Bearing the Sin of Many

Encourage to open Bibles to Isaiah 53.

Throughout our time in Advent, we have been focusing on the promises of the coming Messiah. Our goal has been to rightly understand who it was that was promised, what He would be like, and what He would do.

As we better understood the person, character and work of the Messiah, our hope is that it would reshape the way that we prepare ourselves to celebrate Christmas.

One of the key themes on which we should reflect during the time of advent and Christmas is the death of Jesus- that in many ways, Jesus was born to die and be raised again.

Consider the words of the old Christmas song, Hark the Herald Angels Sing- Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.

Or perhaps the words that we just sang from What Child is This- Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, The cross be borne for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made flesh, The Babe, the Son of Mary.

We sing these songs that highlight the work that Jesus will do through His death and resurrection, and we sing these songs at Christmastime. So let us focus our attention on the death of Christ, the task toward which Jesus’ life would be aimed.

And finally, this Wednesday evening at our Christmas Eve Eve Service, we will close our Advent series with a brief turning of our attention to Jesus’ resurrection.

For now, we focus our attention on a prophecy that assumes and states clearly both the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Read Isaiah 53:10-12- Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Pray.

In Isaiah’s prophecy, the foundation is the sacrifice of the Messiah. In fact, if you spent a little time reading the rest of Isaiah 53, you’d find that the entire chapter revolves around the sacrifice of life that would be made by the promised Messiah.

What I’d like to do is use the remainder of our time in God’s Word by focusing on various characteristics of the sacrifice of the Messiah, which we know was fulfilled in the crucifixion of Jesus.

Let’s note three characteristics:

1. The sacrifice was necessary.

At the beginning of our text, we see some of the most troubling words in all of Scripture.

“It was the will of the LORD to crush him, he has put him to grief.”

We know that Jesus would eventually find His way to the cross, and we know to expect such from the Messiah. The Messiah would be a suffering servant, who suffers on behalf of God’s people.

What is not as easily or clearly understood, even by many in the church today, is why Jesus would suffer on the cross. Or maybe stated more clearly, what was the motivation behind Jesus’ death on the cross.

If asked such a question, many would claim that Jesus died for our sins, that the presence of sin in our lives and His great love for us is what drove Him to the cross.

However, Scripture makes clear that there is a greater and higher motivation that caused Jesus to endure the cross. More central to the crucifixion of Jesus was the obedience to the will of the Father.

Let’s pause for just a moment and find that we should not be surprised by such a statement, as much as we may find people both in and out of the Church rejecting the idea that it was God’s will to crush His Son.

First, consider the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark 14:35-36- And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

As He was preparing Himself for His coming arrest, trial, torture and death, Jesus asked that the cup of God’s wrath might be removed from Him.

However, in knowing that the cup could not be taken, that the hour could not pass, Jesus closes His prayer by stating His desire to obedient to God’s will, no matter what that will would be.

He then was arrested, tried, tortured and killed, showing that He remained obedient to God, and that all of those experiences were indeed the pouring of the cup of God’s wrath at the hour of God’s choosing.

Stated simply, God’s will for His Son was that He would be put to death.

We also would do well to pay attention to Jesus’ words to the Jews found in John 8:28-29- So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

What is Jesus communicating to the Jews? That everything that He does is in line with the Father’s desire for His life. This is what we covered last week in our section on the sinlessness of Jesus, that everything He accomplishes is meant to satisfy the desires of the Father. And that nothing He does goes against the will of God.

We are not like this. We veer from the will of God constantly, in what we would call sin. But for Jesus, that was never a reality, no matter the amount of temptation He faced.

Consider that third temptation from Satan- Bow down, receive everything, this can be easy. But Jesus rejected the offer because it went against the Father’s will for His earthly life.

Even the act of walking the hill of Golgotha, willingly sacrificing His life was a rejection of sin and an acceptance of God’s will.

The last example for us to consider comes from Philippians 2:8- And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This text, which highlights not only the obedience of Christ, but the humility needed for such obedience, states that Jesus’ death was an act of obedience.

It doesn’t require much thought to consider who Jesus was being obedient to- it was the will of the Father.

So we come to this text in Isaiah and are reminded that Jesus’ crushing, His necessary grief, was the plan of the Father, and that it had been the plan of the Father since before creation. It has never changed, it has never evolved, it has never diminished.

And we must consider the implications of such a plan.

Does this mean, as some have suggested, that the Father is some sort of all-powerful, cosmic child abuser?

Absolutely not. Remember, the Father was in complete harmony and alignment with the Son and thus Jesus would willingly offer Himself up on account of mankind.

And this is the point that is so often overlooked. When we hear that it was the will of God that His Son should suffer on our behalf, we tend to imagine that Jesus is being dragged into such a plan kicking and screaming.

Yet the passage we read earlier from John 8 reminds us that it was the delight of the Son to do everything that the Father asked of Him.

