Now if you would open your Bibles
with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 53 As I have said when we is going
through this passage, which is a clear and often quoted in the
New Testament as a prophecy and a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the suffering servant the one whom God sent and Bible says
in Galatians 4, in the fullness of the time, God sent forth his
son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. What did it take for Christ to
redeem his people? And it's described right here
in Isaiah 52 and 53, the sufferings of our Savior. Suffered so much
unto death. And we talked about this passage. Actually, this passage here can
be divided into five, you might say, stanzas. I don't think it
was written as a song or a poem, but it's kind of set up that
way, of three verses each. And we started back in Isaiah
52, verses 13, 14, and 15, because that's really where it starts.
Before that, in Isaiah 52, Isaiah was prophesying of God's judgment,
but the fact that even in judgment God was going to bring his good
and his glory out of this through the salvation of his people by
his grace, Jew and Gentile, through the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
he prophesied specifically of the sufferings of Christ as the
servant of God. the servant of Jehovah, the servant
of the covenant, he calls him in verse 13, my servant, and
shows how he will deal prudently, he will prosper. The work of
Christ on the cross was never a failure. For all whom it was intended,
it was a success, it is a success. And in order for him to accomplish
that, to put away our sins, and to establish righteousness whereby
God could justify sinners, he had to suffer unto death. And
so we spoke of that. And then the first three verses
of Isaiah 53, we talked about the humiliation of our Savior.
Christ, God the Son in the second person of the Trinity, condescended
to be made like unto his brethren, God in human flesh, yet without
sin. What a condescension that was.
And then the condescension, he was made under the law, the very
law that was written with his finger. He made himself subject
to the law, to obey the law unto death for the salvation of his
people. The sufferings that he went through that he put up with
between sinners like us, who mocked him. You read about that
in Psalm 69. They made him a proverb. You
know what that means literally, they made him a joke. And they
spoke very lowly of him, the God of this universe. I often
think about this, you know, the very cross that he was nailed
to, he's the one who created the tree that it came from. What
condescension, what humiliation. Put a crown of thorns on his
head. He's the king of kings. And yet they put a crown of thorns
on his head. They beat him. And all of this
was, again, we have to look at it this way. It's not just those
people back then who did that. It's an act of the wickedness
of fallen humanity, including me. I'll never forget years ago,
there was a famous preacher up in Toledo, Ohio. And this was
around the Easter season. He was talking about the death
of Christ, and he was describing Christ vividly in his suffering. And what his goal was is to make
people feel sorry for Jesus. That's what he wanted. And he
started crying, and he made this statement. He's talking about
Christ carrying that cross, and you know how it happened. He
fell down, and somebody carried it. He said, oh, our Savior. He said this. He said, if I'd
have been there, I would have stopped it. I thought, are you
crazy? First of all, I'm gonna show
you here in just a few minutes, everything that was going on
there, even though we as wicked people meant it for evil, it
was under the sovereign purpose and control of Almighty God. And he thinks he could have stopped
it? What a fool. And then secondly, what he was
going through there, that's my salvation. How about you? What is your salvation? Is it
in your profession, walking it out in your baptism? If that's
your salvation, you're in trouble. Christ is my, his name shall
be called Jesus, for he shall what? Save his people from their
sins. Well, that's the one described
here in Isaiah 53. And today I want to talk to you
specifically about the cause of his sufferings. What caused
him to suffer under death? Why did he have to suffer? Why
did he have to die and be buried and raised again the third day?
Well, look at verse four. This is the third stanza of this
this construction, this writing, this song, if you will. And here's
the reason why. He says, surely he, Christ, the
Messiah, the promised coming Messiah, hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Now that's the first thing. What
was the cause of his suffering? Now think about it this way,
as I've been talking about. We could say, that the cause
of his suffering was the sin and hatred of sinful mankind
against him. Let me read you a passage. This
is out of Acts chapter four, and I'll just read it to you.
