Christ Cut Off for His People

This piece always reminds me of my sending congregation in Ballymoney. I think the choir sang that once or twice, and sometimes when you get a large enough choir and enough people in your church to join the choir for occasions, and they all learn their parts, then forevermore, when the congregation sings it, you can hear all the parts coming through, and it’s always very memorable.

Isaiah 53, turn please to Isaiah 53 if you have a copy of God’s Word before you. And if you are going to join us on Saturday morning, make sure you’re well rested. Make sure you bring your best smile. You don’t want to be singing the joyful themes of Christ’s coming and you looking as if you’re sad about the occasion. So make sure, I’m sure the choir is instructed in that way, but it’s always good to wear a smile as you sing and show the people the joy of the truths that you are expressing. It’s not just words; it’s something you believe, something that has changed your life.

Isaiah 53, and we’ll take time to again, as we did this morning, read the entirety of the chapter. We read all of Lamentations 1, we come in the text of Messiah to Isaiah 53, and let’s read all of the chapter. Let’s hear the Word of the Lord:

Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 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. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shears is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. For thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Amen. This is the Word of the living God. You’ve heard again that which is most precious and should be received with all of your heart. And so, I trust you do so. You hear it and you receive it. And the people of God said, Amen. Let’s pray.

Lord, again, as we open thy Word, we pray it will come to us with that freshness that only thou art able to supply. Many, even in our Savior’s day, were familiar with the words of Scripture, and every Sabbath the Scriptures were read, and yet their hearts were hard. And so, God, we pray that when the Scriptures are read and explained in this place, that there would be a receptivity, a softness, and more than that, that the Spirit of God would be our teacher.

The Spirit of God would be invited, desired, sought in this place, that here in this congregation would be a people from their earliest days who learned to pray for God the Holy Spirit to teach their hearts. So keep us, keep us in accordance with thy will. If there be chaff uttered tonight, let it fall to the ground. That which is of God, that which is explaining eternal truths, let it be received. Grant that it might lead to salvation and the encouragement of thy people. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Without the work of the Holy Spirit, men cannot respond to the truth. This is the problem that is faced right out of the gate in Isaiah 53. The prophet lamenting over the fact that people don’t receive the report. Has anyone had the arm of the Lord revealed to them? The arm of the Lord, of course, describes the saving power of God. And it’s also descriptive of the Messiah himself. He is truly the right hand of God. Salvation comes through him.

And so, really when the prophet laments over this unbelief that is littering his generation, he is lamenting over this fact that it seems as if no one sees the truth and no one has responded to it. He then goes on to note the lack of anything impressive about the Messiah, detailing under inspiration things about him in verse 2, and then in verse 3, he is despised and rejected of men. He’s not understood, and he is set aside, even though he is the one that God has sent to save men, yet he becomes a man acquainted with grief, and we turn away from him.

And the prophet continues then to explain and give to us understanding of the suffering of the Messiah. I don’t need to explain this to you. In fact, as we’ve gone through the texts of Messiah over these years, last year we spent some time in Isaiah 53. And we looked at a number of the verses that are given to us here.

We now come to verse 8, and verse 8 is the final text given in Handel’s Messiah before the resurrection is considered. And so, it really becomes the final text dealing with the sufferings of the Messiah before we proceed into the victory of the resurrection. Now, upon listening to it in Handel’s Messiah, we might criticize Handel for not giving the text more attention, but Handel is a musical preacher, and so he is showing something to us even in the way he treats this text, where my craft is words, his craft is notes.

Whereas he uses dynamics and articulation, I use inflection and volume. He uses tempo and rests, I seek to use pace and pause. He uses key and mode, or I use motion and tone, and so on and so forth. But there’s something else he uses. I use it too, although it’s not quite the same in this respect. He uses duration. And here with the text, he spends about 15 seconds giving to us Isaiah 53 verse 8. Well, I’ve already expired more than 15 seconds, so it’s not my intention to follow that example.

