Sermon 19

Isaiah 53:4-5 Verse 4. Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Verse 5. 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.

This is a most wonderful subject that the prophet is here discoursing of, even that which concerns the sufferings of our blessed Lord Jesus, by way of prediction several hundreds of years before his incarnation; it was much that he was to be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; but this was more, that he was despised, and we esteemed him not; there is wonderful grace upon the one side, that our Lord became so very low, and wonderful contempt and enmity on the other side, that we despised him, and esteemed him not, even because of his lowness.

In the words now read, and forward, the prophet sets himself to remove the offence that men took at our Lord's humiliation, by showing them, that although he became so low, yet he was not to be the less esteemed for that; and the ground which he lays down to remove the offence, is in the first words of the text, which in sum is this, that there was nothing in himself for which he should have been brought so low, there was no sin in him, neither was there any guile found in his mouth, but he was graciously pleased to take on him that which we should have borne; and therefore men ought not to stumble and take offence at his stooping to bear that which would with its weight have crushed them eternally, and thereby to make their peace with God. In verse 6, he shows how it came to pass that he stooped so low: All we (says he) like sheep have gone astray, and turned every one of us to our own way, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all; we had lost ourselves, and God in the depth of his eternal wisdom, love, and goodwill, found out the way to save us; wherein (to speak so) a covenant was transacted between God and the Mediator, who becomes surety for our sins, which are transferred on him. From verse 7 to verse 10, he goes on in showing the execution of this transaction, and how the surety performed all according to his engagement; and from verse 10 to the close, we have the promises made to him for his satisfaction. The scope is, as to remove the scandal of the cross, so to hold out our Lord's pursuing the work of satisfaction to the justice of God for elect sinners, and the good success he had in it.

In verses 4 and 5 we have three things. First, this ground asserted: Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. Second, men's enmity aggravated from this: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; in the very mean time that he condescended to stoop so low for us, and to bear that which we should have borne, we esteemed but little of him, we looked on him as a plagued man. Third, this is more fully explained in verse 5: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, he was so handled for our sins, and the chastisement of our peace was on him, that which made our peace with God was on him; by his stripes we are healed, the stripes that wounded and killed him cured us.

We have here then, rather as it were a sad narration, than a prophecy of the gospel holding out a part of our Lord's sufferings, yet a clear foundation of the consolation of the people of God; it being the ground of all our faith of the pardon of sin, of our peace with God, and of our confident appearing before him, that our Lord was content to be thus dealt with, and to give his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.

We shall clarify the words in the assertion, which will serve to clarify the words of the whole chapter, and also of the doctrines to be drawn from it. First, the thing that Christ bore is called griefs and sorrows, by which we understand the effects that sin brings on men in the world, for it is the same that in verse 5 is called his being wounded for our transgression, and bruised for our iniquity; it is a wounding that iniquity causes, and meritoriously procures; it is not sin itself, but the effect of sin, to wit, the punishment, the sorrow and grief that sin brings with it, called griefs and sorrows; partly because grief and sorrow is necessarily joined with sin, partly to show the extremity and exceeding greatness of this grief and sorrow, and the bitter fruits that sin has with it. Second, how is it said that Christ has borne and carried their griefs and sorrows? By this we understand, not only Christ's removing of them, as he removed sickness and diseases, as it is said (Matthew 8:16-17), but also and mainly his actual and real enduring of them, as the phrase is frequently used in Scripture; that man shall bear his iniquity, or he shall bear his sin (Leviticus 5) and many other places; it sets out a real inflicting of the punishment that sin deserves, on him. Third, that it is said our griefs, and our sorrows, it is not needlessly or superfluously set down, but to meet with the offence that men take at Christ's humbling himself so low; as if he had said, What ails you to stumble at Christ's coming so low, and being so afflicted? It was not for his own sins, but for ours, that he was so handled; and they are called our griefs and sorrows: first, because we by our sins procured them, they were our deserving, and due to us, the debt was ours, though he as our surety took it on himself; second, because though the elect have distinct reckonings, and peculiar sins, some more, some fewer, some greater, some lesser, yet they are all put on Christ's account; there is a combination of them, a gathering of them all on him, as the word is in verse 6: He has laid on him, or made to meet on him the iniquities of us all.

