly before him, and he says, The Lord hath caused the iniquity of us all to strike upon Him. The standpoint of the prophet, from which he surveys his subject, is placed between the humiliation and the exaltation of our Lord, when He lay in Josephs tomb. From that point he looks back on the sufferings, and forward to the triumphs and glories of the Redeemer.William Guthrie, M.A.
2. Sin was made to meet upon the suffering person of the innocent substitute. I have said the suffering person, because the connection of the text requires it (Isa. 53:5). The Lord Jesus would have been incapable of receiving the sin of all His people as their substitute, had He been Himself a sinner; but He was the spotless Lamb of God, and therefore He was on all accounts capable of standing in the room, place, and stead of sinful men. The doctrine of the text is, that Christ did stand in such a position as to take upon Himself the iniquity of all His people, remaining still Himself innocent; having no personal sin, being incapable of any, but yet taking the sin of others upon Himself. Not only was Christ treated as if He had been guilty, but the very sin itself was, I know not how, laid upon His head (2Co. 5:21). Is it not written, He shall bear, not merely the punishment of their sin, nor the imputation of their sin, but He shall bear their iniquities? Our sin is laid on Jesus in even a deeper and truer sense than is expressed by the term imputation.
3. It has been asked, Was it just that sin should thus be laid upon Christ? Our reply is fourfold. We believe it was rightly so,
(1.) Because it was the act of Him who must do right, for the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
(2.) Christ voluntarily took this sin upon Himself (Joh. 10:18; H. E. I. 913).
(3.) There was a relationship between our Lord and His people, which is too often forgotten, but which rendered it natural that He should bear the sin of His people. Why does the text speak of our sinning like sheep? I think it is because it would call to our recollection that Christ is our Shepherd. It is not that Christ took upon Himself the sins of strangers. Remember that there always was a union of a most mysterious and intimate kind between those who sinned and the Christ who suffered. The Lord Jesus stood in the relationship of a married husband unto His Church, and it was not, therefore, a strange thing that He should bear her burdens.
(4.) This plan of salvation is precisely similar to the method of our ruin. How did we fall? Not by any one of us actually ruining himself. Our own sin is the ground of ultimate punishment, but the ground of our original fall lay in another. If we grant the fall,and we must grant the fact, however we may dislike the principle,we cannot think it unjust that God should give us a plan of salvation based upon the same principle of federal headship.
4. Sin lying upon Christ brought upon Him all the consequences connected with it. [1635] God cannot look where there is sin with any pleasure, and though, as far as Jesus is personally concerned, He is the Fathers beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, it was not possible that He should enjoy the light of His Fathers presence while He was made sin for us; consequently He went through a horror of great darkness, the root and source of which was the withdrawing of the conscious enjoyment of His Fathers presence. More than that, not only was light withdrawn, but positive sorrow was inflicted. God must punish sin [1638] and though the sin was not Christs by His actually doing it, yet it was laid upon Him, and therefore He was made a curse for us.
[1635] For a more careful and discriminating statement of this point, see the outline by Dr. Alexander, p. 506.
[1638] 1. His attribute of justice, which is as undoubtedly a part of His glory as His attribute of love, required that sin should be punished. 2. As God had been pleased to make a moral universe to be governed by laws, there would be an end of all government if the breaking of law involved no penalty whatever. 3. Inasmuch as there is sin in the world, it is the highest benevolence to do all that can be done to restrain the horrible pest. It would be far from benevolent for our government to throw wide the doors of all the jails, to abolish the office of the judge, to suffer every thief and every offender of every kind to go unpunished; instead of mercy it would be cruelty; it might be mercy to the offending, but it would be intolerable injustice towards the upright and inoffensive. Gods very benevolence demands that the detestable rebellion of sin against. His supreme authority should be put down with a firm hand, that men may not flatter themselves that they can do evil and yet go unpunished. The necessities of moral government require that sin must be punished.Spurgeon.
What were the pangs which Christ endured? I cannot tell you. You have read the story of His crucifixion. That is only the shell, but the inward kernel who shall describe? His griefs are worthy to be described according to the Greek Liturgy as unknown sufferings. The height and depth, the length and breadth of what Jesus Christ endured nor heart can guess, nor tongue can tell, nor can imagination frame; God only knows the griefs to which the Son of God was put when the Lord made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all (H. E. I. 915). To crown all there came death itself. Death is the punishment for sin, and whatever it may mean, whatever over and beyond natural death was intended in the sentence, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, Christ felt. Death went through and through Him, until He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. He became obedient to death, even to the death of the cross.
II. Now consecrate a few moments to hallowed contemplation. Think,
1. Of the astounding mass of sin that must have been laid on Christ (Joh. 1:29; 1Jn. 2:2). All the sins against light and knowledge, sins against law and gospel, week-day sins, Sabbath sins, hand sins, lip sins, heart sins, sins against the Father, sins against the Son, sins against the Holy Ghost, sins of all shapes, all laid upon Him!
2. The amazing love of Jesus, which brought Him to do all this (Rom. 5:6-8. H. E. I. 920, 946949).
3. The matchless security which this plan of salvation offers. I do not see in what point that man is vulnerable who can feel and know that Christ has borne his sin. I look at the attributes of God, and though to me, as a sinner, they all seem bristling as with sharp points, thrusting themselves upon me; yet when I know that Jesus died for me, and did literally take my sin, what fear I the attributes of God? (H. E. I. 2286). There is justice, sharp and bright, like a lance; but justice is my friend. If God be just, He cannot punish me for sin for which Jesus has offered satisfaction. As long as there is justice in the heart of Deity, it cannot be that a soul justly claiming Christ as his substitute can himself be punished. As for mercy, love, truth, honour, everything matchless, Godlike, and divine about Deity, I say of all these, You are my friends; you are all guarantees that since Jesus died for me I cannot die. How grandly does the apostle put it! (Rom. 8:33-34).
4. What, then, are the claims of Jesus Christ upon you and upon me? Did our blessed Lord take your sin, my brethren, and suffer all its terrific consequences for you, so that you are delivered? By His blood and wounds, by His death, and by the love that made Him die, I conjure you treat Him as He should be treated! You will tell me that you have obeyed His precepts. I am glad to hear it. But if you can say this, I am not content; it does not seem to me that with such a leader as Christ mere obedience should be all. Napoleon singularly enough had power to get the hearts of men twisted and twined about him; when he was in his wars there were many of his captains and even of his private soldiers who not only marched with the quick obedience of a soldier wherever they were bidden, but who felt an enthusiasm for him. Have you never heard of him who threw himself in the way of the shot to receive it in his bosom to save the Emperor? No obedience, no law could have required that, of him, but enthusiastic love moved him to it; and it is such enthusiasm that my Master deserves in the very highest degree from us.C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 694.
Our faith is retrospective as Isaiahs was anticipatory; faith annihilates the past, and the believer stands in the presence of an actual cross. A stupendous fact is that to which our faith turns. Satan tried to lay iniquity on Christ, and failed. Having met Satan and the powers of evil in struggle after struggle, He yet challenged blame with absolute assurance (Joh. 8:46). Wicked men strove to lay iniquity on Christ. Judas (Mat. 26:4), Pilate (Mat. 22:21). The Church of Jerusalem sought to lay iniquity on Him as guilty of impiety. But he was most devout. He received the sign of the covenant in circumcision, and feast days, &c., were observed by Him with conscientious devotion and carefulness. All these many powers were foiled in attaching sin to the person or character of Jesus Christ. What, then, means the darkness that gathers around the cross? The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. That which sinners failed to do, God in sovereignty that day accomplished, and this sinless Man has become the substitute for the race (2Co. 5:21).
I. THE MEETING-PLACE OF ALL SIN IS THE CROSS OF CHRIST. In the margin, our text is rendered, Hath made the iniquity of us all to meet on Him.
II. THE MEETING-PLACE OF SIN IS THE MERCY-SEAT FOR ALL SINNERS.
1. How gracious is the assurance!
2. To rest in this assurance is to make sure of our salvation.
3. This should render our worship grateful.
CONCLUSION.The imperative claim Christ has upon the soul. If you will not consent that your iniquites shall meet on Christ, bear them you must yourself.Stephen H. Tyng, jr., D.D.: Study and Homilitic Monthly, new series, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.
CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS
Isa. 53:6. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
1Pe. 2:24. Who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree.
These texts are not unusual declarations of Scripture, but are of a very numerous class. The doctrine which they set before us is woven into the very texture of Christianity, and furnishes the great resting-place of faith. And, what is especially proper to be observed this day, it is the truth of all others which we are coming to celebrate at the holy table. Yet it has been so altered, and diminished, and shorn of its genuine dignity and proportions, that we often need to reexamine its meaning, and reassert the foundations of our faith. In our own day there is a manifest tendency to explain away its import, and to concede undue force to the objections of opponents. These objections have in many instances been aimed at opinions charged upon us, which we do not hold; at exaggerations, perversions, and even caricatures of the truth: and all the changes have been rung on the terms imputation, satisfaction, and substitution, as if these had been found chargeable with inherent injustice or absurdity. The very first thing, therefore, which we should attempt, is to clear away certain mists which have been conjured up around the Scriptural statement.
I. WHAT WE DO NOT MEAN BY CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS.
1. When we assert that Christ bore our sins, we do not mean that He was a sinner. He is, by way of eminence, Jesus Christ the righteous. Only as such could He ever have cleared away our guilt. He bore our sins, without bearing their power or their pollution. Of their vileness and lawlessness His soul had no experience.
2. We do not mean that He suffered, pain of conscience. Remorse is the necessary consequence of sin, and part of its punishment. But He who knew no sin, could know no repentance, no contrition, no personal regrets, no anguish of guilty self-accusation. Even in Gethsemane, when His soul was exceeding sorrowful, and on the cross, when He pierced heaven with His imploring cry, He could no more suffer compunction of conscience, than He could speak falsehood, or blaspheme.
