We read the Word of God from Isaiah 53. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed. 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. 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. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of 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 with his stripes we are healed. 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. 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. 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. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him to grieve. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, And he shall divide the spoil with the straw, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, that he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Thus far the reading of the Holy and Divine Scripture. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the text that is before us concerns the cross of Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah sees Jesus Christ in a vision as Christ is smitten and as he is worn out by grief, and the prophet writes down that vision for the benefit of the Church of Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ is the heart of the believers and of the entire Church's salvation. Our salvation has no other foundation. It has no other cause. It has no other power than the cross of Jesus Christ. The text that we consider concerning that cross of Jesus Christ begins with a but, and that but contrasts the truth of the text concerning the cross of Jesus Christ with the ignorant and even malicious evaluations of the cross of Jesus Christ by men. There is a contrast between verses 4 and 5. Contrast between God's explanation of the cross of Jesus Christ and man's explanation of the cross of Jesus Christ. There is a similarity between those two explanations. In both explanations, man's and God's, there is notice that Jesus Christ was smitten of God. Man recognizes, too, Jesus Christ was smitten of God. A man who came to such grief as Jesus Christ, a man who was so universally loathed, a man who was so smitten and trampled on and made the object of universal scorn, that man must be smitten of God. A man who comes to such grief as Jesus Christ can only be smitten of God. And indeed, that is the testimony, the universal testimony of the cross. The cross testified in that land The cross testified at that time, and the cross testifies down through history, Jesus Christ was smitten of God. He was lifted up out of the earth, and he was suspended between the earth and the heaven, so that he was rejected out of the earth, and he was refused in heaven. He was cursed of God. But man, recognizing that Jesus Christ is smitten of God, is so ungrateful and so ignorant that he supposes that Christ is smitten of God for his own fault. Or, if man at his very best has a lying word about the cross, he would say that Jesus Christ was a good man who died for his principles, but mostly, man says, he was smitten of God for his own failures. That's man's rejection of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ crucified has no form or comeliness. He is the man of sorrows and he is acquainted with grief. so that when man looks upon the crucified Jesus Christ, man finds nothing but what is disgusting and revolting to him. If he is a Jew, he is revolted by the cross because the cross testifies that his works of obedience to the law are of no account to his salvation and he is offended that the cross and the Christ of the cross takes away his works. He is very proud of his works. He labors diligently to obey the law. And when the cross comes and says those works are of no use for your salvation, there is only one way of salvation. He is offended by the Christ of the cross. And so the cross scandalizes him. He stumbles over that cross. He breaks his spiritual neck. And if the man who beholds the crucified Jesus Christ is a Gentile, Gentile who is puffed up by his own natural wisdom, his own natural intellect, and his own natural abilities, he sees the cross as utter foolishness. He will be saved from his misery by his own ingenuity, by his intellect, and by his advancements in science, and in law, and in medicine, and in all the areas of human study. But salvation in the cross, in that scandalous cross of Jesus Christ, the Jew mocks and the Gentile says it is foolishness. That is because man does not consider the reason Jesus Christ was smitten of God. Man supposes that God had a controversy with Christ because of Christ's sins. Therefore he sees no salvation in the cross whatsoever. But the prophet, as prophets always do, the prophet speaks the word of God, the word of God here concerning the cross of Jesus Christ over against the malicious and lying word of man. He brings us back in a startling vision to Christ hanging on Golgotha. And he says, but, but he was bruised for our iniquity. God did not smite Jesus Christ because of his sins. His innocence was palpable. None of them could convict him of any sin. In his trials, the very truth itself shone out clearly, and his own judge said that he was innocent of all charges. Not his own sin, but our sin. our original sin in Adam, and all of our actual transgressions of the law of God. