ISAIAH 53:4-6
PUNISHED FOR YOU AND ME
Unmistakably chapter 53, speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. Significantly, the Jewish Targum interprets this portion of Isaiah’s prophecy as referring to the Messiah. Every detail of the prophet’s words corresponds so closely to the person and work of the Lord Jesus that no one with normal powers of thought could reason otherwise. Written over 700 years before the sacrificial death of Christ, its predictions are so specific that no mere man could possibly have written them, nor fulfilled them. This chapter is an unanswerable proof of the inspiration of the Bible and the divinity of Christ.
The clear teaching in this stanza is that deliverance for all people comes by the substitutionary suffering of the Servant. He does not suffer because people are sinners, but in the place of sinful people. He suffers for them, and because of that, they do not need to experience the mandated eternal consequences for their sins. Now restoration of relationship with God is possible for all who will come and confess their sinfulness and turn to follow Christ Jesus.
[Notice the terms of suffering packed together in these verse: griefs, pains, stricken, smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed, punished, welts. No wonder Jesus cried no to this cup in the Garden of Gethsemene.]
I. BEARING OUR BURDENS, 4.
II. RECEIVING OUR PUNISHMENT, 5.
III. CRUSHED FOR OUR REBELLION, 6.
In verse 4 the passage states the true reason for the Servant’s suffering. Surely our sickness [grief] He bore, and our pains He carried. But we considered (esteemed) Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
Notice the contrast between He and our. This stanza of the poem reports that although "we" did not recognize it at first, the sufferings of the Servant were not His own fault, as "we" thought, but were in fact the result of "our" sins, and resulted in "our" healing. The Servant is indeed characterized by griefs and sorrows, but they were not His own. It was all for us that He suffered and died! We is probably the prophet identifying himself with his people and speaking for the whole. But all persons who recognize that their sin has caused the Servant to suffer may include themselves in the all-inclusive "we."
The atoning death of Christ is a truth so profound that scholars have been unable to fully plumb its depths. Think of it-Jesus, God’s Son, died to pay the penalty for our sins! Various theories have been advanced to explain what happened, but Scripture teaches that substitution lies closest to the heart of this great mystery. The innocent substitute bore the sins of all humanity.
Cliff Barrows tells of the time his two young children did something wrong. Although they were gently warned, they repeated the offense and needed to be disciplined. Cliff’s tender heart was pained at the thought of having to punish the ones he loved. So he called Bobby and Bettie into his room, removed his belt bare back he knelt by his bed. He told each child to whip him 10 times. Oh, how they cried! But the penalty had to be paid. The children sobbed as they lashed their daddy’s back. Then Cliff hugged and kissed them, and they prayed together. "It hurt," he recalls, "but I never had to spank them again:"
Are you haunted by the memory of some cowardly, selfish, or shameful acts? Jesus took the lashes for all our sins. Now He invites us to accept His forgiveness and devote the rest of our lives to Him. He wants us to know the greatness of His Father’s love. That’s why He died! -DJD God the Judge not only declared us guilty but also paid our penalty (1 Pet. 2:24).
[The language of carrying and bearing sets the stage for the substitutionary understanding of the Servant’s suffering. This is the language of the cult, especially from Leviticus. There the sacrificial animal carries (nasa’) the sins of the offerers away, so that the offerer does not carry them anymore. The animal does not merely die because the offerer sinned, but in the offerer’s place, doing what the offerer must do otherwise, (5:1, 17; 10:17; 16:22; 17:16; 20:19; see also Num. 9.:13; 14:34). In the same way sabal implies the bearing of a burden for someone else (Isa. 46:4, 7; Lam. 5:7). The Servant is not suffering with His people, but for them. Oswalt, Isaiah, 386. The Servant takes the sicknesses that belong to us upon Himself and thus carries them.]
The bearing of weakness and illness that made us think little of the Servant - is our weakness and illness! The very things that made us think Him of little importance are the things for which we ought to honor Him, because it is for our sake He is enduring them. When we hurt, we hurt others. When God hurt, He healed others.
Stricken describes leprosy or any illness or misfortune that suddenly occurs (Gen. 12:17; 1 Sam. 6:9). So here the people had seen the Servant afflicted with some fearful disease and had wondered to themselves what terrible thing He had done to deserve that. As Job was looked on as suffering justly by his so-called friends, so Christ is looked upon as deserving His suffering. But it was for a higher nobler cause He bore and carried such physical burdens. [When quoted in Mt. 8:17 it was in reference to physical ailments.] It was for them who deserved such fearful consequences for sin, and it is for us also. Bless you Jesus because it is difficult enough bearing and carrying the impact of living in a fallen world with a fallen body.
