What does it mean that Christ was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5)?

Now 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 a doubt it predicts truth which is absolutely central to our soul's salvation, and in 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 procured them, were not mine but His. In all this He was my Substitute.

This thought is again emphasised in verse 6, and it is made plain that His substitutionary work was the fruit of an act of Jehovah, for He it was who laid our sins upon Him. In these verses, we must remember, the "we" and the "us" are those who believe, whether ourselves today or the godly remnant of Israel presently. And those who believe are those who have first confessed their sinnership; all going astray like lost sheep, though the way we took may have differed in each case. Sin is lawlessness; the doing of our own will, regardless of God's will, and the going of our own way independently of Him.

Not only did He bear “our griefs” and carry “our sorrows” in His precious sympathy, when the nation considered, contrariwise, that the weight which lay upon Him was because He was “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted”—because God was against Him; but faith now sees “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” In sympathy He bore our griefs: in atonement He bore the punishment due to our sins. Blessed Saviour! “the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” There was no other way; but thanks be to God, we can now say, “by His stripes we are healed.’’ The stripes were His: the healing is ours.

When the Lord was crucified, Israel viewed His death as the judgment of God upon Him for His sins, little realising that it was indeed God’s judgment, but for their sins. This the prophet realises, and for the remnant, godly and repentant, he says, “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.” This will be the language of the repentant remnant in the coming day, when they look upon the Lord upon they pierced.

But the wounds, the bruises, the stripes that bring blessing are not those that He received from the hands of men; they tell us what our sins merited, and what He bore for us at the hand of a righteous and holy God, when He bore our sins. For this work was not only for Israel, but also for us. All who believe on Him can take up the words uttered by the prophet, and know the blessedness of having Him as our substitute on the cross.

In connection with His suffering for sins Peter quotes part of Isaiah 53 verse 5: ‘by whose stripes ye were healed.' It is important to understand that this does not refer to what men did to the Lord. They ploughed long furrows on his back, scourging him with a bone or metal tipped whip (Psalm 129:3; Matt. 27:26). That was terrible but what Isaiah 53 verse 5 refers to was far more terrible because it describes the judgement that God laid on him because of the sins He was bearing: ‘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.' It should be borne in mind that where the emphasis is upon what Christ suffered from men the issue is always judgement upon men (e.g. Psalm 69). But when the emphasis is upon what He suffered from God for sin and sins the issue is in blessing to men (e.g. Psalm 22). Peter turns the fact that Christ suffered for sins to practical account too. God does not want his children to suffer governmentally because of their sins but ‘that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.'

He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. He was taking up questions that had to be taken up if we were to be blest. If we were to be received into everlasting favour He must suffer in the darkness. Only by His stripes, by His bruising could we be healed — and when we read in the Scriptures of His bruising we must not connect that with the blows that He received from the fists of brutal men or of the nails that pierced His hands and feet. He was bruised physically, but His soul was bruised also. His soul was made an offering for sin. He was there beneath the stroke of Divine justice that God's throne might stand in everlasting rectitude and that His grace might pour out in salvation to you and me. And no tongue of mortal can tell what those sufferings meant to Him, no heart can conceive them. He suffered there under the weight of God's judgment. God hid His face from Him, He sank beneath those waves of judgment, down, down into depths beneath which there is nothing; down into the ocean of divine wrath against sin that we might be "brought to God" that we might be made fit for the Father's presence.

As He hung upon that Cross He was just as holy as He was when He sat on the Throne and created angels. Just as holy in His perfect manhood as He was in His Godhead glory. Then if Jesus is holy, and if God is holy, what is the meaning of this cry? Oh, my friends, we owe our salvation to it. It is because we were unholy, because we were sinful, because we were far from God and unfit for His presence. It was because of this that Jesus was forsaken for there in that darkness He was made sin for us. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed. He was taking up questions that had to be taken up if we were to be blest. If we were to be received into everlasting favour He must suffer in the darkness. Only by His stripes, by His bruising could we be healed—and when we read in the Scriptures of His bruising, don't connect that with the blows that He received from the fists of men or of the nails that pierced His hands and feet. He was bruised physically, but His soul was bruised also. His soul was made an offering for sin. He was there beneath the stroke of Divine justice that God's throne might stand in everlasting rectitude and that His grace might pour out in salvation to you and me. And no tongue of mortal can tell what those sufferings meant to Him, no heart can conceive them. But He suffered there under the weight of God's judgment. God hid His face from Him, He sank beneath those waves of judgment, down, down into depths beneath which there is nothing; down into the ocean of divine wrath against sin that we might be saved, that we might be “brought to God” that we might be made fit for the Father's presence. Thus He suffered! Oh, yes, our Christianity will have no foundation if we pass over this. Any change brought about in our lives that leaves this out will be but a temporary, a superficial change. But if we understand this it will go right down into the very roots of our being and change us there. Oh, my beloved friends, what a consideration, almost too sacred for human comment is that cry that broke from the soul of the suffering Jesus amid the darkness of the Cross. Throughout all Eternity we are going to bless Him for it. He is to be the theme of the ransomed saints throughout those countless ages. We shall never exhaust the theme, we shall never be able to tell out the greatness of it, but blessed be God for the grace that has anointed our eyes and given us to see in that Sufferer upon the Cross the very salvation of God. At that price He has won us; that was the cost. He gave all for us. Oh let us bow this night at the feet of this great Saviour saying, “Lord, I am Thine, I am Thine.”

