All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Parallel Translations
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All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
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All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
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All we like sheep did go astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all.
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Isaiah 53:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Peter 2:25 For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
- 1 Peter 3:18 Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit,
- Psalms 119:176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.
- Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.
- Romans 4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.
- Romans 3:10-19 As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God. They have all turned away. They have together become unprofitable. There is no one who does good, no, not so much as one.” “Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have used deceit.” “The poison of vipers is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace, they haven’t known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.
- James 5:20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
- Matthew 18:12-14 “What do you think? If a man has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine, go to the mountains, and seek that which has gone astray? If he finds it, most certainly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
- Luke 15:3-7 He told them this parable. “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
- Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.
- Isaiah 56:11 Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.
- Psalms 69:4 Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. Those who want to cut me off, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. I have to restore what I didn’t take away.
- Ezekiel 3:18 When I tell the wicked, ‘You will surely die;’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; that wicked man will die in his iniquity; but I will require his blood at your hand.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Meaning, the punishment of our iniquity, and not the…
Meaning, the punishment of our iniquity, and not the fault itself.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray;…
Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Ver. 6. All we, like sheep, have gone astray.] Gone of our own accords, as "longing to wander"; {Jer 14:10} to wander as sheep, lost sheep, than the which no creature is more apt to stray, and less able to return. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib. "The very swine accustomed to the trough, if he go abroad, yet at night will find the way home again. Not so the silly sheep. "Lo, ye were all as sheep going astray," saith Peter, "but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." {1Pe 2:25}
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We have turned every one to his own way.] Quo variae errorum formae innuuntur, dum suas quisque opiniones sectatur. Each one, as he is out of God’s way, so hath his own by way of wickedness to wander in; wherein yet, without a Christ, he cannot wander so far as to miss hell.
And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,] i.e., Of all his elect. The iniquity of us all he hath made to meet on him, so the Hebrew hath it; or, To light on him, even the full weight of his wrath and dint of his displeasure, for our many and mighty sins imputed unto him. Let the Jew jeer at this and say, that every fox must pay his own skin to the flayer; let the Romanist reject imputed righteousness, calling it putative, by a scoff; there is not anything that more supporteth a sinking soul than this "righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." {Php 3:9} This manus Christi, as nailed to the cross, is the only medicine for a sin sick soul, believe it.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain All we, all mankind, the Jews no less than…
All we, all mankind, the Jews no less than the Gentiles,
like sheep, which are simple and foolish creatures, and exceeding apt to straggle and lose themselves, have gone astray from God, and from the way of his precepts, in which he put our first parents, and in which he commanded us to walk.
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To his own way; in general, to the way and course of sin, which may well be called a man’s own way, as sins are called men’s own lusts, Jam 1:14; 2Pe 3:3, and elsewhere, because sin is natural to us, inherent in us, born with us, and very dear to us; and in particular, to those several paths of divers lusts which several men choose and follow, according to their differing opinions, inclinations, occasions, and circumstances.
Hath laid, Heb. hath made to meet, as all the rivers meet in the sea.
The iniquity; not properly, for so he knew no sin, 2Co 5:21; but the punishment of iniquity, as that word is most frequently used, as Gen 4:1:3; Lev 20:17, &c.; that which was due for all the sins of all his people, whether Jews or Gentiles, which must needs be so great and heavy a lead, that if he had not been God as well as man, he must have sunk under the burden of them. This was actually verified in Christ. And both this and divers other passages here do as manifestly and fully point at Christ, as if they were not a prophetical representation of things to come, but an historical relation of them after they were done. Nor do I see how they can be excused from the fearful wresting of the Scripture that expound these places of the prophet Jeremiah, of any other person but Christ.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain All we like sheep have gone astray,.... Here the…
All we like sheep have gone astray,.... Here the prophet represents all the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles; whom he compares to "sheep", not for their good qualities, but for their foolishness and stupidity; and particularly for their being subject to go astray from the shepherd, and the fold, and from their good pastures, and who never return of themselves, until they are looked up, and brought back by the shepherd, or owner of them; so the people of God, in a state of nature, are like the silly sheep, they go astray from God, are alienated from the life of him, deviate from the rule of his word, err from the right way, and go into crooked paths, which lead to destruction; and never return of themselves, of their own will, and by their own power, until they are returned, by powerful and efficacious grace, unto the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls; see Pe1 2:25 where the apostle has a manifest respect to this passage:
we have turned everyone to his own way; and that is an evil one, a dark and slippery one, a crooked one, the end of it is ruin; yet this is a way of a man's own choosing and approving, and in which he delights; and it may not only intend the way of wickedness in general, common to all men in a state of nature, but a particular way of sinning, peculiar to each; some are addicted to one sin, and some to another, and have their own way of committing the same sin; men turn their faces from God, and their backs upon him, and look to their own way, and set their faces towards it, and their hearts on it; and which seems right and pleasing to them, yet the end of it are the ways of death; and so bent are men on these ways, though so destructive, that nothing but omnipotent grace can turn them out of them, and to the Lord; and which is done in consequence of what follows:
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and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all; that is, God the Father, against whom we have sinned, from whom we have turned, and whose justice must be satisfied; he has laid on Christ, his own Son, the sins of all his elect ones; which are as it were collected together, and made one bundle and burden of, and therefore expressed in the singular number, "iniquity", and laid on Christ, and were bore by him, even all the sins of all God's elect; a heavy burden this! which none but the mighty God could bear; this was typified by laying of hands, and laying of sins upon the sacrifice, and putting the iniquities of Israel upon the head of the scapegoat, by whom they were bore, and carried away. The words may be rendered, "he made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all" (r); the elect of God, as they live in every part of the world, their sins are represented as coming from all quarters, east, west, north, and south; and as meeting in Christ, as they did, when he suffered as their representative on the cross: or "he made to rush, or fall upon him the iniquity of us all" (s); our sins, like a large and mighty army, beset him around, and fell upon him in a hostile manner, and were the cause of his death; by which means the law and justice of God had full satisfaction, and our recovery from ruin and destruction is procured, which otherwise must have been the consequence of turning to our own ways; so the ancient Jews understood this of the Messiah. R. Cahana (t) on these words, "binding his ass's colt to the choice vine", Gen 49:11 says,
"as the ass bears burdens, and the garments of travellers, so the King Messiah will bear upon him the sins of the whole world; as it is said, "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all",'' Isa 53:6.
(r) "fecit occarrere in eum iniquitatem omnium hostrum", Montanus; "occurrere fecit ei, vel irruere fecit in ilium", Vatablus. (s) "Incurrere fecit in eum", Cocceius, Vitringa, Forerius; "irruere fecit in ilium", Vatablus; sic Syr. "fecit ut incurreret iniquitas", Piscator. (t) Apud Galatin. de Cathol. Ver. I. 10. c. 6. p. 663, and Siphre in ib. l. 8. c. 20. p. 599.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain We - All mankind. Astray - From God. Have…
We - All mankind. Astray - From God. Have turned - In general, to the way of sin, which may well be called a man's own way, because sin is natural to us, inherent in us, born with us; and in particular, to those several paths, which several men chuse, according to their different opinions, and circumstances. Hath laid - Hebrew. hath made to meet, as all the rivers meet in the sea. The iniquity - Not properly, for he knew no sin; but the punishment of iniquity, as that word is frequently used. That which was due for all the sins of all mankind, which must needs be so heavy a load, that if he had not been God as well as man, he must have sunk under the burden.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. The iniquity of us all.] For עון…
Verse 6. The iniquity of us all.] For עון avon, "iniquity," the ancient interpreters read עונות avonoth, "iniquities," plural; and so the Vulgate in MS. Blanchini. And the Lord hath הפגיע בו hiphgia bo, caused to meet in him the iniquities of us all. He was the subject on which all the rays collected on the focal point fell. These fiery rays, which should have fallen on all mankind, diverged from Divine justice to the east, west, north, and south, were deflected from them, and converged in him. So the Lord hath caused to meet in him the punishment due to the iniquities of ALL.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 53:6. All we — All mankind; like sheep…
Isa 53:6. All we — All mankind; like sheep — Which are exceedingly apt to go astray, and lose themselves; have gone astray — From God, and from the way of truth and duty; of wisdom, piety, and virtue; of holiness and happiness. We have turned every one to his own way — In general, to the way of sin, which may well be called a man’s own way, because sin is natural to us, inherent in us, born with us; and, in particular, to those several paths which several men choose, according to their different opinions and circumstances. And the Lord hath laid — Hebrew, hath made to meet on him, as all the rivers meet in the sea. The iniquity of us all —
Not properly, for he knew no sin; but the punishment of iniquity, as the word עוןis frequently used. That which was due for all the sins of all mankind, which must needs be so heavy a load, that if he had not been God as well as man he must have sunk under the burden.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain All we, like sheep, have gone astray - This…
All we, like sheep, have gone astray - This is the penitent confession of those for whom he suffered. It is an acknowledgment that they were going astray from God; and the reason why the Redeemer suffered was, that the race had wandered away, and that Yahweh had laid on him the iniquity of all. Calvin says, ‘In order that he might more deeply impress on the minds of people the benefits derived from the death of Christ, he shows how necessary was that healing of which he had just made mention. There is here an elegant antithesis. For in ourselves we were scattered; in Christ we are collected together; by nature we wander, and are driven headlong toward destruction; in Christ we find the way by which we are led to the gate of life.’ The condition of the race without a Redeemer is here elegantly compared to a flock without a shepherd, which wanders where it chooses, and which is exposed to all dangers. This image is not unfrequently used to denote estrangement from God 1Pe 2:25 : ‘For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.’ Compare Num 27:17; 1Ki 22:17; Psa 119:176; Eze 34:5; Zec 10:2; Mat 9:36. Nothing could more strikingly represent the condition of human beings. They had wandered from God. They were following their own paths, and pursuing their own pleasures. They were without a protector, and they were exposed on every hand to danger.
We have turned every one to his own way - We had all gone in the path which we chose. We were like sheep which have no shepherd, and which wander where they please, with no one to collect, defend, or guide them. One would wander in one direction, and another in another; and, of course, solitary and unprotected. they would be exposed to the more danger. So it was, and is, with man. The bond which should have united him to the Great Shepherd, the Creator, has been broken. We have become lonely wanderers, where each one pursues his own interest, forms his own plans, and seeks to gratify his own pleasures, regardless of the interest of the whole. If we had not sinned, there would have been a common bond to unite us to God, and to each other. But now we, as a race, have become dissocial, selfish, following our own pleasures, and each one living to gratify his Own passions. What a true and graphic description of man! How has it been illustrated in all the selfish schemes and purposes of the race! And how is it still illustrated every day in the plans and actions of mortals!
