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All of the points of the Gospel were brought out beautifully by Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, in the chorus of his song, “One Day!”

Living, He loved me; Dying, He saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely for ever;
One day He’s coming, O glorious day!
   (“One Day!” by Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, 1859-1918).

We studied the second point of the Gospel last Sunday night, in our exposition of Isaiah 53:9. The Apostle Paul drew our attention to Christ’s burial as the second point of the Gospel when he said,

“And that he was buried” (I Corinthians 15:4).

That is a part of the Gospel that receives very little attention in our day, yet it is quite important. The Apostle spoke of it at some length in Romans 6:3-5,

“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:3-5).

“Therefore, to be baptized into Christ means to die with Christ, to be buried with Christ, and then to rise to new life with Christ” (The Applied New Testament Commentary, Kingsway Publications, 1997, p. 568). Thus, both our spiritual baptism into Christ and its picture, in water baptism, emphasize our baptism into His death, burial and resurrection. As Dr. Chapman put it so meaningfully,

Living, He loved me; Dying, He saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely for ever;
One day He’s coming, O glorious day!

All of these points of the Gospel are brought out powerfully and dramatically in Isaiah, chapter fifty-three. In verse ten, Christ's propitiatory death is set forth.  

In this text, the main point goes “behind the scenes,” to show us that God the Father was working for the salvation of sinners by sending His only begotten Son through the horrors of His passion. From the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross of Calvary God was the true author of our Saviour’s suffering, for the text says,

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin…”
      (Isaiah 53:10).

The text is centered in God the Father and what God did to Jesus for our salvation,

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation” (Romans 3:25).

Dr. W. A. Criswell said of this verse, “Propitiation is the work of Christ on the cross in which He met the demands of the righteousness of God against sin, both satisfying the requirements of God’s justice and cancelling the guilt of man” (W. A. Criswell, Ph.D., The Criswell Study Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1979, p. 1327, note on Romans 3:25).

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation” (Romans 3:25).

The Reformation Study Bible says of this verse, “Christ died as a propitiatory sacrifice that satisfies the divine judgment against sinners, bringing about forgiveness and justification. But Paul is careful to indicate that the sacrifice [of God’s Son] does not cause God the Father to love us. The opposite is true – God’s love caused Him to offer His Son” (The Reformation Study Bible, Ligonier Ministries, 2005, p. 1618, note on Romans 3:25).

“God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16).

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).

Thus, it is the love of God for sinners that lies behind this amazing prophecy that Christ would be delivered to His suffering and death “by the determinate counsel [set purpose] and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). That is why

“It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin…”
      (Isaiah 53:10).

God the Father was the true source of Christ’s suffering and death. Do not recoil from that fact in our text, for it shows us clearly what John 3:16 declares, “that he [God the Father] gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), so that His wrath against sin could be propitiated, and sinners could find salvation through Christ’s Blood! Coming closer to the text, we see (1) God bruised Him; (2) God put Him to grief; (3) God made His soul an offering for sin.

I. First, God bruised Him.

“It pleased the Lord to bruise him” (Isaiah 53:10).

The word translated “bruised” means “to crush.” “It pleased the Lord to crush him.” Dr. Edward J. Young said, “Despite the innocence of [Christ], the Lord took pleasure in bruising [and crushing] him. His death was not in the hands of wicked men but in the Lord’s hands. This does not absolve from responsibility those who put him to death, but they were not in control of the situation. They were only doing what the Lord permitted them to do” (Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972, volume 3, pp. 353-354).

As we have said, this is clearly shown in Romans 3:25, concerning Christ,

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation”
      (Romans 3:25),

and in John 3:16, that,

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16)

to propitiate His wrath against sin, and make salvation possible to sinful man.

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise [to crush] him” (Isaiah 53:10).

I strongly believe that God the Father bruised and crushed His Son beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane, because we are told by Matthew that in the Garden of Gethsemane, God said, “I will smite the shepherd” (Matthew 26:31). The Gospel of Mark also tells us that, in Gethsemane, “I will smite the shepherd” (Mark 14:27). Thus, we are convinced that God smote Jesus, bruised Him, and began to crush Him as a vicarious propitiation for our sins in the darkness of Gethsemane. Spurgeon spoke of that when he declared,

It was now that our Lord had to take a certain cup from the Father’s hand. Not from the Jews, not from the traitor Judas, not from the sleeping disciples, not from the devil came the trial [in the Garden] now, but it was a cup filled by one whom he knew to be His Father…a cup which amazed his soul and troubled his inmost heart. He shrunk [back] from it, and therefore be ye sure that it was a draught [a cup] more dreadful than physical pain, since from that he did not shrink…it was something inconceivably terrible, amazingly full of dread, which came [to Him] from the Father’s hand. This removes all doubt as to what it was, for we read, “It pleased the Lord to bruise him…” The Lord made to [rest] on him the iniquity of us all. He hath made him to be sin for us though he knew no sin. This, then is what caused the Saviour such extraordinary depression…He must suffer in the sinner’s [place]. Here is the secret of those agonies [in the Garden] which it is not possible for me to [fully explain] before you, so true is it that –

‘Tis to God, and God alone,
That his griefs are fully known.’

