But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
5. In Isa 53:4 the people confess that the Servant was their substitute in his endurance of pains and sicknesses; here they penetrate more deeply into the meaning of his sufferings, perceiving the connexion between his passion and their own sin. The connexion is twofold; in the first place the Servant’s suffering was the penalty due to the people’s transgressions, and in the second place it was the remedy by which they were restored to spiritual health.
But he was pierced because of our rebellions,
Crushed because of our iniquities.
The strong verbs “pierced” (see ch. Isa 51:9) and “crushed” (Job 6:9) are probably metaphors expressing the fatal ravages of leprosy.
the chastisement of our peace ] i.e. the chastisement needful to procure peace or well-being for us. “Chastisement” is pain inflicted for moral ends and with remedial intent (Pro 3:11 f. &c.). Cheyne’s assertion that the notion of punishment is the primary one in this word is not borne out by O.T. usage.
with his stripes ] lit. weals (see ch. Isa 1:6).
That the people themselves had suffered for their sins is not excluded, but is apparently implied in the last words (“we are healed”), and is expressly said in other parts of the book (ch. Isa 40:2, Isa 42:24 f. &c.). What the verse teaches is that the people could not be healed by their own suffering; it was only through the Servant’s voluntary submission to the divine chastisement ( Isa 53:7), and his bearing it in an extraordinary degree, that an atonement was effected between Jehovah and Israel (see on ch. Isa 40:2).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But he was wounded – Margin, Tormented. Jerome and the Septuagint also render this, He was wounded. Junius and Tremellius, He was affected with grief. The Chaldee has given a singular paraphrase of it, showing how confused was the view of the whole passage in the mind of that interpreter. And he shall build the house of the sanctuary which was defiled on account of our sins, and which was delivered on account of our iniquities. And in his doctrine, peace shall be multiplied to us. And when we obey his words, our sins shall be remitted to us. The Syriac renders it in a remarkable manner, He is slain on account of our sins, thus showing that it was a common belief that the Messiah would be violently put to death. The word rendered wounded ( mecholal), is a Pual participle, from chalal, to bore through, to perforate, to pierce; hence, to wound 1Sa 31:3; 1Ch 10:3; Eze 28:9. There is probably the idea of painful piercing, and it refers to some infliction of positive wounds on the body, and not to mere mental sorrows, or to general humiliation. The obvious idea would be that there would be some act of piercing, some penetrating wound that would endanger or take life. Applied to the actual sufferings of the Messiah, it refers undoubtedly to the piercing of his hands, his feet, and his side. The word tormented, in the margin, was added by our translators because the Hebrew word might be regarded as derived from chul, to writhe, to be tormented, to be pained – a word not unfrequently applied to the pains of parturition. But it is probable that it is rather to be regarded as derived from chalal, to pierce, or to wound.
For our transgressions – The prophet here places himself among the people for whom the Messiah suffered these things, and says that he was not suffering for his own sins, but on account of theirs. The preposition for ( min) here answers to the Greek dia, on account of, and denotes the cause for which he suffered and means, even according to Gesenius (Lex.), here, the ground or motive on account of, or because of which anything is done. Compare Deu 7:7; Jdg 5:11; Est 5:9; Psa 68:30; Son 3:8. It is strikingly parallel to the passage in Rom 4:25 : Who was delivered for ( dia) our offences. Compare 2Co 5:21; Heb 9:28; 1Pe 2:24. Here the sense is, that the reason why he thus suffered was, that we were transgressors. All along the prophet keeps up the idea that it was not on account of any sin of which he was guilty that he thus suffered, but it was for the sins of others – an idea which is everywhere exhibited in the New Testament.
He was bruised – The word used here ( daka’) means properly to be broken to pieces, to be bruised, to be crushed Job 6:9; Psa 72:4. Applied to mind, it means to break down or crush by calamities and trials; and by the use of the word here, no doubt, the most severe inward and outward sufferings are designated. The Septuagint renders it, Memalakista – He was rendered languid, or feeble. The same idea occurs in the Syriac translation. The meaning is, that he was under such a weight of sorrows on account of our sins, that he was, as it were, crushed to the earth. How true this was of the Lord Jesus it is not necessary here to pause to show.
The chastisement of our peace – That is, the chastisement by which our peace is effected or secured was laid upon him; or, he took it upon himself, and bore it, in order that we might have peace. Each word here is exceedingly important, in order to a proper estimate of the nature of the work performed by the Redeemer. The word chastisement ( musar), properly denotes the correction, chastisement, or punishment inflicted by parents on their children, designed to amend their faults Pro 22:15; Pro 23:13. It is applied also to the discipline and authority of kings Job 22:18; and to the discipline or correction of God Job 5:17; Hos 5:2. Sometimes it means admonition or instruction, such as parents give to children, or God to human beings. It is well rendered by the Septuagint by Paideia; by Jerome, Disciplina. The word does not of necessity denote punishment, though it is often used in that sense.
It is properly that which corrects, whether it be by admonition, counsel, punishment, or suffering. Here it cannot properly mean punishment – for there is no punishment where there is no guilt, and the Redeemer had done no sin; but it means that he took upon himself the sufferings which would secure the peace of those for whom he died – those which, if they could have been endured by themselves, would have effected their peace with God. The word peace means evidently their peace with God; reconciliation with their Creator. The work of religion in the soul is often represented as peace; and the Redeemer is spoken of as the great agent by whom that is secured. For he is our peace (Eph 2:14-15, Eph 2:17; compare Act 10:36; Rom 5:1; Rom 10:15). The phrase upon him, means that the burden by which the peace of people was effected was laid upon him, and that he bore it. It is parallel with the expressions which speak of his bearing it, carrying it, etc. And the sense of the whole is, that he endured the sorrows, whatever they were, which were needful to secure our peace with God.
And with his stripes – Margin, Bruise. The word used here in Hebrew ( chabburah) means properly stripe, weal, bruise, that is, the mark or print of blows on the skin. Greek Molopi; Vulgate, Livore. On the meaning of the Hebrew word, see the notes at Isa 1:6. It occurs in the following places, and is translated by stripe, and stripes (Exo 21:25, bis); bruises Isa 1:6; hurt Gen 4:23; blueness Pro 20:30; wounds Psa 38:5; and spots, as of a leopard Jer 13:23. The proper idea is the weal or wound made by bruising; the mark designated by us when we speak of its being black and blue. It is not a flesh wound; it does not draw blood; but the blood and other humors are collected under the skin. The obvious and natural idea conveyed by the word here is, that the individual referred to would be subjected to some treatment that would cause such a weal or stripe; that is, that he would be beaten, or scourged. How literally this was applicable to the Lord Jesus, it is unnecessary to attempt to prove (see Mat 27:26). It may be remarked here, that this could not be mere conjecture How could Isaiah, seven hundred years before it occurred, conjecture that the Messiah would be scourged and bruised? It is this particularity of prediction, compared with the literal fulfillment, which furnishes the fullest demonstration that the prophet was inspired. In the prediction nothing is vague and general. All is particular and minute, as if he saw what was done, and the description is as minutely accurate as if he was describing what was actually occurring before his eyes.
We are healed – literally, it is healed to us; or healing has happened to us. The healing here referred to, is spiritual healing, or healing from sin. Pardon of sin, and restoration to the favor of God, are not unfrequently represented as an act of healing. The figure is derived from the fact that awakened and convicted sinners are often represented as crushed, broken, bruised by the weight of their transgressions, and the removal of the load of sin is repesented as an act of healing. I said, O Lord, be merciful unto me; heal my soul, for I have sinned againt thee Psa 41:4. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed Psa 6:2. Who forgiveth all thine, iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases Psa 103:3. The idea here is, that the Messiah would be scourged; and that it would be by that scourging that health would be imparted to our souls.
It would be in our place, and in our stead; and it would be designed to have the same effect in recovering us, as though it had been inflicted on ourselves. And will it not do it? Is it not a fact that it has such an effect? Is not a man as likely to be recovered from a course of sin and folly, who sees another suffer in his place what he ought himself to suffer, as though he was punished himself? Is not a wayward and dissipated son quite as likely to be recovered to a course of virtue by seeing the sufferings which his career of vice causes to a father, a mother, or a sister, as though he himself When subjected to severe punishment? When such a son sees that he is bringing down the gray hairs of his father with sorrow to the grave; when he sees that he is breaking the heart of the mother that bore him; when he sees a sister bathed in tears, or in danger of being reduced to poverty or shame by his course, it will be far more likely to reclaim him than would be personal suffering, or the prospect of poverty, want, and an early death. And it is on this principle that the plan of salvation is founded. We shall be more certainly reclaimed by the voluntary sufferings of the innocent in our behalf, than we should be by being personally punished. Punishment would make no atonement, and would bring back no sinner to God. But the suffering of the Redeemer in behalf of mankind is adapted to save the world, and will in fact arrest, reclaim, and redeem all who shall ever enter into heaven.
(Sin is not only a crime for which we were condemned to die, and which Christ purchased for us the pardon of, but it is a disease which tends directly to the death of our souls, and which Christ provided for the cure of. By his stripes, that is, the sufferings he underwent, he purchased for us the Spirit and grace of God, to mortify our corruptions, which are the distempers of our souls; and to put our souls in a good state of health, that they may be fit to serve God, and prepare to enjoy him. And by the doctrine of Christs cross, and the powerful arguments it furnisheth us with against sin, the dominion of sin is broken in us, anal we are fortified against that which feeds the disease – Henry.)
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 53:5
But He was wounded for our transgressions
The sufferings of Christ
Three things suggest themselves as requiring explanation to one who seriously contemplates the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ.
1. An innocent man suffers.
2. The death of Jesus is the apparent defeat and destruction of one who possessed extraordinary and supernatural powers.
3. This apparent defeat and ruin, instead of hindering the progress of His work, became at once, and in all the history of the progress of His doctrine has been emphatically, the instrument whereby a world is conquered. The death of Jesus has not been mourned by His followers, has never been concealed, but rather exulted in and prominently set forth as that to which all men must chiefly look if they would regard Christ and His mission right. The shame and the failure issue in glory and completest success. What is the philosophy of this? Has any ever been given which approaches the Divinely revealed meaning supplied by our text? He was wounded for our transgressions, etc. We learn here–
I. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS CHRIST RESULTED FROM OUR SINS.
II. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS WHERE RELATED TO THE DIVINE LAW.
III. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS BECAME REMEDIAL OF HUMAN SINFULNESS. (L. D.Bevan, D. D.)
A short catechism
1. What is mans condition by nature?
(1) Under transgression.
(2) Under iniquities.
(3) At feud with God.
(4) Under wounds and most loathsome diseases of a sinful nature.
2. How are folks freed from this sinful and miserable condition?
(1) In general, before the quarrel can be taken away, and their peace can be made, there must be a satisfaction.
(2) More particularly there must be a satisfaction, because there is the justice of God that hath a claim by a standing law; the holiness of God, that must be vindicated; the faith of God, that must cause to come to pass what it hath pledged itself to, as well in reference to threatening as to promise.