But in listening to it, you might ask, why? Why so brief? Maybe this is one of the sections that Jennings, when he gave him the text and it came back to him from Handel, he thought to himself it would have been better if he had paid a little more time or given more time and attention to it because here’s the central thing. And you’re passing over it in 15 seconds. But again, there’s a message in that. Look at the text, and especially what it is that Handel focuses upon, or the text focuses upon in Handel’s Messiah.

He was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. The sense of the swiftness of the end of the Messiah, when all is said and done, his life comes to an abrupt halt. And so, the music again conveys, at least by my understanding of it, now maybe there should be a book written so that those of us who can’t interpret clearly these things might have the expertise of others, but it would appear to me that that is what Handel is endeavoring to paint and preach through notes and instruments.

15 seconds, its life is gone, it is over. This text is part of the section that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when God sent Philip to preach Christ unto him. He’s reflecting on Isaiah 53, and this section is the section that he is considering and has mentioned to us. Of course, if you go there and you read it, you’ll find a slight difference in the language that is caused by the English translation being a translation from the Greek Septuagint, which is, of course, a translation from the Hebrew.

So the language is slightly different, but this is the focus. Of course, the question of the Ethiopian eunuch is not what is going on, but who. And the who must come before the what. And Philip goes there, and he preached Christ unto him, because that’s what Isaiah 53 is about. It’s about Christ. And so, even as we understand this passage, and sometimes arguments are made to suggest that this is not dealing with the Messiah, we fall in line with Philip and with the teaching of the Word of God, that this indeed is pointing to the Messiah.

We will look at the entirety of verse 8. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. I’ve titled the message, Christ Cut Off for His People. Christ Cut Off for His People. And again, three heads tonight with the Lord’s help. We’ll see his condemnation, his generation, and his execution.

It’s condemnation, generation, and execution. Note with me, first of all, his condemnation. He was taken from prison and from judgment. A couple of things to note here. First of all, the oppressive persecution. The oppressive persecution that is explained from this text. He was taken from prison and from judgment.

The text is detailing for us the legal process that our Lord Jesus experienced, an unjust legal process. Taken from prison and judgment is not a casual remark. It’s one that’s laden with a sense of Christ’s removal, that it was hasty, it was forcibly done. He is taken from prison and from judgment. It is being done to Him. The underlying word for prison and judgment has this idea of something oppressive. He’s experiencing something unpleasant, and the injustice of what he endured is here explained for us by the prophet. He is taken from prison and from judgment.

This is not a kind or a pleasant experience. Of course, as we read through the Gospels, it was no ordinary judicial proceeding. The right standards are set aside. This nation that was proud of its legal process, proud of its law, proud of its justice, sets it all aside when dealing with God’s Son. The standards are not upheld. There’s a predetermined verdict that they want to get to. And when he’s taken from prison and from judgment, there’s no desire for justice at all. He is being deprived of fairness, subjected to an unjust trial.

So it’s oppressive. Christ goes through, as a man, he is in the throes of an experience in which everyone taking him from the arrest onward has no desire, seemingly no desire, to do what is right. There’s no sense that something right will be done, that honesty would prevail, that truth would be elevated. And centuries prior, the prophet then shows to us what Messiah would endure, sham trials, a form of doing the right thing, but far from it. And this goes for the Jewish authorities as well as the Roman. When you think of all that the Jews and their leadership did to our Lord Jesus Christ, you ask the question, how could they ever sleep at night?

But it was the same even for Pilate. Pilate, who ought to have known better, who ought to have stood by what was true and what was right, finds no fault in Christ and gives the command for his crucifixion anyway. As I say, there’s nothing just about anything that goes on. There’s no legitimate jurisprudence. There’s nothing but false witnesses, hasty verdicts, and fear-driven decisions.

Again, Pilate, representing the Gentile guilt. Reflecting the fact that we don’t get to point as Gentiles and say that the problem or the sin or the mistreatment is all in the sight of the Jew. Pilate represents, the Romans who are there represent the Gentiles as well. That all of humanity is found guilty of a mistreatment of God’s Son made flesh. You see the fear of man prevail. Pilate succumbs to the will of the crowd. He knows that Christ is not guilty. He knows he should let him go. But political expediency, the pressure of the mob, prevails.