And we must find encouragement in this truth. John Calvin writes, “Isaiah teaches that sins cannot be pardoned in any other way than by betaking ourselves to the death of Christ. If any person think that this language is harsh and disrespectful to Christ, let him descend into himself, and after a close examination, let him ponder how dreadful is the judgement of God, which could not be pacified but by this price.”

What Calvin is noting is that the brutality of the judgement of God ought to be in our hearts when we remember our own sinfulness and the measures that were taken to remove such judgement from the people of God.

We are meant to walk away from such violent words with a renewed understanding of the Father’s great love for us, shown in His planning of the crushing of Christ, and Jesus’ great love for us, shown in His willingness to endure the judgement of God on our behalf.

Will we not consider just how great God’s love is for mankind? Would we, as mothers and fathers, be willing to sacrifice our children for the salvation of many? Especially when those who are saved would at times continue in paths of sin and need to be corrected? Not likely. But here we find the character of the Father and Son, both loving, and both self-sacrificing.

But not only do we find the sacrifice of Jesus to be necessary according to the plans of the Godhead, we also must find the sacrifice to be capable of accomplishing its intended goal. This leads us to our next point.

2. The sacrifice was sufficient.

To find the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus, we must pay attention to the language used by Isaiah of an offering for guilt.

Such language would have meant a lot to the original Israelite audience as they consider the many offerings that they had to make throughout the entirety of their lives due to their constant state of sinfulness.

In fact, these offerings, or sacrifices, were meant to be a constant reminder to God’s people of the reality of sin, the severity of sin and the consequences of sin.

So when we read the words that the soul, or breath, of the Messiah would be offered up as an offering for guilt, our first reaction ought to be to consider the presence, magnitude, and consequences of our sin.

It does not take much work to see it’s presence, but we would do well to also consider the consequences. Consequences in our relationships, in our marriages, in our parenting, in our friendships, in our church families.

The consequences are evident everywhere around us, which should cause us to contemplate how much our relationship with God has been damaged due to our sin.

Consider life before Jesus. Rather than being near, we find ourselves at a great distance. Rather than alive and thriving in our spiritual walk, we find ourselves to be dead in sin. And rather than seeking the will of God in order to make ourselves obedient to it, we find ourselves obsessed with our own wills and ways of seeing things.

We are broken, we are filled with guilt, and something must be done to remedy such a reality.

So to see what must occur to cover up and remove guilt, we want to have a right understanding of guilt offerings in the Old Testament.

I’d encourage you to spend a bit of time in Leviticus 16, which is the chapter that spells out the expectations of the sacrifices made on the yearly Day of Atonement.

By way of summary, the priests were instructed to bring two goats into the tabernacle and to cast lots between the two of them. One of the two was to be chosen to be offered as a sin, or guilt, offering. The other goat was selected to be what is referred to as the scapegoat.

Both goats would symbolize what is happening to the sin and guilt of the people of Israel.

The scapegoat would have hands laid on it before being sent out into the wilderness, a symbol of the sin of the people being placed on it and the sin being taken far away.

This showed the people of Israel that the sin had been removed from them. That there was a distance between them and their past sins, and that they were, at least for this moment, seen as cleaned from their sin.

The other goat would have hands placed on it, again symbolizing the placing of the sins of God’s people on it, and it would be sacrificed.

In this way, it was shown to God’s people that their sin was serious and required a blood sacrifice. Justice required death for the sin of the people.

While the scapegoat provided a reality of God’s people, the sacrificial goat provided a reality of the people’s sins.

Now, here in Isaiah 53, we see that Jesus’ death is indeed a guilt offering, He is the perfect lamb who is being put to death to not only pay for the sins of God’s people, but also to remind people of the severity of their sin.

Each of us find ourselves with a choice to be made. Will we accept, receive and embrace the sacrifice, offering it up to the Father to turn away His wrath?

Will we come before the Father claiming that the price for our sin had already been paid?

John Oswalt- “It is as though Christ comes to us with His own broken body in His arms and says, ‘Here, offer me up to the Father as an offering in your place.’ What will we say?”

This is the very root of salvation, forgiveness from sins, justification- what will we do with the guilt offering of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross?

Will we see our need for it or will we continue to live with our own sin? Will the wrath of God be poured out upon us one day because we have chosen to reject the gift of His Son, or has your punishment already been dealt, bore on the shoulders of Christ Himself instead of on our own shoulders?

Christmas is meant to be a time where each of us consider not only the birth of Jesus, but the work that Jesus will do on our account. It’s meant to be a reminder for us, where we might ask whether we will receive the work of Jesus or reject it.

In fact, this should perhaps be the foundation of our thoughts during advent. Yes, the child will come in humble beginnings, but more importantly, this child will come to receive the wrath of God on our behalf, and everything He will do will lead Him to the cross. We would do well to consider as first importance the purpose and work of Christ, not only the person and coming of Christ.