3. Who maketh this satisfaction? The text says, He and Him. The Messiah.
4. How does He satisfy justice?
(1) He enters Himself in our room.
(2) Christs performance and payment of the debt according to His undertaking, implies a covenant and transaction on which the application is founded.
(3) Our Lord Jesus, in fulfilling the bargain, and satisfying justice, paid a dear price: He was wounded, bruised, suffered stripes and punishment.
5. What are the benefits that come by these sufferings?
(1) The benefits are such that if He had not suffered for us, we should have suffered all that He suffered ourselves.
(2) More particularly we have peace and pardon. Healing.
6. To whom hath Christ procured all these good things?
(1) The elect;
(2) who are guilty of heinous sins.
7. How are these benefits derived from Christ to the sinner?
(1) Justly and in a legal way;
(2) freely. (J. Durham.)
Sin
Verses 5 and 6 are remarkable for the numerous and diversified references to sin which they make. Within the short compass of two verses that sad fact is referred to no less than six times, and on each occasion a different figure is used to describe it. It is transgression–the crossing of a boundary and trespassing upon forbidden land. It is iniquity–the want of equity: the absence of just dealing. It is the opposite of Peace–the root of discord and enmity between us and God. It is a disease of the spirit–difficult to heal. It is a foolish and wilful wandering, like that of a stray sheep. And it is a heavy burden, which crushes him on whom it lies. So many and serious are the aspects of sin. (B. J. Gibbon.)
The sufferings of Christ
I. ATTEND TO THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD, as described in the text. The sufferings of the Saviour are described in the Scriptures with simplicity and grandeur combined. Nothing can add to the solemnity and force of the exhibition.
1. The prophet tells us that the Son of God was wounded. The Hebrew word here translated wounded, signifies to run through with a sword or some sharp weapon, and, as here used, seems to refer to those painful wounds which our Lord received at the time of His crucifixion.
2. The prophet tells us that the Son of God was bruised. This expression seems to have a reference to the labours, afflictions, and sorrows which our blessed Lord sustained, especially in the last scenes of His life.
3. The prophet tells us that the Son of God bore chastisements and stripes.
II. CONSIDER THE PROCURING CAUSE OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD. Our transgressions. Our iniquities.
III. ATTEND TO THE GRACIOUS DESIGN AND HAPPY EFFECTS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.
1. One gracious design and blessed effect of the sufferings of the Son of God was to procure for us reconciliation with God.
2. The renovating of our nature. (D. Dickson, D.D.)
Substitution
There is no more remarkable language than this in the whole of the Word of God. It is so clear a statement of the doctrine of the substitution of the innocent for the guilty, that we do not hesitate to say, no words could teach it if it be not taught here. We are distinctly told–
I. THAT THERE BELONGS TO US A SAD AND GRIEVOUS WEIGHT OF SIN. There are three terms expressive of what belong to us: our transgressions, our iniquities, gone astray. These three phrases have indeed a common feature; they all indicate what is wrong–even sin, though they represent the wrong in different aspects.
1. Transgressions. The word thus translated indicates sin in one or other of three forms–either that of missing the mark through aimlessness, or carelessness, or a wrong aim; or of coming short, when, though the work may be right in its direction, it does not come up to the standard; or of crossing a boundary and going over to the wrong side of a line altogether. In all these forms our sins have violated the holy law of God.
2. Iniquities. This word also has reference to moral law as the standard of duty. The Hebrew word is from a root which signifies to bend, to twist, and refers to the tortuous, crooked, winding ways of men when they conform to no standard at all save that suggested by their own fancies or conceits, and so walk according to the course of this world.
3. The third phrase has reference rather to the God of Law, than to the law of God, and to Him in His relation to us of Lord, Leader, Shepherd, and Guide. There is not only the infringement of the great law of right, but also universal neglect and abandonment of Divine leadership and love; and as the result of this, grievous mischief is sure to follow. Like the sheep, they find their way out easily enough; they go wandering over the dark mountains, each one to his own way, but of themselves they can never find the way home again. And so far does this wandering propensity increase in force, that men come to think there is no home for them; the loving concern of God for the wanderers is disbelieved, and the Supreme Being is regarded in the light of a terrible Judge eager to inflict retribution. And all this is a pressure on God. He misses the wanderers. And through the prophet, the Spirit of God would let men know that the wanderings of earth are the care of Heaven. Nor let us fail to note that in these verses there is an entirely different aspect of human nature and action from that presented in the verse preceding. There, the expressions were our griefs, our sorrows. Here, they are our transgressions, etc. Griefs and sorrows are not in themselves violations of moral law, though they may be the results of them, and though every violation of moral law may lead to sorrow. Still they must not be confounded, though inseparably connected. Grief may solicit pity: wrong incurs penalty. And the sin is ours. The evil is wide as the race. Each ones sin is a personal one: Every one to his own way. Sin is thus at once collective and individual. No one can charge the guilt of his own sin on any one else. On whom or on what will he cast the blame? On influences? But it was for him to resist and not to yield. On temptation? But temptation cannot force. In the judgment of God each ones sin is his own.
II. THIS SERVANT OF GOD BEING LADEN WITH OUR SINS, SHARES OUR HERITAGE OF WOE. How remarkable is the antithesis here–Transgressions; iniquities; wanderings, are ours. Wounds; bruises; chastisements; stripes, are His. There is also a word indicating the connection between the two sides of the antithesis, wounded for our transgressions–on account of them; but if this were all the explanation given, it might mean no more than that the Messiah would feel so grieved at them that they would bruise or wound Him. But there is a far fuller and clearer expression: The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. This expression fixes the sense in which the Messiah was wounded and bruised on our account. In pondering over this, let us work our way step by step.
1. The inflexibility of the moral law and the absolute righteousness and equity of the Lawgiver in dealing with sin are thoughts underlying the whole of this chapter. The most high God is indeed higher than law; and though He never violates law, He may, out of the exuberance of His own love, do more than law requires, and may even cease to make law the rule of His action. But even when that is the ease, and He acts (apart from law, Rom 3:21), while He manifests the infinite freedom of a God to do whatsoever he pleaseth, He will also show to the world that His law must be honoured in the penalties inflicted for its violation. This is indicated in the words, The Lord hath laid on Him, etc. Nor ought any one for a moment to think of this as exaction. Exactness is not exactingness; it would not be called so, nor would the expression be tolerated if applied to a judge who forbade the dishonouring of a national law, or to a father who would not suffer the rules of his house to be broken with impunity.
2. It is revealed to us that in the mission of this servant of Jehovah, the Most High would act on the principle of substitution. When a devout Hebrew read the words we are now expounding, the image of the scapegoat would at once present itself to him.
3. The Messiah was altogether spotless; He fulfilled the ideal typified by the precept that the sacrificial lamb was to be without blemish. Being the absolutely sinless One, He was fitted to stand in a relation to sin and sinners which no being who was tainted with sin could possibly have occupied.
4. The twofold nature of the Messiah–He being at once the Son of God and Son of man, qualified Him to stand in a double relation;–as the Son of God, to be Heavens representative on earth–as the Son of man, to be earths representative to Heaven. Thus, His offering of Himself was Gods own sacrifice (Joh 3:16; 1Jn 4:10; Rom 5:8; 2Co 5:19), and yet, in another sense, it was mans own sacrifice (2Co 5:14; 2Co 5:21; Gal 3:13).
5. By His incarnation, Christ came and stood in such alliance with our race, that what belonged to the race belonged to Him, as inserted into it, and representative of it. We need not use any such expression as this–Christ was punished for our sin. That would be wrong. But sin was condemned in and through Christ, through His taking on Himself the liabilities of a world, as their one representative Man who would stand in their stead; and by the self-abandonment of an unparalleled love, would let the anguish of sins burden fall on His devoted head. Paul, in his Epistle to Philemon pleads for Onesimus thus, If he hath wronged thee or oweth thee ought, put that to my account. So the Son of God has accepted our liabilities. Only thus can we explain either the strong language of the prophecy, or the mysterious sorrow of Christ depicted in the Gospel history. On whatever grounds sins punishment was necessary had there been no atonement, on precisely those grounds was an atonement necessary to free the sinner from deserved punishment. This gracious work was in accord with the appointment of the Father and with the will of the Son.
6. Though the law is honoured in this substitution of another for us, yet the substitution itself does not belong to law, but to love! Grace reigns; law is not trifled with; it is not infringed on: nay, it is established.
III. CHRIST HAVING ACCEPTED OUR HERITAGE OF WOE, WE RECEIVE THROUGH HIM A HERITAGE OF PEACE. (C. Clemance, D. D.)
Vicarious suffering
In a large family of evil-doers, where the father and mother are drunkards, the sons jail-birds and the daughters steeped in shame, there may be one, a daughter, pure, sensible, sensitive, living in the home of sin like a lily among thorns. And she makes all the sin of the family her own. The others do not mind it; the shame of their sin is nothing to them; it is the talk of the town, but they do not care. Only in her heart their crimes and disgrace meet like a sheaf of spears, piercing and mangling. The one innocent member of the family bears the guilt of all the rest. Even their cruelty to herself she hides, as if all the shame of it were her own. Such a position did Christ hold in the human family. He entered it voluntarily, becoming bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; He identified Himself with it; He was the sensitive centre of the whole. He gathered into His heart the shame and guilt of all the sin He saw. The perpetrators did not feel it, but He felt it. It crushed Him; it broke His heart. (J. Stalker, D.D.)
With His stripes we are healed
The disease of sin
I. IT IS A WASTING DISEASE; it bringeth the soul into a languishing condition, and wasteth the strength of it (Rom 5:6). Sin hath weakened the soul in all the faculties of it, which all may discern and observe in themselves.
II. IT IS A PAINFUL DISEASE, it woundeth the spirit (Pro 18:14). Greatness of mind may support us under a wounded body, but when there is a breach made upon the conscience, what can relieve us then? But you will say, They that are most infected with sin feel little of this; how is it then so painful a disease?
1. If they feel it not, the greater is their danger; for stupid diseases are the worst, and usually most mortal.
2. The soul of a sinner never sits so easy but that he has his qualms and pangs of conscience, and that sometimes in the midst of jollity; as was the case of Belshazzar, while carousing in the cups of the temple.
3. Though they feel not the diseases now, they shall hereafter.
III. IT IS A LOATHSOME DISEASE.
IV. IT IS AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE. Sin cometh into the world by propagation rather than imitation: yet imitation and example hath a great force upon the soul.
V. IT IS A MORTAL DISEASE, if we continue in it without repentance. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Recovery by Christs stripes
1. None but Christ can cure us, for He is the Physician of souls.
2. Christ cureth us not by doctrine and example only, but by merit and suffering. We are healed by His stripes.
3. Christs merit and sufferings do effect our cure, as they purchased the Spirit for us, who reneweth and healeth our sick souls (Tit 3:5-6). (T. Manton, D.D.)
