Isaiah 53:6, commentary and pictures

All people have wandered from God like lost sheep, each turning to his own self-chosen way of sin and disobedience and standing guilty, helpless and under sentence of death. The Lord laid the iniquity of all upon Christ, who as sinless substitute and sacrifice bore their guilt, curse and punishment to make pardon, healing and peace possible. In bearing it he suffered the demand of divine justice against broken law, chiefly in spiritual anguish under separation from God, culminating in Gethsemane and Calvary where sin broke his heart and put him to death. This great sacrifice was foretold centuries before as the lowly, rejected, suffering Messiah, and Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled it literally from Bethlehem to Golgotha in his trial, crucifixion and death. Its healing is received not by merit but by repentant faith that yields sin to him and trusts his merits, bringing forgiveness and cleansing now and power to obey henceforth.

Language of Straying Sheep

All like sheep have gone astray, each turning away from God and the right way to a self-chosen way of sin and disobedience, which means all have sinned and stand lost, guilty, and under sentence of death. The straying is universal, with every person departing to his own way and bearing a burden of sin that would crush him if left to bear it himself. That guilt was laid by the Lord upon Christ, who stood under the judgment of the law in the place of the guilty and suffered and died as substitute because sin earns death. Read aloud as God's own word without human reproach, with kindness and with prayer that places reader beside hearer as equally needing mercy, this truth disarms even a proud hardened sinner, convicts him of being a sinner, breaks resistance, and brings him to confession, conversion, and victory through the blood of the Lamb.

Turning to his own way is the very essence of sin, the rejection of the authority of God's will and the setting up of human will and human way in opposition to it. That desire to choose our own way is a rebellious spirit inherited from Adam, a fall from the high way of holiness after Paradise by transgressing His covenant of commandments. The particular sinful act is only incidental, decided by temperament and circumstance, while sin itself lies deeper than outward manifestation in the rebellious will, which explains why people take to different forms of transgression. This universal departure creates a pitiable and hopeless state of transgression in heart and life, with none seeking God and none doing good, forming a moral hindrance that prevents reunion between God and man and makes justification necessary. It therefore demands turning back to God, giving up one's own will to yield to His, surrendering the will to receive pardon for rebellion, and entering the new covenant in which God's law is put in the heart and sins are remembered no more, as though never transgressed. That self-devised departure includes false worship of human devising, and its remedy requires renewal of mind, training and guidance, and new birth.

Like lost sheep people are helplessly confused and do not know how to find the way home, so humanity cannot find its own way back to God or save itself. Wandering until bewildered and lost, they are naturally lost and wild, liable to go farther from home and become easy prey, with mind and will and way out of harmony with God bringing disease, unrest, condemnation, and death. Even after six thousand years of wandering God still recognizes and owns them as His sheep, so there is hope that under the good Shepherd's care they can be brought back to the heavenly fold. Christ the Great Shepherd gives His life for the flock, cares for the wandering and lost, cherishes and saves even the weakest who might stray, and came to find and save the lost by bearing the sins of all and suffering as victim for their offenses to secure peace, healing, and freedom. Because all share the same need for a Saviour, no one can rightly despise another.

The straying belongs to all hearts and is seen from the beginning, for children inherit evil passions and dispositions and are born with unregulated impulses, so that left unguided they go astray from the start toward ruin and need training, education, guidance, and renewing of mind. The same image applies to youth lost to the church and wandering in unbelief, who are to be rescued with gentle, wise, loving care rather than driven or frightened, and held before God in persistent prayer trusting Him to hear and save. It applies to Christians who quarrel and divide instead of doing loving deeds, each going his own direction, leaving the narrow way untrod while the broad way is worn and exposing the little ones they love to the ravening wolf. Such a personal wrong course calls for turning inward, owning fault and sin as one's own and not another's, feeling its fearful load, and then going to confess to a brother, while all frailty and proneness to wander calls for treating the erring with kindness rather than reproach. It embraces prisoners, homeless children, souls in dark places, and peoples in heathen darkness needing the Gospel and release, as well as professed believers whether backslidden or not, and any individual like a straying sheep who has left the right path toward ruin and must be sought as by a shepherd.

Since all have sinned and gone astray, no one can rightly condemn the sins of others while claiming personal perfection. This holds for Bible characters as well as people today, whose failures must be weighed alongside the moral conditions and opportunities of their times, so that their faults do not mark them as uniquely sinful.

