He Carried Our Sins (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 includes the verses that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when he met Philip and the evangelist asked him if he understood it. It is one of those passages that as Christians we cannot help but understand that Isaiah was seeing Jesus. One of the things that strikes me is the contrast between the outward appearance and the inward reality. Jesus was the glory of God, but Isaiah says, “He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him” (53:2). He is a “man of sorrows” (53:3) but not because they were His own — He “carried our sorrows” (53:4). Likewise, He carried our sins (i.e., 53:6, 11, 12). He appeared to be “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (53:4), “but He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our inquities” (53:5). He was numbered with the transgressors (53:12), but He was not one of them. It looked like the triumph of injustice and oppression {53:7,8), but it was the will of God to crush Him (53:10). It is a passage full of this contrast because He did not carry His own sin, of which He had none, but He carried OUR sins.

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