All for our well-being—Easter Series Part 5

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

According to the prophet Isaiah, the suffering Servant bore our sicknesses as well as our griefs; He carried our pains at the same time He carried our sorrows (see Isaiah 53:4).

But here Isaiah, prophesying more than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, described the torturous death of the partner-pro.com cialis generique ou original Servant, complete with piercing—indicative of crucifixion. Interestingly enough, crucifixion was not used by the Jewish people as a form of execution; it was considered by them to be “one of the most horrible, cursed forms of death (Deuteronomy 21:23)” (see http://christianity.about.com/od/goodfriday/a/crucifixionhist.htm). In fact, the cross was rarely used as a means of capital offense until the time of Alexander the Great, four hundred years after Isaiah’s prophecy (ibid).

But He was pierced through for our transgressions…

The suffering Servant bore our diseases and vardenafil mail order se protectingtheneighborhood.com griefs and carried our sorrows and pains; but He was pierced through for our transgressions. When those nails penetrated the Messiah’s hands and feet, fastening Him to the cross of His execution, it was due to our transgressions and rebellion. Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth (see Revelation 13:8b), and crucifixion was the manner by which God had foreordained this redemptive act to take place on our behalf.

He was crushed for our iniquities…

Just as He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. Whereas “transgressions” implies outward, willful wrongdoing, “iniquities” refers to the inward condition of “perversity, depravity, iniquity, guilt or punishment of iniquity” (see http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H5771&t=KJV ) which is the http://www.ferrumservice.com/medicamento/sildenafil condition into which all people are born. The piercing was external for our outward acts of rebellion; He was crushed within under the weight of man’s inborn sinful condition as He bore it on the cross.

… the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him…

Each of us deserves to bear the consequences for our own sin and rebellion, but God provided a way for that punishment to fall upon Someone else—His Son. In exchange for our chastisement, He offers us well-being—the total package that includes completeness, soundness, welfare, and peace (see http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H7965&t=KJV).

How many times has God been accused of being unfair? The exchange that occurred at the cross of Calvary—your punishment and sin for completeness, soundness, well-being, and peace—is absolutely unfair—with all the benefits heaped up on your side of the deal. In fact, when you were dead in sin and rebellion, the Bible says God made you alive in Christ, having forgiven all of your transgressions (see Colossians 2:13). The certificate of the debt that you owed—consisting of angry decrees against you—He canceled that out. He nailed the pile of compounded offenses credited to your account to the cross, writing across them with the blood of His Son, “PAID FOR IN FULL” (see Colossians 2:14).

… and by His scourging we are healed.

As if all of that was not enough, the God who is more than enough added this clause: “by His scourging we are healed.” He had borne our sicknesses and carried our pains, had been pierced through for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, but not one moment of His passion for us that dark Friday was wasted. Early after His arrest, He was scourged—beaten with a cruel Roman flagrum. (For an explicit description of this form of punishment, see http://truthmagazine.com/archives/volume44/v440106010.htm [David McClister, Truth Magazine, 2000].

This brutal flagellation was for our healing. Every vicious tear into the flesh of the Lord made life-giving virtue available to you and thebrotherslanglais.com cialis me—by His scourging we are healed.

This is the Man who beckons you: Follow Me. This is the One to whom you can run and be safe. This is Jesus—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This is Jesus. He died for you so that you could live through Him.

Dorothy

…and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 1 Peter 2:24