Jesus Paid It All

artwork by Krista Hamrick

As I pondered Krista Hamrick’s beautiful artwork, Jesus Paid It All, I felt led to do a word study based on Isaiah 53:5

AMPC: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.

ESV:  But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

TLB: But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed!

NIV: But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

NASB: But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

NLT: But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

NET: He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.

YLT:  And he is pierced for our transgressions, Bruised for our iniquities, The chastisement of our peace [is] on him, And by his bruise there is healing to us.

KJV:  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. 

Pastor S. Lewis Johnson has written: “This passage is one of the greatest of the Old Testament passages on the atonement, and it illustrates that whatever theory we may hold of the atonement, it must include the idea of substitution.” 

Pierced (wounded) (chalal) in this context means to pierce or wound. Pierced through usually meant being pierced fatally. The Septuagint translates chalal with the verb traumatizo (English - traumatize, trauma, traumatic) which means to wound. Jesus was "traumatized" for us! God's justice and mercy met at the cross. 

Transgressions (pesha' from pasha = to rebel, transgress) means willful rebellion or revolt against authority (rising up in clear defiance of authority), guilt (incurred by transgressing). The fundamental idea of the root is a breach of relationships, civil or religious, between two parties. The same noun is used in Isaiah 53:8 explaining that the Suffering Servant "was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people." The picture is of God drawing a line in the sand and of us daring to cross that line! Pesha' is also used in Isaiah 53:8 "He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people." 

Notice the repeated use of the pronoun "OUR" in this passage: "OUR transgressions," "OUR iniquities," "OUR well being." This is why the Suffering Servant gave Himself to piercing and crushing and chastening. As Pastor David Baron says, "What else, we ask again, can these words mean than that He suffered vicariously? Not merely with, but for others? By no exegesis is it possible to escape this conclusion. And there is nothing in the conclusion that need surprise us." Vicarious means done in place of or instead of someone else. What Messiah accomplished was done in our place!

Close your eyes a moment and imagine the incomprehensibly "heavy burden" of all of our horrible sins, coming down full force upon the sinless Suffering Servant, as He experiences the full weight of His Father's wrath! Absolutely beyond my imagination! Such infinite love! I seriously doubt that even eternity will give much insight into what really transpired on the Old Rugged Cross! 

He was crushed for (because of) our iniquities: This sentence does not tell us who did the crushing, but in context this is clearly God the Father crushing His Son, for in Isa 53:10 this same verb for crushed (daka) states "the LORD was pleased to crush Him."  

Crushed is daka which means to crush, beat down, bruise, oppress. Daka is used of cruel agonies ending in death. It describes the fine dust created in the mortar by crushing something or breaking it into pieces. What a picture of our Suffering Servant's sacrificial substitution - crushed, broken for us, who deserved Hell, so that we might receive Heaven.  

Iniquities ('avon from awah = to bend, twist, distort) describes sin’s power to twist or distort something good so that the result, effect or consequence is bad. 'Avon describes the pervertedness, ‘bentness’, crookedness  of our fallen human nature. Messiah was crushed because of our sins (avon). Pastor John MacArthur says that iniquities ('avon) is essentially "a word that means to bend double, twisted like a pretzel, to bend double. It’s perversions." He was CRUSHED for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him (NET = "He endured punishment that made us well" RSV = "The chastisement that made us whole"; NIV = "the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him" NLT = "He was beaten so we could be whole")

Well being is peace (shalom) and is a genitive of result which means His punishment resulted in our peace or well-being, giving redeemed sinners a sense of wholeness and restoration of a relationship with the Holy God which we all lacked while still in Adam and which we could never achieve had not the Messiah been chastened in our place, as our Substitute. 

Pastor Warren W. Wiersbe writes, “The only way a lawbreaker can be at peace with the law is to suffer the punishment that the law demands. Jesus kept the Law perfectly, yet He suffered the whipping that belonged to us. Because He took our place, we now have peace with God and cannot be condemned by God's law. We were rebels at war with God, at enmity with Him, hating Him, but here because of what transpired in our Substitute on the Cross, we now are forever at peace with God. The peace OF God is another issue and can be disturbed by our disobedience (sin).” 

Chastening (musar) describes the imposition of painful consequences (or severe punishment) upon the Suffering Servant, consequences which we deserved for our disobedience! This is the supreme demonstration of Jesus' infinite love for us willingly taking the chastening rod of His Father for sins not His own! Amazing love!  

Because of the punishment that our Suffering Servant Substitute endured on our behalf, we who rebelled against God even from birth can now be restored to a state of friendship and harmony. This is the essence of reconciliation, where in His Suffering, the Messiah took upon Himself our sin and became a substitutionary atonement, thereby making possible a relationship of peace with God which was heretofore prevented by the demands of God's justice and His abhorrence of sin. 

When Christ died on the cross, He satisfied God’s judgment and made it possible for God’s enemies, us, to find peace with Him. Our “reconciliation” to God, then, involves the exercise of His grace and the forgiveness of our sin. The result of Jesus’ sacrifice is that our relationship has changed from enmity to friendship. “I no longer call you servants … Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Christian reconciliation is a glorious truth!  