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And the Lord hath laid on him - Lowth renders this, ‘Yahweh hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all.’ Jerome (the Vulgate) renders it, Posuit Dominns in eo - ‘The Lord placed on him the iniquity of us all.’ The Septuagint renders it. Κύριος παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἡμῶν Kurios paredōken auton tais hamartiais hēmōn - ‘The Lord gave him for our sins.’ The Chaldee renders it, ‘From the presence of the Lord there was a willingness (רעוא ra‛ăvâ') to forgive the sins of all of us on account of him.’ The Syriac has the same word as the Hebrew. The word used here (פגע pâga‛) means, properly, to strike upon or against, to impinge on anyone or anything, as the Greek πηγνύω pēgnuō. It is used in a hostile sense, to denote an act of rushing upon a foe (1Sa 22:17; to kill, to slay Jdg 8:21; Jdg 15:12; 2Sa 1:15. It also means to light upon, to meet with anyone Gen 28:11; Gen 32:2. Hence, also to make peace with anyone; to strike a league or compact Isa 64:4. It is rendered, in our English version, ‘reacheth to’ Jos 19:11, Jos 19:22, Jos 19:26-27, Jos 19:34; ‘came,’ Jos 16:7; ‘met’ and ‘meet’ Gen 32:1; Exo 23:4; Num 35:19; Jos 2:16; Jos 18:10; Rth 2:22; 1Sa 10:5; Isa 64:5; Amo 5:19; ‘fail’ Jdg 8:21; 1Sa 22:17; 2Sa 1:15; 1Ki 2:29; ‘entreat’ Gen 18:8; Rth 1:16; Jer 15:11; ‘make intercession’ Isa 59:16; Isa 53:12; Jer 7:16; Jer 27:18; Jer 36:25; ‘he that comes between’ Job 36:22; and ‘occur’ 1Ki 5:4. The radical idea seems to be that of meeting, occurring, encountering; and it means here, as Lowth has rendered it, that they were caused to meet on him, or perhaps more properly, that Yahweh caused them to rush upon him, so as to overwhelm him in calamity, as one is overcome or overwhelmed in battle. The sense is, that he was not overcome by his own sins, but that he encountered ours, as if they had been made to rush to meet him and to prostrate him. That is, he suffered in our stead; and whatever he was called to endure was in consequence of the fact that he had taken the place of sinners; and having taken their place, he met or encountered the sufferings which were the proper expressions of God’s displeasure, and sunk under the mighty burden of the world’s atonement.
The iniquity of us all - (See the notes at Isa 53:5). This cannot mean that he became a sinner, or was guilty in the sight of God, for God always regarded him as an innocent being. It can only mean that he suffered as if he had been a sinner; or, that he suffered that which, if he had been a sinner, would have been a proper expression of the evil of sin. It may be remarked here:
1. That it is impossible to find stronger language to denote the fact that his sufferings were intended to make expiation for sin. Of what martyr could it be said that Yahweh had caused to meet on him the sins of the world?
2. This language is that which naturally expresses the idea that he suffered for all people. It is universal in its nature, and naturally conveys the idea that there was no limitation in respect to the number of those for whom he died.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Astray. We belong to his fold, chap. xl. 11.,…
Astray. We belong to his fold, chap. xl. 11., John x. 11., and Luke xv. 4.--- Laid. Septuagint, "abandoned him to our sins," as to so many executioners; (Calmet) "and he, because he had been abused, opened," &c. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Penitent confession of believers and of Israel in the…
Penitent confession of believers and of Israel in the last days (Zac 12:10).
sheep . . . astray-- (Psa 119:176; Pe1 2:25). The antithesis is, "In ourselves we were scattered; in Christ we are collected together; by nature we wander, driven headlong to destruction; in Christ we find the way to the gate of life" [CALVIN]. True, also, literally of Israel before its coming restoration (Eze 34:5-6; Zac 10:2, Zac 10:6; compare with Eze 34:23-24; Jer 23:4-5; also Mat 9:36).
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laid--"hath made to light on Him" [LOWTH]. Rather, "hath made to rush upon Him" [MAURER].
the iniquity--that is, its penalty; or rather, as in Co2 5:21; He was not merely a sin offering (which would destroy the antithesis to "righteousness"), but "sin for us"; sin itself vicariously; the representative of the aggregate sin of all mankind; not sins in the plural, for the "sin" of the world is one (Rom 5:16-17); thus we are made not merely righteous, but righteousness, even "the righteousness of God." The innocent was punished as if guilty, that the guilty might be rewarded as if innocent. This verse could be said of no mere martyr.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 6. The sufferings described in Isa_53:5 were those endured…
6. The sufferings described in Isa_53:5 were those endured by Jehovah’s innocent and righteous Servant, such as he took on himself; and this voluntary endurance in our stead became the source of our healing. The confession still is, He actually suffered. We, the restored ones of Israel, see the case differently from what we did in Isa_53:1-3. We also see that he suffered on our account. All we like sheep have (stupidly) gone astray — We have selfishly sought our own pleasure; have recklessly forgotten God’s commands. This comparison is not unusual. (See Eze_34:5; Mat_9:36; 1Pe_2:25.) The statement here gives the reason for sufferings inexpressible voluntarily endured on our behalf. He suffered to bring reconciliation and peace. As a sinless one he did not, he could not, suffer our own penalty. But his sufferings were an equivalent therefor, in consideration of the greatness and holiness of his person. He suffered in full measure what became an expression of the punishment which as a race we deserve. In this sense the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. He caused to meet in, or to rush upon, his incarnated self, such amount of suffering as should express the fact or consideration of a suffering of penalty due to us on account of our sins; and this by the cordial acceptance of the Sufferer himself. The Messianic Sufferer became the ideal personal Saviour or Atoner typified by the great sacrificial system of the Old Testament. He became the antitypical declaration to the universe of an eternally competent vicarious sacrifice for the sins of this fallen world. The infinitely Just One hovered over (Hebrew, על, Greek, υπερ the unjust, (clear before law,) and meekly willed to take the required blow upon his own head. Still He became not a sinner thereby. He suffered merely as if he were the world’s concentrated body of sinners. In undertaking to save, he encountered the power of sin and broke it; wrought ample expiation for sin, and connected therewith a new covenant of forgiveness for penitent souls. He made his sufferings vicarious, in that himself, who was not in his own person subject to death, did die unto sin as head of a race that was subject so to die.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. Looking back on their former irreligious condition the…
6. Looking back on their former irreligious condition the people see that their rejection of the Servant was the natural outcome of the heedless and inconsiderate selfishness in which they were living. For the figure of the strayed sheep, cf. Psa_119:176; Mat_9:36; Mat_10:6; Luk_15:4.
For have gone … have turned, read had gone … had turned.
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every one to his own way] selfishly following his individual impulses and interests; cf. Isa_56:11.
hath laid on him the iniquity] made to light on him the guilt.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6) All we like sheep have gone astray .…
(6) All we like sheep have gone astray . . .—The confession of repentant Israel (Psa_119:176), of repentant humanity (1Pe_2:25), was also the thought present to the mind of the Servant, as in Mat_9:36; Joh_10:11.
Hath laid on him.—Better, as in the margin, hath made to light on him. The words express the fact, but do not explain the mystery, of the substitutive satisfaction. The two sides of that mystery are stated in the form of a seeming paradox. God does not punish the righteous with the wicked (Gen_18:25). He accepts the suffering of the righteous for the wicked (Mar_10:45).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain All we like sheep have gone astray. "All we"…
All we like sheep have gone astray. "All we" means either the whole nation of Israel, which "went astray" in the wilderness of sin, (Psa_107:4 Psa_119:176 Eze_34:6) or else the whole race of mankind, which had wandered from the right path, and needed atonement and redemption even mere than Israel itself We have turned every one to his own way. Collectively and individually, the whole world had sinned. There was "none that did good" absolutely not one". (Psa_14:3) All had quitted "the way of the Lord" (Isa_40:3) to walk in their "own ways". (Isa_66:3) The Lord hath laid on him; literally, the Lord caused to light upon him. God the Father, as the primary Disposer of all things, lays upon the Son the burden, which the Son voluntarily accepts. He comes into the world to do the Father"s will. He prays to the Father, "Let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt". (Mat_26:39) So St. John says that the Father "sent the Son to be the Propitiation for our sins". (1Jn_4:10) And St. Paul tells us that God (the Father) "made him to be sin for us who knew no. (2Co_5:21) It does not lessen the Son"s exceeding mercy and loving-kindness in accepting the burden, that it was laid upon him by the Father. The iniquity of us all (compare the initial "All we"). The redemption is as universal as the sin, at any rate potentially. Christ on the cross made "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice... for the sins of the whole world.
Departure and distance from God.
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These words, though very pictorial and poetical, indicate with great clearness the cardinal truths of religion and even of Christianity, and they express for us the thought and feeling common to all devout spirits. We see in them
I THE HOME WHENCE WE HAVE DEPARTED. It is not stated, but it is clearly implied, that the fold or home whence we have gone astray is.
1. That of God, our Creator, our Father, our Divine Friend; it is that where he dwells, where he rules, where he sheds the sunshine of his presence and favour.
2. It is that of righteousness; of gratitude, of love, of reverence, of obedience, of submission.
3. It is that of peace; of spiritual order, rest, joy.
II THE DIFFERENT PATHS WE HAVE PURSUED. "We have turned every one to his own way." Sinful error takes many directions. Sometimes it wanders into unbelief and denial; sometimes into rebelliousness of spirit, disdainful rejection of Divine claim; at other times into a sinful indulgence, in one or other of its various forms; or again into a guilty negligence and unconcern, or a criminal procrastination of sacred duty; or yet again into a hollow and worthless formalism, which has the show of piety without the substance of it. But in these various paths of sin there is one thing which is common to all, viz. the setting up of the human will against the will of God. Every one of us has gone his own way. We have "followed the devices and desires of our own hearts." We have determinately set our own inclination against the will of God. And herein we have
III THE GUILT WHICH WE HAVE ALL INCURRED. "All we... have gone astray." Some men have wandered farther away from God than others; some have gone in an opposite direction to that of others; but all men have guiltily preferred their own way to the home and the fold of God. All have forsaken and disregarded and grieved him. And thus all have sinned; all, without exception; not only those who have fallen into gross and most shameful enormities, but they also who have kept to the proprieties of outward behaviour, and have observed the decencies and requirements of the religious life all have withheld from God what is his due, and reserved to themselves what was not theirs to keep.
IV THE PROVISION GOD HAS MADE FOR OUR RETURN. "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." This does not signify that Jesus Christ bore the penalty due to all human sin a part of that penalty it was absolutely impossible that the Innocent One should beat: It means that the redemptive work he wrought, and wrought by his submission to sorrow and death, avails for every child of man who will accept it; it means that in Christ is forgiveness of sin, acceptance with God, entrance into life eternal to every one who humbly but heartily receives him as Saviour and Lord. C.
Where shall iniquity be laid?
Some chapters and verses of the Bible are so sacred to us that we almost fear to open and examine them; and yet those are the very portions that best reward a loving and reverent examination. This chapter is the gem of Isaiah"s writings. This verse is the conclusion to which the prophet comes, as he here views the long sad story of the Saviour"s sufferings. "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." We consider
I MAN"S INIQUITY. The word means "unequalness;" man is never quite the same, never quite steady, he does not keep the straight line, and this indicates a wrong state of mind and heart. Man"s iniquity is:
(1) Affirmed in Scripture. "All flesh has corrupted his way; Who can say, I have made my heart clean?" (see Romans 3).
