Now please take your Bibles and turn in Isaiah to chapter 53. A couple of years ago, we started a series looking at Jesus in Psalms and Isaiah, and we've made it up to Isaiah 53. So if you'll find that passage, middle of the Bible and to the right, you'll find Isaiah and then 53. like a plane coming in for a smooth landing. Before approaching verse four and five last week, we considered some thoughts having to do with substitution. We talked about substitution and some practical things in life, and then we talked about substitution in the scriptures. So verse 4 and 5 address substitution very, very directly. So why don't we read together verse 1 down through verse number 5 of Isaiah 53. Verse 1, who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted. 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's very clear when you study the scriptures that the meaning of substitution, the truth of substitution, while it's not found as a word in the Bible, it is absolute in its meaning. For example, sin's imputation of his sin to him and then to the rest of humanity, Paul looked at it so absolutely that he said, we all sinned. Or it could be said, Romans 3.23 and 5.12, we all did sin. So that when he sinned, we all sinned. That's how absolute it was. So he was the substitute, the representative for all of humanity, and the absoluteness of that sin tells us of the rest of the absoluteness. Then sin's imputation, to the last Adam is also pictured in the Bible as being absolute. It tells us that he bore our sin in his body on the tree. So very, very particular, our sin, his body on the tree. Peter also says he died the just for the unjust. Jesus said he came to give his life a ransom for the many. Paul put it so directly that he spoke of blotting out the handwriting of the ordinances or the law that was against us and contrary to us and taking it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. Very absolute, the way he's picturing it. Also says that we were redeemed from the curse of the law with him being made a curse for us, substitution. And then listen to this in Hebrews 1 in verse 3. It says that when he had himself, and then it's put in a reflexive pronoun, when he himself by himself had purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. He didn't sit down until the sins were purged. The sins were purged, that was one thing, and then his session in heaven, being seated, ascended to sit by the Father, that is a different thing. Then Paul also says, the writer of Hebrews says, for by one offering, he has perfected forever THEM THAT ARE SANCTIFIED. SO THE SCRIPTURES PRESENT THIS TRUTH OF SUBSTITUTION AS BEING VERY ABSOLUTE. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE GARDEN WAS ABSOLUTE, WHAT HAPPENED ON THE CROSS WAS ABSOLUTE, AND WHAT WE'RE GOING TO SEE IS THAT WHAT HE DID FOR US WAS ABSOLUTE. So we ask, what is the result? Well, the result may be as stated most clearly in 2 Corinthians 5 and 21 when it says that he made him, that is, the father made the son, that's by imputation, to him, made him to be sin for us. There's your substitution. He knew no sin. He didn't know it personally at all, knew about it, saw it, it was laid up on him, but he didn't know it in his heart and mind. And then he says that we might or would be made the righteousness of God in him. He didn't say that we were made righteous, but we were made the righteousness. So you have an equal and absolute exchange of sin to Christ and righteousness to his people. God made Christ to be sin. So close was he to sin and sin so close to him that it was inseparable. So that when you looked at Christ, what you saw on the cross was sin and identified him with that sin. Therefore, that righteousness by turn is also identified with us, though we are not in any way righteous within ourself. So it's very clear. Adam sinned to me. my sin to Christ, his righteousness then to me, or to his people." So, it says in Romans 5 and 10, we were reconciled to God. by the death of his son. That's talking about substitution, his death for his people. And then it's illustrated in Romans 5 by the great comparison of 10 comparison statements in chapter 5 of Romans 12 through 21. And at the end of that passage, he names it grace. He says, this is what grace is. You cannot understand grace A man cannot preach grace. We cannot truly sing about grace unless we know the absoluteness of the substitution who died for the Lord's people. So Paul could say then in Romans 5 and 9, before he comes to that passage, being now JUSTIFIED BY or IN CONNECTION WITH HIS BLOOD. SO THAT IS A LITTLE BIT OF THE TRUTH OF BIBLICAL SUBSTITUTION. SO WHY DON'T WE JUMP ON IN HERE TO VERSE 4 AND 5 AND LET'S CONSIDER SOME OF WHAT HE IS SAYING TO US. Surely, he says. You know, in the New Testament where you have those verses where it says, truly or truly, truly, well, you could put that right here. So, truly or truly, And then it says that he hath borne our griefs and he hath carried our sorrows. So that would be a parallel, so those statements are speaking of the same thing, that he has borne our griefs and he has carried our sorrows. Now, you'll notice that it's spoken in past tense, and yet what we also know is that this is future tense. If you look down to verse 11, for example, where it says in the middle of that verse that he shall So you have past tense, and you have future tense. But the