Christ’s Vicarious Suffering – A Messianic Prophecy

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” –Isaiah 53:4-6 (NKJV).

Webster defines “vicarious” as “serving instead of someone or something else; in the place of.”  Scholars define verses 4-6 of Isaiah 53 as bearing the central theme and the very heart of the “Suffering Servant” passage (Isaiah 53).  The Suffering Servant bore the penalty of others’ sins.  He Himself was innocent.  That was the whole thesis of the redemption.plan:  the just for the unjust; the innocent for the guilty.  His wounds were marked with our transgressions.  His bruises took the brunt of our iniquities.  In His chastisement, He was our shield to guarantee us peace.  When stripes were angrily directed upon His body, the stripes bore our own healing from guilt and sin.  Then in poetic illustration the prophet declares:

            We have gone astray like sheep.

            We have chosen our own way.

            He bore the heavy load of our iniquities.

            Vicariously, He took our sins away!

At Christmas we have tender thoughts of the Baby in a manger.  We hear glad songs of angel chorus singing above the din of human cacophonies:  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men.”

But ever in the background of the manger and shepherds, of wise men and Joseph, Mary and the Babe, the cross looms.  It is as immanent as night and day, as sure as darkness following sunset.  And why the cross?  It was the most terrible form of Roman death, the ultimate for the worst offenders of the Pax Romana.  Although Pilate would declare, “I have found no guilt in him deserving death” (Luke  23:22), as ruler he still gave way to the demands of the crowd and delivered Jesus up to be crucified.  Although Jesus Himself was innocent, without sin, He became as the guilty one, wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities,”  the vicarious sacrifice for all time and for all people.  He was “smitten by God and afflicted.”  This is almost incomprehensible to us, that God Himself would be the ultimate authority to permit the sufferings of the Servant.  He could easily have sent ten thousand angels to save Him from death.  At the moment of darkest sin-bearing when God could not look upon Jesus on the cross because of the weight of sin that covered Him, God turned His face. Then we have the most pitiable of all the sayings of Jesus on the cross:  “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (see Psalm 22:1 and Matthew 27:46).  But it was at that point that the vicarious sacrifice was made for us.

Prayer:  We cannot understand the vicarious suffering of the perfect, sinless Son of God for our sins, we who like sheep, stupid and helpless, have all gone amiss of God’s perfect creation of us and His intention for us.  But through the Suffering Servant’s vicarious sacrifice, we are restored, brought into the eternal fold of God.  At Christmastime and every day, we thank you, Lord.

Blessed Are the Persecuted and Reviled

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” –Matthew 5:9-10 (ESV).

The eighth Beatitude anticipates the hard trials ahead for Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus makes this beatitude the longest of the eight, for in it He seeks to lend encouragement for the antagonism, hardships and persecutions they would surely face as the message of the New Way in Jesus Christ broke through the barriers of religious tradition and bigotry.  For those who come to the Christian faith believing that everything will be rosy forever after have not read with discernment this beatitude.  Most of us in the twenty-first century have been fortunate.  We have lived in times when Christianity has been fairly well-accepted as a belief and worship system.  But we are beginning to see that we may have to endure ridicule, criticism and ostracism for our firm faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Today, it is “politically incorrect” to call upon God in public places.  For several years now in America, anti-Christian groups have campaigned to have “In God we trust” and other mentions of sovereign God removed from public documents and public speech.  In many foreign lands, Christian missionaries have undergone severe persecution and even death for the faith they hold and the ministries they conduct to make Christ known.

“When push comes to shove,” as my ancestors so uniquely said in one of their expression of mountain talk, will we be faithful to Jesus and the gospel, even if we are ridiculed, persecuted and reviled?  Or will we lack the courage and stamina to stand up to our beliefs? 

It is interesting that Jesus’ beatitude on persecution follows so closely on His teaching that Christians are to be peacemakers.  In studying church history, we find that many were burned at the stake, endured death in the Roman arenas at the mouths of lions, were put to death on cruel crosses, even as Jesus was.  And in these instances of studying about those treated so cruelly by society, we learned that they stood true to their faith and faced death rather than recant.  Many of these Christian martyrs went to their deaths praying for their persecutors, emulating the example of Jesus who prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  (Luke 23:34). Even with dying such cruel deaths, they were faithful to the end, bearing the truth of blessed peacemakers.  It is not easy to be a faithful Christian.  Society is at enmity with God and God’s people.  There is a conflict between the Christian and the world.  Why?  Because we are different from the world.  We do not conform to the world, but we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (see Romans 12:2).  Paul admonished that we “think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Romans 12:3).  My prayer is that we grow strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Persecution of a severe nature may come at any time, and even more so as we move toward “the day of the Lord,” the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Let us “put on the full armor of God…and having done all, to stand”(see Ephesians 6:10-18).  Be assured that the day is coming and now is when we need to be strong in the Lord to withstand the pressures of the anti-Christ leveled against Christians.

Holy Week Day by Day-Saturday or the Sabbath-Christ in the Grave

“Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand they laid Jesus there.” –John 19:41-42(ESV). “The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while He was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples go and steal Him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers. Go make it as secure as you can.’ So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.” –Matthew 27-62-66 (ESV). “The women who had come with Him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” –Luke 23-55-56 (ESV).

