Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking on Psalm 20 and Psalm 21. And we talked about how Psalm 2 through Psalm 24 form a unit of sorts. And we’ll continue through the Psalms till we get to the end of verse 20 or Psalm 24. Then we may take up a couple of other topics before we proceed with the Psalms. In any event, it’s important to recognize that we’ve been talking about Psalm 20 and 21 in the past few weeks as being messianic to a certain extent.

In other words, they talk about the victory of David. In Psalm 20, there was a request on the part of the congregation for God’s blessing upon the king as he goes forth in battle for representing the nation of Israel. Psalm 21, there’s the answer to that prayer and God’s deliverance of the king and more than simple deliverance—released out of the tight spot they were in into an open place. There’s tremendous victory that also accompanies that.

Much more than God that the people had asked for—that the king had asked for—his life, God gave him an everlasting throne forever and ever. And of course, that’s representative of Jesus Christ, his victory over sin and death and his conquering of all powers and principalities on the cross.

Now with Psalm 22, we come to what is in a way ironic that we go directly from the discussion on Psalm 21, which we talked last week in terms of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and go directly from that victory of God as typified in the messianic king and its exalting triumph and the extent of that triumph. In verse 13, “Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength. So will we sing and praise thy power.” We go directly there to Psalm 22, which starts with, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

But I think it’s important to recognize that these are of a piece. What we’re going to consider in Psalm 22, and we’ll talk about it in two separate messages. We’ll deal with the first half this week, the second half next week. The first half deals with the basis for the victory of the king that’s been shown forth in Psalm 20 and 21. The basis for that victory is the atonement of Jesus Christ. And then the second half of Psalm 22 will talk about the results of that victory of Jesus Christ and the atoning death of the Messiah who was to come.

But it is clear in Psalm 22 that we now have left—we have moved a step away from Psalm 20 and 21—and that Psalm 22 represents a clear set of verses that speak clearly to the coming Messiah and who we recognize now to be Jesus Christ born 2,000 years ago.

Let’s begin then just by reading through Psalm 22. We’ll read however just the first 21 verses and we’ll take up the rest of the psalm next week.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, oh thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

“Our fathers trusted in thee. They trusted and thou delivered them. They cried unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They shake the head, saying, ‘He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.’

“But thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou did make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother’s belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.

“My heart is like wax. It’s melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou has brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

“But be thou not far from me, oh Lord, oh my strength, hasty to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling, from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.”

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for this psalm and we thank you, father, for telling there what we know now to be true in Jesus Christ. We thank you for his atoning death. Help us, Lord God, to meditate upon that for the next 30 minutes or so to understand the implications of that for ourselves and for all of creation. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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The psalm I would like to—I’ve really struggled with this. The atonement is one of the central teachings of the Christian faith and Psalm 22, in a way, can be seen as a synopsis of the entire scriptures. You have the atoning death of Jesus Christ, the reconciliation affected for mankind and then the triumph of that gospel in the rest of Psalm 22 with the triumph of the king over all his enemies. And so there’s a lot of information here to be talked about and I just haven’t been real comfortable about how to approach this.

What I’m going to do though, what I’ve decided to do is to go through Psalm 22 and just point out some specific things about the structure of the first half of the psalm, some of the phrases in there that might not be clear to you, and then also go through what Roy read this morning in Isaiah 53, obviously a companion passage to this.

And then at the end of that, going through the verses specifically, we’ll talk about some general things that these sections of scriptures teach us about the atonement. So we’ll begin with looking at the structure of Psalm 22, the first 21 verses. You have here a series of cries by Jesus Christ or by the afflicted one and then a counterstatement of God’s faithfulness.

So verses one and two talk about the problem of the person who’s being afflicted here, are persecuted—Jesus Christ the Messiah. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art so far from helping me? And from the words of my roaring, oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not. And in the night season, and I’m not silent.”

