Isaiah 53:4 Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs
#1. The Second Question
(2Pet
#2. The Gospel in Isa 53 (Isa 53:1-8, Rom 5:8)
#3. Tell No Man
(Mat
Please open your Bibles to the First Epistle of Peter, 1Pet
Last week and two weeks ago I laid down the fundamentals of interpreting the
most popular verse in the Bible, John 3:16. It is my intent to cover
some very basic doctrines that are laid out in the Bible; so basic that each
one of you “is ready always to give an answer to every man that asks
you for the reason of the hope that is within you, with meekness and fear”. You
may have recognized that these are the words of 1Pet
# 1. Those who are of
the evolutionary persuasion believe that mankind gradually evolved from
apes, and thus the concept of God gradually evolved as mankind began to be
religious. And so, without being converted to communism they have swallowed one
of the basic teachings of Karl Marx, who wrote that “religion is like opium
for the masses”. It keeps the superstitious masses subdued under their
tyrannical rulers. And so, we can begin to group all mankind into two groups:
Those who believe the theory of evolution, and those who do not believe the
theory of evolution. Those who believe the theory of evolution consider us to
be backward, ignorant, superstitious, and in need of a psychological crutch,
and that is why we hang on to a man made theory of God and the worship of God. When
we think of the answer to give to every man, from 1Pet
#2. The second group of
people are those who believe in God. And herein again we can see two
groups of people who are separated by the very basic question, “Where did the Bible come from?”
One group says, “The Bible is the work of man”, and the second group says, “The
Bible is the work of God”. Let us carefully consider these two groups of
people. Please turn in your Bibles to the Second Epistle of Peter, 2Pet
#1. The Second Question
(2Pet
The people who believe in God can be divided into two groups: group A and Group B.
#A. The people in group A have been taught by their churches that the Bible is a collection of 66 books, written by a number of people who were not all apostles or prophets but some were lay people, such as Mark, and Luke, and James the Lord’s half brother, and his brother Jude, and the writer to the Hebrews. And since these authors are all different, it stands to reason that we may find a few contra-dictions here and there, but overall they agree on the main points of the Gospel. The problem with this stand is that it leaves God out of the picture. Where is God in all of this? Does God have any input in the making of the Bible? And they say, NO! Their church determines what goes into their Bible. Their God observes the situation in the world, He judges evil and rewards good works, but He is not directly involved in the affairs of this world, and He does not dictate how people should worship Him. And thus they arrive at the notion that each one has the liberty to find a church that they like, and may worship therein. And so, they arrive at a great tolerance for other churches and other denominations, claiming that they all agree on the main issues of the Gospel, and so they all worship the same God in different ways that are all acceptable by God. The problem with this stand is that it does not agree with what their own Bible says. Moreover, if the Bible is the work of man then there is no absolute truth anywhere for truth was arrived by an agreement to believe the basics of the Gospel as found in the Bible, which was a work of man. And so, the Gospel, which is the way to heaven, the way to God, is really the work of man. This is serious business. It concerns the Gospel of salvation, which means the good news of our way to heaven, the way to eternal life with God; if that way to God is coming out of a book that was written by man, then that way to God was also written by man, and then that may not be the way to God at all. This means that those who insist that the Bible was a work of man are really worshipping a man made god, a man made idol, and they are falling in the same category as the group of people who say that there is no God and who worship mankind as their idol. For if you are falling down before a man made idol, or if you are falling down before mankind as your idol, there is no real difference. Yes there are such people. I know them personally. And thus, I conclude that it is a very dangerous thing to believe that the Bible is a collection of 66 books written by many authors, for it will lead to utter idolatry.
#B. The people in group B believe that the Bible
was written by God. It is NOT a collection of 66 books, written
by 39 authors, but it is one Book, written without error in the original Hebrew
and Greek texts, and God has commanded all mankind to believe the words of this
Book from cover to cover. Are these principles supported by the words in this
Book? The answer is: Absolutely Yes! That is why I had you turn to 2Pet
2Pe
2Pe
Verse 20 says that no portion of Scripture is of any private interpretation. No one may say, “This is what it means to me”. My opinion or your opinion about a certain verse does not count; only God’s opinion counts; for, and this is the first word in the next verse, for God is the Author of these words. In verse 21 the word “came” and the word “moved” is actually the same word. The Greek text says in verse 21 literally, “For prophecy was not borne (or carried) at any time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake having been borne along (or carried) by the Holy Spirit.” Let me say it again in slightly different words, “For prophecy was not conveyed at any time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake having been conveyed by the Holy Spirit.” What does this mean? The meaning of “prophecy” is “a message from God”, for “to prophesy” means “to speak a message from God”. All Scripture, both the OT as well as the NT is prophecy; these are all messages from God. The historical, as well as the not so historical, are all messages from God, which were carried by men set apart by God. “Holy men of God” have been “set apart by God” to speak and to write these messages from God. It means God dictated to them what they should speak and write. Who are these holy men of God? A good example is the false prophet Balaam as recorded in Num 22, 23 and 24. It does not mean that Balaam was a saved man, but he was set apart by God to bring messages, which God dictated to him; he spoke those messages which God dictated to him word for word. And when we read those messages we believe that those words spoken through the mouth of wicked Balaam are messages which God wants us to hear as truth. Therefore, people who believe 2Pet 1:20-21 are people who take the Word of God seriously; each word and each letter of each word in the original languages was inspired by God, and was written down exactly the way God wanted it to be written down. And we are not allowed to impose human rules on these messages from God, such as, “The OT was just the history of the Jews before the coming of Christ, it was the Old Covenant, but now we live in the NT time, the New Covenant, and thus we can do away with the OT”. NO! We must leave the entire Bible intact, but we must recognize that the OT Ceremonial Law was fulfilled when Christ died on the cross.
