Exalting God

Isaiah 53:10-11, ESV

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

As we approach Easter I can’t help but think about the life and death of Christ. It is certainly joyous to celebrate the life of Christ, for in Him we have the amazing reality of God in the flesh. The importance of Christ’s physical life cannot be overstated. One reason Jesus’ life is so important is because if He had never lived He could have never died. I realize that sounds somewhat insensitive or perhaps morbid, but the truth is that all Christians should rejoice in the death of Christ, for, as the great Puritan Pastor John Owens declared, in Christ we have the death of death. Through the death of Christ we have been brought near to God.

Rather than facing the wrath of God at judgment, the Christian will experience the endless grace of our Creator for no other reason than because of our faith in Christ. And there would be no gift of faith from the Creator to the creature if there was no atoning death.

Isaiah 53 provides one of the most heart wrenching chapters of Scripture, for in it we read of a Servant, a suffering servant who was beloved of God but despised by man. This servant was oppressed, afflicted, bruised, and rejected. He experienced the force of human brutality without offering any hesitation. He simply obeyed the will of God. What makes this account so difficult is to realize that Isaiah was speaking of the Messiah, which is Christ the Lord. The above passage defines quite clearly why Christ’s death is so important to the Christian.

Simply stated, God willed for Jesus to die because through His death He could be made an offering for sin. God will not overlook or bypass any sin. To our good and His glory each and every sin we have ever or will ever commit was paid for in full by Jesus Christ. Through His death we are “accounted righteous”.

Consider how this affects our ministries. When we share the gospel, we must emphasize that through faith in Christ we do not become perfect, we are simply treated as though we are. Jesus, the Suffering Servant of God, bore the punishment of our sins. He paid the price we could never pay so that we could live for ever in a place we will never deserve.

Let us thank Jesus for dying in our stead.