Laying the Hand on the Sacrifice
(No. 2840)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 19, 1903.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 12, 1877.
"And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering."
Leviticus 4:29.
I MIGHT have taken as my text several other verses in the same chapter,
for they all express the same idea as the words I have just read to
you. For the sake of emphasis, let me ask you to look at the 4th verse.
When a priest had committed sin and brought a sin offering unto the
Lord, it is written, "He shall bring the bullock unto the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord; and shall lay his hand
upon the bullock's head." The 15th verse tells us that when the whole
congregation of Israel had sinned through ignorance, the Lord said to
Moses, "The elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the
head of the bullock before the Lord." Then, in the 24th verse, we read
that when a ruler had sinned through ignorance and brought his sin
offering, "He shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it
in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord." And,
in the 33rd verse, you find that if a common person had committed a sin
through ignorance, or if his sin should come to his knowledge, he was
to bring a sin offering and then it was added, "He shall lay his hand
upon the head of the sin offering."
Any one of those verses would, therefore, have sufficed for a text. It
seems to have been a necessary part of the proceedings that when a sin
offering was presented to the Lord, to be offered up before Him, the
offerer should first of all lay his hand upon the head of the animal
devoted to this sacred purpose.
I hope I am addressing many persons who wish to know more about the way
and plan of salvation and who are anxious to partake in the benefits of
Christ's atoning Sacrifice. Possibly they are saying, "We know that
there is a Savior for sinners, but how can He be ours? We know that an
Atonement has been made for sin, but how can that Atonement really put
away our sin so that we may be pardoned and accepted by God?" This is a
very natural question and a very proper one. It would be well if it
were most solemnly and seriously asked by all who, as yet, remain
without being partakers of the blessings which are stored up for us in
Christ Jesus.
Beloved Friends, it will be all in vain, so far as we are personally
concerned, "that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,"
unless He shall save us. It will be of no avail to us that Jesus shed
His precious blood unless that blood washes away our guilt It will
increase, rather than diminish our misery if we hear that others are
saved as long as we ourselves remain unsaved. If we are finally lost,
it will not make our lot in Hell anymore tolerable if we discover that
there was a Propitiation for sin, although we never had a share in its
expiatory effects. Of all questions in the world, it seems to me that
this is the most urgent and pressing one–and that we ought not to rest
until we get it satisfactorily answered and put into practice–"How can
I be a partaker in the eternal life which Jesus Christ came into the
world to procure for sinners by His death?"
Some of you have up to now totally neglected this question. If you had
noticed, in The Times, an advertisement stating that somebody's next of
kin was wanted, and you had suspicion that you were the person to whom
the notice referred, I guarantee you that you would not have let the
grass grow under your feet–you would have been quick enough to secure
the fortune which had been left by your relative! But now that Jesus
Christ has died and left a wondrous legacy of Grace among the sons of
men, you have allowed a good many years to roll over your head without
making an eager and earnest search into the question whether there is
anything for you! You have seen a great many persons saved all
around you, yet you remain unsaved. You have some of your dear ones who
are in Heaven, but you are not pursuing the path which will lead you
there and, all this while you have not had the excuse, which many have
had, of never having heard that there was a great Savior and great
salvation to be had without money and without price!
If you could plead such an excuse as that, it would be better for you
than it is now, when you are sinning against light and knowledge in
neglecting that which would is most of all for your spiritual and
eternal good. Be wise, therefore! You have been trifling far too long!
Be serious and bend your whole mind to the earnest consideration at
this all-important question, "How can I obtain salvation? How can I get
it here and now? How can sin be pardoned? How can my sins be pardoned
right now? I have long heard of Christ–how can I come into vital
communion with Him? I know
that–
"'There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins'–
"but how can I be washed therein so that I, personally, may become
whiter than snow?"
My text says that the guilty person who brought the sin offering laid
his hand upon its head. And this act gives a pictorial and symbolical
answer to your questions and tells you how you can come into communion
with Christ–and how His great Sacrifice can become available for you.
You have to do to Christ, spiritually, what these Hebrews did
literally! You have to imitate their action and so carry out those
words of Dr. Watts which we often sing–
"My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Yours
While like a penitent I stand
And there confess my sin."
