Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was on him… Not merely His bleeding wounds, but even those blue bruises of His flesh help to heal us. There are none quite free from spiritual diseases. One may be saying, "Mine is a weak faith;" another may confess, "Mine is distracted thoughts;" another may exclaim, "Mine is coldness of love;" and a fourth may have to lament his powerlessness in prayer. One remedy in natural things will not suffice for all diseases; but there is a catholicon, a universal remedy, provided in the Word of God for all spiritual sicknesses, and that is contained in the few words — "With His stripes we are healed." I. THE MEDICINE ITSELF WHICH IS HERE PRESCRIBED — the stripes of Our Saviour. By the term "stripes," no doubt the prophet understood here, first, literally, those stripes which fell upon our Lord's shoulders when He was beaten of the Jews, and afterwards scourged of the Roman soldiery. But the words intend far more than this. No doubt with his prophetic eye Isaiah saw the stripes from that unseen scourge held in the Father's hand which fell upon his nobler inner nature when His soul was scourged for sin. It is by these that our souls are healed. "But why?" First, then, because our Lord, as a sufferer, was not a private person, but suffered as a public individual and an appointed representative. Our Lord was not merely man, or else his sufferings could not have availed for the multitude who now are healed thereby. He was God as well as man. Our Saviour's sufferings heal us of the curse by being presented before God as a substitute for what we owe to His Divine law. But healing is a work that is carried on within, and the text rather leads me to speak of the effect of the stripes of Christ upon our characters and natures than upon the result prodeced in our position before God. II. THE MATCHLESS CURES WROUGHT BY THIS REMARKABLE MEDICINE. Look at two pictures. Look at man without the stricken Saviour; and then behold man with the Saviour, healed by His stripes. III. THE MALADIES WHICH THIS WONDROUS MEDICINE REMOVES. 1. The mania of despair. 2. The stony heart. 3. The paralysis of doubt. 4. A stiffness of the knee-joint of prayer. 5. Numbness of soul. 6. The fever of pride. 7. The leprosy of selfishness. 8. Anger. 9. The fretting consumption of worldliness. 10. The cancer of covetousness. IV. THE CURATIVE PROPERTIES OF THE MEDICINE. 1. It arrests spiritual disorder. 2. It quickens all the powers of the spiritual man to resist the disease. 3. It restores to the man that which he lost in strength by sin. 4. It soothes the agony of conviction. 5. It has an eradicating power as to sin. V. THE MODES OF THE WORKING OF THIS MEDICINE. The sinner hearing of the death of the incarnate God is led by the force of truth and the power of the Holy Spirit to believe in the incarnate God. The cure is already begun. After faith come gratitude, love, obedience. VI. ITS REMARKABLY EASY APPLICATION. VII. Since the medicine is so efficacious, since it is already prepared and freely presented, I do beseech you TAKE IT. Take it, you who have known its power in years gone by. Let not backslidings continue, but come to His stripes afresh. Take it, ye doubters, lest ye sink into despair; come to His stripes anew. Take it, ye who are beginning to be self-confident and proud. And, O ye who have never believed in Him, come and trust in Him, and you shall live. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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