So you begin to see here the extent of the problem: forsakenness. The word for God used there, by the way, is the most generalized term El, which refers to the strength of God. He’s saying, “My strong one, my strength, where are you now that I’m in the tremendous problem and I’m being brought into very bad times. I’m roaring over the depth of my problem here.”

Verse one, of course, is extremely important because it’s directly quoted by Jesus Christ and his agony on the cross. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” So it’s a clear identification of the rest of the psalm for us that it indeed refers to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. There are some who believe that Psalm 22 was quoted not just in part by Jesus, but that he might have even quoted the entire thing based upon this first verse. And you’ll see at the end of the psalm where there’s a finished victory to the whole thing that’s been accomplished, which relates to Christ’s last statement about it as finished. We’ll get to that next week.

In any event, we know he at least quoted verse one. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And therefore identified himself as the object of Psalm 22.

I skipped already the introduction to the psalm and I should just go back and comment briefly upon that. It says in the King James version that Psalm 22 is to the chief musician upon Aeleth. And the word there—it’s a very difficult word to translate. Apparently it may just refer to the tune of the psalm. However, it may also be and is commonly translated as a summation of the psalm being the words “the hind of the morning, the hind or the deer of the morning.”

And throughout the psalm, we’ll see in the first half of the psalm many references to the animal kingdom. And so it would not be at all inappropriate for God to have given us here a description of Jesus Christ as the hind of the morning. Other people see instead of the word hind there the word help—”the help of the morning.”

The help that comes in the morning after the dark night of the agony that we’ll go through in the next verses. And either way they are indicative of the content of the psalm.

So this first two verses then are the first set of verses that talk about the depth of the problem. And then after that, you have three verses, verses 3, 4, and 5 that talk about an emphasis now upon the God who he’s praying to. Says, “I’m in deep trouble. I’m roaring. I have real problems here. Thou doesn’t hear me. You don’t hear me.”

But then verses 3 through 5, “But thou art holy, oh, thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee. They trusted in thou to deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded.”

The emphasis there really is not on the fact of they trusted and they cried. The emphasis is upon thee in the Hebrew. So it’s like verse 5 for instance: “Unto thee they cried and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded.”

And Jesus here or the psalmist speaking of the Messiah to come is emphasizing here the fact that although he’s in deep distress, he’s not calling the character of God into account here. He’s relying upon the character of God in verses 3 and 5. He’s saying you’re holy. You’ve helped the covenant nation of Israel. You inhabit the praises of Israel.

It’s also important to recognize here that again we’re talking about covenantal language. He says, “Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. You’re holy. Thou art holy.” The word holy has the implication in the Hebrew of set apart—to cut something and set it apart to something. And in a way, God is holy in respect to the nation of Israel. He’s set apart to be their covenant God. And he inhabits the praises of the nation of Israel.

So he’s beginning to rely here and his call for deliverance to God upon the covenantal relationship with the covenant people of which he is a part. And that’s further brought out in verse four. “Our fathers trusted in thee.” Not only does God have a covenantal relationship to Israel and he’s the God of Israel, but also in the past the nation of Israel called unto God and God actually delivered them.

So the appeal here is based upon God being the covenant God of Israel and then following that the fact that God in that covenantal relationship has actually helped the fathers in the past. “Our fathers trust trusted in thee, they trusted and thou did deliver them.” Covenantal language is being in use here.

And then in verse 5, you can begin to see “Unto thee they cried and were delivered. in thee they trusted were not confounded.”

But then we go back to a series of verses, verses 6, 7, and 8 that again goes back to the specific sufferings of the afflicted one of the Messiah. “He trusted in you and were not confounded. In you they trusted and were delivered. But I on the other hand am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn and they shoot out the lip. They make they shake the head saying he trusted in on the Lord that he would deliver him.

“Let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him.”

So there’s a contrast here. We’re going back to the cause of the affliction. “I am a worm.” The word there for worm is has an implication of being a maggot or something that consumes really detestable, unclean, creepy crawly sort of thing. For instance, in the curses of Deuteronomy 28, it’s this word here, the worms that devour the grapes that the Israelites are going to grow if they’re under the cursing of God. They won’t be able to drink the fruit of the grape. The worms will eat those things up.