Please turn now to the Gospel according to John, John 6:63
(2X). The Bible is not just a Book to teach us how to live a decent moral life
here on earth. That is not the purpose of the Bible. The Bible is also not just
a Book to teach us the historical events of the nation of
John 6:63, It is the spirit that quickeneth; the
flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit, and they are life.
The words that we read in the Bible are the words of the Lord
Jesus, for He is Jehovah who exists from eternity past. Therefore the words of
the Scriptures are able to convert a soul, if
these words are accompanied by God the Holy Spirit. God says in Rom
#2. The Gospel in Isa 53 (Isa 53:1-8, Rom 5:8)
Please turn in your Bibles to the prophecy of Isaiah, Isa 53:1
(2X). When we read Isa 53 we see without any doubt the entire atonement of the
Lord; the humiliation, the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
are all in here. Actually, all the verses from Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12
are recognized as the 10th Servant Song of the “Suffering
Servant” in the Prophecy of Isaiah. We are going to read just a portion of
the 10th Servant Song, and of this portion we are only going to look
at one verse, Isa 53:4.
Isa 53:1 ¶ Who
hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Isa 53:2 For
he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry
ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is
no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:3 He is
despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and
we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed
him not.
Isa 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isa 53:5 But
he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his
stripes we are healed.
Isa 53:6 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.
Isa 53:7 He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth.
Isa 53:8 He
was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation?
for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my
people was he stricken.
Verse 1 is the introduction to this chapter. “Who has believed this report” of the Suffering Servant of Jehovah? Nobody has believed it. All mankind is born in rebellion against God. “There is NONE that seeketh after God. There is NONE that doeth good, No, Not One!” And verse 3 continues this poor response to the report that Christ died as the substitute for the many who deserved to die. “We hid as it were our faces from him”. Even His own people, no, not the Jews, but the ones for whom Christ died are His own people, even they hid their faces from Him. And why? It is because God declared in Rom 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. “While we were yet sinners” means in time past, while we were still in our sins, while we were still in rebellion against God, while we were still in the clutches of Satan, while we were still adamantly opposed to Christ and His Gospel, God bestowed His love toward us and sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for us in our place, on he cross of Calvary as a ransom for many, so that we might be released from the clutches of Satan and be set free to worship the only true God. What a love! What a mercy and grace for unworthy sinners! We cannot comprehend such a love from Almighty God for creatures that are just like a few worms on a planet that is only a speck of dust in this great wide universe. Certainly there are more nobler creatures in heaven on whom God could have bestowed such a great honor. But no! He did it for the sons of Adam. He did it for the sons of the one who turned his back on God and sold all his possessions and all his posterity into the hands of the Devil. And because Christ died for us, because He purchased us out of the slave-market of Satan, therefore He also purchased the right to make us spiritually alive at a time that He chose, and not at a time that we would choose.
And now we come to verse 4. Our KJV says in Isa 53:4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs”, but the Hebrew Masoretic text says, “Surely he hath borne our sicknesses”. What sicknesses does this refer to? Are these physical sicknesses or spiritual sicknesses? People of the Charismatic persuasion think that this refers to physical sicknesses. They believe that Christ paid also for our physical sicknesses and diseases, because Christ wants to see us happy and well and materially blessed in this life until the day that He takes us home. That is why they have developed worship services where healing miracles are performed. The problem is that this causes confusion among the saints, for the Bible says that near the end of time the messengers of Satan “shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect”. Most likely, healing miracles performed today are the work of Satan rather than of Christ, because today we are living in a period near the end of time. The saints will not be allowed to engage in healing miracles, for this causes confusion. On the other hand, about 2000 years ago Christ and the disciples performed healing miracles, but Satan was not allowed to engage in healing miracles, for this would have caused confusion among the saints.
