Surely He Has Borne Our Griefs
Notes
Transcript
Surely He Has Borne Our Griefs
Isaiah 53:1–6 (ESV)
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
This servant song is sad. It is a lament, a song of regret and remorse, and a minor-key hymn of repentance.
Isaiah writes as if we were there at the cross because we were. My sins were there your sins were there they were nailing him to the cross
If it wasn’t our guilt that required the death of Jesus, what did?
He’s not only describing Jesus;
Isaiah is telling our story too.
We cannot say, “If I had been there, I wouldn’t have shouted ‘Crucify him!’ ”
We were there, and we did cry out to crucify him. We are one of the murderers
Isaiah brings us to the heart of his message.
Jesus really was a man of sorrows, but they weren’t his own. He didn’t deserve them.
They were our sorrows. In a way we don’t understand, Jesus substituted himself for us at the cross.
God has done what we’d have no right to do—God has shifted the blame to Jesus Christ as he died for guilty people.
God has pointed the finger. He has laid on him the iniquity of us all.[1]
Guilt must be paid for. It can’t be swept under the rug.
You know that from your own experience.
When you are wronged or injured—even in a fender-bender—someone has to answer for it, either you or the other person. The damage and cost don’t just go away. If it’s going to be put right, someone has to pay the cost.
And so it is with God. In God’s Universe there is justice
God cannot turn a blind eye to our evil that is damaging his universe.
How did God confront it? How was the damage paid for?
God charged that infinite debt to a substitute out of love for us.
Jesus Christ put himself in the place of sinners; the unbearable weight of their guilt was imputed to him, and he sank under it.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is the love of God.
The Messiah is pierced and crushed in our place.
The righteous in the place of the unrighteous.
The loving shepherd in the place of the lost sheep.
The exalted king in the place of the rebel subjects.[3]
Christ not only died for sinners so that we could be saved, he died for sinners in fulfillment of explicit prophecy so that we could know more surely that we are saved.
When you read the story of your salvation in detail 700 years before it happened, you have not only revelation, but validation. [4]
Why So Much Unbelief?
Isaiah 53:1 (ESV)
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
The “arm of the Lord” represents his awesome power, yet in this context, it speaks of the infinitely mysterious frailty of the incarnate Son of God, whose seeming weakness in death was the most powerful thing ever in human history.
What’s essential? The “arm-ness” of Christianity. What do I mean?
Jesus Christ is not here called the mouth of the Lord; he’s called the arm of the Lord.
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?”
Let me give you a little bit of a paraphrase of this. What he’s saying is,
“Who has believed our message that this is the arm of the Lord?
It’s going to take revelation,”
Isaiah is saying. “Nobody is going to believe this one, this servant, is the arm of the Lord.”
Nobody is going to believe it, and here’s why. The arm of the Lord is not just a nice metaphor Isaiah came up with on the spot.
The arm of the Lord has a very specific, very definite meaning in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the book of Isaiah.
The arm of the Lord is the Lord himself come into history to do something concrete.
The arm of the Lord is what parted the Red Sea.
The arm of the Lord is not God’s strength in general.
If it was the eye of the Lord, we’d be talking about the knowledge of God, but the arm of the Lord is the power of God.
Not just any kind of power. It’s not just general strength;
it’s God’s power in history. No wonder Isaiah says, “Look, I know people aren’t going to believe it.
Nobody is going to believe this is the arm of the Lord revealed.
This person is the omnipotent God come into history.”[1]
What’s essential? The “arm-ness” of Christianity.
What do I mean?
[1]Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t come to teach.
He is a teacher, but he didn’t primarily come to tell you what to do;
He came primarily to do.
That’s the essential difference between Christianity and every other religion.
Jesus Christ did not essentially come … Every other founder comes and says, “I’m going to show you how to connect to God. Do this.”
Jesus Christ says, “I’m going to connect you to God. I’ve done this.”
I’ll put it another way. There are a number of ways to put it. It means,
for example, the gospel is news, not advice.
You see, the other founders come with advice. They say, “Hey, here’s how you can change your life.”
News is,
“This is what has happened that changes your life.”
There was no Beauty
Isaiah 53:2 (ESV)
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
The humanity of Christ is established in unmistakable terms, for he grew up before God (Luke 2:52), starting small and weak like a young plant.
