Well, so many times I suppose
we've looked at Isaiah 53, yet even though it's so familiar
with us, we go back to it time after time,
don't we, because it's so full of God's Word and full of the
Gospel. I think we can never really exhaust it. A beautiful comforting passage
for us in so many ways. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
grand subject of it, isn't he? He is described as the second
servant of his people and it speaks about him being the great
substitute of his people, the Lamb of God. So many pictures
and types of our Lord Jesus. One who was to be afflicted in
the purpose of our God. And reading it, it's good for
us to contemplate the sufferings of our Lord in His great work
of redemption. The sufferings of His body and
His flesh were great indeed. Those afflictions of His flesh
shouldn't be diminished. They were appalling things that
He suffered in His body. And the Holy Spirit has given
us much detail in the sufferings of our Lord Jesus. particularly
in Isaiah 53. It's very, very heavy with the
descriptions of His suffering. I take it that with such detail
written the Holy Spirit wants us to take some time to deeply
consider the sufferings of our Lord Jesus. So firstly this evening
I want to spend some time together contemplating that which the
Lord Jesus endured on behalf of His people and secondly in
light of those sufferings I want us to consider what the scripture
is saying particularly in verse 11 which says, He shall see the
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. The very soul of
our Saviour, the very core of his being suffered in travail. Yet the Lord Jesus is also said
to be satisfied. Perhaps that might seem a contradiction
in your mind. How can one be satisfied with
such suffering? but somehow in that great affliction,
in that great travail of the soul, the scriptures declare
that the Lord Jesus has been fully satisfied. It is a wonderful
subject for us to contemplate. So let's just begin at verse
3. We won't be going through it
as I53 verse by verse, but we will just have a look at these
things which were the afflictions of our Lord Jesus. In verse 3
we see He was despised and rejected of men even before he was born. Men sought his life. What terrible
lengths did Herod go to to ensure the infant would not survive.
All the children, two years and younger in Bethlehem and the
surrounds, murdered at Herod's hand in an effort to kill the
Saviour, hated and contempt was for him for there was from the
beginning that hatred inherited. He was despised and rejected.
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When we experience
times of sorrow and grief, what a comfort it is to know that
the Lord Jesus, having gone before us in His humanity, is one who
has himself experienced such things so fully. He carried our
griefs and our sorrows. Notice that those griefs and
those sorrows are plural. They are many. There are many
griefs and many sorrows, but they are also the griefs and
the sorrows of His people. All the griefs and all the sorrows
we experience in this life, He also has known them. And we have
sorrows in this world, no doubt. When we experience sorrow we
tend to think that no one else has suffered like us. Yet the
scriptures declared our Lord Jesus is one who is more than
able to sympathise with us. Hebrews 4.15 puts it this way,
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathise with our
weakness, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without
sin. The griefs and sorrows of our
Saviour were more deeply and more acutely felt than we can
ever understand. He carried a burden That burden
was also the burden of every child-god that ever lived. Lamentations, Chapter 1. We read the crier of his affliction. I'll just read it to you, you
don't need to turn there. Verse 12, Is it nothing to you, all
you that pass by? Behold and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From
above he hath sent fire into my bones, and it prevailed against
them. He hath spread a net for my feet.
He hath turned me back. He hath made me desolate and
faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions
is bound by his hand. They are wreathed and come upon
my neck. He hath made my strength to fall. The Lord hath delivered me into
their hands, from whom they are not able to rise up." The Lord
Jesus was touched with incomparable sorrow, touched with the feeling
of our infirmities of all points, touched in his body and his soul
and his spirit as the representative of his people, as the substitute
for his people, as their intercessor and as their high priest. He
has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Verse 4, stricken,
smitten of God and afflicted. What an amazing fact it is, isn't
it? When you think about it, our
Lord Jesus Christ who is God Himself was stricken and smitten
and afflicted by God Himself. How ridiculous and how unbelievable
that must sound to most people that God would afflict and smite
that One who is Himself God. This One who has been afflicted
is God Himself. There is an amazing verse in
Acts chapter 20. Paul gives a word to those who
would teach and to the flock of God concerning that blood.