(2) Universally acknowledged, both by individuals and nations in moments of alarm (see Nineveh, when alarmed by the preaching of Jonah). St. Paul, in Romans 1., apart from the special Divine revelation, convicts men of iniquity in view of the great, universal, natural laws of their own being and of human society. Personally, we are not prepared to deny this fact of human iniquity; though, to so many of us, it is only an intellectual conception without any moral power in it. We resort to various devices in order to keep off personal applications and convictions.
(1) We charge the evil on the race.
(2) We try to think of it as a mere disease or calamity.
(3) We procrastinate over the consideration of it.
It would be altogether wiser to face it, and try to realize it and deal with it.
(1) Observe that suggestive figure of the text, "sheep gone astray." It brings to mind ignorance, wilfulness, helplessness, foolishness, as characteristics of the unrenewed man.
(2) Estimate the aggravations of human iniquity. If God were severe or unreasonable, bravery might half excuse rebellion; but our God is righteousness and love.
(3) Sin finds such manifold and dreadful forms in which to express itself. (see list in Gal_5:19-24)
(4) Human iniquity has one dreadful root. It is wilful self-love and self-pleasing. "God is not in all their thoughts;" "Turned to his own way;" "The God in whom thy breath is... thou hast not glorified." Face, then, the fact of your own iniquity before God. Be true to yourself about it. Ask On whom can it be laid?
II MAN BEARING HIS OWN INIQUITY. For a man may seriously and thoughtfully say Why cannot I bear my own iniquities, the burden of their penalty, and the work of securing deliverance from their power? Fairly consider, then, such things as these.
1. Iniquity grows, involving ever-increasing physical and spiritual penalties.
2. Iniquity sets going a train of evils by which even your best treasures maybe consumed. Do what you will, can you stop them?
3. Iniquity, in its effects, is now seen only in part, and day by day; in the eternity we shall have to see it at once, and as a whole. Illustrate by the vision of a life of sin that comes to the drowning. Unless utterly blinded by pride and self worship, no man would ever dare to say, "I can bear my own burdens." "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much sope, yet is thine iniquity marked before me, saith the Lord.
III GOD BEARING MAN"S INIQUITY FOR HIM. The person who bore was God"s Christ, and so it was really God bearing. This expression should be viewed in the light of the figure used in the text the figure of the shepherd laying on the under-shepherd the duty of fetching the wandering sheep back, and setting it, free of evil, self-willed propensities, in the fold again. That work was the "burden" which he was called to bear. So God laid on Christ the work of delivering men from their iniquity, from its consequences, and from itself. "Himself bare our sicknesses, and carried our sorrows." He took on him man"s deliverance from sin, and spent his time in illustrative healings of men"s bodily infirmities, and gave his life in the endeavour to save men from their sins. Illustrate by showing how the burden of the slave-woe was laid on Wilberforce; and that of the prison-woe was laid on Howard and Fry. Any man who is actively concerned for a degraded class really bears their sins. In giving Christ, God proposed the saving of men from their sins, and therefore his Son was named the significant name of Jesus. God laid the sin on Christ, as if he had said, "I charge you now with this supremely difficult, but most blessed work, of saving, everlastingly saving, sinful, wilful, ruined men." Plead, in conclusion, with each one rims: Do you feel your iniquity? Is it your burden? Are you asking What can be done with it? where can it Toe laid? Then see, the living Christ is charged of God with that very burden; it has been laid upon him: it is laid upon him; he can be the living, delivering, saving Friend even to you. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain All we like sheep have gone astray
Isa_53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray
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Astray from the fold
I.
The first part of my text is AN INDICTMENT. All we like sheep have gone astray. Says some one, Cant you drop the first word? And some one rises and looks off and says, There is a man who is a blasphemer, he is astray. Yonder is a man who is impure, he is astray. Yonder is a man who is fraudulent, he is astray. Look at home, for the first word of the text takes you and me as well as the rest.
1. I have studied the habits of sheep, and I know they lose their way sometimes by trying to get other pasture. There are many of you who have been looking for better pasture. You have wandered on and on. You tried business successes, you tried worldly associations, you tried the club-house. You said that the Church was a short commons, and you wanted to find the rank grass on the bank of distant streams, and to lie down under great oaks on the other side of the hills. Have you found the anticipated pasture that was to be so superior?
2. I have noticed also that the sheep get astray by being frightened with dogs. Oh, man, that is the way you got astray. You said, Where is God, that He allows an honest man to go down, and thieves to prosper? You were dogged by creditors; and some of you went into misanthropy, and some of you took to strong drink, and some of you fled from all Christian associations; and in that way the sheep got astray.
II. But the last part of my text OPENS A DOOR WIDE ENOUGH TO LET US ALL OUT, and wide enough to let all heaven in. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Says some one, That is not generous. Let every one bear his own burden. And there is something in that. If I owe a debt, and I have money to pay it, and I come to you and ask you, to cancel my obligations, you will be right in saying to me, Pay your own debts. If I am walking along the street with you, and we are both hale and hearty, and I want you to carry me, you are right in saying, Walk on your own feet. But suppose you and I were in a regiment together, and I was fearfully wounded in the battle, and I fell unconscious at your feet with gunshot fractures and dislocations, five bullets having struck me at once--you would say to your comrades, Here, this man is helpless. Let us carry him to the ambulance; let us take him out to the hospital. Would It have been mean to let you carry me then. You certainly would not have been so unkind as not to carry me. Now, that is Christ to the soul If we could pay our spiritual obligations we might go up to God and say, Lord, there is so much debt, and here I have the menus with which to cancel it. Now cross it all out. But the fact is we are pierced through and through with the sabres of sin. We have gone down under the hot fire, and we are helpless and undone. We will die on the field unless some help comes to us. God sends His ambulance, yea, He dispatches His only Son to carry us out, and bind up our gashes, and take us home. Is there any man who is under the delusion that he can carry his own sins? You cannot. You might as well try to transport a boulder of the sea, or carry on one shoulder the Alleghanies, and on the other shoulder Mount Washington. Then let us shift the burden. (T. de W. Talmage, D.D.)
Salvation for the straying sheep
I. LOOK AT THE SHEEP THAT HAVE GONE ASTRAY. The text implies they were once in the fold. You cannot go astray except you have been in the right place first.
II. EACH SHEEP WALKS ITS OWN PATH. There is almost an infinite variety in sinning. Some go along a path of licentiousness; others the money-making road; others the gamesters path; others take the Christless morality road.
III. WHAT IS GODS WAY OF SALVATION? The Lord laid on Him, etc. Who is that Him? The One described in the previous verses. Let Christ be the object of your trust, and you shall be saved. (A. G. Brown.)
Our misery and its remedy
I. OUR MISERY BY SIN.
1. Our sin is charged upon us collectively in common: we have all gone astray.
2. Distributively. Every one to his own way. We all agree in turning aside from the right way of pleasing and enjoying of God; and we disagree, as each one hath a by-path of his own, some running after this lust, some after that, and so are not only divided from God, but divided from one another, while every one maketh his will his law.
II. OUR REMEDY BY CHRIST. The Lord hath laid, etc. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Departing from God
This departing from God and His ways is fitly represented by the straying of sheep. In the general it implieth--
1. That we are brutish in our sin and defection from God: it could not be expressed but by a comparison fetched from the beasts.
2. Proneness to err. No creature is more prone to wander and lose his way than a sheep without a shepherd.
3. Our inability to return, or to bring ourselves into the right way again.
4. Our readiness to follow evil example. Sheep run one after another, and one straggler draweth away the whole flock. Austin saith, I could wander by myself, and could not return by myself. And God saith as much Hos_13:9).
5. The danger of straying sheep, which when out of the pasture are often in harms way, and exposed to a thousand dangers (Jer_50:6-7). (T. Manton, D.D.)
We have turned every one to his own way
Every man to his own way
Though there be one path to heaven, yet there are several ways of sinning and going to hell. The reasons how this cometh to pass are--
1. Because of the activeness of mans spirit. It is always a-devising wickedness.
2. It happeneth through diversity of constitution.
3. It happeneth from their business and occasions in the world. Many men are engaged to ways of sin because they suit best with their employments, the sin of their calling, as vainglory in a minister.
4. Custom and education.
5. Company example. (T. Manton, D.D.)
His own way
This is the sin of men in their natural condition, that they turn to their own way. The phrase implieth these two things--
1. A defect or want of Divine guidance.
2. A rejection of the ways of God when made known to us. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Caiaphas: Cephas: Jesus
The forms of human sinfulness are as numerous and varied as are mens natural inclinations: but near the cross may be found a representative of every one of these. Three figures will demand our attention--Caiaphas, the high priest, with his surroundings; and then, amidst the obscurity of the twilight scene, and the crowd of spectators, we must single out the figure of Simon, then at the moment of his deepest shame. And then, turning our eyes away from these subordinates, we must fix them lastly on Jesus of Nazareth Himself.
I. CAIAPHAS is the president of the High Ecclesiastical Court then assembled, and no judge ever could produce higher credentials than he. The Gospels all acknowledge him, without the slightest apparent doubt, as the legitimate successor of Aaron. He is descendant of a priestly dynasty some 1,500 years old, whose origin was confessedly Divine. Besides, the highest power of all had owned his legitimate position, by giving to him the spirit of unconscious prophecy. Now the priesthood of Aaron, which he bore, had never been a bloodthirsty one. There are, I think, only two examples of that priesthood shedding blood. One of these was the stroke of the spear of Phinehas--an act of wild justice, suited to the times, which received praise and blessing from above; and the other, the just punishment by Jehoiada of Athaliah, who had murdered all the royal family but one. Whatever other faults they may have had, the priests, the sons of Aaron, had never erred before on the side of intolerance and cruelty. And Caiaphas himself was no fanatic. Like all the family to which he belonged, he was a Sadducee. He had the views of a politician rather than of an ecclesiatic; and, having coolly judged, several weeks before, that the proceedings of Jesus of Nazareth were politically dangerous, he had determined that it would be well to put Him out of the way. But, in the council that surrounded him, there were many, and perhaps a majority, of strong religious belief and feelings. So, for their sakes, he affected a horror which he could hardly have felt himself. The high priest asked Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes--the original word in St. Mark seems to imply that one of these was the seamless tunic of the high priest--in sign of a horror, which can hardly have been otherwise than hypocritical in a cool man of the world like him, and said, What need we any further witnesses. Ye have heard the blasphemy. What think ye? And then the question being thus put, they all--the whole council, all the scribes, all the elders, all the chief priests, the whole representative body of the universal Church of God--condemned Him to be guilty of death. What a lesson for us arises out of this fact, that our Lords death was wholly a sin of the religious world under the guidance of their Divinely-appointed leaders. And in that religious world we may distinguish all the chief tendencies both of that time and of all times--the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the liberal and the orthodox, the men with the minimum of belief in the supernatural, and those with the maximum of that belief, the traditionists and the anti-traditionists--in fact, the High Church, and the Broad Church, and the Low. The lesson is for our times. In those days authority and tradition utterly failed those who relied upon them, while the light within the heart lighted those who possessed it to the cross and to the glory of the Lord of Truth.