Healed by Christs stripes
With His stripes we are healed. We are healed–of our inattention and unconcern about Divine things. Of our ignorance and unbelief respecting these things. Of the disease of self-righteousness and self-confidence. Of our love to sin, and commission of it. Of our love to the riches, honours and pleasures of this world. Of our self-indulgence and self-seeking. Of our lukewarmness and sloth. Of our cowardice and fear of suffering (1Pe 4:1). Of our diffidence and distrust, with respect to the mercy of God, and His pardoning and accepting the penitent. Of an accusing conscience, and slavish fear of God, and of death and hell. Of our general depravity and corruption of nature. Of our weakness and inability; His sufferings having purchased for us the Spirit of might. Of our distresses and misery, both present and future. (J. Benson, D.D.)
His stripes
This chapter is not mainly an indictment. It is a Gospel. It declares in glad while solemn language that, terrible as sin is, it has been dealt with. The prophet dwells purposely upon the varied manifestations of the evil in order to emphasize the varied forms and absolute completeness of its conquest. He prolongs the agony that he may prolong the rapture.
I. OUR NEED OF HEALING. There is no figure which more aptly represents the serious nature and terrible consequences of sin than this one of bodily sickness. We know how it prostrates us, takes the brightness out of life, and, unless attended to, cuts life short. Sickness in its acutest form is a type in the body of sin in the soul. Sin is a mortal disease of the spirit. A common Scriptural emblem for it, found in both Old and New Testaments, is leprosy–the most frightful disease imaginable, loathsome to the observer and intolerably painful to the sufferer, attacking successively and rotting every limb of the body, and issuing slowly but certainly in death.
1. It is complicated. It affects every part of the moral being. It is blindness to holiness, and deafness to the appeals of God. There is a malady known as ossification of the heart, by which the living and beating heart is slowly turned to a substance like bone. It is a type of the complaint of the sinner. His heart is hard and impenitent. He suffers, too, from the fever of unhallowed desire. The lethargy of spiritual indifference is one of his symptoms; a depraved appetite, by which he tries to feed his immortal soul on husks, is another; while his whole condition is one of extreme debility–absence of strength to do right. In another part of the book our prophetdiagnoses more thoroughly the disease of which he here speaks (Isa 1:5-6). No hospital contains a spectacle so sickening and saddening as the unregenerate human heart.
2. The disease is universal. There is none righteous; no, not one. What the Bible declares, experience confirms. The ancient world, speaking through a noble literature that has come down to us, confesses many times the condition expressed by Ovid, I see and approve the better things, while I follow those which are worse. Christendom finds its mouthpiece in the apostle Paul, who, speaking of himself apart from the help of Christ, mournfully says, When I would do good, evil is present with me. And modem culture reveals its deepest consciousness in the words of Lowell, the ambassador-poet, In my own heart I find the worst mans mate. It is a feature of the malady that the patient is often insensible to it. But from every lip there is at least occasional confession of some of its symptoms. There is discomfort in the conscience; there is dissatisfaction at the heart; and there is dread in the face of death and the unknown beyond. The Scriptures are the Rontgen rays of God, and their searching light reveals behind an uneasy conscience, behind a dissatisfied heart, behind the fear of death, behind all the sorrows and evils of life, that which is their rimary cause–the malady of sin.
3. This disease is incurable–that is, apart from the healing described in the text. The end of these things is death–spiritual death; insensibility to God, and absence of the life of fellowship with Him which is life indeed–physical death, in so far as that natural process is more than mere bodilydissolution, and is a fearful and hopeless leap into the dark; for the sting of death is sin–and eternal death. Men are great at quack remedies, and the world is equally flooded with nostrums for the disease of sin. And what is the result of these loudly-hawked specifics? They are as useless as the charms which our grandmothers used to scare away diseases. The Physician is He who gave His back to the smiters; the balm is the blood which flowed from His stripes.
II. OUR MEANS OF HEALING. With His stripes. Stripes does not mean the lashes that fell on His back, but the weals which they left. We remember how He suffered under Pontius Pilate before He was crucified, dead and buried. His back was bared, His hands were tied to a low post, and a coarse, muscular giant flourished a whip above Him. It was a diabolical instrument, that Roman whip–made of leather with many thongs, and in the end of each of them a piece of iron, or bone, or stone. Every stroke fetched blood and ripped open the quivering flesh. The Jewish law forbade more than forty stripes being given, but Christ was scourged by Romans, who recognized no such merciful limit. But as we know that Pilate intended the scourging to be a substitute for crucifixion, and hoped that its severity would so melt the Jews to pity that they would not press for the worse punishment–which end, however, was not reached–we may infer that He was scourged until He could bear no more, until He could not stand, until He fell mangled and fainting at His torturers feet. Nearly two thousand years have passed since that awful affliction, but its significance is eternal. But how can the sufferings of one alleviate the sufferings of another?
1. Because the sight of them moves us to sorrow. There are certain maladies of the mind and heart for which there is hope if the emotions can be stirred and the patient made to laugh or cry. There is hope for the sinner when the thought of his sin melts his heart to sorrow and his eyes to tears. Sorrow for sin–repentance of wrong-doing–is the first stage in recovery. And there is nothing that will cause penitence like a sight of the Saviours wounds.
2. The sight of them relieves our consciences. For as we look at those livid weals we know He did not deserve them. We know that we did merit punishment direr far. And we know that He endured them, and more mysterious agonies of which they were the outward sign, in our stead. Then, gradually, we draw the inference. If He suffered for us, we are free. If our load was laid on Him, it is no longer upon us. Conscience accepts that logic.
3. The sight of them prevents further outbreaks. This cure is radical. It not only heals, it also strengthens. It gradually raises the system above its tendency to sin. For the more we gaze upon those livid stripes, the more intolerable and hateful sin, which caused them, appears, and the more difficult it becomes for us to indulge in it. Our medicine is also a strong tonic, which invigorates the spiritual nature and fortifies its weaknesses. Stanley, in one of his books on African travel, tells of the crime of Uledi, his native coxswain, and what came of it. Ulodi was deservedly popular for his ability and courage, but having robbed his master, a jury of his fellows condemned him to receive a terrible flogging. Then uprose his brother, Shumari, who said, Uledi has done very wrong; but no one can accuse me of wrong-doing. Now, mates, let me take half the whipping. I will cheerfully endure it for the sake of my brother. Scarcely had he finished when another arose, and said, Uledi has been the father of the boat boys. He has many times risked his life to save others; and he is my cousin; and yet he ought to be punished. Shumari says he will take half the punishment; and now let me take the other half, and let Uledi go free. Surely the heart of the guilty man must have been touched, and the willing submission by others to the punishment he had merited must have restrained him from further outbreaks as the strict infliction of the original penalty never could. By those stripes he would be healed. Even so, the stripes of our Lord deliver us from the very tendency to sin. For the disease to be healed the medicine must be taken. Our very words recipe and receipt remind, us of this. They are related, and signify to take. The selfsame word describes the means of cure, and commands that it be used. Look upon His wounds! And let those of us who have looked for our cure, still look for our strengthening. We should not have so many touches of the old complaint if we thought oftener of the stripes by which we are healed. Look all through life, and you will grow stronger and holier. (B. J. Gibbon.)
The universal remedy
Not merely His bleeding wounds, but even those blue bruises of His flesh help to heal us. There are none quite free from spiritual diseases. One may be saying, Mine is a weak faith; another may confess, Mine is distracted thoughts; another may exclaim, Mine is coldness of love; and a fourth may have to lament his powerlessness in prayer. One remedy in natural things will not suffice for all diseases; but there is a catholicon, a universal remedy, provided in the Word of God for all spiritual sicknesses, and that is contained in the few words–With His stripes we are healed.
I. THE MEDICINE ITSELF WHICH IS HERE PRESCRIBED–the stripes of Our Saviour. By the term stripes, no doubt the prophet understood here, first, literally, those stripes which fell upon our Lords shoulders when He was beaten of the Jews, and afterwards scourged of the Roman soldiery. But the words intend far more than this. No doubt with his prophetic eye Isaiah saw the stripes from that unseen scourge held in the Fathers hand which fell upon his nobler inner nature when His soul was scourged for sin. It is by these that our souls are healed. But why? First, then, because our Lord, as a sufferer, was not a private person, but suffered as a public individual and an appointed representative. Our Lord was not merely man, or else his sufferings could not have availed for the multitude who now are healed thereby. He was God as well as man. Our Saviours sufferings heal us of the curse by being presented before God as a substitute for what we owe to His Divine law. But healing is a work that is carried on within, and the text rather leads me to speak of the effect of the stripes of Christ upon our characters and natures than upon the result produced in our position before God.
II. THE MATCHLESS CURES WROUGHT BY THIS REMARKABLE MEDICINE. Look at two pictures. Look at man without the stricken Saviour; and then behold man with the Saviour, healed by His stripes.
III. THE MALADIES WHICH THIS WONDROUS MEDICINE REMOVES.
1. The mania of despair.
2. The stony heart.
3. The paralysis of doubt.
4. A stiffness of the knee-joint of prayer.
5. Numbness of soul.
6. The fever of pride.
7. The leprosy of selfishness.
8. Anger.
9. The fretting consumption of worldliness.
10. The cancer of covetousness.
IV. THE CURATIVE PROPERTIES OF THE MEDICINE.
1. It arrests spiritual disorder.
2. It quickens all the powers of the spiritual man to resist the disease.
3. It restores to the man that which he lost in strength by sin.
4. It soothes the agony of conviction.
5. It has an eradicating power as to sin.
V. THE MODES OF THE WORKING OF THIS MEDICINE. The sinner hearing of the death of the incarnate God is led by the force of truth and the power of the Holy Spirit to believe in the incarnate God. The cure is already begun. After faith come gratitude, love, obedience.
VI. ITS REMARKABLY EASY APPLICATION.
VII. Since the medicine is so efficacious, since it is already prepared and freely presented, I do beseech you TAKE IT. Take it, you who have known its power in years gone by. Let not backslidings continue, but come to His stripes afresh. Take it, ye doubters, lest ye sink into despair; come to His stripes anew. Take it, ye who are beginning to be self-confident and proud. And, O ye who have never believed in Him, come and trust in Him, and you shall live. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
A simple remedy
I. THESE ARE SAD WORDS. They are part of a mournful piece of music, which might be called the requiem of the Messiah.
1. These are sad words because they imply disease.
2. There is a second sorrow in the verse, and that is sorrow for the suffering by which we are healed. There was a cruel process in the English navy, in which-men were made to run the gauntlet all along the ship, with sailors on each side, each man being bound to give a stroke to the poor victim as he ran along. Our Saviours life was a running of the gauntlet between His enemies and His friends, who all struck Him, one here and another there. Satan, too, struck at him.