This is oppressive. He was taken from prison and from judgment. There he met with the crowd coming to arrest him that night. Again, doing it under the cover of darkness so that the general crowd, who were at least in some cases sympathetic to our Lord Jesus, for fear of what they might do, for fear of a revolt, for fear of being called to account for dealing with things in an unjust fashion, do it in the cover of darkness. Lay their hands on the Lord Jesus Christ, drag Him away.

And even in the arrest, if you recall, as we continue, Christ issues a warning to them. They come seeking for Him. And John’s gospel accounts how that all transpires as He goes to meet them. It’s amazing how the details are given. He’s not trying to run away. He knows that the betrayer is at hand. He knows that the soldiers are on the way. Let us go out to meet them. And when they come seeking for Him, He doesn’t deny. He doesn’t run away. He doesn’t flee. He faces them with courage. And when He reveals who He is, they fall backward. It’s a warning shot. It’s a last-minute appeal. Do the right thing! But they don’t. They proceed, following the orders of men who were intent on destroying the Son of God.

Yes, He was taken from prison and from judgment. He was taken from forcibly. From one setting of judgment or accusation to another. There before Annas, before Caiaphas, dragged then to be before Pilate there in the judgment hall. And there’s not one moment where it feels like anyone has any wit to do the right thing. Pilate feels it, but he wavers and ultimately gives in.

Oppressive persecution. Again, sometimes men will experience this. You might be unjustly fired from your job or something else that happens in which you feel like this is persecution. Sometimes what may happen to you may be as a result of your faith, being a believer. You may even find yourself at times caught within this position in which someone who’s another believer appears to be dealing with you, and you think that they may be sympathetic to you, but instead, again, because of pressure, the hierarchy of the business or some other policy that’s in place, you find them again siding with the unjust position.

But I want you also to note the obedient submission. Christ, enduring all this, who’s taken from prison and from judgment, when you read the gospel accounts, again, you have this sense of, could He not just end it? And this, of course, is His response to Peter when Peter takes out his sword and begins to wield it and takes off Malchus’s ear. His language to Peter is to tell him, look, do you not think I could call legions of angels? I could call aid immediately, and they would come to my aid, they would prevent this injustice.

So our Lord is being obedient. You can see that in the previous text, verse 7, where He was oppressed, He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shears is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. Could He speak in His defense? Yes. If He had continued to utter, there are some utterances by Christ whereby under being compelled, He will speak. But you have this sense at times if Christ continues to speak, He’s going to floor everyone with His clarity, with His logic, with His persuasion, so that it’s going to make it even more difficult for them to proceed with what they are doing. Instead, He submits in obedience to the Father’s will, stays silent. Philippians 2:8, He humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

He accepted that that was where it was all leading to. He could have hindered it by force, by speech, or by other evasive techniques that we see at other times in His ministry, but instead He submits, humbling Himself, obedient unto death. The example of that is one for us to follow, that the obedience of the Christian is to be one unto death.

Now, it’s not the same as our Lord’s, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that you’re obedient to a death that is substitutionary or vicarious. But your life as a believer, your calling as a believer is obedience to death, if that’s what it calls for. A willingness. I want you to think about that. I want you to think about the scenarios in which you are engaging with friends, work colleagues, and other scenarios where you might find yourself under a threat of compromising, wondering whether you should compromise your position, your convictions, your stand. You feel you will stay silent because it will make life easier. But you have to assess carefully, is this obedience? Is my silence obedience as it was for Christ? Or is my silence disobedience?

What does God call upon me? Because you are to be obedient to your dying breath. If it calls for the loss of your life, so be it. That’s the thing that comes to the mind of the preacher every now and again, is are you willing to preach these things even if it means the end of your life? Our Savior’s silence before His accusers demonstrates His submission to the Father’s will. That’s the plan He’s following. That’s the one He’s submitted to, the Father. And so He doesn’t plead His innocence for His own sake. He understands that this whole thing, all that He’s enduring, being taken from prison and from judgment, the experience of that through the Jewish leadership, through the Roman government, is all to fulfill the Father’s will. And if He doesn’t, we’re left to perish.

