Day 8: Turn your way His way!

I remember once speaking to a Jewish man in the land of Israel, and I told him I believe Jesus is the Messiah. His comment was interesting, he was not opposed but he said I can't believe that he was the Messiah because God would not have allowed him to suffer so terribly. It must have been a judgment upon by God. And immediately there came to me these words from Isaiah 53, "we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted but," Isaiah goes on "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities," It wasn't for his own sins, but it was for our sins. "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed."

In Isaiah 53 verse six we find the absolute center of the message:

“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

That word iniquity is better translated in modern English as 'rebellion'. But it's also used in the earlier passages of the Old Testament for the guilt offering, for guilt. So it is not just the rebellion for the human race, but also the punishment for that rebellion, and the remedy for that rebellion. All of that was laid upon Jesus.

You see, the common basic guilt of the human race is rebellion. "Each of us is turned to his own way." It's not that we've all committed certain specific sins like murder, adultery, or stealing. There may be many fine people by human standards who've never committed sins like that. But the one thing we've all done is we've all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid upon him the rebellion and all its evil consequences.

The Lord made it all meet together upon him, I want you to ponder that phrase. The Lord made it meet together, every act of sin, every feeling of guilt, every kind of shame and humiliation, and the physical consequences too, our pains, our infirmities. In the eternal will and counsel of God it pleased the Lord, as it says, to 'crush him'. That crushing burden came upon Jesus, our substitute, the Son of Man.