The Chastisement of our Peace was upon Him

 

“The Chastisement of our Peace was upon Him”

 “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” (Isa. 53:5).

Other Translations.  This is an intriguing expression in regard to that which Christ suffered for us, and in our behalf.

“The chastisement of our peace was upon him” (KJV, ASV, Brenton, Darby, DRB, LITV, RV, Webster);

“the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him” (AMP);

“the chastisement for our well-being, was upon him” (EB);

“He took the punishment we deserved” (ERV);

“upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace” (ESV);

“He was punished so that we could have peace” (GW);

“the punishment reconciling us fell on him” (NJB);

“the punishment that brought us peace was upon him” (NIV);

“the chastisement of our welfare was upon him” (JPS);

“upon him was the chastisement that made us whole” (RSV).

The Manifold Perspectives of the Sufferings of Christ.  There are many ways that the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ may be considered, and each with profit.  There is the primary view, which is God’s perspective of those sufferings, and there is a secondary view, pertaining to how men perceive His sufferings. 

Moses and the Prophets.  There is the perspective of Moses and the Prophets, as they lived in anticipation of the coming Sufferer.  Then there is the view of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the days of His flesh, as He Himself repeatedly spoke forthrightly of His Cross, where He would “give His life a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45). 

The Acts of the Apostles.  We find a unique perspective of those sufferings in the book of Acts where the glorified Christ was directing His newly established church from the right hand of God, and where “repentance and remission of sins” (Lk. 24:47; Acts 2:38; 10:43) first began to be preached in Jesus’ Name.  Here Apostles, prophets, and brethren were forging ahead in newly charted waters, “preaching Jesus, and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18), reasoning with ungodly men of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come” (Acts 24:25), and “witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say should come” (Acts 26:22).

In the Epistles.  The epistles afford another necessary perspective of the sufferings of Christ, interpreting, unfolding, and announcing what actually had transpired at the “place, which is called Calvary” (Lk. 23:33), during the final and consummatory Passover, where Christ our Passover, was sacrificed for us.  In the epistles there is found an elaborate unfolding of the greatness of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the New Covenant, of justification by faith in Christ, of salvation by faith through grace, of the High Priesthood of Christ, of life and immortality, of the world to come, of an eternal inheritance that is undefiled, just to name a few things.

In the Revelation.  There is the view given by the Revelation where consolation and judgment are met together in the further outworking of the purpose of God in Christ Jesus.  “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood . . .”   “Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him . . .”

God’s Perspective.  There is the high and exalted view of the Lord Jehovah, “working salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps. 74:12).  “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:23-24).”

Our Peace.  But from one valid perspective it was not merely peace, but rather “our peace” [peace that pertained to us, peace that once was rightly “ours”], that was at stake in the sufferings of Christ.  It was “our offences” and “our justification” (Rom. 4:25) that were squarely on the line. It was “our griefs” that were being “borne”, and “our sorrows” that were being “carried” (Isa. 53:4).   It was we who were “as an unclean thing”, and it was “our righteousnesses” that were “as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).   “The motions of sins” were working “in our members” (Rom. 7:5), accentuating the gravity of the situation as it pertained to us in our standing before the holy and righteous God.  “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (I Cor. 15:3).  He “His own Self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (I Pet. 2:24).

Chastisement, not Chastening.  The word chastening in Scripture is closely associated with correction with the prospect and hope of perfecting moral character.  “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD ; neither be weary of His correction: for whom the LORD loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Prov. 3:11-12).  “For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Heb. 12:6).  When a person is chastened of the Lord he or she may properly reason that He is working with such ones to perfect holiness in them.  The one who is chastened may rightly infer that God loves him, or her.  “Whom the Lord loveth!”

But in the case of chastisement, especially the way in which the word is used in Isaiah 53, there is no perceived love on the part of the One being chastised.  There is instead an acute sense of the One doing the chastising angrily distancing Himself from, and even forsaking, the One being chastised.  With regard to sin, and its effect upon God, and upon His moral government, divine correction is not an option for remedying the offense.  “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:4, 20). Sin is of such grievous nature that it demands that there be death to the sinner together with complete exclusion from the presence of the Holy One, with no apparent alternative in sight. But, praise God, there was indeed an alternative that was found! The chastisement of our peace was upon Christ, and not upon us!  

In the Lord Jesus Christ the God of heaven has devised “means that His banished” sons and daughters “be not expelled from Him” (see II Sam. 14:14).  And that means was by the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which has followed.  Consider how great this Man is!  Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man, is the only One who was able to bear the consequences of our sin and transgression, and to recover therefrom.  For “God raised Him from the dead” (Acts 13:30)!

The Chastisement of Our Peace.  The Lord Jesus Christ laid down His life in obedience to the Father’s commandment, knowing very well that it was the chastisement of our peace that was upon Him, not of His.  For He Himself “did no sin” (I Pet. 2:22), and He “knew no sin” (II Cor. 5:21), as the Scripture plainly declares.    At Golgotha, the place of a skull, it was the chastisement of our offenses against the Most High in their entirety that was upon the Savior.  And from the perspective of Isaiah 53 it was the chastisement of our peace, or wellbeing before God, that was upon Him.  It was the chastisement of our wellbeing before the living God that was upon the Savior, as He “once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (I Pet. 3:18).

The Chastisement of our Peace Was Upon Christ. Let every man think soberly when considering the matter of our sins and transgressions being laid upon Christ, for we were the ones that, by our sinning, did eat “the sour grapes”, but it was the Savior’s “teeth” that were “set on edge” (see Ezek. 18:2-4)! We were the ones that had grievously sinned, yet it was Christ that suffered in our stead for them. We were the guilty ones, and Christ was the innocent Victim.

Shall we then grumble against the God of our salvation, in much the same way that Israel did, and say to Him that this was unfair, yea that it was not right, for Christ to suffer for sins in our behalf?  Was it unfair that the Most High has devised means that His banished be not expelled from Him? (cf. II Sam. 14:14).  Was it unfair that the chastisement of our peace was on the Lord Jesus Christ when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree?  (It can be seen that with men, the circumference of perceived fairness and equity generally does not extend beyond the borders of what directly affects them.) The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.