The VIETNAM Veterans MEMORIAL was dedicated in 1982. In the first 15 years, 54,000 items were left at the Wall. It still takes almost an hour every night, [and much longer on Memorial Day,] to collect to the mementos-a teddy bear, a photo of a soldier’s grandchild, a letter from a daughter who never knew her dad.
Every item is labeled and taken to a warehouse. No one knows quite how to deal with it all. "No one ever expected this to happen," a park ranger says. "It’s so personal. It caught everyone by surprise."
Loss comes to us all, and we often carry our grief for many years. We struggle with our emotions. Is there a place where we can leave our sorrows and find healing for the wounds of life?
The Messiah is the One who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. When, we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior from sin, we also come to know Him as the One who can lift the burden of sadness from our shoulders. We can bring our grief to the Man of sorrows. There is help and healing and closure at the cross for the deepest pain of our hearts. Leave your sorrows with the "man of sorrows."
II. RECEIVING OUR PUNISHMENT, 5.
Verse 5 is a striking picture of both the physical and spiritual anguish our Savior experienced for us. But He was pierced through for our rebellions, crushed for our iniquities; the punishment of our well-being was on Him, and His welts have made healing for us.
But (disjunctive waw) emphasizes the contrast between Him and us. We had thought God was punishing this Man for His own sins and failures, but in fact He was pierced through as a result of our rebellion; He was crushed on account of our twistedness. The images have now shifted from illness to injury and have become more severe.
One "pierced through" usually died. Crushed indicates at least breaking into pieces and in some cases even pulverizing (19:10; Job 22:9; Jer. 44:10; Ps. 90:3). He was crushed under the weight of our sins and the judgment of God that fell on them. Sin kills, and our sin killed Christ. Welts are His back bing laid open by the Roman scourge (Mt. 27:26).
The reason for the Servant’s suffering is our transgressions of God’s Law and the iniquities of our fallen nature. It is far more than sympathy and compassion, it is the actual bearing the consequence of our eternal judgment for our sin. The sins were committed by us the piercing and crushing fell upon Him.
The severity of punishment on the Servant measure how seriously God takes our rebellion and crookedness. We typically wish to make light of our "shortcomings," to explain away our "mistakes." But God will have none of it. The refusal of humanity to bow to the Creator’s rule, and our insistence on drawing up our own moral codes that pander to our lusts, are not shortcomings or mistakes. They are the stuff of death and corruption, and unless someone can be found to stand in our place, they will see us condemned. But someone has been found. Someone has taken on Himself the results of our rebelliousness, and we have been given entrance into the kingdom (2 Cor. 5:21; 8:9; 1 Pet. 2:24). Christ was delivered for our sins that we might be delivered from our sins.
The picture is of a rebel whose back is covered with bloody lash marks. His behavior says he deserves more. How will He ever heal? Only if someone receives his lashes in his place. But this requires that the substitute can take them and does not deserves to receive his own. Is this possible for any human to do?
What can be done for our past? Cleanse the wounds, destroy the infection? No, writing new words over the old ones will not blot out the old ones. Someone must come to wipe the slate clean. Some one must take the disease of sin and give back health, must bear the blow and pain and give back wealth and well-being. [Lit. "punishment of our peace," expresses a genitive of purpose: "punishment designed for our peace." The idea that we have peace with God because of the suffering of Christ is important in the NT (Rom. 8:31; Eph. 2:14-17; Col. 1:20).Oswalt, Isaiah, 387]
Before God could forgive, His justice had to be satisfied. He had to melt out punishment for sin. While earthly punishment for sin is serious and ought not to be dismissed, it is by no means as serious as spiritual punishment: alienation from God.
[This is what the entire sacrificial system is about: making it possible for sinful humans to have fellowship with a holy God. The sacrifices do not mitigate the temporal effects of sin, so what do they do? They deal with the spiritual effects of sin; they address the truths that the soul that sins shall die (not merely physically, Ezek. 18:4, 20), and that there is no forgiveness for sin apart from the shedding of blood (Lev. 17: 11; Heb. 9:22). It is only through substitution that fellowship between humans and God is possible. But can a sheep die for a man? Can a goat die for a woman? Surely the answer is no (Micah 6:6-7)).