I shall speak of only two things which we may learn from my text. The
first is the intent of this symbol And the second is, the simplicity of
the symbol–this laying of the hand of the offerer upon the head of the
victim presented by him to God as a sin offering.
I. First, then, let me try to explain THE INTENT OF THE SYMBOL. What
did it mean? These things, of which I shall speak in explaining this
symbol, are necessary in order that Christ should become yours. Follow
me very carefully and prayerfully, dear Friend, if you do, indeed,
desire to be saved, for it may be that the Lord will lead you into
Everlasting Life even while I am speaking. I pray that He may do so!
The first meaning of this laying of the hand upon the head of the
sacrifice is this–it was a confession of sin. The offering was a sin
offering–but for sin it would not have been needed! The man who came
and laid his hand on the head of the sin offering, acknowledged, by
that act and deed, that he was a sinner. If there had been anyone who
was not a sinner, he would have had no right to be there. A sin
offering, for a person who had sin, would have been a superfluity–why
should he bring a sin offering to the Lord? So, dear Friends, if you
have no sin, you are not fit subjects for Christ's saving power and
Grace. If you are not guilty, you do not need forgiveness. If you have
never transgressed the Law of God, you need not come before Him with a
sin offering! Only remember that if you dothink so, you are under one
of the most sorrowful delusions that ever entered the brain of a
madman! You are deceiving yourself, depend upon it! If you say that you
have no sin, the Truth of God is not in you. But he who brought a sin
offering before the Lord said, in effect, "This is what I need, for I
am a sinner. I need to have my sins taken away for I am guilty in the
sight of God. So I put my hand upon this lamb, or goat, or bull which
is about to die, thereby confessing that I need a sacrifice in order
that the sin which I confess that I have committed, may be put away."
Are you reluctant to confess that you are a sinner? If so, I pray very
earnestly that you may speedily get rid of that reluctance. God does
not ask you to confess your sins to any man. It would be a shame for
you to do so, for you would pollute that man, whoever he might be, if
you poured into his ear the sad tale of your filthiness and sin! God
does not ask you to do any man the serious wrong of whispering into his
ear the foul story of your transgressions. It is not to your fellow
creature, but to your God, that you are to confess your sin! Go
straight to Him and say, as the prodigal said to his father, "I have
sinned against Heaven, and in Your sight." What makes you so slow to do
that? Do you imagine that He does not know about your sin? Do you think
that you can hide anything from Him? That is impossible, for "all
things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to
do." Is it your pride that keeps you from confessing your sin? How can
you hope that God will forgive you if you will not acknowledge that you
have sinned against Him?
Think how you act towards your own children. How ready you are to again
clasp them to your bosom when they have offended against you! Yet you
watch to see in them signs of relenting and repenting. So does the Lord
your God watch for tokens of contrition and godly sorrow in you! Why,
"take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all
iniquity, and receive us graciously." Are you not willing to do this?
Then, alas, you lack the first requisite for obtaining acceptance
through Christ! How can you, who will not admit that you have sinned,
lay your hand upon the head of the sin offering?
He who thus confessed his sin confessed also that he deserved to die,
just as that victim was about to be slain. There stood the priest, with
his sacrificial knife, ready to slay the innocent beast and the basin
in which to catch the blood of the bull, or goat, or lamb–whichever it
might be that was being offered–and he who laid his hand upon its
head, thereby said, "This poor animal is about to die and to pour out
its blood. And this reminds me that I deserve punishment from God. If
He were to destroy me, He would be perfectly justified in doing so."
Soul, will you say that? Are you willing to humble yourself in the dust
and to say that? Will you put the rope about your neck and confess that
you deserve the extreme penalty that the great Judge can inflict? If
so, you have begun well, for he who will confess his guilt and will
acknowledge that he deserves the punishment of death for it has begun
to put his hand upon the head of the great Sacrifice for sin!
Follow me a step further and I trust that we may rejoice together that
you, poor, guilty, self-condemned soul, have found deliverance through
the one Sacrifice which God has provided for the putting away of sin.