3. We do not mean that Christ was at any time personally displeasing to God. He bore the wrath of God, but He bore it representatively. He never was more pleasing to God, He never was more righteous, He never was more acceptable and lovely, He never was more intensely and immeasurably fulfilling the will of God, than when He cried, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani! If this exclamation has a difficulty, it is a difficulty for the adversaries of substitution: let them explain it. For our part, we hold it to be an awfully mysterious expression of the truth, that at that moment of darkness and earthquake, Jesus Christ was so involved in the consequences of our sin, as to sink under the sense of agony, and to feel the absence of all consoling divine influence. But while angels stooped to look into these things, they might have heard from the invisible throne the words of infinite complacency: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased! The all-holy Jehovah cannot hate holiness, and could not hate His only-begotten Son, in the exercise of the sublimest holiness which the universe has known.
4. We do not mean that there was any transfer of personal character. The chief strength of our opposers lies in this fallacy. They charge us with maintaining a transfer of personal attributes, and moral qualities, and easily triumph over the phantom which they have raised. We, as well they, hold such a transfer to be impossible and absurd: and (be it declared for the thousandth time) it is no such thing which we mean by the imputation of sins to Christ. Our sins must ever remain our sins, and the sins of no one else, as a matter of fact, as a historical verity, as a personal transaction. As deeds, and as connected with sinful motives and desires, they attach to our own persons, and are to be repented of, and eternally remembered by us as our own. And, on the other hand, Christs acts and sufferings, as matter of fact and history, are and cannot but for ever be, His own acts and sufferings, and those of no other being in the universe. There is no confounding of personality, nor has such a thing ever been maintained by our theologians, though assiduously and pertinaciously charged, during at least two centuries. We hold indeed an intimate and blessed union between the head and the members; we hold that our sins were visited on Him, and that His righteousness enures to our benefit, but we repudiate all such commingling of personality as this imagined tenet would convey.
II. WHAT WE DO MEAN WHEN WE ASSERT THAT CHRIST BORE OUR SINS.
1. The Lord Jesus Christ bore our nature. It was the all-essential preliminary to His whole work. To be our Head, the Word was made flesh.
2. Christ actually endured pain, It was in this way only that He could bear our sins.
3. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered for our sins. It is one of those truths which lie on the very surface of the Scripture, and which must be twisted into violent metaphor, before it can be robbed of its meaning. To give but a few instancesIsa. 53:4-5; Rom. 5:6; Rom. 5:8; 1Co. 15:3; 1Th. 5:10; 1Pe. 2:21; 1Pe. 3:18; 1Pe. 4:1.
They declare, first, that Christs sufferings were for us, and secondly, that they were for our sins. A friend, a father, a husband, a sister, may suffer, and yet not for us; or these beloved ones may suffer for us, and yet not for our sins. But the suffering of Jesus stands out with this striking peculiarity, that it is always represented as being, not only for our sakes, but for our sins.
4. Christ bore our sins, in this sense, that He bore the penalty of our sins. This is the primary, obvious, and necessary meaning of the words. Christ died for us, that is, died in our stead.
But here the adversary rejoins, that penalty must always attach to the person; that he who has sinned must be punished; and that the suffering of the innocent cannot benefit the guilty. If this were true, it would at once cut off all our hopes, and put an end to all proper atonement. But it is not true. The Church in all ages has held first, that sin for its own sake deserves the wrath and curse of God; and secondly, that to redeem us from the law, God sent His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who in His own person fulfilled those demands, and endured that curse in our stead. And this is so far from violating any of our natural principles of justice, that it is of all things most suited to relieve and pacify the afflicted conscience.
The Scriptures represent the penalty as a debt, which our Surety pays for us (H. E. I. 383). We are familiar with substitution of this kind in civil cases, which would not be true, if such commutation were in itself repugnant to the common sense of justice among mankind. Ancient history has striking instances of similar substitution in criminal and capital cases. And the reason why this is not admitted in such cases, under modern jurisdiction, is not any injustice in the principle. The case, we admit, must be a peculiar one in which such a substitution can take place; and if ever there was a case thus peculiar, in which the innocent might suffer for the guilty, it is surely this. To make such suffering allowable, the innocent person must be one who has lordship and dominion over his own life; which men in common life have not; but which the Son of God had: I lay it down of Myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. Again, the innocent surety must assume the place and penalty of his own free will: which was eminently and gloriously true of the Lord Jesus. Again, he must be able to answer all the demands of the law, for those whom he represented. Again, he must be able to restore himself from death: no mere man could do this, and therefore if such a substitution were to take place in a capital instance, the state would lose a good citizen. In the substitution, then, of this willing, glorious, triumphant Surety, there is no injustice, but infinite grace.
They object to us that it is incredible that the holy and just God should charge upon Christ the sins of others, and thus make the innocent suffer in the place of the guilty. But let them answer, Is it more credible, or more equitable, that the holy and just God should subject the innocent Redeemer to such sufferings, without any such imputation? Christ suffered and died. This is the admitted fact. Now, did He suffer as a surety for the sinner, taking his place? or did He suffer, without being a surety, as an innocent being, by a mere arbitrary infliction? The difficulty appears to be altogether with the objectors to atonement. [1641]
[1641] All the ancient sacrifices wrote in letters of blood the word Substitution. For what, after all, is the idea of sacrifice but the innocent dying for the guilty? It was an emblem which the feeblest mind might comprehend. There, on the altar, is a spotless lambthe emblem of innocence. Here am I, a polluted sinner. I lay my right hand on the unblemished victim, and straightway it becomes in type a sinner. I should have diedbut now the victim dies: it dies for meit dies in my place. It was thus the way was prepared for the Lamb of God, that taketh away thesinof the world. It is not here and there, but everywhere, that the Bible thus represents the method of our salvation (Isa. 53:5-6; Isa. 53:10-12; Gal. 3:13; 2Co. 5:21). This doctrine is taught in expressions which cannot be mistaken by an unbiassed mind. And we never find unsophisticated persons troubled with those difficulties which have made this doctrine a stumbling-block to Jews and philosophers. There is something intelligible and lovely in Christs coming into our place and dying for us. Especially when a soul is overwhelmed with a sense of sin and dread of eternal wrath, the truth is the only thing which can give life.Alexander.
5. Christ so bore our sins, as to remove from us all their penal consequences, and secure our salvation. By that suffering He exhausted the penalty and discharged the debt. He who believes, in the very moment of believing, becomes one with Christ, and graciously entitled to all that Christ has purchased for His people. The death of Christ is not merely a transaction which makes our pardon possible, contingent, or even probable: it secures it. It breaks all the penal force of the law. Whatever chastisements, even death itself, may henceforth befall the believer, none of them can befall him in the character of punishment. The law is as fully and eternally at peace with a justified sinner, as though he had never sinned. And this is the glad news which first of all brings peace to the soul of a convinced penitent. He beholds the Cross, and sees how God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly that believeth in Jesus.
CONCLUSION.
1. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we should learn to look on sin with shame and horror. How intense must that evil be which demands such a sacrifice!
2. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we should see in Him the object of saving faith. In all the universe of nature and gracethis is the point for the eye of a convinced sinner.
3. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we have before us the greatest of all motives to personal holiness. When temptation comes in a like tide, cast your eyes to the Cross (H. E. I. 4589, 4590).J. W. Alexander, D.D.: The Preachers Monthly, vol. iii. pp. 222226.
DIVINE LOVE IN CHRISTS PASSION
Isa. 53:6. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, said the Lord to His people. And if we could know the thoughts He thinks towards us, we should hardly tell how to admire sufficiently His love for us, or to humble ourselves enough for our baseness towards Him.
The love which God hath for us is manifested in our creation, and in His continual care over us ever since we were born. But in a measure far beyond that in all other instances of His love, it is displayed in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. But, unhappily, after all that is said of the redeeming love of God, with all the proofs of it in the wonderful things done for our salvation, many have little notion of the Divine kindness exercised in this great and glorious work. Were it better understood, more hearts would be melted into sorrowful contrition for sin, and thence brought to faith and holiness, and so prepared for the kingdom of God.
Let us consider, then, how awful is the accumulated weight of sin laid upon Jesusthe iniquities of us all, of the entire human race! (1Jn. 2:2). Oh, how can we calculate the weight of this burden? how can we number and measure the sins of the whole world? how can we estimate the punishment due to them which our Saviour endured in our stead? The sins that began with the sins of Eve and Adam, and have been increasing in all times and climes ever since, how appalling their number! When we call to mind that one sin was sufficient, in the judgment of the righteous God, to condemn men to sorrow and death, we wonder not that the contemplation of the burden that awaited our Saviour in atoning for the iniquities of us all laid Him prostrate in Gethsemane, caused Him to sweat as it were great drops of blood, and to pray that if it were possible that cup might pass from Him. No man with his present confined faculties can form an adequate notion of the weight of affliction which Christ endured, when He stood in the place of a world of sinners. All we can say is, that it was something which was equivalent, in the scales of Divine justice, to the eternal punishment due to the sins of all mankind (1Pe. 2:24; Rom. 3:26). After all the notions I can form of the sufferings of Jesus, all that I can do as a thinker is to stand with awful astonishment contemplating the cross, overwhelmed with thoughts of the unseen and unknown sufferings of my Redeemer.
I. Now, our apprehension of the love of Jesus must run parallel with our apprehension of His sufferings. The more He had to endure, the greater effort of love must have been required to urge Him to undergo it. If a man, seeing another whom he loved condemned to a cruel death, were to go and suffer in his place, we should stand amazed at such a man, and say that he was possessed of an extraordinary measure of charity. How much more, if he were to endure for him the everlasting sufferings of hell! But, how incomprehensibly great would his charity appear, if he could call down upon himself sufferings equivalent to the eternal sufferings of the whole race of mankind! Yet when we contemplate Jesus on the cross, we see one having thus acted. How infinitely great, how stupendous, this makes the love of Christ appear!
