About this sermon
Isaiah’s servant is high and lifted up, yet his appearance is marred beyond human likeness. He was despised and rejected, he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and he was pierced for our transgressions; by his stripes we are healed. Sin brings guilt and also a corruption that sickens the whole person, and in his miracles of healing Jesus showed that he came to remove sin’s misery as well as its guilt. Faith receives that healing, and the forgiven live with a clear conscience before God.
Sermon transcript
It’s going? There we go. Thank you. It’s a pleasure for me to be here with you today to preach the Word of God. to be with you as a congregation. I know many of you do enjoy the hospitality of the hardest East today to see my good friends, Pam and Dan, and see the progress that Dan is making.
As the Lord supplies him with the healing that he has metered out for him, And today we’re looking at, for our Bible reading, Isaiah 52, verses 13 and following through chapter 53, verse 12. We do it in that manner because the end of Isaiah 52 really belongs to Isaiah 53. And we wouldn’t be able to understand or have the full passage before us if we didn’t begin at the end of Isaiah 52. So, Isaiah 52, verse 13.
Let us hear the word of God with reverence. Behold, my servant shall act wisely he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance. And his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told to them, they shall see. And that which they have not heard, they shall understand who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed. 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. 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.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we were healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned to every one. to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people, and they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief.
When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
May God add his blessing to this, the reading of his holy word. Isaiah 53 5 Isaiah 53 5 reads, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed. With his stripes we are healed. Why healed? Why is that word used? That’s part of what we want to consider together this morning. Why is that word healed there? And what does this verse teach us?
Now, this verse occurs in one of the most important passages in the Old Testament. Certainly, we recognize, don’t we, as Bible readers, as Christians, that some passages seem significant, And some passages seem greatly more important than others. Now, all the Bible is the word of God, inspired by the word of God, infallible, inerrant, and so on, and it’s important. Every jot and tittle is important.
But what would we do without Isaiah 53? There’s a wonderful reciprocity between a passage like Isaiah 53 and the New Testament. In fact, if we had only the New Testament and we didn’t have Isaiah 53, would you know how to interpret the death of our Lord Jesus Christ? You see, it has a major impact on our thinking, does it not? Isaiah 53.
It represents the Lord Jesus Christ and his suffering as a sacrifice for sins, one man for all of the nations, a substitutionary atonement, a reconciling sacrifice received by the Father, offered by the Son, that’s required according to the justice of God.
And there, what was due to us for our sins, due to us and for our salvation was laid upon him. Now there’s a great many uses that are made of this great passage. I think we look at it almost now as if it were a portion of the New Testament. It is so redolent with New Testament truth.
So obviously, speaking of our Savior, the Ethiopian eunuch he’s going along and Philip comes along beside and this is the portion of God’s Word that the Ethiopian eunuch is reading and he’s able to speak of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Ethiopian eunuch is converted. How many times has that been repeated in the history of the church? How many times have those who belong as according to Abraham, according to the flesh, and they’ve heard this and believed and been saved. How it doesn’t confirm, does it not confirm our faith and our understanding in what Jesus did for us so that we can sing it with real with a real sense of coming before the Lord in sacrifice, coming before the Lord and singing rightly, I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God.
He bears them all and frees us from the accursed load. Now the words here in verses four and five of Isaiah 53 speak in terms of disease and in terms of healing. And this passage has been used on many occasions, and I’m sure you’ve heard the argument. You remember it goes something like this. Here, if Jesus has borne your sins, in his body on the tree, if he’s made atonement. for you than the healing of which, verse five speaks, belongs to you. It’s your right, and so you need to claim it by faith. You’ve heard these claims.
They’re widely made throughout evangelicalism, and our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ hear these things in various assemblies throughout our country and all around the world. And then there’s a counter-argument. that is often made. And our brothers and sisters in the Lord make this counter-argument with some force for the purpose of doing good.
The good they hope to do is to say, now look, every Christian should not expect that in everything that they suffer, they will be healed. And that if they don’t have enough faith or if they’re hiding some sin, then of course they’re not going to be healed. And if they’re not healed, then of course it’s because they didn’t have faith. And if they’re not healed, it’s because they have some hidden sin that we ought to seek out and find what it is. So with good purpose, they say, that’s not helpful.
