Isaiah 53:1-12; Lord’s Day 15

 

Many people reflect on the birth of Jesus in a sentimental way. In the advent season, we still see a few nativity scenes in yards, and the picture they portray is one of peace and joy, often presented in a picturesque, sentimental way.

 

To be sure, the birth of Jesus brings the only true peace and joy that can be found in this world. He is the Prince of Peace and the source of eternal joy. Our only true comfort in life and in death is knowing that by grace, through saving faith, we belong to Jesus Christ, body and soul.

 

But his birth, far from being the picturesque, sentimental, Christmas nativity scene that is often presented, was anything but that. His birth was the beginning of his suffering. There was no room in the Inn. The stable had a stench, a barnyard smell that sticks in the nostrils. His parents were impoverished. He had no new baby toys.

 

Beginning from his lowly, humble birth, Jesus suffered. That is part of what the catechism brings up in Lord’s Day 15. Question 37 asks, “What do you understand by the word ‘suffered’?”

 

           Answer:

That during his whole life on earth,
but especially at the end,
Christ sustained
in body and soul
the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race.

 

Often when we reflect on the suffering of Jesus, we think only about the suffering at the end of his life. Part of the reason we focus on the sufferings at the end of his life is because they were the most severe, and they are the focus of Scripture. All four gospels spend a substantial amount of time describing the suffering of Jesus in what we know as his passion week, that week of intense trial, testing and suffering that led to the crucifixion of our Savior and Lord.

 

Because the Scripture is silent on the life of Jesus as he grew up, we don’t have specific instances of his suffering in his younger years. But we can deduce from Scripture the truth of the catechism that "during his whole life on earth...Christ sustained in body and soul the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race."

 

For example, teenagers, have you ever been ridiculed for doing what is right? Have you been criticized for not going along with what everyone else is doing? If so, you can begin to imagine how Jesus was ridiculed for being holy, righteous, and perfectly obedient when his peers were anything but that.

 

While we don’t have all the instances of his sufferings in his younger years, we know them to be excruciatingly painful. Isaiah 53:3 gives an overview of his life this way: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” 

 

 

As Jesus suffered, he suffered in his body and in his soul. Isaiah mentions both types of suffering. Verse 5: “But He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” And then verse 11: “After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities...”

 

While a distinction can be made between suffering body and soul, usually the two go hand in hand. The person who suffers from a terminal disease, or injuries from a serious accident, suffers not only in their body, but in their soul. The physical trauma invariably leads to suffering in one’s thoughts, and to the questions and perplexities that come to mind as we face physical suffering.

 

By the same token, when we suffer emotionally, in our soul, it often transfers to our body. I know a man whose wife left him. He is a faithful, loving Christian man. He has provided for his wife and his children. Yet his wife left him for another man. She says she doesn’t love him anymore and the marriage is headed for divorce.

 

This man has lost weight. Not because he was trying to, but the suffering of his soul affected his physique. We are knit together, body and soul, until the separation that comes at death. Then our soul goes to its eternal home and our body rests in the grave until the Lord returns and there is the resurrection of all people. All people are again joined, body and soul, for eternity, either in the joys of heaven or in the agony of hell. Either way, we will again be people of body and soul throughout eternity.

 

As Jesus suffered in his body and his soul we see again his true humanity. We see that that he really is like us in every way except for sin. He knows not only the suffering of the soul, as he was repeatedly rejected, but he also knows the suffering of the body. The churning of the stomach. The aching of one’s bones. The pain of a wound. He knows the relation between suffering in both body and soul.

 

However, the suffering in body and soul that Jesus underwent was unique. The catechism teaches that “Christ sustained in body and soul the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race.” When the catechism describes how Jesus “bore the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race,” it isn’t teaching a universal salvation. Nor is it teaching Arminianism, the view that Jesus died for everyone and then gives “prevenient grace” which allows everyone to choose for themself whether to believe in God or not.

 

Scripture is clear in many places that Jesus died for the sins of his people, the sheep, God’s elect. Consider just a few of many verses: In Matthew 1:21, when the angel appeared to Joseph he said, “She (Mary) will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

 

In John 10:11 Jesus declared, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” And, in his high-priestly prayer, Jesus prayed: “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world…For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.  (John 17:6, 8, 9)

 

In Acts 13:48, after Paul has preached in Pisidian Antioch the Scripture declares: “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”

 

Although Jesus died and rose again for the salvation of the elect – his people – the catechism, as it follows Scripture, recognizes that the sacrifice of Jesus was sufficient to bear the anger of God against the whole human race, even though it was efficient for the lives of God’s elect. He suffered the anger of God’s wrath against the sins of all who by God’s grace have true saving faith in Christ alone. As Isaiah 53:10 puts it: “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and ... the LORD makes his life a guilt offering...”

 

 

In order to be our guilt offering Jesus had to become a curse for us. Q&A 39 points that out as it asks, “Is it significant that he was “crucified” instead of dying some other way?”

 

Answer:

   Yes.
   This death convinces me
    that he shouldered the curse
    which lay on me,
    since death by crucifixion was accursed by God

 

None of us can fully comprehend the incredible agony of being crucified. To be crucified was an offensive thing even to the Romans. Even though the Roman government executed criminals by crucifixion, they would never dream of executing a Roman citizen – one of their own – by crucifixion. The Roman statesman, Cicero, who lived from 106-43 BC, called crucifixion “a most cruel and disgusting punishment.”  He said, “It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one; what then can I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.” 