In the second place, the laying of the hand upon the head of the sin
offering was a consent to the plan of substitution. He who had brought
the victim laid his hand upon its head and, though he did not say so,
yet his actions, being interpreted, meant, "God has ordained that this
animal should take my place and I accept the Divine appointment right
heartily. I agree with Him that I should be pardoned through the
offering of a sacrifice and that I should be accepted by God by reason
of the shedding of the blood of a sacrificial victim." Now, what say
you to this plan, O Man? If the Jew was willing to let the death of the
bull, or the goat, or the lamb typically stand for his own death, are
you willing, with all your heart, to accept God's plan of salvation by
the substitution of His only-begotten Son suffering and dying in your
place?
Surely you will not quarrel with this method of saving you if God sees
it to be the right one! Whenever my conscience has raised any question
about the justice of this arrangement, it has always been quite a
sufficient answer for me to say that if the thrice-holy Jehovah feels
that the Sacrifice of Christ, in the place of sinners, is enough to
vindicate His Justice, I may well be satisfied with what satisfies Him.
Indeed, to question the righteousness of that method of saving the lost
is to assail God upon a matter which lies very near His heart and to
attack that wondrous plan of Redemption which is the last and highest
display of all His Divine attributes–for the system of Substitution is
the apex of the pyramid of God's Revelation, the very highest point of
the great mountain chain in which He has manifested His Wisdom, Power,
Love, Mercy and even His Justice to the sons of men–"that He might be
just, and the Justifier of him who believes in Jesus." O Soul, if the
Lord, who is offended, is satisfied with the Expiation offered, you,
certainly, need not be so foolish as to raise questions concerning it
or to quibble at it!
Besides, if you will but think seriously about this matter, you will
see that the Justice of God is abundantly honored by Christ's standing
in your place. There is a well-known story of a school master who had
one boy in his school whom he could not keep in order by any ordinary
discipline. He had threatened to punish him and, indeed, he had done so
again and again, but still he remained incorrigible. At last he
threatened that if a certain form of disobedience should be repeated,
he would be publicly beaten. The time soon came for the fulfillment of
the threat, but the master could not bear that the boy should be
punished, yet, at the same time, he felt that the honor of the school
and the maintenance of his own authority in it required that it should
be so. He told the lads that he was willing to spare the erring one,
"yet," he said, "discipline will be at an end, my word will be broken,
you will never believe in me again and, moreover, the school will be
dishonored by this boy being allowed to act as he does without
punishment."
Musing for a minute, he took down the ruler, put it into the hand of
the disobedient boy and then held out his own hand, bade the boy strike
and he received the punishment that was due to the culprit. The effect
produced upon the boy was not a matter of surprise to those who know
what fervent love will do. He offended no more and the school was
maintained in the highest possible condition of discipline. This is a
faint picture of what God has done. In the Person of His well-beloved
Son, He says, "I will suffer because you are guilty. Somebody must be
punished for your sin and if you suffer
the just penalty for your evil deeds, it will crush you to the lowest
Hell. You cannot endure it, but I, Myself, will bare My shoulders to
receive the stripes which are your due. I will take upon Myself your
sins. My Law shall have a terrible yet complete vindication–I shall be
just and yet I shall be able to fully and freely forgive you and to
accept you." Nothing ever displayed all the attributes of God so
gloriously and especially His Immutable Justice, as the atoning death
of His well-beloved and only-begotten Son! So, Beloved let there be no
question about your assenting to the plan of Substitution. God is
content with it. You yourself can see how it honors Him, so be
satisfied with it! Do not be a skeptic, doubting and questioning.
There is an old proverb which says, "Don't quarrel with your bread and
butter," but I may with even greater emphasis say, "Do not quarrel with
your own salvation." If I must quibble at anything, surely I will not
quibble against my own soul and try to prove that I cannot be saved,
putting my wits to work to show the absurdity of God's way of saving
me! Oh, never, never let this be the case with you! But rather
cheerfully accept what Infinite Wisdom has arranged!
Thus, you see, that the laying of the hand of the offerer on the head
of the sacrifice meant the confession of sin and consent to the way of
salvation by substitution. It also meant a great deal more than that.