This is verse 26. Listen to this. It says, the
kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together
against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth, thy
holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius
Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered
together. This is one time that all people
who naturally hated each other, this is one time they all came
together in unison against God's Messiah. What does that tell
you? It tells you this, is that by
nature we're all against him, and I'll show you that in just
a moment from this passage. If God leaves us to ourselves,
we will always turn thumbs down on the Christ of this book. Now
false religion, false Christianity has created a lot of counterfeit
Christ that appeals to the natural man, makes him feel good about
himself, makes salvation conditioned on him. to where he can boast
that he made the difference and not God Almighty and his sovereign
electing love and grace in Christ. But if left to ourselves, we'd
all turn thumbs down on the Christ of this book. You know, it's
funny how people, they'll read the scriptures and they act like
they never read what they read. I've heard people say, well,
you know, Jesus, you know, he didn't go around judging people
and telling them they were lost and all that, and you know, he
just spoke, Who said this? You vipers. You hypocrites. Outwardly you
look like a whited sepulcher, but inside you're full of dead
and rotten bones. Now who said that? Jesus of Nazareth
said it. He's the light, isn't he? Scripture
says he's the light. What's the problem with us by
nature? We hate the light. because his light exposes our
deeds, the things that we're so proud of, the things that
we think really make a difference between us and the rest of those
ornery people. He says they're evil deeds. Because
you see, if we plead before God anything less than the perfect
blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, in God's sight, it's
evil because it dishonors him. Bring your best. Bring your best. What does the Bible say? Man
at his best is altogether what? What does it say? Isaiah 53,
vanity, worthless. God said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm well pleased. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. What is that faith? It's looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. It's not our believing.
It's him, it's not the act of believing, it's the object of
our believing, who is Christ. Think about that. Well, here
it is. He says it here in Acts 4. He
said, against his child Jesus. So we could say, well, the sinfulness
and the hatred of humanity against him, that's what caused his suffering.
But then in verse 28 of Acts 4, it says this, listen to this.
All these people gathered together against God's Messiah for to
do whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel determined before
to be done. Wow. Wrap your mind around that
one. You can't, can you? You know
why you can't? Well, don't get mad, but you're
not God. You're not God. Like that old
false Prophet a Catholic priest said he said I don't know anything
more than two things. He said I know there is a God
and I ain't him Well, that's true. There is a God and we aren't
him We know that Christ was the innocent victim of evil humanity
and Peter said, who by wicked hands took him to crucify and
slay him, but then Peter made this statement, he was delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. And look
across the page here in Isaiah 53, look at verse 10, listen
to this. But yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. You know what that word bruise
really is? Crushed. It pleased the Lord to crush
his son. He hath put him to grief, the
Lord hath put him to grief. When the Lord shall make his
so an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord, the satisfaction of
the Lord shall prosper in his hands. What does that tell us?
Is that saying that God is some kind of a sadistic monster who
just loved to see his son suffer and bleed? No, not at all. There was a purpose in this.
And when we consider the cause of Christ's suffering unto death,
we can think about second causes, we can think about third causes,
but there was a first cause. Many people today would say that
the first cause of his suffering would be God's love for us. And
they quote passages like John 3.16, for God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And certainly
God's love for his people was involved in this. But if you
don't see more than this, you'll miss it. You know, most people
think that God loves them because they deserve God's love. And
the fact is, none of us deserve God's love. That's right, none
of us deserve it. God's love is sovereign. And
so you have to ask yourself, why, you know, all right, if
you say, well, God loves his people and he sent Christ to
die, well, ask yourself, why would God's love require such
suffering? I mean, think about this. I heard
a man say one time from the pulpit, he said, God didn't have to send
his son to suffer and die. He could have just snapped his
finger and redeemed us. Oh, no. No, that's wrong. That's a false. false portrayal
of God. Why would God, look at verse
14 of chapter 52, listen to this. As many as were astonished at
thee, his visage, that's how he looked, was marred more than
any man. He was beaten so bad he was unrecognizable
physically. His form more than the sons of
men, more than anybody else ever. I don't know what that's like.