What is the passage actually saying? And then they look at the passage and say, this is only dealing with the guilt of sin. And in fact, the guilt of sin is dealt with in this passage. And not for a moment do I want to turn from that and say, sin is not dealt with here as sin. Quite the contrary. However, both arguments and counter-arguments, MIPS represent the full import of this simple but rather comprehensive passage. Why do we say this? Well, because the language forces us to recognize the comprehensiveness of the work of this great sufferer.
You see in verse four it says, surely he has borne our griefs, that word could be translated diseases, and carried our sorrows. Of course griefs are inner things that we bear. And he’s carried our sorrows, our inner conflicts and griefs. And we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He’s not suffering for his own sins, he’s suffering for our sins.
And that’s what verse five says. It is the answer to verse four. We reckoned that it is so, you see, that he is struck down by God, He is smitten by God and humiliated, afflicted. For what purpose? Well, he is done so by God. These things that are done to him, this is by God. This is how we’ve reckoned it. Why so? And verse five answers to that. He was wounded for our transgressions. Transgression, of course, is stepping over the boundary in English. He was crushed for our iniquities. We’re talking about breaking of the law. We’re talking about actions that violate the righteousness of God.
And upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, peace with God. forgiveness for sins that can be declared on the basis that a sacrifice has been offered for sin. So I don’t want for a moment to say that there is no such element here as the forgiveness of sins on the basis of the sin bearer having borne for us our sins. In fact, when We have this quoted in the New Testament.
In 1 Peter 2.24, Peter reminds us, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his work you have been healed. It is by what he has done.
Now, with that in mind, We might say, well then how is this not a helpful argument? It’s not a helpful argument that he bore our sins in his body on the tree and that’s all that’s being referred to here. That’s not a helpful argument because of the comprehensiveness of the passage.
And with his stripes, we are healed. And in that, the great problem of sin is dealt with in its fullest sense. Yes, we need to be forgiven for our sins, but we need to be healed as well from our sins. We’re reminded of that in the way our own theology and our own standards treat the whole matter of sin.
You see, there’s sin and the guilt of sin, and there’s the dominion of sin, which is the consequence of sin, and there is the misery of sin, including death itself. So when we ask the question in Catechism question 17, into what estate did the fall bring mankind? The answer is the fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery. wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell. And the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell, we’re told in the answer to question 18, consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.
In other words, There’s not just simply the guilt of Adam’s first sin. There’s not just the guilt of our actual transgressions. There’s something wrong with us. And that something wrong with us is a part of the curse of God against sin. That when Adam sinned, he not only was guilty of that first sin and guilty of that first sin for all of us, for an Adam all sin, just as an Adam all die, but he also plunged us into the corruption of the whole man. We are totally depraved. We are totally unable to do any good before God.
There’s an illness, and it’s that disease, if you will, In the New Testament, we see Jesus healing the lepers. Why? Because they were unclean. They were disqualified from the worship of God. It wasn’t just that they were bacterially unclean or virally unclean.
But to be unclean in the Old Testament is to be excluded from the temple. It’s to be excluded from the sacrifice. It’s to be excluded from the people of God. It’s to be excluded from the covenants. You’re excluded. You’re outside. You’re disqualified. How will one know forgiveness? How will one know the blessing of God? You’re disqualified. You see, you’re unclean.
There’s something wrong with you. and Jesus touches the leper and he heals him. You see, that teaches us that when Jesus comes and he atones on the cross, he does far more than simply bear the guilt of Adam’s first transgression, far more than just the guilt of our actual transgressions. but he deals with the depth of our sinfulness, which is our own disqualification before God and our own sinful nature. The flesh is the term often used in the New Testament for that. You see, he bore all our sin in his body on the tree, that we might be those who through what he has done raised up to newness of life in Christ, forgiven our sins, and we should walk in newness of life.
It’s a wonderful passage in 1 Peter 2.24, and it’s those kinds of verses that it seems to me we ought to be memorizing, we ought to be considering and meditating upon. It comes in a passage that reminds us how we are to deal with those who use us improperly.