Prophecy and Fulfillment Context

Isaiah 53:6 stands inside Isaiah's vivid prophecy of Christ's life, suffering and death, foretelling the leading particulars of his career and work as Saviour. It belongs to his vision of deliverance from sin and error through the Messiah, connected with the promised return from Babylonian exile, the two deliverances appearing separately or intertwined. It runs through Isaiah 53 to 59 and onward through gospel triumphs, calling of the Gentiles, apostasy, recovery, judgment and new heavens and earth, and it concerns God's comfort for His backsliding sinful people and His pledge of power to save them. It is identified as prophecy of Christ's first advent and as pointing clearly to Jesus' death.

It was spoken more than five centuries before Jesus appeared, over five hundred years before He appeared on earth. It speaks prophetically of the Messiah's sufferings and death as though already past, describing as accomplished what God will certainly fulfill. Its past-tense language for future events must be read as still future when given, and it presents the suffering with such force and detail that it reads more like history than prophecy. Compared with the history of Jesus it can convince the mind and change the heart.

It foretells the Messiah's lowly life, rejection, unjust trial, death among malefactors, burial with the rich, and agony in bearing sin. That includes being despised and rejected, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, oppressed and afflicted yet opening not His mouth as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep dumb before shearers, wounded for transgressions and bruised for iniquities, bearing griefs and carrying sorrows, esteemed stricken and smitten of God, suffering the chastisement of peace, crowned with thorns and put to shameful death. Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled it literally at His first advent from Bethlehem to Golgotha, from the manger to the cross, in His betrayal, condemnation, crucifixion, wounds, words on the cross and pouring out His soul unto death. One claiming to be Christ without suffering in this way could not be the Messiah for whom Israel waited, and these sufferings belong to the first coming, distinct from prophecies of His second advent to judge, triumph and reign in glory.

Read together with the twenty-second psalm and compared with the Gospel record and with 1 Peter 2:24-25, it gives evidence of the divinity of its Author and the unfailing character of His Word. It confirms Jesus' divine mission and Messiahship, proves God fulfills prophecy literally, and supports expecting unfulfilled prophecy to be fulfilled literally. That convergence of myriad lines of prophecy in Christ sets God's seal on Him more unmistakably than any miracle and furnishes colossal proof of the divine origin of the prophetic Scriptures, so mighty that unbelievers invent impossible theories to evade its force, saying Jesus brought on His own crucifixion by pre-concerted measures to give His disciples an appeal to old prophecies. It was expounded by Jesus after His resurrection and by Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, who finds Christ there. Its difficulty from a rabbinic standpoint and the Jews' desire for a worldly conqueror led to rejection, and if they had fully understood it before Christ was crucified they might have been kept from taking the life of the Lord of glory.

Every sacrifice from Abel's altar until the last Passover of the passion week, the Passover lamb, the lambs and sin-offerings, pointed to that cross on Calvary at Golgotha. The sin offering pictured the transfer: the sinner confessed over a lamb, hands were laid on the victim, it died in the sinner's place, its blood or life taken for his, so sin was forgiven to the sinner and laid upon another who suffered its penalty. The chapter unlocks the meaning of that system of worship, including its sacrifices and sin offerings. The blood of bulls and goats could not make real atonement because a goat is not worth as much as a man, so it could only illustrate the principle in figure and teach the desert of sin; a more dignified offering and more perfect sacrifice had to come, who was wounded for transgressions, bruised for iniquities, chastised for peace, healed by stripes, stricken for the transgression of the people, pouring out His soul unto death, numbered with transgressors, bearing the sin of many and making intercession for transgressors, the Anointed Messiah cut off but not for Himself.

Substitutionary Bearing of Sin

The Lord laid the iniquity of all upon Christ, and Christ bore the sins, guilt, punishment and curse of all humanity as representative, substitute, surety, sacrifice and sin-bearer, suffering and dying in their place, the just for the unjust, to make atonement, pardon, healing, peace and salvation possible. All like sheep have gone astray, each turned to his own way from God, and Jehovah laid the iniquity of them all on His Servant who bears it in their place. He was wounded for transgressions and bruised for iniquities, bore griefs and carried sorrows, despised and rejected, esteemed stricken and smitten of God, suffered the chastisement of peace so that by His stripes healing comes, and though oppressed and afflicted opened not His mouth but went as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep dumb before shearers. This was fulfilled when the Captain of salvation, for whom and by whom are all things, was made perfect through sufferings to bring many sons to glory, taking part in the same flesh and blood, not the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. The verse belongs to Isaiah's vision of deliverance from sin and error through the Messiah, connected with the promised return from Babylonian exile, though the two deliverances may appear separately or intertwined. As the sin offering pictured the transfer, the sinner confessed over a lamb which then died in the sinner's place, so Jesus bears sin's penalty that the guilty can be pardoned and go free.