But why would God's love and the salvation of his people require
such suffering unto death? I'll tell you exactly why. It's
because of God's justice. You know the Bible says in Psalm
9 and verse 16 that the Lord is known by the judgment which
he executed. If we are to know God's love,
God's true love, not just some human elusive butterfly. If we are
to know God's grace, God is a God of love. Bible says he is love. If we're to know God's grace,
God's mercy, when you were playing that song Amy, great is thy faithfulness. I always think, it's Lamentations
chapter three. You know what that says? It says,
it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Great is thy faithfulness. If
we're gonna know God's mercy and grace and love, we must understand as the Bible,
as the gospel itself reveals, that all these, his love, his
grace, his mercy, reign through justice satisfied by Christ. And that's the glory of God.
There's the first cause of the sufferings unto death. God must
be glorified. Yes, God loves his people. Yes,
God saves his people. Yes, God has mercy. His mercy
endures forever. He delights to show mercy. His
grace is so amazing grace. But every bit of that, every
attribute, God's love, God's grace, God's mercy, must be shown,
executed, delivered on a just ground. And the first and immediate cause
of Christ's suffering unto death was the glory of God. Whatever
God wills and whatever God does, he must be true to himself. He
must honor himself. He must remain true to every
attribute of his nature. He can't show his love to a sinner
apart from justice satisfied. He cannot be gracious to a sinner. apart from justice satisfied.
He cannot show mercy apart from justice. As Isaiah said in Isaiah
45, he must be both a just God and a Savior. That's his name,
that's his glory. Most people today have never
even heard of that, never even thought of it. I remember years ago, Randy,
you said, well, I've never thought of those things. I said, well,
that's the problem. You never thought of him because you're
not hearing him. But that's who God is. He's a righteous judge
as well as a loving father. And if he can't be both, then
all he is is a righteous judge and will be damned for it. God
must be just when he justifies. So if God is going to save sinners
in love and mercy and grace, he can only do so on a just ground,
and it's God's glory. There is a way that God alone
devised in his goodness, his power, his wisdom, and it's the
way of grace that reigns through the righteousness of his son.
Romans 5.21, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace
reign through righteousness Justice satisfied, that's what righteousness
is. Perfection of the law, satisfied. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Think about that. Listen
to 1 John 4.10. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. In other words, God's love to
his people is not a response to their love for him. God loves
the unlovely. God justifies the ungodly. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and did what? Gave his son to be
the propitiation for our sins. You know what propitiation means?
You ever look that word up? I just about bet you that most
people who call themselves Christian today don't even know what propitiation
means. And you sit around in most Sunday
school classes, they'd say, well now, Brother so-and-so, what's
your opinion of that? Well, who cares what your opinion
is? What does it mean? Tell you what it means. It means
justice satisfied. That's what it means. God's love
sent his son into the world to do for me what I cannot do for
myself. What can I not do? I cannot put
away my sins. I can cry for months. I can pray
until the knee pads of my legs are worn out. I can get baptized,
as one old preacher up in Kentucky said, till the tadpoles know
me by my first name. I can go to church. I can walk
an aisle. but I cannot wash away even one
sin. That's right. I cannot obtain or attain or
I cannot achieve a perfect righteousness that answers the demands of God's
law, I can't do it. I can turn over a new leaf, I
can reform my life, I can stop this, start that, join the clubs,
but I cannot attain perfect righteousness. Can't do it. The Jews tried it,
Romans chapter nine, they sought righteousness by works of the
law, they didn't make it. How is all this possible for
his people? How is it accomplished for his
people? Not just made possible, but actually accomplished for
everyone for whom Christ died. We'll look at it, verse four.
Surely he hath borne our griefs. Surely he hath carried our sorrows. You know what that speaks of?
That speaks of a surety who took my place. Substitution. The gospel of substitution. When
we think of Christ's suffering, we must consider it as a vicarious
suffering, a substitutionary. He stood in the place of others. And when we think of Christ's
suffering unto death, we must think of it as a complete suffering
because his death was not just an attempt to save those who
would cooperate or who would believe or who would let him.
