Isa 53:5 He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions 8/20/2018 ßà
#1. He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions (Isa
53:5, Psalm 22:1,16-18,7-8, Matt 27:39-44, 20:28, 2Cor 5:21, Gen
3:15)
#2. He Was
Crushed for Our Iniquities (Isa 53:5, Psalm 72:4, 1Cor 11:24,
John 19:36, Matt 26:38-39, 12:40, 27:60, 14:19)
#3. The
Chastisement of Our Peace Was Upon Him (Isa 53:5, Gal 3:10,13,
Deut 27:26)
#4. And With His
Stripes We Are Healed (Isa 53:5, 2Pet 1:21, Psalm 41:4, 103:3,
37:4, Tit 2:14)
#5. It Was a
Voluntary Payment (John 10:17-18, Luke 23:46)
Please
open your
Bibles to the Prophecy of Isaiah, Isa 53:1 (2X). The last time we had a
Lord’s Supper service we explored Isa 53:4. Today we will look at the next
verse, Isa 53:5. But we must remember the context. And thus, we shall read the
first six verses of Isa 53. As you know, this is a chapter that is very
intense, for it deals with the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every word
is filled with doctrine, and many prophecies are contained in this chapter. Let
us read Isa 53:1-6,
Isa 53:1 ¶ Who
hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Isa 53:2 For he
shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground:
he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:3 He is
despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and
we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isa 53:4-5
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But
he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for
our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isa 53:6 All we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Who has believed our report? What
report does God refer to? It is the report of Christ crucified as written in
the Word of God. For it is Christ crucified that is at the center of the Gospel
of salvation. When God wrote by the hands of the apostle Paul in 1Cor 2:2,
“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified”, God declared that everything in the Bible revolves around Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And this is also at the center of this chapter in
Isaiah. That is why we are studying it today. And here, in verse 1, God
addresses the question: Who has believed our report? What is the answer? Nobody
believes our report, for nobody believes the words that God wrote in the Bible.
God says in Rom 3:11, “There is none that understandeth, there is none
that seeketh after God”. If God did not personally interfere in the
affairs of man, and if God did not personally change the innermost being of
certain men and women so that they would believe, then nobody would be saved.
But thank God that He did interfere, and as a result we do believe, and we do
have a desire to know the Word of God, and we do have a desire to know the will
of God. But if we are honest about this then we give God all the honor and the
credit for infusing into us a way of thinking that is pleasing to Him, and that
glorifies Him. He made us alive toward Him. We came into the world dead to God.
We came into the world believing that we can make a career without God, and we
can get along without God, and we can forget about the cross of Christ. In
fact, it is the objective of Satan to build a worldly empire without God and
without Christ. He wants to build an utopia on earth where people think they
can live forever without God and without Christ. He wants to build a heaven on
earth without God and without Christ. And when you listen to the media, on TV
or the newspaper or anywhere else, then remember that the majority of
journalists do not believe in God. That is why they are so much in favor of the
theory of evolution rather than creationism. It is because the theory of
evolution eliminates God altogether. But remember that the theory of evolution
is a theory based on the idea that there is no God. It is just a theory, but it
is a theory of fools. And this is also how we came into the world. And this is
how we carved out the first part of our lives, totally in rebellion against
God, and hating God. But then, one day the message of Christ crucified came to
our ears, and then the Gospel of Christ came into our lives, for God’s Holy
Spirit made us “born from above”, and we were changed. We began to get an
interest in knowing the Gospel of Christ crucified, and that is why we are here
today. So, let us then read again verse 5, Isa 53:5,
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.
There
are four action
items in this verse. These are four action items for the Lord Jesus Christ: #1,
wounded for our transgressions; #2, bruised for our iniquities; #3,
chastisement of our peace; #4, with his stripes we are healed. Let us now look
carefully at each one of these four action items.
#1. He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions (Isa
53:5, Psalm 22:1,16-18,7-8, Matt 27:39-44, 20:28, 2Cor 5:21, Gen
3:15)
The
Hebrew word that was translated by the KJ translators “wounded” actually means
“pierced”, or “bored through”. It means to be mortally wounded by having been
pierced. For instance, when king Saul was mortally wounded by the archers of
the Philistines he was pierced by their arrows. There God used the same word to
describe the wounded Saul, who was pierced. Here in Isa 53:5 God says
that Christ was pierced for our transgressions. Whose transgressions? We need
to keep in mind that God is most of the time speaking only of the elect of God.
