How has Jesus surely borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4)?

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.

The "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" is the same as "surely he hath borne our griefs, and our sorrows he hath carried them" - kho-li (grief) and mak'o-voth (sorrows). This we know from Matthew is applied to His healing their diseases and sicknesses. The Lord that healed them entered, as Man, into all the sorrows of which they had to be healed. Then came their thinking Him "stricken and smitten of God" - the last word is that used elsewhere for "smiting" - mukeh (smitten of). I think, the hu ("He," verse 5) does not give "yet He." It is much more emphatic. Kholayenu hu nasa (He hath borne our griefs) v'hu m'kholal, etc. (and He was wounded), etc. This gives the force of "and" (vav). He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and He was wounded for their transgressions. They had esteemed the hand of God out against Himself, as under God's displeasure Himself, but "because of the transgression of my people" the stroke (nega, verse 8) was upon Him.

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.

It is not true, however, that in this sense Christ bore our sicknesses; for Matthew applies this text from the prophet (Isa. 53:4) to the Lord's ministry of grace among men, and not to the cross, or to atonement (Matt. 8:16-17), He "took" and "bare," in loving sympathy, not in atonement, all the sorrows and the sufferings which His hand relieved. The atonement for sickness, of which people speak, could not, indeed, be needed. If sin be atoned for, mercy can come in any where to relieve and heal the body: that which meets the cause can of course meet its effects also.

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).

This passage is taken from the prophecy relating to Jehovah's righteous Servant, as it was translated from the Hebrew in the Greek Septuagint Version. It is a prophetic utterance of what the believing and suffering Jewish remnant will penitently confess in a future day when they recognise their guilt in rejecting and crucifying their Messiah. "Surely he has borne our griefs [sicknesses] and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."

The passage in Isaiah evidently does not refer, as the verses which immediately follow do (Isa. 53:5-6), to the atoning and substitutionary sufferings of Christ, but to the effects of His service among men which the Jews, blinded by unbelief, regarded as a visitation from God, so that they said, "He is mad"; "this man is not of God"; "He has a demon," esteeming Him to be a Gehazi, a Uzziah, "stricken, smitten of God and afflicted."

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).

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.

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.

"Surely our sicknesses (or, griefs) he bore and carried our sorrows, and we regarded him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him, and with his stripes was healing to us. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid (or, made to light) upon him the iniquity of us all" (vers. 4-6).

It is well that we have the divine application of ver. 4 in the Gospel of Matthew (8:17), where it is cited from the Septuagint as "Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases." It is not meant that He suffered under them as a matter of fact; but that He took them on His spirit and was burdened by their weight, whilst He removed them by His gracious intervention. He was perfect in this respect as in all others. What a contrast with Moses in Egypt inflicting scourges on the oppressors of Israel and despisers of the "I am"! and with Elijah in the midst of apostate Israel recalling the guilty king and people from Baal to Jehovah! Here we have God in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning to them their offences, but not yet the sinless One made sin for us that we might become God's righteousness in Him. It was He who, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and power, went throughout doing good and healing all that were under the devil's power, because God was with Him. And it appears from this remarkable word of the prophet as applied by the apostle that as He healed in divine energy, He took the infirmities and the sicknesses as a load of sorrow on Himself before God.

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.