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, and the Lord put him to grief. Our sin explains the marred and uncomely visage of Jesus Christ. Then the cross, instead of becoming a scandal, or instead of being foolishness, then the cross is that which we glory. Cross by whom we are crucified to the world and the world to us. So let's consider the cross of Jesus Christ as a theme bruised for our iniquities. Notice the meaning of that, notice the reason for that, and notice the benefit of that. You have to understand that the prophet here sees Jesus Christ in a vision. That is how the prophets prophesied. The prophet sees down through the ages of history from his time during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and he sees all through history and he sees right up into the time of Jesus Christ and he sees Christ hanging upon the cross of Golgotha, he sees Jesus Christ bruised and crushed and buffeted on all sides, so that his body is torn and wracked with pain, and so that his soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. See, I bid you this evening, see if there is any sorrow like the sorrow of Jesus Christ. Was there any bruising like the bruising of Jesus Christ? And was there any suffering like the suffering of Jesus Christ? All his life long he suffered, and the experience of his life here upon earth was nothing else than that of suffering. Indeed, his very entrance into the world was suffering. If we consider who it is that became a man, who it is upon whom God heaped all these transgressions and whom God bruised to death, we'll see that his entrance into the world was suffering because the one who was bruised is the eternal Word of God. He is the one who was with God, the one who is God, the one who is in the bosom of God, who was the delight of God, all eternity to eternity. He's the one who dwelt in perfection, the one who is far above any sin, who cannot even be tempted by sin. the One in whom there is light and in whom there is no darkness at all. That One became flesh. That One entered into this world of sin and darkness. That One entered into the pit that is the womb of every woman. That One entered into our defilement, into our darkness and into our night. That One became of all things flesh. He didn't take on Him the nature of angels. He took on Him of the flesh and the blood of children. What an indignity that the eternal God became flesh. What lowliness and what grief. And when He was born, He wasn't born into a stable or into a palace or into a a fine temple. He was born into a stable. There was no warm and cozy place for him. There were no crowds flocking to greet him and to hail his birth. There were no bulletin announcements. There were no announcements that went over the wires of the internet. There was none of that. There were none to greet him when he came into the world. Indeed, there was no room for him in the end. and there was no bed for him either. He didn't even have the basic dignity of being laid in a crib. They wrapped him in swaddling clothes and they laid him in a cattle-feeding trough so that the one, the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the one who owns all the gold and all the silver, the one who is wisdom by whom king reign, that one became A little baby, laid in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, ignored by the entire world. And he became a weak man. He took on him not the powerful and glorious nature of Adam that Adam had before the fall, he took on him the weakness nature of Adam under the curse. The one who neither slumbers nor sleeps became a man who needed to slumber and to sleep, a man of limited power, a man who needed to eat and to drink, a man who could become weary, so weary, in fact, that he could fall asleep in the bottom of a boat tossed upon the whims and the waves of a fierce and terrible storm so exhausted was that man. What sorrow, what suffering, what indignity belonged to Jesus Christ. And all his life he suffered. He suffered as a boy in the home of Mary and Joseph. He suffered as a teenager in the same home of Mary and Joseph. He suffered the rejection, the taunts and the wounding words of his own brothers. And when he entered in upon his misery, he was the object of the continual assault of the devil and his minions and of evil men. The devil came unto him and the devil tempted him, presenting to him the alternative between bowing down to the devil, following the word of the devil, Going the way of the cross, what suffering was Jesus Christ. He suffered even at the hand of his own countrymen, the men and the women whom he came to save. They rejected him. They tempted him by their carefully crafted speeches and questions to try to capture him and trap him in his words. There were all the taunts and the ridicule that he endured at the hands of men. And they saw all his glorious and powerful miracles, whereby he made the lame to walk and the blind to see, and he even raised the dead. And what did they say about him? He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And especially at the end of his life, When the hour was come on him for which he was born, for which he came into the world, then the shadow of the cross loomed large and dark over Jesus Christ. Then especially he was wounded, he was pierced, and he was put to grieve. Satan entered into the heart. of his own disciple, the one who was the intimate companion of Jesus Christ, who walked arm-in-arm with Jesus Christ throughout the land of Palestine, the one who was at one time a preacher of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, the one who ate bread with Jesus Christ, and was involved with all the intimate conversations of Jesus Christ, that one lifted up his heel against him and betrayed him for mere thirty pieces of silver. Going deep into the garden, if we can see him there in the garden, where the weight of the burden of his cross pressed on him. Then he writhed on the ground under that weight. He became a worm and no man. And that weight so pressed upon the body of Jesus Christ that there flowed out of his pores great drops of blood that soaked into the dusty ground of Gethsemane. and his own disciples had no sympathy. They fell asleep while he writhed on the ground. And he was betrayed by a kiss. Judas came with all his band, with his swords and his staves, as though Jesus Christ was a common criminal. and with hatred and with malice in his heart, he kissed Jesus on the cheek, though he was a friend. And when he would not call the twelve legions of angels that were at his beck and call, when he would not stand and fight as the disciples wanted to do, they were all offended by him, and they forsook him, and they fled. You understand they were offended. They weren't scared. Peter was willing to stand. Peter was willing to