The manner in which He suffered also manifests His love for us. With all the mighty love with which He was urged through His sufferings, with all the strength of firmness and resolution with which He endured to the end, with all the immeasurable greatness of His passion, and the vast amount of good He was accomplishing, still there was no vain display of His love or of His endurance, no boast of the great things He was effecting. Not a word did He utter of what He was enduring, or what He was purchasing for us. Humble and quiet lowliness and gentle meekness were the dispositions manifested in Him, through all that He did and suffered for us (Isa. 53:7). Now, it is always true love that is the secret of lowly suffering for others. Who can see lowly sorrow, and humble patience and resignation in bitter affliction, especially when it is endured for the benefit of others, without a feeling of love towards the charitable sufferer? Must not that which we see manifested in Jesus attract us to Him, and excite in our hearts admiring love? (P. D. 2340, 2341).
II. In proportion to the sorrow and pain which were laid upon the Son of God, is the measure of the Fathers love in giving Him up to such suffering abasement for us. Here also we see that the Divine love is beyond all bound or measure of ours. If the sufferings and abasements of the Son were infinitely, immeasurably great, the love of the Father, who gave Him up to the pain and humiliation of the cross, must be incomprehensible also. Oh, where is our heart, that we are so little affected with Gods redeeming love; that our return for it is ingratitude and sin? But our very worthlessness magnifies the Divine love. Had it been for unhappy creatures in misery, but not in fault, that God gave His beloved Son, had it been even for those who would one and all prize, highly value, and abound in love for what was done for them, still the love of God in this unspeakable gift would have been immeasurably great; but how incomprehensibly vast does it appear, when we consider how offensive in Gods sight sin has made mankind, how great a portion of mankind never take any notice at all of the Divine love in the great redemption, and how slow the best of us are to see and be grateful for the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness to us through Christ Jesus! We feel that it rises above all speech or thought of ours (Rom. 5:7-8. H. E. I. 23182337. P. D. 1468, 2345).R. L. Cotton, M.A.: The Way of Salvation, pp. 7891.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(6) All we like sheep have gone astray . . .The confession of repentant Israel (Psa. 119:176), of repentant humanity (1Pe. 2:25), was also the thought present to the mind of the Servant, as in Mat. 9:36; Joh. 10:11.
Hath laid on him.Better, as in the margin, hath made to light on him. The words express the fact, but do not explain the mystery, of the substitutive satisfaction. The two sides of that mystery are stated in the form of a seeming paradox. God does not punish the righteous with the wicked (Gen. 18:25). He accepts the suffering of the righteous for the wicked (Mar. 10:45).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. The sufferings described in Isa 53:5 were those endured by Jehovah’s innocent and righteous Servant, such as he took on himself; and this voluntary endurance in our stead became the source of our healing. The confession still is, He actually suffered. We, the restored ones of Israel, see the case differently from what we did in Isa 53:1-3. We also see that he suffered on our account. All we like sheep have (stupidly) gone astray We have selfishly sought our own pleasure; have recklessly forgotten God’s commands. This comparison is not unusual. (See Eze 34:5; Mat 9:36 ; 1Pe 2:25.) The statement here gives the reason for sufferings inexpressible voluntarily endured on our behalf. He suffered to bring reconciliation and peace. As a sinless one he did not, he could not, suffer our own penalty. But his sufferings were an equivalent therefor, in consideration of the greatness and holiness of his person. He suffered in full measure what became an expression of the punishment which as a race we deserve. In this sense the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. He caused to meet in, or to rush upon, his incarnated self, such amount of suffering as should express the fact or consideration of a suffering of penalty due to us on account of our sins; and this by the cordial acceptance of the Sufferer himself. The Messianic Sufferer became the ideal personal Saviour or Atoner typified by the great sacrificial system of the Old Testament. He became the antitypical declaration to the universe of an eternally competent vicarious sacrifice for the sins of this fallen world. The infinitely Just One hovered over (Hebrew, , Greek, the unjust, (clear before law,) and meekly willed to take the required blow upon his own head. Still He became not a sinner thereby. He suffered merely as if he were the world’s concentrated body of sinners. In undertaking to save, he encountered the power of sin and broke it; wrought ample expiation for sin, and connected therewith a new covenant of forgiveness for penitent souls. He made his sufferings vicarious, in that himself, who was not in his own person subject to death, did die unto sin as head of a race that was subject so to die.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘All we like sheep have gone astray,
We have turned every one to our own way,
And Yahweh has laid on him,
The iniquity of us all.’
Here we have stress laid on each individual. It is not just the group that have failed, it is all the group including each individual. And they are described in total as ‘we’, thus including Isaiah, Israel and all men in contra-position to the One. The picture is of sheep-headedness, wandering aimlessly, heedless of instruction, going their own way without thought of what they should do, except to do what they wanted to do. Thus have they left the control of the shepherd, they have turned away from God. He might well have put it as ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’ (Rom 3:23).
‘Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ The verb ‘laid on’ means ‘caused to arrive on, made to meet on’. Again he could have put it thus, ‘He was made sin for us, He Who knew no sin’ (2Co 5:21). And it is Yahweh Who has done it. He has as it were gathered the sins and iniquities of ‘us all’ and placed them inexorably on Him. The same idea is present in Lev 16:21 so that we now expectantly await some reference to sacrifice. We will not be disappointed.
Note that the verse begins with ‘all we’ and ends with ‘us all’. None are excluded. But again it is potential. It only in the end applies to those who respond.
In seeking to expound this passage commentators regularly seize on one aspect of the picture presented. Some see it as portraying a plague-ridden man, others as a victim, and so on, but the whole point of the picture is that He was all this and more. Every possible indignity that a human being could face looking from all aspects met upon Him. He was the One Who suffered beyond anything that anyone has ever suffered. Thus to apply it to a contemporary of Isaiah or some unknown prophet who suffered is to miss the point. This One suffered as no one ever had or would again. He alone was not one of the ‘we’.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 53:6. All we like sheep, &c. “In this sense he is the Saviour: for otherwise none of us, without him, could be saved. We are all sinners, and are gone out of the way of God’s laws; and as such, are unable, by any deed or suffering of ours, to claim or deserve God’s pardon. And therefore God lays upon him the punishment of the sins of the whole world, who, having never offended, is the fitter to propitiate his wrath.” We may render the last clause, And the Lord hath heaped together upon him the iniquities, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 969
THE MEANS OF MANS RESTORATION TO GOD
Isa 53:6. 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.
THE lost state of man by nature, and his recovery through the blood of Christ, are the two principal doctrines of our religion. If we would ascertain the comparative importance of all other doctrines, we must judge of them by the relation which they bear to these: and consider those as most important, which serve most to illustrate and confirm these fundamental points. Moreover, these two should always be considered in their relation to each other; for it is by the atonement that we see the depth of our depravity, and by our depravity we see the necessity and excellency of the atonement. By considering them apart, we are in danger of falling into despondency or presumption: but, by uniting our views of them, our sorrows are moderated with hope, and our confidence is tempered with humility. When God tells us, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; he immediately adds, but in me is thy help. Thus also the prophet, in the words before us, first sets forth our apostasy from God, and then declares the means provided for our restoration to him. These two points we propose for our present consideration:
I.
Our apostasy from God
The comparison which the prophet institutes between us and sheep straying from their fold, forms a humiliating, but just, picture of our fallen state. Sheep are prone to stray, if not watched and restrained by the shepherd: and, when separated from the flock, they proceed farther and farther, without ever tracing back their steps to the fold. Now the whole race of mankind may be considered as a flock, whose duty and happiness it is to live under the care of the good Shepherd. They should hear his voice, and follow his steps, and feed in his pastures, and trust in him for protection. But the whole flock is scattered over the face of the earth: all have departed from the fold of God, and are wandering from him, none considering, Whence am I come? or, Whither am I going? or, How shall I find my way to God again? They reflect not on the dangers to which they are every moment exposed, nor on the infinitely greater happiness they might enjoy, if they would obey the Shepherds voice.
What the prophet has thus illustrated by a comparison, he afterwards, as is usual in all the prophetic writings, declares in plain and express terms.
Mankind have all turned aside from God and his ways into paths of their own choosing. One has chosen the way of open profaneness. To follow the bent of his own carnal inclinations, to walk at liberty in the pursuit of pleasure, to join in convivial company, to be a spectator of every vain amusement, to gratify his passions with every sensual enjoyment, this is the happiness which he affects, nor does he desire any other heaven than this: could he but ensure a continuance of these delights, with health and vigour to enjoy them, he would attain the very summit of his ambition. Another prefers the way of worldliness. He has not any great taste for what are called the pleasures of life: he desires rather the more retired comforts of a family; to provide for whom employs all his solicitude. In prosecution of his plans for their support, he engages with assiduity in his daily work: he rises up early, and late takes rest, and eats the bread of carefulness; and looks for all his recompence in beholding the increase of his fortune, and the advancement of his dependents. Every thing is made subservient to the promotion of his temporal interests; nor has he a wish or thought beyond them.
Another, scorning perhaps the sordid vices of the sensualist, and elevated, by means of easy circumstances, above the cares of the worldling, or desirous perhaps to compensate for the irregularities of his former life, chooses the less beaten track of religious formality. He wishes to be regarded as a person of correct manners, and of virtuous conduct. To set an example to those around him, and to be proposed as a pattern to the rising generation, is a far higher gratification to him, than to riot in dissipation, or to amass riches. With these views he is attentive to all the external duties of religion: his prayers, such as they are, are regularly performed in the Church, the family, and the closet. A portion of the Scriptures is read at stated seasons: his servants are instructed: his children are catechized: and his hand is stretched out to relieve the poor and needy. In short, nothing is omitted that may elevate him in the eyes of others, and serve as a foundation for self-complacency. This he supposes to be Gods way, when, in fact, it is, as much as either the worldlings or the sensualists, a way of his own: for, in all this, there is nothing of brokenness of heart and contrition, nothing of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing of devotedness to the glory of God: and, in proof that this is their own way, and not Gods, it may be observed, that they will proceed no farther than will consist with their own humour, and reputation in the world: whereas, if they really intended to do Gods will, they would do it in every thing, without any regard to consequences, or any secret reserves.
We mean not to say that there is no difference with respect to these ways; for certainly a state of formality is incomparably better than either worldliness or profaneness; but they are all evidences of our apostasy from God; and any one of them will expose us to his just and heavy displeasure.