Worms are detestable sort of things within the scriptures. And so Jesus here is saying, “I am a detestable sort of thing unto men and no man—uh he’s not a man. He’s a reproach of men.” The word there for worm also, by the way, is translated in other portions of the scriptures as crimson or scarlet. So apparently the specific worm that’s being talked about was probably a crimson grub, which had a red color.

And you could see in that the implication that throughout this psalm, what’s going to happen is that worm is going to be crushed by the wrath of God. And of course, it will yield forth the scarlet or red color—the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from sin. For instance in Isaiah where it talks about “uh though our sin in Isaiah 1 where our sins are like are crimson in terms of color. It’s this word for worm that’s being used there.

And so Jesus Christ was to shed himself on the cross as a worm and bleed forth that red color and so cleanse our sins. But the emphasis here is upon his reproach of men and again, it’s easy to see how many portions of this psalm were literally fulfilled in the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross. They mock at me. They shoot out the lip. They shake the head.

These very gestures are indicated in the gospels of the people that surrounded Christ on the cross shooting out the lip, shaking the head. And in verse 8 specifically, “he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.” And they said, “You know, you trusted to God. Come on down from the cross and let God deliver you.” And they were mocking him and making fun of him. And Jesus Christ bore them upon himself on the cross.

So again, there’s a direct reference here to this psalm being messianic and referring to his sufferings.

After this section, however, by one other comment on a word here in verse 8, “he trusted on the Lord.” This is true. Jesus Christ did trust on the covenant God of Israel. You remember in first Peter, I believe it is, where there’s talk about submission to those in authority, how Jesus Christ was missent to the point of death, entrusting himself to God, to the righteous one who would judge righteously. He didn’t entrust himself to the authorities as it were. He was really trusting himself to God.

“He trusted on the Lord.” The word there literally means to roll. He rolled on the Lord. And it wouldn’t really make any sense except that in Psalm 37:5, there’s the same word used to indicate that we’re to roll thy way on Jehovah. Commit your ways to Jehovah. In other words, roll them onto him. In Proverbs 16:3, we’re told to roll our work upon Jehovah. The work that we have to do that is too burdensome for us to do, we roll onto Jehovah as we would a heavy burden that we can’t bear. And so we know that the word roll means to be trusting in.

And so Jesus rolled on the Lord in the sense of trusting in him, the one who is to judge righteously.

After these three verses, we have another three verses, 9 through 11, that again go back and emphasize the object of the plea, which is God himself. “But thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou did make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother’s belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help.”

And again, he’s going back into the faithfulness of God. God is the covenant God of Israel. By covenantal relationship, God has delivered the fathers when they called upon him in covenant history. And in fact, in the history of the individual himself, God has been covenantally faithful to him from the womb.

We know that the children in this church born to believers are to be understood as sanctified or set apart to God. And so the writer of this psalm David and in reference to Jesus Christ recognizes that God was his covenant God from birth—that God was faithful to him—took him out of the womb—makes me hope and I was upon my mother’s breast. And the idea is there that you caused me to trust in [you]—you kept me safe during that time of perilous infancy. During which, as we recognize, in many cases infants are not [able to] trust themselves to their mother’s breasts.

So there’s an emphasis here again on God’s covenant faithfulness to the individual.

Now we go back, however, to verses 12-17. And this is a long extended passage that goes back to the complaint or the trouble that the person issuing the words finds himself in. Again, Jesus Christ.

“Many bulls have compassed me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.”

I’ve wondered about that—what that means there, the Bashan part. And I think that throughout the scriptures the area of Bashan is seen as a very rich pasture land. And so bulls or oxen that were from Bashan would be very strong, well-fed and there may be an intimation there of wildness because it was kind of an isolated area. But in any event, they’re strong and well-fed.

“In a little bit here we talk about some of the implications of this. There’s another verse that we’ll talk about in terms of the strong bulls of Bashan. We’ll get back to that. But in any event, there’s a strongness here that’s emphasized.”