Is it really true that Christ has borne our physical sicknesses? Absolutely not! Our sicknesses in this life are totally unimportant. For example, we read in Luke 16 of the beggar Lazarus, who was covered with sores, and he was so poor that he could not afford a physician, for the dogs licked his sores. But when the beggar died he was carried to Abraham’s bosom, which means he was in a state of highest bliss. All the sores and all the poverty did not hurt him one bit, for while he was in this life he was a child of God, and God was taking good care of him. If Christ died for our physical sicknesses then Christ certainly did not die for the beggar Lazarus, and that is an impossibility. You see, there is a sickness which is far more serious than any physical sickness on earth, and that is the spiritual sickness of sin in our life, for it can send us to Hell. If Christ was our sin bearer, because our sins were imputed to His account, then He bore our spiritual sicknesses. This is in harmony with the rest of the Bible. This is the meaning of the words, “Surely he hath borne our griefs”. And then we continue to read in Isa 53:4, “and carried our sorrows”. What sorrows are in view here? Put a sticker here in Isa 53 and please turn to Psalm 32 where the same word is used, Psalm 32:10 (2X). The theme of Psalm 32 are the words of verse 8, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go”. God is instructing us the blessings of eternal life with Him and the sorrows of those who continue to live in sin. We read here in Psalm 32:10, “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about”. When are these sorrows of the wicked going to come upon them? Not in this life, for then those sorrows might turn him to seek for Christ. No, the Devil will make sure that in this life the wicked are not plagued by sorrows. But like in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man has no worry in this life, but his sorrows are multiplied in the life hereafter in Hell. Those are the sorrows referred to in Psalm 32:10, where God says, “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked”. These refer to future sorrows in Hell. We are those wicked. Now let us return to Isa 53:4,
Isa 53:4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows”. Not only did the Lord Jesus Christ bear the sicknesses of our
sins on His soul, but He also had to pay for those sins the penalty that had to
be paid to satisfy the righteousness of God. He had to pay the equivalent of an
eternity in the torments of Hell. He had to pay the sorrows of Hell that was
due to us for the sins that we have committed. And so, we have concluded that
the Lord Jesus Christ made our spiritual sicknesses His first priority, rather
than the physical healings that many people seem to cherish most. Let us now
apply this conclusion to some examples out of the life of the Lord Jesus when
He walked on earth, about 2000 years ago. Please turn to the Gospel
according to Matthew, Mat
#3. Tell No Man
(Mat
We have here an event early in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. His fame
as the miracle worker spread quickly throughout
Mt 8:16-17
When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed
with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all
that were sick. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the
prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
This is a quotation from Isa 53:4, exactly as we have already seen it a few minutes ago. Did you notice that verse 16 says, “many that were possessed with devils”. We must distinguish between two kinds of healing miracles that Jesus did: The 1st kind was the physical healings, which were pictures of salvation, but were not necessarily resulting in salvation of the soul. The 2nd kind was the miracle of healing the soul, by casting out demons which keep people in bondage to sin and Satan. This kind of healing truly resulted in souls being saved. Here in Mat 8:16-17 the second kind of miracles occurred.
Please turn now to the beginning of this chapter, Mat 8:1 (2X).
Mt 8:1 ¶ When
he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
Mt 8:2-3 And,
behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean. And
Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou
clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Mt 8:4 And
Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the
priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
Here we have the 1st kind of miracle. Leprosy is a picture
of sin. By healing this man’s leprosy the Lord Jesus showed US a picture of
salvation, but this man was not necessarily saved. But consider now the
instruction the Lord gave to him: “See thou tell no man”. Please turn
now to the next chapter in Matthew, Mat
Mt 9:27-30 And
when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou
Son of David, have mercy on us. And
when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith
unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying,
According to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened; and Jesus
straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it.
And consider again the instruction that the Lord gave them: “See that
no man know it”. Please turn now to the Gospel according to
Luke, Luk
Lu 8:49-50
While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house,
saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. But when Jesus heard it, he
answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.
Lu
Lu
Lu
Lu
Lu
Lu
Consider again the instruction the Lord gave them: “they should tell
no man what was done”. Please turn to the Gospel according to Mark, Mark
5:1 (2X). Now we want to look at the 2nd kind of miracle,
like we have seen in Mat
Mr 5:1 ¶ And
they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the
Gadarenes.
Mr 5:2 And
when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a
man with an unclean spirit,
Mr 5:3 Who had
his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with
chains:
Mr 5:4 Because
that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been
plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man
tame him.
Mr 5:5-6 And
always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and
cutting himself with stones. But
when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
Mr 5:7 And cried
with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou
Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
Mr 5:8-9 For
he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My
name is Legion: for we are many.
Mr 5:11 Now
there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
Mr 5:12 And
all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter
into them.
Mr 5:13-14 And
forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered
into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea,
(they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it
in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was
done.
Consider now the instruction the Lord Jesus gave: “Go home to thy
friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee”. Do we
have a contradiction here? Of course not! This man was really saved. He loved
the Lord and wanted to join the band of disciples. This is the normal way of
life for anyone who really becomes saved. But can we now understand why in all
the other cases of healing miracles the Lord instructed them; “Tell no man”?
The Lord Jesus did not want to be known as the miracle worker. He wanted to be
known as the one who really saves people by casting the Devil out of a person.
This brings glory to God and this is what salvation really is. When a person is
not saved it is equivalent to that person being possessed by a demon. They are
in “the snare of the Devil, and are taken captive by him at his will” (2Tim