Isaiah 53:6- The Sin Of Us All
First we have the comparison of God’s people to sheep. So many times we see this in Scripture. Many breeds of sheep have a strong herd instinct. But not all breeds are this way. The sheep we are compared to here are those who do not have much of a herding instinct. Sheep have distinctive behaviours. They are drawn towards food. They move towards light. They like to move up, to go up higher. Just like people, there are individuals who can be stubborn, but this is the tendency. What’s that got to do with us? What we really attain to when we are left to our own wanderings is we go eat that which is really the deadly poison of sin. We go after the darkness of iniquity. And we go over the cliff of judgment because we have gone astray, left to ourselves in Adam. We all too easily love and follow after sin and idols. It’s an old problem. We not only, of course, have the record of Adam’s sin against us. We not only have our own marred and broken nature within us, but we have piled up since we were little, our own individual sins that are the fruit of the sin nature that we have. See Shorter Catechism #18.
In kindness, in grace, in love, before time, the triune God determined to save many sinners by the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He, the son of God, became the son of Man. He became the lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He comes to our world, full of sin, willingly. Sin must be dealt with. God is righteous, He is holy, He cannot abide sin and continue to be God. So somehow sin must be dealt with. How to save a people? It’s here, plainly. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. All the guilt of His people, with the responsibility for it, and the curse of it, all concentrated on Him. All the sin that you have done all your life, that’s all loaded on Jesus Christ. It’s a burden you can’t possibly bear, but it’s all loaded upon Him. The sin of all God’s chosen ones, from Adam and Eve to the last sinner saved before Jesus comes again. It’s all loaded up on Him. And all that is angering to God, all that guilt and all the curse it deserved, is concentrated down upon one pinpoint of the God-Man. And He did this to the Son He loved because He loved us so much. The Son said, ‘I will do it’, because He loved us so much. The Spirit of God takes this and He applies it to each of His people. Indeed, the Lamb died that the sheep might live.
Questions
- What happens when we go our own way?
- How does the Father deal with the Son?
Prayer Points
- Give thanks that Christ has borne our sins.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.