Pastor John MacArthur comments, “Through the wounds of Christ at the cross, believers are healed spiritually from the deadly disease of sin. Physical healing comes at glorification only, when there is no more physical pain, illness, or death (Rev 21:4).” 

We are healed (rapha/rophe) means to be made healthy, to be cured. Sin gave us a mortal blow, but the scourging of our Suffering Servant reversed the curse and gave us an eternal cure. Rapha/rophe has the basic idea of restoring something to its original condition, its original wholeness. Adam originally was perfect ("whole") but his sin left a "hole" ("God shaped vacuum") in his soul, one which the Redeemer will repair to its original wholeness for all who by faith receive the miraculous, regenerating treatment from the Great Physician.

Pastor S. Lewis Johnson writes, “With his stripes we are healed.” Did you notice it says, “With his stripes we are healed.” NOT with his stripes, PLUS our faith. Not with his stripes PLUS our repentance, with his stripes we are healed. Men are not saved because of their faith. Men are saved because of Jesus Christ and His saving work. It is our Lord Who saves us, not our faith. It is not our repentance that saves us. It is our Lord’s work. That is the saving work that becomes ours through the instrumentality of faith, becomes ours through the instrumentality of a God-produced faith and repentance, but the salvation is of the Lord, it is of the Lord from beginning to end. It is his salvation. “With his stripes we are healed.” Not with our faith, with his stripes.” 

Pastor Charles Spurgeon writes, "‘With his stripes we are healed.’ Will you notice that fact? The healing of a sinner does not lie in himself, nor in what he is, nor in what he feels, nor in what he does, nor in what he vows, nor in what he promises. It is not in himself at all; but there, at Gabbatha, where the pavement is stained with the blood of the Son of God, and there, at Golgotha, where the place of a skull beholds the agonies of Christ. It is in his stripes that the healing lies.” 

Pastor David Baron writes, “Peace and healing—two most blessed results which accrue to us from the vicarious suffering and atoning death of our Savior. Peace with God because of His justifying grace on the ground of what Messiah bore and did for us; and peace in our own conscience, which can never be at peace until sin is expiated—and "healing." 

Pastor Henry A. Ironside often told the story of a group of pioneers who were traveling westward by covered wagon. One day they were horrified to see in the distance a long line of smoke and flame stretching for miles across the prairie. The dry grass was on fire, and the inferno was advancing upon them rapidly. The river they had crossed the day before would be of no help as they would not be able to return to it in time. One man, however, knew what to do. He gave the command to set fire to the grass behind them. Then, when the ground had cooled, the whole company moved back upon it. The people watched apprehensively as the blaze roared toward them. A little girl cried out in terror, "Are you sure we won't be burned up?" The leader replied, "My child, we are absolutely safe, nothing can harm us here, for we are standing on the scorched area where the flames have already done their work." The fire of God's holy wrath against sin came down upon Jesus Christ the day He died on the cross. His own words "It is finished" and His resurrection from the tomb furnish us with infallible proof that He paid the price for our sin in full. Christian friend, do not be afraid of death and the judgment that will follow. Positionally, you are now safely seated "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6), because by faith you have taken refuge in the "burned-over place" of Calvary. The fire of God's wrath cannot touch you there for He will not demand payment for your sins twice. Let this be your comfort: you are standing in safety "where the fire has been." 

The story is told of a man who was brought into court for trial and found guilty. The judge happened to be a close boyhood friend of the accused, although they had not seen each other for many years. Remaining impartial, the judge sentenced the man and levied a penalty appropriate to his crime. It was a fine so large that the accused could not pay it. A jail sentence, therefore, seemed to be the only alternative. The judge then did a very unusual thing. Leaving the bench, he approached the convicted man, shook his hand, and announced, "I'm paying the fine for you." As we contemplate the great salvation God has provided, we must remember that He is both loving and just. Therefore, as much as He loves us, He could not simply overlook our sins. The penalty for violating His law had to be exacted. But by Jesus' death on the cross, God's love and justice were satisfied so that there is "no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). Sin's penalty has been paid in full!

The verdict is final. The case is never going to be re-tried—irrevocable. On that we can rest—we are justified on the basis of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. It is a blessing to know that I am, right now, under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ. Because I have placed my trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, I am redeemed by His precious blood. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. Knowing that God’s love for me and approval of me will never be determined by my performance is the most encouraging promise to which I cling. Truly, Jesus Paid It All. 

Lord Jesus, thank You for the free gift of salvation, that we are justified on the basis of Your finished work on the Cross. Thank You that, right now, we are under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ. Because we have placed our trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, we are redeemed by Your precious blood. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. Knowing that God’s love for us and approval of us will never be determined by our performance is the most encouraging promise to which we cling. We love You, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

 

Look Up—meditate on Isaiah 53:5 … pray to see what it reveals about the character of God.

 

Look In—as you meditate on Isaiah 53:5 … pray to see how you might apply it to your life. Be propelled to ask galvanizing questions about your discoveries: "Because God is_________, I will_____________."

 

Look Out—as you meditate on Isaiah 53:5 …pray to see how you might apply it to your relationships with others. Let the nature of God impact on every relationship, for your good, and for His glory.

 

 * If you liked this post, you’ll love this book – Name Above All Names Devotional: Focusing on 26 Alphabetical Names of Christ

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