Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
Isaiah, chapter 53, beginning at verse four. And the title
of today's message is Substitution. Just one word, substitution.
Isaiah 53, beginning at verse four. And as you know, this passage
is a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the great work that He would do as the suffering sacrifice
for the sins of His people. And there's so much in this passage. It's one of the greatest prophecies,
descriptively, the greatest prophecies of Christ you'll find in the
Bible. Obviously, the predictions and the prophecies of Christ
in His glorious person and in His finished work of redemption
as the substitute of a people, a particular people whom God
gave Him before the foundation of the world. God's elect. That's
what they're called in the Bible. Don't be afraid of that term
because it is biblical. And so whenever the Bible speaks
of God's elect, it's not just talking about a nation, one particular
nation here on earth, Israel. Now, Israel was, as a nation,
they were the chosen people of God for a particular period of
time under a covenant, the old covenant, the law covenant. that
God used that nation that He chose based on a promise He'd
made to Abraham, and He established that nation from the time of
Mount Sinai, when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and He
gave them to Israel, and gave them the whole law covenant,
not just the Ten Commandments, but the laws of sacrifice, and
ceremony, and the priesthood, and all of that. And that lasted
for about 1,500 years up until the time of Christ. And that
was over. So they were God's chosen people
in a temporal, temporary way to bring the Messiah into the
world through that nation, specifically through the tribe of Judah. And
then when Christ came and did his work, that covenant was over. And so they are not God's chosen
people in that sense today. But God has a spiritual nation,
a spiritual people, and that refers to God's elect which He
chose before the foundation of the world and gave to Christ. Christ said, He referred to it
all the time. I quote all the time John 6.37
where He said, "'All that the Father giveth me shall come to
me, "'and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'"
In his high priestly prayer in John 17, he mentions those specifically
that he would give eternal life to as many as thou hast given
me. Now, don't let that scare you because somebody will argue
and they'll say, well, if I'm not one of the elected, it doesn't
matter what I do. That's ignorant, evil reasoning. And the reason is, is because
you're not God. I'm not God. God knows His people. The Bible says that He chose
His people, but we don't know them. The only way we know them
is through the preaching of the gospel, which commands all men
everywhere to repent and to believe. How do you know whom God chose? How do you know for whom Christ
died on the cross? They will be brought to faith
in Christ. They will believe, they're believers.
And that's why Peter wrote, give diligence to make your calling
and election sure. How am I gonna make my election
sure? How am I gonna know of my election of God, the election
of grace? Not that God looked down through
a telescope of time and foresaw what I would do, but it's the
election of grace. How am I going to know that?
It's by my calling. And what is that calling? It's
a calling to the gospel, or by the gospel, a calling to Christ. Come to Christ. Believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Deuteronomy
29, 29, the secret things belong to God, the revealed things belong
to us. And here's the revelation. that
the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that
believeth, to the Jew first and to the Greek or the Gentile also.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed." Now we're going
to talk about that righteousness here in these verses. The righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith, from the preaching
of the gospel, that's the faith, to faith, God-given faith, which
God grants His people through the preaching of the gospel and
the power of the Spirit, as He gives them faith to believe and
brings them to repentance, as it is written, the just or the
justified shall live by faith. Well, one of the things I try
to do in this program is to continually point people Back to the Word
of God, what God's Word says. Not what your denomination says
or what the preacher may or may not say, but what the Word of
God says. And that's why I urge you, don't
believe it because I say it or because any preacher says it.
Test it by the Word of God. The Bible says, test the spirits.
