Christian Photographers Community

God's most thorough healing.  Isaiah 53:4 - 6

"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

In chapter one of this great prophecy the prophet was moved by the Holy Spirit to describe our sins.  It's an ugly description.  He had to say, "Why should you be stricken again?  You will revolt more and more.  The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints.  From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been bound up, or soothed with ointment."  I don't know about you, but I don't like to read such things.  But I have to.  It's describing  us.  It's describing, not the unusual, the worse than average - but it's describing every one of us when we're left to ourselves.  When these words were uttered, the subject being described was Israel - God's special people!  In our day they still must be said to be describing God's special people.  It's called the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If these things were not so (and I wish they weren't), then the suffering Servant of the 53rd chapter would have had no sorrows to carry, no iniquities for which to be bruised.  He would not have had to bear "stripes."  These "stripes" were the furrows made upon the back and sides by a whip, a rod, or, even worse, a scourge.  Our Lord suffered those stripes, that chastisement, and those wounds because of "the iniquity of us all."

But, most peculiar of all, He bore them gladly for you and I!  And they will be effective, dear ones!  They will accomplish all that was intended.  Hebrews 12:3 says, "Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God!"  He will have an eternally cleansed people at last!  He will triumph over death, hell, and the grave - for YOU!

With these wonderful things firmly at the forefront of your mind, do not join with those who blithely quote the words, "by His stripes we are healed" and apply them only to physical healing, thus robbing them of their more magnificent meaning.  There are those who repeat these words like a mantra, thinking that we only need to "believe we are healed" (of physical ailments), and, God is obligated to accomplish that healing. Oh dear ones!  These words tell us of freedom!  They tell us of joy!  They tell us of life and purity and of victory over our sinful tendencies!  Let them not be robbed of their worth!

Thanks Al...  I appreciate these words.

I'm going to study this passage more later.

What a wonderful Saviour we have to have suffered for us on Calvary so that we might have life.