He who bore sin was himself pure, sinless, holy, innocent and just, knew no sin, had no sins of his own to confess and needed no repentance, with nothing in himself worthy of death. Their sins were upon him by imputation, not within him, as his righteousness is upon believers, not inherent in them. Being made sin for humanity he bore the consequence of sin, which is death, and only in that sense did the wrath of God rest on him. He was thought to be smitten of God and afflicted only because he carried those sins, while remaining the same beloved Son on the cross in darkness and death as at his baptism and transfiguration, submissive to God's will and regarded by God with tender favor. The sins he bore hid the Father's face from his humanity and caused his cry of forsakenness, which does not mean God had forsaken him, just as an overwhelming sense of sin does not mean God has forsaken believers. Though he knew no sin and remained loyal to God, he bore sin and the law's condemnation on humanity's behalf so that sinners could be redeemed, fulfilling the law with it in his heart, his sinlessness confirmed at his trial. Though he had no sin to confess and needed no repentance for himself, he was baptized as the representative of the sinful people for whom he stood, taking the sinful human condition and bearing its condemnation, suffering and dying on their behalf. His sacrifice displays God's amazing love and stands for death to sin.

Bearing iniquity meant suffering the penalty of God's broken law, divine justice and wrath against sin, the stroke of death and the death-penalty, becoming a curse to redeem from the curse. Meeting the law's demand for perfect obedience and for the transgressor's life, his death vindicates justice, honors the unchangeable law and removes God's governmental obstacle to pardon. His sacrifice satisfies the law's claims while showing both the justice of those claims and God's love for sinners. Christ's death bore the penalty for the sins people actually committed, making it possible for God to justify those who have faith in his blood. His death fully satisfied the law's claims for the sins imputed to him, tested by asking whether sin could have held him in the grave if his sacrifice had been incomplete. Together with the preceding verse, it shows that Christ's suffering and death were an atonement for sin, making healing and peace possible for sinners, and trusting in Christ brings peace and forgiveness.

The laying expresses universal scope: the iniquity of every person and the accumulated sins of the whole world and every age. The guilt of every descendant of Adam weighed on him, and his suffering came from bearing sin and its consequences as humanity's substitute and surety, counted a transgressor bearing condemnation due to sin so sinners could be redeemed. The second Adam took upon himself the accumulated sins resulting from the first Adam's failure and bore their penalty. The sins laid on him include lying, stealing, adultery, Sabbath-breaking, coveting, swearing, and idolatry, bearing them meaning he suffered sin's penalty of death for humanity. He bore the full burden including broken vows, heated passions, unbelief, and neglected opportunities, as he faced death in Gethsemane. Each person's share caused his death as much as any other's, in harmony with his willingness to forgive and receive all who need pardon.

The laying was purposed before creation in covenant that if man fell Christ would bear the penalty. The plan for him to come to earth as the sin-bearer was laid before the world was created, and his sufferings glorify his Father. When man fell God did not leave him to the destroyer but laid the iniquity of all on Christ, who took the place of the sinner and bore his guilt so he can present the repentant sinner to the Father guiltless, saying lay his guilt on Me, and the Father accepts the completeness of the offering for sin. On the very day sin first entered the world the Lord laid the iniquity of all humanity upon Christ, and Christ gave himself up in man's behalf as sacrificial substitute. That laying at the beginning set all heaven's agencies in operation for salvation, taught through patriarch, priest, and prophet concerning the coming Lamb, and led to God sending His Son in the fulness of time to redeem and to His death at Calvary. After Adam and Eve's temptation and fall by disobedience Jesus stepped in and by His own death in their stead purchased both the redemption of the fallen race and their first inheritance, the earth, which He promised to redeem from the curse and give to them as their final resting-place, so that hope did not die out and happiness did not become forever extinct. The promise was made four thousand years before Calvary, signed before angels, entrusted to patriarchs, kings and prophets until Daniel's seventy weeks were accomplished, then executed on the hill of Calvary outside Jerusalem where Jesus bore his cross, nailed the bond to his cross, suffered holy fire under darkness, and finished it, opening salvation in the name of Jesus bringing glory to God and peace and good will to men.