Test them. That means anyone who comes claiming
to speak spiritual things by the Spirit of God. Now, that's
what I do. I claim to be doing that. Well,
how do you know that I'm telling you the truth? Go to the Word
of God. Even old Isaiah, 700 years before
Christ, made this statement in Isaiah 8 and verse 20. He said,
to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to
this word, there's no light in them. So understand that, you
see, search the scriptures, understand it. Well, what I try to do is
to get people back to the Word of God, to study the Word of
God, and back to the fundamentals of the faith, preaching the gospel,
the doctrines of grace. And often you'll hear me state
on this program For example, that Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in the glory of His person, which means this, it means He's God,
manifest in the flesh. You see, that's the person of
the gospel. It's the gospel of God, which
concerns Jesus Christ, who was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh, that's His sinless humanity, but declared to be
the Son of God with power, that's His absolute deity. Galatians
4 and verse 4, in the fullness of the time, God sent forth His
Son, that's His deity. That's Christ as the Son of God,
the second person of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
One God in three distinct persons. And Christ was sent, God sent
forth His Son, that's His deity. And He was made of a woman, that's
His sinless humanity. conceived in the womb of the
Virgin by the Holy Spirit without the aid of man. And he said he
was made under the law. In other words, he was responsible
to keep the law for somebody because he was made under the
law in order to redeem them that were under the law. Well, how
did he do that? Well, often I'll say, talk about
the glorious person of Christ who came to save his people. people whom God gave to him before
the foundation of the world, the elect, and he did it as their
surety, you hear me say that all the time, as their substitute
and as their redeemer. And today I wanna talk about
substitution, Christ the substitute. It says in verse four of Isaiah
53, it says, surely he, that is Christ, hath borne, carried
our griefs. burdens and carried our sorrows
yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted."
Verse 5 says, but he was wounded, he was, you may have a concordance
that says tormented. He was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised or crushed for our iniquities, And then he says,
the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes,
with his bruises, we're healed. And then verse six says this,
all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now what we have there In essence,
in that descriptive prophetic language that the Holy Spirit
led Isaiah to preach and to write is the gospel doctrines of the
surety ship of Christ and the substitutionary work of Christ
and the redemptive work of Christ, all gospel doctrines. And what
it says, he hath borne our griefs. Now who is the he there? As I
said, that's Christ. Surely he, he's the Savior. He's the Lamb of God. He's the
suffering servant here. This chapter is not talking about
the nation Israel. I know that that nation has gone
through many griefs and sufferings from other nations, but so has
a lot of other people. But this is Christ. This is what
he'd said in the first three verses. The arm of the Lord in
verse one, that's the power of God. And the Bible tells us that
Christ is the wisdom and the power of God. The one who grew
up as a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground, one who
had no beauty that would draw people to him naturally, despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. This is Christ who was rejected
of his own. This is Christ who was counted
by natural humanity to be a blasphemer, one who was inspired by Satan. Even the Pharisees, the most
religious people of their day, they looked upon him as a blasphemer
and as a devil worshiper. They said, you're doing the works
that you're doing by the devil. That's how, this is Christ. But
here's what the gospel tells us. That He, Christ, in verse
four, surely He hath borne our griefs. Now who's the our there?
That's God's people. That's those who will be brought
to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. That's not universally
all without exception. Because you see, We look at the
gospel, we talk about God as the one who is just to justify
the ungodly, we talk about substitution, we talk about imputation and
satisfaction, and I'll get through, I preach these things so many
times on this program. Write them down and look them
up and study them in the scripture. But there's another word, satisfaction. I'm gonna talk more about that
next week, but I'm gonna talk about it this week too. Satisfaction. When Christ died on the cross
for his sheep, that's what the Bible says, his church, remember
what the word church means, called out ones, those who are called
out of the world. and into the fold, the sheep
of Christ. And these sheep are his elat. And in John chapter 10, it says,
the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. And so the
hour there refers to his people for whom he died, for whom he
substituted himself, took their place, and for whom He made satisfaction
to the law of God." Now down in verse 6 it says, "...the Lord
hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Now, all there is
not referring to all without exception. Again, it's referring
to His sheep. It says in verse 6, "...all we
like sheep have gone astray." And that's talking about our
sinfulness. Well, what does it mean he's laid on him the iniquity
of us all? Well, that's Christ, the surety
of his people. Now, you know what a surety is.