II. THESE ARE GLAD WORDS.
1. Because they speak of healing.
2. There is another joy in the text–joy in the honour which it brings to Christ.
III. THESE ARE SUGGESTIVE WORDS. Whenever a man is healed through the stripes of Jesus, the instincts of his nature should make him say, I will spend the strength I have, as a healed man, for Him who healed me. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Christopathy
I. GOD HERE TREATS SIN AS A DISEASE. Sin is a disease–
1. Because it is not an essential part of man as he was created. It is something abnormal.
2. Because it puts all the faculties out of gear.
3. Because it weakens the moral energy, just as many diseases weaken the sick persons body.
4. Because it either causes great pain, or deadens all sensibility, as the case may be.
5. Because it frequently produces a manifest pollution.
6. Because it tends to increase in the man, and will one day prove fatal to him.
II. GOD HERE DECLARES THE REMEDY WHICH HE HAS PROVIDED.
1. Behold the heavenly medicine.
2. Remember that the sufferings of Christ were vicarious.
2. Accept this atonement and you are saved by it.
4. Let nothing of your own interfere with the Divine remedy. Prayer does not heal, but it asks for the remedy. It is not trust that heals; that is man s application of the remedy. Repentance is not what cures, it is a part of the cure, one of the first tokens that the blessed medicine has begun to work in the soul. The healing of a sinner does not lie in himself, nor in what he is, nor in what he feels, nor in what he does, nor in what he vows, nor in what he promises. It is in His stripes that the healing lies.
III. THE REMEDY IS IMMEDIATELY EFFECTIVE. How are we healed?
1. Our conscience is healed of every smart.
2. Our heart is healed of its love of sin.
3. Our life is healed of its rebellion.
4. Our consciousness assures us that we are healed. If you are healed by His stripes you should go and live like healthy men. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Healed by Christs stripes
Mr. Mackay, of Hull, told of a person who was under very deep concern of soul. Taking the Bible into his hand, he said to himself, Eternal life is to be found somewhere in this Word of God; and, if it be here, I will find it, for I will read the Book right through, praying to God over every page of it, if perchance it may contain some saving message for me. The earnest seeker read on through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and so on; and though Christ is there very evidently, he could not find Him in the types and symbols. Neither did the holy histories yield him comfort, nor the Book of Job. He passed through the Psalms, but did not find his Saviour there; and the same was the case with the other books till he reached Isaiah. In this prophet he read on till near the end, and then in the fifty-third chapter, these words arrested his delighted attention, With His stripes we are healed. Now I have found it, says he. Here is the healing that I need for my sin-sick soul, and I see how it comes to me through the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name, I am healed! (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Self-sufficiency prevents healing
I saw a pedlar one day, as I was walking out; he was selling walkingsticks. He followed me, and offered me one of the sticks. I showed him mine–a far better one than any he had to sell–and he withdrew at once. He could see that I was not likely to be a purchaser. I have often thought of that when I have been preaching: I show men the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, but they show me their own, and all hope of dealing with them is gone. Unless I can prove that their righteousness is worthless, they will not seek the righteousness which is of God by faith. Oh, that the Lord would show you your disease, and then you would desire the remedy! (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Sin deadens sensibility
It frequently happens that, the more sinful a man is, the less he is conscious of it. It was remarked of a certain notorious criminal that many thought him innocent because, when he was charged with murder, he did not betray the least emotion. In that wretched self-possession there was to my mind presumptive proof of his great familiarity with trims; if an innocent person is charged with a great offence, the mere charge horrifies him. (C.H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. The chastisement of our peace – “The chastisement by which our peace is effected”] Twenty-one MSS. and six editions have the word fully and regularly expressed, shelomeynu; pacificationum nostrarum, “our pacification;” that by which we are brought into a state of peace and favour with God. Ar. Montan.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But; but this was a most false and unrighteous sentence.
He was wounded; which word comprehends all his pains and punishments, and his death among and above the rest.
For our transgressions; not by them, which is expressed by another particle, not by the wickedness of the Jews; but for or because of them, as this particle commonly signifies, for the guilt of their sins, which he had voluntarily taken upon himself, and for the expiation of their sins, which was hereby purchased and procured of God for men. Which interpretation is confirmed,
1. By the opposition of this truth to the false opinion mentioned in the foregoing clause, that he was smitten of God for the guilt of his own sins.
2. By the following clause, as we shall see.
3. By the nature of the thing; this being evident from scriptures both from the Old and New Testament, that Christ was not to suffer for his own, but for other mens sins. See Dan 9:24,26.
The chastisement of our peace; those punishments by which our peace, i.e. our reconciliation to God, and salvation, or happiness, was to be purchased.
Was upon him; was laid upon him by Gods justice with his own consent.
With his stripes we are healed; by his sufferings we are saved from our sins, and from the dreadful effects thereof.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. woundeda bodily wound; notmere mental sorrow; literally, “pierced”; minutelyappropriate to Messiah, whose hands, feet, and side were pierced (Ps22:16). The Margin, wrongly, from a Hebrew root,translates, “tormented.”
for . . . for (Rom 4:25;2Co 5:21; Heb 9:28;1Pe 2:24; 1Pe 3:18)the cause for which He suffered not His own, but oursins.
bruisedcrushing inwardand outward suffering (see on Isa53:10).
chastisementliterally,the correction inflicted by a parent on children for theirgood (Heb 12:5-8; Heb 12:10;Heb 12:11). Not punishmentstrictly; for this can have place only where there is guilt, which Hehad not; but He took on Himself the chastisement whereby the peace(reconciliation with our Father; Rom 5:1;Eph 2:14; Eph 2:15;Eph 2:17) of the children ofGod was to be effected (Heb2:14).
upon himas a burden;parallel to “hath borne” and “carried.”
stripesminutelyprophetical of His being scourged (Mat 27:26;1Pe 2:24).
healedspiritually(Psa 41:4; Jer 8:22).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But he was wounded for our transgressions,…. Not for any sins of his own, but for ours, for our rebellions against God, and transgressions of his law, in order to make atonement and satisfaction for them; these were the procuring and meritorious causes of his sufferings and death, as they were taken upon him by him to answer for them to divine justice, which are meant by his being wounded; for not merely the wounds he received in his hands, feet, and side, made by the nails and spear, are meant, but the whole of his sufferings, and especially his being wounded to death, and which was occasionally by bearing the sins of his people; and hereby he removed the guilt from them, and freed them from the punishment due unto them:
he was bruised for our iniquities; as bread corn is bruised by threshing it, or by its being ground in the mill, as the manna was; or as spice is bruised in a mortar, he being broken and crushed to pieces under the weight of sin, and the punishment of it. The ancient Jews understood this of the Messiah; in one place they say o,
“chastisements are divided into three parts, one to David and the fathers, one to our generation, and one to the King Messiah; as it is written, “he was wounded for our transgressions; and bruised for our iniquities”:”
and in another place p,
“at that time they shall declare to the Messiah the troubles of Israel in captivity, and the wicked which are among them, that do not mind to know the Lord; he shall lift up his voice, and weep over the wicked among them; as it is said, “he was wounded for our transgressions”, c.”
the chastisement of our peace was upon him that is, the punishment of our sins was inflicted on him, whereby our peace and reconciliation with God was made by him; for chastisement here does not design the chastisement of a father, and in love, such as the Lord chastises his people with; but an act of vindictive justice, and in wrath, taking vengeance on our sins, of our surety, whereby divine wrath is appeased, justice is satisfied, and peace is made:
and with his stripes we are healed; or “by his stripe” q, or “bruise”: properly the black and blue mark of it, so called from the gathering and settling of the blood where the blow is given. Sin is a disease belonging to all men, a natural, hereditary, nauseous, and incurable one, but by the blood of Christ; forgiving sin is a healing of this disease; and this is to be had, and in no other way, than through the stripes and wounds, the blood and sacrifice, of the Son of God. Christ is a wonderful physician; he heals by taking the sicknesses of his people upon himself, by bearing their sins, and being wounded and bruised for them, and by his enduring blows, and suffering death itself for them. The Targum is,
“when we obey his words, our sins will be forgiven us;”
but forgiveness is not through our obedience, but the blood of Christ.
o Mechilta apud Yalkut, par. 2. fol 90. 1. p Zohar in Exod. fol. 85. 2. See also Midrash Ruth, fol. 33. 2. and Zohar in Deut. fol. 117. 3. and R. Moses Hadarsan apud Galatia de Arcan. Cath. Ver. I. 8. c. 15 p. 586. and in I. 6. c. 2. p. 436. q “per livorem ejus”, Munster; “livore ejus”, V. L. Montanus, Vatablus; “tumice ejus”, Junius Tremellius “vibico ejus”, Cocceius; “vibicibus ejus” Vitringa.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In Isa 53:5, , as contrasted with , continues the true state of the case as contrasted with their false judgment. “Whereas He was pierced for our sins, bruised for our iniquities: the punishment was laid upon Him for our peace; and through His stripes we were healed.” The question is, whether Isa 53:5 describes what He was during His life, or what He was in His death. The words decide in favour of the latter. For although c halal is applied to a person mortally wounded but not yet dead (Jer 51:52; Psa 69:27), and c halal to a heart wounded to death (Psa 109:22); the pure passives used here, which denote a calamity inflicted by violence from without, more especially m e cholal , which is not the participle polal of c hl (made to twist one’s self with pain), but the participle poal of c hal (pierced, transfossus , the passive of m e cholel , Isa 51:9), and the substantive clauses, which express a fact that has become complete in all its circumstances, can hardly be understood in any other way than as denoting, that “the servant of God” floated before the mind of the speaker in all the sufferings of death, just as was the case with Zechariah in Zec 12:10. There were no stronger expressions to be found in the language, to denote a violent and painful death. As min, with the passive, does not answer to the Greek , but to , the meaning is not that it was our sins and iniquities that had pierced Him through like swords, and crushed Him like heavy burdens, but that He was pierced and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities. It was not His own sins and iniquities, but ours, which He had taken upon Himself, that He might make atonement for them in our stead, that were the cause of His having to suffer so cruel and painful a death.