The laying does not mean he suffered the full second-death penalty of eternal torment, because he rose from the dead. If the penalty were eternal torment he would still be burning and salvation would be impossible. The sins of the world laid upon Christ, who suffered in sinners' place and bore the penalty of God's law to purchase their salvation, cannot mean Christ suffered the sinner's full penalty of eternal death in the second death, because he rose from the dead. The penalty is death, not eternal conscious suffering; Christ met it at Calvary and is now at God's right hand, while death declares the fate of the ungodly. His death is a real death, not eternal torment, and his blood provides remission and salvation by giving up his life and shedding his blood in the sinner's place. If redemption required Christ to undergo three deaths, the teaching would entail that he suffered spiritual, bodily, and eternal death.

God laid iniquity on him not by arbitrarily punishing Jesus for human guilt but through the incarnation in which he took sinful human flesh, entered a sin-sunk world and endured its hatred and temptations unto death. Christ took sinful human flesh in the weakness and condition brought about by sin, entered a world sunk in sin, and endured its temptations; the world's hatred and sin led to His death. Thus God laid humanity's iniquity upon Christ through the incarnation.

The verse does not teach that Adam's personal sin is imputed to descendants; they inherit his fallen nature and are therefore sinful, while Christ voluntarily accepts and bears the sins of those who come through him in faith. All have gone astray and each has turned to their own way, and the Lord laid humanity's iniquity on Christ in this sense.

His bearing is distinguished from the scapegoat of Leviticus 16 and from Satan's final bearing. Christ is the one the prophet speaks about; his bearing of sin is distinguished from the scapegoat's symbolic bearing of Israel's sins, and does not make him the scapegoat of Leviticus 16. His bearing of sin and dying for sinners meets the demands of the violated law and is the work of atonement; no one shares that work with him. The sins transferred to Satan in the scapegoat ceremony do not make Satan a substitute or a participant in Christ's atonement: he receives the sins he instigated after they have been removed from God's people. The laying of the iniquity of all upon Him is temporary, not eternal, for sin does not belong to Him, and all who are righteous in Him will likewise demonstrate that sin does not belong to them. The sins of God's erring but repentant people are borne by his Son as a sacrifice on Calvary and, in Christ's work as Advocate in the heavenly temple, are borne for a time so they can ultimately be removed forever, serving the vindication of God's character and government and not meaning sin or sinners will remain in heaven eternally. They are borne by him until his work in the heavenly sanctuary is finished, after which they pass to Satan, who bears them away as the antitypical scapegoat. Divine justice and love require that the guilt borne by the righteous Innocent be placed back upon Satan, the instigator who took all sin upon himself when he coveted the throne of the universe and seduced others to evil and thereby made himself responsible for all its consequences, leaving guilt upon him and his branches who choose sin. This final transfer answers the centuries-long charge that God was unjust to place the guilt of the wicked upon the innocent and proves God just and the justifier of believers.

Character of Christ Suffering

He bore not sins alone but also griefs, sorrows, sicknesses, infirmities and burdens belonging to sinners, including the suffering and sickness that follow sin though he himself was not sinful. By taking these burdens upon himself he opened the way of hope for this life and the next, reaching out mercy to help a sin-sick suffering world in its pitiable condition and making it possible for people to entrust their cares to him and bear one another's burdens. His bearing of human infirmity and sickness is connected with his healing of the sick, for he came to save people not only from sins but from their effects including disease, and the chapter that speaks of human wrongdoing borne by him presents him as bearing sicknesses and promising health through him. This bearing was in a double sense, through a sin-marked ancestry and through iniquity laid upon him.

His anguish was chiefly spiritual rather than merely bodily, for bearing sin under divine justice he felt separation from God, the Father's displeasure, hidden face and seeming abandonment with darkness and no ray of hope, drinking the bitter cup of wrath to its dregs with a broken heart. Made sin for humanity and counted a transgressor, he bore the consequence of sin which is death and the full consequence including separation and divine displeasure against sin, with guilt and wrath pressing upon him and the stroke of righteous wrath falling in his suffering and death to accomplish redemption. The sins he bore hid the Father's face from his humanity and drew forth his cry of forsakenness, yet he remained the same beloved Son on the cross in darkness and death as at his baptism and transfiguration, submissive to God's will and regarded with tender favor, resisting Satan while thought to be smitten of God and afflicted only because he carried those sins. An overwhelming sense of sin therefore does not mean God has forsaken the sufferer, any more than that cry meant God had forsaken him.