His obedience is integral to your salvation. This is how God is going to redeem. I don’t want to build upon what we considered this morning or elaborate on it or multiply arguments, but it’s the same idea. There is a plan. There is a decree. Christ has submitted to that. Remember when He was 12? “I must be about My Father’s business.” Even at that age, He understood, this is My calling. This is His will. We’re not given any detail regarding what happened between that stage and the commencement of His public ministry. We’re not told anything about whether or not He wrestled with the waiting time. Was He keen to get out there and begin ministering? Most preachers are, there’s an element in which you have both the fear of it as well as the anticipation of doing it. Did Christ feel that?

Did He feel the sense of, I need to go now, but He’s holding back, He’s waiting, He’s biding His time, He’s being obedient to the very moment at which He must commence His ministry? Everything is done in perfect obedience to the Father’s will. Nothing is done according to His own decree or desire. The humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ is fully submitted to do the Father’s will entirely. No argument, no compromise, because if He does, we perish.

So when you read this language, you look at verse 7 and verse 8, you take it all in, this isn’t weakness, this is strength. Sometimes silence is strength. The fool uttereth all his mind because he’s weak. He has not mastery over his own nature. He has not learned to control the carnal aspect of man. He is not under the government of the Holy Spirit. But Lord Jesus was governed by the Spirit that led Him to this silence. This is a display of strength. Obedient submission.

Remember that. We’re memorizing Romans 12. I said to you when that text was given to us that this is really helpful. I am not involved in the selecting of those texts. When that text came forward, I scanned my eye through it again afresh, and I thought to myself, yes, Lord. If we can memorize this and apply this, all of our lives will be better. We will be taken away from so much self-inflicted pain and folly. And part of it is in the recognition of the injustices of this world. And we are called upon in faith then to turn to God who says, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And we submit. We believe him capable of executing his will in the affairs of men to deal justly.

Note also His generation. Not only His condemnation, but His generation. “And who shall declare His generation, for He was cut off out of the land of the living?” As I mentioned this morning, this text is sometimes misunderstood, and I don’t want to get into arguing the various views of the text and just taking what I think is generally what the text is understood to mean by those that we would respect in their exegesis of God’s Word. What does it mean?

When even the whole idea of Him being taken from prison, from judgment, that’s sometimes debated. Sometimes people think that it has this idea of God taking Him and taking Him away from that into the idea of His resurrection, but I don’t think it fits with the whole context. I think what I put before you is how to understand it. But who shall declare His generation, for He was cut off out of the land of the living?

There’s a couple of things here. As we consider His generation, He was misunderstood by His generation. He was misunderstood, Messiah was misunderstood by His generation. Who shall declare His generation? This rhetorical question arises as a lament that none of His contemporaries stepped forward to plead His cause or even understood the significance of what was going on. Even the disciples couldn’t get a hold of the fact that, yes, He’s dying, this vicarious, atoning death. They didn’t get it. So who’s going to declare? They did not understand. No one seemed to understand.

Our Lord Jesus is left in this place cut off and He has no one to declare or stand on His behalf and explain everything that’s going on. When He tried to explain it, it seemed to just wash over them. So again, it gets to the suffering. Part of the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ is that no one was there, no one declared, no one understood what was going on. So even if they could look on and understand, at least there would be a comprehension that would lend itself to sympathy or joy or whatever might be the response of that, but there’s none of that.

For He was cut off out of the land of the living. He’s not only misunderstood by the generation, but He is cut off out of that generation, out of the land of the living of that generation. Brought to an abrupt end. No physical posterity, no sons, caught in the midst of the strength of His years, abruptly brought to an end, cut off out of the land of the living. People looking on upon Him, not seeing the value of Him, not recognizing the true worth of Him, not comprehending all that He’s doing. There’s no public outcry. There’s no voice that rises up to say this is unjust. The crowd, when it speaks, cries out for His crucifixion, not against it. He ends up cut off, taken to Calvary.

Place between criminals, enduring pain, again, that was deliberately and intentionally crafted to afflict the body in the most painful way while encouraging or promoting the ongoing ability to survive. It’s this awful affliction of pain while man continues to survive so that the pain carries on. This was part of the surprise. And finally, He dies and Pilate is told about it and he learns of His death and he’s surprised. Is He already gone? Because the whole purpose of crucifixion was to let the agony go on and on and on. It’s abruptly brought to an end.

