More Than Sin...

He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him. Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy]. 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 ~Isaiah 53:3-5, Amplified

Why did He take the beating? Those of us who have been around church for more than about ten minutes know that Jesus died to forgive us of sins. He died to redeem us and make us new and allow us to go to Heaven when we die. However, I believe that is as far as most of us go with regards to what happened on that Friday all those long years ago. It was so much more...

Isaiah 53 is the quintessential passage for teaching on Jesus' redemptive work at Calvary. You can't preach about Easter without this passage. And yet, it has been mistranslated far too often. That is why I chose to use the Amplified translation, to unpack the fullness of what was really being spoken of. Isaiah was looking into the future, some 800 years away, when he was given this vision of what was to happen to Jesus. This gives us a very poignant description of going on in the spirit on that day. Jesus didn't just die so we ca go to Heaven one day. He was beaten so that we could be free from every curse this world is under.

In most translations, we see that Jesus bore our sorrows and our griefs. However, those two words are quite frequently translated throughout the Scriptures as "sickness" and "pains." That is why Isaiah goes on to say "by his stripes we are healed." Those stripes that Jesus took prior to his crucifixion were to pay for complete restoration of the body. Go back and look at everything Jesus bought and paid for: peace, well-being, healing. He took upon Himself more than just sin; He took everything. And it says that God did it...

Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief and made Him sick. When You and He make His life an offering for sin [and He has risen from the dead, in time to come], He shall see His [spiritual] offspring, He shall prolong His days, and the will and pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand ~Isaiah 53:10, Amplified

See that? This is the only time in the totality of human existence where God made someone sick. With each blow of a Roman, God struck Jesus with grief, pain, sickness and disease. It was so that not only sin, but the deadly consequences of sin, could be put to death and conquered once and for all. That is why Isaiah saw a man who was not esteemed, but seen as forsaken of God. Jesus looked far worse on that cross than religious movies portray. We know He bore all the sins of the world in his body on that Cross. That in itself is enough to drastically change one's demeanor. Haven't you ever been around a person so entangled in their sins that their countenance is radically different? You can see it in their eyes, they're dark and cold. I have been around people who were so far away from God I could tangibly feel the evil radiating from them. They look "off." Jesus would have looked exponentially worse, because He was carrying every sin of every person of all time. But there was more...

This prophetic passage of Scripture tells us that He also carried every sickness and disease known to the world. Imagine how terrible He must have looked. With each bruise, He was stricken with a new ailment. That's what Scripture tells us. He was hanging on that cross carrying every sin, sickness and disease of humanity, so that all of it would be put to death. Jesus didn't have to take a beating to be crucified. They could have just nailed Him up and walked away. But it was the will of God to have Jesus go through that, so that He could take upon Himself sickness and grief and disease, so that all symptoms of the curse would be put away. In doing so, it allows for the apostle Peter to quote this passage with one glorious "tweak": "He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed" (1Peter 2:24, Amplified, emphasis added).

We are free, this very moment, from the power of sin and death. We are free, this very moment, from sickness, disease, oppression, depression, sorrow and fear. It was paid for. It is not the will of God for any of us to have these curses in operation in our lives, because He placed them on Jesus to be overcome. That doesn't mean we are to walk through life without ever facing a challenge. Symptoms will attempt to come upon us all; but they are not the will of God. He has equipped us to overcome them all. We are over-comers (Romans 8:37), but you can't be an over-comer without something to overcome. Remember the words of Jesus: "... in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]" (John 16:33, Amplified, emphasis added). That's the full power of the cross. Happy Easter.