That such is indeed the state of man, is abundantly confirmed by other passages of holy writ. St. Paul proves it by a variety of citations collected together; and infers from it, that every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. St. Peter quotes the very words of the text as applicable to every individual saint before his conversion to Christ. And we are all taught to adopt them for our own use, when we say in our Liturgy, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep; we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
Well might we have been left to wander till we had fallen a prey to the roaring lion that seeketh to devour us. But God, in compassion to our souls, has sent his only dear Son to seek us out, and to be,
II.
The means of our restoration to him
We are apt to imagine, that, if we have not committed any gross sin, we have no reason to apprehend the divine displeasure. But we should recollect that a state of apostasy from god is the root and summit of all sin. The poor senseless sheep may be pitied, but cannot be blamed, for wandering from the fold, because they are unconscious of any obligation to abide under the direction of their shepherd. But our criminality in departing from God is exceeding great. Blind as we are to spiritual truths, we yet know that there is a God, whom we ought to love and serve. We know that, to live without him in the world, or to serve him only with our lips while our hearts are far from him, is an insult to his majesty, and a violation of his commands. Yet these are the ways which we have chosen for ourselves in preference to those, which he has marked out for us in his word. What need we more to criminate us in his sight? What need we more to draw down upon ourselves his wrath and indignation? The particular acts of sin which any commit, are only so many branches proceeding from this root, and so many ways of manifesting our aversion to him. There may indeed be degrees of guilt in respect of them; but in respect to the general habit of our minds, we are all alike; we are wilful, deliberate, and determined apostates from God: we have cast off our allegiance to him: we have made our own will the rule, and our own honour or interest the end, of all our actions: we have lived to ourselves, and not unto him: in a word, we have, as far as depended on us, banished God from the universe, and been a God unto ourselves. This is the iniquity of us all.
What might have been expected, but that God should abandon such an impious race, and give them over to everlasting destruction? yet behold, instead of leaving us to ourselves, he provided a way for our restoration to his favour. He took, not merely our particular transgressions, but the whole mass of iniquity, that had accumulated from the beginning to the end of time, and laid it on his Son. As all the iniquities of all the children of Israel were transferred to the scape-goat under the law, that he might bear them away into a land of oblivion, so were all the sins of the whole human race transferred to Christ, that, having borne the curse due to them, he might take them all away from us for ever. This was the plan, which infinite wisdom contrived for the pardoning of sin in consistency with the divine perfections. Had the Governor of the universt received his apostate creatures to favour without any atonement, it might have appeared a light matter to transgress against him; and he himself might have seemed indifferent about the rights of justice, and the honour of his government. But, by providing such a substitute, he at once discovered his abhorrence of iniquity, and shewed himself just, while he should justify those that believe in Jesus. Doubtless this was done with the consent and concurrence of his Son; for otherwise it had been an act of injustice to him; but it was nevertheless a fruit of the Fathers love, and an expedient devised by him for the salvation of a ruined world; an expedient never sufficiently to be admired, the theme of men and angels to all eternity.
How this operates to counteract our apostasy may easily be seen. In the state of man two things were to be remedied, the guilt of his departure, and his propensity to depart: and the same remedy was found effectual for both. By the death of Jesus in our stead, our guilt is cancelled, and justice itself is satisfied on our behalf. Moreover the gift of the Holy Spirit is procured for us, that by his operations, our nature may be changed, and we may be brought to delight as much in the ways of God as ever we delighted in the ways of sin. It is true, the very best of men have within them still a proneness to wander; and, if left to themselves, they would yet again depart from their good shepherd: but this is not their wish, as once it was; nor can they for a single day be absent from him without pain and sorrow, yea, without a determination instantly to return to him, and to watch more carefully against the beginnings of declension from him. St. Peter himself tells us, that, as this was the intent of our Saviours death, so it is also its uniform effect: he bare our sins in his own body on the tree: do we ask for what end he bare them? it was, that we, being dead unto sin, might live unto righteousness. The apostle then adds, By whose stripes ye were healed. Do we enquire, wherein this healing consists? he tells us; For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls [Note: 1Pe 2:24-25.].
In order that we may make a suitable improvement of this subject, let us,
1.
Adopt the confession of the prophet
How justly he represents our fallen state, is but too evident both from Scripture and experience. We say not that all have lived in open immoralities, or, that all have despised the ordinances of religion. God forbid. There doubtless are many, who, in their outward deportment both towards God and man, have been comparatively blameless, yea, exceeding amiable and praise-worthy. But we must recur to the former accusation, and comprehend all under the awful character of apostates from God. And is there one amongst us that will presume to deny the charge? Did the prophet include himself in the accusation, and shall we plead innocence? Did St. Paul say, respecting himself and all the other Apostles, that they all had been once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, and shall we exalt ourselves above them? Let us rather beg of God to shew us the depth of our depravity, and to humble us in the dust under a sense of our departure from him. And let us not rest in general confessions, saying, All we have gone astray; but let every one of us search out the particular way to which we have turned, and go to God, saying, Thus and thus have I done. This must of necessity precede our return to God; or rather, it is the first step of our return. But, if we be too proud to acknowledge our apostasy, if we yet remain ignorant of our guilt and danger, let us not wonder, if we be left to depart from him, till our separation become irreparable and eternal.
2.
Having adopted from our hearts the confession of the prophet, let us proceed to imitate the conduct of our God
Behold what the Father did, when no other way remained for our restoration to his favour: he took all our iniquities, and laid them on the head of his own Son. Thus must we also do, if we would have them removed from our own souls. We must come, not with a few of our most heinous sins, but with all, with the entire guilt of our apostasy from God; and, as guilty and self-ruined creatures, without help or hope in ourselves, must lay them on the head of Jesus: we must not account any so great, as to doubt whether we may transfer them to him, or any so small, as to think we can atone for them ourselves; we must carry all to him, that we may be justified by his blood, and be saved from wrath through him. We must resemble the penitent under the law, who, while he presented his offering that was to be sacrificed in his stead, laid his hands upon its head, and confessed over it his sins. Let us only be like-minded with God in this particular, and lay our iniquities on his dear Son, and we have nothing to fear. Our past transgressions shall be forgiven; and our present propensities shall be healed: we shall be brought home on the shoulders of our exulting Shepherd, and shall lie down beside the clear streams, till called to follow him to his pastures above, where we shall be one fold under one Shepherd for evermore.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 53:6 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.
Ver. 6. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. ] Gone of our own accords, as “longing to wander”; Jer 14:10 to wander as sheep, lost sheep, than the which no creature is more apt to stray, and less able to return. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib. “The very swine accustomed to the trough, if he go abroad, yet at night will find the way home again. Not so the silly sheep. “Lo, ye were all as sheep going astray,” saith Peter, “but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” 1Pe 2:25
We have turned every one to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
All . . . all. Note the Figure of speech Epanadiplosis (App-6), by which the statement is emphasized as containing the essence of the whole chapter. More noticeable in Hebrew. killdnu . . . killanu. Quoted in 1Pe 2:22.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Our Sin-bearer
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.Isa 53:6.
We do not know, and there is no gain in guessing, who the sufferer was who is thus commemorated. Vicarious suffering, it has been said, is not a dogmatic but an experimental truth a great living fact of human experience, evident to mens eyes, and appreciable, in its meaning, to their consciences. SomebodyJeremiah or anotherlived a life of absolute self-devotion and, as appeared, of defeat as absolute, and then he passed away without remark. There was nothing in him to draw the eyes of his contemporaries, nothing but his sufferings, from which, as average healthy creatures, they were rather inclined to turn away. He was one from whom men hide their faces, seeking to avoid him on the street; and he made so little impression on his age that the writer adds, Who of his generation even considered that he had ceased to live? Whatever the nobility of his life may have been, that was the extent of its prosperitya failure which had not even the compensation of publicity.
And yet when that life was over it somehow refused to be done. It is no uncommon experience for us to discover, weeks or months after an event, that we have been more observant than we imagined. When a situation, which in no way concerned us at the time, is recalled in memory, fragmentary impressions come drifting back, words which unconsciously we had marked, looks which had been noted; and we fit them together so that we begin actually to understand the episode from which we fancied we had carried nothing away. That is how the prophet proceeds. He, also, had been one of the unobservant, but something from that forgotten incident remained, insistent, provocative to the mind; and by degrees he began to spell out the meaning of what he had not regarded, until in the figure of that forgotten sufferer he found a key to the mystery of Gods way in redeeming men. It is by self-devoting love like that, he says, that men are healed, and Gods Servant when He comes will surely take that away.1 [Note: W. M. Macgregor.]
But there is only one Individual in history of whom it is a likeness. The life and death of Jesus Christlived and died five hundred years after the very latest date to which any one has assigned this prophecyfit it feature by feature, tint by tint, as nothing else can. And the minute external correspondences between the prophets vision and the Gospel story, important as these literal resemblances are, are mainly important as pointing onwards to the complete correspondence between the spirit and functions of the suffering servant of the prophecy and of the Jesus Christ of the Gospel history.
I
All we, like sheep
1. All we have gone astray.The speakers are primarily the penitent Jewish nation, who at last have learned how much they had at first misunderstood the servant of the Lord. But the we and the all of our text may very fairly be widened out so as to include the whole world, and every individual of the race. Iniquity is the universal burden of us all.
In the Journal of Biblical Literature for 1910 (Part I., p. 24) Dr. W. H. Cobb points out that the Hebrew word kol translated all is not an adjective but a substantive, and has the definite article prefixed to it. Accordingly, to bring out the force of the original, he translates this passage, The whole of us wandered like sheep. It is the universe of mankind; there is no break in its uniformity. In the same way he renders Deu 6:5, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the whole of thy heart, for it is not merely an intense love that God demands, it is an undivided love; no part of the heart is to be given to the love of any other god.
