Text: “He was wounded (pierced) for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5).
The King James Version of God’s Word uses the word “wounded” while the New International Version uses the word “pierced” in reference to our transgressions.
When we speak of a “wound”, we usually refer to an injury in which the skin is cut, torn, or opened exposing the tissue below the surface of the skin. The dictionary also refers to a wound in terms of hurt feelings.
The word “pierced” indicates a wound caused by a sharp pointed object, letter opener, ice pick, screwdriver, pencil, etc. The object makes a hole instead of a cut, but the result is still a wound. This word can also be used in reference to feelings such as a feeling of anguish or a feeling of deep understanding.
Throughout this message I will use the word “wounded” because I believe it brings forth more heart-felt meaning as to what was being prophesied concerning our Messiah.
We have the advantage of knowing this prophesy came true. We also know the Messiah was a man named Jesus Christ. We need to know something about this Person named Jesus. There has been no other man like him. He was different.
Who was this Jesus? Scripture tells us that Jesus was non-other than God Himself. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus is the Word, God incarnate or God in the flesh or God in human form – “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
Jesus is the Son of God. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world… (John 3:16, 17). There is no question that Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus’ intelligence is brought to light as He was “… sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and His answers” (Luke 2:46, 47). Remember, Jesus was only 12 years of age when this event took place.
Jesus is the key that is capable of unlocking the mysteries of all ages. “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3). Jesus created everything from nothing.
Since He created everything nothing is a mystery to Him, but it is a mystery to mankind. Anything that is a mystery can be revealed to us through our faith in Jesus, our obedience to Him, our trust in Him, and our acceptance of Him as our Lord and Savior.
Jesus was in the bosom of His father… “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). Jesus did not have an earthly father so He did not have an earthly conception. He was in the Father’s bosom so His relationship with the Father was that of Son.
Jesus was in the lap of the Father which indicates He was in the lap of divinity. He was with the Father from the beginning of time and therefore He is divine. No person in the world can ever claim to have been in the lap of the Father. Jesus and God are one and they are Deity. No human being has ever been conceived by Immaculate Conception. All of us have or had an earthly father and mother.
Jesus was God’s revelation to man. God revealed Himself to man through the person of Jesus. Before the birth of Jesus, God spoke to people like Moses, but none of these people ever saw the face of God. When God spoke to Moses, He spoke to him through a pillar of cloud (Exodus 33:10).
God said to Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Man is finite (limited or restricted) and morally or ethically imperfect, therefore, man cannot see God as He is.
Jesus said, “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only He has seen the Father” (John 6:46). Those who were fortunate to have seen the Son saw God because the Father was revealed to man through the Son. All the attributes the Father has the Son also has.
Jesus was God’s letter written to the world and containing the deepest secrets of His heart. The heart of God was so filled with love for mankind that He wanted to give mankind an opportunity to reject the sinful nature of disobedience and attain righteousness.
Jesus exemplified the attributes and characteristics of God. The love of the Father emanated through Jesus in such a way that people were drawn to Him like steel is drawn to a magnet. For example, a certain scribe came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go” (Matthew 8:19). This scribe was willing to follow Jesus regardless of the cost of discipleship.
Matthew, the tax collector, who was a wealthy man due to his profession, had no problem leaving the profession and following Jesus. Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow Me” and Matthew arose and followed Him “(Matthew 9:9).
All the other Apostles saw something in Jesus that led them to leave their vocation and follow Him. They realized there was something about Jesus and they were willing to do whatever it took to follow Him.
Jesus did not need to be a showman to get people to follow Him. Great multitudes of people gathered around Him just to hear the words that came from His mouth. On one occasion, “… great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. He spoke many things to them…“(Matthew 13:2, 3).
The great multitudes follow Jesus wherever He went. These people were willing to listen to Jesus day and night without thought of food or drink. For example, “He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities” (Matthew 14:13).
Jesus just could not get away from the people. He had so much compassion and love for them that when evening came it was time for dinner, instead of sending them away, He fed all of them with “five loaves and two fish” ( Matthew 14:17). People were attracted to Jesus like bees on a honeycomb.
Our God is a God of love, compassion, understanding, and caring. All of these attributes of God were written in the heart of Jesus and sent to the people via a servant who would ultimately pay for every sin that was committed and every sin that would ever be committed.
Jesus was the morning star in a world of darkness. He was the light that mankind needed. He was the life that would lead mankind in the right direction. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4, 5). He was the divine representative or mediator who was responsible for everything that was created.
Jesus is more than a prophet or a teacher. He is the truth. Jesus is the truth that enables us to be set free of our sins. He said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31, 32).
Jesus is the one and only standard for mankind. This man of truth will lead us in the right direction through life and in so doing we will be able to spend eternity with Him in His kingdom. People throughout the world seek to follow a god, but Jesus is our one and only God. He is the only way we will be able to spend eternity with Him in His kingdom.
Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). These words have always been relevant and are relevant to us today. He is the only way to God, He reveals the truth of God to us, and He gives life to us.
He is our Savior sent by the Father to give man the opportunity to step back on the straight and narrow road leading to His mansion of many rooms. The Father sent Him to us so that we could regain a rightful relationship with Him. “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17).