question would be, you would go to a higher authority to know, well, how should we look at this? And I'll tell you exactly where you should go, and that is to Luke 22, verse 37. If you don't know this verse, I suggest you write it down here. So anytime you look at this, you know what Jesus meant about this, and this is what he said. THIS THAT IS WRITTEN, HE'S TALKING ABOUT ISAIAH 53, PARTICULARLY ABOUT VERSE 12, BUT ALL OF ISAIAH 53, THIS THAT IS WRITTEN MUST YET BE ACCOMPLISHED. SO HE WANTED THEM TO KNOW IT'S NOT ACCOMPLISHED YET. IT MUST YET BE ACCOMPLISHED. AND HE SAID, IT'S GOING TO BE ACCOMPLISHED IN ME. SO IT IS YET TO BE ACCOMPLISHED AND IT'S ACCOMPLISHED IN ME. HE IS THE SUFFERING SERVANT. He is that one who's being spoken of here. And, oh, if we miss that, then we have certainly missed a great deal of importance in Scripture. He is the substitute. He has borne our griefs with it all of that being in the future. What about this word, borne? Well, we read a few moments ago from Genesis 7 where it says the ark was lifted up and lifted up, the water came. I don't know how long it took, but there were days and that water came flowing out of the heavens. But it not only came from the heavens, what we learned there is the great depths were opened up. We don't really have an idea how much water there is in the great depths of the oceans. But the depths were opened up. And it tells us then that the waters came forth and they were high enough that they were above all of the mountains. And it tells us they were high enough that it was about 45, we can say 50 feet if we want to. So about 50 feet above all of the highest places upon the earth. When you think of five inches, Five feet then, five feet above the highest, 50 inches above, not quite five feet, but 50 inches above the highest place, that is a lot of water. But setting up on that water, is the ark, standing up on the face of the ark. Well, that's what this tells us, that He has borne our griefs. He has carried our sorrows, not some of them, but all of them. He has borne them above the highest hills and the mountains until they were covered. And so as sinful earth was out of sight, Sin itself was born out of sight. Surely he hath born our griefs and our sorrows. Our griefs and our sorrows are parallels and they are metaphors for the sin sickness that all of us know. Grief over sin, misery due to sin. And the Bible gives us a word for misery, the answer to misery. And the answer to misery in the Bible is the word mercy. Mercy is the answer to the misery and the grief of sin. Grace is the word for forgiveness and acceptance from sin. Now, what you find in the scriptures is that grace and mercy go together. Do you remember when Moses asked God to reveal himself to him? And God revealed himself, and this is how he did it. He said, I will be gracious. to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. So there you have grace and mercy together. Grace, that is the forgiveness, and mercy has to do with taking away the misery. So grace answers one, misery answers the other. David knew something about grace and mercy. He knew something about misery. And Psalm 51 where he's talking about his sin with Bathsheba and what he did with her husband. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. David all of his life, David all of his life knew misery. We read those Psalms and how wonderful they were, how wonderful they are. They were written, now they are to us. And yet out of great misery, out of great pain, out of great grief, God used his messenger to give us these psalms so that in our times of misery, we can go back and read those psalms. And, of course, anytime they're good, they're good for us to read. But how can we ever go past Psalm 23 where the Lord is our shepherd? We find places in the Psalms where the first Psalm where he is the good shepherd. All the way through it is talking with us about Christ. Surely he hath borne our griefs, our sin sickness, and he has carried our sorrows just As the ark was lifted up, he lifted up those griefs and those sorrows, those sin sorrows upon himself. But then notice the second clause here in verse number four, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. You'll notice he began with surely, and then he begins this second The second clause here with yet. So those two words are like the same thing, but the opposite. So truly, truly, and then yet is to bring a negative tone. It brings in the negative and the sorrow that is here. Yet we, yet we did esteem him stricken. smitten of God and afflicted. You'll notice there's something here that we did and there's something here that God did. We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, so God did that, and afflicted. GOD AFFLICTED HIM. SO IT'S WHAT WE DID AND WHAT GOD DID. HOWEVER, WHAT WE DID WAS OUT OF SELFISHNESS AND SINFULNESS. NOW, YOU MAY BE THINKING IN YOUR MIND, WELL, I WASN'T THERE. NO, BUT IF YOU HAD BEEN THERE, YOU WOULD HAVE DONE WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE DID BECAUSE THEY WERE NO DIFFERENT, NO BETTER, NO WORSE. WE'RE NO DIFFERENT, NO BETTER, NO WORSE. THAT'S WHY HE PUTS IT HERE IN THIS FIRST PERSON. did this and what we did was out of selfishness and sinfulness, but what God did was out of love and justice. Here's what it says about what we did in Matthew 27 and verse 28. It says, for he, that is Pilate, knew for envy