THE SUFFERING SERVANT OF GOD
Meditations in Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12
HEALING THROUGH THE SERVANT

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LAST month we considered together the great blessing of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ embodied in the words of Isaiah "the punishment that brought us peace was upon him." This month we will consider together the equally great and complimentary blessing which is ours in Christ of regeneration or new birth which is embodied in the words before us "And by his wounds we are healed".

I have arrived at a firm conviction that much of our difficulties in the spiritual life as Christians is because we do not properly understand the nature of this healing which is being born again. If we have truly met with Christ and believed on him for salvation from sin and death, we not only believe firmly in our forgiveness and our being accounting righteous before God, but we also believe that we are born again. We can't help but believe this has happened because there is no other way of explaining the new principle or holy life we find within us, that hungers after God and loves the things of God. But then in the multiplicity of sermons and books which we have heard or read on the spiritual life and living with God, all sorts of confusing ideas and expectations have been implanted in our minds. These teachings often trouble us because they seem to suggest an experience that, if we are honest we have to say, we do not identify with. This then causes us discouragement and fear, and often a returning to the dependence on our own efforts for remaining in the favour of God. We find ourselves returning to dependence on our own works because so much of this teaching we hear speaks of duty we have to perform, suggesting that if we under-perform we are without grace.

It is because of this conviction that my earnest prayer is that, in this sermon, God may give me grace to, not only understand the true nature of new birth in Christ, but also to make it more plain to you who read these words.

There is no doubt that humanity is prone to sickness and because of this we have natural concern about and desire for healing. However most of this concern and desire is centred around the body. The body is immediate. When our bodies are below par, and we are suffering from some sickness or pain, then life becomes a burden. Further death is seen in terms of the end of bodily life and this we seek to hold at bay as long as possible.

In modern times there has been an increased recognition of sickness of the mind, and more recognition has been given to the need for healing in this direction as well. The stress and strain of modern life has caused everyone of us to experience depression at sometime in our lives, and we have begun to recognise how prone humanity is to suffering mental illness of one sort or another.

What humanity still has not come to understand properly is our desperate sickness of spirit and soul, and the need we have of healing in this realm. It is this sickness, in the main, that the words of Isaiah before us are speaking about. All other sickness of mind and body in reality originate from this spiritual sickness, though in practical terms of ordinary life the two are separate.

We bemoan the terrible wars, atrocities, crimes and evil in our world, but we never seem to understand that these are symptoms of a chronic disease of soul, which is a moral corruption that effects every human faculty. Further humanity shows a deep malaise of dissatisfaction in its rushing after, and striving for, temporal gain and worldly glory. If humanity is told that God created us for himself to glorify him, and this is the purpose of our living; and if humanity is told that we can never be satisfied or fulfilled or at peace with ourselves until we are fulfilling this creative purpose of God for our lives, usually they will not believe it.

The Bible speaks of each one of us being dead in transgressions and sins and without real life, which is spiritual life. It speaks of us as being without God, and without hope in the world. The Old Testament speaks of us as being born sinners and sinful from the time we were conceived in the womb. There is no explanation for the state of the world except this biblical diagnosis. Jesus said that we must be born again. Human nature is like a three legged stool with one leg cut off. We can't help but fall over and collapse.

Humanity needs healing and the glorious good news in the bible is that healing can be found in the suffering Servant of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Here is the precious and most important truth to get hold of and affirm. It is 'by his wounds' that we are healed. It is because Jesus was crucified, suffered and died on the cross that healing for our spiritual deadness and corruption is now available. God's wages for sin is death. This is why we are born into this world spiritually dead; that we have bias towards sin and evil; and that the one certainty is death; and that unless we are saved and healed we must suffer eternal death in hell. Now there is healing in the wounds of Jesus.

Jesus died, more than that, Jesus has risen from the dead, and by these two facts God declares that we can be healed. Jesus conquered death by suffering death in its fullness which is God's just punishment on the sin of the world. By raising Jesus from the dead God declared that Jesus, by his death, had fully satisfied divine justice on account of sin. Now, through faith in Jesus, the penalty of death can be removed from us, and the sentence of death rescinded, and new birth take place. Paul tells us that healing comes through Jesus. By faith we died in him on the cross, and the penalty of sin we deserve has been suffered on our behalf by the Saviour. By faith we rise with Christ and partake of his resurrection. By his wounds we are healed.

By Christ's wounds we are healed by a new creation. We are born again. We are raised to newness of life.

