Isaiah 53

First of all, I need to make a clarification. In my understanding, and that, I think of just about everyone else, God's wrath is not against the Son, but against sin. Christ is the sin-bearer; He bears God's wrath against sin on our behalf.

With that in mind, let's have a quick look at one or two extracts from Isaiah 53:

3 'He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.'

In this description, the Servant is described as the sort of person people glance at and hurry on. They imagine that his suffering and pain is on his own account.

4 'Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,'

But the pain and the suffering is actually ours. He has taken upon Himself the pain and suffering that is our due. We shall find out why presently.

yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.'

The Jews considered that the Servant was being punished by God for His own sins. 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?' (John 9:2). Job was told, 'Who ever perished, being innocent?' (Job 4:7). This, apparently was a standard belief of the Jews.

5 'But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.'

The punishment by God was not for the Servant's own sins, but for ours. He was the 'surety' for His people (Hebrews 7:22). I intend to write more on that on a future thread D.V., but basically it means that He, though personally innocent, must pay our debts in full, and when He has done that, those debts are cancelled although we have not paid them (c.f. Philemon 17-19).
That the punishment was indeed from God, fully determined and brought about by Him, is made perfectly clear in Acts 2:23 & 4:27-28; c.f. also Genesis 50:20).

6 'We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.'

Here is the meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:21. Christ was 'made sin;' though personally innocent He was made legally guilty as our Surety, and paid the price equivalent to that which we would otherwise have paid ourselves in hell. we have seen words like 'suffering,' 'pain,' 'pierced,' 'crushed' and 'wounds.' There is also 'oppression' and 'afflicted' in v.7. All these the Servant has suffered on our behalf.

9 'He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.'

Again, the personal innocence of the Servant is expressed. It is as the Guarantor or Surety of God's new covenant that He justly suffers these things, having voluntarily taken His people's sins upon Himself.


10 'Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,'

Notice the Active mood here. It does not say that it was the Lord's will that He should be crushed and caused to suffer. No, no! It was God who crushed Him. 'Awake, O sword, against Shepherd, against the Man who is My companion. Strike the Shepherd.' No, 'God spared not His own Son' (Romans 8:32)

'and though the Lord makes (though you make) his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.'

But there was an end to the Servant's sufferings and great glory to follow. When He said, "It is finished!" It was. Atonement had been accomplished; the price of sin had been paid in full and the Father could say to the Son, 'Because of the blood of Your covenant, I will set Your prisoners free from the waterless pit' (Zechariah 9:11), and the Son could say to the Father, "Here I am, and the children whom God has given Me.' He has redeemed them all; not one of them will ever be lost (John 6:39).

 

It sounds like you don't think verse 5 practically screams it.

 

This is accurate, and the crux of the issue. I would describe it a bit differently, and perhaps a bit more deeply--because I think several levels of things are going on.

1. Christ never sinned. On this, I believe, everyone agrees.

2. Humans sin. On this, I believe, everyone agrees.

3. God is the offended party in the sin of individual humans. In other words, every sin is ultimately committed against God. Perhaps the agreement is waning here, so I'll stop giving the play-by-play.

4. Because God is both holy and just, sin must be punished by Him--and that punishment is expressed in using the word "wrath." His punishment of sin, that wrath, however, is not an emotional expression or a flying off the handle like human wrath. God's wrath against sin, being non-emotional, is His settled disposition against sin and for His glory.

5. God's wrath against sin is not expressed against some abstract idea (ie. "sin") but against the sinners that have committed those sins.

At this point, we should see that Psalm 51 lets us know that all sin is ultimately against God; 2 Chronicles 19:2 lets us know that God's wrath is expressed against people (the "you" is singular); Numbers 16:46 lets us know that God's wrath goes out against people, Israel in this case.

6. Insofaras Jesus is our substitute, it must be that God's wrath is against Him, not because of Him but because He stands in our place. It isn't that God punishes an abstract "idea" of "sin," but He punishes actual sins. A wiser person than I said: God doesn't send sin to hell; He sends people. Therefore, it must be that God punishes sinners. Because God punishes sinners, He punishes Christ for what we have done.

7. The reason the death of Christ is so important is that He propitiates God. That is, God's wrath against sinners is poured out on Christ as our substitute and that exhausting of His wrath is what changes His (the Father's) disposition from wrath to favor for those for whom Christ died.

So, in one sense, God's wrath is not against the Son--it is against sinners. But, in another sense, God's wrath is against the Son, but not for anything He has done, but as the One who stands in our place.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

He was made to be sin. 2 Cor. 5:21.

 

The Trinity can never be 'disunioned' or 'unharmonious.' I addressed the asymmetry of the Persons here.
Penal Substitution and the Trinity See posts #1, 4 & 8. I don't recall anybody answering the substance of those posts.
Also, God is never 'filled with rage' as humans are and He certainly never 'pours hate upon the Son.' I am not aware of anyone who has ever suggested this, certainly not on this board, so I hope you will not repeat the comment.

