How did Jesus fulfill the prophecy "He Himself took our infirmities" (Matthew 8:17)?

In verses 16 and 17 we have first, a summary of His many works of power and mercy at eventide; and second, the quotation from Isaiah 53, which reveals to us the way and spirit in which He did these things. The words quoted have been used erroneously by some as though they meant that on the cross He bore our sicknesses, and thus the believer never ought to be ill. The right application is found here. He did not relieve men without feeling their sorrows and sicknesses. He bore in His spirit the weight of the very evils that He dismissed by His power.

He does not however yet forsake Israel. He goes into Peter's house, and heals his wife's mother. He does the same to all the sick who crowd around the house at even, when the sabbath was over. They are healed, the devils are cast out, so that the prophecy of Isaiah was being fulfilled: "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." Jesus put Himself in heart under the weight of all the sorrows that oppressed Israel, in order to relieve and heal them. It is still Emmanuel, who feels for their misery and is afflicted in all their affliction, but who has come in with the power that shows Him capable of delivering them.

In the evening multitudes are brought, taking advantage of the power that had so shown itself, publicly in the synagogue, and privately in the house of Peter; and the Lord accomplished the words of Isaiah 53:4: "Himself," it is said, "took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses," an oracle we might do well to consider in the limit of its application here. In what sense did Jesus, our Lord, take their infirmities, and bear their sicknesses? In this, as I believe, that He never employed the virtue that was in Him to meet sickness or infirmity as a matter of mere power, but in deep compassionate feeling He entered into the whole reality of the case. He healed, and bore its burden on His heart before God, as truly as He took it away from men. It was precisely because He was Himself untouchable by sickness and infirmity, that He was free so to take up each consequence of sin thus. Therefore it was not a mere simple fact that He banished sickness or infirmity, but He carried them in His spirit before God. To my mind, the depth of such grace only enhances the beauty of Jesus, and is the very last possible ground that justifies man in thinking lightly of the Saviour.

“When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick; That IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” (Matt. 8:16-17)

Here we are told very distinctly how and when the Scripture in Isaiah was fulfilled. It was NOT fulfilled on the cross. It WAS fulfilled in the actual deeds of healing that He performed when here on earth. The Scripture just quoted says this as clearly as possible.

Another important passage connected with this is in Matthew. Christ took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Now how was this? "And he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet: saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." I do not doubt His whole soul entered into them in the whole sorrow and burden of them before God, in the full sense of what they were, so viewed, in order to set them aside and bar Satan's power as to them. But was He sick and infirm because Himself took our infirmities? Clearly not. In a word, it is not being Himself in the state with which He sympathizes which gives the sympathy.

At His baptism the Lord Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power and Matthew chapters 8 and 9 show Him exercising that power. In chapter 8 He cleanses the leper, heals the centurion's servant and rebukes the fever under which Peter's mother-in-law was suffering. Then, ‘When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick' (Matt. 8:16). Matthew makes it clear that this was the fulfilment of Isaiah 53:4 ‘Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.' This is remarkable because it shows that these actions involved more than the bare exercise of power. The Lord Jesus in His human spirit first entered fully under the burden of every condition that He then went on to relieve. And what He experienced then has fitted Him for the priestly service that He exercises towards His people now. The Lord Jesus was never personally ill (illness is a fruit of sin) but these verses show that He knows perfectly how the burden of weakness and illness affects us. Therefore ‘we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin' (Heb. 4:15).

Verse 17 was fulfilled in some real way at the time of His healing these crowds. On the cross He bore our sins, and He bore sin, which was the underlying cause of sickness. But at the very time that He healed, He was bearing their sicknesses, feeling their suffering as though it were His own.

A passage of Isaiah is quoted, "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," quoted by Matthew 8:17, "And he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." Now I believe that in the sympathetic exercise of His power in love, Christ never remedied an ill that He did not bear it on His spirit. But this is not atonement. That atonement may be righteously necessary, that He might sympathize with sinners, in respect of what was the fruit of sin, I can well understand; but bearing on the heart in sympathy is quite another thing from atonement. To apply the principle of atonement here is simply nonsense. Was Christ sick in our place when He made atonement on the cross? He did suffer wrath and bore our sin so as to come under it. But in these healings He was exercising power. He healed, it is true, not indifferently; He entered into our sorrows when He relieved us. Thus the passage is as precious as it is intelligible; but the only act referred to is His healing by His power. What did that atone for? Was healing vicarious to make up for our not healing? Will it be said, for our want of health? But then He should have suffered the consequence of it Himself. What was healing an atonement for? Nay, infirmity and sickness were not to be atoned for. It needed what the compassionate Lord accomplished — healing. To say that His healings, shewing that He bore our sickness, means that healing was vicarious, has no kind of sense.