His death was the assurance that they would believe. Christ bore and carried the griefs,
the sicknesses, the diseases. You know, in Isaiah chapter one,
he metaphorically describes the sin of the nation Israel under
the metaphor of leprosy. Ah, sinful nation. And what's
interesting about that is he's talking about religious people.
He's not just talking about the dregs of society. He's talking
about those who are praying, who are bringing sacrifices,
who are having meetings. But it was all in ignorance of
how God saves sinners. It was all in ignorance of the
grace of God in Christ. It was all thinking that I'm
doing something to make the difference between being lost and being
saved. But here's the issue. Christ
carried our griefs and our sorrows that we deserved and earned.
Christ died for the sins of his people. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15,
three, I delivered unto you first of all that I received, how that
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Well, here's
one of those scriptures that Paul's referring to. Galatians
1, 4 talking about Christ who gave himself for our sins, the
sins of his people. Who are his people? Believers.
1 John 2, 2, he's the propitiation
for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of
the whole world. That's not talking about every
individual without exception, that's talking about God's elect
all over this world, Jew and Gentile. How do you know who
they are? They believe, they hear this gospel and believe
in the power of the Spirit. But then there arises another
problem, and it's twofold, a twofold problem. How can God, think about
this, how can God justly punish his innocent son? That's who
Christ is. Christ was perfect. Think about
this. Christ never had a sinful thought. He didn't have a sinful human
nature. He was born of the Virgin Mary,
conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin. Remember
the angel called him that holy thing? Wasn't being disrespectful
there. What that tells us is he's separate
from anyone else who was ever born. Because when we're born,
we're born fallen in Adam and spiritually dead in trespasses
and sins, but not Christ. He was perfect. I don't know
how to describe that. I don't know what perfection,
you know, Paul said that in Romans 7. I wanna be perfect, but I
don't even know how to do that. We're sinners, but not him. He
was the innocent sacrifice. You remember how the lambs in
the Old Testament, remember how it describes what they had to
be? Without spot and without blemish. You know why? Because they were a picture of
Christ, who in his humanity was without spot and without blemish.
Now that can't be said of you or me. We got a lot of spots
and a lot of blemishes. Inwardly and outwardly. We're
sinners. but he was the innocent sacrifice.
So here's the question, how can a holy and just God rightly punish
his son who was innocent for the sins of his people and still
be just to do so? And think about it this way too,
on the other side of that coin, how can God justly save and justify,
declare me forgiven and righteous, I who am a sinner, how can he
declare me righteous by the righteousness of his son and still be just
and true to himself? Well, the answer's found in this
text. Look at verse four again. Surely he hath borne our griefs,
carried our sorrows. You see that? Yet we did esteem
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, and that's how
we by nature looked at him. Verse five, but he was wounded
for our transgressions. He was bruised, he was crushed
for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace,
now what that is, the punishment that it took to bring peace between
God and sinners, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Not upon you or me, but upon
him. And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray and have turned everyone to his own way and the
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. The Lord made all
the iniquity of all of his chosen people to meet on Christ. So here's the question, how did
he bear? It says he bore our griefs, he carried our sorrows.
How did he bear them? How did he carry it? Well, there's
two ways that he did. According to the Bible, number
one, by a legal act of what you spoke of it, we sang of it, it's
called imputation. I've got an article in the bulletin
on the back, read it sometime, The Blessed Doctrine of Imputation,
written by an old writer named Robert Hawker. In Psalm 32, The prophet David made this statement. He said, blessed is the man to
whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Now I don't want you to raise
your hand. Please don't raise your hand. This is a rhetorical
question. How many of you have any debts
at all? Everybody, don't we? We all have
some debts. If you're not in debt, God bless
you. What does that mean? That means
that that debt is charged to your account. Am I right? That's
imputation. Sin, often in scripture, is portrayed
like running up a debt. Like a criminal who commits a
crime, and now we say he owes a debt to society, a debt to
the law, he's gotta do the time, he's gotta pay the debt. That's
imputation. That debt is imputed to him.