The ultimate cause is not mentioned; but which follows points to it. His suffering was a m usar , which is an indirect affirmation that it was God who had inflicted it upon Him, for who else could the yoser ( m e yasser ) be? We have rendered m usar “punishment;” and there was no other word in the language for this idea; for though and (to which Hofmann refers) have indeed the idea of punishment associated with them, the former signifies , the latter , whereas m usar not only denotes , as the chastisement of love (Pro 3:11), but also as the infliction of punishment (= , Pro 7:22; Jer 30:14), just as David, when he prayed that God might not punish him in His anger and hot displeasure (Psa 6:2), could not find a more suitable expression for punishment, regarded as the execution of judgment, than ( ). The word itself, which follows the form of m usad (Isa 28:16), signifies primarily being chastised (from yasar = vasar , constringere , coercere ), and included from the very outset the idea of practical chastisement, which then passed over into that of admonition in words, of warning by example, and of chastity as a moral quality. In the case before us, in which the reference is to a sufferer, and to a m usar resting upon him, this can only mean actual chastisement. If the expression had been , it would merely mean that God had caused Him, who had taken upon Himself our sins and iniquities and thus made Himself representatively or vicariously guilty, to endure the chastisement which those sins deserved. but it is . The connection of the words is the same as that of in Pro 15:31. As the latter signifies “reproof leading to life,” so the former signifies “the chastisement which leads to our peace.” It is true that the suffix belongs to the one idea, that that has grown up through this combination of the words, like b e rth sh e lom , “my peace-covenant” (Isa 54:10); but what else could our “peace-chastisement” be, than the chastisement that brings us peace, or puts us into a state of salvation? This is the idea involved in Stier’s rendering, “restoring chastisement,” and Hofmann’s, “the chastisement wholesome for us.” The difference in the exposition simply lies in the view entertained of the m usar , in which neither of these commentators will allow that there is any idea of a visitation of justice here. But according to our interpretation, the genitive , which defines the m usar so far as its object and results are concerned, clearly shows that this manifestation of the justice of God, this satisfaction procured by His holiness, had His love for its foundation and end. It was our peace, or, what is more in accordance with the full idea of the word, our general well-being, our blessedness, which these sufferings arrived at and secured (the synonyms of shalom are tobh and y e shuah , Isa 52:7). In what follows, “and by His stripes ( c habhurah = c habburah , Isa 1:6) we have been healed,” shalom is defined as a condition of salvation brought about by healing. “ Venustissimum ,” exclaims Vitringa here. He means the same as Jerome when he says, suo vulnere vulnera nostra curavit . The stripes and weals that were inflicted upon Him have made us sound and well (the lxx keeps the collective singular, and renders it very aptly ; cf., 1Pe 2:24). We were sick unto death because of our sins; but He, the sinless one, took upon Himself a suffering unto death, which was, as it were, the concentration and essence of the woes that we had deserved; and this voluntary endurance, this submission to the justice of the Holy One, in accordance with the counsels of divine love, became the source of our healing.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
5. And he was wounded for our iniquities. He again repeats the cause of Christ’s great afflictions, in order to meet the scandal which might have arisen from it. The spectacle of the cross alienates many persons from Christ, when they consider what is presented to their eyes, and do not observe the object to be accomplished. But all offense is removed when we know that by his death our sins have been expiated, and salvation has been obtained for us.
The chastisement of our peace. Some think that this is called “the chastisement of peace,” on account of men being careless and stupefied amidst their afflictions, and therefore that it was necessary that Christ should suffer. Others view “peace” as relating to the consciences, that is, that Christ suffered, in order that we might have peaceful consciences; as Paul says that, “being justified by faith through Christ, we have peace with God.” (Rom 5:1) But I take it to denote simply reconciliation. Christ was the price of “our chastisement,” that is, of the chastisement which was due to us. Thus the wrath of God, which had been justly kindled against us, was appeased; and through the Mediator we have obtained “peace,” by which we are reconciled.
We ought to draw from this a universal doctrine, namely, that we are reconciled to God by free grace, because Christ hath paid the price of “our peace.” This is indeed acknowledged by the Papists; but then they limit this doctrine to original sin, as if after baptism there were no longer any room for reconciliation through free grace, but that we must give satisfaction by our merits and works. But the Prophet does not here treat of a single species of pardon, but extends this blessing to the whole course of life; and therefore it cannot be thus undervalued or limited to a particular time, without most heinous sacrilege. Hence also the frivolous distinction of the Papists, between the remission of punishment and the pardon of sin, is easily refuted. They affirm that punishment is not remitted to us, unless it be washed out by satisfactions. But the Prophet openly declares that the punishment of our sins was transferred to him. What, then, do the Papists intend but to be Christ’s equals and companions, and to lay claim to share with him in his authority?
In his wound (or, in his medicine) we have healing. He again directs us to Christ, that we may betake ourselves to his wounds, provided that we wish to regain life. Here the Prophet draws a contrast between us and Christ; for in us nothing call be found but destruction and death; in Christ alone is life and salvation, he alone brought medicine to us, and even procures health by his weakness, and life by his death; for he alone hath pacified the Father, he alone hath reconciled us to him. Here we might bring forward many things about the blessed consequences of Christ’s sufferings, if we had not determined to expound rather than to preach; and therefore let us be satisfied with a plain exposition. Let every one, therefore, draw consolation from this passage, and let him apply the blessed result of this doctrine to his own use; for these words are spoken to all in general, and to individuals in particular.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) He was wounded . . .Bruised. Both words refer to the death which crowned the sufferings of the Servant. That also was vicarious.
The chastisement of our peacei.e., the punishment which leads to peace, that word including, as elsewhere, every form of blessing. (Comp. the reproof of life in Pro. 15:31.) In Heb. 2:10; Heb. 5:8-9, we have the thought which is the complement of this, that the chastisement was also an essential condition of the perfection of the sufferer.
With his stripes we are healed.The words stretch wide and deep. Perhaps the most touching application is St. Peters use of them as a thought of comfort for the slaves who were scourged as He, their Lord, had been (1Pe. 2:24).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. He was wounded Either bodily, very much crushed, or mentally, broken in spirit. (Gesenius.) Gesenius refers it to the second; Furst, in general, to the first, which is perhaps the true sense. The suffering for the most part is external, yet not without terrible internal feeling. The Sufferer dies under it, though an innocent, not a guilty, sufferer. In the nature of the case, then, it is unresisted suffering, hence voluntarily endured.
He was bruised Applied to the body, crushed; applied to the mind, severe inward agony is implied.
Chastisement A burden of woe, whatever it was, assumed to secure our reconciliation and peace.
Stripes Or, something analogous thereto. The nearest to reaching the meaning here is, to suppose marks by blows upon his person substitutively received by him for us. In virtue of these we are healed. The first severe physical act of suffering on the part of our Saviour was the scourging he endured prior to execution on the cross. The word “stripes,” then, must be a collective term, (representing the first stage of his substitution,) figuring what he thus far had endured as our substitute. By “his stripes,” as a whole, that is, by his sufferings collectively considered, we are healed, reconciled, and saved. Is not this the meaning of the second member of the parallelism?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 53:5. But he was wounded, &c. “But he shall be wounded to death for our transgressions, he shall be bruised to death (see Isa 53:10.) for our iniquities: the punishment which we deserve shall be laid on him, for our peace and benefit; and by his stripes we shall be healed.” The word meduka, rendered bruised, signifies to destroy. See Job 5:4 and so the noun in Psa 90:3. Thus Christ’s body is said to be broken, 1Co 11:24 or to be delivered to death.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
It is most blessed and delightful, everlastingly to view Jesus, in all he did and wrought, as the sinner’s surety. Christ is never to be looked at, or regarded as a private person, but as the public head of his redeemed; and to endear this view of Christ still more, it is blessed to trace the hand of God the Father in all that concerns redemption. Did Jesus bear my sins in his own body on the tree? Then he did it, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him. And it was God the Father, not himself, who laid those iniquities upon him. Reader! I know not whether you enter into a rich enjoyment of those precious things; but to see the hand of God the Father in all, is what gives stability and confidence to our trust, and demonstrates that our faith is not found in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God; 1Co 2:5 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 53:5 But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Ver. 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions. ] Not for his own; for he “knew no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth”; nevertheless he took upon him whatsoever was penal that belonged to sin, that we might go free. He was content to be in the winepress that we might be in the wine cellar.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
“ Cernis ut in toto corpore sculptus amor! ”
O love, that love of his! as Bernard speaketh; let it bruise our hard hearts into pieces, grind them to powder, and make them fall asunder in our bosoms like drops of water. Let us propagate our thankfulness into our lives, meditating returns answerable in some proportion to our Saviour’s sufferings.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with his stripes we are healed.
a Oh that as Christ was crucifixus, crucified, so he were cordifixus. held fast in the heart.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
wounded = pierced.
transgressions. Hebrew. pasha’.
of = which procured. Genitive of Cause. App-17.
with, &c. Quoted in 1Pe 2:24.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Vicarious Healing
With His stripes we are healed.Isa 53:5.
1. I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Such was surely the very natural question put by the Ethiopian stranger who had gone to worship at Jerusalem, and returning, sat in his chariot and read this passage of the prophet Isaiah. Even now, with all the light shed upon the interpretation of this passage by the New Testament and by the history of eighteen centuries of Christian experience, men are still repeating the eunuchs question. I pray thee of whom speaketh the prophet this? Some would persuade us that the prophet is speaking of the nation of Israel; others would persuade us that Jeremiah is the servant of the Lord who is led as a lamb to the slaughter; and others again that it is the prophet himself or the better part of the people who occasionally bore the burden of the rest.
Unquestionably there is a difficulty in this passage. And it is just this, that the prophet does speak of the servant of the Lord who occupies so very prominent a part in all the later chapters of the prophet Isaiah,he does speak of the servant of the Lord sometimes as the nation of Israel, sometimes as the prophet himself, and at other times of a third person. For instance, in the very first place where the servant of the Lord is mentionedin the eighth and ninth verses of the forty-first chapterThou, Israel, art My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen. And again, in the forty-second chapter, and the nineteenth verse, Who is blind, but My servant? or deaf, as My messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lords servant? The context very plainly shows that he is speaking of the nation at large; and the prophet himself is spoken of as the Lords servant in the forty-fourth chapter, That confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messengers. But here is one, the servant of the Lord, who is certainly not the nation if he atones for the nation; and certainly is not the prophet, for the prophet joins himself with the rest of the nation as one of those who need atonement:All we like sheep have gone astray.
How are we to understand this? How is it that the servant of the Lord is the nation, is the prophet, is the coming Redeemer? Just for this reason, that the true Redeemer, born of the seed of Abraham, is so absolutely one with Israel that the whole history of Israel and the whole history of Israels great representative men, whether prophets, priests, or kings, is fashioned on the lines of the great redemption, and can be interpreted only by the life and sufferings and death and victory of the great Redeemer. You will remember that St. Matthew sees the fulfilment of Hoseas words, Out of Egypt have I called my son, in the going down of our Lord into Egypt in His infancy and His sojourn there. Yet we know that Hosea is speaking of the literal Israel, for he says, When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. St. Matthew sees that what is true of Israel is true also of the Christ.
2. Now here we have the great truth of a suffering Messiah, a suffering Redeemer, brought out in all its fulness as we have it nowhere else in the Old Testament. The details are so striking that we cannot wonder that again and again this passage is quoted in the New Testament, as having its fulfilment in Christ. Our Lord Himself sanctions the application when He declares, For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in Me. And He was reckoned among the transgressors. And Philips answer to the eunuch was this, Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. No passage in the Old Testament teaches so unequivocally the doctrine of vicarious atonement. True, the whole sacrificial system of Israel prefigures it, for the sacrificer brings the victim in acknowledgment that he is sinful, and that his own life is forfeit. In the twenty-second Psalm we have the Messiah forsaken of God, persecuted, reviled, spat upon, pierced, done to death, and reaping the great reward of His sufferings in the glory that should follow; but here, and here alone, in the whole of the Old Testament, we have a person, Himself of spotless innocence, entering into the whole fellowship of human suffering, led as a lamb to the slaughter, wounded for our transgressions, having the chastisement of our peace upon Him, bearing our iniquity laid upon Him by the law, making intercession for the transgressors, and receiving as His recompense that He should see His seed, that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in His hand, that He should divide the portion with the great and the spoil with the strong. I do not wonder, as we read the prophecy with all its minuteness of detail, and as we look down on the ages and search in vain for any figure but One in all history in whom its lineaments can be traced, that in his great defence of Christianity Paley should have based his whole argument from prophecy on this single chapter which he transcribes at length; or that Luther should have said that there is not in all the Old Testament a clearer prophecy both of the sufferings and of the resurrection of Christ.