The meaning then of the assertion is this: surely this is the cause of Christ's humiliation, and this makes him not only to become man, but to be a poor man, and to have a comfortless and afflicted life in the world, that he has taken on him that punishment, curse, and wrath that was due to us for our sins; and therefore he ought not to be offended and stumbled at.

Now because Socinians, the great enemies of Christ's satisfaction, and of the comfort of his people, labor to elude this place, and to make Christ only an exemplary Savior, and deny that he really and actually did undergo these griefs and sorrows for the sins of his elect; we shall a little clear and confirm the exposition we have given; the question is not about the taking away of sin, but about the manner of removing it; they say that it is by God's pardoning of it without a satisfaction; we say it is by Christ's satisfaction; so the difficulty in expounding the words, is whether to expound them of Christ's removing our sorrows and griefs from us, or of his bearing of them for our sin, and so really taking it away: and that this Scripture means not of a simple removing of them, as he did remove sickness (Matthew 8:17), but by a real taking them on himself, and bearing of them in order to the satisfaction of the justice of God for our sins: we shall give these reasons to confirm it. 1. Because these words are to be understood of such a bearing of sorrows and griefs as made Christ to be contemptible and despised before others, this is clear from the scope, for they are given as a reason why Christ was rejected and despised as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and why men should not stumble at him for all that, because it was for them; now, if he had only removed sorrows from them as he did sicknesses, it had not been a cause of his sorrow and grief, nor of any man's stumbling at him, but had been rather a cause of his exaltation in men's esteem; but it is given here as a cause of that which went before in the first part of the 3rd verse, and also as a reason why men should not stumble at him, and withal as an aggravation of their guilt who did stumble at him: now it is clear that the ground of the Jews' despising and mocking of him, was not his removing of sicknesses and diseases, but his seeming to be given over to death's power. 2. Because that which is called here, bearing of sorrows and griefs, is in the words following, called, a being wounded for our transgressions, which imports not only that he was wounded, but that our iniquities were the cause of his being wounded, and that the desert of them was laid on him. 3. This wounding is held forth, to be the stripes whereby we are healed; and all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all; we did the wrong but he made the amends; and it was such a wounding as proves a cure to us, and makes way for our peace and reconciliation with God; and such, as without it, there is no healing for us, for by his stripes we are healed; it is by his swallowing up of the river and torrent of wrath that was in our way and would have drowned us eternally, had not he interposed for us, that we escape. 4. Consider the parallel places to this in the New Testament, and we will find that this place holds out Christ's real and actual bearing of our sorrows and griefs; I shall only name three. The 1st is that of (2 Corinthians 5:21): He has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, which can be no other way expounded but of Christ's being made an offering and sacrifice for our sins; he not being a sinner himself, but becoming our guarantor and engaging to pay our debt, and to [reconstructed: pay down] the price for the satisfaction of divine justice; he is reckoned to be the sinner, and our sins are imputed to him, and he is dealt with as a sinner. A 2nd place is that of (Galatians 3:13): Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree; the sorrows and griefs that Isaiah says here he should bear, are there expounded by the Apostle, to be, his being made a curse, or his bearing of the curse that we should have borne; it is not meant simply of his removing the curse from us, but it also sets out the manner how he removed, to wit, by his own bearing of it himself, being nailed to the cross, according to the threatening given out before. The 3rd place is that of (1 Peter 2:24): Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree; where there is a direct reference to this place of Isaiah, which is cited for confirmation of what the Apostle says, and every word is full and has a special signification and emphasis in it, he his own self bore, the same word that is here, and our sins, and in his own body, and on the tree; intimating the lowest step of his humiliation, by whose stripes you were healed, for you were as sheep going astray, and so on; by his bearing of our sins the burden of sin was taken off us, and we are set free.

I know that place of (Matthew 8:17) has its own difficulty, and therefore I shall speak a word for clearing of it; he has spoken in verse 16 of Christ's healing all that were sick, and then subjoins in verse 17: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses; whereupon these enemies of Christ would infer, that this place of Scripture has no other, nor further meaning, but of Christ's curing of some sick folks, and of the deputed or committed power which he has to pardon sins; but we suppose that the reasons which we have already given, make it clear, that this cannot be the meaning of the place, to which we shall add first a reason or two, and secondly, give you the true meaning of it.