The truth, moreover, is that the word is not at all that which is used for bearing sin as a burden imputed. Nor would the Spirit here accept the LXX translation, which has amartias pherei — bears our sins. It is the word employed in Romans 15:1; "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Was this atoning? The quotation of such passages shews only the extreme poverty of scriptural intelligence, to be borne with when produced in the first dawn of light, or held in systematic and traditional piety; but when reproduced as pretending to the dogmatic maintenance of truth, is as poor as it is unfounded. "The miracles themselves were the manifestation of His sinbearing work and character." This language shews the real character of the statement and the force of what I have said. If sin be borne before God, man must suffer; but was the exercising power of love bearing sin? It is not said in Matthew's explanation, He bore sin, but took our infirmities, which are not sin, and bore our sicknesses. Wrath of God is due to sin, if it be borne; healing the sick is not bearing the wrath of God. What Matthew says may be a proof of Christ's entering in the fullest way into the sorrows of those who are healed; I believe it is. But this doctrine would destroy all the gracious, sorrowing sympathies of Christ in love; they are but bearing wrath upon Himself.

We learn, then, from our first scripture, that Christ took the infirmities and bore the sicknesses of His people when He was down here upon the earth. In one word, in all their affliction He was afflicted. Strictly speaking, in the passage in Matthew the Lord is seen taking away the sicknesses and the infirmities of His people; but if the passage in Isaiah is consulted of which this act is said to be the fulfilment, it will be seen that He first took these burdens upon His own shoulders. This, indeed, was ever His blessed way. In His own tender grace and unutterable compassion, He went down in spirit under the load of the sorrow of those who sought His aid; then He bore it up upon His own heart before God, and finally took it away. Thus, when they brought unto Him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, after He had taken him apart, etc., looking up to heaven, He "groaned" under the burden of the man's infirmity, and then said, "Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." (Mark 7.) So it was in all His blessed pathway through this world: He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, because He entered into the condition of those with whom He came into contact. Truly He was the great Burden-bearer, as, indeed, His tears over impenitent Jerusalem and on His way to the grave of Lazarus abundantly testify. Who can thus consider Him, in these expressions of His sympathy and love, without being deeply touched? Here was One, at least, ever full of unspeakable compassions, incessantly yearning over the burdened hearts of those around, and never chilled in His ministry of love by the lack of response. The springs of His action were above and within - in doing the will of Him who had sent Him, and in gratifying His own affections. Blessed Lord, well might we be ashamed as we meditate upon Thee; and yet, knowing what we are, Thou dost speak to each one of us, and say, even as to this, Follow Me. May we, by Thy grace, be enabled to cry, Draw us, and we will run after Thee in this Thy service of grace and sympathy.

The Spirit of God, however, in Matthew records this instance of extensive healing energy at Capernaum as an illustration of the manner in which the prophetic oracle was fulfilled. So that we are left in no doubt as to its true application. In the narrative of His taking the infirmities and bearing the diseases, there is not only the sense that the Lord removed these things from the sufferers, but also that He took them upon Himself; so that He became a "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief [sickness]" as stated in the verse preceding the quotation (Isa. 53:3).

It was thus Jesus was "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. 4:15), and thus that He qualified Himself to be our sympathising High Priest on high. Not that He took these physical infirmities upon His own body, but He bore them upon His spirit. His acts of healing were not acts of power solely, but acts of sympathy also. He as none else could fully estimate the physical pain, the mental anguish and the moral ruin represented before Him. When the deaf and dumb man was before Him, He looked up to heaven and sighed (Mark 7:34). At the grave of Lazarus He groaned in the spirit, was troubled, and wept copiously (John 11:33-38), so that even the Jews said, "Behold, how he loved him."