Our debts are imputed to us. Well, we've run up a sin debt,
we fell in at him, and we've sinned and sinned and sinned
and sinned, we can't count them. Sin. And if we don't have a surety
to take our debt upon his account, We owe it. And what is the payment
of that debt? The wages of sin is what? Death. But before the foundation of
this world, God chose a people and gave them to Christ. And
what does that mean? That means he put all of the
debt of their sins upon Christ. Christ became our surety. Christ
said, put it on my account. I'll repay it. That's what he
did. And all of my salvation was at
that time, before I was even born, before this world was ever
created, before Adam fell, all of my salvation was conditioned
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter
nine when he talked about the government was upon his shoulder,
that's the government of salvation, the government of grace. Well, how do you know that he
did that for me or for you? Well, do you believe on him and
rest in him as your whole salvation? Because you see, something else
happened. Not only did Christ pay my debt by his blood on the
cross, he worked out a perfect righteousness before God that
has been imputed to me, charged to me. It's like somebody coming
along to a bank and paying all your money debt and then giving
you a million dollars to the good on your account. That's
what Christ did. He took my sin debt, paid it
in full. Jesus paid it all. And in return,
he gave me his perfect righteousness. And that's called the righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel. It's imputed to me. And that's
how God could punish his son justly. Christ actually became
guilty. You read that Psalm 69 where
he says, my sins, they were his sins, not because he committed
them, not because they were infused into him or contaminated him,
but because God had charged him with the debt of those sins.
My account became his and his account became mine. That's how
God can justly condemn his son for my sins, laying on him the
iniquity of us all, and that's how he can justly declare me
forgiven and right in his sight. So when the gospel is preached,
it ought to drive us to look for and find a perfection of
righteousness that can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ
and nowhere else. If you find it anywhere else,
oh, God help you. And he won't. David said, blessed is the man
to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Paul quoted that in
Romans 4, 6 when he said it this way. He got the positive. He
said, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works, so that we can stand with every true believer
and say, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It's God that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. Yea, rather He's risen again. That's how he bore our iniquities.
But not only was sin imputed to him, he had to suffer, that's
the second way, by suffering all the pain and all the punishment
due unto our sins. Whatever it took to satisfy God's
justice, that's what Christ went through. And that's what he was
doing. We esteem him stricken, smitten
of God. That's our view of him by nature.
We look upon him as a criminal, as a blasphemer, But when God
the Holy Spirit gives us life, here's what we say. Oh no, he
was wounded for our transgressions. It was my sins, not his. They became his by imputation,
but no way else. He bore my punishment. He was
crushed for my iniquities. That's why he went to that cross.
And he did it to satisfy God. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. God was satisfied. It wasn't
like, again, God was no sadistic monster. His justice had to be
satisfied for him to save sinners like me. And the chastisement, that which
it took, the punishment that it took to bring peace between
God and his people. was upon Christ. Colossians 1
says we are, peace was made by what? The blood of his cross. That's the cause of his sufferings.
All of that. And so when 2 Corinthians 5.21
says he was made sin, how was he made sin? By the imputation,
the charging of my sins to him. And when it says we are made
the righteousness of God in him, how? By the imputation of his
righteousness to me. Now out of that comes what? Life
everlasting. Spiritual life. The son of righteousness,
Malachi said, comes forth with healing in his wings. I've gone too long and I'm sorry.
I wanted to get to this verse six and I think I'll pick up
there next week. But let me give you this to think about in closing.
Verse six. He says, 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.
Do you realize that that statement there, all we like sheep have
gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. That is one of the most comprehensive and concise statements
that describes the sinfulness and depravity of man. All we
like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. Now what way are you? What way am I on? If it's any
way but the way, which Christ said, I'm the way, the truth
and the lie, the way of grace, the way of his blood, the way
of his righteousness, the way of the cross, the way of mercy
in him. If it's any other way, if you
are one of his sheep, you're a lost one. If you die in that,
you never were one of his sheep. You see what I'm saying? Think
about that and we'll pick up there next week. All right.