It is important to understand exactly what happens to us through Christ and faith in him. The person we were, under condemnation because of our sin, and separated from God, died with Christ on the cross. That person is no more. As far as God is concerned that sinner we were is dead and exists no more. A new person has been born. We are recreated in Christ. We are risen to new life in him. We are born again. It is essential to understand that new birth depends on death first before new birth occurs. Before we can be born again, the person we were has to have died and ceased to be. The old and the new can't live together. The Adamic person we were has to die before the Christian, the Christ person is born. We can only be born again after the person we were is dead.

The bible expression mean just what it say. We a born again. We are a new person. We are a new creation. The Apostle Paul describes this new birth in Ephesians 4:24. We have been created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We have been created to be like God, not in his essential deity for we are still creatures created by God. The likeness is in character. We have been created righteous and holy like God is righteous and holy. This new creation that we are is holy and without sin or corruption. There is no spot or stain of sin upon us. This is not just a legal and forensic declaration of righteous, but an actual purity. It is because of this that we can come to God, and God can come to us and dwell within us by his Spirit. This is why we possess eternal life and can never die. This is why we have passed from death to life, and there is now no condemnation for us. This is the healing. We are not only declared righteous by God for Christ's sake, we are made, in our new creation, righteous, and that new person can be defiled no more.

Now this healing is tremendous and we have to ask how this can be true when we go on sinning in our living while still on this earth. The reason is that the body we have been born with physically, which includes the mind, has not been changed in any way whatsoever. It is just as sinful as it has ever been. The new creation that we are, while still alive on this earth, can only express itself through this fallen sinful flesh. The flesh can't be purified or made better. It can only be mortified or put to death.

Thus the believer experiences continual conflict between the flesh, the old nature, and the spirit, the new creation we are in Christ which is righteous and holy. Paul speaks of this in Galatians 5:16ff. He speaks of the flesh and the spirit always in conflict. Paul also describes this experience in Romans 7:14-end. He says he finds he does things he does not want to do and he leaves undone things he knows has to be done and which he wants to do. The new creation hates this evil and does not want to do it, but the flesh does it. Paul says it is not himself doing it - the new person he is born again, but the sin that dwells within him, in his flesh.

This conflict was not there before we were born again. It is a sign of new birth that this conflict is experienced and realised. We hate sin with our spirits. What is also true is that although we can never escape the sin we commit in the flesh while still in this world, by the new person we are, and by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, we can mortify the flesh and progressively refuse its sinful desires and propensities. By this we live a more holy life in the world, but we can never be free of sin in this life, and the flesh can't be changed.

We realise the fullness of the healing of the wounds of Jesus when we leave this sinful world through physical death. This body of sin dies, and we become free of it forever. We will also receive a new holy body in the life to come like Christ's resurrection body, not only free from sin but also free from the pains and sickness known in this earthly sinful flesh which are the result of sin of Adam.

Let me try now in conclusion to draw together all that we have been thinking about concerning the healing we have in Jesus.

Let us understand that we have need as sinners of two things. Firstly we need peace with God. We need to have the sentence of God against our sin removed, the law of God fulfilled in our case. In a word we need to have legal acquittal before the judgement seat of God, and to be declared righteous and free of all condemnation. Christ's death for us, the chastisement he bore, paid the price of our sin fully and bought our acquittal, and in Christ we are declared righteous forever and no condemnation can ever be experienced by us. This is ours by simple faith Jesus. We come to him confessing our sin, by faith see our sins laid by God on Jesus, accepting him as our sin bearer and the sacrifice of our sin, and believing he has borne the penalty of our sin fully on the cross.

Secondly we need healing. We need to be new so that the corrupt person we are in Adam may be changed to being a holy person in Christ. This can only be achieved by the Adam person dying, and the Christ person being born of God. By the wounds of Jesus we are healed. In Christ the Adam person died truly and completely. It suffered the just penalty of sin and is eternal dead in Christ. Then we are raised with Christ. We are new born and created anew. We are raised a new creation to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, not like God in his deity, but like God in his holiness. In our new person we are holy and God's Spirit can now and does dwell within us. We possess eternal life and can never die.

In this life this new holy person can only be expressed through our sinful bodies. Our new life can't tolerate the sinful desires of the flesh, and hates the sin the flesh produces. We feel the guilt of this sin, but know our new born self is undefiled by it because this sin is already been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. However we hate this sin and seek to mortify and put to death the flesh and its desires, and by God's grace and power through the Spirit who dwells within us, we grow more successful and our lives here on earth become more and more holy in practice and thought, conforming more to the new person we are.

We long for release from this sinful flesh, crying with Paul 'O wretched person that I am, who will deliver me from this sinful body". We cry with Paul in certainty 'Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ my Lord". Because we have peace with God, and because we have been healed by new birth, when God calls us from this life, our sinful bodies will die as our old self has already died in Christ, and we shall be free from sin forever. Alleluia!