3. In the text sin is spoken of as a disease. It is a disease, however, which is, humanly speaking, incurable. The only cure is a vicarious one. So we have
1.Sin as a disease.
2.An incurable disease.
3.Cured vicariously.
I
Sin as a Disease
There would be no need to talk about healing if sin had not been regarded by God as a disease. It is a great deal more than a disease, it is a wilful crime; but still it is also a disease. It is often very difficult to separate the part in a crime which disease of the mind may have, and that portion which is distinctly wilful. We need not make this separation ourselves. If we were to do so in order to excuse ourselves, that would only be increasing the evil; and if we do it for any other reason, we are so apt to be partial, that I am afraid we should ultimately make some kind of palliation for our sin which would not bear the test of the day of judgment. It is only because of Gods sovereignty, and His infinite grace, and His strong resolve to have mercy upon men, that, in this instance, He wills to look upon sin as a disease. He does not conceal from Himself, or from us, that it is a great and grievous fault; He calls it a trespass, a transgression, iniquity, and other terms that set forth its true character. Never in Scripture do we find any excuse for sin, or lessening of its heinousness; but in order that He might have mercy upon us, and deal graciously with us, the Lord is pleased to regard it as a disease, and then to come and treat us as a physician treats his patients, that He may cure us of the evil.
1. Sin is a disease, first, because it is not an essential part of man as he was created. It is something abnormal, it was not in human nature at the first. God made man upright. Our first parent, as he came fresh from the hand of his Maker, was without taint or speck of sin; he had a healthy body inhabited by a healthy soul. There was about him no tendency to evil, he was created pure and perfect; and sin does not enter into the constitution of man, per se, as God made it. It is a something which has come into us from outside. Satan came with his temptation, and sin entered into us, and death by sin. Therefore, let no man, in any sense whatever, attribute sin to God as the Creator. Let him look upon sin as being a something extraneous to a man, something which ought never to have had a locus standi within our nature at all, a something that is disturbing and destructive, a poisoned dart that is sticking in our flesh, abiding in our nature, and that has to be extracted by Divine and sovereign grace.
2. Sin is like a disease because it puts all the faculties out of gear, and breaks the equilibrium of the life forces, just as disease disturbs all our bodily functions. When a man is sick and ill, nothing about him works as it ought to do. There are some particular symptoms which, first of all, betray the existence of the virus of disease; but you cannot injure any one power of the body without the rest being in their measure put out of order. Thus has sin come into the soul of man, and put him altogether out of gear. Sometimes, a certain passion becomes predominant in a person quite out of proportion to the rest of his manhood. Things that might have been right in themselves, grow by indulgence into positive evils, while other things which ought to have had an open existence are suppressed until the suppression becomes a crime. As long as a man is under the power of sin, his soul is under the power of a disease which has disturbed all his faculties, and taken away the correct action from every part of his being.
3. Sin is a disease because it weakens the moral energy, just as many diseases weaken the sick persons body. A man, under the influence of some particular disease, becomes quite incapacitated for his work. There was a time when he was strong and athletic, but disease has entered his system, and so his nerves have lost their former force; and he, who would be the helper of others, becomes impotent, and needs to be waited upon himself. Does not the apostle speak of us as being without strength when in due time Christ died for the ungodly? The man has not the power or the will to believe in Christ, but yet he can believe a lie most readily, and he has no difficulty in cheating himself into self-conceit. The man has not the strength to quit his sin, though he has power to pursue it with yet greater energy. He is weak in the knees, so that he cannot pray; he is weak in the eyes, so that he cannot see Jesus as his Saviour; he is weak in the feet, so that he cannot draw near to God; he has withered hands, dumb lips, deaf ears, and he is palsied in his whole system.
4. Sin is like a disease because it either causes great pain or deadens all sensibility, as the case may be; I do not know, says Spurgeon (whose divisions of sin considered as a disease are here followed), which one might rather choose, whether to be so diseased as to be full of pain, or to be suddenly smitten by a paralytic stroke, so as not to be able to feel at all. In spiritual things, the latter is the worse of the two evils. There are sinners who appear to feel nothing; they sin, but their conscience does not accuse them concerning it. They purpose to go yet further into sin, and they reject Christ, and turn aside from Him even when the Spirit of God is striving with them, for they are insensible to the wrong they are doing. They do not feel, they cannot feel, and, alas! they do not even want to feel; they are callous and obdurate, and, as the apostle says, past feeling. In others, sin causes constant misery. I do not mean that godly sorrow which leads to penitence, for sin never brings its own repentance; but by way of remorse, or else of ungratified desire, or restlessness such as is natural to men who try to fill their immortal spirits with the empty joys of this poor world. Are there not many who, if they had all they have ever wished for, would still wish for more? If they could at this moment gratify every desire they have, they would but be as men who drink of the brine of the sea, whose thirst is not thereby quenched, but only increased.
5. Sin is also like a disease, because it frequently produces a manifest pollution. All disease in the body does pollute it in some way or other. Turn the microscope upon the part affected, and you will soon discover that there is something obnoxious there. But sin in the soul pollutes terribly in the sight of God. There are quiet, respectable sins which men can conceal from their fellow-creatures, so that they can keep their place in society, and seem to be all that they ought to be; but there are other sins which, like the leprosy of old, are white upon their brows. There are sins that are to be seen in the outward appearance of the man; his speech betrays him, his walk and conversation indicate what is going on within his heart.
6. Sin is like disease because it tends to increase in the man, and will one day prove fatal to him. You cannot say to disease, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. There are some diseases that seem to come very gradually, but they come very surely. There is the hectic flush, the trying cough, the painful breathing, and we begin to feel that consumption is coming, and very soonterribly soon to those who love themthose who were once hale and hearty, to all appearance, become like walking skeletons, for the fell disease has laid its cruel hand upon them, and will not let them go. So, my friend, as long as sin is in you, you need not deceive yourself, and think you can get rid of it when you will, for you cannot. It must be driven out by a higher power than your own; this disease must be cured by the great Physician, or else it will keep on increasing until at last you die. Sin will grow upon you till, when it is finished, it bringeth forth death. God grant that, before that awful ending is reached, the Lord Jesus Christ may come and cure you, so that you may be able to say, With His stripes we are healed.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
II
Sin as an Incurable Disease
If some part of the human body is bruised or cut or broken by an outside force, nature sets about at once to repair the injury. There is a resident power within, which at once comes to the rescue. Steadfast methods of life and growth assert themselves; there is a busy knitting of broken ligaments and wounded tissues, mysterious processes of channelling, forcing new paths of lifeall striving to get back on the road towards the specific perfection to which nature had started.
Is there a work of moral and spiritual repair going on analogous to this? Do mens sins heal of themselves from resident inner forces? Is there, apart from the intervention of God and Christ, a coursing stream of health which works out fresh channels, knits together the lacerated moral tissues and steadfastly moves towards life? Does the disposition to steal cure itself, or the sin of impurity, or slandering, or greed? Is there not generally a going from bad to worse until some power from the outside arrests a man? And why? Because sin is a wound inflicted not upon the surface or the extremities, but upon the vitals. It has reached the shrine and centre of implanted life, and the poison is flowing in the streams which should have been for its health.
The inherent life of the body may be able by a quickened effort to repair the partial loss wrought by a force external to itself; but it was no partial loss, no local injury that had maimed and deformed the spirit of man; it was not a merely and wholly external force that still dragged and beat him down from the glory for which God had fashioned him. No, the whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint. In the individual and in the race alike the ethical basis of development was conditioned by the perversion of past generations: as the personal and spiritual being woke to self-consciousness he found that in the very depths of his life evil was present with him, and he by sin sore let and hindered in running the race that was set before him.
On the deepest thoughts and the purest minds of the heathen world there had fallen from time to time the passing gleam of a hope that there might be some power which could repair the ruin of a sinful race, and cut off the pitiless entail of guilt and misery. The faith, that, by some mysterious efficacy, a pure act of sacrifice might heal the hereditary taint of an accursed house, lay near to the most clear and constant forms under which a Greek conceived his relation to the Unseen. It was this belief that hindered his great conception of Nemesis from ever approaching to the immorality or despair of fatalism. He believed that a single act of pride or violence provoked a doom which held its course through sin and punishment, and sin and punishment, from one generation to another: he traced the dark bequest of Tantalus, or Labdacus, or Xerxes: and he felt that the power of outraged holiness was astir, and that there would be no peace for the wicked. But he also believed that there was an act which could arrest even the blind and ruthless curse: that the taint by which strength and cunning were smitten and sank down and died, was powerless against the sacrifice of a pure obedience. Such a sacrifice he saw in the utter submission, the prostrate humiliation, of Oedipus, in the self-forgetful righteousness of Orestes vengeance, in Antigones allegiance to the heavenly Voice. And from such a sacrifice in every case there came forth a newness of life which could push back the threatening death and wake the voice of joy and health in the dwellings of the righteous. So the thunderous air, the terror and agony of the Oedipus Tyrannus, passes into the solemn, tender stillness of Colonus: and
The promise of the morrow
Is glorious on that eve,
Dear as the holy sorrow
When good men cease to live.
So in the Electra the same chorus which has sung of the everlasting doom, the ceaseless, weary violence of the sons of Pelops, breaks into a blessing when Orestes service is fulfilled:
O seed of Atreus, after many woes,
Thou hast come forth, they freedom hardly won,
By this emprise made perfect.
So does Antigone win deliverance from the black tide of the unwearied curse, and lay hold on the good hope of a love that is stronger than death. But in the cost of each such saving act, in the horror and anguish and cruelty and slaughter which gather round the sacrifice, the conscience of Greece assented to the law that without shedding of blood is no remission of sin: in the narrowness and imperfection of that which even the costliest and purest offering could achieve, it owned that the true healing of the nations must wait for the obedience of One who should be more than man, and for sorrow like unto which there was not any sorrow.1 [Note: F. Paget, Faculties and Difficulties, p. 181.]
III
Vicarious Healing
1. What is Vicariousness? When we speak of vicarious atonement, what do we mean? Vicarious means something that is done by one on behalf of another because he is unable to do it himself. You have an obligation to fulfil, and you are unable to fulfil it, and another fulfils it on your behalf. Your obligation is this: you ought to obey the law of God perfectly, but you do not and cannot. You have, every one of you, broken the law, and you have done wrong against God, for every sin is a wrong against God. You owe, therefore, reparation to God. You deserve punishment, for your sin is a breach of the law, the eternal and immutable law of God which cannot be broken with impunity; and that the majesty of law may be held and Gods justice satisfied, you must bear the penalty of transgression. And then, further, you need to have the enmity done away with, which exists between you and God. You need a new heart of reconciliation which will bring you into fellowship and peace with God. How is this atonement, this at-one-ment, to be effected? Plato said, Deliberate sin may perhaps be forgiven, but I do not see how. How is this reparation to be made to God and to the majesty of His law? How is the guilt which rests upon us to be taken away? Who is the person that is able to take upon Himself all the sin of the world and to make perfect satisfaction to Gods holy law, and so to bring us guilty sinners near to God?
