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.
Isaiah 53 is a confession, and the speakers keep saying "we" and "our" — and this verse is where they stop guessing about the sufferer and name what His suffering did. The questions it raises are simple and huge: who is saying "we," what wounds are these, and what is the healing?
One writer counts up the verses, then draws out what that means for each of us:
Here is a remarkable fact: as printed in our English Bibles, verse 5 is the central verse of this chapter, which really begins with verse 13 of Isaiah 52. It is therefore the central verse of the central chapter of the central section of this latter part of Isaiah. And without doubt it predicts truth that is central both to our soul's salvation and to our soul's experience. The transgressions, the iniquities were mine, each of us has to say, but the wounding, the bruising were not mine but His. The peace, the healing are mine, but the chastisement, the stripes that bought them, were not mine but His. In all this He was my Substitute.
The confession belongs first to a people who once judged Him wrongly and later admit the truth:
It is not the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations, but the Jews who say, "Who would have believed our report? … He carried our pains, while we thought God had struck Him down and punished Him. Yet He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and His wounds brought us healing." It is Israel who speak this way, when they repent and confess their past unbelief. They had thought He was hateful to God, when in truth He was making atonement for their transgressions.
Others can say the same words too, but the writers set one condition:
In these verses, we must remember, the "we" and the "us" are those who believe, whether ourselves today or the godly remnant of Israel in a coming day. And those who believe are those who have first confessed that they are sinners.
The verse before speaks of griefs and sorrows carried. This one speaks of something more, and one writer marks the shift:
In sympathy He bore our griefs: in atonement He bore the punishment due to our sins. Blessed Saviour! "Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace." There was no other way. But thanks be to God, we can now say, "with His wounds we are healed." The wounds were His; the healing is ours.
Wounds, bruises and stripes sound like the work of soldiers and mobs. One writer rules that out:
The wounds, the bruises and the stripes that bring blessing did not come from human hands. They tell us what our sins deserved. They tell us what He bore for us at the hand of a righteous and holy God, when He carried our sins.
Some soften the word translated "chastisement" into suffering without penalty. One writer answers by pressing the word itself:
Some argue that "while it is true that Jesus is our substitute, He is our substitute only in suffering, not in punishment. Sin was not punished on the cross. The cross was a scene of wonderful mercy and love, not of wrath and penalty." Yet Scripture still says, "Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace." One scholar, Delitzsch, says of that word, "We have translated the Hebrew word 'musar' as 'punishment,' and the language had no other word for this idea."
Peace, then, is not something we produce or grow into. It comes from a cause outside ourselves:
If the chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, then He took our place in drinking that dreadful cup. He was our (believers') representative there. God dealt with Him this way because our sins were laid on Him. That is why peace comes to us. It is not because we became righteous in ourselves. Our peace is the result of His chastisement.
Some read the healing as a promise that our bodies will be cured. The writers disagree, and point to a different healing:
This is not bodily healing. It is healing from the deadly disease of sin. The stripes are the stripes of God's judgment, poured out on Him at the cross.
Another writer answers this more plainly:
Some claim that Christ died for our bodily ills as well, and that the stripes laid on Him were for the healing of our bodies. This is a most dangerous twisting of the truth. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, but nowhere is it written that He died for our bodily diseases.
- Ours. The transgressions and iniquities in this verse belong to us, not to Him.
- His. The wounding, the bruising, the chastisement and the stripes are all His — the exchange runs one way.
- God's. Those stripes came not from human hands but from a righteous God dealing with sins laid on Him.
- Peace. Our peace is the effect of His chastisement, not the effect of any change in us.
- Healing. The healing is healing from the disease of sin. Only those who first confess they are sinners can claim it.
All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6 stands at the centre of the chapter's confession: a scattered flock, each animal on its own path, and one Man carrying what they all deserved. Commentators press three questions here — what our straying was, who the "we" and "us all" are, and whose hand did the laying.
The verse describes our sin twice over, and one writer reads each clause as a separate charge.
What words are like God's words? Here in two short sentences God describes our character and our condemnation. Like sheep we have strayed, and in our straying we have shown the folly of our sin. "We have turned every one to his own way," and by that we have declared the wilfulness, the wickedness of our sin. After we had declared so definitely and deliberately what we are, what could fall on us but the just condemnation of God? But God has undertaken for us, and whether it be the folly or the wilfulness of our sin — all our iniquity He laid on our Surety. It is the saved remnant of Israel that is speaking these wonderful words, but every believer may use them.
One writer defines sin by that phrase, "his own way."
Sin is lawlessness; doing our own will regardless of God's will, and going our own way independently of Him.
The verse includes everyone, yet no two paths are the same.
The mouth is all the more free and full to admit its wicked folly: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." There was no exception. All had strayed, yet each in his own evil way. Yet in the face of all these wrongs, and out of His own spontaneous and all-conquering goodness, Jehovah made the iniquity of us all fall on Him.
The pronouns matter. One writer asks who the "we" and the "us" are. His answer decides how far substitution reaches.
In this great verse two things strike us. First, it is "all we" and "us all." Who are the "we" and the "us"? The people of God who confess their sins and believe in the Substitute. Exactly so. The propitiatory work of Christ opens the door in righteousness to whoever will. But its substitutionary effect reaches believers only.
The verb belongs to God, not to us. One writer sets this beside Aaron, who once confessed the people's sins over a goat.
Further, it is the Lord Himself who laid our sins on the Substitute. Aaron no doubt confessed and laid on the head of the goat all that he knew and remembered of the people's transgressions. But how could he confess them all? A well-known hymn may say, "I lay my sins on Jesus," but we may well be thankful that it is not left to us to do it. God Himself has done it by one act, and so done it perfectly.
