Isaiah makes a remarkable statement: that Christ will justify many because He will bear their iniquities.
One is hard pressed to find any other more explicit statement in the Old Testament of this astounding truth, that substitution justifies!
All through Scripture, we read that sacrifices bring forgiveness and escape from judgment. But here, for the first time, the Holy Ghost revealed to the prophet the ultimate glory of the Gospel: that Christ's offering in the place of sinners actually justifies us!
This means that by Christ's sacrifice, we who trust in Him are declared completely innocent and without fault! Our sins are laid upon the Savior, and He is judged as guilty for them in our place, so that we go free from guilt and judgment.
This solves the problem of how God can be just and justify sinners. Indeed, God commanded that only the just should be justified by the judges of Israel, and that to justify the guilty is an abomination to Him!
And yet, God promises repeatedly that He will justify His people, even though they have all sinned against Him.
But now, in Isaiah 53, Christ is set forth as the real Lamb of God that is sacrificed for the sins of His people.
The Lamb's sacrifice is promised to bring us peace with God. It also heals us of our rebellion and going astray from the Lord.
But then, at the last, the astounding conclusion: we are actually declared without fault on account of Christ bearing our sins at Calvary!
No wonder Isaiah describes the Righteousness God gives us as a "robe" and as a "garment of salvation," for it is laid upon us by God, but it is of Christ's manufacture, by His obedience and blood shedding for sinners.
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