(1) The fact that every man is a transgressor of the law of God is the prime fact of humanity, and the all-important truth needed for the apprehension of the very rudiments of the Gospel. We shall never know what we need, or be able to understand what Christianity, as gathered in Christwho is Christianityoffers to do for us, unless our eyes are opened and our consciences made sensitive to the unwelcome but undeniable truth that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I believe that almost all of the mistaken and unworthy conceptions of Christianity which have afflicted and do afflict the world are directly traceable to thisthe failure to apprehend the radical fact affecting mens condition that they are all sinful, and therefore separated from God.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
There are differences immensely important in other respects between men, differences of culture, of talent, of opportunity; differences of outward life: some living respectable, decent, cleanly lives, full of many virtues and many graces; some, perhaps, having done many a thing that, if it did not bring them within the grip of criminal law, at least sets them outside the decent, respectable classes of society. But, whatever may be the superficial differences, down below there is identity; and beneath all varieties of garb and vesture, and all diversities of culture, intelligence, profession, and all differences of degrees of civilisation and of rank and position, wise man and fool, cultured man and savage, saint and criminal, loftiest and lowliest, all are alike in this, that they have sinned.
Gone Astray! Two little words spoken in a moment, but how humbling to mans pride!
There are men of great intellectual grasp and culture. They have swept the heavens with telescopes, and searched them out. They have explored and mastered the secrets of the earth. To them science and art have laid bare their treasures. We admire and honour them. We do well; for their discoveries confer immense benefits upon the human race. But God looks down upon every one of them by nature, and says, Gone Astray! There are men of great wealth. Broad acres own them as lord, their rent-roll is reckoned by hundreds of thousands of pounds. In addition to this, they are philanthropic and kind. It is joy to them to succour the fatherless, and to care for the widow. With open hand they delight to help forward any scheme which promises to lighten the sufferings of their fellow-men. We love these men. We do well to do so. But God looks down upon every one of them by nature, and says, Gone Astray! There are men of the strictest integrity and the highest morality. All their business transactions are conducted with honour; and in all their private relationships they are scrupulously upright. Everybody respects and trusts them; yet God looks down upon them all by nature and says, Gone Astray!
If we scan
The wide or narrow circle of our friends
And weigh their worth, we find, alas! that all,
Even in the glance of charity, possess
Some spot; and if we haply mark ourselves,
We are not perfect! Een humanity,
Like the spoilt picture of some master-mind,
Hath much it may admire, but prominent
The fault obtrudes! And as when Lucifer
Poured the dark drop at Edens fountain-head,
He poisoned every stream; een so when Eve
The cup of disobedience tasted there,
She gave to all her children naughtiness.1 [Note: Ebenezer Palmer.]
(2) The verse says first, all we; but immediately afterwards it says also, every one. Each son and daughter of Adam has strayed far away from the fold of the Good Shepherd, and no one is able to find his own way back again. The wilderness of sin is so large that the erring flock gets scattered and separated into innumerable bypaths. Every child of Adam has his own peculiar form of sinfulness. One man hates his brother man; another has not in his heart the love of God. One mans sins are sins of the flesh; another mans are sins of the spirit. The besetting sin of one heart is pridea high flying sin; while the sin of another is vanitya creeping thing. Here we find the vice of drunkenness, and there the love of money. The sins of Esau were of a different class from those of his brother Jacob. The faults of John the Apostle were not the same as those of Simon Peter.
John Bunyan, in The Pilgrims Progress, illustrates admirably this truth that we have turned every one to his own way. He does so in the very names which he gives to worldly men and false pilgrims. There are Obstinate and Pliable, Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, Formalist and Hypocrisy, Timorous and Mistrust, Talkative, Ignorance, Vain-Confidence, and many others. Some are guilty of secret faults, and others of presumptuous sins. The sins of one are black, those of a second are scarlet, and those of a third are red like crimson. Each turns to his own way.1 [Note: C. Jerdan, Messages to the Children, p. 73.]
You have heard Handels Messiah. I never realised how beautiful this figure was until I heard the music of this particular part, All we like sheep have gone astray. If you listen to the music you see the sheep beginning to go astray, and then as the notes are sung out you see one go this way and another that way, and another yonder way. Even in wandering they do not keep together, and that marvellous musician has expressed it in musicone note seems to show which way this sheep goes, and another that sheep, and another that. There is a process of scattering vividly depicted in the whole music.2 [Note: D. Davies, Talks with Men, Women, and Children, v. p. 446.]
2. Like sheep.
1. Spurgeon has well said that the sheep is a creature exceedingly quick-witted upon the one matter of going astray. If there be but one gap in the hedge, the sheep will find it out. If there be but one possibility out of five hundred that by any means the flock shall wander, one of the flock will be certain to discover that possibility, and all its companions will avail themselves of it. So is it with man. He is quick of understanding for evil things. God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions, the inventions being all to destroy his own uprightness, and to do despite to the law of God. But that very creature who is so quick-witted to wander is the least likely of all animals to return. The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass knows its masters crib; even the swine that will wander by day will return to the trough at night, and the dog will scent out his master over many a league; but not so the sheep. Sharp as it is to discover opportunities for going astray, it seems to be bereft of all wit or will to come back to the fold. And such is manwise to do evil, but foolish towards that which is good. With a hundred eyes, like Argus, he searches out opportunities for sinning; but, like Bartimeus, he is stone blind as to repentance and return to God.
When I was a boy in my own country, I used to notice that when the clouds were gathering and a storm threatened, the shepherd would go round the shoulder of the hill and fetch all the sheep that happened to be on the stormy side back under the shadow of a great rock, so that, when the storm at length raged, the sheep were all safely sheltered. The sheep had not the sense to find that place out for themselves, and though the shepherd had done that scores of times for them, yet they never thought of doing it without his aid.1 [Note: D. Davies, Talks with Men, Women, and Children, v. p. 445.]
2. It is not written, All we like wolves, like tigers, but All we like sheep have gone astray. We do not usually associate the thought of something so silly, so whimsical, so essentially harmless as a sheep with the awful deeps and disobediences of the human heart.
In this assertion of the prophet there is not so much as a hint of hereditary tendencies forcing themselves into uncontrollable action, of innate devilry in man manifesting itself in a species of Satanic concert; it simply amounts to a matter of pitiable moral weakness. Like sheep, like simpletons, have we gone astray. Whether he is right or wrong, this is what the writer says. And it is worth our while to think, to take in the fact, that the prophet-poet uses the word sheep in this highly-wrought passage, rather than some word that connotes a very different force, as in tiger, wolf, or snake. If we settle it in our mind that men in large numbers go wrong, not because they must and cannot help it, but because they are fools and will not help it, the conviction may not do much for our natural conceit, but it will probably serve a useful purpose in a more important direction.
A sheep does not intentionally go astray. It nibbles itself astray. It puts its head down to the grass, and begins to eat, and eat, and eat, and at last looking up finds it has wandered far from the flock, and is lost. It was so absorbed in feeding, that it paid no heed to its whereabouts. Men become thoughtlessly absorbed in something or other, and never call halt to look around to ascertain in what direction they are tending. Men get their heads down making money. It absorbs all their energies and all their thoughts, and almost unconsciously they wander far from the shepherd into moral and spiritual perdition. Minor fascinations ensnare us until we forget or ignore the fascinations of our Lord. The sheep of Gods pastures stray away in thoughtless absorption, and become lost in the regions of wild beasts and night. When He hath found it He layeth it upon His shoulders. He takes us in our moral impotence, and carries us.
(1) Many estimable people are travelling on through life without a suspicion of offence, doing what others do and judging as others judgelike sheep; and it never occurs to them to ask if their world has room within it for the Cross, in which they yet profess to believe. Actually they do not need it and they do not understand it. Walter Bagehot, in one place, speaks of those gentlemen who revolt from what is coarse, are sickened by what is gross, hate what is ugly. The law in their members does not war against the law of their mind. They live within the hedgerows of polished society, and they do not wish to go beyond them into the great deep of human life. And then, abruptly, he adds, These are the men whom it is hardest to make Christians. Paul went everywhere, as he says, to Jew and Gentile, testifying the repentance which brings men to God and the faith which casts them on the Lord Jesus Christ; but what have some men to do with repentance or faith? They want to go on as they are, for they have not realised, as this man did, the shame and scandal of the selfish life when once it is seen alongside of an existence more nobly managed. It is still by seeing Jesus Christ in the mystery of His passion that men come to see themselves.
Oft when the Word is on me to deliver
Lifts the illusion and the truth lies bare;
Desert or throng, the city or the river,
Melts in a lucid Paradise of air,
Only like souls I see the folk thereunder,
Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings,
Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder,
Sadly contented in a show of things;
Then with a rush the intolerable craving
Shivers throughout me like a trumpet-call,
Oh to save these! to perish for their saving,
Die for their life, be offered for them all!1 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]
(2) The reason, we are told, why men do certain things and follow certain paths is not folly but fate. That one man works out his salvation, and another his damnation, is not the wisdom of one or the foolishness of the other, it is the necessity of both. It is the accident of having brains and will, or not having them. The theory which has heredity and the accumulation of heredity as one of its essential levers, has taken possession of the popular mind and imagination as never before perhaps in the history of thought. It has fixed attention on the law in its purely physical aspects, and has made men feel more keenly the difficulty of giving it a moral interpretation consistent with individual freedom. This goes far to explain the change that has come over the working classes during the last quarter of a century in the estimate of the chances and possibilities of their lives.
In the little schooling that fell to my lot, I was fortunate for a few months to come under the influence of a thoroughly high type of a man who recognised his obligations as a teacher to all sides of our nature. Hardly a lesson passed which he did not use as an opportunity to rub in some phase of our duty to God and ourselves. His unwearied insistence was that self-effort and utter truthfulness, or the absence of these, always explain men and their circumstances. About two years ago this good man got together all his old scholars who were above ground and within reach, and it was remarkable how few gaps thirty years had made in the ranks of those who gladly, and with every demonstration of genuine affection, met to do honour to their old schoolmaster. I could not be present, but one of the company writing me after said: You would have been pleased to see what a prosperous lot we looked, almost without exception. Not one of us has failed to give some account of himself; while many have attained positions of considerable importance; others have achieved comparative wealth.1 [Note: Ambrose Shepherd, The Gospel and Social Questions, p. 51.]