In the third place, it meant the acceptance of that particular victim
in the sinner's place. By laying his hand upon it, he practically said,
"This animal is to stand instead of me." Here is the main point, the
essential point of the whole matter. Will you accept Christ as standing
in your place–the Divine yet Human Savior, perfect in His Humanity,
yet also perfect in His Deity? He has lived. He has suffered. He has
died. He has risen again. He has gone back into Glory at His Father's
right hand. God has honored Him with full acceptance–will you also
accept Him? The root of the matter lies there! Oh, may His blessed
Spirit sweetly guide your will so that you shall say, as I do, "Accept
Him? Ah, blessed be His holy name that He permits me to accept Him!
Surely I will do so. I will trust Him–He shall be mine." If you have
done so, then He is yours, for that is all He asks of you–to receive
Him, to lay your hand upon Him and say, "There! Jesus Christ shall be
the Sacrifice for me! I will rest in Him and in Him alone."
I hope that I do not need to multiply words in urging this decision
upon you. I trust that the softening influence of the Holy Spirit is
already at work among you, leading some of you who have delayed until
now, to say, "We will accept Jesus as our Substitute and accept Him
now." Why should you delay any longer to stretch forth your hand and
lay it upon Jesus, by faith, even as the offerer laid his hand upon the
head of the sacrifice?
But this laying on of the hand meant even more than that, though that
was the very essence of it all. It also meant a belief in the
transference of the sin. He who laid is hand upon the sin offering did,
as it were, as far as he could, put his sin from himself on that bull,
or goat, or lamb which was about to die, because it had become the
sinner's substitute. That laying on of his hand was a token of the
transference of his guilt to the appointed victim and if you will have
Christ to be your Savior, you must believe that He, "His own Self, bore
our sins in His own body on the tree." Do you believe this? Then, see
what follows from it. Sin cannot be in two places at one time–if it is
laid upon Jesus, it is taken off of you! If you do, in your very soul,
accept Christ as your Substitute, then it is clear that the Lord has
laid upon Him your iniquity and, therefore, your iniquity has passed
away from you and your sin is gone forever! Christ has taken all your
iniquities and carried them away where they shall never be mentioned
against you anymore!
Oh, what a blessed Truth this is! If a man, who has been blind for 50
years could have his eyes opened, and could be taken out to see the
stars, or to look up to the sun, how he would clap his hands and cry,
"What a wondrous sight it is!" And I know that when I first perceived
that Christ stood in my place and that I stood in His place–that I was
accepted because He was rejected, that I was Beloved because He endured
His Father's wrath on my account–my soul felt as if it had never lived
before and had never known anything that was worth knowing till it
perceived that wondrous Truth! The Lord give you, dear Heart, to
perceive that it is even so in your case, for then you, also, will be
truly glad.
That laying of the hand on the head of the sin offering also meant one
thing more–it was dependence, a leaning on the victim. According to
the Rabbis, the offerer was to lean with great pressure upon the
bullock or the goat. If it was so, there is great significance about
that act, for it teaches that you should depend like that upon
Jesus–lean hard upon Him, lean with all your weight of sin, and all
your load of iniquity, upon Him whom God has appointed to stand in the
sinner's place. Accept Him as your Substitute, lean upon Him, rest upon
Him. Say in your soul, "If I perish," though that can never be, "I will
perish leaning upon Christ. He shall be my soul's only Dependence."
The Puritans speak of faith as a recumbency, a leaning. It needs no
power to lean–it is a cessation from our own strength and allowing our
weakness to depend upon another's power. Let no man say, "I cannot
lean." It is not a question of what youcan do, but a confession of what
you cannotdo and a leaving of the whole matter with Jesus! No woman
could say, "I cannot swoon"–it is not a matter of power. Die into the
life of Christ! Let Him be All-in-All while you are nothing at all!