II. Let us turn our eyes away now from Caiaphas and the splendid array around him to the lower end of the courtyard near the door, where the lower classes are collected. All these are within sight of the proceedings at the upper end of the hall, which no doubt is well lighted. Perhaps they are also near enough to hear. Amongst them is one whose speech betrays him to be a Galilean. We know his name (though those around him do not) to be SIMON, SON OF JONAS, who has also the surname Cephas. He is thrice recognized as a follower of the accused, and thrice denies the charge. Then the cock crows at early morning, and the Master turns on him with a glance which he feels to single him out, even in the darkness and the crowd; and he goes out at the door, weeping bitterly. This strange character, so made up of contradictions as to have been pronounced by that Being who knew him best, at one moment a rock, and at the next a Satan, full of boldness and full of cowardice, the first to confess and the first to deny; this picture of the weakness of all human strength, of the frailty of all earthly goodness, is now at the very depths of his weakness and shame. He stands there a sinner who has just committed a sin--a very mean and cowardly sin. Yet there is an eye upon him, searching for him, busied with him. We who have betrayed Him and denied Him, the Lord hath turned and looked on. He is seeking, let Him find.
III. We see JESUS in the midst of all this crowd of representative sinners, amongst whom a little honest search will soon enable each of us to detect himself. Betrayed by covetous Judas, forsaken by unwatchful, unprayerful, and therefore easily tempted disciples, denied by self-confident, self-willed Simon, condemned by worldly-minded, unscrupulous Caiaphas, condemned again by timid time-serving Pilate, persecuted to the death by sanctimonious, theologically-hating Scribes and Pharisees, shouted at by a rude, ignorant multitude, tortured in cruel sport by barbarous soldiers--what species of human sin is absent there? Let us consider the exceeding beauty of the figure presented to us, and also how that figure is produced. Compare for one moment any character in a work of fiction. These, too, are beautiful, but how is their beauty produced? By word-painting of the most exquisite kind. But in the narratives of the Gospels there is no word-painting at all, except perhaps a little in St. John. It is not the narratives that are sublime, but the Being who becomes known to us through their simple inartificial language. And now the end of this should be, that every one of us should bring the matter as closely as possible home. It was all done for me; it was I that created the necessity. Let Him, in each of us, see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. (W.E.Rawstorne, M.A.)
The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all
Sin laid on Jesus
1. The verse opens with a confession of sin common to all the persons intended in the verse.
2. The confession is also special and particular.
3. This confession is very unreserved. There is not a single syllable by way of excuse; there is not a word to detract from the force of the confession.
4. It is, moreover, singularly thoughtful, for thoughtless persons do not use a metaphor so appropriate as the text: All we like sheep have gone astray. I hear no dolorous wailings attending this confession of sin; for the next sentence makes it almost a song. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It is the most grievous sentence of the three; but it is the most charming and the most full of comfort. Strange is it that where misery was concentrated mercy reigned, and where sorrow reached her climax there it is that a weary soul finds sweetest rest. The Saviour bruised is the healing of bruised hearts.
I. EXPOSITION.
1. It may be well to give the marginal translation of the text, Jehovah hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all. The first thought that demands notice is the meeting of sin. Sin I may compare to the rays of some evil sun. Sin was scattered throughout this world as abundantly as light, and
Christ is made to suffer the full effect of the baleful rays which stream from the sun of sin. God as it were holds up a burning-glass, and concentrates all the scattered rays in a focus upon Christ. Take the text in our own version, The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all; put upon Him as a burden is laid upon a mans back all the burdens of all His people; put upon His head as the high priest of old laid upon the scapegoat all the sin of the beloved ones that he might bear them in his own person. The two translations are perfectly consistent; all sins are made to meet, and then having met together and been tied up in one crushing load the whole burden is laid upon Him.
2. The second thought is that sin was made to meet upon the suffering person of the innocent Substitute.
3. It has been asked, Was it just that sin should thus be laid upon Christ? We believe it was rightly so.
(1) Because it was the act of Him who must do right. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
(2) Remember, moreover, that Jesus Christ voluntarily took this sin upon Himself.
(3) There was a relationship between our Lord and His people, which is too often forgotten, but which rendered it natural that He should bear the sin of His people. Why does the text speak of our sinning like sheep? I think it is because it would call to our recollection that Christ is our Shepherd. It is not that Christ took upon Himself the sins of strangers. Them always was a union of a most mysterious and intimate kind between those who sinned and the Christ who suffered.
(4) This plan of salvation is precisely similar to the method of our ruin. The fall which made me a sinner was wholly accomplished long before I was born by the first Adam, and the salvation by which I am delivered was finished long before I saw the light by the second Adam on my behalf.
4. Lying upon Christ brought, upon Him all the consequences connected with it. God cannot look where there is sin with any pleasure, and though as far as Jesus is personally concerned, He is the Fathers beloved Son in whom He is well pleased; yet when He saw sin laid upon His Son, He made that Son cry, My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?
5. Think of the result of all this. Sin meets on Christ and Christ is punished with sin, and what then? Sin is put away.
6. The us here intended.
II. APPLICATION. There is a countless company whose sins the Lord Jesus bore; did He bear yours? Do you wish to have an answer? Let me read this verse to you and see if you can join in it. If there be in you a penitential confession which leads you to acknowledge that you have erred and strayed like a lost sheep; if there be in you a personal sense of sin which makes you feel that you have turned to your own way, and if now you can trust in Jesus, then a second question is not wanted; the Lord hath laid on Him your iniquity.
III. CONTEMPLATION. I will give you four things to think of.
1. The astounding mass of sin that must have been laid on Christ.
2. The amazing love of Jesus which brought Him to do all this.
3. The matchless security which this plan of salvation offers.
4. What, then, are she claims of Jesus Christ upon you and me? (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Going astray as sheep
1. The sheep is a creature exceedingly quick-witted upon the one matter of going astray.
2. The sheep goes astray, it is said, all the more frequently when it is most dangerous for it to do so; propensities to stray seem to be developed in the very proportion in which they ought to be subdued. Whereas in our own land a sheep? might wander with some safety, it wanders less than it will do in the Oriental plains, where for it to go astray is to run risks from leopards and wolves.
3. The sheep goes astray ungratefully. It owes everything to the shepherd, and yet forsakes the hand that feeds it and heals its diseases.
4. The sheep goes astray repeatedly. If restored to-day it may not stray to-day if it cannot, but it will to-morrow if it can.
5. The sheep wanders further and further, from bad to worse. It is not content with the distance it has reached, it will go yet greater lengths; there is To limit to its wandering except its weakness. See ye not your own selves as in a mirror! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sin meeting on Jesus
I. THE MEETING-PLACE OF SIN IS THE CROSS OF CHRIST. In the margin these words are rendered, The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all. The Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Persian, and Egyptian tongues were spoken about that cross. The inscription was in different languages that all might read. This is the representation of the world now looking upon the Crucified. His embrace encircled the race of man.
1. The cross was the focus of sins.
2. The burdens of sin here meet.
3. Here the responsibilities of the sinner are assumed by one competent to discharge them.
4. The sufferings of the sinner are gathered in the agonies of the cross.
II. THE MEETING-PLACE OF SIN IS THE MERCY-SEAT OF SINNERS. Conclusion:
1. The imperative claim Christ has upon the soul.
2. If you will not consent that your iniquities shall meet on Christ, bear them you must yourself. (S. H. Tyng, D.D.)
The nature and power of the atonement
1. It has been suggested that there was injustice in the sacrifice of One who had never sinned in the place of sinners, and that it involved the idea that God liked suffering for its own sake. This statement is one-sided: it forgets mercy, it shuts its eyes to the truth that the power of any sacrifice is in its voluntary and representative character. Facts must be respected, and what is the fact which is before us all? Pain and sorrow!
2. The vicarious sacrifice of Calvary is the work of the Three Persons of the Trinity. Men speak as if the Son devised the plan of His own death to save man from the Fathers wrath. It was the work of the whole Three Persons in the Godhead. If the justice of the Divine life demanded the atonement, the mercy of the Divine love devised the means of pardon and the sacrifice on Calvary.
3. There is yet another thought which illuminates the gloom. We know the power of sin which, like some mysterious shape, some wild and wandering shadow in a forest, stands or flits about the portals of the opening life of man. Nature brings us within its reach, our own will places us in its iron grasp, it paralyzes the spiritual power, it chills our desires for better things; we cannot rise up as once we could when we are lying under the weight of unforgiven sin. This sense of the awfulness of sin illuminates the power of the atonement, for the sacrifice of the Son of God must at least be commensurate in its awfulness with what we know of human sin.
4. If the awfulness of sin and the majesty of God bring home the sense of what vicarious sacrifice is, and we are able in its power to raise our hearts to God and to feel renewed life and holier aspirations, how about the past? Florence rose and wept over the grave of Dante, but Florence could not then undo the edict which banished the man, and Dantes ashes rest beside the pinewoods and the Adrian Sea, and Florence is undone. And for each of you there was a day when you told your first lie, a day when you acted your first pretence, a day when you did your first act of dishonesty, when you first degraded yourself with some burning vice and destroyed the innocency which God had given you. In your better moments you look back to such a day, and you feel as if you were standing by an open grave, as you remember the hard words, the unkind looks, the want of sympathy, to him or her who lies beneath. The past is gone beyond recall. How will you meet it? With scorn? Will you turn away and drown its memories in pleasure? You cannot. You have a spirit born for eternity. But there is one other way. Christ on the Cross bore mans sin in all its intensity, gave Himself as a sacrifice, and purchased for the race complete forgiveness. No sorrow is so deep but He can assuage it, no memory so black but He can cleanse it. (W. J. Knox-Little, M.A.)
The universal burden and its bearer
It is of prime importance to mark that the only office which the prophet describes the Servant as filling is the function of suffering. He is neither Teacher nor Conqueror nor Lawgiver nor, here, King; he is only a Sufferer. That is what the Saviour of the world has to be, first of all. The rabbis have a legend, far wiser than most of their follies, which tells how Messias is to be found sitting amongst the lepers at the gate of the city. The fable has in it the deep truth that He who saves the world must suffer with, and for, the world He saves.
I. CONSIDER THE UNIVERSAL BURDEN. Of course the speakers in my text are primarily the penitent Jewish nation, who at last have learned how much at first they had misunderstood the Servant of the Lord. But the we and the all may very fairly be widened out so as to include the whole world, and every individual of the race, and iniquity is the universal burden of us all. I believe that almost all of the mistaken and unworthy conceptions of Christianity which have afflicted and do afflict the world are directly traceable to this--the failure to apprehend the radical fact affecting mens condition that they are all sinful, and therefore separated from God. The evil that we do, going forth from us as deed, comes back upon us as guilt. And so, we are all staggering under this burden. The creatures that live at the bottom of the doleful sea, fathoms deeper than plummet has ever sounded, have to bear a pressure upon their frames all inconceivable by the men that walk upon the surface of the earth. And the deeper a man goes in the dark ocean of wrongdoing and wrongbeing, the heavier the weight of the compressed atmosphere above him, crushing him in. And, yet, like those creatures that crawl on the slime, miles down in the dreary sea, where no light has come, they know not the weight that rests upon them, and never have dreamed of how blessed it is to walk in the lighter air with the sun shining above them. There are some of you, grovelling down at the bottom of the ocean, to whom the liberty and illumination, the lightness and ligntsomeness of the pure life which is possible, would seem miraculous. If these things be at all true, then it seems to me that the fact of universal sinfulness, with all its necessary, natural, and inevitable consequences, must be the all-important fact about a man. What we think about sin will settle all our religious ideas.