And, by extension, will we live lives that are informed and shaped by the guilt offering of Jesus, realizing that accepting the sacrifice of Christ will cause us to live differently, righteously, in pursuit of the very life of Jesus, lived only in light of His grace and authority?

Stated more simply, will we be changed by the sacrifice of Christ?

Remember, after all, that our sin is being removed, just like the scapegoat in Leviticus 16. And as more distance is put between us and our sin, we find ourselves driven into the grace and presence of Jesus Himself.

The sacrifice of Jesus would indeed be sufficient.

Finally, we might ask what Jesus thought of His own sacrifice. What was the attitude of Jesus in response to His work of salvation?

3. The sacrifice was satisfying.

I would say that what most stuck out to me in the entire reading of our text is a few short words at the beginning of v. 11- Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

Most of the time that a pronoun is used in our text (he, him, his), it is referring to the person of the Messiah, so we apply those words to Jesus.

What the prophet states is that there will be anguish in the soul of Jesus, but that from, or out of, that anguish, Jesus will see something and be satisfied.

We can see that the crushing, the guilt offering that is being offered in Jesus, is the object of the anguish of Christ.

We remember Gethsemane, the pleading with the Father due to the anguish in Jesus’ heart.

And the root of the anguish was the cup that He was to receive, namely the cup of God’s wrath, of God’s punishment, meaning the death of Jesus.

So from this anguish, the crucifixion, the torturous death of Jesus, He finds satisfaction.

The word translated as satisfaction is similar to the word used in Mark’s gospel when Jesus fed the 5000 and Mark writes that they were satisfied.

There is a complete filling up, a fullness, to have enough of something.

So think about the earlier text that we brought up, Philippians 2, that wonderful Christological hymn that highlights the emptying of Jesus that was required for Him to be obedient to death on a cross.

What we find here is that the very act of emptying is what makes possible this fullness, or satisfaction. It is because Jesus was willing to empty Himself that He could be filled up to the point of satisfaction.

So what, in the death and anguish of Christ, could possibly bring satisfaction and fullness to Jesus?

Notice how verses 11 and 12 continue, Isaiah lays out what brings satisfaction to Jesus:

The righteous one will make many to be righteous.

A theme we have been hammering over the past few weeks- Jesus makes righteousness possible for the children of God.

The iniquities of the righteous would be carried by the Messiah.

No longer would the children of God carry their own sin or suffer the consequences of their sin, as Jesus has already taken it all upon Himself.

God will give to the Messiah a portion, and such a portion would be divided with the many, the strong.

God will give Jesus the wages for His work, redemption. And this redemption would be shared by the many for whom Jesus had died and carried their sin.

Here is where Jesus finds His satisfaction. Everything that had caused Him anguish, everything that He had suffered, would be rewarded. And that reward is the giving of eternal life to those who would receive it.

And so we would do well to remember a very significant truth this Christmas season- Jesus was satisfied with what He had accomplished. He was delighted in it. He has looked back on His suffering and found it all to be worth it.

And this truth is often so far from our minds and hearts. We might on occasion, laying in bed and the end of a day in which sin has made its presence known in our lives, find that perhaps we believe Jesus regrets what He had suffered on our behalf.

We think of Jesus as a brother who does something extremely nice for a sibling, only to be rejected.

When I was young, my sister and I would always help my dad decorate the Christmas tree, and it was always a big deal. One year, my sister waited for me while I was elsewhere in the house, so that we could both hang the first ornament of the year on the tree together, but when I came into the living room, I picked up an ornament and ran to the tree, putting it on quickly so that i could be first.

How must Valerie have felt in that moment? Likely she regretted waiting for me.

This is how we often see Jesus- He must really regret having suffered so much on my account.

Yet we would do well to be reminded by the words of Isaiah- Jesus is satisfied with His sufferings. He is satisfied with His reward. He is satisfied with our redemption. And He is satisfied with our righteousness.

Though our lives might be defined as growth in righteousness, we share the very righteousness of Jesus, and that is completely satisfying to Him and the Father.

Again, John Calvin writes, “This is the full of the sweetest consolation; for Isaiah could not have better expressed the infinite love of Christ toward us than by declaring that he takes the highest delight in our salvation, and that he rests in it as the fruit of his labors, as he who has obtained his wish rests in that which he most ardently desired; for no person can be said to be satisfied but he who has obtained what he wished so earnestly as to disregard everything else and be satisfied with this alone.”

There is much beauty and much to be excited by in these words. Jesus was satisfied. He received that which He most wanted. We ought to in this moment recognize the deep love that Christ has for God’s people.

So this weekend, when we celebrate Christmas together, we would do well to remind ourselves and our families that we are deeply loved, that we are deeply desired, and that the birth of Christ is proof of that love.

After all, it was the very birth of Jesus in Bethlehem that would start Him on this journey to the cross, a journey that would be filled with heartache, filled with anguish, filled with grief, but was altogether worth it.