So what is the meaning of the sacrificial system? Cleansing from sin by substitution. John the Baptist spoke of this when he cried out, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). A lamb cannot die in place of a human, but a perfect human could; and if that human is also infinite God, He could die for every human’s sin (Heb. 9:11-14). For the people of God of all ages to be enabled to be the servants of God, atonement was necessary, and that is what this stanza is about. [ Oswalt, Isaiah, 385-388]
When you study the painting of the crucifixion by the famous Dutch artist REMBRANDT, your attention is first drawn to the cross and to Jesus. Then, as you look at the crowd around the cross, you are drawn to the faces of the people involved in the awful crime of crucified the Son of God. Finally, your eyes drift to the edge of the picture and catch sight of another figure -almost hidden in the shadows. This, we are told, was a self portrait of Rembrandt, for he recognized that by his sins he helped nail Jesus there!
Someone has aptly said, "It is a simple thing to say Christ died for the sins of the world. It is quite another thing to say that Christ Died for my sin! [It may be an interesting pastime to point fingers at those who crucified Jesus, but it is a shocking thought that I can be as indifferent as Pilate, as scheming as Caiaphas, as calloused as the soldiers, as ruthless as the mob, or as cowardly as the disciples. It isn’t just what they did-]it was I who nailed Him to the tree. I crucified the Christ of God. I joined the mockery!
Think again of Rembrandt’s painting. If you look closely, you will see that in the shadows you too are standing with bloodied hands, for Christ bore the penalty of your sin! And you will say, "He was wounded for me." -HGB Calvary’s cross reveals man’s hatred for God and God’s love for man.
III. CRUSHED FOR OUR REBELLION, 6.
Verse 6 tells us the reason, the necessity of all the suffering previously mentioned. All of us, like sheep we go astray, each one to his own way we have turned; but the Lord has caused to fall on him the iniquity of all of us.
All, every person who has ever lived or will live. All of us, without exception.
The figure is of running off, denoting our alienating our selves from God. This sad picture of selfish rebellion is painted with the picture of straying wandering sheep. Sheep are notoriously unmindful and unaware of their circumstances. Their minds are on the next clump of grass and not much else. When looking for food they stray in all directions. Sheep are prone to get lost.
We are prone to stray and get lost in life also. Our selfishness our lack of judgment, our poor decisions, our lusts, our temptations, our ambitions and so much more has cause us to go our own way.
Again how did we go astray? By turning to our own way, or by living life like we thought or desired to live it, instead of according to God’s Word.
Like sheep we humans don’t seem to be aware of the consequences of our choices. And like them can’t defend ourselves against the consequences of our choice. Imagine reading in the bright clear light of God’s presence the biography of all your thoughts, words and deeds recorded and then having them measured against the word of God. How far short of the glory, the perfection of God, each of us has gone astray.
So what did God do to bring us back into His eternal fold? God would send the Messiah to bring us back into the fold. The Chief Shepherd laying down His life for the lost, straying, rebellious sheep. Our consequences were made to fall on the Servant. The effects of our behavior were made to fall upon Jesus. The Good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep, to create the way back to God. God made this One suffer the consequences, the result, of our rebellion. The iniquity of all of us fell on Him on an old rugged cross. ["All of us" begins the verse and ends the verse.]
CONCLUSION / RESPONSE
Who would do such an valiant and amazing thing? God pulled aside the curtain of time to let the people of Isaiah’s day look ahead to the suffering of the future Messiah and the resulting forgiveness made available to all mankind.
We have the hindsight to see and know the identity of the promised Messiah who came and died for our sins. He did so to bring you back into the fold of God. Have you given your life to Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11-16) or are you still like a straying sheep, going your own way?
Some EARLY SETTLERS were traveling together across the western prairies of the United States. One day they were horrified to see a fire fanned by strong wind coming their way.
As the flames raced closer and closer, one man, to the amazement of the others, set fire to a large patch of grass downwind. The tinder-dry grass burned quickly and left behind a charred and barren area. Then he told them to move onto the burned-over place. They watched as the fire swept toward them until it reached the burned area-and then stopped! They were safe as the fire passed by them on both sides.
The fires of God’s judgment will descend on a wicked world, but God has provided a burned-over place. At Calvary, the fire of God’s justice was met by Jesus. He bore our sin there and fully paid for our transgressions. He made full satisfaction for our sins, and we who have taken our stand by faith in the finished work of Christ are safe in the burned-over place. There is nothing left to burn.
Jesus "bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed" from living a life of iniquity (1 Pet. 2:24). Are you in the burned-over place? Jesus died in our place to provide a place of safety.-M. R. De Haan, M.D.
The flames of God’s judgment can never touch me,
For Jesus has borne all God’s wrath on the tree;
I now stand secure in the burned-over place,
A sinner, unworthy, yet saved by His grace. -Bosch