And further, when Jesus was bearing our sins on the tree, we know that there was unsparingly poured out upon Him all that justice could inflict in the condemnation of sin; as He said, The Son of man must be lifted up. Yes, it must be, because the righteous claims of God demanded just punishment for our sins. On this account, He was numbered with the transgressors, and bare our sins in His own body on the tree. Hence He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. He was oppressed, afflicted, stricken; above all, it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, to put Him to grief, to forsake Him; so that He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" What all these atoning sufferings were, and the travail of soul that He passed through, no creature can comprehend, no tongue can tell. We know that His soul was made an offering for sin, and that "He poured out His soul unto death." Oh, the untold depths of agony and suffering which that blessed One so lovingly and willingly endured for us! Let us ponder what God has revealed of "the death of the cross" till our souls are melted, and peace fills every corner of our hearts! How loudly the atoning death of Jesus speaks to us of the righteousness of God! Though He was the righteous One, yet He endured all the righteous vengeance due to sin in His own self on the cross, and completely drained the cup of wrath, so that He could say, "It is finished." Thus in His death the wages of sin were fully dealt out, for He "died for our sins according to the Scriptures." He died unto sin once. All the demands of righteousness were fully met, and peace was made. There righteousness and peace kissed each other. How then was it possible that He should be holden of death? The debt having been justly cancelled, how could the prisoner be longer detained?

We have redemption through the blood of Christ, even the forgiveness of sins, because God made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us. Our sins were laid upon Him, and He was made a curse for us. In this way He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. The wrath of God was thus poured out upon Him instead of us, so that "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed?' Hence, on the ground of strictest justice and holiness, God can speak of us as a redeemed people, washed from our sins in the blood of Jesus, and that our sins and iniquities He will remember no more. The alone ground, therefore, of forgiveness of sins is not our works, our experience, our frames, or our feelings, but the blood of Christ; for without the shedding of blood is no remission; and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Nothing therefore relieves man's guilt and fears, or removes the burden from the conscience, or speaks peace to a sin-convicted soul, but "THE BLOOD OF CHRIST."

253 I am told it was to justify us, to make us righteous. All true; and His not sparing His own Son was the infinite love of God. But what was Christ doing and suffering then in order to that end? We must not slip away from it by confounding the effect in believers and the work or suffering which wrought that effect. God does look upon believers with complacency as righteous in Christ, and the result is far greater and more admirable than all that Dr. W. speaks of. He has obtained for us to be partakers of His own glory according to the counsels of God; but the wrath of God, His judicial wrath against the sin, was removed by Christ's being made sin for us and bearing our sins, not by our state in consequence of it, which is the effect of that. "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." If the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, He was substituted in drinking that dreadful cup for us. He was our (believers') representative there. God dealt with Him so because of our sins which were laid upon Him, and for that reason peace comes to us; not because we became actually righteous: our peace is the effect of His chastisement. You may quarrel with the word 'appease,' and confound judicial stripes with 'hatred'; but do not let us lose what Dr. W. does not deny, though he argues it away in taking 'wrath' for 'hatred,' and making the ground of our peace our actual state of righteousness; whereas we are made the righteousness of God in Christ because He has been made sin for us; 2 Cor. 5:21.

(b) The Work of Christ. In this we have the second of the divine "musts." "Ye," said our Lord, "must be born again"; and now He says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so MUST THE SON OF MAN BE LIFTED UP: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:14-15). But why must the Son of man be lifted up — crucified? It was a moral necessity; for without the shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb. 9:22); because, as taking the sinner's place, He must be "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities" (Isa. 53:5); because, inasmuch as we were under the judgment and condemnation of sin, He must die in our stead; for He "bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). It was, in a word, as the sinner's substitute that He must be "lifted up." The object of His being lifted up is, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (v. 15). He thus becomes the source of life, yea, in resurrection He is the life of every believer (Col. 3:3-4); for it is in being born again that this life is communicated through the power of the quickening Spirit. But He is the life of those who believe, because of the character of His death, because He was the sinner's substitute on the cross; for it was in death that He expiated, made atonement for our sins, and thereby removed every barrier out of the way between a God of grace and lost sinners. Hence He could say, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25). It is thus life out of death, life in a crucified and risen Saviour, because "through death He destroyed him that had the power of death" (Heb. 2:14); for if the corn of wheat had not fallen into the ground and died, it must have remained alone; but having died, it brings forth much fruit. (John 12:24).