Jesus did not come to condemn us, but to save us. The only way we can be saved and assured of salvation is by repenting of our sins and accepting Him as our personal Lord and Savior. The love of God came to earth to show us how important we are to the Father.
Next we find that Jesus is the water of life. He said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37, 38).
When Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, He said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).
The living water Jesus is talking about is water that will forever quench a person’s thirst for the living God. No ordinary person could give this kind of water. The only one who could and will give it to those who thirst is the Messiah and the Messiah is Jesus.
Jesus is not only the water of life, but He is also the bread of life. Jesus said, “For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33).
Then Jesus went on to say, “I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:48-51).
To eat this living bread Jesus was talking about the means to make Him number one in our life. We need to be united with Him by living life according to the “words in red,” accepting His life, His death, and His resurrection, and trusting in Holy Spirit to guide and lead us.
We have been talking about Jesus and who He is. Now that we know who He is, we need to talk about the things that led to His being wounded for us. The prophet Isaiah recorded these words: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5).
The words “transgressions and iniquities” denote sins. Mankind was as sinful in the days of Isaiah as in this present day. God revealed to Isaiah that sometime in the future animal sacrifice would no longer be necessary because He was going to send One who would suffer for all the sins of mankind.
The One God would send would be none other than the Messiah, His one and only Son. This would be the Lamb that would be wounded, sacrificed, and whose blood would cover the multitude of man’s transgressions and iniquities. The coming of the Messiah, the Shepherd of mankind, would give man forgiveness of sins and the opportunity to repent and be redeemed and spend eternity with the Heavenly Father.
The relationship broken by disobedience in the Garden of Eden would be bridged by the Cross. Sinful man could regain a righteous relationship with Almighty God.
Let’s consider some of the instruments that were used and that are used to wound our Savior. These instruments are things that are not even considered by many people because these people are living worldly and not Godly.
For example sinfulness or sin is just a Biblical word to some people. They believe that whatever they are doing is okay if it does not hurt someone else or other people think it is permissible.
Many people use the name of the Lord in vain and think nothing of it. Some people place material possessions before their relationship with God. In other words, they are worshipping other gods.
Adultery is being committed on a daily basis, but some people do not think they are doing anything wrong. In each one of these, God’s Commandments are being broken. Sin is being committed and the result is sinfulness.
Man’s wicked thoughts wounded the Savior. Remember the story of David and Bathsheba. “One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing… Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her” (2 Samuel 11:2, 4).
David’s focus was on what he wanted, his own desires. Temptation came upon him and instead of turning away from it, he embraced it. He could have stopped, but instead, he chose to fall for the temptation. David chose to sin.
This same thing happens to people today. They are faced with temptation, which the devil always makes look very good and satisfying, something that one can’t be without or something one needs and when accepted, the person falls into the grips of sin.
The wicked thoughts of man lead man into temptation and temptation, if not stopped, leads into sin. This wounds our Savior every time it takes place. It is true that man will think evil thoughts, because this is one of Satan’s arrows, but that arrow can be stopped by the Word of God. Jesus was wounded for us, but we need not wound Him anymore.
Another instrument that wounds our Savior is the use of wicked devices. The method we use to cheat or injure people because they have something we desire. An employee may want the job or position a fellow worker has and in order to acquire that position degrades and makes false statement about that person causing the person to lose the position. Words can be like a two-edged sword.
Another instrument that wounds our Savior is disloyalty. When man does not honor God who created him and does not follow His Word, man is disloyal to God. If we place more emphasis on things than on God, we are being disloyal to God. If we try to serve two masters, we are being disloyal to God. Disloyalty is really disobedience and disobedience is a sin.
Man’s lack of faith is another instrument that wounds the Savior. Since we cannot see God, how can we know he exists? We know He exists by faith. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen… By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:1, 3).
When the disciples tried to heal a certain boy they failed. They could not understand why, so they asked Jesus what was wrong. Jesus said, “Because of your unbelief, for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).
Jesus was trying to show the disciples how important faith is. We all have issues and problems that come upon us in life. A situation may face us which looks like a mountain, river, or valley that appears impossible to get over, across, or through. We may be walking “through the valley of the shadow of death” but our faith tells us that God will bring us through. We will get to the other side if just have faith and follow the Shepherd. Let’s not wound our Savior with a lack of faith.
The last thing I want to mention that will wound our Savior is a lack of Love. God sent His Son into the world because of His love for us. God is love. God loves us regardless of what we do or don’t do. He wants us to follow His Word, but we don’t always do that. He still loves us. He wants us to communicate with Him on all matters either big or small. We don’t always do that, but He still loves us.
The Lord commands that we love Him. He said, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). This is a command and if we break it, we are wounding our Savior.
David recorded these words in Psalm 145:20: “The LORD watches over all who love him…”
Jesus said, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
Paul told the Corinthians, “Love never fails. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (I Corinthians 13:5, 13).
The entire Word of God is love. If we do not love as He loves, we are wounding Him.
Conclusion:
“Christ was wounded internally and externally just for us. Our sins brought Him from Heaven. Our sins brought down God’s wrath upon Him. Our sins drove Him into the Garden of Gethsemane, where he sweat drops of blood. Our sins put nails into his hands and pressed the sword to His side. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.” (Rev. W.C. Brown)
Why?
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Amen.