(1) First, He must be a willing victim, laying down His life of Himself freely, for if the punishment of the smallest sin were inflicted on Him without or against His will the justice of heaven would be infringed.
(2) Next, He must be a spotless victim, for one taint or spot would do away with the efficacy of the sacrificethe sinless alone can atone for the sinful.
(3) Further, He must be capable of offering satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; and no man can do this. A man, even a perfect man, cannot atone for all mens sins. He can only clear himself. He cannot open his arms and clasp all men to his bosom and make all their burdens his own. Let him be as philanthropic as he may, the effects of his death as a martyr would be unfelt beyond his own circle. To do a thing which should affect the whole race of man, those who have long since returned to the dust, and those who are not yet fashioned out of the dust, requires surely the same amount of power as where He creates and sustains men. The victim must have the power of God, to take upon Himself all human needs, and weaknesses, and sorrows, and sufferings, and sins; but if He is to suffer for sin, if he is to stand in the place of man and to write with His own hands the lesson that sin should not go unpunishedHe must also be man, to suffer as one of us, and for us.
How could man rise towards the specific type when his ruin had reached that spiritual being to which had been intrusted the secret of this perfection? The one answer may be given in words taken from St. AthanasiusNone could change the corruptible to incorruption save He who also in the beginning made all things from nothing; none could renew in man the Image of God save the express Image of His Person; none could make the dying to be deathless save He who is the Life, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2. Upon what, then, does the possibility of vicarious healing rest? It rests upon two things:
1. The identification of the Healer with those He has come to heal.Before they say with His stripes we are healed, they must be able to say, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. Their life must be His by voluntary adoptionits perils, its pains, its privations, His! He must be involved in it all. He must taste its troubled lifedrink its sour grape and eat its bitter bread. He must be numbered even with the transgressorsmust be content to be taken for one of them, to be misunderstood for their sake, to get near to them, understand them and represent them. And gradually the eyes of the people will open. This one, so unselfish and pure and loving, is bearing their iniquities. In bringing misery upon themselves they are bringing it upon Him. For themselves they deserve it, and they expect it. But He is wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities. Nobody can come really to their help and not be involved in their retribution. At last they begin to see the shame and folly of their sin. They never hated their sins when they saw them in themselves, but now they see them in Him, the mark of them in pain upon His face, in agony upon His heart. A new loathing, a new penitence surges within them. They can bear it no longer. The innocent Sufferer draws them out of their captivity, and by His stripes they are healed.
Look at the life of Moses, sent as a national redeemer from the curse and yoke of Egypt. He identifies himself with his slave-brethren, and the wrath of the oppressor falls on him as well as on them. This was the first secret of the confidence he won from them. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. Then look on further, and see how he was involved in all the consequences of the sins of his people. They, you say, deserved those weary, hopeless years of wanderings in the desert; but he did not. Yet because he had given himself to them, he was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities. He had no part nor lot in the sin of idolatry, but he was numbered with the transgressors. He bore more of the burden of shame, humiliation and contrition than they who did the sin.1 [Note: C. S. Horne, The Souls Awakening, p. 102.]
2. The possibility of vicarious healing depends, in the second place, upon the power of innocent vicarious suffering. This is an inexplicable law, but equally it is indisputable. That we need for our souls awakening to see our sin, not in ourselves, but in another, is a strange truth, but truth it is. Yonder young man has never realised his sins, though he has suffered for them. He is callous and careless, but one day he notices a look in his mothers face, and sees the lines of care about the mouth and brow, and the truth flashes upon him, That is what my sin has done. Her innocent suffering brings him to himself, and with its stripes he is healed. Or let us change the illustration. Christian people will always differ as to the merits of particular wars, but all Christian people are one in the hatred and horror of war. And if one were to go further one would say that it is not in the actual field of battle, where hate and passion are so strongly mingled with heroism and devotion, that its misery is most realised. It is emphatically suffering innocence that kills the war spirit in us. By these stripes we are healed. Soldiers who have kindled with the fierce excitement and dark enthusiasm of war, when they have come face to face with suffering innocence, have grown sick and sad, and confessed to an ungovernable revulsion of feeling. All the love of war dies out. By the stripes of suffering innocence they are healed.
Yesterday afternoon, as the sun went down, I sat by the bedside watching the wan face of a wife and mother who had prematurely worn out her life in toils for her husband and children, and was even then most absorbed in certain tender parting charges concerning them when she should be no longer able to care for them. She wouldna be there, said the stalwart but deeply grieved husband, but for slavin and slavin for us. There was an instance of vicarious self-sacrifice. In the annals of womanhood there are many such. And whatever we may think about its justice or expediency, there is something in us which endears to us the person who has obeyed the sacred law, and our pulses beat quicker at a thing which puts fresh honour upon our community.1 [Note: F. W. Luce, in The Treasury, September 1902, p. 353.]
Stanley, in one of his books on African travel, tells of the crime of Uledi, his native coxswain, and what came of it. Uledi was deservedly popular for his ability and courage, but having robbed his master, a jury of his fellows condemned him to receive a terrible flogging. Then uprose his brother Shumari, who said, Uledi has done very wrong; but no one can accuse me of wrong-doing. Now, mates, let me take half the whipping. I will cheerfully endure it for the sake of my brother. Scarcely had he finished when another arose, and said, Uledi has been the father of the boat, boys. He has many times risked his life to save others; and he is my cousin; and yet he ought to be punished. Shumari says he will take half the punishment; and now let me take the other half, and let Uledi go free.1 [Note: B. J. Gibbon, Visionaries, p. 114.]
3. The Lamb of God on the altar of sacrifice is a deep and dark mystery. How is it possible that my punishment should lie on Him? What justice can there be in the suffering of the innocent for the guilty? The prophet anticipates the great misunderstanding of the world: Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Thus was Christ judged according to outward appearance; it seemed as if He were so greviously smitten on account of His own sin. And although in our days no one goes quite so far, yet the mystery of the atonement by substitution is still a stumbling-block. It is incomprehensible to human intelligence, yet Scripture plainly declares the vicarious nature of Christs sufferings. This is the stumbling-block of the Cross, which has in all ages been an offence to the world. Many have made shipwreck of their faith on this rock, esteeming Christ not as a sacrifice for us, but merely as a martyr to His own cause, and an example of patient endurance. Consequently millions of Christians keep Good Friday in vain; they will not accept mysteries which are too vast for human reason. The Lamb of God, the Divine hostage for our guilt, sinks in their idea of Him to a mere man, who left us a perfect example, but did not obtain grace and salvation, righteousness and peace, for us. Not thus did the prophet speak of Christ: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him. The words are plain enough, He suffers for our sake and in our stead; he carried our sorrows. To this all the apostles bear witness when speaking of Christ as our throne of grace, as the expiation for our sins. St. Peter writes: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. Christs testimony of Himself is this: My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world; and the witness borne throughout the New Testament, from that of John the Baptist to the Revelation, is the same; wherever Christ appears, it is in a garment dipped in blood.
In a large family of evil-doers, where the father and mother are drunkards, the sons jail-birds, and the daughters steeped in shame, there may be onea daughterpure, sensible, sensitive, living in the home of sin like a lily among thorns; and she makes all the sin of the family her own. The others do not mind it; the shame of their sin is nothing to them; it is the talk of the town, but they do not care. Only in her heart do their crimes and disgrace meet like a sheaf of spears, piercing and mangling. The one innocent member of the family bears the guilt of all the rest. Even their cruelty to herself she hides, as if the shame of it were her own. Such a position did Christ hold in the human family.1 [Note: J. Stalker, Imago Christi.]
4. There seem to be three demands made by the human conscience on this great mystery.
1. It must be an act of justice.How is it that God should punish for the guilty? If Christ is innocent, and yet is punished, how is this in accordance with any principle of justice? In the first place, it is certain that we do see every day in our lives the innocent suffering for the guilty, not through any fault of their own, but simply from the circumstances in which they are necessarily placed. When a pious and saintly mother suffers for a vicious son, you say it is unjust. Well, it is part of the constitution of the world. We cannot alter it. It runs through the whole of Gods providence. The innocent man who has done no harm suffers for the profligacy and wickedness of those who are nearest to him. Therefore when Christ our Lord put Himself into our place, He placed Himself in the position of one who, though perfectly innocentand none of us are perfectly innocentyet took upon Himself the burden of our guilt and of our sins. This is only an illustration. Of course it is not for one moment maintained that we can fathom all the depth of the meaning of the Atonement. How is that possible, when He who made atonement for us is the Son of God? How can we explain all His sufferings, or the meaning of all those sufferings? But surely we can get some glimpse of the love in those sufferings.
Why should the world so greatly wonder that we are cleansed from sin by the transfer of our guilt to another? Surely earthly parents bear the sins of an erring son, both in suffering and in interceding for him. In the act of washing our hands the stain passes into the water and the towel; in cleansing a garment the dust is transferred to the air or to the ground. Why should it be said that God was unjust in letting Christ suffer for us? Did not Christ willingly undertake the suffering? If a friend pays our debts for us, is our creditor unjust in accepting that payment? And surely God is not unjust in pardoning our sins for Christs sake, since Christ, as the second ancestor of our race, gives Himself up in the name of us all; and since no one can appropriate the precious fruits of this death unless he has in faith become spiritually one with the Lamb of God, in order that, in this communion, he may die unto sin.
Could not God forgive without the suffering of Jesus? There is only one answer: He could not. The reason why He could not is difficult to see, but it is not beyond the understanding. No earthly parallel is adequate. We can only see through a glass darkly. If a governor pardons a prisoner two interests must be maintained: the government must continue to be antagonistic to crime, and the welfare of the governed must not be overlooked. If God forgives, His own integrity and the interest of His children must be secured. Is this done in the death of Jesus? Does the death of Jesus make us fear and reverence God more or less than we should do otherwise? It must be said that it increases our fear of Him. On the other hand, does the suffering of Jesus make it easier or more difficult for us to sin? It makes it much more difficult. By the death of Jesus God forgives and remains holy, and the people receive an impulse away from sin.
The Well is deep.
The saying is most true:
Salvations well is deep,
Only Christs hand can reach the waters blue.
And even He must stoop to draw it up,
Ere He can fill thy cup.
2. It must be an act of love.Truly this is a great mystery, which we must here contemplate in silent meditation, and which eternity alone can unveil. Every sacrifice was a mystery; every act of laying, as it were, sin upon the victim was mysterious. Infinitely more so was the death of our Lord. Still, Scripture gives us one master-key by which we may penetrate into this as into every mysteryit is love. It was love that could not bear to leave mankind under sentence of death, thus frustrating the object of creation; love could plan out a way of escape, and find means to effect it.