“They beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion.”

Now, you know, it is interesting that the scriptures in the book of first Peter, I believe it is, talks about Satan as a roaring lion seeking to devour wherever he will. And I think that we can see in the sufferings of Jesus Christ upon the cross that not only was he talking about the individuals that encompassed him—about he was talking about Satan as well who was seeking to destroy him on the cross.

I didn’t get time to do this. I wanted to look up in one of the space trilogy of C.S. Lewis—I’m not sure which it might have been in Perelandra—there’s a discussion of you know that book basically has a type or a symbol of Christ in Ransom and then there’s the evil scientist on the other hand and the evil scientist is seen as being inhabited or by Satan himself or maybe reference to Satan. In any event, I remember one particular portion of that book just reminded me a lot of these verses because this evil scientist, the epitomization of Satan, is seen as throwing back his head and uttering these words: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani.”

And the book says that not as somebody who had read about it, but as somebody who was there and heard that anguish cry and delighted in it. And I think that Satan had that kind of delight in the death of Jesus Christ.

And perhaps the implications here of a roaring lion brings Satan into this entire picture as well. Again, C.S. Lewis, in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—for those of you who have seen that—the witch, the evil empress of Narnia, I guess it is, seeks to put Aslan to death on the stone altar and is great delight in that as the ghouls all surround him laying there on the altar.

And I think that Lewis is of course building that upon the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross—has a great delight of the evil ones and being not just people but the principalities and powers—the spiritual forces behind that. And Jesus Christ was aware of that and his work on the cross as well. There was a surprise ending of course to all that for them, but in any event Christ asked for deliverance here from the ravening lion—the ravenings of a roaring lion.

“I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels.”

You have here the beginning descriptions of death itself. And I’m sure you’ve heard lots of sermons on the implications of this and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. All these things were indicators of the death and crucifixion. And that’s certainly true. Jesus Christ here is going through the pains that accompany that sort of death—being crucifixion.

Desperate exhaustion and debilitation is being spoken of here: “poured out like water. My bones are out of joint. My heart’s like wax. It’s melted in the midst of my bowels.”

“My strength is dried up like a pot. And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.”

The word actually means [stuck] to, you know, he can’t separate it because of the thirst. And we know that Jesus Christ on the cross said, “I thirst.”

And it’s interesting, at the end of verse 15, “And thou has brought me into the dust of death.” There was a recognition throughout the suffering of Jesus Christ that it wasn’t at the hands of evil men that he was first and foremost suffering. No, he was suffering because God had brought him to the dust of death.

It was God’s wrath that he was enduring upon the cross, not just the ravaging—the evil men and their plans for him. There was an understanding of the sovereignty of God and that the bulls of Bashan and all these evil forces around him were simply the means of God that God was using to bring him to the dust of death.

The dust of death obviously references death, to the original creation of man in dust, and to “ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” So it’s actually talking about physical death here.

“Dogs have compassed me about the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.”

Dogs—there, it’s important to recognize that dogs to us today are seen as pets. But in the times of the Old Testament and the New Testament, dogs were not primarily pets. They were unclean beasts. I was listening to a tape by Jim Jordan speaking on the meaning of dogs and he reminded me in the tape that dogs eat manure. They’re unclean animals. They are—in the time of the writers of both the Old and New Testament, they were—there were packs of dogs around that would eat up dead bodies and dead things. They were very vicious animals. They were not just simply household pets.

So when he says dogs compassed me about, he’s talking about unclean things. He’s talking about people that have the characteristic of being ravenous terrors of flesh.

“The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me.”

It’s important to recognize here the word assembly of the wicked—has its first reference—the same word throughout the scriptures to the congregation of Israel. And so there is an indication this is not simply a few people putting him to death. It’s the assembly of the wicked. It’s not individuals. It is the entire nation of Israel at that time, in essence, represented through the leadership of the church and also of course to the Roman government at hand.