In the long run fame finds deserving man,
The lucky wight may prosper for a day,
And in good time true merit leads the van,
And vain pretence, unnoticed goes its way.
There is no Chance, no Destiny, no Fate,
But fortune smiles on those who work and wait
In the long run.2 [Note: E. W. Wilcox, Love Never Lost.]
3. We have an evidence which the prophet lacked, an evidence which is outspread over nineteen hundred years, for, with reason or without it, men have everywhere been drawn to righteousness and to settled peace by the contemplation of the Cross on which Jesus died. When they come to that place the burden which has been pressing them hard falls away. The sin itself may remain, the evil bias and the evil habit, but the hopelessness of it has gone, and the dread of Gods anger. Jesus, who sought in all things to be one with His brethren, emboldens us to seek in faith for oneness with Himself; and in virtue of that mystical union our pardon is secured. As He associated Himself with us, so we associate ourselves with Him both in His doing and in His suffering. We make His confession ours, the homage due to the righteous will of God, which we cannot render of ourselves, we find in Him. We have no desire to stand apart, living our lives out in ways of our own; we wish to be found in Him, and judged only in relation to Him. Abundantly conscious of weakness and failure, we yet receive through this fellowship of life all the tokens of Gods favour: light and peace, and power to make progress. And thus we have assurance through Christ of the forgiveness of our sins. It is not for human effort to restore the fallen dignities of life, as if man were the doer, and God, at best, the observer and rewarder. God is the doer, and you and I receive. He takes it as His business to make life simple, glad, and clean once more, and to attain that end He is willing to go all lengths. He so loved the world, said John, that He gave His only begotten Son.
A little girl of six years old was singing, I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God. Her uncle was upstairs, sick. Little Annie crept up to his bedside, and whispered, Uncle, have you laid your sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God? She went back to her play. But all that evening he was praying to God to forgive him for Jesus sake. Next day Annie went up to the sickroom and whispered with winning tenderness, Uncle William, did you do as I told you? Yes, I did, I did, and He has taken all my sins away.1 [Note: W. Armstrong, Five-Minute Sermons to Children, p. 87.]
As the fond sheep that idly strays,
With wanton play, through winding ways,
Which never hits the road of home,
Oer wilds of danger learns to roam,
Till, wearied out with idle fear,
And, passing there, and turning here,
He will, for rest, to covert run,
And meet the wolf he wishd to shun;
Thus wretched I, through wanton will,
Run blind and headlong on in ill:
Twas thus from sin to sin I flew,
And thus I might have perishd too:
But Mercy droppd the likeness here,
And showd, and savd me from my fear.1 [Note: Thomas Parnell.]
II
The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all
The evil that we do, going forth from us as deed, comes back upon us as guilt. Flung up, as it were, into the heavens, it falls back again on the head of the man that cast it. And so the text speaks of a recoil of the evil. The Lord hath made to fall upon some one the iniquity that had been audaciously cast up in the face of the heavens, as in scorn. If it were done when tis done, then twere well it were done quickly, but seeing that it only begins when tis done, it is an awful thing to commit the smallest evil. The recoil of the gun bruises blue the shoulder of the man that fires it; and all our evil deeds, according to the old proverb about curses, come home to roost. There is guilt, and there is habit, and there is the uneasy, or worse, the silent and seared conscience; and there is the disturbance of the relation to God, and there is the flight of peace from the heart, and there is the onward look that says, If there is a future it is a future of retribution, and every transgression and disobedience shall have its just recompense of reward. Is not that a burden for us to carry?the weight of evil pressing upon us, in its consequences, of guilt, disturbance, irritated or paralysed conscience, and the foreboding that if we get what we deserve we shall get but a bitter weird. Bread eaten in secret is pleasant, but it turns to gravel that breaks the teeth of the eater.
Now it needs nothing more than the strength and the wisdom and the patience of the earthly shepherd to restore the straying sheep. But although my Shepherd is God over all, He cannot lead me back by His patience and His wisdom and His strength alone. Something more is required: something momentous, inexplicable, poignant. He must put Himself into my place. He must charge Himself with my sin. He must die my death. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
1. The Lord.Who finds for me a rescuer? Who provides me with a Saviour? It is the Lord. It is God the Father and God the Judge. It is He whose commandments I have broken, and whose sentence I have incurred. Not, however, without the fullest consent of Jesus, did God assign Him a task so sorrowful and a burden so heavy. The Shepherds delights were with the foolish and wilful sheep, whom he could not bless without passing through the furnace and the flood. Ah! there is no God like mine. God is LoveGod the Father and God the Son; and between the affection of these two I dare not discriminate.1 [Note: A. Smellie, In the Secret Place, p. 317.]
Remember that although the text speaks of that burden as being laid upon Him by the Lord, we are not to suppose that, therefore, it was not assumed by Him by His own loving volition. He bore our sins because He would. The Lord laid them upon Him; therefore the sacrifice appointed by God is accepted of God; but He chose to suffer, and He willed to die, because He loved thee, and me, and every soul of sinful men. There is the secret of the power of the Gospel.2 [Note: A. Maclaren, Pauls Prayers, p. 177.]
2. On Him.The words, The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all are a foreshadowing of the death of Jesus. The man who uttered them was thinking of life. He knew that many righteous had suffered for the unrighteous. Probably he was patiently suffering for others. The whole chapter is the heart-utterance of one who bears the sins of others, who feels the guilt of his fellow-men. Human experience is revealed in these immortal, soul-subduing words. They reveal an eternal principle, and only Jesus expressed it fully in His life and on the Cross.
There is nothing unreal in this idea of redemption; it brings the Cross into the movement of the world. Vicarious suffering has been working for good from the beginning. You are familiar with this thought. The Old Testament is full of substitution.
The weak suffer for the strong in the lower grades of life. In the struggle for existence the weakest give place to the strongest. This is always going on. The best survive, and so the quality is raised. Now, does not this involve a kind of suffering? That the many perish for the few to survive, seems so awful a process.
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life.
That is Tennysons note of despair, but he was truer to the spirit when he said
That nothing walks with aimless feet.
Out of the loss and suffering there is gain and progress. Let us go a step higher.
The strong suffer for the weak.The birds look after their young. Savage beasts defend their offspring, and risk their lives in defence. When we come to mankind, there is a greater demand made upon the love of the parents. We come into existence dependent for years upon the help of others. The strong cherish, guide, and support the weak. Professor Drummond has made this beautifully clear in his Ascent of Man, showing how there has always been going on a struggle not only for life, but for the life of others.
Then there is the highest kind of suffering. The innocent suffer for the guilty, the just for the unjust; and this was fully revealed in the Cross. The evil that men do lives after them, said Shakespeare. Very true, but that is not all. Evil done afflicts the righteous now. It is they who feel the shame of wrong. The pure among the impure, the gentle among the brutal, feel most the shame of impurity and cruelty. Innocent children suffer through the sin of parents, and parents for children. One may bear the disgrace of another. The natural history of wrong who can trace? Christ was brought under the same law. He bore our sins in his own body on to the tree; not simply on the tree, but onward through life unto death. The Divine can never be more Divine than that. If that Spirit was not God in man, we may cease to speak or even to dream of God.1 [Note: F. R. Swan, The Death of Jesus Christ, p. 15.]
The great mystery of the idea of sacrifice, which has been manifested as one united and solemn instinct by all thoughtful and affectionate races since the wide world became peopled, is founded on the secret truths that you cannot save men from death but by facing it for them, nor from sin but by resisting it for them. All the true good and glory even of this world, not to speak of any that is to come, must be bought with our toil and with our tears.2 [Note: J. Ruskin, The Art of England, 12.]
(1) Preachers have often spoken unwisely, of the offices of Christ, as if the office were the great matter, and not the person who holds it; but the teaching of experience is that offices of the higher sort cannot be discharged at all unless a man have some native bent towards the business. A king will never be made such by his coronation, unless he have within him instincts of authority and of order. A priest can never be made by any form of human education; he must possess the priestly nature, the greatly daring and loving heart, which takes the concerns of man on to itself, and pleads in regard to them in the very face of God. And Jesus, Prophet, Priest, King, was born such. He could not be content within Himself, but must go out to find the sorrows, burdens, perplexities of men, which never seemed to Him alien or remote. As the world is made some one must suffer under these, and He claimed that as His part. All sickness and darkness and evil in the land were drawn together at His advent, and He treated them as no intrusion but as belonging to the ministry on which He had been sent. For His chosen business was to bear the inflictions which have come upon the world of men, acknowledging them as righteous, and thus to bring hope and pardon to the hopeless.
(2) Too much attention has been paid to the physical sufferings of Christ. Especially has the phrase shedding of blood been too literally considered. We need not be afraid of the word blood, if only we think of what it symbolises. But, thoughtlessly to use the term is not helpful to the soul. It is a word having very sacred meanings, and should be uttered with great reverence and feeling. The more we dwell upon the terrible bodily agony of Christ, the less wonderful does the Cross become. Because by obscuring the spirit of the Cross, we bring the death of Jesus too near the level of other martyrs, who suffered the keenest of torture and the most horrible forms of death.
We have not to exalt Christs death by trying to show that He suffered more bodily agony than any other martyr. That may be so, or it may not be so. On one side we can compare Him with others who suffered, but on the other side there is no comparison whatever. It was God, as man, who gave Himself. It was mans Head and representative who poured out His soul unto death. It was not a death not foreshadowed, but a sacrifice that God in humanity was preparing to give. The world waited for One who could atone for all, speak for all, live for all. Moses could not, nor David, nor Isaiah, nor Hosea, nor any good man; they had much of God in them, but needed redemption all the same.
I know of no theory, says Maclaren, which redeems the story of Gethsemane and Calvary from the charge of being the history of a man whose courage collapsed when it came to be tested, except that which sees in the agony beneath the olives, in the bloody sweat, in the awful and pathetic words with which He appealed to His friends: My soul is compassed about with sorrows even unto death, an element far more mysterious and awful than the mere shrinking of humanity from death. Surely, surely, the Lord and the Master, in the strength of whose name feeble women and tremulous virgins and little children have gone to the pyre and the scaffold and the lions, as to a feast, did not exhibit all that agitation and tremor and shrinking, only because He was afraid of the death that belongs to all men. Ask yourselves how reverence for Jesus Christ will survive in the face of the story of His last hours, unless, as we listen to Him crying, My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? we hear the cry of Him who before His shearers was dumb, but opened His mouth at last in that mysterious complaint in which filial obedience and utter desolation are so strangely blended because the Lord hath made to light on Him the iniquity of us all?