die for Jesus Christ, and he showed that very readily when with his sword, swinging for the head of Malchus, he missed and took off his ear. He was offended. He was offended that this one who could make them all fall down with a single word, who could paralyze them with that word. He was offended that that one who could call twelve legions of angels to defend him, he was offended that that one allowed himself to be bound like a thief, to be carried off into the night to be tried. And they were all offended by him. and they all left him utterly alone. And they tried him. The most corrupt court that was ever assembled in the history of the world was assembled that midnight to try the Lord Jesus Christ. Presided over by the high priest, And as witnesses, all of the elders of the church of that day, and they arrayed Jesus Christ and they hired false witnesses against Him to tell of crimes beyond belief. And when none of those false witnesses could agree, then they put the truth under oath to understand the suffering of that. He was the truth. He spoke nothing but truth. And they put him under the oath as though he was a liar and a false teacher. And they condemned him with the words out of his own mouth. And in the courtyard where that trial was taking place, as he warmed himself by a fire, his own disciple was busy denying him with cursing and swearing. I do not know that man. And when they had condemned him as the Church, they delivered him to the world, delivered him to the world to be made a spectacle and the object of the ridicule of that world. And when he had made the Lord Jesus Christ the plaything of his soldiers, so that they arrayed him in that fake purple robe, put that fake reed scepter in his hand, and that terrible piercing crown of thorns on his head, and after he had made him the spectacle of his soldiers, and after he had declared him to be innocent, And after he had released a murderer in his place, he condemned him to death. And they laid that heavy wooden cross on his shoulders. And that man, for that is what he was, very man, So staggering and so brutal was the suffering of that man that he staggered under the very weight of his own cross and could go no further. And when they arrived at Golgotha, then they pierced his hands with the nails and his feet with the nails. And they set him upright amongst the transgressors. And all his enemies, the Gentiles, and the church, and the leaders of the church, all his enemies came to hoot, and to laugh, and to mock, and to ridicule. And some didn't even do that. At the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the most important event that has ever transpired in the history of the world, man didn't even have the wherewithal to be affected by that. But he simply passed by. and went about his business, having no need of Christ and his cross. And then the darkness came, a terrible hellish darkness, and that is what that darkness was. That darkness was not an eclipse of the sun. That darkness was no darkness of night. That darkness was the darkness of hell. The darkness of hell that came up and swallowed up the entire universe, so that the entire universe went down into that darkness with the Lord of that universe. There in the darkness, He was pierced and bruised by innumerable blows from God. That's what all of that suffering of Jesus Christ testifies. If all of that suffering of Jesus Christ. The suffering of Jesus Christ that he suffered from the moment he became a man to the moment he said it is finished and he gave up the ghost. All that lifelong suffering and especially all that terrible suffering at the cross, if that was only the work of man. then the cross of Jesus Christ is no value. We're not interested in the cross of Jesus Christ. There were many crosses that were the work of man in the Roman world, but the cross testified. The terrible grief, the terrible bruising, the rending and the piercing of the body and soul of Jesus Christ testify that God brews to you. All that suffering that He suffered at the hands of men, He experienced that as though that was delivered by God. He felt their blows and all their words and all their grief. He felt that as the very hand of God. And the cross itself drove home that reality. The cross drove all of those words. The cross drove all of that suffering deeply into the soul of Jesus Christ because the cross testified of the curse of God. Man pierced Him with the whips. Man pierced Him with the nails. Man pierced Him with the crown of thorns and with the spear. But God pierced His soul with a curse. A curse that was the expression of the punishing justice of God. So that in that piercing, By means of that punishing justice of God, Jesus was pushed down, down, down, all this time, into the depths of hell. And that's what he said, for out of the darkness, and it was still dark, came that cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? All the bruising, To all the piercing, Jesus Christ was the work of God. The work of God to punish him. The work of God to forsake him. The work of God to abandon him there at the cross. And the question is why? He himself asked, why? So terrible was the suffering of Jesus Christ, it bewildered even the Son of God. Why? Man has his answer. Man always has a word about the cross. If that man is a Jew, that man says he justly perished for his blasphemy. He justly perished for his own sins. He was smitten of God and afflicted for his own sins. If man is not quite so bold, man will say he was smitten there at the cross because he was a man who was wedded to his principles. Or he will say he was smitten there at the cross because he wanted to show how terrible is the wrath of God against him. Or he was smitten there at the cross merely to overcome, to be the victor. But all of those are vain words as an explanation of the cross of Jesus Christ. Why was he so bruised? He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Christ came to such grief because of us. He came to such grief because Adam in the beginning Not