“They pierced my hands and my feet.”

A lot of discussion about the Hebrew word pierced there and does it really mean pierced? It certainly means at least to have wounds inflicted. Well, it actually means to have pierced through—in the way that his hands and feet were pierced through at the crucifixion—is not explicitly taught necessarily in verse 16, but certainly by implication, we can see that this was exactly what occurred on the cross.

There’s also a strong indication that the word should be interpreted as pierced in the sense of a piercing wound because the Septuagint translated it that way. And after all the Septuagint was translated 200 years before the crucifixion. So they weren’t translating in light of what actually occurred on the cross.

“I may tell all my bones. He could count his bones.”

There’s indication here in the following verse that Jesus has been stripped by this time. And the removal of clothing of course is a sign of judgement. It’s a sign of humiliation and it’s a sign of great injustice and great wrath coming upon him.

“I tell all my bones.” He’s in, like I said before, he’s dying at this point. Emaciated condition. The wrath of God is upon him.

“They look and stare upon me. They—there does not refer to the bones. It refers to the wicked man in the Hebrew.”

“They part my garments among me among them and cast lots upon my vesture.”

I believe this specific reference is quoted in all four gospels—that the enemies of Jesus Christ did actually cast lots for his for his garments, for his clothes. So this section here is clear identification again of the crucifixion of Christ and the wrath of that crucifixion and the depth of the pain, suffering and anguish that he suffered.

However, in verses 19-21, this section closes out with again a reliance upon God himself and then finally deliverance.

“But be thou not far from me, oh Lord, oh my strength, hasty to help me.”

It’s pointing out there that the word strength is a hard word. Again, it might have reference to the indication—the title of the psalm “hind of the morning” or “the help of the morning.” It’s the only really place in the scriptures where the word for strength is used here. But it seems to have that implication to it of help or deliverance as well.

“Deliver my soul from the sword. Again, the sword indicates death. My darling from the power of the dog.”

My darling probably would be better translated there as “my only one,” “my only soul,” “my only life.”

“from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn.”

That really is not a very good way to translate this. Apparently, at the end of verse 21 in the Hebrew, at the end of this section, we have it might be better translated: “Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the unicorn. And then there’s a single Hebrew word at the end of this section that should be translated, ‘thou hast heard me.’”

So, there’s a tremendous answer here after all this anguish of Jesus Christ—the wrath of God upon him at the crucifixion and all this wrath of God being poured out upon him and the physical death that ensues. And yet at the end of all that, “thou hast heard me.” He’s relied upon the covenant God of Israel and God finally answers him here.

There’s a tremendous sense of relief in this section about “thou hast heard me” that isn’t really translated well in verse 21.

It’d be worth noting here also the reference to the horns of the unicorns. It’s interesting. I was reading Alexander’s commentary on these verses and he says—and he’s written in 1864 I think—and he says though we know the interpretation of the word unicorn there, the Hebrew word is not very exact. We don’t really know what it meant. It seems to mean strong ones of some type or strong animals. But Alexander says in his commentary that though we know today that unicorns are not mythological anymore, they’re actually real creatures, they didn’t know this back then.

Now, why he thought in the 1860s that unicorns were real creatures, I don’t know, but it’s kind of interesting. The implication apparently though of a unicorn is a bull again or some sort of oxen.

I probably ought to point out here a comment that James B. Jordan has made on these verses for your consideration. And that is that the goring Christ is representative of being surrounded by the strong bulls of Bashan. He’s being delivered from out of the horns of these bulls apparently. And Jordan talks about how that in the Old Testament case law, if a bull was to pierce a slave and kill a slave, then the owner of the slave was to be compensated by 30 pieces of silver, 30 shekels of silver.

And Jesus Christ had become a slave on the cross for our sake to deliver us who are slaves. He was gored through as it were by the wild bulls. And the price paid to Judas for this death of the slave was 30 pieces of silver.