What a burdened conscience! It must have been the most burdened conscience in the world. Yet this man was perfectly sinless. How can we account for the anomaly? How can we reconcile the burden with the blamelessness? Easily; nothing can explain the burden but the blamelessness. Do you know what sinlessness is? It is perfect unselfishness. And do you know what perfect unselfishness is? It is the breaking of the partition between my life and other lives. You have a large room, beautifully furnished, and a little anteroom, separated by a wall, and badly furnished. You break down the wall and make them one room; and you have lost the prestige of your furniture. The large room has taken in the little one with all its imperfections; it has borne its sins. If it were to become conscious, it would be aware of blemishes within it not its own. So was it with the Divine man. He broke the middle wall of partition between His room and your room. He destroyed the barrier between the large and the small apartment; He made of twain one. He allowed your mean furniture to blend with His costly adornments. He felt your life to be a part of His life. He was mesmerised by love. He looked at His brothers temptations, and said, They did it unto Me. He bore in His own body the pain of other bodies. It was not the sense of pity; it was the sense of identitythe identity of love. It was His unselfishness that gave Him a universal consciencethe Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.1 [Note: G. Matheson, Searching in the Silence, p. 146.]
3. Laid on Him the iniquity.The Lord hath made to light on Him the iniquity of us all. In the compass of three verses of this chapter, there are seven distinct, emphatic, and harmonious utterances, all bearing on the one thought of the vicarious suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. (1) He hath borne our griefs; (2) And carried our sorrows; (3) He was wounded for our transgressions; (4) He was bruised for our iniquities; (5) The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; (6) And with His stripes we are healed. And they are all gathered together in the final word of this textThe Lord hath made to light on Him the iniquity of us all. I venture to say that if these words, in the variety of their metaphor and the fulness of their description, do not teach the Gospel that Jesus Christ bore in His sufferings the sins of the whole world, and bore them away, language has no meaning. Nothing could be more emphatic, nothing more reiterated, full, and confident than this sevenfold presentation of the great truth that He lived and suffered and died for us because He suffered and died instead of us.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
Whether we examine the first resurrection announcements of Christ, or His words at one of the fundamental institutes of His religion, or His admonitory appeals to His hearers, or His statement as to His mission, together with the dual proclamation of the Baptist and the prediction of the angel, the same fact is presented to us: the sinless Christ is invariably associated with sin. In the Epistles, not only is this fact conserved; there is an amazing advance upon it. To cite the passages in these early and inspired documents which bear upon the mysterious relationship between Christ and sin, would be to transcribe many sections of St. Pauls letters. Suffice it to say that there are twelve passages in the Epistles which speak of Him as dying for sin. There are three which describe Him as bearing our sins. There are two which say He was made sin and made a curse for us. Twelve passages ascribe to the death of Christ the removal and remission of sins, together with deliverance from their penal consequences. He is said to be the cause of our justification in three; of our redemption in nine; of our reconciliation to God in five; as a propitiation in four; as a priest, six; as a representative, four; while the Scriptures which represent the sufferings of Christ as sacrificial appear in the Epistles to the Romans, the Ephesians, the Hebrews, and in the Apocalypse.
I was once talking to a poor dying woman about the Crucifixion of our Blessed Lord. She was very ignorant and had led a bad life, and it was only now during her last sickness that she seemed to realise that Christ had indeed died for sinnershad indeed died for her! She said to me: I am trying to understand it, but it seems so dreadful, that though I know it must be true, still one half hopes it is not, for oh, how could we have done such a thing!2 [Note: D. Baillie.]
1. There are two fundamental realities, marking the sacrificial ritual of the Old Testament, which indicate two fundamental doctrines, marking the sacrifice of Christ in the New Testament. These are, first, the position which the object sacrificed occupied with regard to the worshipper; and, secondly, the effects, limited but prospective, of the sacrifice thus offered.
(1) The position which the object sacrificed occupied with regard to him who offered it may be gathered from a series of rigid and suggestive regulations. These have to do with the nature and condition of the sacrifice. It was to be offered willingly, but when selected from herd or flock, as the best of its kind, being vigorous in life and without blemish, it was brought to the door of the tabernacle, and thenceforward the completion of the ceremonial was the work of the priest. Before the sacerdotal office was exercised, there was one rite common to all the bleeding sacrifices. God required of the worshipper that He shall put his hand upon the head of his offering. Now, throughout Holy Scripture, manual imposition is associated with the idea of transfer or communication. The latter explains its use in blessing, in office, in the miracles of Christ and of His followers. The former implies the conveyance of something from him whose hands are imposed to the object beneath the pressure. The ritual of the great Day of Atonement tells us what that something is: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat. And as the need of the worshipper, whether individual or corporate, was expiationimplying the sense of sin, of guilt, of estrangement from God, and of penal liabilitythat need was in a measure supplied by the animal sacrificed. To that animal was transferred, symbolically, the sin and the guilt of the worshipper. The death of the animal declared the liability of him who offered it, while the imposition of hands declared the symbolical transfer of that to which death was due. In a word, the worship of the Hebrew economy typifies the doctrine of expiation by sacrificial substitution.
(2) Next consider the effects which in Holy Scripture are attributed to the vicarious offering of Christ. The Levitical sacrifices connect the shedding of blood with atonement. The life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. The principle expressed in these words seems to be that of Life for Life. Life is taken that law may be magnified, and that life may be spared; that transgression may at once be condemned and the transgressor condoned, forgiven, pardoned. Ceremonial remission in the symbol corresponds to moral remission through the Saviour. Throughout the New Testament, and conspicuously in the Epistles, to the sacrifice of Christ is attributed the remission of sin. God hath set forth Jesus Christ a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; and to the Ephesians, the great Apostle writes: We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.1 [Note: Dean Lefroy.]
Nearly one hundred years ago, La Reveilliere Lepeaux, one of the five directors who then constituted the government of France, appealed to Talleyrand as to the forms of worship which might be necessary and helpful to Theophilanthropism. Talleyrand replied: I have but a single observation to make: Jesus Christ, to found His religion, suffered Himself to be crucified, and He rose again. You should try to do as much. The splendid irony of this sentence is likely to escape us, in our sorrow at the imperfect account Talleyrand gives of the mission of our Lord. He did not die to found His religion. He died the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God, and He lived and died to establish the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, until He comes whose right it is. But Talleyrands memorable words reveal the greatness and the grandeur of our Lords work.
2. Where is the justice of it? If I am to trust my soul to this sacrifice, let me see the meaning of it. I do not ask to understand it thoroughly and to the bottom, but at least it should not startle and assail my moral instincts.
Well, is there not a spiritual law of imputation? Do not these two verses reveal the same law, acting very differently, as the warm sun acts differently on slimy marshes and on beds of rosesthe law of guilt and penalty stretching away beyond the actual perpetrators of the crime, laying hold on others, involving them in the same ruin?
(1) Looking first at the spread of guilt to other guilty persons, the very statute-book can tell of crime spreading out far beyond the doers of the act. For example, a murder has been perpetrated. The victim is in his grave. The deed is over. But the account is not closed: the guilt is spreading still; and whoever knowingly shelters and helps the murderers, whoever tries to confuse the scent along which Justice is pursuing the fugitives, that man is an accessory after the act; and if his deed can be proved he will suffer for it.
(2) Certainly it is a great leap from this to the falling of penalties upon an innocent head; because here all sympathy with the crime is absent. But let us return to our example. Let one of those same murderers be convicted and await his doom. You can bear none of the penalty for his sin exacted by his fellows; that is beyond mortal power. But is there not something quite as great which you can do for him? Look at him, paralysed with terror and helpless rage, a pale, inert, sullen creature, stricken to stone, and yet full of rebellion against both God and man. Speak to him now about hell and the broken laws of God; and he shivers, perhaps he bids you cease from torturing him, but his heart is still as hard as adamant. There is only one chance for him, and that is that you should pity and suffer along with him; that you should understand all the strange, aching numbness of his heart, painful beyond any pain; that your eyes should grow dim and your voice be shakenby what? by your share in his agony, so that you must bear his grief and carry his sorrows, which he deserves so richly, and which you do not deserve at all. There are half-hours of such pleading which leave a man physically aching as after a long day of toil, and mentally exhausted as if he had been stunned by a blow. For that heavy frost upon a guilty soul is its due moral penalty, and the only possible way to uplift it is by taking share with it, by suffering for it, the just for the unjust. The innocent helper does, quite as really as the guilty abettor, though very differently, enter into the spirit of the culprit, and upon him comes a share in the suffering from which he would fain snatch his brother. Or ask any mother who has tenderly pleaded with a sullen rebellious child until the little one melted, after long obstinacy, and was forgivenask her whether this pleading cost her nothing. The shadow of it hangs over her all day.
(3) But no sooner do you carry the process to this point than you become aware that more is wanted, that the principle on which you have been acting must have other and larger applications, or else it exists in vain. For your own heart has not fire enough to melt the heart of ice with which you accept the chill of contact. Your best hope is to become a conductor, by which a stronger compassion may minister healing through His stripes. Try, then, this experiment. Speak of Jesus, of His love, of those keen fleshly sufferings which were the symbol, the outward and visible sign, the sacrament, of His wounded heart. Do this, and the pettish child and the hardened criminal alike will be made aware of the powers of the world to come. They may resist, being free agents, but only by a great and fatal effort. And what draws all men to Him is that sublime and awful sorrow endured for us. Tell me only that He was a sufferer, and His story is still pathetic; but merely as one old, old tragedy among the many which afflict the world. Say even that He loved me; and I may fail, though striving, to return His love. But tell me that He suffered for my sake, because He crossed the fatal circle of my sins, and drew down, like electricity flashing out in lightning, the bolt on His own head; tell me that He intended this, and, for love of me, deliberately broke the bar which severs man from man, made my penalty His own, took my stripes and the chastisement of my peace, and, if I can believe it, I will adore Him.1 [Note: G. A. Chadwick.]