II. LOOK AT THE ONE BEARER OF THE BURDEN. The Lord has made to light upon Him the iniquity ,of us all.
III. MARK THE MEN THAT ARE FREED FROM THE BURDEN. Us all. And yet it is possible for a man included in the all to have to stagger along through life under his burden, and to carry it with him when he goes hence. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, says the foremost preacher of the doctrine that Christs death takes away sin. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Every man shall bear his own burden. So your sins, taken away as they are by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, may yet cling to you and crush you. There is only one way by which the possibilities open to all men by the death of Jesus Christ may become the actual experience of every man, or of any man--and that is, the simple laying your burden, by your own act of quiet trust, upon the shoulders of Him that is mighty to save. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Gods fofgiving love in Christ
Rev. G. Barber, assistant to Dr. Dale of Birmingham says: I remember going to him on one occasion in great distress; I wanted to preach on Christ died for our sins, and I thought that if I could only show how, through the death of Christ, it was made possible for God to forgive sin, many whom I knew might be led to believe. He replied: Give up troubling, my friend, about how it was possible for God to forgive sin, and go straight and tell the people that God does forgive sin, and tell them straight that Christ died for their sins. It is the fact the people want most to know, and not your theory, nor mine, as to how it was or is possible. (Life of R. W. Dale.)
Peace in the true knowledge of Jesus
I was sent for to see a lady--a stranger--who was dying in Brighton. I found her to be a person of means and education, but quite ignorant of the salient facts of the Christian faith. To her, Jesus was simply a great moral teacher, standing in line with other religious masters. Of Christianity, as the religion of redemption, she had no knowledge. Her life story had been a sad one, stained deeply by both sorrow and sin. Oh, she sighed, that it were possible for some great, strong friend to take my conscience as though it were his own, that I might have a little peace! I learned more from that sentence concerning the mystery of redemption than up to that moment I had ever thought of. Here was a soul who knew and stated the need of just such a salvation as we are bidden to proclaim. She asked, without knowing that there was any answer, for the Saviour who was made sin for us, who could take mans conscience as though it were His own and leave in its place His peace. The sense of guilt had awakened with power in this poor dying woman. To have told her that the Most High could forgive her sins would have carried no comfort to her heart. The only possible relief for her was to hear of Him on whom the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all (R. J. Campbell, M.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we…
WANDERING SHEEP
Isa_53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.
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Comparisons in Scripture are frequently to be understood with great limitation: perhaps, out of many circumstances, one only is justly applicable to the case. Thus, when our Lord says, “Behold, I come as a thief” (Rev_16:15)—common sense will fix the resemblance to a single point, that He will come suddenly and unexpectedly.
So, when wandering sinners are compared to wandering sheep, we have a striking image of the danger of their state, and their inability to recover themselves. Sheep wandering without a shepherd are exposed, a defenceless and easy prey, to wild beasts and enemies, and liable to perish for want of pasture; for they are not able either to provide for themselves, or to find their way back to the place from whence they strayed. Whatever they suffer, they continue to wander, and if not sought out, will be lost. Thus far the allusion holds.
But sheep in such a situation are not the subjects of blame. They would be highly blameable, if we could suppose them rational creatures; if they had been under the eye of a careful and provident shepherd, had been capable of knowing him, had wilfully and obstinately renounced his protection and guidance, and voluntarily chosen to plunge themselves into danger, rather than to remain in it any longer.
Thus it is with man.
1. His wandering is rebellious. God made him upright, but he has sought out to himself many inventions (Ecc_7:29).
2. God has appointed for mankind a safe and pleasant path, by walking in which they shall find rest to their souls; but they say, “We will not walk therein” (Jer_6:16).
3. They were capable of knowing the consequences of going astray, were repeatedly warned of them, were fenced in by wise and good laws, which they presumptuously broke through.
4. When they had wandered from Him, they were again and again invited to return to Him, but they refused. They mocked His messengers, and preferred the misery they had brought upon themselves to the happiness of being under His direction and care.
Surely He emphatically deserves the name of the Good Shepherd, who freely laid down His life to restore sheep of this character.—John Newton: Works, p 712.
We are like sheep,
1. In our proneness to err. No creature is more prone to wander and lose his way than a sheep without a shepherd. So are we apt to transgress the bounds whereby God has hedged up our way (Jer_14:10). This has been manifest in every period of our life (Psa_25:7; Psa_19:12).
2. In our readiness to follow evil example. Sheep run after one another, and one straggler draweth away the whole flock; and so men take and do a great deal of hurt by sad examples. Sheep go by troops, and so do men follow the multitude to do evil; what is common passeth into our practice without observation (Eph_2:2-3).
3. In our danger when we have gone astray. Straying sheep, when out of the pasture, are in harm’s way, and exposed to a thousand dangers. Oh, consider what it is for a poor solitary lamb to wander through the mountains, where, it may be, some hungry lion or ravenous wolf looketh for such a prey. Even so is it with straying men: their judgments sleepeth not; it may be in the next hour they will be delivered to destruction (Jer_7:6-7; Rom_3:16).
4. In our inability to return into the right way. Other animals can find their way home again, but a strayed sheep is irrecoverably lost without the shepherd’s diligence and care. “I could wander by myself, but could not return by myself” (Augustine).
5. In our need of a redeemer.
CONCLUSION.—Has the Good Shepherd brought us back? Then,
1. Let us magnify His self-sacrificing and tender mercy, in following us, and bringing us into the pastures where there is at once safety and true satisfaction.
2. Let us remember for ourselves, and preach to others, that the sheep do not fare the better for going out of the pasture. In departing from God, we turn our back upon our own happiness. The broad and easy ways of sin are pleasing to flesh and blood, but destructive to the soul. Adam thought to find much happiness in forbidden fruit, to mend and better his condition, but was miserably disappointed. The prodigal did not fare well in the far country (Luk_15:14).
3. Let us pray for grace that we may be watchful in the future. Alas, which of us has not sad need to make our own the Psalmist’s confession and prayer (Psa_119:176)? Though our hearts be set to walk with God in the main, yet there is still in them a proneness to swerve from the right way, either by neglecting our duty to God, or by transgressing against His holy commandment; against this let us be on our guard, that we may not again grieve our Good Shepherd!—Thomas Manton, D.D.: Complete Works, vol. iii. pp. 300–303.
We wander, I. Like sheep, without reason—the pasture was rich, the shepherd kind, the food scarce.
II. Like sheep, aimlessly. The lion prowls for food, the hart in search of water, the sheep without aim.
III. Like sheep, persistently, despising the coming shades of evening, the distant bleatings of the abandoned flock, the loss of fleece and smarting wounds.
IV. Like sheep in peril—defenceless, surrounded by dangers and foes.
V. Like sheep—sought; the Good Shepherd calls to us, “Return.”—Stems and Twigs, second series, pp. 267.
It is acknowledged here by the person speaking, that all had, like sheep, broken the hedge of God’s law, forsaken their good and ever blessed Shepherd, and wandered into paths perilous and pernicious. We are not likened to one of the more noble and intelligent animals, but to a silly sheep. All sin is folly, all sinners are fools. You will observe that the creature selected for comparison is one that cannot live without care and attention. There is no such thing as a wild sheep. The creature’s happiness, its safety, and very existence, all depend upon its being under a nurture and care far above its own. Yet for all that the sheep strays from the shepherd. If there be but one gap in the hedge, the sheep will find it out. If there be but one possibility out of five hundred that by any means the flock shall wander, one of the flock will be quite certain to discover that possibility, and all its companions will avail themselves of it. So is it with man. He is quick of understanding for evil things. But that very creature which is so quickwitted to wander is the least likely of all animals to return. And such is man—wise to do evil, but foolish towards that which is good. With a hundred eyes, like Argus, he searches out opportunities for sinning; but, like Bartimeus, he is stone blind as to repentance and return to God.
The sheep goes astray ungratefully. It owes everything to the shepherd, and yet forsakes the hand that feeds it and heals its diseases. The sheep goes astray repeatedly. If restored to-day, it may not stray to-day, if it cannot; but it will to-morrow, if it can. The sheep wanders further and further, from bad to worse. There is no limit to its wandering except its weakness. See ye not your own selves as in a mirror?—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 925.
DIVERSITY AND INDIVIDUALITY IN TRANSGRESSION
Isa_53:6. We have turned every one to his own way.
I. A NOTICEABLE FACT.
We all resemble each other, in that we all like sheep have gone astray; but we all differ from each other, more or less, in the manner of our departure from God. There are many ways of sinning; though there be one path to heaven, there are many roads to hell. Each man chooses his own road and the choices vary for several reasons:—
1. Because each mind is more or less individually active. While in an unrenewed condition, it is active in devising means for its own gratification (Psa_64:6).
2. Because of the diversity of our constitutions. We see plainly that the body hath some indirect influence on the mind, and that the condition of the mind follows the constitution of the body. Moreover, Satan adapts his temptation according to what he perceives to be our constitutional tendencies (H. E. I. 4680).
3. Because of the variety of our businesses and position in the world. Many men are engaged in ways of sin because they best suit with their employments; it is the sin of their calling, as vainglory in a minister (1Ti_3:6). So worldliness suits a man of business, or deceitfulness in his trade. Callings and businesses have their several corruptions, and into these, through the wickedness of their hearts, men slide.
4. Because of the differences in our education. Their education in the home as well as in school!
5. Because of the differences in the company into which we are drawn, and of the examples that are thus set before us. Men learn from those with whom they converse. Hence come national sins, partly, as they run in the blood, but more by way of example. Of the German we learn drunkenness and gluttony; of the French wantonness, &c. Hence also come individual sins. Hence the importance of shunning the society of the evil, and consorting only with the godly (H. E. I. 2123–2148, 4693, 4700).
II. PRACTICAL USES TO BE MADE OF THIS FACT.
1. Do not be too ready to bless yourselves, merely because the sins of others do not break out upon you; do not flatter yourselves because you do not run into the same sins that others do. The devil may take you in another snare that suiteth more with your temper and condition of life. Some are sensual, some vainglorious, some worldly, &c.; many meet in hell that do not go thither the same way. A man may not be as other men, and yet he may not be as he should be (Luk_18:11). For many reasons men made light of the invitation to the marriage feast (Mat_22:5), but each excuse ruined. One hath business to keep him from Christ, another pleasures, another the pomps and vanities of the present world, another his superstitious observances; but each of these things obstructs the power of the truth, and the receiving of Christ into the soul. Thou hatest this or that public blemish, but what are thy faults? (Joh_8:7.) Do not rashly censure others, and descant on their faults; look within!
2. Stop your way of sinning; pluck out thy right eye, cut off thy right hand (Mat_5:29-30). Your trial lieth there, as Abraham was tried in the call to offer up his Isaac; and David voucheth it as a mark of his sincerity (Psa_18:23).