they had delivered him. So they delivered him out of their own selfishness and their sinfulness. And the word delivery that he uses here is the Greek word, you'll like this word, paradidimi. Didymi is the word for to give or to place. This is to give. And here para is beside, is to give over. It is to give up. It is to give beside. It is to hand over. And that's exactly what they did. They handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers IN ORDER FOR THEM TO CRUCIFY HIM. SO THEY HANDLED JESUS OUT OF SELFISHNESS, OUT OF ENVY. IT ALSO TELLS US IN ROMANS 24 AND 25 THAT HE WAS DELIVERED, SO THERE'S OUR WORD AGAIN, AND THEN THIS TIME, BECAUSE OF OUR SINS, BUT THIS ISN'T MAN HANDING HIM OVER. IT'S THE SAME WORD, BUT HERE IT IS GOD WHO DELIVERED HIM, WHO HANDED HIM OVER. BUT GOD HANDED HIM OVER OUT OF LOVE AND JUSTICE. SO ALWAYS CAREFUL TO KEEP IN MIND THAT WHY GOD HANDED HIM OVER WAS IN ORDER TO SATISFY HIS JUSTICE. and his love is the moving cause, always behind his redemptive causes. So he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken. That word stricken is a word for plague, or the word for leprosy. So what it pictures here is we did esteem him stricken, He had to bear our leprosy. So just picture yourself from head to toe covered with sores, a very communicable disease so you couldn't be around family, you couldn't be around friends, you couldn't go to the theater, you couldn't go to the grocery store, you couldn't go any place that you like because you are stricken. But then it also says smitten, stricken, and then smitten. And that word smitten is a word that means wounded. He was wounded. And we're going to see that word again in the next verse, but he's wounded here. He's stricken and he's smitten. He's wounded. And then the word afflicted and the word afflicted is like the word humble. It means to put down or to bring lowly. So he was, made very lowly. Think of how they treated him, what they did to him. Took him and put him in jail and then got him up the next morning, made him bear his own cross. They treated him in a most humble way. All these things happened to Jesus by the hand of the Heavenly Father. He filled the place of judge and He executed righteousness, redemption, and justification in Him. If you'll skip down to verse 10, it pleased the Lord, pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It was a part of God's plan. Hard for us to understand this, at least it is for me, I guess for you. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It pleased the Lord to put Him to grief. TO MAKE HIS SOUL AN OFFERING FOR SIN. IT PLEASED THE LORD TO DO THIS. IT WAS HIS WILL. WHY DID IT PLEASE THE LORD TO DO THIS? BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY. ONLY WAY THAT SUBSTITUTION COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED. THE ONLY WAY THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS COULD BE WON. THE ONLY WAY THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS COULD BE EARNED, ACCEPTED, ESTABLISHED. THE ONLY WAY THAT GOD COULD JUSTIFY HIS PEOPLE. was that the Lord Jesus Christ became the absolute substitute, so God, out of love and justice, did these things to the son. Now let's step on into verse number five. But he was wounded, so you'll notice he begins with a conjunction here, but, but he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities. He was wounded. The word here that is used for wounded is the word for desecrated, but probably the best translation of this word is the word pierced. He was pierced for our transgressions. Now, the only way that he could be the one to shed blood, there had to be bloodshed because God would not redeem without there being bloodshed. If he was going to shed blood, that means that he had to be pierced. You don't bleed unless the outer part of your body, which we'd call skin, that skin has to be pierced. So how did they pierce him? Well, let me give you a little idea about this. First thing is they pierced his back because they took him and they laid him across an apparatus where he would be down on his knees and his back laid out and his arms outstretched, not out like this, but down and outstretched, and he's out like this, hands resting on something they would have. No doubt it was bloodstain from many other times of someone having been scourged, but that's what it says in John 19 and 1 when Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And a Roman scourge was made out of leather that would be maybe three feet in long, three feet in length. And they would have pieces of brass or bone or a sharp rock. and all of those maybe together tied to the ends. And someone who was trained to do this, I've talked with you about this before, that Roman soldier had done this many times. He would lay that across the back and from his shoulders down all the way to the lower part of his back would have been ripped open. You would have been able to have seen the inside of his body So there was ripping and tearing and the piercing of his body. That's the first thing they did to pierce him. And then the second thing that they did to pierce him was to pierce his brow or his scalp. So it tells us that they took a crown of thorns and they put it up on his head. And so when we think of thorns, we might think of little thorns, but these would have been a large-size thorns that they made and put together and put it up on his