"Well," says one, "but I can hardly think that I shall be saved simply
by depending upon Christ." Then, let me tell you that this was all that
any of the saints of old ever had to depend upon–and this is all that
any of the children of God who are now alive, have to depend upon! I
bear my own personal testimony that my only hope for everlasting life
lies in the death of Him who suffered in my place! I have trusted in
Him, I have accepted Him as standing in my place. Gladly have I seen my
sin transferred to Him and His righteousness transferred to me! I have
no other hope, nor even the shadow of another hope! Prayers, tears,
repentance, preaching, almsgiving, yes, and faith itself–all these put
together are nothing at all as a ground of dependence for the soul! It
is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, the one great
Substitute for sinners, upon which we all must rely. There, Soul, if
you have nothing else to depend upon, you have as much as I have! And
if you accept Jesus Christ to be your Savior, you have the same hope
that I have. I will even dare to be bondsman for you and to perish with
you if you can perish trusting is Christ! But that can never be. As
this blessed Book is true, and as Christ ever lives, there is not a
soul, that shall rely upon Him, whom He will not assuredly bless and
pardon here below and take to Himself to dwell in His bosom forever and
ever in Heaven!
There you see what is the intent of the laying of the hand upon the
head of the sin offering. If you have been helped to follow me thus
far–if you have really laid your hand upon Christ–I bless and praise
the name of the Lord!
II. Now I have only a few minutes left for speaking, in the second
place, upon THE SIMPLICITY OF THIS SYMBOL. What was required was just
the laying of the hand of the offerer upon the victim's head–that and
nothing more.
Notice that there was no preparatory ceremony. There was the animal
provided for a sacrifice, just as God has provided our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ to be the Lamb of God. And the one thing to be done was
for the sinner to lay his hand upon the head of the sacrifice. In like
manner, there is no preliminary ceremony needed before coming to
Christ. This is the first thing, Sinner, that you have to do, simply
lay your hand upon Him and say, "He is mine." "But must I not be
prepared in a certain way, so that I may come to Him aright? Must I not
do, or feel, or besomething?" No, the Cross is at the head of the Way
of Life–it is the true wicket gate which leads unto Everlasting Life.
Believing in Jesus is the first thing you have to do–you live not
until you believe in Him. Come, then, to Jesus! Come now! The first
thing for you to do is to accept Him as your Substitute and to rely
wholly upon Him.
You also perceive, dear Friends, that the hand that was to be laid upon
the head of the sacrifice had nothing in it. The man who came thus to
confess his guilt, did not bring a silver shekel or talent of gold in
his hand. That was not at all necessary. All he had to do was to lay
his hand upon the sin offering and, in like manner, you must say, with
Toplady–
"Nothing in my hand I bring– Simply to Your Cross I cling."
And, as there was to be nothing in the hand of the sinner, so there was
to be nothing on his hand. If he had a dozen diamond rings on his
fingers, he could not lay his hand on the bull's head any the better.
He who had no ornament at all could do it just as well! And if you have
no virtues, no excellences–if you are poor, if you are illiterate, if
you have even lost your character–if your hand is a foul hand, a black
hand, yet if you lay it, by faith, upon the head of Jesus Christ, if
you take Him to be your Savior, you have made the all-important
decision–
"'Tis done, the great transaction's done!" You are your Lord's, and He
is yours, for, "he that believes on the Son has everlasting life." He
has it already in present possession, so let him go in peace, rejoicing
in the blessing that he has received from the Substitute and Savior!
Observe, too, that there was nothing to be done with that hand except
to lay it on the head of the sacrifice. There were to be no mystic
crossings or moving to and fro, no cunning show of skill–the sinner
was just to lay his hand upon the head of the animal that was to die as
his substitute. You know that in the Revelation, the woman arrayed in
purple and scarlet, that is, the Church of Rome, has upon her forehead
the name, "Mystery," and you probably recollect what follows, "Babylon
the great, the mother of harlots." But the chaste bride of Christ, the
Church which He has redeemed by His blood, is not a partaker of that
mystery! And Christ, in the Gospel, gives us nothing but simplicities.
As the laying
of the hand on the head of the sacrifice was all that was needed for
the forgiveness of the sinner under the Law, so all that you need now
is to take Christ to be your Substitute and Savior! Therefore, by the
eternity of bliss or woe which depends upon your decision, in the name
of God, who has sent me to proclaim His Gospel, I demand of you, man or
woman, that you should come to the right decision upon this
all-important matter! Let there be no putting off and no offering to do
something else–what is required is that you should lay your hand, by
faith, on the head of the sin-atoning Lamb of God. Have you done so? If
not, you have neither part nor lot in Him–and if you remain in your
present condition, you will perish in your sin! But if you will accept
Christ as your Substitute, you need no earthly priest or mediator. So,
take Him as yours–
"Take Him now, and happy be."