3. As we look back upon our past, and humble ourselves before God, let us penitently confess, not only the sinfulness of our nature, which we have in common with all men, but also the personal transgressions by which individually we have grieved Him.
4. As to our future, there are two things we must do.
(1.) We must walk circumspectly. We must look carefully at and around our way, and make sure that it is also the way of God (Pro_4:26-27; Pro_14:12); remembering that while there are many evil paths, there is but one right one. To save us from mistake, four waymarks have been mercifully given us. First, at the entrance of the way which leads to life everlasting there is a strait gate—so strait that we can enter it only by putting off all our sins, and giving ourselves entirely to the Lord. Secondly, it is a narrow way, and sometimes a very rugged way, so that much self-denial is needed to enable us to continue in it. Thirdly, it is a way in which you have little company (Mat_7:14). Fourthly, it is a way in which, if we look carefully, we can discern Christ’s footsteps (1Pe_2:21).
(2.) We must walk prayerfully, day by day asking God to keep us in His way. It is pleasanter the further it is pursued, and it conducts to a glorious resting place (Pro_3:17).—Thomas Manton, D.D.: Works, vol. iii. pp. 304–308.
GUILT CONFESSED, MERCY ACKNOWLEDGED
Isa_53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray, &c.
Our text expresses the sentiment of those, and of those only, who are acquainted with the misery of our fallen state, feel their own concern in it, and approve of the method which God has provided for their deliverance and recovery. It contains—
I. A CONFESSION OF GUILT AND WRETCHEDNESS. “All we … way.”
1. It is a sufficient proof of our depravity, that we prefer our own ways to the Lord’s; nor can He inflict a heavier judgment upon us in this life, than to give us up entirely to the way of our own hearts.
2. There is only one right way, but a thousand ways of being wrong. If you are not following Christ, you are wandering from God. The profane and the self-righteous, the open sinner and the hypocrite, the lover of pleasure and the lover of gold, the formal Papist and the formal Protestant, though they seem to travel different roads, though they pity or censure each other, will meet at last (unless the grace of God prevent) in the same state of final and hopeless misery. Whatever character you may bear amongst men, if you have not faith and holiness, you certainly are not in the way of life (Mar_16:16; Heb_12:14).
3. As wandering sheep are liable to innumerable dangers which they can neither see nor prevent, such is our condition, until, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are stopped, and turned, and brought into the fold of the Good Shepherd.
II. AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MERCY.
Where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded. Man sinned, and Messiah suffered. “The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” On what grounds! On the ground of His voluntary substitution for sinners, as their covenant head and representative (H. E. I. 396).—John Newton: Complete Works, pp. 712, 713.
In few words, this text contains the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It consists of lamentation and consolation.
I. LAMENTATION.
It is a lamentation over human sinfulness. “All we … way.” Here is sinfulness—
1. In its nature. It is a departure from God. It is transgression of the law which defines the boundaries within which God’s responsible creatures should keep. If they overleap or break them down, if they trespass into the territories beyond, they become sinners. Man has strayed from God.
2. In its reality. It is no ideal thing. It has passed into history. It is the sternest of living facts. From the fatal hour when the first transgression was committed, the holy God has witnessed the perpetration of sins beyond the power of any intellect other than His own to enumerate or estimate. But He numbers and estimates them with unerring accuracy.
3. In its universality. There are no exceptions. “All.” The whole flock has followed the leader. The manner in which this is to be accounted for may be disputable, may be mysterious. The fact is neither. Scripture, history, observation, experience unite in the testimony that, with the exception of the incarnate Son of God, all have sinned.
4. In its variety. It does not run onwards in a straight line, as the sinfulness which appears in action would if it were merely imitation of example. The various modes of sin show that it results from a radical tendency to sin in the present state of human nature. According to peculiarities of circumstances, taste, temperament, men transgress. Ten thousand paths of sin strike off in as many directions, each possessing its peculiar attraction to different characters and dispositions. A lamentable ingenuity is displayed in the invention of various ways in which God may be sinned against.
5. In its degrees. The universality predicted of it does not imply that every one is equally sinful. Every sheep of the flock has wandered from the fold, some further than others. But let not this be made a refuge from the accusations of conscience. Because some one has committed fewer crimes than his neighbour, he persuades himself that his case calls for no alarm. He imagines that because wickedness is universal, it has overgrown the power of God to punish it; that there is something in the crowd which lessens the wretchedness of the individual; that the sin and misery of others will be greater than his own. He deems it impossible for himself to fall over the precipice, because it is not so near the point of departure as the pit which opens to engulph another who has chosen a different and swifter road to ruin. One transgression constitutes a sinner. Perhaps you underrate your own transgressions and overrate those of others. The degrees of guilt God alone understands. He sees and knows the heart’s wickedness.
All, then, have gone astray. All are guilty. All need mercy. This is the lamentation of the text. But it contains also
II. CONSOLATION.
“The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” It is found in the substitution of the suffering Saviour. This truth may be—
1. Explained. Our iniquities have been laid on Christ the Son of God. No inferior person could bear such a load. The story of Jesus is the story of Him who has placed Himself, although innocent, in the sinner’s position before the law. His death was instead of the death the sinner deserved.
2. Confirmed. Those who by wicked hands crucified Him were the instruments by whom the determinate counsel of God was carried out. The Lord appointed Him. He prepared the way by type, and prophecy, and history. He has accepted the atoning sacrifice. He declared it openly by the resurrection from the dead. He was thus proclaimed in the preaching of apostles (2Co_5:21).
3. Applied. Is this consolation for you? Are you drinking life from this fountain? Have you, as a penitent sinner, applied for this mercy? Is Jesus your trust? Then your debt is paid. You owe it no longer. What you owe is gratitude and love to Jesus. Dismiss distress and fear. Enter into the liberty which shows itself in loving services.—J. Rawlinson.
SIN LAID ON JESUS
Isa_53:6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
The verse opens with a confession of sin common to all the persons intended in the verse. The confession is also special and particular. It is the mark of genuine repentance that while it naturally associates itself with other penitents, it also feels that it must take up a position of loneliness. “We have turned every one to his own way” is a confession importing that each man had sinned against light peculiar to himself, or sinned with an aggravation which he at least could not perceive in his fellow. It is very unreserved. There is not a single syllable by way of excuse; there is not a word to detract from the force of the confession. It is moreover singularly thoughtful, for thoughtless persons do not use a metaphor so appropriate as the text: “All we like sheep have gone astray”—like a creature cared for, but not capable of grateful attachment to the hand that cares for it; like a creature wise enough to find the gap in the hedge by which to escape, but so silly as to have no propensity or desire to return to the place from which it had perversely wandered; like sheep habitually, constantly, wilfully, foolishly, without power to return, we have gone astray. I wish that all our confessions of sin showed a like thoughtfulness, for to use words of general confession without our soul entering into them may be but a “repentance that needeth to be repented of,” an insult and mockery to high Heaven vented in that very place where there ought to have been the greatest possible tenderness and holy fear.
I. Let us consider the text by way of exposition.
1. It may be well to give the marginal translation of the text, “Jehovah hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all.” The first thought that demands notice is the meeting of sin. Sin I may compare to the rays of some evil sun. Sin was scattered throughout this world as abundantly as light, and Christ is made to suffer the full effect of the baleful rays which stream from the sun of sin. God as it were holds up a burning glass, and concentrates all the scattered rays in a focus upon Christ. That seems to be the thought of the text, “The Lord hath focused upon Him the iniquity of us all.” That which was scattered abroad everywhere is here brought into terrible concentration; upon the devoted head of our blessed Lord all the sin of His people was made to meet. [1632]
[1632] Before a great storm when the sky is growing black and the wind is beginning to howl, you have seen the clouds hurrying from almost every point of the compass as though the great day of battle were come, and all the dread artillery of God were hurrying to the field. In the centre of the whirlwind and the storm, when the lightnings threaten to set all heaven on a blaze, and the black clouds fold on fold labour to conceal the light of day, you have a very graphic metaphor of the meeting of all sin upon the person of Christ; the sin of the ages past and the sin of the ages to come, the sins of those of the elect who were in heathendom, and of those who were in Jewry; the sin of the young and of the old, sin original and sin actual, all made to meet, all the black clouds concentrated and brought together into one great tempest, that it might rush in one tremendous tornado upon the person of the great Redeemer and substitute. As when a thousand streamlets dash down the mountain side in the day of rain, and all meet in one deep swollen lake; that lake the Saviour’s heart, those gushing torrents, the sins of us all who are here described as making a full confession of our sins. Or, to take a metaphor not from nature but from commerce, suppose the debts of a great number of persons to be all gathered up, the scattered bonds and bills that are to be honoured or dishonoured on such and such a day, and all these laid upon one person who undertakes the responsibility of meeting every one of them without a single assistant; such was the condition of the Saviour; the Lord made to meet on Him the debts of all His people, so that He became responsible for all the obligations of every one of those whom His Father had given Him, whatsoever their debts might be. Or if these metaphors do not suffice to set forth the meaning, take the text in our own version, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all;” put upon Him, as a burden is laid upon a man’s back, all the burdens of all His people; put upon His head, as the high priest of old laid upon the scape-goat, all the sin of the beloved ones that He might bear them in His own person. The two translations are perfectly consistent; all sins are made to meet, and then having met together and been tied up in one crushing load the whole burden is laid upon Him.—Spurgeon.
The expression “laid on Him” is rendered in the margin “hath made to meet on Him,” and allusion is supposed to be made to the scape-goat (Lev_16:8-14). This ceremony was typical of the Great Sinbearer; but it is only a part of Christ’s atoning work, the other part being represented by the other goat which was slain in sacrifice. The scape-goat alone is not an adequate representation. Besides, the verb has a stronger meaning than the laying of hands on the head. It conveys the idea of violent collision—to strike, push, urge. “Jehovah hath made to strike or rush upon Him the iniquity of us all.” Our sin was the procuring cause of Christ’s death, and actually brought it about. He was appointed to occupy the place of sinners, and to bear the punishment which they had incurred, and which, but for His enduring it, they must have suffered in their own persons.
Other interpreters see a different figure in this clause. The verse, they think, would be disjointed and broken, unless the image introduced at the beginning be regarded as underlying the whole. As man’s transgression is exhibited as a strayed flock, the atonement made for them would naturally be represented as the means employed to bring them back to the fold, or to avert the evils to which they are exposed. Our iniquity is like a band of ravening wolves, but Jehovah appoints His Son to come in between us and our destroyers. This is the very picture which Jesus Himself draws (Joh_10:11). But we cannot understand the passage in this light, without doing violence to the language of the prophet. Were the figure carried out in the last clause, we should have some such statement as that of Peter (1Pe_2:25). We, therefore, take the words in their literal sense. The statement, no doubt, is obscure, and could not be fully comprehended until its fulfilment; but, viewed in the light of Gethsemane and Calvary, it has a fulness of meaning and a completeness of realisation. We must remember that the prophet views the death of Christ as just over; all His agonies are vividly before him, and he says, “The Lord hath caused the iniquity of us all to strike upon Him.” The standpoint of the prophet, from which he surveys his subject, is placed between the humiliation and the exaltation of our Lord, when He lay in Joseph’s tomb. From that point he looks back on the sufferings, and forward to the triumphs and glories of the Redeemer.—William Guthrie, M.A.