The reasons why one cannot be the meaning of the place, are 1. Because (Acts 8:32) this Scripture is spoken of as being daily a fulfilling by Christ, and therefore it could not be fulfilled in these few days wherein he was in the flesh upon earth. 2. Because this bearing of our griefs and sorrows is such a piece of Christ's humiliation, as thereby he took on all the griefs and sorrows of all the Elect at once, both of these who lived in Isaiah's time, and of these who lived before, and since his time, and therefore cannot be restricted to the curing of temporal diseases in the days wherein he was on earth, in fact, not to the pardoning of the sins of the Elect then living, there being many Elect before and since comprehended in this his satisfaction, which was most certainly a satisfaction for the sins of the Elect that were dead and to be born, as well as for the sins of them that were then living.

2. For the meaning of the place, 1. We are not to look on Christ's curing of sicknesses and diseases (Matthew 8:16) as a proper fulfilling of this place (Isaiah 52:4), but as many Scriptures are spoken by way of allusion to other Scriptures, so is this; there is indeed some fulfilling of the one in the other, and some resemblance between the one and the other, and the resemblance is this, even to show Christ's tenderness to the outward condition of folks' bodies, whereby he evidenced his tenderness and respect to the inward sad condition of their immortal souls whereinto they were brought through their sin; the great thing aimed at by the prophet. 2. If we consider the griefs and sorrows that Christ bore and suffered complexly in their cause and effects, he in healing of these diseases and sicknesses bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, because when he took on our debt, he took it on with all the consequences of it; and so though Christ took on no disease in his own person, for we read not that he was ever sick, yet in taking on the debt in common of the Elect, he virtually took on all sicknesses and diseases, or what they suffered in all diseases or should have suffered, he took it on together; and hereby he had a right, to speak so, to the carrying of all diseases, and in carrying of them he had respect to the cause of them, to wit, sin; therefore to such as he cured, he says very often, Your sins be forgiven you; he studied to remove that in most of them he did deal with; and so looking on our Lord as taking on our sins complexly with the cause, and as having a right to remove all the effects of sin, evidencing itself in the removing of these diseases whereof sin was the cause, these words may be thus fulfilled; and so they are clear, and the doctrine also; We have here no mere exemplary Savior that has done no more but confirmed his doctrine, and given us a copy how to do and behave, but he has really and actually borne our sorrows and griefs, and removed our debt, by undergoing the punishment due to us for sin.

Observe here 1. That sin, in no flesh, no, not in the Elect themselves, is without sorrow and grief; tribulation and anguish are knit to it, or it has these following on it; or take the doctrine thus, Wherever there is sin, there is the cause of much sorrow and grief; no more can the native cause be without the effect, than sin can be without sorrow and grief, it's the plain assertion of Scripture. (Romans 2:8-9) Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that does evil; which one place, putting the four words together says, 1. That there is sorrow most certainly and inseparably on every soul that has sinned, and 2. That this sorrow is exceeding great (which may also be the reason why this sorrow is set out in two words in the text) therefore four words are used by the apostle to express it: It's not our purpose here to dispute, whether God in his justice does by necessity of nature punish the sinner: These three things considered, will make out the doctrine, which is, That there is a necessary connection between sin and sorrow, and that this sorrow must needs be very great; 1. If we consider the exceeding unsuitableness of sin to the holy law of God, and how it is a direct contrariety to that most pure and perfect law. 2. If we consider the perfectly holy nature of God himself, The righteous Lord says the Psalmist (Psalm 11:7) loves righteousness; and the prophet (Habakkuk 1:13) says, He is of purer eyes than that he can behold evil, and he cannot look upon iniquity; and though we need not to dispute God's sovereignty, yet it is clear that he is angry with the wicked every day (Psalm 7:11) and he will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7) and that there is a greater suitableness in his inflicting sorrow and grief on a sinner that walks contrary to him, than there is in showing him mercy; and there is a greater suitableness in his showing mercy to a humbled sinner that is aiming to walk holily before him. 3. If we consider the revealed will of God in the threatening, who has said, the day you eat you shall surely die, we may say there is, as they speak in the schools, a hypothetical necessity of grief and sorrow to follow on sin, and that there is a necessary connection between them; and this may very well stand with the Mediator his coming in and interposing to take that grief and sorrow from off us, and to lay it on himself; but it was once ours because of our sin.