If you go to the bank and you get a loan and you don't have
any collateral, oftentimes they'll say, do you have anyone who will
stand surety for you? In other words, that if you cannot
pay the loan, they will pay it for you. They'll guarantee the
payment. And if you sign or co-sign or you get somebody to co-sign
for you who has collateral, has better credit, then they are
your surety. Now, in the case of God's people,
His elect, we are sinners. who fell in Adam and are born
dead in trespasses and sins. And we ran up a debt to God's
law and justice that we could never pay, not even one penny. But before the foundation of
the world, before this world was created, God made a covenant
with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ voluntarily
became the surety of all of his people. He said, put their debt
on my account, I'll repay it. He's the surety of a better covenant,
Hebrews chapter eight tells us. He stood and in order to pay
that debt as the surety, what did he have to do? He had to
come to this earth, he had to take into union with himself
a perfect sinless human nature and go under the law, he was
made under the law and pay the price of our sin debt, which
is death. That's why Christ had to die.
And so it says in verse four, surely he hath borne our griefs. The burden that belonged to me
because I'm a sinner, Christ took my place as my substitute
and bore it for me. He was bruised, the Bible says,
yet He carried our sorrows. The suffering Savior. Think about
Christ in His life and how He suffered throughout His lifetime. Not just on the cross, that was
the culmination and that was the full brunt of all the suffering
and the sorrows that are brought on by the sins of His people
that were imputed, charged, accounted to Him. You see, when He became
our surety, He took the sin debt of his people, God's elect, upon
his account. That's the doctrine of imputation.
That's the gospel doctrine of imputation. David, in Psalm 32,
praised the Lord, saying, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity. In other words, David was acknowledging
that he was a man, a sinful man, to whom the Lord did not charge
with sin, to whom the Lord did not impute, account, reckon iniquity. My account before God is wiped
clean. There is no sin charged against
me. And Paul in Romans chapter four
and verse six, interpreted what David said is this. He said,
the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. That means God does not impute
my sins. If I'm in Christ, if I'm a believer,
then I can say with David, King David of old, blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputed not iniquity. I can say with
Paul, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It's God that justify. Who can condemn me? I can say
with Paul, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. Christ bore my griefs. He carried my sorrows. But it
says here in verse four of Isaiah 53, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. When fallen humanity And I'm
gonna say it like that. You know, people, when we think
about the historical event of the crucifixion of Christ, we
have a tendency to lay it off on the people of that time, the
Jews and the Romans that rejected Him, and look at them like, well,
they were worse than us. I even heard a preacher on TV
years ago make this statement. when he was talking about Christ
going to the cross. And this preacher, this claimed
to be a Christian, now listen to this. This preacher made this
statement. He made this actual statement.
He said, oh, if I'd have been there, I would have stopped it.
I thought, are you crazy? Christ going to the cross is
the salvation of his people. He would have stopped it. Christ
going to the cross was the predeterminate counsel and will of Almighty
God. Now that didn't excuse the people
who were historically there that crucified. You know, Peter said
that you had evil in your hearts. but God meant it for good. Just
like Joseph and his brethren back in the book of Genesis,
Joseph said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.