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep. but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
Now the import of that, when we look at verse five in Isaiah 53, is far greater than just the guilt of our sin. It goes now to breaking the dominion of sin, Romans six. you remember, says we are no longer under the dominion of sin. We’ve died with Christ, we’ve been crucified with him, we’ve been raised up together with Christ, and now we are to live unto righteousness. As we read in Romans six, verse five and six, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Now, you see, there’s the comprehensiveness of this passage. And with his stripes, you were healed. You see, we die unto sin, we live unto righteousness. By his wounds, you’ve been healed. His atonement has procured for you a redemption in its entirety. from beginning to end. And it rescues you and purchases for you all that life and healing and gifts and graces that God would have for you as his own dear children, purchased and received and reconciled to him. by his wounds. Peter says, quoting this, you have been healed.
Because you see upon him was the punishment that reconciled us. Now that indeed gets us the forgiveness of sins. We go to God confessing our sins because he’s faithful and just, John tells us, to forgive us. all our sins to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But he goes on in chapter two of first John to tell us that’s on the basis of the propitiation that was made in his blood by the Lord Jesus Christ. So we are then brought to newness of life.
But then there are the miseries. that belong to this present life. It’s a condition which, and a status, which we may say we have a status of guilty before God, but we have a condition which is one of sin and misery, and he also delivered us from our misery. What is the misery of that estate wherein two men fell? All mankind by their fall lost communion with God are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. Question 19 of the Shorter Catechism.
So yes. There is forgiveness. You have a healing from the guilt of sin. You have a healing from the dominion of sin. It should no longer. And what does Paul say in Romans six, therefore, on that basis, you offer yourself and the members of your body, all that you are, your mind, your heart, your hands, your feet, your intentions, your love. your hopes for the future, you give them all to God. You surrender them to him. And you do that as instruments of righteousness.
You are no longer a servant to sin, you’re no longer a slave to sin, but now you are rendering your members as instruments of righteousness, and you are slaves of God. that was purchased for you by Christ on the cross. And as that cross is applied to you and you receive the gospel by faith, then your sins are forgiven and you’ve been healed of the guilt of your sin. You’re healed of the dominion of your sin, but you’re also healed of the misery of your sin. the misery that belongs to sin, the wages of sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Death is replaced by life. You’ve passed, the Bible says, from death to life. Now, setting these great facts before you doesn’t change the fact that we live in this world. and in this world of sin and death. And we may sit here and ponder, how is this helpful? What does this do for us? Because if we have passed from death to life, I just put my father in nursing care. He’s 92 years old. But he’s at the end of his life. We all die. you know, till Jesus comes. This is a world of sin and death. We all die.
But that is not just something which is an end point, it’s a process. The misery that belongs to sin is something from which Jesus has purchased us. We have been purchased to a healing that cannot fail. And it’s just here in the comprehensiveness of what Jesus has done for us that the answer lies to those who say, we ought to be healed now. We ought to be healed in this way. And we ought to be healed in such a way that I’m well and comfortable and healthy now.
Now, I don’t know if that’s immediately apparent to you, the form of that argument, but that’s the same argument that Mary and Martha were making. Jesus, your timing is off. Have you noticed? Jesus, your timing is off. If you had been here, Lazarus would not have died. Imagine saying that to the Savior. And well, we might have. Were we in their place? You see. And are we not often in their place?
And what ifs of life? Have you ever asked, what if, or why not? Why didn’t these things happen this way or that way? I prayed and I asked God to help and to heal and to change and to renew. And it didn’t happen that way. Or it didn’t happen all the way. And it didn’t happen now when I needed it. If you had been here, Lord, when we needed you, now that there’s nothing you can do about it, you show up. Can you imagine speaking to Jesus that way? But that’s sometimes why we don’t pray in the way that we ought, because Maybe this sounds like too strong a word. Do you think so? Because we think we’re angry with God. Why God didn’t you do it?
This isn’t life disappointing. I don’t know if you’ve checked. There were no road signs getting here that pointed to heaven. This isn’t heaven, but it’s coming. Not on your schedule. There’s a new heavens and a new earth and it’s coming and it’s not on your schedule.