On Friday a hurried burial occurred, because the Jewish Sabbath was fast approaching. The Day of Preparation, or the sixth day of the Jewish week, was from 6:00 p. m. on what we know as Thursday until 6:00 p. m. on Friday when the Jewish Sabbath officially began. According to the laws given in Exodus, all the necessities for life, as food and drink, had to be prepared in advance of the Sabbath during the Day of Preparation. Jesus’ trials, scourging, and crucifixion occurred on Friday, the Day of Preparation. Scholars have noted that at about the time of the offering of the lamb at the Feast of the Passover, the Lamb of God was being offered up on the cruel cross for the sins of the world. Quickly, before the beginning of the Sabbath at 6:00 p. m. on Friday, they hurried to bury Jesus. It is rather amazing that some of the chief priests and Pharisees would go to Pilate after the Sabbath had begun to plead with him to set a guard at the tomb where Jesus was buried. It was a sinful act to associate with a Gentile on the Sabbath. These who observed the law in all its fine points, broke their law by going, because they had such hatred for Jesus, and remembered that He had said, “After three days I will rise.” They did not anticipate His rising (or did they?). They wanted, instead, to have burly guards keeping vigilance beside His tomb lest the disciples take His body away and claim that He had, indeed, risen from the dead. This plotting and maneuvering of the Jewish leaders to secure Jesus’ tomb, and the Romans to put an official seal on it, joined forces to prove a most important tenet of the Christian faith. The grave and all the human attempts to secure it could not hold the Lord Christ.

But let’s think about Saturday—or the Jewish Sabbath. Jesus is in the grave. We hear no word about the disciples on that day. The gospel writers are silent on what they did from about sundown on Friday until Sunday morning. We have from Luke one single statement that the women who followed Jesus from Galilee used the rest of the Day of Preparation to gather ointments and spices to anoint Him for His burial, a loving act they had not been able to do because of timing. Then, “On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” This, no doubt, was a general statement for all of the disciples. How much they needed rest! How emotionally and physically draining had been the cruel, crushing, heart-breaking events of the Day of Preparation—which had turned out to be the Day of Crucifixion and burial. Did any of them remember that Jesus had said He would die and then rise again? If any of the disciples or the women remembered on the Sabbath, no gospel writer made mention of such recollections. No doubt they mourned. Later, Peter would write about Christ in his Epistle by the same name: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water...For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.”(I Peter 3:18-20; 4:6, ESV). This hard-to-understand passage from I Peter is considered by some Bible interpreters as Jesus preaching to those spirits in Hades during the period of time His body lay in the tomb, the spirits in this view being the fallen angels cast into hell to await the final judgment. Other scholars think it refers to Jesus being in sprit with Noah as he tried to get persons to repent and turn to God before the great flood came to destroy all humanity except the eight in Noah’s family. Still another interpretation sees this as offering a second chance of salvation to those in hell, a view which lacks theological credibility. When Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost and 3,000 persons accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, Peter said, among other great statements, “He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption” (Acts 2:31, ESV). [Note that the Hades is the Greek term equivalent to the Hebrew term Sheol, which means “place of the dead,” and also “realm of the unbelieving dead.”]. We may have difficulty understanding the meaning of what Peter wrote and preached about where Christ’s spirit was when He lay in the grave parts of three days. The important truth is that the grave was not the end for Jesus. Thanks be to God! Those closest to the Lord needed a day of rest, a Sabbath, a time to pray, reflect and remember.

“Low in the grave He lay,
Jesus, my Savior;
Waiting the coming day,
Jesus, my Lord.”

(from the hymn, “Low in the Grave He Lay,” words and music by Robert Lowry (1826-1899).

And that ‘coming day’ was near at hand! Let us ready our own hearts for the resurrection and the first day of the week, a new dawning and a new assurance!

Holy Week Day by Day-Friday-Trials and Crucifixion-“It Is Finished!”

“When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And they bound Him and led Him away and delivered Him over to Pilate the governor…So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves. And all the people answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children! Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered Him to be crucified.” – Matthew 26:1-2, 24-26 (ESV). “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour…And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit.” –Matthew 27:45, 50 (ESV). “And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.”-Matthew 27:29-51 (ESV).

From the time Jesus was taken captive in the Garden of Gethsemane until His body was laid in a tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea, a ‘disciple of Jesus,’ the last day of His life was filled with unbelievable occurrences. Judas went to Gethsemane with a band of soldiers and officers of the chief priests. The Lord readily owned to being Jesus of Nazareth when they inquired which was He, and, surprised, they “fell to the ground” (John 18:6). Impetuous Peter took out his sword and cut off an ear of the high priest’s servant, but Jesus touched the ear and healed it (Luke 22:51). They took Jesus first before Annas, the immediate-past high priest who was looking for legitimate evidence that would bring on a verdict of capital punishment. The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead. Annas was influential with the Jews and with the Roman procurator. It was in the courtyard of Annas’ house that Peter denied the Lord three times, as Jesus had predicted; and then the cock crew. While Peter was denying Jesus, the Lord was on trial protecting Peter and the others. Jewish law required that witnesses be called to testify on behalf of the accused. Annas hired false witnesses. In stage two of the Jewish trial, Jesus was taken before Caiaphas and some members of the Sanhedrin, assembled at night. They found him guilty of blasphemy which had the penalty of death, but the Jews had to get the Roman ruler to levy the death sentence. Then came appearances before Pilate, Herod, and Pilate again, who could find no fault in Jesus. But the sentiment of the crowd was for Jesus to die; Barabbas was released and Jesus condemned to be crucified.