Of course, this truth brings encouragement to us as well. It’s not within this context, but when we reflect upon the fact that He was cut off, we’re thinking again about the reason why, and we’re thinking about the intentionality of Christ in His death, and we’re thinking about the fact that even as He looked at death, as it were, He steps into death, He has the power to lay down His life. So He exercises Himself in giving Himself to the Father’s will, and when the time comes, there’s no mistake in the moment, there’s no mistake in the second, He steps into death. He gives up the ghost. He bows His head, as it were, and I preached it before, I say it again, when He bows His head, there’s a sense of this intentionality, He’s stepping into death.

And He is doing so because He has this control, He has this power, and He has offered Himself without spot unto God. The sins have been paid for. The guilt now has been removed. And since now all that was required of Him has been satisfied in terms of the agony and suffering of the cross, He can step into death and deal with the final enemy so that He may then rise again the third day, bring confidence to His people forevermore.

Again, we’re not dealing with an ordinary person. When you read the language of verse 8, if you were thinking about someone in history who was dealt with unjustly, who was treated awfully, you might say that this is a terrible thing to endure, but this is not anyone. Look at the context of the passage. This is a servant of Jehovah. He should be received with glad joys. He should be received to the praise and love and adoration of men, but He’s not. So the generation that He came to, received them not, didn’t understand what He was there to do. As Paul would later write, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him.

So that’s what He experiences in His life. It’s no different today, you know. When you go and you try to evangelize and present to people, this is the gospel here. God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. He lived for us, He died for us, He rose again on the third day. He ascended into heaven. If you explain any aspect of any of that, for the most part, they don’t get it. And even where they understand and agree and mentally assent to the historicity of it, they don’t get the significance of it. And so they live their lives aware that Jesus lived and died and rose again, but not committing themselves to the fact that He did so. That He calls men to commit themselves to Him, to obey Him, to come under His Lordship, to recognize that He has been made Lord and Christ.

And so they reject it. And there may be some here tonight who are no different. If it depended on you to declare the significance of the Messiah, to preach to the world the loveliness of Jesus Christ, you would have nothing to say. Because you’re like those the text speaks of, those in the generation of our Lord.

This brings us then to His execution. For the transgression of my people was He stricken. Why all this? Why? When we think about His execution, two truths, I’m trying not to overlap what we looked at this morning. First, He’s stricken by God. He’s stricken by God.

Now, we did deal with that, so I’ll be brief. This passage, over and over again, perhaps more than any other Old Testament text, focuses upon that the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ and what He experienced was done by the Father. I mentioned verse 10 already today. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. For the transgression of My people was He stricken.

The observation was made earlier, “We did esteem Him, verse 4, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” God is against Him. Of course, there’s a way in which that was entirely false. There’s also a way in which it was true in relation to what He was doing upon the cross. As sin is laid upon Him, the Father then deals with Him as one who has sinned. He has made sin for us, and so He’s smitten by God in that way. In that way, we understand it, He was stricken. A divine blow is laid upon the Lord Jesus. Not suffering at random, but a direct act of divine justice upon Christ as He has made sin for us in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

So He’s stricken by God, but also note this. I’ll just take a few moments to think about this before we close. He was stricken for God’s people. He’s not just stricken by God, but He’s stricken for God’s people. For the transgression of my people was He stricken.

Now, this truth causes people to stumble. They struggle with this. They struggle with the idea of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ being for a specific people. And when they hear that language, they begin to ask themselves, is that really what the Bible teaches? Does it not teach that God so loved the world? Does it not preach to the whosoever? Does it not say in 1 John 2 that His suffering and His death was for the sins of the whole world?

In what way then can we understand language as we have here, “For the transgression of my people”? Was He stricken? We have to understand the sense of the particularity of God’s dealings with His Son. All of the types and shadows show this. When Israel gathered, we mentioned the Day of Atonement this morning, when Israel gathered for the Day of Atonement, when the sacrifices were offered, when there was a transfer of guilt, was it for all the nations across the world or was it for those there gathered who believed, who trusted?