the blood of God. Let me read it to you. Take heed
therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the
Holy Ghost hath made you overseas, to feed the Church of God which
he hath purchased with his own blood. The Church was purchased
with blood and that blood was in fact the blood of God. Not that the Godhead could bleed,
But the Godhead in union with manhood in one person called
Immanuel. What an amazing thing that is,
that the Almighty God of this universe could somehow be made
subject to affliction. A glorious God in the person
of Christ took up a life in order to die. being found as a man,
yet truly God, subject to harm, subject to evil, able to bleed
and able to die. Verse 5, He was wounded for our
transgressions. Now that word wounded carries
deeper implications. The Saviour was defiled, violated
and dishonoured. It was bruised, and again a word
that carries deeper meaning with it. That word bruised means beat
to pieces, crushed. Just think of that giant millstone
that grinds the grain, the enormous weight of that rock and the enormous
force placed against those small soft grains. relentlessly crushing
those grains and pulverising them, crushed into powder. That's
the idea behind that word. Crushed for our iniquities, like
grapes when they're crushed. The crushing of them produces
the juice that's made into wine. I think there's a beautiful picture
there of why the Lord Jesus calls us to use wine in remembrance
of Him when we take communion together. He was brought as a
lamb to the slaughter, verse 7. Brought with the innocence
of a lamb, he opened not his mouth, he had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord,
verse 10. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He had put him to grief. that
the Lord Jesus was bruised and put to death was no mistake. Willingly he was made subject
to such things. For the love of his people he
went to that end without hesitation. He declared it himself, didn't
he, in John 15, greater love hath no man than this, that a
man lay down his life for his friends. Now Lord Jesus was fully
consenting to the pouring out of broth upon him by his father. All of it took place by solemn
covenant, a covenant that all three persons of the Triune Godhead
entered into, a covenant of grace brought to be without the help
of sinful men and in that covenant of grace full provision was made
for all the elect of God They had no strength to help themselves. They were saved from the consequences
of their sins in the covenant of grace. The one man, Jesus
Christ, was covenanted to lay his life down for his sheep.
What a wonder to consider how this should be, that it pleased
God to pour wrath and anger upon the very one who had himself
never sinned in his entire life. his own dear son, to bruise him
and put him to grief. The necessity of it cannot be
understood apart from knowing something of the holiness of
God himself. It cannot be understood apart
from knowing strict divine justice, the requirements of a holy God
in dealing with sin. The shedding of the blood of
the sinless Lamb of God is the very heart of the Gospel itself,
the Gospel of substitution. How can the shedding of innocent
blood be just, someone might ask. It is a good question, isn't
it? Wasn't Christ without sin? He
was indeed. Was Christ a sinner? Never was
He a sinner. Yet the shedding of that blood,
the atoning work of the Saviour, is the very means by which He
saves His people from His sins. Life comes to dead sinners by
the death of a substitute, by the shedding of blood. Without
the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Hebrews 9.22
tells us that. Why does blood need to be shed? The shedding of blood is the
necessary consequence, the penalty of sin and transgression against
our holy God. Back in that garden, Our Father
Adam knew the consequence, didn't he, of taking that forbidden
fruit. The Lord God gave him commandment. In Genesis 2 we
read, And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden
of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded
the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat. but of the tree of knowledge