It’s interesting—there’s probably in one of the coming psalms we’ll talk about there’s reference again to the deliverance from bulls and how the bulls have been trampled under feet now and the silver itself has been trampled underfoot—and we’ll come back to this verse when we get to that psalm in the future. But anyway it’s important to recognize that.

So what you have in this psalm basically is a series of counterpoints: strong calls for deliverance, strong acknowledgements of the pain of suffering—of the atonement, and not just the physical pain but the separation from God—of course. And then the counterpoints to that are the strong reliance upon God as being the covenant God of Israel, the covenant God of covenant history of the fathers of Israel and fathers of the person giving the psalm and also a calling forth of the covenant relationship of the individual to God.

And then finally, God’s answer to him: “and thou hast heard me.” That’s what this psalm does in terms of its arrangement.

Now, in Isaiah 53, we come to understand the implications of all this. What is going on here? What’s going on? Obviously, from Psalm 22, we know that the wrath of God has been poured out against this individual. We know from its connection to the previous psalms and the verses to follow this section that the individual is representative of the covenant people, the covenant community, the king as it were.

And we know that there is deliverance at the end of that. What does all this mean? The passage of scripture that Roy read this morning is extremely important for the interpretation of this. Of course, and I just wanted to go through a few verses in Isaiah 53.

In verse four, it says, “Surely Christ has borne our griefs.” The Messiah has borne our griefs. The word there does not mean he put up with them. It means he actually took them upon himself. He bore them. We’re to roll over those things unto Christ. And he accepted that rolling over onto his back of our griefs, being a result of our sins.

This throughout Isaiah 53, the words in terms of bearing the sins are sacrificial terms. There’s a correlation of the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament. And so it was clear in the mind of anybody who was reading this passage of scripture that it had reference to that sacrificial laws of atonement.

In the same way that you remember in the sacrificial system, the sins of the individual be transferred symbolically onto the head of the sacrificial animal putting his hands upon it. So the animal bore the sins of the individual. If the individual didn’t participate in that sacrificial system, he bore them himself. Somebody’s got to carry those sins. Somebody has to actually have them thrown upon them.

Either the sacrificial animal or the individual. And the sacrificial animal obviously in particular in light of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 represented Jesus Christ to come. So Jesus Christ was the end of the sacrificial system because he bore our sins physically upon him and he carried away their sorrows.

“We esteemed him stricken, smitten, and afflicted from God.”

And it’s interesting there that apparently based on these verses and how this word is sometimes translated leprosy. The Jews believe the Messiah to come was to be a leper. Some of them—that was an ancient Jewish myth—that the Messiah was to be a leper afflicted of God with leprosy. But we know he wasn’t actually a leper in a physical sense. We know also that on his work on the cross, he became leprous because leprosy was certainly an indication of the ravages of sin as it’s rotting away at the physical body itself.

And Jesus Christ took upon himself those leprous sins of the covenant community upon himself and so suffered on behalf of them. And so he did become leprous in that sense, afflicted.

“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.”

What’s happening here is Jesus Christ in his sacrificial death on the cross is taking our sins upon himself. And through those taking those sins upon himself, we have peace with God and we have healing from God. “The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed.”

A better translation apparently of those verses is “with his stripes we have been healed.” It doesn’t mean that through the death of Jesus Christ somehow we might possibly become healed. Doesn’t mean that. It means that Jesus Christ—he took those sins of the covenant community upon himself, healed that covenant community, made them right, made them well, and made them in right relationship to God.

Again, there’s not an implication of a hopeful anticipation of good events, but a finished fact that healing has been accomplished and the peace has been won. That peace is produced. It is accomplished past tense.

“All we like sheep have gone astray. We are turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

All the word laid on him there is what we’re talking about here. Again, the iniquity of us was laid on Christ, transferred till he became our sin bearer. But it doesn’t mean he just somehow had the things gently laid on him. It means that our sins were dumped on him, violently put upon Jesus Christ.

And so he suffered all the ravages of the atonement of the expiation of God’s wrath upon that cross by having our sins put upon him.