His burden lasted through life and not at crucifixion only, including sorrow over sin and the unrepentant, taking upon himself the bitter cup apportioned to humanity and enduring the suffering that brings peace while offering mercy, blessing and salvation in its place. Its climax came in Gethsemane, where the sins of the lost world and of all ages, including broken vows, heated passions, unbelief and neglected opportunities, were laid upon Jesus as innocent substitute taking the guilty's place and bearing their transgressions as propitiation for a race that had chosen to sin. At Calvary, crowned with thorns, scourged, smitten, spit upon and slain, he bore those sins in his body on the cross to put sin away, meeting the law's penalty through a sinless sacrifice and dying for human sin, with iniquity breaking his heart and actually causing his death.

To bear it the Son of God took man's place in the flesh and under the law, leaving heavenly riches, glory, honor and strength to reach those far down in the fall, becoming man of the seed of Abraham and identifying himself with fallen humanity as near kinsman, brother of sinners and redeemer able to preserve their inheritance. In that humble human condition without outward form, comeliness or beauty to attract, despised and rejected, poor and without wealth to recommend him to the great, poorer than beasts and birds, he shared human hopes, sorrows, temptations, privations and miseries, and was condemned by the law for sinners. He took flesh subject to fallen weakness so that death, which has no power over the sinless, could claim him as sin-bearer, and as second Adam he took upon himself the accumulated sins resulting from the first Adam's failure and met that failure under a far severer test by obedience to redeem it, giving himself to and for people to redeem them from all wrongdoing so his full righteousness, healing and strength are freely given. Though noble in bearing and countenance, the stroke due for disobedience fell upon him, wounded for transgressions and bruised for iniquities, that healing might come by his stripes.

The iniquity laid on him includes both sins actually committed, imputed to him so his righteousness could be imputed to believers, and inherited liability to sin not yet become an act, taken by being made flesh and sharing flesh and blood through the law of heredity, reaching across humanity's history from sin's entrance to its end and beyond the generation living while he was on earth. He met and conquered that liability in the flesh, as seen where David's sin shows inherited liability becoming actual sin, making it possible for his righteousness to be imparted to keep people from sins they might otherwise commit. Deliverance therefore means not only forgiveness for past sins but power to subdue inherited sinful tendencies and keep from committing further sins.

He voluntarily took the sins of the world upon himself, with all iniquity made to meet and light upon him, choosing death that others might have life, giving himself for the world and for each guilty person, acknowledging the sentence just and completing obedience. Chosen of Jehovah in contrast to the revolted one, he centers the whole of holy character, demonstrated power over man's deadly foe, and rose triumphant over sin and death, defeating death by death and defying its power to win life and light for those in him. Having died as man's substitute and sin-offering, he as the sinless, suffering, righteous one lives eternally, made a priest of an endless life, one with God and most holy, whose ample guarantee can answer for those he represents and whose bearing brings healing, cleansing and forgiveness, so that without him all are lost. His suffering on the cross, including anguish of separation from the Father, shows the cost of bearing sin and expresses his love, and Isaiah 53's account of bearing sin and death is followed by his resurrection and fulfillment of promises made to him.

Under that iniquity he truly died and was buried in soul and body, and did not go to heaven that day nor go to preach disembodied apart from his body while his body lay in the grave. He carried the heaviest burden ever borne, with God placing the sin of all upon him, yet he could still call his burden light because he lived in a heavenly atmosphere where the air was light and the power drawing him earthward was reduced to a minimum. Felt weight is not measured by size but by the atmosphere the bearer lives in and the strength of the earthward pull, so heavy burdens call not for smaller burdens but for change of atmosphere and release from the power that draws earthward.