2. Sin was made to meet upon the suffering person of the innocent substitute. I have said “the suffering person,” because the connection of the text requires it (Isa_53:5). The Lord Jesus would have been incapable of receiving the sin of all His people as their substitute, had He been Himself a sinner; but He was the spotless Lamb of God, and therefore He was on all accounts capable of standing in the room, place, and stead of sinful men. The doctrine of the text is, that Christ did stand in such a position as to take upon Himself the iniquity of all His people, remaining still Himself innocent; having no personal sin, being incapable of any, but yet taking the sin of others upon Himself. Not only was Christ treated as if He had been guilty, but the very sin itself was, I know not how, laid upon His head (2Co_5:21). Is it not written, “He shall bear,” not merely the punishment of their sin, nor the imputation of their sin, but “He shall bear their iniquities”? Our sin is laid on Jesus in even a deeper and truer sense than is expressed by the term “imputation.”
3. It has been asked, Was it just that sin should thus be laid upon Christ? Our reply is fourfold. We believe it was rightly so,
(1.) Because it was the act of Him who must do right, for “the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
(2.) Christ voluntarily took this sin upon Himself (Joh_10:18; H. E. I. 913).
(3.) There was a relationship between our Lord and His people, which is too often forgotten, but which rendered it natural that He should bear the sin of His people. Why does the text speak of our sinning like sheep? I think it is because it would call to our recollection that Christ is our Shepherd. It is not that Christ took upon Himself the sins of strangers. Remember that there always was a union of a most mysterious and intimate kind between those who sinned and the Christ who suffered. The Lord Jesus stood in the relationship of a married husband unto His Church, and it was not, therefore, a strange thing that He should bear her burdens.
(4.) This plan of salvation is precisely similar to the method of our ruin. How did we fall? Not by any one of us actually ruining himself. Our own sin is the ground of ultimate punishment, but the ground of our original fall lay in another. If we grant the fall,—and we must grant the fact, however we may dislike the principle,—we cannot think it unjust that God should give us a plan of salvation based upon the same principle of federal headship.
4. Sin lying upon Christ brought upon Him all the consequences connected with it. [1635] God cannot look where there is sin with any pleasure, and though, as far as Jesus is personally concerned, He is the Father’s beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, it was not possible that He should enjoy the light of His Father’s presence while He was made sin for us; consequently He went through a horror of great darkness, the root and source of which was the withdrawing of the conscious enjoyment of His Father’s presence. More than that, not only was light withdrawn, but positive sorrow was inflicted. God must punish sin [1638] and though the sin was not Christ’s by His actually doing it, yet it was laid upon Him, and therefore He was made a curse for us.
[1635] For a more careful and discriminating statement of this point, see the outline by Dr. Alexander, p. 506.
[1638] 1. His attribute of justice, which is as undoubtedly a part of His glory as His attribute of love, required that sin should be punished. 2. As God had been pleased to make a moral universe to be governed by laws, there would be an end of all government if the breaking of law involved no penalty whatever. 3. Inasmuch as there is sin in the world, it is the highest benevolence to do all that can be done to restrain the horrible pest. It would be far from benevolent for our government to throw wide the doors of all the jails, to abolish the office of the judge, to suffer every thief and every offender of every kind to go unpunished; instead of mercy it would be cruelty; it might be mercy to the offending, but it would be intolerable injustice towards the upright and inoffensive. God’s very benevolence demands that the detestable rebellion of sin against. His supreme authority should be put down with a firm hand, that men may not flatter themselves that they can do evil and yet go unpunished. The necessities of moral government require that sin must be punished.—Spurgeon.
What were the pangs which Christ endured? I cannot tell you. You have read the story of His crucifixion. That is only the shell, but the inward kernel who shall describe? His griefs are worthy to be described according to the Greek Liturgy as “unknown sufferings.” The height and depth, the length and breadth of what Jesus Christ endured nor heart can guess, nor tongue can tell, nor can imagination frame; God only knows the griefs to which the Son of God was put when the Lord made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all (H. E. I. 915). To crown all there came death itself. Death is the punishment for sin, and whatever it may mean, whatever over and beyond natural death was intended in the sentence, “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” Christ felt. Death went through and through Him, until “He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.” “He became obedient to death, even to the death of the cross.”
II. Now consecrate a few moments to hallowed contemplation. Think,
1. Of the astounding mass of sin that must have been laid on Christ (Joh_1:29; 1Jn_2:2). All the sins against light and knowledge, sins against law and gospel, week-day sins, Sabbath sins, hand sins, lip sins, heart sins, sins against the Father, sins against the Son, sins against the Holy Ghost, sins of all shapes, all laid upon Him!
2. The amazing love of Jesus, which brought Him to do all this (Rom_5:6-8. H. E. I. 920, 946–949).
3. The matchless security which this plan of salvation offers. I do not see in what point that man is vulnerable who can feel and know that Christ has borne his sin. I look at the attributes of God, and though to me, as a sinner, they all seem bristling as with sharp points, thrusting themselves upon me; yet when I know that Jesus died for me, and did literally take my sin, what fear I the attributes of God? (H. E. I. 2286). There is justice, sharp and bright, like a lance; but justice is my friend. If God be just, He cannot punish me for sin for which Jesus has offered satisfaction. As long as there is justice in the heart of Deity, it cannot be that a soul justly claiming Christ as his substitute can himself be punished. As for mercy, love, truth, honour, everything matchless, Godlike, and divine about Deity, I say of all these, “You are my friends; you are all guarantees that since Jesus died for me I cannot die.” How grandly does the apostle put it! (Rom_8:33-34).
4. What, then, are the claims of Jesus Christ upon you and upon me? Did our blessed Lord take your sin, my brethren, and suffer all its terrific consequences for you, so that you are delivered? By His blood and wounds, by His death, and by the love that made Him die, I conjure you treat Him as He should be treated! You will tell me that you have obeyed His precepts. I am glad to hear it. But if you can say this, I am not content; it does not seem to me that with such a leader as Christ mere obedience should be all. Napoleon singularly enough had power to get the hearts of men twisted and twined about him; when he was in his wars there were many of his captains and even of his private soldiers who not only marched with the quick obedience of a soldier wherever they were bidden, but who felt an enthusiasm for him. Have you never heard of him who threw himself in the way of the shot to receive it in his bosom to save the Emperor? No obedience, no law could have required that, of him, but enthusiastic love moved him to it; and it is such enthusiasm that my Master deserves in the very highest degree from us.—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 694.
Our faith is retrospective as Isaiah’s was anticipatory; faith annihilates the past, and the believer stands in the presence of an actual cross. A stupendous fact is that to which our faith turns. Satan tried to lay iniquity on Christ, and failed. Having met Satan and the powers of evil in struggle after struggle, He yet challenged blame with absolute assurance (Joh_8:46). Wicked men strove to lay iniquity on Christ. Judas (Mat_26:4), Pilate (Mat_22:21). The Church of Jerusalem sought to lay iniquity on Him as guilty of impiety. But he was most devout. He received the sign of the covenant in circumcision, and feast days, &c., were observed by Him with conscientious devotion and carefulness. All these many powers were foiled in attaching sin to the person or character of Jesus Christ. What, then, means the darkness that gathers around the cross? “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” That which sinners failed to do, God in sovereignty that day accomplished, and this sinless Man has become the substitute for the race (2Co_5:21).
I. THE MEETING-PLACE OF ALL SIN IS THE CROSS OF CHRIST. In the margin, our text is rendered, “Hath made the iniquity of us all to meet on Him.”
II. THE MEETING-PLACE OF SIN IS THE MERCY-SEAT FOR ALL SINNERS.
1. How gracious is the assurance!
2. To rest in this assurance is to make sure of our salvation.
3. This should render our worship grateful.
CONCLUSION.—The imperative claim Christ has upon the soul. If you will not consent that your iniquites shall meet on Christ, bear them you must yourself.—Stephen H. Tyng, jr., D.D.: Study and Homilitic Monthly, new series, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.
CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS
Isa_53:6. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
1Pe_2:24. Who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree.
These texts are not unusual declarations of Scripture, but are of a very numerous class. The doctrine which they set before us is woven into the very texture of Christianity, and furnishes the great resting-place of faith. And, what is especially proper to be observed this day, it is the truth of all others which we are coming to celebrate at the holy table. Yet it has been so altered, and diminished, and shorn of its genuine dignity and proportions, that we often need to reexamine its meaning, and reassert the foundations of our faith. In our own day there is a manifest tendency to explain away its import, and to concede undue force to the objections of opponents. These objections have in many instances been aimed at opinions charged upon us, which we do not hold; at exaggerations, perversions, and even caricatures of the truth: and all the changes have been rung on the terms imputation, satisfaction, and substitution, as if these had been found chargeable with inherent injustice or absurdity. The very first thing, therefore, which we should attempt, is to clear away certain mists which have been conjured up around the Scriptural statement.
I. WHAT WE DO NOT MEAN BY CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS.
1. When we assert that Christ bore our sins, we do not mean that He was a sinner. He is, by way of eminence, “Jesus Christ the righteous.” Only as such could He ever have cleared away our guilt. He bore our sins, without bearing their power or their pollution. Of their vileness and lawlessness His soul had no experience.
2. We do not mean that He suffered, pain of conscience. Remorse is the necessary consequence of sin, and part of its punishment. But He who knew no sin, could know no repentance, no contrition, no personal regrets, no anguish of guilty self-accusation. Even in Gethsemane, when His soul was exceeding sorrowful, and on the cross, when He pierced heaven with His imploring cry, He could no more suffer compunction of conscience, than He could speak falsehood, or blaspheme.
3. We do not mean that Christ was at any time personally displeasing to God. He bore the wrath of God, but He bore it representatively. He never was more pleasing to God, He never was more righteous, He never was more acceptable and lovely, He never was more intensely and immeasurably fulfilling the will of God, than when He cried, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani! If this exclamation has a difficulty, it is a difficulty for the adversaries of substitution: let them explain it. For our part, we hold it to be an awfully mysterious expression of the truth, that at that moment of darkness and earthquake, Jesus Christ was so involved in the consequences of our sin, as to sink under the sense of agony, and to feel the absence of all consoling divine influence. But while angels stooped to look into these things, they might have heard from the invisible throne the words of infinite complacency: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!” The all-holy Jehovah cannot hate holiness, and could not hate His only-begotten Son, in the exercise of the sublimest holiness which the universe has known.