The symbol was one of extreme simplicity, for, finally, there was
nothing to be done to the man's hand. The priest was not to wash it, or
to read the lines upon it by the aid of palmistry, or to tattoo it with
some sacred sign. No, the man came, remember, because he was a sinner.
And he laid his hand on the sacrifice because he was a sinner. The hand
that he laid there was a sinner's hand, and I believe in Jesus Christ
with a sinner's faith. I say to Him, at this moment, as I said when
first I trusted Him–
"Just as I am–without one plea But that Your blood was shed for me,
And that you bade me come to You, O Lamb of God, I come."
Do not come to Christ as saints–come as sinners! Come just as you are,
sinful, vile, and polluted–and lay the hand of simple yet trembling
confidence upon the head of Jesus and say, "He shall be mine." If you
come to Him thus, He will not refuse or reject you, for He has said,
"Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."
There are some of you who have been here a long time and you are not
yet converted. If you go to Hell, I am clear of your blood. Often have
I wept over you when preaching here and I have set Christ before you as
the one only and open door of salvation. And I have entreated and
besought you to enter, but if you will not enter, I can do no more–the
rest must lie with yourselves. You will melt the wax that seals your
own death warrant. The responsibility rests wholly upon you–lay it not
upon God. If any man is saved, it is of God's Grace and God's Grace,
alone. But if any man is lost, it is by his own free will and his free
will alone. The will of man is the source of damnation–the will of God
is the source of salvation. Both those statements are true! Therefore,
if you reject the Gospel of the Grace of God, you bring upon yourselves
the just punishment of your sin.
I do not know that I can say anymore upon this theme except just this.
There may be someone who is saying, "This plan of salvation is too
simple." Surely you will not quarrel with it on that account! I
guarantee you that if a man were going to be hanged and he could be
delivered simply by accepting a free pardon, he would not say that such
a plan was too simple! After all, the best things in the world are very
simple. If I want to go from here to Glasgow, it is a simple method
that I have to follow. I have to get to the proper railway station,
take my ticket and enter the right carriage. Then, if all goes well, I
shall get there all right. If I want to go to Heaven, it is just as
simple. I go by faith to Christ and trust myself wholly to Him and so I
get there. It is really a matter of trust when you enter a railway
carriage and you reach your destination by a power above your own. If I
want to communicate with a friend at the very ends of the earth, I have
nothing to do but to step into a telegraph office, write down what I
want to say, pay the proper charge and the message will go all right.
Though I cannot trace the wire which connects the office with my
distant friend, I know that he will get my cablegram in due course.
There may be some mystery about the matter, yet, practically, it is a
very simple thing.
And believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is just as simple as that. If a
farmer wants a harvest, all the philosophers in the world cannot tell
him how wheat grows, nor can they make it grow–he has only to drop his
seed into the earth at the right time and it will grow by night and by
day, though he knows not how! Therefore, act in the same simple,
common-sense fashion. Leave off enquiring into mysteries which you
cannot understand and puzzling over difficulties which your poor brain
cannot comprehend–
"Let artful doubts and reasoning be Nailed with Jesus to the tree "–
and do you, as a little child, fully trust Jesus as your Savior and so
you shall be saved! God help you to do this now, for Christ's sake!
Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH53.
Verse 1. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
LORD revealed? It is sometimes the lot of God's most faithful servants
to labor unsuccessfully. As old Thomas Fuller quaintly says, "He makes
some to be as the clouds that empty their rain over Arabia, the
stony–while others are pouring down their showers over Arabia the
happy." Yet we are accepted with God, not according to our success, but
according to our faithfulness. Still, no true minister of Christ can be
content unless men believe his report. It will be a matter for sighing
and groaning if unbelief is the only answer to our earnest declarations
concerning Christ.