Salvation Received by Faith

Wounded for transgressions and bruised for iniquities, his chastisement brings peace and his stripes bring healing, turning the penalty away and bringing reconciliation with God with the healing and restorative grace of the Holy Spirit and all the blessings of redemption. The stroke due for disobedience fell on him in humble human condition, and by becoming one with fallen people to redeem them from all wrongdoing his righteousness in all its fullness is freely given, so that believers are healed by his suffering and have righteousness and strength in the Lord. The provision is good news to a world doomed to death and eternal disappointment with no true hope apart from it, to be received by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and eternal life. He died not only for others in general but for each person even the poorest and most despised, and each must personally believe he died for me, trusting in him bringing peace in believing, growing love, desire to do something for him, a happy Christian life and hope to live with him in his kingdom.

The transfer of sin provides sure ground for salvation resting on God's saving purpose rather than the sinner's worthiness, and sinners cannot balance or repay the debt but must look to him who bore it for them. Because he bore human sin and guilt in death the guilty can go free through mercy, meeting the penalty of God's law so they can be saved from sin and its consequences, receive pardon and stand pure before God. This provision avails for those who sincerely repent and confess sin and place unquestioning faith in him, since only because the vicarious Sufferer bears the debt can sinners be brought back to peace with God. No legalism and no self-inflicted sorrow can give relief, for guilt would crush the bearer and no one can rightly estimate sin apart from accepting God's estimate, but it is the sinner's privilege to believe Christ has borne his own sins and rest under the shelter of the atoning blood, standing free in the merit of the Substitute, gaining a proper estimate of sin and receiving godly sorrow that turns from sin with grief and abhorrence instead of hopeless discouragement and idolized feeling.

The gospel is immediate and full and complete forgiveness because all the penalty of each person's sin and all the curse and all the accumulated penalty of the world's sin were put on Jesus and borne on his broken heart and taken away, so every sinner stands pardoned here and now by grace, not as a future possibility or conditional offer and not dependent on feeling pardoned or on having repented or a broken heart. The innocent substitute bears iniquity in the sinner's place as the bloody sacrifices showed in figure with animals put in place of the guilty, all looking onward to the Great Sacrifice, giving a definite answer so the broken-hearted sinner whose sins are covered and taken away and remembered no more knows what to do with his sins.

Suspension of the penalty does not cancel the claims of the law but is meant to draw people to holiness and obedience, so the law must still be obeyed and repentance is the first step toward obedience. Universal straying to a self-chosen way makes repentance necessary, requiring turning back to God, giving up own wills and yielding to his will. Jesus alone pays the repentant sinner's debt and mediates to bring people into allegiance to God's law, and his payment does not permit continued sin but requires the forgiven henceforth to obey, honor the law and live righteously. God could not set aside any claim of his law to save the lost race for whom the Son died because of transgression, and the innocent substitute bearing iniquity honors the law and provides pardon consistent with justice on condition sinners accept him, cease from sin and join in honoring the law.

Bearing sins in his body on the tree became the foundation of his priestly work in the heavenly sanctuary, where as living High Priest he presents his blood, atonement is made and forgiveness given. The sins confessed over the sin-offering were laid on the whole animal and conveyed into the sanctuary through flesh or blood, the innocent animal representing Christ while the sinful mortal priest could not represent him in bearing sin, and Christ bore sins in his own person and took them into the true sanctuary in heaven. His own blood was offered for sin once for all in fulfillment of the victim's role. The promises that he would bear sins, give himself as offering for sin and intercede for transgressors were given before conditional promises about Jerusalem and Sabbath observance, so his sacrifice and mediation were already assured. He bore sin, suffered for transgression and makes intercession for sinners.

The prophecy pictures his suffering and death as vicarious sacrifice and basis of atonement and redeemed sonship, directing the seeking sinner to faith in him rather than first to imitation of his example. Universal straying with none seeking God and none doing good creates the pitiable hopeless state of transgression in heart and life and the moral hindrance that makes justification necessary and prevents reunion between God and man. As sins were laid in figure on the victim by laying on of hands, so the iniquity of all was laid on Christ who poured out his soul unto death as the just for the unjust, showing what would be every person's fate without an accepted offering, namely death, with the slaying and burning to ashes of the victim illustrating the means and completeness of the sinner's destruction. His suffering beneath the burden reveals the true gravity of rebellion, so that at judgment the cross will expose sin and leave sinners without excuse. The atonement is connected with Adam's fall, on whose reality the doctrine of bearing another's punishment depends, and it is the great central voluntary substitution consistent with reason by which every sinner who accepts Christ will be justified.

