Isaiah 53
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Jesus carried all our specific sicknesses and infirmities in His own body on the Cross.
“…Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Mat8:17.
Jesus carried our sicknesses and infirmities because they were the results of our sin. They were the curse we deserved. Under the law, God was obligated to smite the sinner with the curse as described in Deuteronomy 28. A major part of that curse was sickness. The only way Jesus could set us free from the results of sin was to suffer those results in our place.
Therefore after God placed our sin on Jesus, He smote Jesus with the curse. This produced healing for us. There was an exchange. He took our sicknesses and infirmities and we took His healing and wholeness.
“...and with His stripes we are healed.”
The word stripes here is not referring to the beating that the Roman soldiers subjected Jesus to. The word for ‘stripes’ here and in the New Testament, is actually the word ‘bruised.’ It also means to break or to kill.
In other words “by His bruising (killing, breaking) we are healed.”
God bruised (broke, killed) Jesus with my sickness and with my infirmity. The result is I no longer need to fear God bruising me with sickness because Jesus already took it for me. Instead I should expect to be healed and to be made well because this is what was true of Jesus.
6 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.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 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: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
When Jesus became sin, God judged sin in Him to deliver us from that judgment. This is more than deliverance from a future hell.
This is deliverance from the curse or the penalty of our sins in this present life. Jesus bore the curse of the law in His own body for us. We don’t have to bear it.
We are free from the curse of the law. God has already dealt with all our sins past, present and future. They have been taken away.
We are right now at this very moment free from the penalty of our sin. Jesus took it all.
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us...” Gal3:13
Jesus was made a curse for us. And the reason He suffered the curse was so that we would not be required to. He redeemed us from the curse of our sin. While on that cross, God poured His wrath on Jesus in the form of the curse of the law. All the punishment that we deserve for our sin was suffered by the Lord Jesus. God is no longer angry with us. His anger has been appeased.
This is the same reason we shouldn’t accept poverty. Because there was an exchange. Jesus took our poverty so that we would become rich.
“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.” 2Cor8:9
Although Jesus was rich, He had to suffer poverty as a part of the curse of the law. The poverty He suffered was the poverty we should suffer because of our disobedience and sinfulness.
And yet because He carried it there has been an exchange whereby God has made us rich as Jesus was.
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Mat27:46
Jesus was rejected of God at the Cross so that we would not be rejected. He became my sin and carried my rejection and abandonment. Because of His rejection, we always have a guarantee of acceptance from God. God will never reject us because He rejected Jesus for us.
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