Isaiah 53:4 - Forerunner Commentary

Isaiah 53:4

Library

<< Isaiah 53:3 Isaiah 53:5 >>

Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Isaiah 53:4:

Isaiah 53:4-6
Excerpted from: Azazel: Beginnings

These are not minor details. These actions describe the primary role of the live goat. Their fulfillments should be easily found in God's Word - and indeed, they are. These two identifying actions are found in the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 53:

Verse 6 gives a clear fulfillment of Leviticus 16:21. The Eternal laid our iniquities on the Messiah, just as the high priest laid his hands on the azazel and confessed over it all the iniquities of the people.

In general, the laying on of hands indicates a solemn identification, a testimony, or a setting apart. It frequently contains the idea of transference. In the sin offering, the laying on of hands symbolizes the identification of an innocent substitute to whom sin is transferred from the guilty party. The hands also identify who is to bear the sin.

Now, the live goat was a substitute. It was not guilty, nor was it being blamed for sin. Instead, the sins of the nation were symbolically transferred it, and it bore them away from God's presence in the Tabernacle. The purpose of a substitutionary sacrifice is to have an innocent representative standing in the place of a person or group, so the guilty party does not have to bear the sins. The animal stands in for the sinner(s). The azazel was the type in receiving the sins of the nation, and the Messiah was the antitype in receiving our sins.

In verse 4, the Messiah is prophesied to bear our griefs and sorrows, which are not the sins themselves, but which are the effects of sin. Verses 4-5 portray the trauma the Messiah would undergo. They foretell that the Messiah would do more than just die. If God only required death for His justice to be satisfied, He could have had the Romans cut Christ's throat, just like an animal's. One quick and deadly slice, and it would be over. Yet Isaiah foretells that the Messiah would undergo incredible suffering before death.

There is a potent lesson here, which is that sin incurs more than just the death penalty. Sin also causes physical and emotional pain. It causes grief and sorrow. It causes separation between people, and more critically, between mankind and God, beginning with mankind's expulsion from God's presence in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24; see Isaiah 59:1-2).

There is much that could be said about all the rotten fruit that sin produces, but for our purposes, it is enough to recognize that when God laid our iniquities on the Messiah, that action caused more than death. It caused unparalleled agony and disfigurement.

Isaiah 52:14 says that Christ was marred more than any man, such that it was hard to tell He was even human. That is what sin does - it distorts and corrupts the image in which mankind was created. We were created in God's image, but sin destroys that likeness.

Isaiah 53:1-12
Excerpted from: Jesus in the Feasts (Part Four): Atonement

This prophecy of the Suffering Servant, or the Sin-Bearing Servant as the New King James has it in my Bible, is an obvious prophecy of Jesus Christ offering Himself as our atoning sacrifice, shedding His innocent blood to pay for the sins of all those who come to believe in Him and then bearing them away. This passage, this 12, 13, 14, 15 verses here, links Leviticus 16 with the Gospels, and with Romans 3 and Romans 5, and the book of Hebrews and lot of other places in the New Testament. And they and others all testify that Jesus is our sacrifice for sin. The one who gave Himself so that we can be clean.

Now a careful reading of especially verses 4 through 12 here, upholds what it says in Leviticus 16 about the sacrifice coming in two distinct parts, like the two goats. For instance, verse 10 tells us specifically that His life, or His soul, as it says in in the New King James, was made an offering for sin. That was the life that was extinguished when He shed His blood, when the first goat was killed as the offering for sin. While verse 7 compares Him to a lamb led to the slaughter. He was the Lamb of God, of course.

Verse 8 He says that He died for the transgressions of His people, for all Israel, for spiritual Israel. Verse 9 verifies He was sinless. He did not do any violence, He spoke no deceit. It is a poetic way to say He did not sin. He did nothing wrong. And verse 6 says that God laid on Him all our iniquities.

So that is the first goat, the first part. What about part two?

Well, verse 11 tells us that He bore the iniquities of those He will justify. They were placed upon Him to be borne away. And verse 12 repeats it saying that He not only bore the iniquities of those who you will justify, but He bore the sins of many.

So we have these two major activities contemplated in the supreme sin offering: the shedding of an innocent sacrifice's blood in death and the bearing away or removal of the sins. Jesus Christ performed both parts through shedding His blood in sacrifice and removing human sin in His death. He bore them to the grave and they are gone.

Isaiah 53:1-12
Excerpted from: Peace, Peace (Part One): Peace with God

These two passages that I have just read may be the clearest statement of Christ's redemptive mission in the whole Bible. Once you connect Christ with the suffering Servant, it becomes so clear. So many prophecies were fulfilled in what He did at Golgotha. Isaiah 53 focuses on the suffering and His sorrow leading to His death, along with taking on Himself the wrath of God in the form of our sins and bearing them and making intercession for us.

I want to draw your attention to verse 5, the phrase, "the chastisement for our peace was upon Him." Just kind of single this out. It may be a little bit unclear what is being spoken about here and I thought I would try to clarify it. We can paraphrase (I was going to say translate) this particular clause to mean or to read, "God disciplined Him to bring us peace." Or we could say, "God chastised Him," God spanked Him, God gave Him discipline for our well-being. Or another way to think of the concept of peace here is that He was chastised. He was given the sentence in our stead and made to suffer to restore us to wholeness. It is parallel to the next clause, "by His stripes, we are healed." It really gets to the point that when we sin, we are wounded, we are sick and we need healing. And God allowed Jesus Christ to be the object of His wrath to help restore us to good health, to well-being.

So He did not just restore sinners to legal innocence, if you will, and remove their guilt. But He did the major work of restoring their ability to have a relationship with God. See, that was the missing part of it. They can have peace but only when Jesus took their sins and God granted that sacrifice, the ability by grace to cover our sins.

The Creator God's blood shed for all of us was worth more than what was required to cover the sins of mankind. And so God said, "Okay, I am satisfied. We can have peace now. The guilt is removed. But only for those who believe."

Articles
Jesus' Final Human Thoughts (Part One)
The First Prophecy (Part One)
Was Jesus Christ Born Under the Law?
Why the Transfiguration?

Bible Studies
Basic Doctrines: Going On to Perfection

Essays
Pre-Passover Traditions

Sermons
The Father-Son Relationship (Part Three)
The Doctrine of Israel (Part Fourteen): Israel Redeemed
Forgiveness and the Perpetual Covenant of Peace
Jesus Christ, the Bearer of Sin
God's Special Presence and Direct Intervention
Seeking God's Will (Part Four): Sacrifice
Do You Recognize This Man? (Part 1)
Approaching God Through Christ (Part 2)
Magic Doesn't Work (Part 1)
According to His Pleasure
A Misunderstood Characteristic of God
Faith and Healing (Part 2)
Why Are We Afflicted?
Trial by Fire
Conditioned Response
Think on These Things
The Intercessory Character of Christ
Those Who Mourn
Anointing With Oil
God Heals Today

<< Isaiah 53:3 Isaiah 53:5 >>

A Verse and a Thought, Every Morning