It had a peculiar focus upon those who were gathered there, those true covenant people who rested and believed in God’s promise to put away their sin. It wasn’t for everyone. Those animals were not being offered with an eye to other nations round about and people in different parts of the world. It was specific. And God orchestrated the message so there was that sense of particularity that was communicated to Israel. And it’s here in this text as well. It’s for the transgression of my people. It’s for my people. God is not in any way shy to communicate this. Now this prophecy opens up God’s mercy to the Gentiles. Isaiah is one of the strongest arguments, the most encouraging texts for Gentiles to read. You go through it, it’s constantly like to the Gentiles and so on. It’s like the language explaining that this isn’t going to be confined to a people who are of Abraham’s seed physically. It is opening up to the world.

But it still doesn’t undermine this truth. The prophecy falls apart if my people is everyone. For the transgression of my people, you will seldom hear me use words like Arminianism and Calvinism. I have no problem with terms. Terms are helpful in how you define them and how you explain them. I have no problem with them. But I’m also very conscious of the fact that terms sometimes become charged with mischaracterizations of forms of understanding the terms that are not close to what those who espouse them actually mean by them.

So if I don’t have time to explain it, then I’m not going to use the term in a way that I think might be misunderstood. So most, nearly all of my ministry, I really haven’t used the term a lot, and yet I have seen time after time, and I’ve mentioned this before, I’ve seen people who, through the simple exposition of God’s Word, have come to a place where they go, now I see. And again, they don’t say, no, I’m a Calvinist, because they never hear me use that term. I don’t use that term a lot. I have no problem with it. I know what people mean by it when they use it. And in one sense, you say, are you Calvinistic? Of course I am. But as you go through the Word of God, here’s my point.

I want you, if you struggle with some aspects of it, and particularly this one, that Christ died for a particular people, intended to die for a particular people, then I ask you simply just keep reading your Bible. There are a few things here I put before you to think about. First, the intent of Christ’s death. The language of Scripture shows intent. To save what’s sometimes designated the elect. He’s going to save the elect. This purpose cannot fail. These people for whom He is suffering cannot be lost. He’s going to save them because He is going to deal with the problem, their sin. So they must, by reason, have the problem dealt with. And be acceptable before God.

Christ came to secure something. It’s not some mere potentiality, it is effectual. He’s going to do a work that will be effectual to its end. And as you read the Scripture, you’ll see this intent. Think also of the nature of the atonement. The atonement and what Christ is doing upon the cross again is not hypothetical. It’s not that it could save. It’s going to save. It must save. It must be saving. You start making it hypothetical, you start asking yourself, well what if no one then is saved? And if that’s the line you’re going to go down, that’s a conclusion that is entirely possible.

Comes under the efficacious work of Jesus Christ or enjoys the benefits of it. But the atonement, true atonement, must actually accomplish reconciliation. It must actually redeem. It must actually forgive. And all those for whom Christ died, these benefits are secured. You can’t end up in this place in which you have people who are suffering under God’s divine judgment and then say the same people have their sins forgiven, that Jesus paid for their sins, a debt paid for but still suffering under the debt and the penalty of the debt. How can you pay for the debt? How can the sins be paid for? How can the work be accomplished for them and them still suffer as if it wasn’t? So Christ secures the work. He’s doing it for, for the transgression of my people. Just let that language bed in. It’s for my people.

So that’s why we sing. The top lady is perhaps the best at expressing these truths in his hymns. I mentioned it this morning. Payment God will not twice demand. First at my bleeding shirt, his hand, and then again at mine. Now I know you can read a scripture and you’re going to say again about 1 John 2 and so on. There are simple ways of understanding those texts that don’t undermine what I’m saying. Believe me, there are. I can’t go and start preaching 1 John 2 to you. That’s not something I can spend any time doing. But I can say this to you. Go to 1 John 2. Read the text. Read it. In fact, put it into a document. And then go and put in, side by side, the prophecy of Caiaphas in John, I think it’s John 11. Go and put them side by side. Put the prophecy of Caiaphas, that it needs be that one die for the nation, and not for this nation only, but the, what’s the language used? Those that are scattered abroad, the chosen of God scattered abroad, or something like that.