Thus when God says “our transgressions” He is not speaking of all the
inhabitants of the world, but only of the transgressions of all the elect, both
from the OT time as well as from the NT time period. And the piercing refers to
the piercing of His hands and His feet by crucifixion. And thus when we read Isa
53:5 it says that Christ was crucified for our transgressions. What do we
mean when we say, “Christ was crucified for our transgressions?” Please turn
in your Bibles to the prophecy of the Psalms, Psalm 22:1 (2X). This is a
psalm of David. Was David aware of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ?
David was a king, but he was also a prophet. And since he was a prophet God
gave him the words to prophesy of the coming Messiah, and to prophesy of the
sufferings that Christ had to endure. We read in Psalm 22:1,
Ps 22:1 ¶
<< A Psalm of David.>> My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why art thou so far from
helping me, and from the words of my
roaring?
From
this beginning
of this psalm we know that this is a Messianic Psalm, for these are the words
that the Lord Jesus prayed while hanging on the cross. A Messianic Psalm is a
psalm that was prayed by the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. He either prayed
it out loud or He prayed it silently.
And
thus the following words are also words from the Lord Jesus. We read in Psalm
22:16-18,
Ps 22:16-17
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me:
they pierced my hands and my feet. I
may tell all my bones: they look and
stare upon me.
Ps 22:18 They
part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
The
Lord Jesus
says, “I am surrounded by dogs”. And then He specified those dogs, “I am
surrounded by the assembly of the wicked”. Who is He referring to? He is
referring primarily to the religious rulers of the Jews. The priests, and the
scribes and the Pharisees were surrounding Him, and they were saying the words
we find in verses 7-8. We read in Psalm 22:7-8 (2X),
Ps 22:7-8 All
they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the
head, saying,
He
trusted on the LORD that he would
deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
Indeed, these are the words we find in
Matt 27:39-44, where the chief priests with the scribes and the elders
were mocking Him while He was dying on the cross. Their hatred of the Lord
Jesus persisted all the way even until after He had died. But let us not lose
track of the fact for whom He was crucified. He was pierced for OUR
transgressions, because we all liked our sins too much, and because in our
former life we all delighted to walk according to the prince of the power of
the air, Satan. Therefore Christ was crucified, to pay the penalty that we
ought to have paid for our sins, but which we were not able to pay since this
payment would require an eternity in Hell, and thus it would never be
completed. The Lord Jesus said of this payment, “The Son of man came to give
His life, a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28). Please turn in your
Bibles to the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2Cor 5:21 (2X). And
thus we see that the Lord Jesus came to substitute His payment for our payment,
the payment that we had to make. And He could do so because He was the Son of
man; He was made like us, except for sin, for He was the spotless Lamb of God.
We read in 2Cor 5:21,
2Co 5:21 For he
hath made him (to be)
sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him.
This
does not mean
that He was defiled by our sins, and that He now had to make that payment. It
does not mean that Christ became literally sin, or that He became sin in the
abstract sense of the word, but Christ became a sin-offering for us. He, the
Judge, made the payment for us, without becoming defiled by our sin. We should
see it as if Christ, the Judge who pronounced the judgment, came from behind
the bar of judgment and paid the price that the guilty sinner had to pay. And
what a price that was! It was equivalent to all the elect spending an eternity
in Hell, for the righteousness of God demanded that His payment must be
equivalent to our payment. And so, this is the substitution that God designed
from the beginning. This was the substitution that God pronounced in Gen
3:15, where God said to Satan, “He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
bruise His heel”. And since we are now talking about the verb “to bruise”, let
us then now turn to the next action item on the list for Isa 53:5, “He was bruised for our
iniquities”. Actually, the proper translation should have been:
#2. He Was
Crushed for Our Iniquities (Isa 53:5, Psalm 72:4, 1Cor 11:24,
John 19:36, Matt 26:38-39, 12:40, 27:60, 14:19)
The
word for “bruised” means “to be broken to pieces”, or to be crushed”. For
example, when we read in Psalm 72:4, “He shall judge the poor of the
people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the
oppressor”. The verb “to break in pieces” is the same word that has been
translated “bruised” in Isa 53:5. But historically the Lord Jesus Christ was
not broken in pieces. And that is why the translators chose the word “bruised”.
However, we should not try to be wiser than God, and we should try to
understand what God wrote. You all remember the words the Lord Jesus spoke when
He instituted the Lord’s Supper ceremony. The Lord says in 1Cor 11:24
(2X),
1Co 11:24 And
when he had given thanks, he brake it,
and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in
remembrance of me.
The
Lord spoke here
about His body being broken for us. Certainly this does not mean that His body
was literally broken, for we must keep in mind that we must always harmonize
the words we find in different parts of the Bible. Please turn in your
Bibles to the Gospel According to Matthew, Matt 26:38 (2X). The scene at
the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was also described in the Gospel of John.