Wherever there is love, true unselfish love, there is vicarious suffering. I remember at one time being entertained by some friends of mine. Their home was a palatial building amongst wonderful hills, below which wound a broad and majestic river, and beyond the river a splendid city. The house was filled with every evidence of wealth and culture and pleasure. We had spent the day in various delightsin woods and gardens, with music and jest. At night-time, when all the others had gone to rest and the great house was still, and only the candles lightened the gloom of the old panelled room in which we were, my host and I sat together. A great change had come over him. The cheerful smile was put off like a mask. The easy careless talk was stilled. Sad lines marked his mouth, and his head seemed suddenly bowed with age. He told me of a tragedy in that beautiful homeof the wayward child far away, whose sins and sorrows her parents unceasingly mourned. Nothing could make up to the father for the love of his daughter, and in the background of his life he suffered and wept. We all know what that means. The innocent everywhere suffer for the guilty, the loving for the loveless. We form a web of humanity, closely woven, not a series of unknitted threads, and where guilt enters, a quiver of pain passes through the race. It was thus that Jesus suffered. His love, beyond the love of women, made Him susceptible to all the sorrow of the world. As the lightning conductor draws the electric flash to itself, so in the bosom of Christ the flashes and bolts of the worlds wickedness buried themselves.1 [Note: N. H. Marshall, Atonement and Progress, p. 80.]
4. The iniquity of us all.Whose iniquity is it? It is that of us allall of us, poor self-destroyed sheep, if only we look to Jesus for ourselves. I vex myself sometimes by questioning whether I can possibly be among the elect whom God has chosen. But did I ever hear of a case in which. His sovereignty has hampered His love? Did I ever know of a seeker who came to the Saviour and was refused, because God had not ordained him to everlasting life? The one thing which keeps me from the Shepherd is my unbelief; it never is the Divine decree. I am one of us all, and Christ has room for me.2 [Note: A. Smellie.]
1. The work of Christ is potentially as universal as the sin to which it is addressed. In this our Lord stands separated from every one, who, possessed of an inspiration, sought to aid, to enlighten, to elevate his fellows. One man addresses his best energies to abolish slavery; another to mitigate the humbling pressure of poverty; another to the dispersion of the fogs of ignorance, superstition, prejudice; another to the alleviation of disease and to the advancement of the public health. These are beneficent enterprises, but they are partial, transient, and mainly material. Christ compasses the infinities. He walks amid the immensities of the spiritual, the permanent, the universal, the eternal. These are factors in a conception which never dawned upon the loftiest intellectual day. They were as natural to Christ as His sinlessness.
Our text begins and ends with the word all. Now, what each of us has got to do is to go in at the one all, and to come out at the other. I must go in at the all of condemnation, by acknowledging that I have gone astray like a lost sheep. And I must come out at the all of justification, by believing that the Lord has made my iniquity to light on the head of Jesus Christ.
I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless Lamb of God;
He bears them all, and frees us
From the accursed load.
2. He hath made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all. Yes! and yet it is possible for a man included in the all to have to stagger along through life under his burden, and to carry it with him when he goes hence. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, says the foremost preacher of the doctrine that Christs death takes away sin. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Every man shall bear his own burden. So your sins, taken away as they are by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, may yet cling to you and crush you. There is only one way by which the possibilities open to all men by the death of Jesus Christ may become the actual experience of every man, or of any manand that is, the simple laying of his burden, by his own act of quiet trust, upon the shoulders of Him that is mighty to save.
Sympathise with a murderer, feel as you would fain have him feel the misery of his condition, and, as the subtle fibres of a strange communion draw you together, as he responds, he begins to feel the softer grief, the contrition which already, in a sense, you feel for him. Your spirit passes into him. But this is only on the condition that he responds. Even so, to have the benefit of Christs suffering we must consent to enter into His spirit, and to die with Him, that we may also live with Him. As many as are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into His death. He is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, when we surrender to His influences.1 [Note: G. A. Chadwick.]
Lord, dost Thou look on me, and will not I
Launch out my heart to Heaven to look on Thee?
Here if one loved me, I should turn to see,
And often think on him and often sigh,
And by a tender friendship make reply
To love gratuitous poured forth on me,
And nurse a hope of happy days to be,
And mean until we meet in each good-bye.
Lord, Thou dost look and love is in Thine Eyes,
Thy heart is set upon me day and night,
Thou stoopest low to set me far above:
O Lord, that I may love Thee make me wise;
That I may see and love Thee grant me sight;
And give me love that I may give Thee love.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]
Our Sin-bearer
Literature
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Mission Sermons, ii. 112.
Armstrong (W.), Five-Minute Sermons to Children, 85, 184.
Baillie (D.), The Love of God, 20.
Belfrage (H.), Sacramental Addresses, 73.
Chadwick (G. A.), Pilates Gift, 220.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women, and Children, 5th series, 445.
Jerdan (C.) Messages to the Children, 70.
Laing (F. A.), Simple Bible Lessons, 392.
Lefroy (W.), The Immortality of Memory, 119.
Macduff (J. R.), The Shepherd and His Flock, 9.
Macgregor (W. M.), Jesus Christ the Son of God, 66.
Maclaren (A.), Pauls Prayers, 168.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions, Isaiah xlix.lxvi. 97.
Matheson (G.), Searchings in the Silence, 146.
Nicoll (W. R.), Ten-Minute Sermons, 227.
Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, i. 313.
Shepherd (A.), The Gospel and Social Questions, 49.
Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 317.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xii. No. 694; xvi. No. 925.
Swan (F. R.), The Death of Jesus Christ, 12.
Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, 2nd series, ii. 63.
Church Pulpit Year Book, vii. 9.
Churchmans Pulpit (Good Friday), 16 (Pinder).
Clergymans Magazine, 3rd series, ii. 91.
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st series, ix. 274 (Perowne).
Homiletic Review, iii. 690 (Tyng); vii. 59 (Brown); xxx. 146 (Bayne).
Preachers Magazine, ii. 463 (Ryle); xvi. 334 (Cowl).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
All we: Psa 119:176, Mat 18:12-14, Luk 15:3-7, Rom 3:10-19, 1Pe 2:25
his own: Isa 55:7, Isa 56:11, Eze 3:18, Rom 4:25, Jam 5:20, 1Pe 3:18
laid on him the iniquity of us all: Heb. made the iniquities of us all to meet on him, Psa 69:4
Reciprocal: Gen 8:21 – the imagination Gen 22:6 – laid it Gen 22:10 – General Exo 12:6 – the whole Exo 28:38 – bear the iniquity Exo 29:10 – put Lev 1:10 – of the flocks Lev 3:2 – lay Lev 3:8 – he shall Lev 3:12 – a goat Lev 3:13 – lay his hand Lev 4:4 – lay his hand Lev 4:24 – And he Lev 10:17 – to bear Lev 16:10 – to make Lev 16:17 – no man Lev 16:21 – putting Num 15:31 – his iniquity Num 18:1 – shall bear Deu 3:26 – the Lord 1Ki 8:46 – there is no man Job 40:4 – Behold Psa 14:3 – all gone Psa 40:12 – mine Psa 53:3 – Every Psa 119:101 – refrained Psa 130:3 – shouldest mark Pro 7:25 – go Ecc 7:20 – there Isa 53:4 – he hath Isa 53:5 – But he was Isa 64:6 – are all Jer 50:6 – people Eze 4:5 – I have Eze 43:22 – a kid Joe 2:27 – that I Mat 10:6 – lost Mat 15:24 – I am not Luk 12:32 – little Luk 15:4 – having Joh 10:7 – the sheep Joh 10:11 – giveth Joh 18:8 – if Rom 3:12 – They are Rom 5:8 – in that 2Co 5:14 – one Gal 3:11 – that Eph 2:3 – we Phi 3:9 – not 1Ti 2:6 – gave 1Pe 2:24 – by 1Jo 1:8 – say
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 53:6. All we All mankind; like sheep Which are exceedingly apt to go astray, and lose themselves; have gone astray From God, and from the way of truth and duty; of wisdom, piety, and virtue; of holiness and happiness. We have turned every one to his own way In general, to the way of sin, which may well be called a mans own way, because sin is natural to us, inherent in us, born with us; and, in particular, to those several paths which several men choose, according to their different opinions and circumstances. And the Lord hath laid Hebrew, hath made to meet on him, as all the rivers meet in the sea. The iniquity of us all
Not properly, for he knew no sin; but the punishment of iniquity, as the word is frequently used. That which was due for all the sins of all mankind, which must needs be so heavy a load, that if he had not been God as well as man he must have sunk under the burden.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the {i} iniquity of us all.
(i) Meaning, the punishment of our iniquity, and not the fault itself.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
A simile now reinforces the point just made. Sheep are notoriously shortsighted; they go after the next clump of grass without regard to where their feet may lead them. They are also self-centered; their only thought is how they can satisfy themselves with no concern for the welfare of other sheep. Consequently sheep often get lost. Humans are the same.
"Sheep tend to travel together, so if the leading sheep turns aside from the path for grass or some other purpose, usually all the sheep do so. They tend to follow the lead sheep which is often dangerous. Similarly all Israel [even all people] had turned aside (cf. 1Pe 2:25) from following the Lord, from keeping His commandments." [Note: J. Martin, p. 1108.]
But Yahweh would cause the consequences of our natural sheep-like tendencies to fall on the Servant. Rather than every person having to bear the consequences of sin himself or herself, as Job’s friends argued he or she must, God would make His Servant suffer for the iniquity of all sinners (cf. Leviticus 16; 2Co 5:21; 1Pe 2:22-25).
"Under the Law of Moses, the sheep died for the shepherd; but under grace, the Good Shepherd died for the sheep (Joh 10:1-18)." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 61.]
Suffering in God’s service is frequently vicarious. It often involves suffering because of the sins of others as well as for our own sins.