esteeming the excellent state in which God had made him. Not cleaving to God who was his life. Adam departed from God. Adam turned against God and Adam allied himself with the devil and Adam for its grass. The law of God there in the garden. And as the just punishment for Adam's sin God inflicted Adam and the entire race of Adam with death. Adam entailed on himself by his sin and entailed for his entire race terrible death. And if you recognize that, how terrible sin is. One sin. He ate of an apple or the fruit, whatever it was. He ate of that when God said no. That one sin entailed death for all the billions of the human race. That's how holy God is. That's how exalted God is. That's how righteous God is. And that's how terrible sin committed against the Most High Majesty of God is. One sin brought the whole human race to grief. Because of that one sin, all of Adam's posterity fell into sin. All of Adam's posterity were judged for Adam's sin. We don't have to commit a sin to be worthy of death. We are worthy of death at the moment of our conception because we are represented in Adam. We are guilty of Adam's sin. We could say something like this, Adam sinned for us there in the garden. We are as guilty of taking of the forbidden fruit as Adam was in the garden. Because Adam was our head. And because he was our head, he represented us. And because he represented us, Adam's sin is imputed to us. And we are guilty. And because we are guilty, we are worthy of the same punishment, which is death. And so we are all conceived and born dead in trespasses and sins. And born a corrupt seed from a corrupt stock, we live in enmity and hatred against God by nature. And out of that evil root, that is the sinful human nature of man, come all the noxious weeds of our sins, all of our actual transgressions of the law of God. Why was Jesus put to such grief? because of all our transgressions of the law of God. When God says don't, we do. When God says do, we don't. When God says love, we hate. And when God says hate, we love. And every one of those transgressions is worthy of eternal death. They're worthy of eternal death because every one of those transgressions incurs a deadly guilt. At the heart of the text stands the reality of sin as guilt. Sin is a multifaceted beast. Sin is transgression and the text mentions that. There is the Law of God that is the boundary. And we step over that boundary. We transgress the Law of God. And that transgression of the Law of God, what we call breaking the Law of God, that sin incurs a deadly guilt. That's what the text refers to when it refers to our iniquities. He was bruised for our iniquities, our guilt. All our sin, every bit of it, our original sin in Adam, and our own actual transgressions of the law of God incur guilt. Now guilt is a liability to punishment. That guilt, that sin, demands that that sin be punished. There's no other way to deal with sin. Sin cannot be overlooked. Sin cannot be tolerated. Sin cannot be skewed. Sin must be punished. The very justice of God demands it. Oh, you would say to me, he has not got mercy, folk. He is merciful. But his mercy does not mean this, that he overlooks, that he excuses, that he mitigates sin. then he's not just. Sin which is committed against God is committed against the Most High Majesty of God. And that sin which is committed against the Most High Majesty of God demands that it be punished with eternal punishment. As great is the being against whom we sin, so great is the punishment that that sin deserves. So that guilt is a terrible thing. Guilt is a haunting thing. Guilt is God, as He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and the judge of all. As God, in His perfect and holy being, haunts the sinner. He haunts him in his mind. He haunts him in his life. He haunts him in all that he does. And the haunting of God is this. You're worthy of death, sinner. That's guilt. And that guilt, that guilt brings the curse. The curse is a terrible thing. It's a word you can almost not get off your lips. Curse. The curse is the living word of the wrath of God that pursues the sinner all his life long and brings that sinner down into hell. Guilt brings the curse, and the curse brings death. That's why Jesus Christ suffered. All our curse, all that living word of the wrath of God against our original sins and against our actual sins, all of that turned on Jesus Christ. And it turned on Jesus Christ because God had laid on Jesus Christ the iniquity of us all. All our guilt, all of our unliability to punish Him, He laid on Him. And He made Him to be sin who knew no sin. And He cursed Him for our sin. He said, let Him be Let him be the object, the sole and exclusive object of my wrath and my curse, because he is the sole and exclusive one who bears the burden of the guilt of my people's sins. Because of that, God bruised him. For us. Not for all. for us. Among that fallen, damn-worthy race of Adam, from all eternity God had a people of his love, who in tender mercy he had appointed to salvation in Jesus Christ. If man will have Christ, he'll have a Christ for all. A Christ who suffered in some way for the whole human race fallen in Adam. That's a Christ for all. A Christ for all who suffered in some way for the sins of all human beings. But then I ask you, if He suffered in some way for the sins of all human beings, why aren't all human beings saved? I would rather have that. If I'm going to have a Christ for all, then everybody will be saved. Better that than the alternative, a Christ for all, a Christ who died for all, a Christ who atoned for all, but some of those whom he atoned for and died for aren't saved. Why aren't they saved? Well, they say, they don't accept Him. But you see, then that's not salvation by Christ. That denigrates all that terrible suffering of Jesus Christ by which God put Him to grief. Is it even possible that God would put Him to grief for the sins of some human being and that human being not be saved? That the suffering of Christ and all that grief of soul