There’s an entire healing that you are to receive that’s already been purchased for you. But it’s not today, unless Jesus comes while I’m preaching and that would be wonderful. I have always longed for the fact that someday I could get up and be interrupted in my sermon by the coming of the Lord. Wouldn’t that be a conclusion? Here’s Jesus. Wouldn’t that be something? But you see, that’s really what we try to do every time we get in the pulpit, is to say, here’s Jesus.
Now Mary and Martha were confronted with Jesus too late. You’ve heard the expression, you know, A day late and a dollar short? Well, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. It was purposed that it should be that way. They hadn’t understood the comprehensiveness of the healing to which they were being called and how it’s invested in a person and the purchase that he was about to make. Jesus came to die. Jesus came to purchase their healing. Jesus came to free them from what had just taken Lazarus. And they thought perhaps he had not gotten there in time.
He had failed Lazarus. in some way. They didn’t understand our full redemption and what it all means and how it’s invested in that person. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. Yes, there’s a resurrection day someday, but we’re not invested in that day. We don’t happen to know what it is. Now, some people are very good mathematically. Some stay home, some go camping. I know that just went over somebody’s head. Harold Camping said there was going to, oh, he just got it. We don’t know the day. We don’t know the hour when Jesus is coming again.
But we know that he is the resurrection and the life. And our healing is as we are in connection with Him. He bore our chastisement. He bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might live unto righteousness, that we might die unto sin, live unto righteousness by His wounds. His wounds, we’ve been healed.
We need to be connected to Jesus. We need to be joined to him. And that happens by faith. When we invest ourself by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he’s the one who’s purchased our healing. When we come and lay hold of him, like the lady with the issue of blood, just touch the hem of his garment. We need to touch, reach out and touch. But Jesus has promised all who call upon will be saved. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So we need to lay hold of him by faith. And faith doesn’t just receive an idea.
It receives a person. So that when we lay hold of Jesus by faith, as he lays hold of us by his sovereign word and spirit, saving us, enlightening us, renewing us, and enabling us to believe in him. What was purchased for us is ours. It’s his that he’s gotten for us. And when he has us, we have all that he has for us. And so the comprehensive healing is also involved in dealing with death, death. Where is your sting? It’s gone. Power of sin has been broken. It was the power of death is broken. The sting of death is removed. It was sin.
And now we’ll be raised up incorruptible with him. The healing in you now. that’s begun is the healing that will remarkably be demonstrated then. This is part of the promise that we have, for instance, in Romans 8, 16, and 17. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him. And in verse 11, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Let’s put it in parens after that. Now, the spirit that gives you faith, the spirit that connects you to Jesus, that you experience by faith is that spirit that will raise you from the dead.
Now, when you look at that comprehensive healing, what disease remains? What sorrow will continue? What misery is not outflanked and destroyed? When you’re in glory and you look back, just like Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, after he was raised, are you going to look back and say, it wasn’t healed? It’s ridiculous to think of it that way, isn’t it? And that’s the answer.
Is there healing? Is there healing in the gospel? Is there a healing that belongs to you now? Yes, there’s a far deeper, greater, fuller, and all complete healing, and it’s already begun. And you need to call on the name of the Lord and pursue that healing. It begins by recognizing who and what you are. I’m a sinner. And I need to be cleansed of my sin. That’s a healing. I don’t just need to be forgiven. I need to be cleansed.
I need to be cleansed within so that my desires, my thoughts, my actions that arise out of those things are interrupted by the word of God, by the spirit of God, by the power that’s at work in me. And Paul prays that you would know what power is at work in you. That same power that raised Jesus from the dead is not something that shall raise you from the dead, perhaps someday, but it is the power of God that’s at work in you now. Do you believe?
Whether it’s anxiety, fear, grief, temptations, disappointments, lack of hope, discontent, the things that oppose us in life, persecutions, difficulties, all these things. We deal with them. They’re a part of our life. We either deal with them well, or we deal with them sinfully. If we deal with them sinfully, the miseries are increased. If we deal with them well. You see, we suffer and then can there be joy in suffering? There’s trials and temptations. Can there be joy in these things? We read that in the scripture. Is it hyperbole? Is it fantasy? If it’s not part of your experience, then what are you missing? If everything that I’ve said today is true. What are you missing?
