What is the substitutionary atonement?

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.

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.

1892 186 As a believer I had absolutely nothing to do with my sin's judgment on the cross, nor with the bearing of my sins there. The only begotten Son of God was there alone for me. "God made Him sin for us," not us with Him; "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree," not we bare our sins with Him. "For Christ hath also suffered for sins, the just for the unjust," etc. Here we have purely substitution. His alone was the judgment, just as surely as the sin and sins were ours alone; i.e., not His in any part (I speak the language of believers); no thought of association here, but purely substitution.

Moreover, He bore our sins in His own body. He was definitely our Substitute. We had sinned in our bodies, and having become a true Man, apart from sin, He bore our sins in His holy body as a sacrifice for sin. This He accomplished on the tree, for it was exclusively in His death that atonement was effected. He did not bear our sins during His life, but in His death, and we are healed by His stripes as Isaiah 53 had also declared.

Two things need a brief notice here. First, that (as should be obvious, but to some is not,) the hanging upon the tree is not itself the curse, but only marks the one upon whom the curse falls. The curse itself is no external thing, but a deep reality in the soul of him that bears it. This was the wrath upon sin which Christ bare for us, the forsaking of God, which, had it not been borne, assuredly no blessing could have been for any.

It might be asked by one who has come to Christ: How is it that my sins could be forgiven? Here we find the divine answer: That on God's holy Lamb our iniquities were laid: that "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree;" that God dealt with Him in justice, pouring out upon Him the judgment that we deserved. As our hymn expresses it: "O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head! Our load was laid on Thee; Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead — To bear all ill for me. A victim led, Thy blood was shed; Now there's no load for me."

Unspeakably solemn is it to consider that the holy and beloved Son of God, Himself knowing no sin, yet as "made sin for us," entered into that awful darkness, and was tried by the fire of God's wrath against it. So indeed it was. He was the Substitute under our penalty, and endured the penalty. Ours it was of course, not His; but He endured it, and endured it as the necessity of holiness, to set His people free.

So were we condemned, so lay we under the curse of the broken law, and yet we who believe are now free from it, even though we have not borne the penalty. But how in righteousness can that be? Behold for answer that central gibbet on Calvary. Impaled thereon hangs One who did no sin, who had fulfilled the law in every jot of it, and who found His delight in so doing. The law had no judgment for Him, and death had no claim upon Him. Yet He bore the curse of the law and died for US. He met its full demands by the sacrifice of Himself. He was there as our substitute, and in our stead He paid the penalty, and we died in Him.

Right at the beginning of our meditation we find something that is an eternal joy to our hearts. There is a judgment that every sinner deserves-eternal punishment in hell. But the believer knows that this punishment will never reach him because Another has already borne the judgment in his stead. In the three hours of darkness on the cross of Calvary our blessed Lord bore the entire weight of divine wrath. "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me" (Ps. 42: 7b), but "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it" (Song of Sol. 8: 7). And why did He take all this upon Himself? Oh, our hearts know the answer. It was for you and me. He bore the judgment of God for all those who have come to Him as their Saviour in repentance and faith. The words which a future remnant in Israel will utter can surely be applied to us: "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" (Isa. 53: 5).