There in John 19:36 we read, “For these things were done, that the
scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken”. And thus, it
is obvious that the words in 1Cor 11:24 must be understood spiritually. We get
a little idea what the Lord Jesus meant when we see Him in the Garden of
Gethsemane, when He took Peter, James and John with Him to a more secluded
place, and there He prayed fervently. We read in the Gospel of Matthew chapter
26, Matt 26:38-39 (2X),
Mt 26:38-39 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell
on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
The
Lord Jesus
said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death”. He felt the crushing
pain of the penalty for our sins, and He felt it in His soul. No one has been
tormenting His body yet, but He already began to endure the equivalent of an
eternity in Hell in His soul. And the horror of this torment was so intense
that He pleaded with the Father if it was possible that this cup would pass
from Him. It was the cup of the wrath of God. And remember that it was Thursday
night in order that the prophecy would be fulfilled that He would be three days
and three nights “in the heart of the earth” (Matt 12:40). Beginning
Thursday night till Sunday morning constitutes three nights and two and a half
days, which counts for three days. Just like we must let God define what the
meaning is that His body would be broken, so we must let the Lord define what
the meaning is of “the heart of the earth”. Certainly it does not mean that He
would be buried underground for three days and three nights, for the Lord Jesus
never went underground. He was buried in a tomb, carved out of a rock, which
was definitely above ground (Matt 27:60). And thus from the text we can
conclude that the “heart of the earth” represents the entire atonement process,
which took three days and three nights. And thus we also understand that the
breaking of His body refers to the spiritual crushing of His soul. And now we
understand why God says in Isa 53:5, “He was crushed for our
iniquities”. And why does the Lord refer to His body? This is to indicate
that He endured the torments for our sins in His humanity, not in His divinity.
We can see the wonderful multiplication of bread and fishes in the Gospel
stories, such as in Matt 14:19. There the Lord Jesus broke the bread, to
indicate the suffering He anticipated in His soul. As a result everywhere the
apostles went to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, they broke the bread as a symbol
to remember the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ in His body and soul. Let
us now turn to the third action item of the Lord Jesus. We read in Isa 53:5,
#3. The Chastisement
of Our Peace Was Upon Him (Isa 53:5, Gal 3:10,13, Deut 27:26)
What
does this mean? The proper meaning of the word that has been rendered
“chastisement” is mostly translated as “instruction”, and to a lesser extent
also as “correction”. However, in Isa 53:5 this word cannot mean “punishment”,
for there is no punishment where there is no guilt. And since the Lord Jesus
had done no sin, He could not be punished. Instead He took upon Himself the
sufferings which would purchase the peace of those for whom He died. And the
peace referred to here is the “peace with God”. Please turn in your
Bibles to the Epistle to the Galatians, Gal 3:10 (2X). When we came into
the world we had no peace with God. Instead we were openly in rebellion against
God. In fact, we were under the law of God, and God declared in Deut 27:26
that everyone who does not obey all things which are in the Book of the Law are
under the curse of God. We read in Gal 3:10,
Ga 3:10 For as
many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written,
Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Therefore, anyone who tries to be right
with God by obeying the Law of God falls under the curse, for no human being is
able to do all the works of the Law perfectly. The only one who is able to obey
the Law perfectly is the Lord Jesus Christ. He obeyed the Law perfectly all His
life, for He had to be the perfect and spotless Lamb of God. However, as the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, He voluntarily placed
Himself under the curse of God by hanging on a Roman cross during His atonement
for our sins. And since the cross was made of a tree, Christ was hanging on a
tree, which was the sign of being under the curse of God. We read in Gal
3:13 (2X),
Gal 3:13,
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us: for it is written, Cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree”.
Therefore Christ had to die on a Roman
cross and be made a curse on behalf of us, for He who knew no sin had to become
the sin-offering for us, so that our sins may be washed away. And so we see
that it was God’s plan all along that Christ would be hanging on a tree, for He
would take the curse that we so rightfully deserved. He was appointed to be our
Redeemer, for He was our Kinsman. He was made like us, except for sin, and He
had the power to endure the wrath of God on our behalf, so that our sins would
be blotted out. Therefore we could be righteous in God’s sight, and so we could
have peace with God. It was in this way that the chastisement of our peace was
upon Him.