You will often hear it said that God was angry with man, and that Christ turned away His wrath. Holy Scripture tells us that God so loved the world. He is angry with sin, but God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son. And again we sometimes hear it said that the wrath of God was poured out upon His Son. But Jesus Christ tells us, Therefore my Father loveth me, because I lay down my life for the sheep. So that His sacrifice called forth afresh as it were the very love of God which had been His from all eternity.
In a particular district of France there is a school for poor boys who have neither father nor mother to care for them, and who run homeless about the streets. It is a very good school, and the boys who enter it are cared for and helped, to become good men. But sometimes bad boys get in, and boys who will not try to be better. A boy of this sort one day stabbed another in the arm with a knife. Now in that school they have two very wonderful rules: 1st. Bad boys, when they do mischief, are tried by the scholars, not by the masters. And the sentence the other boys passed on this cruel lad was, that he should be kept three weeks in a dark cell, and fed on bread and water. 2nd. But in this school substitutes are allowed in punishments. Any boy may come forward and say he will bear the punishment to which an evil-doer has been sentenced. So, when the sentence was pronounced, the question was asked whether any boy was willing to bear this punishment. And, to the surprise of all the school, the boy whose arm had been stabbed stepped forward and said, I will bear it in his stead. And that was agreed to, but the master said, The criminal must take the bread and water to the cell. So the boy whose arm had been stabbed went into the cell to bear the punishment. And the boy who stabbed him carried the bread and water three times a-day to the cell. He went through his task six days. But then he broke down; three times every day to see the pale face of the boy he had stabbed in prison for him made him see how cruel he had been, and he came to the master and insisted on bearing the rest of the punishment himself.1 [Note: A. Macleod, The Child Jesus, p. 78.]
When we speak of punishment, what do we mean? What do we mean by saying that our Lord was punished for our transgressions? I do not think that the expression is altogether an applicable one. I was reading the other day a lecture delivered by the Rev. Joseph Cook in Boston, in America, in which he says, Guilt or obligation to satisfy the demands of a violated law may be removed when the author of the law substitutes his own voluntary chastisement for our punishment. When such a substitution is made, the highest possible motives of loyalty to that rule are brought to bear upon the rebellious subject. If any great arrangement on that principle has been made by the Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of the Universe, that arrangement meets with exactness the deepest want of men. It is the highest possible dissuasive from the love of sin; it is the only possible deliverance from the guilt of sin, in the sense, not of personal blameworthiness, but of obligation to satisfy the violated law which says I ought. And then he gives this striking illustration of meeting the objection that Christ being innocent was punished. He says, There was a New England schoolmasterI saw his death mentioned in the papers the other daywho made it a rule that if a pupil violated any law of the school the master should substitute his own voluntary sacrificial chastisement for that pupils punishment. The pupils were quite willing, and for that reason the measure was effective among them. One day, he said, I called before me a pupil, nine or ten years of age, who had violated an important regulation of the school. All the pupils were looking on, and they knew what the rule of the school was. I put the ruler into the hand of the offending pupil, I extended my hand, I told him to strike. The instant the boy saw my extended hand, and heard my command to strike, I saw the struggle begin in his face. A new light sprang up in his countenance, a new nature seemed to be rising within him. I kept my hand extended, and the school was in tears. The boy struck once, and he himself burst into tears. I constantly watched his face, and it seemed in a bath of fire, giving him a new nature. The boy seemed transformed by the idea that I should take the chastisement in place of his punishment. He went back to his seat, and ever after was one of the most docile of all the pupils in the school, although at first he had been one of the rudest. Have we not here a glimpse of the principle on which the atonement operates? In the example was the master punished? Strictly speaking, no. Was he guilty? Certainly not. Was the personal demerit of the pupil transferred to the master? No. What was it that happened? He voluntarily accepted the chastisement instead of the pupils punishment. Punishment, strictly speaking, is inflicted for personal guilt. Chastisement may be inflicted for the improvement of him who suffers it, or for the benefit of those who witness it, but the latter does not imply guilt.1 [Note: Bishop J. J. S. Perowne.]
Dr. Lowson of Hull, who died in a London nursing home on 14th March 1906, had had a distinguished career, and was one of the most skilful surgeons in the country. Whilst in practice in Huddersfield he was called upon to perform the operation of tracheotomy for diphtheria. The tube suddenly became blocked, and with no thought for himself Dr. Lowson at once sucked the wound and rescued the patient from imminent death. Within a few days he was himself stricken with the disease, and, owing to serious complications which it left behind, he was incapacitated from work for a year. For his noble act he received the Albert Medal. The illness which has resulted in his death commenced through blood-poisoning caused through pricking his finger whilst performing an operation for appendicitis without fee.2 [Note: Daily News, 16th March 1906.]
3. It must not be in vain.This demand is met by the prophet in a later verse of this same chapterHe shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. Here it is enough to notice the fundamental fact that Christ died once for all. The penalty, paid once, cannot be exacted twice. And so they who die with Him are free from the fear of a second death, or of any form of punishment. Death hath no longer any dominion over them. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. And, more than that, Christ, being made a curse for us, has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us.
Recall Joseph Cooks illustration. Suppose the boy had been called up and punished a second time, after the master had been chastised, would that have been right? The master accepted the chastisement voluntarily, and now he cannot call up that boy and punish him again. The school would say it was wrong. Why? What has the master done? He has paid the debt of the boy to the school, and to the law which he broke, but the master is not to blame. In this, which we can understand as a human transaction, we may perhaps catch a glimpse of an infinitely greater transaction, which we call the Atonement. In the case of the scholar guilt meant two things. Where there is personal blameworthiness, there is the obligation to do something to pay the debt due to the school and to the law. It is eternally true of the boy that the violation of the law, his personal demerit, was not transferred to the master; only his obligation to pay the debt is removed by the voluntary sacrifice of the master. Now I understand when that is done by a voluntary act of the master, a motive has been brought to bear on the boy which will transform him, if anything can. Nothing can take hold of human nature like such convincing justice and love.1 [Note: Bishop Perowne.]
I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
For three-and-thirty years.
Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
Give thou Me love for love.
For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
Why wilt thou still be lost?
I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
Or wagged their heads in scorn.
Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:
I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;
I, God, Priest, Sacrifice.
A thief upon My right hand and My left;
Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:
At length in death one smote My heart and cleft
A hiding-place for thee.
Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down
More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:
So did I win a kingdomShare My crown;
A harvestCome and reap.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]
Vicarious Healing
Literature
Christlieb (T.), Memoir and Sermons, 308.
Doney (C. G.), The Throne-Room of the Soul, 35.
Gibbon (B. J.) Visionaries, 104.
Horne (C. S.), The Souls Awakening, 97.
Horne (W.) Religious Life and Thought, 146.
Hutton (R. E.), Sorrows of the King, 141.
Laing (F. A.), Simple Bible Lessons, 249.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions, Isaiah xlix.lxvi., 97.
Macleod (A.), The Child Jesus, 76.
Paget (F.), Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Disbelief, 172.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xiv. No. 834; xviii. No. 1068; xxxiii. No. 2000; xliii. No. 2499; l. No. 2887.
Tipple (E. S.), Drew Sermons on the Golden Texts for 1910, 295.
Watson (E. K. R.), Heavenly Truths in Earthly Dress, 82, 94, 127.
Wilmot Buxton (H. J.), Sunday Lessons for Daily Life, i. 97, 305.
Woods (F. H.), The Hope of Israel, 151.
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 8 (Tuck).
Contemporary Pulpit, 1st series, ix. 274 (Perowne).
Treasury (New York), xx. 351 (Kinsolving).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
But he was: Isa 53:6-8, Isa 53:11, Isa 53:12, Dan 9:24, Zec 13:7, Mat 20:28, Rom 3:24-26, Rom 4:25, Rom 5:6-10, Rom 5:15-21, 1Co 15:3, 2Co 5:21, Eph 5:2, Heb 9:12-15, Heb 10:10, Heb 10:14, 1Pe 3:18
wounded: or, tormented
bruised: Isa 53:10, Gen 3:15
the chastisement: 1Pe 2:24
stripes: Heb. bruise
Reciprocal: Lev 1:15 – wring off his head Lev 16:10 – to make Deu 3:26 – the Lord Psa 31:11 – I was Psa 80:17 – General Psa 103:3 – healeth Pro 21:18 – wicked Isa 6:7 – thine iniquity Isa 9:6 – The Prince of Peace Isa 53:4 – he hath Eze 40:39 – the sin Mal 4:2 – healing Mat 27:26 – scourged Luk 23:16 – General Joh 11:51 – that Jesus Joh 12:40 – heal Joh 19:1 – scourged 2Co 6:5 – stripes Heb 4:15 – we have
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
53:5 But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the {h} chastisement for our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
(h) He was chastised for our reconciliation, 1Co 15:3 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
"But" continues the contrast between the Servant and the rest of humankind. He would not only experience affliction for us but injury as well. "Pierced through" and "crushed" describe extreme distress resulting in death (cf. Isa 51:9; Job 26:13; Psa 109:22; Lam 3:34). The Hebrew words behind these terms are the strongest ones in that language for violent and excruciating death. [Note: Delitzsch, 2:318.] Transgressions are willful and rebellious sins, and iniquities are sins that result from the perverted quality of human nature due to the continuing effects of the Fall.
"Thus, Isa 53:4 demands the noun ’substitution’, and Isa 53:5 adds the adjective ’penal’." [Note: Motyer, p. 430.]
Looking back from the Cross, we can see how appropriate these terms were in view of the death Jesus died, death by crucifixion. It was God who was behind the piercing and crushing of the Servant (Isa 53:6; Isa 53:10). It was as though the Servant took the whipping that we deserved for being rebellious children (cf. Rom 4:25; 1Co 15:3; Heb 5:8; Heb 9:28; 1Pe 2:24-25).
"This is not a matter of a raging tyrant who demands violence on someone to satisfy his fury. It is a God who wants a whole relationship with his people, but is prevented from having it until incomplete justice is satisfied." [Note: Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, p. 388.]
"What else, we ask again, can these words mean than that He suffered vicariously? Not merely with, but for others? By no exegesis is it possible to escape this conclusion." [Note: Baron, p. 89.]
What the Servant would do in bearing the consequences of humankind’s sins would bring about positive results for many people. This shows again that the Servant’s sufferings were not just with His people but for them. He would bear away sins so people could experience healing and well-being (Heb. shalom, the fullness of God’s blessing). This is far more than just physical healing; the whole passage is dealing with redemption from sin. [Note: See Bruce R. Reichenback, "’By His Stripes We Are Healed,’" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41:4 (December 1998):551-60, for a helpful study of how the Old Testament views the linkage between sin, sickness, suffering, and death, contrasted with modern views.]
But does it include physical healing? Is there healing in the atonement? Does what the Servant did guarantee physical healing for every believer? Ultimately it does. Eventually we will experience good health since poor health is one effect of sin. But immediately it does not in every case. We have yet to enter into all the benefits of Christ’s death for us, and must continue to struggle with some of the consequences of the Fall until we see the Lord. [Note: See Baron, p. 86.]