(C. H. Spurgeon, “The Agony in Gethsemane,” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Pilgrim Publications, 1971, volume XX, pp. 592-593).

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him”
      (Isaiah 53:10).

Under the weight of human sin, poured forth upon Him in the Garden, Christ was crushed, He was bruised by the weight of your sin to such an extent that

“Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

No human hand had touched Him yet. He had not yet been arrested, nor had He yet been beaten, flogged, or crucified. No, it was God the Father who bruised and crushed Him, for it was God the Father who said there in Gethsemane, “I will smite the shepherd” (Matthew 26:31). This, I believe, is what God prophesied through Isaiah,

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him” (Isaiah 53:10).

II. Second, God put Him to grief.

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief…” (Isaiah 53:10).

Again, it was God who put His only begotten Son through the grief He experienced during His passion and death. Dr. Gill said,

He hath put him to grief [caused Him to suffer]…when he spared him not, but delivered him up into the hands of wicked men, and unto death: he was put to grief in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful; and on the cross, when he was nailed to it, [and] had the weight of his people’s sins, and his father’s wrath, on him; and when he hid his face from him, which made him cry out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?... [allowing] him to be put to pain, both in body and mind (John Gill, D.D., An Exposition of the Old Testament, The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989 reprint, vol. V, page 315).

Jesus willingly suffered the crushing and the pain, the flogging and the crucifixion, suffering voluntarily for our sins, for He said,

“For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38).

“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23).

“Being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

“And he is the propitiation for our sins” (I John 2:2).

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25).

No tongue can tell the wrath He bore,
   The wrath so due to me;
Sin’s just desert; He bore it all,
   To set the sinner free!
(“The Cup of Wrath” by Albert Midlane, 1825-1909;
      to the tune of “O Set Ye Open Unto Me”).

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief…” (Isaiah 53:10).

III. Third, God made His soul an offering for sin.

Let us stand and read the text aloud, ending with “an offering for sin.”

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:10).

You may be seated.

Notice the word “yet” at the beginning of the text. It refers back to verse nine, “he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet…” (Isaiah 53:9-10a). Even though Jesus had never sinned, “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief...” Dr. Gaebelein’s commentary says, “Verse 10a is almost shocking in its apparent presentation of arbitrary disregard for [Christ’s] personal righteousness, but then the reader recalls the substitutionary nature of these sufferings…At once God is seen not to be harsh but astonishingly gracious” (Frank E. Gaebelein, D.D., General Editor, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Zondervan, 1986, volume 6, p. 304).

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:10).

“He…spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree…by whose stripes ye were healed” (I Peter 2:24).

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (II Corinthians 5:21).

“When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:10).

No tongue can tell the wrath He bore,
   The wrath so due to me;
Sin’s just desert; He bore it all,
   To set the sinner free!
(“The Cup of Wrath” by Albert Midlane, 1825-1909).

My hope is in the Lord
   Who gave Himself for me,
And paid the price for all my sin,
   At Calvary.

No merit of my own
   His anger to suppress.
My only hope is found
   In Jesus’ righteousness.
(“My Hope is in the Lord” by Norman J. Clayton, 1903-1992).

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin”
      (Isaiah 53:10).

Christ was God’s offering for sin. Christ died in your place, as your substitute. Christ suffered for you vicariously, as a propitiation, to pay the penalty for your sin, to turn the wrath of God away from you and take it all upon Himself. When you see the nails driven through His hands and feet, it is for you. He dies the just for the unjust, to bring you to God in a righteously forgiven state. Spurgeon said,

Man for sin was condemned to eternal fire; when God took Christ to be the substitute it is true, he did not send Christ into eternal fire, but he poured upon him grief, so desperate, that it was valid payment for even an eternity of fire…for Christ in that hour took all our sins, past, present, and to come, and was punished for them all there and then, that we might never be punished, because he suffered in our [place]. Do you see, then, how it was that God the Father bruised him? Unless he had done so, the agonies of Christ could not have been for our [deserved] sufferings [in Hell] (C. H. Spurgeon, “The Death of Christ,” The New Park Street Pulpit, Pilgrim Publications, 1981 reprint, volume IV, pp. 69-70).

Yet the death of Christ does not save all men from the pains of Hell. Only those who are converted to Christ are saved. He died for sinners, and only for sinners, for those who sorrowfully know within themselves that they are sinners, and seek Christ for forgiveness. 

Your sense of sin and your sense of need for Jesus are the marks that show His death will heal your sin. Those who pause for a moment to think of His death, and then forget about it, will go on to receive eternal punishment for their own sins, because they rejected the payment Christ made for them on the Cross.

Therefore think long and thoughtfully about Jesus’ death. For if you do not, doom awaits you in eternity,

“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

(END OF SERMON)
You can read Dr. Hymers' sermons each week on the Internet
at www.realconversion.com. Click on "Sermon Manuscripts."

Scripture Read Before the Sermon by Dr. Kreighton L. Chan: Romans 3:21-26.
Solo Sung Before the Sermon by Mr. Benjamin Kincaid Griffith:
“O, My Soul, What Darkness” (by John Parker, 2007).