2. For He–That is, Jesus–
2. Shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a
dry ground: He has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him,
there is no beauty that we should desire Him. Carnal minds are
unbelieving minds. They are so because the beauties of Christ are
spiritual and in their natural state they have not the power to discern
them. Jesus Christ has no loveliness in the eyes of self-righteous,
self-sufficient men. What do they need with a Savior? What do they care
for His atoning Sacrifice? They cannot truly admire the love and the
holiness of Jesus Christ, for they do not know their own ugliness or
their own unholiness! Alas, that God's own Son, who is the loveliest of
all beings, should be without form or comeliness to unspiritual eyes!
3. He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was
despised, and we esteemed Him not. While the Redeemer was here below,
His state of poverty, obscurity, suffering and shame, was of such a
character that few would believe in Him. And even those who afterwards
received Him, at the first did not so. He was despised and we, even we,
His own people, esteemed Him not! Christ has forgiven us for all this,
but shall we ever forgive ourselves? O eyes, shall you ever cease to
weep over your former blindness? O heart, shall you ever cease to
grieve over your former hardness? He who was Heaven's darling was
despised and rejected of men, and we partook in the guilt, for we also
despised and rejected Him.
4. 5. Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we
did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and 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. It is Substitution, you see, all through–Christ suffering
instead of us–the Innocent dying for the guilty–the Lord of Glory
bearing the sin of rebellious men. Why do men quibble at this precious
Truth? It is their only hope of salvation! Why do we still have to say,
"Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed?" But those who are enlightened from above and led to see
their own state of ruin, and their absolute need of a Savior, will
rejoice to know that the Lord has laid help upon One who is mighty, and
that He has anointed His only-begotten Son to stand in our place!
6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. There is
a universal sin–"All we like sheep have gone astray." There is also a
personal sin, a sin peculiar to each individual–"We have turned,
everyone, to his own way." But Christ gathers up the sin–all kinds of
sin of all sorts of men–and of His whole Church it is truly said, "The
Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
7. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.
When a word could have released Him, He would not speak it. His was,
indeed, golden silence. Oh, the wondrous eloquence of that patient
speechlessness when He stood before Herod and Pilate and answered them
not a word! He could have spoken with such authority as to have called
legions of angels from Heaven for His protection, or a single word of
His could have destroyed His enemies, as the leaves of autumn lie
withered and dead–but, "He opened not His mouth."
7, 8. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation? Who
shall speak up for Him? It was the custom of the Jews, when a man was
condemned to death, to allow a certain interval during which the
heralds went through the streets and made proclamation that if any man
knew any reason why the criminal should be spared, he should at once
appear at the court and declare it. Someone often came forward with one
plea or another, in arrest ofjudgment–but when our Lord was condemned
to death, none would speak up for Him.
8, 9. For He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the
transgression of My people was He stricken. And He made His grave with
the wicked." Dying between two thieves, as though He had been the
greatest criminal of the three–"He made His grave with the wicked,"
9. And with the rich in His death. Lying in the new tomb of Joseph of
Arimathaea.
9. Because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His
mouth. If He had used either violence or deceit, He might have escaped,
but because He was harmless and true, therefore must He die.
10. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief:
when You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His
seed, The grain of wheat, sown in the ground, abides not alone, but
brings forth much fruit. Our blessed Savior presented both soul and
body as an offering for sin, but He knew what He was doing, for "He
shall see His seed."
10. He shall prolong His days. Up from the grave did He arise in
newness of life and back to Heaven did He return to life immortal–"He
shall prolong His days,"
10, 11. And the pleasure of the LORD shall proper in His hand. He shall
see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied. Christ did not
die in vain. He will never miss the great objective of His death, you
may depend upon that! Those drops of blood are far too precious to fall
in vain upon the earth.
11. By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many. That is,
by their knowledge of Him, by their trusting Him many shall be
justified and saved.
11. For He shall bear their iniquities. How very express this is–that
Christ does not merely bear the punishment of His people, but their
iniquities, too! There is a literal substitution of Christ in the place
of His people and a most distinct imputation of their sin to Him, and
of His righteousness to them.
12. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall
divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul
unto death; and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bore the
sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Blessed
Intercessor, let Your almighty intercession avail for each one of us,
for Your own name's sake! Amen.