and body and mind doesn't actually accomplish their salvation? Such is the grossest kind of blasphemy. A Christ for all is really a Christ for nobody. But he put him to grief for us. God's elect people, loved of God from all eternity, all of whom sins God knew, and all of whose sins God heaped on the shoulders of Jesus Christ, and whom Jesus Christ delivered from those sins. That's what he means when he says the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Chastisement is another word to describe the suffering of Jesus Christ. He suffered. He was bruised. But all of that suffering and bruising was chastisement. Now what is chastisement? Chastisement are the blows that a parent administers to a child who is under his law. Jesus Christ received blows from God. And blows from God because he was under the law. That explains all the sufferings of Christ. He was under the law. He was under the law because we were under the law. Why was our sin reckoned to us? What was our sin but transgression of the law? So that we were under that law and under the curse of that law. And Jesus Christ entered under that law for our sake and He took the curse of that law upon Himself and He bore all the blows that the law meets out to those who do not keep it. And so when it says the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, then it declares that Christ was the price that was paid for our salvation. All that suffering of Christ was a price. A price of inestimable value. A price that covered the debt of our sin. A price that made satisfaction to the justice of God. And a price that atoned for that sin so that there is no more sin. There is no more handwriting of ordinances against us. There is no more word of the law to curse us. There is no more punishment that can be meted to us. Because the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. His cross very simply is this. Our salvation fully accomplished. And that's what He means. When he says, the chastisement of our peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All of that bruising of Craig's brought peace. I think that's the sweetest word in all the world, peace. There's no peace. saith my God to the wicked." The world entered into war with God in Adam. And that war with God is terrible. To war with God is a hopeless thing. If you pick a fight with a man, you might be able to arm yourself with a bat, or with a club, or with a gun, or gather to yourselves allies, in order that you can war against that man that you pick a fight with. But if you war against God, there's nothing to defend yourself with. And that's what man did in Adam. He entered into a fight with God. He made God his enemy. The God of the whole world. And because he made God his enemy, the God of the whole world cursed that man. So that God, with all of his infinite being, and God with the entire creation and all that is in it is turned against that man who made war with him. That's the turmoil of the world. All of the trouble and all of the war and all of the terrible circumstances that you see in the world, that's because the world is at war with God and at enmity with God. There's no peace. There's no peace to man by nature. There's no peace to man in his sins. There's only a revelation of the wrath of God against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. In Christ, there is peace. Eternal peace. Peace that passes understanding. Peace that you can't explain. It's a peace with God first. It's a peace that lays hold on the mind and conscience and heart of the believer. So that that believer knows that God is his God. That believer knows that God sent Jesus Christ into the world for his own sins is one thing. to say that Jesus Christ died for sins. It's another thing to say that Jesus Christ died for the sins of all the elect, but He died for my sins. My transgression in Adam. All my transgressions of the law of God. All my guilt. He paid for that sin. And the chastisement of my peace was on Him. So I'm not at war with God anymore. God is my friend. God is my covenant God. God is my savior. God is my redeemer. That's peace. The cross of Jesus Christ established peace for us. A peace that's given to us by faith. Do you believe God died for your sins in Christ? Do you believe that? That all our transgressions, and I'll make that personal, all my transgressions were heaped on Him. All my iniquities were laid on Him. What did he accomplish for you? Peace. Perfect, everlasting, heavenly, divine peace. There's no war between you and God anymore. God is at peace, and you are at peace with God and healing. Sin is a lonesome disease. Transgression and guilt. Guilt gnaws at the sinner. Guilt eats up the sinner like a terrible disease, devouring that sinner. But with his stripes, we're healed. There's nothing in us but transgression. and iniquity and guilt. And there's nothing in Him but the most perfect medicine for our transgressions and our iniquity and our guilt. That's what He became at the cross through all of His stripes and by all of His bruising. He became the most perfect medicine. There is nothing in us but sin and there's nothing in Him but righteousness and life and holiness He healed us. He healed us from our guilt by His righteousness. He healed us from our pollution by His holdings. He healed us from our death by His life. By His stripes we are healed. That's the truth of the cross. That's the truth of the cross that we lay hold on in the face of all our sins and all our In the face of all our sins and iniquities, we don't say, I'll do better next time. I'll try a little harder next time. We say this, by His stripes we're healed. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for the gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for our faith whereby we may lay hold on him, and we thank thee for his righteousness and his holiness, by which there is peace between us and thee, and for all his stripes, by which we are healed. Teach us, O God, to glory, and nothing else, save Christ, in him crucified. Amen.