Isaiah 53:4-6 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.… There are two questions which here suggest themselves — I. WHAT BURDENS PRESSED ON CHRIST, WHICH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, UNLESS HE HAD TAKEN THEM UP? 1. By His incarnation He inserted Himself into our race, and by assuming our own nature, He felt whatever sorrows press on man as man 2. By His position He represented our race. As the Son of God, He is Heaven's representative on earth. As the Son of Man, He is our Great High Priest, to intercede with Heaven. Thus all earth's spiritual concerns rested on Him. Could such a work be entrusted to man, and He-be otherwise than "a man of sorrows"? 3. By His own personal sympathy He so felt for man, that He made the sorrows of others His own. His was no heartless officialism. 4. By suffering and sorrow, Christ not only discloses His own human sympathy, but by reason of the two-foldness of His nature, that human sympathy was an incarnation of the Divine! 5. But we have to take one more step, in accounting for the burden which lay upon Christ. He came, "not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life, a ransom for many." II. WHAT BURDENS DO NOT REST UPON US, THAT MUST HAVE BEEN OURS IF CHRIST HAD NOT BORNE THEM AWAY? 1. The burden of unatoned guilt rests on none! "Behold the Lamb of God that beareth away the sin of the world!" 2. The burden of hopeless corruption of nature need rest on none. When the Son of God came to be a sacrifice for us, He came to be also a Living Root in us. He allied Himself with human weakness, and joined it to His almightiness, that in Him that weakness might be lost, and be substituted by "everlasting strength." 3. The burden of unshared sorrows rests on none. Does our sorrow arise from the sin without us? That pressed more heavily on Christ than ever it can do on us. Does it come from personal trial? Christ's were far heavier than ours. Does it come from the temptations of Satan? He was in all points tempted like as we are. But perhaps it may be said, "By reason of the infirmities of the flesh, I am betrayed into impatience, murmuring and fretfulness and I cannot feel that Christ has lifted off that burden, for I am sure Christ never felt any fretfulness or impatience, and so He cannot sympathize with mine." But, strange as it may seem at first sight, it is just here that the perfection of Christ's sympathy is seen. In this last-named course of sorrow there is a mixture of what is frail with what is wrong. But since Christ's nature was untainted by sin, He can draw exactly the line between infirmity and sin, which sinful natures cannot do. Now, we do not want, and we ought not to wish for sympathy with the wrong, but only with weakness and frailty. How does Christ, then, meet this complex case! Distinguishing most clearly between the two, He looks on the infirmity, and has for it a fulness of pity; He discerns the sin, and has for that fulness of power to forgive it, and fulness of grace to remove it! "In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted." 4. The burden of dreaded death need rest on none. Christ passed through death that He might deliver them who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage. 5. The great burden of the destiny of the human race rests not on us. Christ has taken that up. (C. Clemance, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. |
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