Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
Horrific violence and widespread suffering are not new to our world. In fact, with each generation, it seems methods of inflicting pain and fear are more sophisticated, now including technology and even digital devices. 2700 years ago, Jerusalem was a place of pain and terror similar to today and Isaiah was there writing messages He was receiving from God. Over the past few days, we’ve been looking into Isaiah 53, one of God’s most powerful messages to humanity.
Yesterday we began deeply contemplating this remarkable statement from God: “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on HIM, and by His wounds we are healed.” (Is. 53:5) It almost sounds like a torture chamber, doesn’t it? But as we know, it is a description of the horrificness of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ written 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem! But WHY such brutality?
Yesterday I showed you how what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21 fits so significantly with Isaiah 53:5. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” This explains that what Jesus experienced in His horrific crucifixion 2000 years ago was for the benefit of all humanity and can make a difference in your life and mine today, but HOW? Jesus was Holy, God the Son, God incarnate in a human body born in Bethlehem.
As I explained yesterday, in the crucifixion God immersed Jesus in the sins of the world so that as Jesus was hanging on the cross His body was soaking in OUR sin. Not His sin, for Jesus had no sin. Jesus was soaking in all the human sin of all time which God had poured on Jesus. God then executed His Holy Justice for that sin on Jesus and Jesus experienced God’s wrath in His horrific piercing, crushing, agony and finally death. So as Isaiah 53:5 says, Jesus “was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.”
It’s horrific isn’t it my friends? But there’s more. It was more than the beatings, the nail piercings, the brutality of crucifixion. The wrath of God poured out on Jesus included “PERISH“! Three times in the New Testament that word is used: John 3:16; John 10:28 and 2 Peter 3;9. All three times ‘Perish‘ means eternal separation from God! Oh, my friends, the short-term justice punishment for our sin is DEATH, but the long-term justice punishment for unrepentant sin is PERISH. Perish is not simply death, not even excruciating death. For the person who dies in their unrepentant sin, their destiny is PERISH. It means all eternity apart from God in a place of great punishment, called Hell! Jesus experienced PERISH as in God’s wrath and His death Jesus experienced separation from God and He even went down to the place where those separated from God were, according to 1 Peter 3:18,19. It’s almost incomprehensible, isn’t it?
But the next remarkable phrase in Isaiah 53:5 explains how it can change your life and mine in the miracle of transformation available to us in that horrific crucifixion and separation experience of Jesus: “the punishment that brought us peace was on HIM, and by His wounds we are healed.”
We understand the punishment, God’s justice wrath poured out on the sin and Jesus. But what is this PEACE and what about this HEALING? Peace, of course, is something deeply desired and pursued by every human being at every age in every generation in every part of the world. Peace with ourselves, peace with our families, peace with our world and especially peace with God. We work hard at gaining such peace on the horizontal level with ourselves and other people, don’t we? It involves asking for forgiveness and overlooking minor offenses. It involves honesty with ourselves and each other. But what about peace with God?
Even a child understands how sin, hurtful words, wrong behavior, and lies can tear apart relationships and turn friends and family into enemies. Therefore, it should be easy for us to understand that our sinful thoughts, words, choices, attitudes and actions have the VERY SAME devastating effect on our relationship with our Creator, Holy God! Sin builds high walls of separation between people and also between people and God! Tearing down those walls is similar both with people and with God… repentance and forgiveness. But forgiveness with God is very different from forgiveness with people, did you know that?
Depending on the severity of the infraction and the wounding it caused, we tell those who hurt us that we forgive them after they apologize, right? And to various degrees we do forgive them or at least we try. But sometimes we hold a grudge, sometimes we make a record of the infraction so when we’re offended by the same person the next time, we’re ready to pour out double punishment.
But with God, Holy Justice requires that God punish the sinner for their sin. No forgiveness without payment of the appropriate punishment. That’s why these statements are so important: “All people have sinned and fall short of God’s perfection glory… the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 3:23; 6:23) BUT watch this now: Because God poured out His sin-death Justice on perfect Jesus His Son, as holy Jesus bore my sin and yours and all sin on the cross; God is now prepared to declare our sin debt payment PAID by Jesus! PAID because in Jesus’ suffering, death and perish, Jesus fully paid the sin debt of EVERY human being! Can you wrap your mind around that?
But how is this Jesus crucifixion payment, 2000 years ago, for the sin debt of all sinful humanity, NOW applied by God to MY sin and yours today? How does God EXCHANGE the holiness and perfection of Jesus with my sin and yours? That’s what 2 Corinthians 5:21 means: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus took our sin & sin punishment so God could place Jesus’ holiness upon us!
When I declare my agreement with God that I am a helpless sinner, guilty of much sin with no ability in myself to change my sin nature or even stop sinning, that is my first, essential step to God forgiving me! Justice demands that God cannot not forgive what I will not confess!
John wrote it this way: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8,9)
Do you see it my friends? God is Faithful to His Holy character and His promises and His purposes. His purpose for the human race is that God would have a species of beings made in His image who live their God given lives in relationship with God and for God’s honor and glory! But our sin destroys that utopia! Holy Justice requires our death and Perish as a result of our rebellion against God.
But God made a solution, a way for reconciliation and restoration! God sacrificed His Son Jesus to pay the death penalty for our human sin rebellion against God! Can you believe it?! Then God raised Jesus to life again, so He is now alive in heaven, victoriously reigning as supreme over all things, including death and sin and Satan. (Heb. 7:25)
Therefore, if any person will confess that God is Just and right, that their sin separates them from God and deserves death, that puts them in a position to be forgiven by God. But how does that justice forgiveness work? How is Jesus’ sin payment made on the cross 2000 years applied to my sin today? How does God forgive me TODAY and in addition to forgiving me how does God restore PEACE between us and HEAL the wounds in my life caused by my sin?
So quickly I run out of 7 or 8 minutes of time, so we need to pause and return here tomorrow to answer those questions and see what God said next through Isaiah. For now, please be sure you’ve understood everything thoroughly today and I urge you to thank God for this miraculous plan of His to provide a way to forgiveness for us, and here’s a worship song to help us.
Today’s Scripture: Is. 53:4,5; 1 John 1:8,9.
Choose below to read or listen.
Is. 53:4,5
 |  |
1 John 1:8,9
| |
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.