God's attributes are not like ours. God's anger is always righteous, and it is eternal; so is His justice; so is His love. God has always loved righteousness and hated sin (Psalm 45:7), but God has likewise set His love upon chosen sinners from eternity (2 Thessalonians 2:13; Titus 1:2 etc.) and in eternity covenanted with the Son to save them (Ephesians 1:3-6; Revelation 13:8). The motivation for that covenant was love.

'What was it, O our God
Lead You to give Your Son,
To yield Your well-beloved
For us by sin undone?
Unbounded love led you to give
Your well-beloved that we might live.

What led the Son of God
To leave His throne on high,
To shed His precious blood,
To suffer and to die?
Unbounded love for sinners lost
Led Him to suffer at such cost.'

But in that covenant,
'God did not mince the matter and say, "Son, if You will take flesh and die by the hands of wicked men, I will pardon all You die for, for Your sake, ands You will have an easy task of it. It shall be only enduring the corporeal pains of death, which thousands have undergone in a more terrible manner." [No], but God says this, "If you will be their Saviour, you must be their Surety. You must pay all the debt of doing the Law and suffering for the breach of the Law. You must bear all their sins. You must suffer all their direful pains of body and soul, all the terrors and horrors due to them for sin from the wrath of God. I will make their sins fall upon You with all the weight which would press all the elect into the vengeance of Hellfire forever. Those are the terms. Hard enough indeed, but if sinners be saved by My free grace in giving You for them, My righteousness and holiness must be satisfied and glorified. Do you have such a love to My glory and to their poor souls as to undergo all that for them?" "Yes!" said our blessed Lord. "I am content. Lo, I come to do Your will, O God"'
[S. Crisp, 1691. Quoted by A.W. Pink]

Now the wonder of the Atonement is this. 'As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners [legally constituted so, and then, as a consequence, experientially became so] so by one Man's obedience many will be made [legally constituted so, and then as the consequence experientially become such] righteous' (Romans 5:19). Christ took our place that we might take His. Christ removed our sins that we might be clothed in His merits. Because Christ kept the Law for us, we are counted righteous and therefore entitled to 'reign in life' (Romans 5:17). Indeed, Christ demanded this as His legal right. "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am" (John 17:24. "Father," He says, "I have fully discharged their obligations; I have gained for them everlasting righteousness. Now give them the reward to which, for My sake, they are entitled." Not that the Father is in any way reluctant to do that, since it was the whole object of the covenant.

So as soon as a sinner trusts in Christ as his Substitute, he is not only cleared from his guilt but rewarded; he gets all heaven because of the glory and the merits of Christ. Christ literally took our place so that we might literally take His. On the cross, God regarded and treated Christ as a sinner, and now He regards the believing sinner as Christ. He accepts, blesses and rewards us on the ground that all Christ was and did is ours! Because we are covenantally united to Christ in His death, so we are united to Him in His resurrection (Romans 6:5). We become 'the righteousness of God in Him.'

So reconciliation has been effected in a way that exhibits God's grace and His justice. The Surety has fully discharged His responsibility by paying His people's debts in full, so that they receive and honourable discharge for all the debts, and God is both 'Just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus' (Romans 3:26). In the Gospel, 'the righteousness of God is revealed.' Grace indeed reigns, but it does so 'through righteousness' (Romans 1:17; 5:21).

 

I don't follow this argument. God the Father gave to the Son a people to redeem (John 6:39 etc.), and this He has done by bearing their sins and taking upon Himself the curse against sin and sinners. Those whose sins He did not bear are still under the wrath of God. Reference Christ pouring wrath upon Himself, this is a misunderstanding of the Trinity.

All correct except the first bit. He bore the sins of believers; He bore the penalty, took upon Him the curse and endured the wrath of God against sin. 'It pleased the LORD to bruise Him.....'

Isaiah 1:24. 'Therefore the Lord says, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, "Ah, I will rid Myself of My adversaries, and take vengeance on My enemies."' In Revelation 5, we see a Lamb looking as if it had been slain. The Lord Jesus Christ was mocked, slapped and beaten, spat upon, scourged twice, had the hair pulled from His beard, had a crown of thorns pushed upon His head all before He was nailed to the cross. But worst of all, He experienced being forsaken by the Father. This was the cup of God's wrath that He had to drink, and drink it He did, right down to the dregs, praise His Name!

There is nothing in Rev 5 that contradicts the Doctrine of Penal Substitution. But the title which you gave this thread is Isaiah 53. I gave what I feel is a reasonably detailed reply to your OP. I will be happy to discuss that further if you wish.