4. We do not mean that there was any transfer of personal character. The chief strength of our opposers lies in this fallacy. They charge us with maintaining a transfer of personal attributes, and moral qualities, and easily triumph over the phantom which they have raised. We, as well they, hold such a transfer to be impossible and absurd: and (be it declared for the thousandth time) it is no such thing which we mean by the imputation of sins to Christ. Our sins must ever remain our sins, and the sins of no one else, as a matter of fact, as a historical verity, as a personal transaction. As deeds, and as connected with sinful motives and desires, they attach to our own persons, and are to be repented of, and eternally remembered by us as our own. And, on the other hand, Christ’s acts and sufferings, as matter of fact and history, are and cannot but for ever be, His own acts and sufferings, and those of no other being in the universe. There is no confounding of personality, nor has such a thing ever been maintained by our theologians, though assiduously and pertinaciously charged, during at least two centuries. We hold indeed an intimate and blessed union between the head and the members; we hold that our sins were visited on Him, and that His righteousness enures to our benefit, but we repudiate all such commingling of personality as this imagined tenet would convey.
II. WHAT WE DO MEAN WHEN WE ASSERT THAT CHRIST BORE OUR SINS.
1. The Lord Jesus Christ bore our nature. It was the all-essential preliminary to His whole work. To be our Head, “the Word was made flesh.”
2. Christ actually endured pain, It was in this way only that He could bear our sins.
3. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered for our sins. It is one of those truths which lie on the very surface of the Scripture, and which must be twisted into violent metaphor, before it can be robbed of its meaning. To give but a few instances—Isa_53:4-5; Rom_5:6; Rom_5:8; 1Co_15:3; 1Th_5:10; 1Pe_2:21; 1Pe_3:18; 1Pe_4:1.
They declare, first, that Christ’s sufferings were for us, and secondly, that they were for our sins. A friend, a father, a husband, a sister, may suffer, and yet not for us; or these beloved ones may suffer for us, and yet not for our sins. But the suffering of Jesus stands out with this striking peculiarity, that it is always represented as being, not only for our sakes, but for our sins.
4. Christ bore our sins, in this sense, that He bore the penalty of our sins. This is the primary, obvious, and necessary meaning of the words. “Christ died for us,” that is, died in our stead.
But here the adversary rejoins, that penalty must always attach to the person; that he who has sinned must be punished; and that the suffering of the innocent cannot benefit the guilty. If this were true, it would at once cut off all our hopes, and put an end to all proper atonement. But it is not true. The Church in all ages has held first, that sin for its own sake deserves the wrath and curse of God; and secondly, that to redeem us from the law, God sent His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who in His own person fulfilled those demands, and endured that curse in our stead. And this is so far from violating any of our natural principles of justice, that it is of all things most suited to relieve and pacify the afflicted conscience.
The Scriptures represent the penalty as a debt, which our Surety pays for us (H. E. I. 383). We are familiar with substitution of this kind in civil cases, which would not be true, if such commutation were in itself repugnant to the common sense of justice among mankind. Ancient history has striking instances of similar substitution in criminal and capital cases. And the reason why this is not admitted in such cases, under modern jurisdiction, is not any injustice in the principle. The case, we admit, must be a peculiar one in which such a substitution can take place; and if ever there was a case thus peculiar, in which the innocent might suffer for the guilty, it is surely this. To make such suffering allowable, the innocent person must be one who has lordship and dominion over his own life; which men in common life have not; but which the Son of God had: “I lay it down of Myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Again, the innocent surety must assume the place and penalty of his own free will: which was eminently and gloriously true of the Lord Jesus. Again, he must be able to answer all the demands of the law, for those whom he represented. Again, he must be able to restore himself from death: no mere man could do this, and therefore if such a substitution were to take place in a capital instance, the state would lose a good citizen. In the substitution, then, of this willing, glorious, triumphant Surety, there is no injustice, but infinite grace.
They object to us that it is incredible that the holy and just God should charge upon Christ the sins of others, and thus make the innocent suffer in the place of the guilty. But let them answer, Is it more credible, or more equitable, that the holy and just God should subject the innocent Redeemer to such sufferings, without any such imputation? Christ suffered and died. This is the admitted fact. Now, did He suffer as a surety for the sinner, taking his place? or did He suffer, without being a surety, as an innocent being, by a mere arbitrary infliction? The difficulty appears to be altogether with the objectors to atonement. [1641]
[1641] All the ancient sacrifices wrote in letters of blood the word Substitution. For what, after all, is the idea of sacrifice but the innocent dying for the guilty? It was an emblem which the feeblest mind might comprehend. There, on the altar, is a spotless lamb—the emblem of innocence. Here am I, a polluted sinner. I lay my right hand on the unblemished victim, and straightway it becomes in type a sinner. I should have died—but now the victim dies: it dies for me—it dies in my place. It was thus the way was prepared for the Lamb of God, that taketh away thesinof the world. It is not here and there, but everywhere, that the Bible thus represents the method of our salvation (Isa_53:5-6; Isa_53:10-12; Gal_3:13; 2Co_5:21). This doctrine is taught in expressions which cannot be mistaken by an unbiassed mind. And we never find unsophisticated persons troubled with those difficulties which have made this doctrine a stumbling-block to Jews and philosophers. There is something intelligible and lovely in Christ’s coming into our place and dying for us. Especially when a soul is overwhelmed with a sense of sin and dread of eternal wrath, the truth is the only thing which can give life.—Alexander.
5. Christ so bore our sins, as to remove from us all their penal consequences, and secure our salvation. By that suffering He exhausted the penalty and discharged the debt. He who believes, in the very moment of believing, becomes one with Christ, and graciously entitled to all that Christ has purchased for His people. The death of Christ is not merely a transaction which makes our pardon possible, contingent, or even probable: it secures it. It breaks all the penal force of the law. Whatever chastisements, even death itself, may henceforth befall the believer, none of them can befall him in the character of punishment. The law is as fully and eternally at peace with a justified sinner, as though he had never sinned. And this is the glad news which first of all brings peace to the soul of a convinced penitent. He beholds the Cross, and sees how God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly that believeth in Jesus.
CONCLUSION.—
1. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we should learn to look on sin with shame and horror. How intense must that evil be which demands such a sacrifice!
2. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we should see in Him the object of saving faith. In all the universe of nature and grace—this is the point for the eye of a convinced sinner.
3. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we have before us the greatest of all motives to personal holiness. When temptation comes in a like tide, cast your eyes to the Cross (H. E. I. 4589, 4590).—J. W. Alexander, D.D.: The Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii. pp. 222–226.
DIVINE LOVE IN CHRIST’S PASSION
Isa_53:6. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
“I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace, and not of evil,” said the Lord to His people. And if we could know the thoughts He thinks towards us, we should hardly tell how to admire sufficiently His love for us, or to humble ourselves enough for our baseness towards Him.
The love which God hath for us is manifested in our creation, and in His continual care over us ever since we were born. But in a measure far beyond that in all other instances of His love, it is displayed in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. But, unhappily, after all that is said of the redeeming love of God, with all the proofs of it in the wonderful things done for our salvation, many have little notion of the Divine kindness exercised in this great and glorious work. Were it better understood, more hearts would be melted into sorrowful contrition for sin, and thence brought to faith and holiness, and so prepared for the kingdom of God.
Let us consider, then, how awful is the accumulated weight of sin laid upon Jesus—“the iniquities of us all,” of the entire human race! (1Jn_2:2). Oh, how can we calculate the weight of this burden? how can we number and measure the sins of the whole world? how can we estimate the punishment due to them which our Saviour endured in our stead? The sins that began with the sins of Eve and Adam, and have been increasing in all times and climes ever since, how appalling their number! When we call to mind that one sin was sufficient, in the judgment of the righteous God, to condemn men to sorrow and death, we wonder not that the contemplation of the burden that awaited our Saviour in atoning for “the iniquities of us all” laid Him prostrate in Gethsemane, caused Him to sweat “as it were great drops of blood,” and to pray that if it were possible that “cup” might pass from Him. No man with his present confined faculties can form an adequate notion of the weight of affliction which Christ endured, when He stood in the place of a world of sinners. All we can say is, that it was something which was equivalent, in the scales of Divine justice, to the eternal punishment due to the sins of all mankind (1Pe_2:24; Rom_3:26). After all the notions I can form of the sufferings of Jesus, all that I can do as a thinker is to stand with awful astonishment contemplating the cross, overwhelmed with thoughts of the unseen and unknown sufferings of my Redeemer.
I. Now, our apprehension of the love of Jesus must run parallel with our apprehension of His sufferings. The more He had to endure, the greater effort of love must have been required to urge Him to undergo it. If a man, seeing another whom he loved condemned to a cruel death, were to go and suffer in his place, we should stand amazed at such a man, and say that he was possessed of an extraordinary measure of charity. How much more, if he were to endure for him the everlasting sufferings of hell! But, how incomprehensibly great would his charity appear, if he could call down upon himself sufferings equivalent to the eternal sufferings of the whole race of mankind! Yet when we contemplate Jesus on the cross, we see one having thus acted. How infinitely great, how stupendous, this makes the love of Christ appear!
The manner in which He suffered also manifests His love for us. With all the mighty love with which He was urged through His sufferings, with all the strength of firmness and resolution with which He endured to the end, with all the immeasurable greatness of His passion, and the vast amount of good He was accomplishing, still there was no vain display of His love or of His endurance, no boast of the great things He was effecting. Not a word did He utter of what He was enduring, or what He was purchasing for us. Humble and quiet lowliness and gentle meekness were the dispositions manifested in Him, through all that He did and suffered for us (Isa_53:7). Now, it is always true love that is the secret of lowly suffering for others. Who can see lowly sorrow, and humble patience and resignation in bitter affliction, especially when it is endured for the benefit of others, without a feeling of love towards the charitable sufferer? Must not that which we see manifested in Jesus attract us to Him, and excite in our hearts admiring love? (P. D. 2340, 2341).
II. In proportion to the sorrow and pain which were laid upon the Son of God, is the measure of the Father’s love in giving Him up to such suffering abasement for us. Here also we see that the Divine love is beyond all bound or measure of ours. If the sufferings and abasements of the Son were infinitely, immeasurably great, the love of the Father, who gave Him up to the pain and humiliation of the cross, must be incomprehensible also. Oh, where is our heart, that we are so little affected with God’s redeeming love; that our return for it is ingratitude and sin? But our very worthlessness magnifies the Divine love. Had it been for unhappy creatures in misery, but not in fault, that God gave His beloved Son, had it been even for those who would one and all prize, highly value, and abound in love for what was done for them, still the love of God in this unspeakable gift would have been immeasurably great; but how incomprehensibly vast does it appear, when we consider how offensive in God’s sight sin has made mankind, how great a portion of mankind never take any notice at all of the Divine love in the great redemption, and how slow the best of us are to see and be grateful for “the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness to us through Christ Jesus!” We feel that it rises above all speech or thought of ours (Rom_5:7-8. H. E. I. 2318–2337. P. D. 1468, 2345).—R. L. Cotton, M.A.: The Way of Salvation, pp. 78–91.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Isaiah continues describing Yahweh's servant. (See: Isaiah 53:1-2)
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We all like sheep have gone astray
Sheep often leave the path on which the shepherd leads them. Isaiah means that we do what we want instead of what God commands. (See: Simile)
the iniquity of us all
Our "iniquity" here represents the guilt for our sin. AT: "the guilt for the sin of every one of us" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
ewe
astray
turn
Yahweh
iniquity
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 53:6 strayed away . . . left God’s paths:…
53:6 strayed away . . . left God’s paths: These are metaphors for sin (see also Rom 3:10-18).
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