Do you understand? It’s not a passive thing. It’s a very act of placing upon Jesus Christ by God of all the sins of the covenant community violently thrust upon him.

“Verse 9, He made his grave with the wicked, but because he had done no made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

Jesus Christ had no sin. We’re not saying that Jesus Christ sinned and so suffered the wrath of God. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Why did God forsake him? It was not on account of his own sins. It was because he himself had become the sin bearer for the elect.

“Verse 10, Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.”

Again, sacrificial language is in term used there. Some of you might wonder what the specific type of offering was there. It isn’t really clear. It seems more to be being used here as a generic term referring to all the offerings that were due under the sacrificial system.

And we know that all those offerings that were due under the sacrificial system, of course, had been brought to fruition in the finished work of Jesus Christ, an offering for sin. Of course we recognize that the blood there is what the offering actually consisted of in terms of the pouring out of the blood at the base of the altar in terms of going into the holy of holies and applying that blood to the judgment seat—the mercy seat of God.

And the blood, of course, scriptures tell us “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Jesus Christ blood was shed for sinners. Jesus Christ life was made forfeit for sinners in this transaction.

“Verse 11, He shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities.”

God here is the one being specifically spoken of. Now he shall see—Jehovah God, the God of Israel will see the travail of the Messiah’s soul and shall be satisfied. Jesus Christ’s death was completely satisfactory in terms of God’s wrath.

“by his knowledge.” In other words, by the knowledge of Christ, by knowing about him and knowing his sufferings, coming into an understanding of that—knowing through the election of God—”shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities.”

And in this verse we see the exchange that the atonement is all about. Jesus Christ bears the iniquities of the covenant community and as a result of that justifies many. His righteousness is imputed to the sinner. His—the sinner’s sins are imputed to Jesus Christ and you have the exchange taking place that is atonement—reconciliation with God.

Now, those are the specific verses we want to consider. And I just wanted to make some summary comments then about all the things that these verses teach us about the atonement.

In Romans 1, I’ll read it 16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”

The gospel in the sense of its application to the atonement to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ’s resurrection reveals two things. It reveals the righteousness of God by faith, but it also reveals the wrath of God. Verse 18 says, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven.” And we know that Romans 1 goes on to talk about other manifestations of the wrath of God, but the wrath of God is constantly revealed in the atonement in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for sinners. That’s where the wrath of God is revealed first and foremost.

The atonement then has to be understood in terms of that expiation of sins. That means to satisfy the requirements of—to do away with that cause of ill feeling between two parties. The atonement itself in the sense the term the term that we’re using—the Christian sense of the term—deals the reconciliation of people with God. Two things being required: expiation—okay paying the price for that for that our sins demand—and also on the positive side which leads to propitiation having a right attitude or a favorably inclined toward God based upon the righteousness of Christ. Okay, there’s two things that’s needed.

Paying the penalty for our sins and receiving the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that’s why that exchange in Isaiah 53 is all important.

What we learn from these passages hopefully and I want to just—we learn an awful lot from these passages. We learn probably most of the context of the Bible from these passages. But what I want to talk about in terms of what we learn today is first of all the inability of sinners to expiate—to make expiation for their sins.

Okay. Why? Because God is holy. One of the things these verses definitely teach us about the character of God himself and that’s the purpose of scriptures to inform us about who God is and consequently who we are—is that God is holy and because of his holiness sin has a price to be paid. God is holy and as a result we are completely unable to make expiation for our sins.

Jesus Christ in the sufferings on the cross takes upon himself the curses of God. I mean remember that Jesus said, “Thou hast brought me to the dust of death.” In another passage in the New Testament, we read that Jesus Christ was put to death according to the fore-ordained plan of God. It was the sovereign act of God that Jesus Christ came to suffer that death for sins. Anybody who says differently, someone has to make sense of those verses we just read.

It was the sovereignty of God at work here. Jesus Christ then represents among other things on that cross the wrath of God against sin and as a result the inability of the sinner to make expiation. The curses of the law—you can go through didn’t bring it. Go through Deuteronomy 28. And I went through another passage and underline them. I forgot to bring that particular book.

