“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:4
August 25, 2022
The most important question of the day, and any day, is answered in Isaiah 53:4-5. God’s Servant, Jesus Christ, did NOT die to merely give us an example in how to live and how to die. His life and death reached far beyond that of a role model. Jesus Christ did NOT die to merely demonstrate the love of Christ. He did not die to make us repent by the shear power of His sacrifice of love. Jesus Christ did NOT die merely for the truth that He held. His death was not simply that of a martyr. Jesus Christ did NOT die to pay a ransom to Satan. The Servant of God died to make a substitutionary atonement. The ground should shake by merely acknowledging this sublime truth. Too many Christians miss this reality. They talk about the death of Christ as if it were simply to make us a better person. The truth is that in 53:4 a repentant Israel confesses that the sufferings of Jehovah’s Servant were an altogether different character from what they had supposed. As theologian Dr. John Whitcomb has stated it, “Like Job’s friends, they (Israel) concluded that His awful sufferings were the results of His own awful sins of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking. They measured the sin of this Person by the sufferings He endured.” Jesus was stricken not because of His guilt, but because our guilt. The substitutionary death of Jesus Christ brought the infinite weight of the accumulated guilt of sinners crushing down upon Him. It was “our griefs” and “our sorrows” that Jesus died by a violent and painful death.
Dear friend, has this wondrous truth sunk deeply into your heart? Have you put your trust in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life? This is another extremely important question. H
A point to ponder: Faith is the empty hand of the heart reaching out to receive the free gift of eternal life in Christ.