and of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' Being deceived
by the serpent, Adam and his wife received the righteous judgement
of God upon their transgression. You can read of it in Genesis
3. Death through one man, Adam.
Romans 5 explains this further. As by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men,
for they all have sinned." Sin bears the consequence of death
flowing to us from Adam. Adam being the representative
head of the human race, we sin in Adam. We all share in Adam's
fallen humanity. We all have sinned. There is
none good, no not one. And we should be thankful that
it didn't end there, that the story doesn't end there. If there
were no more written in the Book of God after that verse there
would be no hope for us. We would each of us receive those
wages which we will and truly deserve, the wages of sin. Those wages bear that terrible
consequence don't they? Death comes to all because all
have sinned. Apart from grace we are as dead
as can be. Thanks be to God. There is a
way forward for us. Reading from Romans 5 verse 17. For if by one man's offence death
reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus
Christ. Therefore as by the one offence
of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation, Even so,
by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous." So we see these wonderful exchanges, these
necessary exchanges here in Isaiah 53. Now disobedience is exchanged
for His obedience. Our unrighteousness is exchanged
for His righteousness. His death is exchanged for our
life. These are necessary exchanges. You must have obedience. You
must have obedience. But if obedience is to be reckoned
to you, that obedience must come from another. I hope to burst
your bubble, but all you have to offer is this obedience. You have no obedience of your
own. You must be righteous, but you must be given righteousness. You have no righteousness of
your own. We have no righteousness of our
own. Even your most altruistic thoughts
and words and deeds do not make one righteous. Why? They all arise from a heart that
is corrupt and unrighteous and on repair. Your heart and my
heart are beyond repair. That is why God must give his
people a new heart. Corruption must be dealt with
and so too our unrighteousness. We require righteousness that
is described as being covering. Perhaps you've seen those documentaries. I have it in my mind's eye of
those men that walk in front of the volcano, particularly
in the centre of the crater. There's this bubbling core of
molten rock and that molten rock can reach over a thousand degrees
centigrade and to venture anywhere near it you must have a special
protective suit covering every part of your body. Without that
covering your body will be consumed in an instant. In the same way
our God is a consuming fire, you must have a covering, a robe
of righteousness. You cannot presume to live, to
be in God's presence without that righteous robe. Not only
must you have perfect righteousness, but it must be given undeservedly. It is our big problem, isn't
it? We tend to think we deserve good and according to God we
deserve condemnation. Our unrighteousness disqualifies
us. We need to be saved from our
unrighteousness, but also in a very real sense. We also need
to be saved from something perhaps Even worse, it may sound strange,
but we need to be saved from our own righteousness, self-righteousness. That's what it is. It is the
presumption of righteousness, an imaginary righteousness. It
does not exist. Like the king's new clothes,
you cannot stand before a righteous God with your own pretend righteousness. We need real righteousness. We really understood what we
deserve as sinners, what the scriptures say we deserve, what
the law declares we deserve. You would never ask for what
we deserve. Far better to presume yourself
as unrighteous, presume yourself undeserving, because that is
the truth of the matter, not an ounce of merit to bring. God opposes the proud but gives
grace to the humble and that grace must come freely without
our works. That grace must come not because
of anything you've ever done but in spite of everything you've
ever done. And when grace comes, it comes
by the virtue of another. Again you need a substitute,
not just any substitute though, If a substitute is to take our
place, he cannot be like us, he cannot be the same as us I
should say. God will not accept a corrupt
substitute or an imperfect substitute. He must be perfect to be accepted. What great exchanges that substitute
has accomplished for us. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities, The chastisement of our peace was
upon Him. With His stripes we are healed,
stricken for the transgression of His people. These are the
necessary exchanges required for our salvation. The Lord has
laid on Him the iniquity of us all. As really as you can imagine
it to be, God the Father took the sins of all His people and
place them upon His Son. Not just figuratively. God did
not pretend it to be so. Our Lord Jesus was made sin for
us. So beautifully summarised in
2 Corinthians 5, 21. He has made Him sin for us. We knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. a necessary and willing
and able substitute for us. A Saviour successful in all He
did. Every single elect person was
saved before the world began by the Lamb who was slain for
the foundation of the world. Be sure you do not confuse this
Gospel with that false Gospel that says that the Saviour was
crucified for all men without exception. and then the offer
of salvation is on the table for those who are strong enough
to reach out and take it. The false teaching of universal
redemption and common grace is so common. I recently heard a
pastor not far from here tell every person present that your
sins are not the issue with God, God dealt with every man's sins
2000 years ago. God loves you and His arms are
wide open to receive you. Just allow Him to save you. And
such a message is preached. It brings no conviction of sin. If the message is that God loves
you and everyone else in this world, then what do we need to
have to repent? Common grace brings no conviction,
no conviction of righteousness and no conviction of judgement,
no heartache and no remorse over transgression. The preacher has
given them peace without the experience of remorse over sins. Friends, the true Gospel is exclusive. For whom did Christ come to save?