head. And they're very careful in verse 2 to say they did that. And then in verse 5, when he came forth after he's been scourged, so he scourged They put the crown of thorns on, and while he's wearing those thorns, he comes forth. And in Matthew 27 and 29 it says, But it also tells us in verse 30 that they spit on him and they took the reed and they smote him in the head. Now the word smote, It's a word that's not a word we use very often. Maybe you can think of the word strike if you want to, to strike him. But it's put in an imperfect tense, imperfect tense verb. So an imperfect tense verb means this. It means something that has happened, but it's happened repeatedly. over and over, on and on. So there's a stopping point out there, but the imperfect tense doesn't answer that question where it stops. It just tells us that it's a repeated action. If it's a present tense, it's ongoing action. It means they continue to do it. But that isn't a present tense, and it's not a past tense. It's an imperfect tense. They struck him, they waited, they struck him again. We don't know how many times. We know that the scourging probably was 39 times. Would it have also been that they beat him with this sharp reed, this sharp piece of grass that would have been strong about the head also 39 times? I can't speak to that. I just know what we're told, and that is that they repeatedly beat him about the head with that sharp piece of reed. So his back is pierced, his scalp is pierced, all around his head is pierced. And then, of course, you know that his hands and his feet were pierced. When they finally got him to the cross and they laid him upon that cross, Jesus tells us this is going to happen. In Psalm 22 and verse 16, it says, they pierced my hands and feet. Jesus knew exactly what they were going to do, and the kind of death that he was going to die would be the death of the cross. So they pierced his feet with nails and his hands with nails, and he's hung there. He wouldn't have been high. He would have been low down close to the ground not not up high off off the ground Maybe as his feet were two or three feet off of the ground I don't know for sure but just a short distance off of the ground because they could still hit him they could still see spit on him, they could still abuse him while he was up on the cross, but they pierced his hands and his feet. Zechariah put it this way, he said, they shall look upon me, or in Zechariah, they shall look upon me whom they have And then John quotes this Zechariah passage in Revelation 1 and 7, So this truth of Jesus being pierced is over and over and over again. One more thing, it's not enough that they pierced It's not enough that they pierced his back. It's not enough that they pierced his appendages, his hand and his feet, but it also, they also threw a spear into his side. So he's down low enough that the soldier took that spear and thrust it into his side. And when they thrust it into his side, most likely was down on his right side. And when it did, that's when it says that water and blood came forth. Now, the blood came forth, we can understand that, but where would the water come from? Well, the water has to do with that sack that is around the heart. But his heart has sagged and fallen in his body as he's hanging upon the cross and all the weight coming down his heart has fallen and that spear pierced that sack. and the blood and the water poured forth. So it says, one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came forth water and blood. He was wounded. He was pierced. He was pierced for or because of our iniquities. We always need to understand this word for doesn't mean in order to. But it means because of in these situations. So he was pierced for our transgressions and he was bruised for our iniquities. Bruised means to break into pieces. or to crush, or to smite, or to oppress. And that's what they did with him all the way through. It's for our transgressions and for our iniquities. That word for, again, is a word that speaks of substitution. What he did for us, we should have endured ourself. I should have been pierced. You should have been bruised. but he was pierced, he was bruised for, in the place of, because of our transgressions, because of our iniquities. To transgress is to step over the boundaries of the law. Iniquities, think of it in the English, in the English, and it means an inequity, something that's unequal, an inequity or an injustice. So what are we unjust with? What are we unequal with? Well, God's holiness, God's righteousness, God's character. We are totally unequal. We're way over here. God is way over here. Totally unequal. But Jesus Christ, for our inequities, He was bruised. So it was delivered because of our offenses. Now, let me look at it a different way. You have these verses in the Bible where you have the, what I would call the you pair phrases. You've heard me speak of these before. You pair is a preposition that means in behalf of, in behalf of. So there are many of them, I'll give you two of them. In John 5, 6, Christ died for, you pair, for the ungodly. How could we have been forgiven and justified from before the foundation of the earth if he died for and behalf of the ungodly? And then in 5.8, it says that he died for us. Again, you have substitution. You have in behalf of. It's in our place that he died. Transgression is rebellion. David