If it be asked what grief and sorrow this is? We said it's very great, and there is reason for it, for though our act of sin — 1. As to the subject that sins, man, and 2. As to the act of sin itself, a sinful thought word or deed that is soon gone, be finite; yet if we consider sin, 1. In respect of the object against whom, the infinite God, 2. In respect of the absolute purity of God's law, a rule that bears out God's image set down by infinite wisdom, and that may be some way called infinitely pure; and sin as being against this pure rule that infinite wisdom has set down; And 3. If we consider it in respect of its nature, every sin being of this nature that though it cannot properly wrong the majesty of God, yet as to the intention of the thing, and even of the sinner, it wrongs him; sin in these respects may be called infinite, and the wrong done to the majesty of God thereby, may be called infinite; as those who built Babel, their intention in that work breathed forth infinite wrong to God, as having a direct tendency to bring them off from dependance on him; and so every sin if it had its will and intent, would put God in subordination to it, and set itself in his room, and therefore sin in some respect as to the wrong against God is infinite.

2. Observe, that the real and very great sorrow that the sins of the Elect deserved, our Lord Jesus did really and actually bear and suffer; as we have expounded the words and confirmed the exposition given of them, you have a clear confirmation of the doctrine from them; 1. Griefs and sorrows in the plural number, show intenseness of sorrow and grief. 2. That they are called ours, it shows our propriety in them, and 3. That it's said Christ bore them; these concur to prove the doctrine; that the same sorrow which the sins of the Elect deserved Christ bore; it not only says that our Lord bore sorrows, but the same sorrows that by the sins of the Elect were due to them, and so there was a proportionableness between the sorrows that he bore, and the sorrows they should have endured; he took up the cup of wrath that was filled for us, and that we would have been put to drink, and drank it out himself; suppose that our Lord had never died (as blessed be his name, there is no ground to make the supposition) the cup of sorrow that the Elect would have drunk eternally, was the same cup that he drank out for them: it is true, we would distinguish between these things that are essentially due to sin as the punishment of it; and these things that are only accidentally due to it, the former Christ bore but not the latter; to clear both in a word or two, 1. These things essentially due to sin as necessarily included in the threatening. The day you eat you shall surely die; and in the curse of the law according to that, Cursed is every one that abides not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them, are death and the curse, these are essentially the desert of sin; in which respect it was not only necessary that Christ should become man and suffer, but that he should suffer to death or should die, and not only so, but that he should die the cursed death of the cross, as the threatening and curse put together hold out; and as to all these things that he underwent and met with before, and at his death, they were the accomplishment of the threatening due to us, and fulfilled in and by him in our room; so that as he himself says (Luke 24:26), O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to have entered into his glory? Therefore he had to be in an agony, and to sweat great drops of blood, to be crucified and die, and to be laid in the grave. 2. These things which we call accidentally due to sin, are mainly two, 1. That horrible desperation of the damned in Hell, where they gnaw their tongues for pain and blaspheme God; this we say is not properly and essentially the desert of sin, but only accidental; 1. In respect of the creature's inability to bear the wrath that sin deserves, and hence arises not only a sinless horror which is natural, but a sinful desperation. 2. Add to this inability of the creature, the enmity thereof, by which it comes to thwart with and contradict the will of God; hence the desperation not only arises but is increased: now, our Lord Jesus not being simply a creature or a man, but God and man in one person, he was able to bear the sorrow and wrath due to the Elect for their sin; and there being no quarrel, nor ground of any quarrel between God and him on his own account, though he had a natural and sinless horror at the cup of his Father's displeasure when put to his head; yet he had no sinful desperation. The second thing accidentally due to sin, is the eternal duration of wrath or of the curse, because the sinner being a mere creature, cannot at one shock meet with the infinite wrath of God, and satisfy justice at once, therefore the Lord has in his wisdom and justice found out a way of supporting the creature in its being, and continuing it for ever under wrath, because it cannot, being finite, satisfy infinite justice: but our Lord being God and man, being of infinite worth or value, and of infinite strength, was also to satisfy justice, and bear at once, that which the Elect could never have borne; yet he had the essentials of that which sin deserved, to wit, death and the curse to meet with, and did actually meet with them, as the hiding of his Father's face, and the suspending and keeping back of that consolation, that by virtue of the personal union flowed from the Godhead to the Manhood; and he also had the actual sense and feeling of the wrath of God, the awakened sword of the justice of God actually smiting him; so that men wondered how he could be dead so soon. We shall only add a word or two of reasons for clearing and confirming the doctrine; and for proof of it, these three things concur, 1. That sins deserving by God's appointment, is to have sorrow following on it. 2. That by God's appointment according to the covenant of redemption, the Son of God undertook that same very debt that was due by the Elect. And 3. That it was God's design not to pass one of their sins without satisfaction made to justice, but to put to the guarantor for them all; for the declaration of the riches and glory of the free grace of God when the sinner is liberated, and not put to pay; and for the declaration of the holy severity and justice of God, when not one farthing is owing, but the guarantor must needs pay it, and that both these meeting together, there may be to all generations a standing and shining evidence of the unsearchable riches both of God's grace and of his justice.