We need God’s help to believe because the truth is that we’re more superficial than we realize.
We look at the surface of things and judge them by appearances.
And Jesus didn’t even try to be impressive at that level.
He doesn’t respect false appearances the way we do. Isaiah says he was “like a root out of dry ground”—an unpromising person appearing in a failed nation.
Do not think that if you had been an eyewitness of Jesus, you would have admired him.
Not even his miracles made the impact they should have (John 12:37, 38).
His own family misjudged him (Mark 3:21; John 7:5).
When he traveled with his disciples, it wasn’t like the movies. Jesus didn’t have a holy glow about him.
The woman at the well had no idea whom she was talking to (John 4:25, 26).
Even John the Baptist became uncertain about him (Luke 7:18–23; John 1:29–34).
Our Lord just wasn’t special in ways that count with us.
He became hideous in his sufferings so that people shunned him: “… as one from whom men hide their faces.”[8]
He was a “root out of dry ground,” an allusion to the shoot that would grow from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11:1).
Jesus would be born in a time when being a “Son of David” (like Joseph, Matt 1:20) meant almost nothing because the Romans dominated the Jews. Jesus’s appearance was completely unimpressive; he looked like any normal Jewish man.
The glory of Jesus (John 1:14) was visible only to believers, who saw it in his sinless life, his compassionate demeanor, his powerful miracles, and his matchless words.
Jesus’s ordinary appearance as a man was the essence of the stumbling block he presented to the Jews.
“We are stoning you … for blasphemy, because you—being a man—make yourself God” (John 10:33; emphasis added).[9]
His whole demeanor, style, view of life, money, possessions, lust, prayer, worship, pride, humility, fear, and faith—none of it endorsed our own rebellion.
We didn’t feel endorsed around Jesus.
He was so lowly and unimpressive that our aspirations for power and reputation felt evil.
His happy poverty made our wanting more and more feel foolish. His willingness to suffer for others made our craving for comfort feel selfish.[10]
He is not desired
He is Rejected a Man of Sorrows
Isaiah 53:3 (ESV)
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus was “despised and rejected” (v. 3) by his own people (John 1:11) and by the Gentiles.
Despised means to be grossly underestimated, and never has it been more accurate than when applied to Jesus Christ.
His own people legally condemned him when he was on trial before Annas and again before Pilate. So also today,
Jesus is the most despised and rejected man in history.[11]
Intrigued that there is till a marketing push to buy nice fancy Easter Clothing - Well to celebrate the clothing for so many the real Easter Celbration is a relic of the past.
Jesus is deeply acquainted with every misery of the human race.
Day after day he would stand and heal a river of suffering people one at a time (Matt 4:24; 12:15; etc.).
Like a hiker who sees a friend bitten by a rattlesnake and who immediately sucks the poison out of his leg with his own mouth, so Jesus “bore our sicknesses” (v. 4).
Jesus physically healed every disease he encountered, but that was also a picture of the deeper spiritual healing Jesus came to do.
For we were “dead in [our] trespasses and sins in which [we] previously lived” (Eph 2:1), and Christ has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.
The word bore gives us the picture of a mighty Samson, who picked up the gates of Gaza and carried them to the top of a mountain (Judg 16:1–3). Jesus is mightier than Samson, carrying our sins up Golgotha.[12]
To protect ourselves, we despised Him.
Our Substitute
Isaiah 53:4–5 (ESV)
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
Jesus’s central mission was not to perform temporary healings for people who would later die anyway. Many preachers have misread Isaiah 53:4–5 and concluded that Christ’s atonement guarantees physical healing in this present age if we have faith to believe it. Rather,
Christ’s mission was to die on the cross as a substitute for the sins of his people, winning eternal life in a future world where disease and death will be abolished forever.
Jesus’s death would be misunderstood by onlookers, who would assume that he was dying for his blasphemy. “But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds” (v. 5). [13]
This is the heart of the gospel of Jesus—substitution.
This is the great message of good news that God has for rebel subjects who are willing to lay down their rebellion.
· Instead of collapsing in grief over our rejection, he bears our grief.
· Instead of increasing our sorrows, he carries our sorrows.
· Instead of avenging our transgressions, he is pierced for them in our place.
· Instead of crushing us for our iniquities, he is crushed for them as our substitute.