The worst suffering we can imagine took place on the cross. Death by crucifixion was the most cruel and shameful of all punishments. Jesus was offered a pain-reducing drink but He refused it. His physical suffering was excruciating, for He had a human body. His seven statements from the cross have great significance: He thought of others, those who crucified Him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). He assured the believing thief: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). He made arrangements for His mother’s care: “Behold your Mother, ' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:27) He felt momentarily His separation from God: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). As He was bearing the sins of the world on His body, He felt the wrath of God against all sin. His anticipation of this moment as He was in Gethsemane was prelude to the darkness. Now He was experiencing it and bearing it in His body and His spirit. The last three statements focus on Jesus Himself: His body, “I thirst!” (John 19:28). Jesus received a sponge with vinegar to wet His lips. His soul, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). And His spirit: “Father, inyou Your hands I commit my spirit!”(Luke 23:46). The Lord Himself gave up His spirit at the “ninth hour,” which would have been about 3:00 p. m. The penalty for sin was finished, once for all, forever. The mission God the Son came to earth to accomplish had been completed. The soldiers made sure he was dead. They inadvertently were fulfilling prophecy about the Paschal Lamb, the Son of God: They did not break his legs, fulfilling Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12 that specified the sacrificial lamb’s legs were not to be broken. Zechariah 12:10 states that His side was to be pierced. Water and blood flowed out. His body was removed from the cross and quickly taken to a tomb owned by a secret disciple, Joseph of Arimathea. Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus by night according to John 3, assisted Joseph. By touching a dead body, these two Jewish men could not participate in the Passover. Dr. Warren Wiersbe notes: “What difference did it make? They had found the Lamb of God!” (Wiersbe Bible Commentary, New Testament, 2007, p. 308). Because the Sabbath began at sundown, they had to quickly lay the body in the grave. There was not time for embalming with spices. A heavy stone was rolled over the entrance. Roman guards were assigned to watch. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were observing across from the tomb.

In Christendom, we call this day “Good Friday.” What was good about the Savior’s trial, scourging, suffering, shame, humiliation and death? Before the Sabbath began, Jesus had finished the work He came to earth to do. A New Covenant was established. “”The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17b). From then and forever believers glory in the cross and in the Lord who gave His life a ransom for mankind. This is the goodness and unfathomable glory of the day Christ died. It centers on Jesus and His love, His great sacrifice. Jesus could take His rest. “It is finished!” What a crowning declaration of Good Friday! We and all believers are safe under the New Covenant. Praise be to God!

A Forgiving Spirit

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” –Matthew 6:14-15 (ESV). “and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors” – Matthew 6:12 (ESV) “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also Who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” –Mark 11:25-26 (ESV).

A terrible weight to carry about in the heart is an unforgiving spirit, a grudge, a feeling of resentment, or ill will toward anyone. Various scriptures teach us the necessity for forgiveness in order to have soul health. The willingness to forgive and not to hold any malice in the heart was so important that Jesus taught us in what we call the Lord’s Prayer that we should ask for forgiveness when we pray: “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Since most of us are aware of the Lord’s teachings, we often pray for forgiveness. We also hear the requests for forgiveness in public prayers. Are these vain repetitions that Jesus also warned against? He said, in Matthew 6:7: “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words (Matthew 6:7, ESV). These repetitions are well and good if they come from a sincere and earnest heart. But let’s go a little deeper. Is there forgiveness of others on the part of the one praying? Is there genuine repentance of the sin of holding grudges and resentment toward someone? Is there a real turning loose of jealousies and animosities? If so, then praying for forgiveness is in keeping with the Lord’s teaching. We are forgiven by God if we are willing and able to forgive those whom we consider to have wronged us.

Then we often hear: “I can forgive (or I have forgiven) but I can’t forget.” Does this constant reminder of a wrong done to us, not forgetting it, allowing it to press in and smother, really mean that we have forgiven? If such a condition plagues your mind and prevents you from really being relieved of the burden that allows you the Father’s forgiveness, pray that He will remove the thoughts of the wrong from your mind. Pray that He will take away any harsh and wrong feelings, and replace them with profitable thoughts of reconciliation and forgiveness. At the close of the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln was asked what he planned to do about all the enemies of the reunited nation. His wise reply was that he would seek to make friends of them. It is possible for us to have a forgiving spirit. It is a Christ-like characteristic, but one we must pursue sincerely and with humility. Jesus showed us the way. On the cross he prayed for those who were taking His life: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34, ESV).