In his death iniquity was made to meet on him and he paid the price by which all might be redeemed from slavery, purchasing freedom for all yet leaving choice with each, so those who do not accept offered freedom remain in sin and take its final consequences, and his blood avails only when the sinner yields himself with his sins to Christ who then performs the atonement work to blot them from the books of remembrance. This makes it possible for sin to be punished apart from the sinner, taking effect for each who chooses by faith to separate from sin. The guilty cannot escape penalty forever, for the incorrigible must at last bear their own sin facing death in judgment.

He bore what did not belong to him, taking the iniquity of all, and his suffering opens the way to save people from suffering caused by sin. Sin is allowed to produce its consequences affecting innocent and guilty to reveal how evil it is so that people will turn from it.

Shepherd Care and Application

Christ the Great Shepherd left his home of glory and blessedness to seek and save the lost, for all had wandered from God each to a sinful course of his own like straying sheep, and he came to find them, cherish even the weakest that might stray, give his life for the flock, suffer as victim for offenses, and gather them into one fold under one Shepherd. He is the good and faithful Shepherd whom lost wandering people need, and the lost-sheep picture calls for seeking and bringing them back to his fold. Many still will not come to him that they might be saved, but like the lost son waste the good and perfect gifts of the Heavenly Father in sinful and selfish indulgence until body and soul are among the lost forever, so all who strayed must be prayed for to be brought back into the way of holiness, while he continues to offer salvation to all.

Read aloud as God's own word without human reproach, with kindness and with prayer that places reader beside hearer as equally needing mercy, the declaration that all have strayed and the Lord laid the guilt of all upon Christ disarms even a proud hardened sinner, convicts him of being a sinner, breaks resistance, brings confession and conversion, and brings victory through the blood of the Lamb. Compared with the history of Jesus, the prophecy of the Messiah's suffering reads with the force and detail of history itself, and can convince the mind and change the heart to rejoice in Christ. Preached concerning his sufferings for straying sinners, it breaks down even wild reckless changeable youth, brings them to confession and testimony, leads them to take part in the ordinances and seek baptism, and makes them changed. It also gives words of comfort to mourners when a faithful Christian dies after a consistent life, pointing to hope in the face of suffering and death.

Human sin placed the Saviour on the cross, and every person has sinned by turning to his own way, so each must own a personal share in his suffering rather than compare degrees of guilt with others. His woes are the result of human iniquity and his death is not only the responsibility of those who directly betrayed or crucified him, for the death of Christ was caused not by the Jews alone but by sin, the Lord laying the iniquity of all upon him. Each person's individual sin caused the death of the Master just as much as the sin of any number of other persons, and he died for the world and for every individual to save them from sin. The natural heart resists owning this lost condition of going astray like a sheep lost alone in the dark, but each one must admit it is I, and owning lost estate and confessing God our Saviour brings peace. Recognizing this personal share reveals the exceeding terribleness of sin and teaches hatred of sin, producing broken and contrite mourning like that for an only son and firstborn. The Man of sorrows pierced and bleeding on the tree had all human iniquity and sin and curse and grief and woe laid on him as the sinless Lamb of God nailed there by human sin, therefore sorrow for sin should mourn that it nailed the Saviour there yet not grieve in grim despair, because grief has lost its deadly sting and becomes an earnest of hope from heaven, calling for keeping in the middle of the path he trod, singing redemption's song, and refusing by any conscious word or act of wrong to crucify the Son of God afresh.

His willing bearing of the punishment due to others to save them from death brings healing, and measures God's love and right to service, calling for deep gratitude and a life devoted to him. Though pure and holy with iniquity laid upon him, he lived for our sake a life of sorrow and privation for salvation, so no sacrifice, patience, or self-denial required in serving God is too great and none is cause for complaint. His blood cleanses even those whose sinful hands brought about his death, making him worthy of love and devotion. Lack of pleasure in this life is met with remedy in his suffering, correcting complaining about unrewarded service and a one-sided view of hardship by turning from earthly merrymaking to sharing his experience and letting joy consist in rejoicing over the lost found and the dead brought to life. The atoning work portrays the evangel of glad tidings that Jesus Christ is the Saviour and the only Saviour of the world, the message to be carried to the unevangelized world, to Moslems and Jews and to the Hindu, the Chinese, and the African, the gospel commanded to be preached to the nations with the promise of Christ to be with his messengers always.