#4. And With His
Stripes We Are Healed (Isa 53:5, 2Pet 1:21, Psalm 41:4, 103:3,
37:4, Tit 2:14)
The
word “stripes” means properly stripes caused by whips, or bruises from blows on
the skin. It means that the Lord Jesus had to be scourged, for God prophesied
this here in Isa 53:5. Pilate and the Roman soldiers did not read the Prophecy
of Isaiah. But God knew the procedures of execution that were to be developed
in the Roman Empire. And God instructed Isaiah to write this. “Holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2Pet 1:21). And with His
stripes we are healed. In the charismatic gospels this verse is interpreted as
if it refers to physical healing. But we have to stay with the context, and the
context does not at all refer to physical healing. The healing here refers to
spiritual healing, or healing from sin. In the Bible pardon for sin, and a restoration into the favor of God is
frequently represented as an act of healing. The figure is derived from the
fact that convicted sinners are often pictured as crushed, or broken, or
bruised by the weight of their transgressions. And thus removal of the load of
sin is represented as an act of healing. For example, we read in Psalm 41:4,
“I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for
I have sinned against thee”. And when we read in Psalm 103:3, “Who
forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases”, we must again
keep in mind that spiritual healing is in view. The idea here is that Christ
would be scourged, and that this scourging would be an integral part of His
atonement, together with the piercing of His hands and His feet, and together
with Christ being crushed in His spirit, and together with the correction that
took away our enmity with God. Please turn in your Bibles to the Epistle
to Titus, Tit 2:14 (2X). You find Titus right after the epistles to
Timothy. God tells us here that the lifestyle of a saint is that we eagerly
look forward to the glorious appearing of the great God who is our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. And then He gives a summary of the Gospel of Christ
crucified in one brief verse. We read in Tit 2:14,
Tit 2:14 Who
gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Christ
gave Himself as
a ransom for us, in His atonement of three days and three nights, so that He
would redeem us, or buy us back, out of the slave market of sin, and purify us
so that we would be a beautiful Bride of Christ, not having any spot or
wrinkle, or any such thing, a peculiar people who would be zealous of good
works. And when we give Him some of our good works, we remember that these are
works which God has prepared beforehand, so that we should walk in them. This
touches on a basic principle that describes how God operates. God first gives
us things, which we then return to Him as our gifts. For example, we read in Psalm
37:4 these words,
Ps 37:4 Delight
thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
God
gives us a
desire to delight ourselves in the Lord, and then He fills those desires. And
we see likewise here in Tit 2:14 how Christ gave Himself for us, not for
everyone in the world, but for us, His special people whom He gives a special
calling and elects us unto salvation. He redeemed us from our sins and from the
consequences of our sins by paying the payment for our sins only for us, not
for everyone in the world, for not everyone in the world ends up saved. And so,
we see here both unconditional election and limited atonement on display.
Moreover, He saved us from our sins, which points to the fact that we were
sinners. But then He purified us and converted us from sinners into saints. And
so we became His prized possession, His peculiar people. And by His
irresistible grace He makes us zealous unto good works, which He prepared
beforehand that we should walk in them. God gave all those gifts to us, and
then He rewards us for giving back to Him what was rightfully His to begin
with. What a glorious salvation is it that we have received, totally free,
totally by His grace, by His unmerited favor. And think of it, God did not have
to do that.
#5. It Was a
Voluntary Payment (John 10:17-18, Luke 23:46)
Please
turn in your
Bibles to the Gospel According to John, John 10:17 (2X). God was already
perfect and complete before He created the fist speck of dust. But God loves
His creation, for out of His creation comes the Bride of Christ. Before the
foundation of the world the Father chose a Bride for His Son. That is what
election is. And Christ came to save His Bride from her slippery slide into
Hell. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ came to atone for her sins on the cross.
We need to see that the Lord Jesus was not a victim of the cruel scribes and
Pharisees. The Lord Jesus came to die on a cross because we were sinners who
need to be cleansed. God used the scribes and Pharisees to accomplish His
goals, just like God used Satan to accomplish His goals. We read in John
10:17-18,
Joh 10:17
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I
might take it again.
Joh 10:18 No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my
Father.
You
see, the Lord
Jesus voluntarily laid down His life for our sins, a ransom for many. He was
fully in control when He died. He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My
Spirit” (Luke 23:46), and then He died, and His soul went to heaven. His
humanity died. His divinity did not die. And when He was raised the third day
it was His humanity that was made alive again. The Lord Jesus said that He did
it Himself. In His humanity He received from God the power to make His soul
return to His body and to make Himself alive again. This is the wonder of the
Incarnation. But the Lord Jesus did that for our benefit. He did not have to
suffer and die, for God was already perfect before He created us. But if we had
come into the world without this great plan of salvation, then the entire human
race would have been cast into Hell forever, for we sin voluntarily, and we
were willing servants of Satan against God. Do we now realize what great blessings
God has bestowed upon us? Do we now live a life of gratitude? If God has indeed
made us born from above, then we certainly have become His grateful servants,
and we now love Him and worship Him, and we want to do all those things that
are pleasing in His sight, for we adore Him. And so, this is our response in
faith to hearing the Good News that Christ was pierced for our transgressions. AMEN. Let
us turn to the Lord in prayer.