The verse is repeatedly used as the clearest proof text for one Person standing in the place of another.
Substitution is as certain a truth as Scripture can give us — that is, one person standing in another's place, bearing his sins in His own body on the tree, bruised for them instead of the guilty, who is healed by the other taking the stripes.
The moment matters. Some hold that Christ carried our sins all through His life. One writer answers them from this verse.
If He had been bearing our sins all His life, He must all His life have been abandoned by God. God cannot look on sin with the least allowance. But no: Isaiah 53:6 shows that Jehovah laid our iniquity on His Anointed when He hung on the tree.
If God laid the sins, the believer's peace does not rest on his own grip.
If anything could have made this doubtful, it was our sins. But they were laid — yes, He laid on Christ (Isaiah 53:6) the iniquity of us all. Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Where are they now? When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Not one sin did God leave on the believer; not one did Christ carry into heaven.
The sheep image runs on into rescue. The flock's danger was not only the enemies outside.
They had inward faults as well as outward foes. They had all gone astray. Everyone had turned to his own way. And on the One then speaking to them Jehovah would lay the iniquities of them all. He is the Shepherd, and the sword of divine judgment would soon strike Him for the sake of the flock. He guarantees salvation to anyone who seeks it from Him.
- Straying — the first clause names our folly, the second our wilfulness. All went astray, yet each chose his own route.
- Confession — the "we" here are people who have admitted they are sinners. The door stands open to whoever will, but Christ bears the sins of believers only.
- Laying — God Himself, not the sinner, placed the iniquity on the Substitute. Aaron could never name every sin, so God did it for us, and did it perfectly.
- Timing — God laid the load on Him at the cross. He did not carry it through His life; the bruising and the forsaking belong to that hour.
- Result — God left no sin on the believer, and Christ carried none into heaven. The stricken Shepherd now guarantees salvation to anyone who comes to Him.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth.
Isaiah wrote long before Jesus stood on trial. He describes a sufferer who says nothing while men crush Him. Two questions follow: why did He not speak, and what do the lamb and the sheep tell us about His death?
The natural reaction to injustice is to answer back. One writer also separates the two animal pictures in the verse:
Verse 7 stresses His silence before His accusers. When men are oppressed and afflicted unjustly, protest is natural and usual. His silence went against all experience, and the Gospels note it — Matthew 27:11-14; Mark 15:3-4; Luke 23:9; John 19:9. A sheep really is silent before the shearers. Anyone can see that today by watching shearers at work. But He was not like a sheep being sheared. He was like a lamb led to the slaughter. He was indeed "the Lamb of God," as John the Baptist announced, yet no word of protest escaped His lips.
The earlier verses of the chapter are a confession. From verse 7 the speaker changes:
We have listened to the confession of the godly remnant. Now we hear the voice of Jehovah as He confirms their confession and bears witness to the excellencies of Christ. The remnant have already confessed that He was stricken and afflicted. Now Jehovah bears witness to His perfection: when He was afflicted and oppressed "He opened not His mouth", and "like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth". Men may oppress and afflict, but if He was stricken it was not for any wrongdoing on His part. He submitted to every indignity from man to carry out the will of God in bearing the transgression of God's people.
Silence can mean a person has no power to answer. Here it meant the opposite:
Not a word did He utter. Why was this? Answer me that. Those small creatures of His own hand insulted their Creator. He could have thrown them out of existence with a single word. Why then did He keep silence? … The love of His heart for sinners brought Him to this.
Behind the quietness lay a settled purpose, and the offering He brought was Himself:
Christ also drew near to God, but in the perfect offering of Himself, not by the offering of another. Nothing is more moving, or more worthy of deep attention, than the way Jesus freely presents Himself. He does it so that God may be fully glorified in Him. He was silent in His sufferings, and that silence came from a deep and perfect determination to give Himself up, in obedience, to this glory.
Israel knew about sacrificial lambs. Hardly anyone expected the lamb to be a man standing in front of them:
Isaiah (53:7) had written of One who is "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter." John spoke of a man present before him, and called Him the "Lamb of God." All Jews knew about sacrificial lambs. But few, if any, understood then that a man would be the sacrifice, though Psalm 40 and Isaiah 53 had predicted it. And this One, the Lamb of God, would do what no other sacrifice had attempted or could achieve. He would take away the sin of the world.
His silence was not a blanket rule. There was one thing He would always speak for:
In the perfection of His way, He knows when to speak and when to keep silence. He will speak for the truth, but when it is a question of meeting personal malice against Himself, He is silent. It is good for us to profit by His perfect example, and to follow in the steps of the One who did not revile in return when others reviled Him. There is a time when silence has a far greater effect on the conscience than any word anyone can speak. Yet such silence is completely foreign to our fallen nature.
Peter later echoes the prophet's words line by line:
The prophet foretells that under insults "He opened not His mouth." The apostle can say He was One who, "when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten." Jehovah says through the prophet, "For the transgression of my people was He stricken." The apostle says, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:21–25).
- Oppressed — men crushed Him unjustly. The Gospels record the trials where this came true.
- Silent — protest would have been natural. His silence went against all human experience.
- Willing — He could have destroyed His accusers with a word. His quietness came from a settled determination to give Himself up in obedience.
- Lamb — Isaiah foretold a sacrifice who was a person. That Lamb would do what no animal offering could: take away sin.
- Followed — Peter echoes these words for believers: when reviled, He did not revile back.