 

The Jews also hated crucifixion. They knew, from Deuteronomy 21:22-23, that anyone who was hung on a tree was under the curse of God. “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”  In Galatians 3, Paul quotes that text to drive home the reality that Jesus, on the cross, bore the curse of your sin and mine. He wrote: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Gal. 3:13)

 

That is also, incidentally, why Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem, and not within the city itself. The Jews considered crucifixion way too cruel to allow it within the city limits of Jerusalem. It was truly a horrible punishment to be crucified. It was abhorred by the people of that day, the Romans and the Jews. Yet Jesus allowed himself to be crucified in order to bear the curse that all humanity deserves for their sin.

 

 

The catechism describes the reason Jesus suffered, and also the glorious results. The first result is that the righteous and proper wrath of our triune God was propitiated, atoned for. The catechism cites Romans 3:25, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” (NIV) “Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (ESV)

 

Since he is pure, holy and righteous, Gods hates sin. He cannot look the other way and pretend that your sin and mine isn’t there. But by sustaining God’s wrath against humanity for their sin, Jesus covered our sin. That is the idea behind the word propitiation; it is behind the concept of Christ being an atoning sacrifice. It is the covering of our sin with the blood of Christ to appease the proper and righteous wrath of God against sin.

  

Propitiating the righteous and proper wrath of God required both the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ. His active obedience required him to keep every jot and title of the law, every nuance, every aspect of it. When you or I believe in Jesus with true saving faith, that perfect obedience of Jesus Christ is imputed - credited - to us.  

 

But his sacrifice also entailed what is called his passive obedience, meaning that he passively, “like a sheep led to its slaughter” allowed himself to be crucified. By that passive obedience Jesus shed his blood and thus covered our sins. The proper and righteous wrath of God at your sin and mine was atoned for - propitiated - through the perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    

The catechism goes on to explain that by his suffering, we who believe in him are set free from eternal condemnation. The catechism cites Romans 8, which begins by assuring us, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

 

But in order for there to be no condemnation for us, the Innocent One, Christ, had to be declared guilty. He had to be condemned in our place.  Q&A 38 gets to the heart of why Jesus was condemned in a public trial, and how his condemnation relates to you and to me. It asks, “Why did he suffer ‘under Pontius Pilate’ as judge?”

 

Answer:

So that he,
though innocent,
might be condemned by a civil judge,
and so free us from the severe judgment of God
that was to fall on us.

 

All of us can picture, in our mind’s eye, Pilate going before the massive crowd and washing his hands. He publicly admitted that he found no basis for a charge against Jesus. Yet Jesus, although found innocent, was pronounced guilty.

 

In his trilogy on the catechism, Herman Hoeksema wrote: “What was historically, as men view the events of this world, the trial and condemnation of Jesus by the world, was in reality, and according to the purpose of God, the trial and judgment of the world.”  (Triple Knowledge, Vol. 1, pg.  647)

 

That is what Jesus referred to in John 12:31. Jesus was predicting his death, and said, “Now is the time for judgment on this world.”  How can that be? Although in the eyes of the people, Jesus was being judged as guilty, in reality he, the only innocent human to ever live, being truly God, truly man, took our place, our guilt, our curse and judgment upon himself.

 

And although the self-righteous Pharisees and other people scoffed and mocked the suffering Savior, they by their actions were proving their guilt, guilt that all of us share because of our sin. Yet because he was willing to be condemned by God the Father in our place, we who have saving faith in him are now judged righteous and holy, as the passive obedience of the shed blood of Jesus covers our sin and the active obedience he maintained to every nuance of the law is imputed – credited – to us by the gift of saving faith. Thus, the answer to question 37 concludes by reassuring us that Christ has "gain(ed) for us God’s grace, righteousness and eternal life." 

 

In that answer we see how personal and devotional the catechism is. I served a church once where they asked me not to preach from the catechism. They had heard it all before. Later they changed their mind. They realized that the catechism is both doctrinal and devotional, that it has a pastoral and practical, very comforting, application to our lives. It gives us the assurance, in our sin-stained lives, that we are indeed recipients of God’s grace, clothed in the righteousness of his Son and heirs of eternal life.

____

 

As we look to the future there are so many uncertainties regarding our country, our church, health, finances, employment, there are a whole long list of uncertainties. But because Jesus sustained the wrath of God for humanity’s sin upon himself, we are able to look to the future with these great certainties: That Christ, by his suffering as –

 

the only atoning sacrifice,
has set us free, body and soul,
from eternal condemnation,
and gained for us
God's grace,
righteousness,
and eternal life.

 

May those great certainties grant you a peace that surpasses understanding, and may it give you joy, even in all the sorrows of life, this evening, and always! Amen.

 

 

bulletin outline:

 

 

                       Isaiah 53:1-12; Lord’s Day 15

 

I.  Jesus was a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering because:

     1) During His whole life He suffered (3)

 

 

 

 

     2) He suffered body and soul (3-6, 11)

 

 

 

 

     3) He suffered the anger of God’s wrath for humanity’s sin (10)

 

 

 

 

II. The result of Jesus bearing the curse of our sin:

     1) The righteous wrath of God is propitiated, atoned for (Rom. 3:25)

 

 

 

 

      2) We who believe in Him are set free from eternal condemnation

           (Romans 8:1-4)

 

 

    

 

      3) We are granted, through Him, God’s grace, righteousness and

           eternal life (Romans 3:24-26)