The Lord's way of dealing with sinners is not to make the one who commits the offense bear the consequences, but to bear the penalty himself and stand in their place, and this substitution is the example to follow in dealing with the willful and disobedient, by freely forgiving on the one hand and bearing their punishment on the other, in order to win them to a right mind and to repentance. By taking humanity's burdens of sins with its griefs and sorrows upon himself he opened the way of hope for this life and the next and set an example for bearing one another's burdens. His self-sacrifice to free his people from sin and reproach is a divine example for the church: rather than condemn others for wrongs, members should examine their own lives and be willing to bear others' wrongs and reproaches in a spirit of pity. Since all have strayed into error each turning to his own way, and Christ seeks and saves the lost like a good shepherd searching for wandering perishing sheep, those who have received his longsuffering compassion should gently and humbly seek the restoration of erring brothers and sisters. His example teaches workers for Christ to feel compassion for those who have strayed, take their spiritual need seriously, and speak of repentance and pardon with humility rather than harshness.

All are burdened by sin and guilt, and the Lord laid this burden on Christ the Sinless One who took humanity's place and bore the guilt that would otherwise crush them. The heaviest burden all carry, whether they know it or not, is sin, which would crush them if left to bear it alone, but he has borne that burden of guilt, takes the load from weary shoulders, and gives rest, and he also bears the burden of care and sorrow, carrying people on his heart. Sinners cannot balance or repay their debt but must look to him who has borne it for them. The cross calls those who feel sin and loss to look to him, and his sacrifice calls forth grateful love. Jesus bears the weaknesses and sins brought to him and laid at his feet, carries them continually, and this daily bearing makes life sweet.

His bearing of human sin shows the cost of sin and God's provision of salvation, and when sinners recognize that Christ died for them his righteousness is imputed to them. The Son of God willingly suffers and offers himself as sacrifice for each person, and his suffering on the cross, including anguish of separation from the Father, shows the cost of bearing sin and expresses his love for humanity, revealing God's suffering for human sin. Though holy and just he suffers in place of the guilty, paying their debt and bringing acquittal and redemption. The living God himself in the person of his Son bore the whole problem of sin with its punishment and consequences, putting the sin of all upon him in atoning death in amazing bleeding self-sacrifice and undeserving grace, an almost incredible mystery and pride-destroying revelation of a holy God holiest in self-sacrifice. It must be met with grave concern about personal standing before a holy God, wrestling with guilt and terrible consequences of sin, searching law work and crisis of self-adjustment, fear, appal and appeal for mercy, lifting self off self-trust onto abased dependence on God. Out of that crisis of wonder at grace comes infinite relief, grateful trust, new love, new life in Christ, joy in his fellowship and his people and delight in his service, without which religion becomes merely declaratory rather than redemptive, lacking thorough personal orientation, power for duty and strong foundation, with unsaved men trying to save others and following an ideal Christ while feeling no need of his blood as propitiation for sin.

Knowing him as the bearer who took the place of sinners and suffered for them enables pointing others to release, for the transfer of sin to Christ is the ground for inviting sinners to go to him, receive him as Saviour and put trust in him, with assurance that he will receive and not cast out anyone who comes. He bore the burden of woe in Gethsemane and suffered on Calvary, so the guilty and helpless can turn to him for peace and comfort. His work is substitution, sacrifice, and salvation, securing eternal life to every true believer and faithful follower, and he gave his life for the sins of the world as Redeemer of fallen humanity pleading for people before the Father. Those who love him know this love though they have shown base ingratitude and denied him in action or word, and being dust-formed and frail they ask him still to bear with them, to wipe away with his hand whatever in them varies from his image, and to remold them according to his will. His bearing of the burden of human guilt offers to take it from the weary soul.

The joining of universal waywardness to the one who bears iniquity frames present suffering as possibly having vicarious power for a future age, and its straying echoes in calls to return to the Saviour who bears iniquity and to heed his call and prepare for his coming. Because he stood in place of sinful people, he was baptized in connection with repentance and forgiveness though he had no sins to confess and needed no repentance himself. The Father's word foretold for him a pathway of sorrow and suffering service including rejection, a crown of thorns, and a shameful death, and he submitted to that appointed path rather than seek an easier one. He took the human race's place and by his death paid the full penalty for sin for every person, which salvation is offered to all and must be received by faith. As the smitten Rock, living water flows from him, and weary pilgrims find refuge, rest, and comfort in his shadow, while his death and pouring out of his life provide the blood that gives validity to the new covenant.