This is a sweet doctrine, and has many massive, substantial, and soul-refreshing uses: out of this eater comes meat, and out of the strong comes sweet; this being the very marrow of the gospel, holding out not only Christ's sufferings, but that he suffered not at random or by guess, but that he suffered the sorrows and griefs that we should have suffered; and though the equivalent might have been received, yet he would needs undergo the same sufferings in their essentials: which may exceedingly confirm the faith and hope of believers in him, of their exemption and freedom from the wrath and curse of God, seeing he suffered the same that they should have suffered, had not he interposed between them and it as their guarantor and surety.

Use 1. Hereby we may know what an evil and bitter thing sin is that has such effects; Would God we could once prevail this far with you, as to make you take up and believe, that sin has sorrow and grief inseparably knit to it, and that the sinner is miserable and liable to death, and to the curse of God, and there is no difference but this, that sinners are insensible how miserable they are, and so in greater capacity to be made obnoxious to that misery; Do you mind this, O sinners, that God is angry with you every day? That indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish is to every soul of man that does evil? That God will by no means clear the guilty? Tremble to think upon it; Many of you pass as gay honest folks who will be found in this roll: And would you know your condition, and the hazard that you run? It's of wrath and of the curse of God eternally with desperation and blasphemy; And if that be misery, sin is misery, or brings it; And the day comes when there shall be a storm from heaven of fire and thunder; that will melt the elements above you, and not leave a stone upon a stone of these stately buildings on earth about you; in which day sinners will be confirmed in the belief of this truth, That it is an evil and bitter thing to depart from the living God.

To press this use a little; There are two sorts of sinners, who, if they would soberly let the truth of this doctrine sink in their minds, they would see their folly: The first sort are these who wholly quietly under bygone guilt unrepented of, as if the sorrow were past, because the act is so; but think not so, will the just God avenge sin on his Son, and will he let it pass in you? You that will grant you are sinners, and are under convictions of sin, you had need to take heed what is following it; As you treasure up sin, you are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath; O! wrath is a heaping up in store for you. A second sort are these that go on in sin whatever be said to the effects of it; and will confidently put their hand to it, as if there were no sting in it at all, and drink it over as so much sweet liquor, but of these stolen drinks that seem sweet in secret, will be vomited up again with pain, torment and sorrow; and either it shall be grief and sorrow to you in the way of repentance, or eternal grief and sorrow when the cup of God's wrath shall be put in your hand, and held to your head for evermore.

Use 2. By this you may see a necessity of making use of the mediator Christ Jesus; It's God's great mercy that he has given a mediator, and that the mediator is come, and that he has taken on our debt: What had been our eternal perishing and wallowing in hell's torments with devils, to his sufferings? Always this doctrine says that there is a necessity of making use of him, and receiving of him; And therefore either resolve to meet with this sorrow in your own persons, or betake you to him, that by his interposing it may be kept off you; Weigh these two, that sorrow, death, and the curse, necessarily follow sin; And that Jesus Christ has died and undergone that curse for elect sinners, and then you will see a necessity of being found in him, that you may be free of the curse; Which made Paul make that choice (Philippians 3:8-9), I count all things dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him. Often the allurements of the Gospel prevail not to bring sinners to Christ, but if its allurements do not prevail, will not the consideration of the vengeance of God persuade you? However in these two doctrines you have in sum this, the curse of God following sin, and a free and full Savior held out to you, by whom you may [reconstructed: evade] the curse; you are invited to make him welcome; Choose you, death and life are set before you, whereby you are put to it whether you will adventure to meet with the curse, or to make him welcome; Now God himself make you wise to make the right choice.