For whom did Christ die? For whom did Christ put away
sin and transgression? that great exchange of sin for
righteousness was only for God's people. Never was that exchange
performed for any other people. Look at verse 8. He was taken from prison and
from judgement and who shall declare his generation for he
was cut off of the land of the living for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. A particular peculiar people
elect according to the purpose of God, my people God says, my
people and they are called sheep and the Lord Jesus is their good
shepherd. I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known
of mine. Every sheep as silly and as dumb
and as wayward as we are will know their shepherd at the appointed
time. and he will know them far better
than they will ever know themselves. I am a good shepherd and know
my sheep and am known of mine as the father knoweth me, even
so know I the father and I lay down my life for the sheep."
To preach common grace is to preach to no one in particular.
It is a message which saves no one in particular. and in fact
common grace saves no one and cannot save anyone. The sheep are a chosen people,
peculiar people, particular recipients of grace by the mercy of God. It is no coincidence that the
Lord Jesus in verse 7 identifies as a sheep as well. And so we
see clearly throughout Isaiah 53 that the Lord Jesus was one
who was to suffer greatly in his work of redemption, a work
that would see our Lord Jesus suffer and be stricken so that
the scriptures describe his soul in travail. Perhaps that word,
travail, is most vividly expressed in the garden that night before
his arrest when he prays, My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death. The God-man was a man, strong
and healthy in body, but we find him with tenderness of heart. Our Lord Jesus had a tender heart. he openly wept at the death of
his friend Lazarus. He had great compassion on those
crowds that followed. He was moved in his heart because
they were like sheep without a shepherd and so the travail
of our Lord Jesus was to bow upon a heart that was tender.
In Psalm 69, that's a beautiful psalm I must say, We read something
of the heaviness of his heart. I'll just read it to you. Reproach hath broken my heart,
and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity.
There were none, and for comforters, but I found none. That word travail
is often a word we think of as a woman goes through childbirth,
the travail of childbirth. A woman when she is in the pain
of childbirth experiences great pain at the time. The Lord Jesus
spoke this same picture to his disciples in John 16. A woman
when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come. But
as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no
more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world.
The soul of the Saviour was in travail exceedingly sorrowful
even unto death. I just want us to consider for
a moment, to consider what it was that the Saviour endured. Think of it for a moment. All the hell your sins have merited
was poured into His soul and all the hell that multitudes
of God's elect ever merited was poured into his soul. And had
he not been God as well as man, humanity alone could not sustain
such a burden. His soul was made to endure it
and he died for the just and the unjust to bring us to God,
all to accomplish salvation, as rich and free and as extensive
as to the necessities of his people. As deep as their miseries
can possibly be, all His work was performed for His beloved
people. What has Christ done? He has
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He has finished transgression
and made an end of sin. He has redeemed us from all iniquity. He has redeemed us from the curse
of the law. from destruction and from the
power of the devil. He has obtained eternal redemption
for us. He has redeemed us to God. He
suffered for a time, but at the end there is recompense. I think
this is key to understanding what it is that he shall see
the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. It is a recompense
that completely eclipses the pain and sorrow he endured. A recompense of joy that satisfies
the one who suffers completely. He shall be satisfied, the text
says, not maybe, not might, he shall be satisfied. A certain
result, a certain outcome of that travail. And so finally
I want us to think for a little while on what the scripture is
here saying when it declares he shall be satisfied. What are
the necessary aspects of that travail that he shall be satisfied? What things must be true of the
redemptive work of Christ for him to be satisfied? I recently
painted a few rooms in our house and at a quick glance they look
pretty good as long as you don't look too close. I'm never really
100% satisfied with the work. There are way too many imperfections. But for God to be satisfied,
for the Lord Jesus to be satisfied, and I speak in the present tense,
satisfied this very moment, seated in heaven and satisfied, He can
only be satisfied if those things that He endured were in their
totality completely successful and perfect. for it to be said of our Lord
Jesus that he shall be satisfied. And it is necessarily true that
the work of travail must be successful. If he came to save his people
from his sins and failed to do it, then there could be no satisfaction. If our Lord Jesus came to save
his people and even just one were to be lost, how then is
there any satisfaction in that? The very hairs of your head are
numbered by a God. He holds his people in the palm
of his hand and none shall perish. The very reputation of God depends
on a work that is finished and successful. If his life's work
and attainments were not accomplished there could be no satisfaction.