You're responsible for your evil, but we don't need to relegate
the sinfulness and the wickedness of that event in the hearts of
men. Just to those back there in history, that was all of us
by nature. I'm just as guilty of it as they
were. And so when he says here in verse four, yet we did esteem
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, natural, unbelieving,
wicked, religious people looked upon Jesus of Nazareth as being
a criminal, a blasphemer. In other words, he's getting
what he deserved because God is smiting that evil man. That's how we esteemed him. That's how we judged him. But my friend, he was there for
the sins of his people. Look at verse five. He was wounded
for our transgressions, our law breaking, imputed to him. He was bruised for our iniquities,
our inequities. was imputed to them, Him. The
chastisement of our peace, the punishment, what that means is
this, the punishment that would bring peace between God and sinners
was upon Him. He made peace by the blood of
the cross, and with His stripes, we are healed. Healed how? Not
of physical diseases. Now, false preachers today are,
you know, whenever they, faith healers, They'll use this verse. They'll say, with his stripes,
we are healed. That's not referring to any physical ailment. Even true believers get sick
and die, people. And I've heard people, these
faith healers, they'll say, well, if you have enough faith, you
could be healed. My friend, my death time is already appointed
by God. And my death is a passing over
from this veil of tears and death and sorrow into a wondrous communion
with Christ where there'll be no tears and no sorrow. So understand
that. The healing here has to do with
salvation from sin and from death and from hell. It has to do with
eternal life. It has to do with the healing
from the spiritual disease of sin. And so he says in verse
six, all we like sheep have gone astray. Among the sheep, that's
the elect of God, there are either lost sheep who have not yet been
found and found the way, and there are saved sheep who've
been found. But all of us by nature have
gone astray. We sinned in Adam, we fell ruined
by the fall. And we're born dead in trespasses
and sins, and we come into this world as sinners. And all of that, as we look at
it, we've gone astray. That's why we're born spiritually
dead. That's why we have to be redeemed
by the blood of Christ and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, born again.
He says we've turned everyone to his own way, not the way of
God, but our own way. which is the Broadway that leads
to destruction. And the Lord hath laid on him.
Literally, the Lord has made all the iniquity of his people
meet on Christ. In what sense? He was made sin. Our sins, the sins of his sheep,
for whom he died, had been imputed. legally accounted and charged
him. And for that reason, he had to bear our griefs, carry
our sorrows. He had to be wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and he had to, by
his stripes, heal us. That's substitution. The surety
had to be a substitute. Over in verse seven of Isaiah
53, it says, he was oppressed. and he was afflicted, yet he
opened not his mouth. He didn't try to defend himself,
because he was there justly under the wrath of God, for the sins
of his sheep imputed to him. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, as a sheep before her shears is done, so he openeth
not his mouth. You see that? When he was stood
before Pilate, he didn't defend himself. He spoke some things,
but he didn't defend himself. He told, even when they were
crying for him, he looked at the women as he was on his way
to the cross. He said, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves.
He said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Verse eight,
he was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall
declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. He died. For the transgression
of my people was he stricken. Substitution again. It was not
for his transgressions or for his sins or for his iniquities.
He had none. He was the perfect sinless substitute. He died the just for the unjust,
but the sins of his people actually did become his by imputation. God put them on his account. They did not contaminate him.
They did not corrupt him. He had no thoughts of sin, no
motive of sin, no goal of sin. He was the perfect sinless sacrifice,
but he was guilty by imputation. You understand? And so God was
just to punish his sinless son for all the sins of his people
charged, accounted to him. And so in verse nine, it says,
and he made his grave with the wicked. The wicked die. But so did the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was not wicked, but who was made sin by imputation. And with
the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither
was any deceit in his mouth. Some people say that with the
rich refers to the fact that Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man,
gave up his tomb. to Christ who died, and that
may be so. But here's the point. Christ
died, Christ, the surety of his people, died on the cross under
the just wrath of God the Father, and he did it for the sins of
his people imputed to him. He substituted himself in their
place. That's what he was doing. Now
Christ, Jesus Christ is the greatest example of love, of obedience,
of forgiveness. But my friend, he didn't die
simply as an example. He died as a substitute, paying
the debt of his people, ensuring their salvation and their regeneration
and their preservation and ultimately their glorification. That's what
he did. Jesus Christ died. He became a curse for his people.
And that means he went under the law. He was made under the
law to redeem them that were under the law that they might
receive the adoption of sons. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.