And so often the case is that we have missed going to God to receive all that he has for us. Our faith is not hypothetical. Our faith is just not technical or in a technicality. Our faith is entering into all that God has for us. in the change of life, in the renewal from above. It’s a healing from guilt and the dominion of sin and the misery of sin. And therefore, it’s walking with a sense of being right with God. And what does that produce? What does a clear conscience do for you?
Look at the beautiful day coming down. We passed all these beautiful trees that are going green. We passed the deer in the field. We looked around and we said, look how clear, look how bright, look how wonderful. That’s what a clear conscience feels like. You see?
Don’t you want to live in the sunshine of God’s grace? What is being free from the misery and the dominion of sin? I’m not a slave anymore. I’m free. What does freedom feel like? Do you feel free? Or do you feel constrained on every side and from within? We go and we repent and we turn to all that God has for us and we lay hold of Jesus and we are free. That belongs to your healing. And then we’re free from the misery, not just the dominion and the guilt. We’re free from the misery, which includes death. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it. I’m not going to die. I gave up on that. I’m not going to do that. You say, what’s wrong with you? You crazy?
Besides that, Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. That starts today. That’s every day with Jesus. I am not gonna die. Stop thinking of yourself as those enslaved to sin, guilty before God, and the walking dead. You are not the walking dead. You are living You are alive in Jesus.
You are free to serve him, and you ought to be walking in the sunshine of his face. By his wounds, the whole package, by his wounds, you have been healed. It may not be this afternoon. It may not be that this body is going to be immediately rejuvenated, right here and now, that some physician’s pill, Lord, please heal me, that’s gonna happen. That isn’t the way God is meeting out your salvation to you, but the whole of it is yours. The whole of it is yours today. And you need to go in the sunshine. of the grace of God, free in Him, in the freedom of the sons of God, and alive never to die. Let us pray.
Lord, we live in an age that mocks us and scoffs at the things of the gospel. And it offers to us many different forms of healing. And for some of these, we are deeply grateful. But they mock at the healing that our Savior can give. And they say that it’s silly and it’s too little too late. How little they know of the power that is available to us, that same power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
And we ask, Father, that you might give us faith in him, faith that is resilient, faith that perseveres, faith that lays hold of Jesus as he truly is, doesn’t look for quick and easy solutions, that forgets. our full position in him and how comprehensive the salvation, so that we may walk in that freedom and in the sunlight of the smile of your face as you forgive us all our sins, as we go reconciled to you, right with you, with a clear conscience, knowing that as the outer man decays, the inner man is being renewed day by day, and we shall never die, but we shall see him face to face.
For those who are older, comfort and strengthen. Help them to look forward to the unending hope and future that is before them. For those who are younger, help them to remember their creator in the days of their youth. and not to live dissipate lives and to be carried away by the world. And for those who are struggling with disease or impairment or difficulties, Lord, help us to remember that we will soon be well of these things.
And help us to persevere by faith, rejoicing in our Savior, awaiting our deliverance. And we give you thanks. that though the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Help us to walk in that eternal life now, we ask in Jesus’ name, amen. Hymn number 192, hymn number 192. Let’s stand to sing 192. See Him dying on the tree.
Is the Christ I have rejected? Yes, my soul, it is He. ♪ His Son yet made the Lord ♪ ♪ By His Son God now hath spoken ♪ ♪ His love’s true and faithful word ♪ ♪ Tell me you here in roaming ♪ ♪ What’s there ever great like this ♪ Friends who hear it, watch it slowly, watch it slowly, it’s distress.
Many hands were raised to hold him, not willing to pose to save. But the deed that the stroke had pierced him was the stroke that justice gave. Sin but lightning, nor supposedly evil rain. Here may beauty, nature rightly, here in still may, just in may. of the world.
Tis the word of the Lord God Almighty, Son of man and Son of God. Here we have our foundation, here the refuge Christ the Lord, our salvation, in the name of which he goes. Sacrificing canceled guilt. None shall ever be confounded. Who on hell you there won’t have built. Ah. Receive then God’s blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
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