In John 17 he declared, I have finished the work you have given
me to do. And so we love to declare A Gospel
which declares the success of our Saviour, don't we? There
is no Gospel without a successful Saviour. There is no other name
by which men can be saved, no one else worthy to open the book
and loose its seals. In terms of the satisfaction
of Christ there are certain aspects to his successful work of redemption
that the Scriptures speak of. One of them is propitiation.
I'll consider these just briefly and then we'll close. Propitiation
is a doctrine of great beauty. Christ is our propitiation. Angus
spoke of propitiation just a little while ago, you might recall,
in that account of the Pharisee and the tax collector. You might
remember that the tax collector stood far off and pleaded mercy
knowing this was the only plea that remained, God be merciful
to me a sinner. The man was saying be propitious
to me, be merciful to me. In the scriptures when the word
is used, it is used of Christ and is translated mercy seat. That mercy seat was provisioned
by God as a type It covered the Ark of the Covenant and covered
God's broken law, the place where God promised to meet His people
in mercy. The blood of the pastoral lamb
was sprinkled upon it, a reminder that mercy can only come by blood.
How is it that the tax collector obtained mercy? He went down
to his house justified, the Scriptures say. He looked for mercy, he
appealed to God's provision of mercy and in doing so he was
in fact looking to Christ. That is our only plea. He really
did attain mercy for us. Another aspect we might consider
in terms of the satisfaction of Christ is the attainment.
The word is used many times in the Old Testament. The word is
only used once in the New Testament, in Romans 5.11. I have just read
it here quickly for you. Verse 10, For if when we were
enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life. Verse
11, And not only so, but we also join God through our Lord Jesus
Christ by whom we have now received the atonement." That word atonement,
particularly in the Old Testament, is connected with the sacrifices
typically performed under the law, sacrifices performed for
the expiation of sin. In essence the word actually
means to cover, That blood, when sprinkled on the mercy seat,
typified a covering. Blood was applied to the dwellings
of the Israelites as a covering as that angel of the Lord went
throughout Egypt that dark night. Now Lord Jesus is the reality
of all these types, a covering for His people by the sacrifice
of Himself. His blood is a washing and a
cleansing and a covering for His people. covering for us against
God's law. The blood is efficacious and
particular. Atonement is something we receive. We receive the knowledge of it.
We receive the blessing of it and we receive the benefit of
it. It is received and applied to
our hearts by the Spirit of God. And lastly we have reconciliation. All things are of God who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the
ministry of reconciliation. God hath reconciled us to himself. Again the scriptures speak of
this as a successful, completed work. He hath reconciled. The work that was from eternity,
hedged by that eternal covenant of grace, accomplished by Christ
himself. All his chosen people reconciled
completely and securely What a comfort of grace it is to know
the reconciliation of God. It is yet another work perfectly
performed by our Lord Jesus. Christ is satisfied, God the
Father is satisfied, God the Holy Spirit is satisfied. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. He has done all things well.