But Deuteronomy 28, you can go through the curses of the law. And many of those curses of the law were placed upon Jesus Christ himself. Okay? Thirst, death, all kinds of other references to the curses of God were placed upon Jesus Christ. And they’re placed there because he became our sin bearer.

If you want a true picture of man in his sinful condition and his relationship to God? Look at these pictures of the atonement of Christ as expiation for sins. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” There’s a separateness from God.

But to say that the wrath of God against sinners simply leads to separation from God is somehow calling all these verses making—again it’s not understanding the full depth of God’s wrath. There’s separation from God that Jesus Christ suffered and for him who was in eternal communion with God from the beginning from before the beginning that was a tremendous price that he paid upon the cross.

But the person—the individual himself who does not receive the expiation for sins of Jesus Christ, his separation from God is real and he should be calling out as Jesus did, “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

But there are also other portions to that breach from God. There’s those curses that come upon Jesus Christ with his body being crucified, going through the physical torments. There’s constant reference in Psalm 22 in these verses to wild animals, oxins, dogs, lions ripping Jesus Christ apart.

One of the specific curses of the law in Leviticus 26, specifically verse 22, is that God said, “I’ll send wild beasts to tear you apart.” Jesus Christ in picturing sinful man on the cross here pictures that curse of God and wild beasts coming upon them and ripping them apart.

Man apart from Jesus Christ is completely unable by himself to make expiation or for that wrath to be completed. Man, however, is a religious creature. And man knows of his guilt before God, his true moral guilt in terms of his sinful estate, and therefore will seek atonement through other methods.

He’ll either seek to make expiation for his sins to pay the price for his sins on his own, and as Rushdoony has pointed out, that leads to masochism, or he’ll blame other people for his sins, substitute them instead of himself, instead of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ and he’ll become a sadist in that way.

He’ll make somebody pay the price for those sins. The problem is he’ll never be done paying the price for those sins. He can’t make complete expiation. Man is unable to. Jesus Christ became the whole burnt sacrifice for sinful man. The man who rejects Jesus Christ sacrifice—somebody has to bear the sins, the animal or himself—will be the whole burned sacrifice.

But there’s a difference. Jesus Christ was burnt. His offering was acceptable to God and completed. Past tense healing has occurred. Peace is a result of that. Sinful man, however, stays on that altar, continues to burn. And so his fire goes on forever.

And we talked last week about the brick kilns of the Ammonites. Whether or not the Ammonites were actually put in brick kilns, I don’t know. But I do know that God says that his wrath will burn upon those people that we made like an oven in hell. And that’s because their sacrifice to God will never make expiation for their sins. A continual burning of them will be required and even that won’t pay the price.

We talked about the wild bulls of Bashan in Ezekiel 39, verses 17-20. “And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God, speak unto every feathered fowl, unto every beast of the field. Assemble yourselves and come, gather yourselves in every side to my sacrifice, that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.”

The wild bulls that surround Jesus Christ, who are outside of the covenant community, for whom atonement has not been made or the wild bulls of Bashan—what’s their end? Their end is they reject the expiation of Jesus Christ, the payment for their sins and so they are eaten—their flesh is eaten, their blood is drunk, rather. Wrath of God comes upon those fatlings of Bashan.

But there’s a difference there too because their sacrifice is never finished. Isaiah 66 says of the wicked that their worm does not die—it’s that same word used we were talking about earlier, the maggot who devours—the devouring maggot. It will continue to eat on these people. Their physical death is never accomplished in the sense their spiritual death rather. They have continual existence. Their worm is not dead. Their fire continues to burn.

They never make expiation for their sins. So the wrath of God abides upon them forever and ever.

That’s the picture of Jesus Christ. The difference between Jesus Christ making finished expiation for our sins and sinful man rejecting that and seeking his own atonement through himself or others. There’s never expiration. We—the blood of Jesus Christ was applied to the mercy seat. The mercy seat is within the holy of holies.