All the chastisement and whipping that belong to us for our rebellion he takes on himself in order that we might have peace and be healed. [14]
You don’t have to understand anymore than you need to know how a computer works to send and receive email.
Jesus’s punishment wins us peace with God (Rom 5:1).
The wounding of Christ heals us perfectly and eternally from all the damage sin has done. This healing comes in stages: justification then sanctification then glorification. Only in our future resurrection and our life in the new heaven and new earth will our healing be complete.[15]
We’ve Gone Astray
Isaiah 53:6 (ESV)
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Note our condition: steeped in rebellion and iniquities, deserving a death penalty, at war with God, needing deep healing. All of our shortcomings were transferred to Christ at the cross.
Verse 6 captures in picturesque language our continual sheep like wandering in sin; the essence of it is a determined pursuit of “our own way” in everything we do. Christ paid the penalty for that wandering. [17]
Jesus’s central mission was not to perform temporary healings for people who would later die anyway. Many preachers have misread Isaiah 53:4–5 and concluded that Christ’s atonement guarantees physical healing in this present age if we have faith to believe it.
Rather, Christ’s mission was to die on the cross as a substitute for the sins of his people, winning eternal life in a future world where disease and death will be abolished forever.
Summary
The theme of this chapter is suffering, horrible suffering, terrible suffering, traumatic suffering, agonizing suffering, agonizing suffering, painful suffering and deadly suffering.
Suffering is the theme clearly.
Verse 3, “A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”
Verse 4, “Griefs He Himself bore. Sorrows He carried. He was stricken, smitten by God, afflicted.” Verse 5, “He was pierced through, He was crushed, He was chastened, He was scourged.”
Verse 6, “The Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
Well, you might say, I suppose there would be somewhere … someone who deserved to suffer like that. But that leads to a second question. Was the suffering deserved? [18]
Which leads to another question.
Why should a man do that?
Why should any man who is righteous suffer so horribly, be unprotected by God, and then suffer vicariously for the sins that He didn’t commit, but the sins of others?
The answer is, because He was willing, because He desired to do that.
[19]
What an amazing person to suffer so greatly, to suffer undeservedly, to suffer without the protection of a righteous God though He was righteous, to suffer vicariously, to suffer willingly[20]
Conclusion and Invitation
The world is full of people who don’t believe it. The nations largely don’t believe it. They don’t believe the message concerning Jesus Christ.
The religions of the world, apart from true Christians, don’t believe in the message concerning Christ. And what a message it is.
The Jews who know it, Paul said in Romans 10, “It’s … it’s in your mouth, it’s near you. You know the account. You know the claims of Christ but you don’t believe it.”
The substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you will absolutely change you and strengthen you if you would just let it have its way with you, in your memories, in your attitude, in your personality, in the way in which you look at the world, and in the way in which you look at life?
[21]
The blood of Jesus is flowing out to sinners of all kinds, taking from them their guilt, their shame, their loss, their tears and despair, and giving them a whole new life.
Jesus is saying to you right now, “I don’t want you to bear your burden one moment longer. Let my chastisement give you peace. Let my stripes heal you.
” We are all like stupid sheep, wandering off from him through our own futile self-remedies and self-righteous excuses. Who can deny it?
But look what God has done. God has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all. Believe it, and entrust your guilt to him. He can’t bear it and survive, but he’s still willing to bear it. [22]
[1]Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (pp. 356–357). Crossway Books.
[2]Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (p. 357). Crossway Books.
[3]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God.
[4]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God.
[5]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (pp. 319–320). Holman Reference.
[6]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God.
[7]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God.
[8]Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (pp. 355–356). Crossway Books.
[9]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 320). Holman Reference.
[10]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God.
[11]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 320). Holman Reference.
[12]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 320). Holman Reference.
[13]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 321). Holman Reference.
[14]Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999). Desiring God.
[15]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 321). Holman Reference.
[16]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 321). Holman Reference.
[17]Davis, A. M. (2017). Exalting jesus in isaiah (p. 321). Holman Reference.
[18]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Grace to You.
[19]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Grace to You.
[20]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2014). John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Grace to You.
[21]Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
[22]Ortlund, R. C., Jr., & Hughes, R. K. (2005). Isaiah: God saves sinners (pp. 357–358). Crossway Books.