says, I acknowledge my sin and my inequity, have I not hid? I said, I will confess my transgressions, my overstepping the law. So there are those two things. David said again, I acknowledge my transgressions. When Paul speaks of this in 1 Timothy 2.14, that is of this truth, he says that Adam and Eve's action was a transgression. It was a rebellion. It was an overstepping of the law. And the law that had been given was, do this and you'll live, don't do that and you will die. And Adam did what he shouldn't have and death came. And iniquity also, think of sin in a conscious sense. Israel returning to sin. Jeremiah said they turned back unto their iniquities. They have refused to hear my word. The chastisement of our peace, it says, was upon him. The word chastisement, nobody even likes to think of the word chastise. What does that word mean? Well, it means to be disciplined, it means to be instructed, and it means to be done often with corporal punishment. Proverbs 13, 24 says, he that loves his son chastens him. So parents who love their children chasten them, they control them. They teach them how to behave. There's no need for me to speak of going out in the public and you see children that are so very much out of control. Their parents either don't know how, they haven't been taught or don't believe it, I'm not sure, but the children out of control. which is going to lead to adults out of control. The chastisement of our peace. Now, this word peace is a wonderful word in the Bible. It appears over 237 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. The Hebrews had a word for it, shalom. Sometimes they would greet someone and say, shalom, and it's like our saying, how are you doing? That word, shalom. But it also is a word that means welfare. So when Joseph met his brothers and he asked them, how are you doing? He's inquiring to them, how is your welfare? This is peace with God. Gideon built an altar unto the Lord, and what did he call it? He called it Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Peace. Our Greek word for peace is herene. We get the female name Irene from this word. It is the removal of enmity resulting in reconciliation. There is objective herene, and that is peace with God. There is subjective herene, or peace, and that is the peace of God. In Romans 5.1, it really means both. Both we have peace with God and we have the peace of God. Paul refers to the gospel in Romans 10, 5 as the gospel of peace. Let me speak quickly about this last phrase. And with his stripes we are healed. Why does he close this such an important statement here in verse 4 and 5 with by his stripes we are healed? Well, a stripe represents a penalty of the law. So there was a stripe the way they thought of it. It was a stripe for every law that was broken. For each law there was a stripe. So you know the phrase, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? That actually was intended to restrain from being an abuse of the law. So it's one stripe for one breaking of the law. Well, he's talking about a spiritual healing. He's talking about healing our minds and our hearts, and so that our hearts are able to rest in his hope, and ultimately do we have the promise of a full healing of our bodies. There may be some healings along the way, and actually we may speak of every day our body is healing itself. God has given us a way for our bodies to be healed. In Psalm 103, it says, who heals all our diseases. I know that there are some religious groups who want to take that and press that we shouldn't have sickness. If you had faith, you wouldn't be sick. But actually we're up on this earth and our bodies are decaying all the time, so sickness and breakdowns in our body are fairly normal. But these diseases are ultimately going to be taken care of with a new body and a new soul. Now, I ask this question in closing. What is the substitution for? FOR WHOM DID JESUS SUBSTITUTE HIMSELF? WELL, IF YOU GO BACK TO VERSE 1, YOU'LL SEE. WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? IT'S TO WHOM IT IS REVEALED. WE TALKED ABOUT THAT WHEN WE COVERED IT. YOU DON'T BELIEVE IF IT'S NOT REVEALED. YOU JUST CAN'T. A PERSON CANNOT BELIEVE IF IT'S NOT REVEALED. BUT EVERYONE TO WHOM GOD REVEALS THE GOSPEL No one believes without it being revealed, but everyone to whom it is revealed, they believe. That's the meaning of verse one. But now, we also ask, what is the revelation? Well, he tells us, and that is the condescension in verse two and three, and the substitution of Christ. The condescension, Christ lowering himself and him substituting himself. Never confuse the substitution and the revelation. Substitution took place 2,000 years ago at the cross. Revelation takes place in time and experience in the course of life. Look to nothing beside and outside of or in addition to Jesus Christ and his substitution. Their sins were forgiven, ransom was paid, and righteousness was made unto the justification of God's people. By that, God was satisfied, and our misery was relieved. Let's pray together. Father, would you take these words to our hearts? May your word be understandable to us. I pray that you would bring your sheep into the fold, cause them to hear and know the Savior, Jesus Christ. Bless all of us who have gathered together and those who are listening wherever they are. Here's for the mercy and sake of Christ. Amen. you you