Go and put it side by side, and then put 1 John 2 side by side. It’s the same, the same thing, only, those that are chosen of God scattered abroad, the elect of God scattered abroad, becomes the world. So you have the same human writer of John’s Gospel and 1 John. It’s still John. But John in one place takes Caiaphas’ prophecy word for word and then he takes it and he kind of reframes it slightly, not for their sins only but also for the sins of the whole world. What does he mean by world? Is it everyone or is it somehow shaped by Caiaphas’ prophecy? People across the world, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of skin color, regardless of religious affiliation beforehand, regardless of their position or where they’re from, this message is going to redeem people from all nations.

When you read our Savior’s language, He understands that His work is for specific people. So John 10 is His sheep. When you read John 10, read it carefully. Read it in light of the things I’m saying. If this is new to you, I’m not trying to say you need to walk out of here believing everything I have said. I am asking you to walk out of here and go and test Scripture. Go and look at Scripture. And if you come across a verse and you say, well, look at what Peter says, that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I say, yes. Look what he says. God is long-suffering, right? The reason that judgment, that’s the context, talking about judgment. The reason that God is long-suffering to us-ward, to us-ward, previously in the epistle, he’s referred to them as the elect. And so he’s long-suffering to us, or to the elect, not willing that any, any who, any what, any of those people, those elect people, should perish. He is long-suffering in his judgment because he has a people to save. He has a specific people, and they must be born, and they must hear the gospel and respond to it. The Holy Spirit redeem them, draw them to Christ, and see them saved. All of them must be gathered in.

You want to know when this world will end? I tell you, the world will end as soon as God sees fit, once all of those are gathered in. And at some point after that, then it will all be wrapped up. But not until then. They’re people that still need to be washed in the blood of Christ and experience His saving grace, then He will suspend judgment to the world, even though it deserves it, because He’s long-suffering, not to everyone indiscriminately, but to usward. Paul writes about Christ giving Himself for the church. In Romans 8, he refers to them as the elect. And if you’re going to start playing games with those words and make them say something they don’t say, well, that’s between you and the Lord.

To me, I’ve never had a problem with this. It always made sense to me. I didn’t understand it as soon as I was converted, but as soon as it was there or in front of me, I said, of course. Yeah, obviously, obviously, because it all fits. I didn’t seek Him, He sought me. Why did He seek me? Because I was one of them. There’s none that seeks after God, none righteous, none at one, none who understands. All are going out of the way. Every single person. Why then does anyone come to enjoy God’s grace? Because they’re a people Christ died for, and a people He is going to save, and a people whose wills He is going to change and make them willing on the day of His power. So they cannot but come.

And I’ve helped you understand this before. I think I’ve mentioned this when I first was confronted with me when someone said to me about, I don’t understand this election business. It seemed weird to me that you’d have a man, you know, and the way he illustrated it, the analogy he gave was there’s a man who was tied to a tree. God’s telling him to come, but you’re saying that he, you know, that in some way because of his nature or his character he can’t come or because he’s not chosen he can’t come and so he’s tied to a tree and God’s saying whosoever will may come and beckoning to him but the man is reaching out trying to get away but he’s tied to the tree. And I was a new believer when I heard this, you know, I just kind of nodded and thought about it. And then when I eventually read the Bible and understood these things, I thought, this all came back to me. I looked around and I thought about that man’s illustration. I thought, no, you don’t get it. Someone’s never explained this to you or something, you’ve missed it because man’s not tied to a tree and he’s reaching out but he can’t come to God as he’s beckoning to him in the gospel. Man, by nature, is hanging on to the tree. White knuckle, holding on to it, he will not let go of his sin and he will not come to Christ that he might have life. He won’t come. It takes a divine work of God the Holy Spirit, nothing less, to turn that man’s heart right around so that he looks and wants Jesus Christ as he’s offered in the gospel. And that’s the order of salutis, that’s the order of salvation. Man by nature will never come near God. It’s there in Romans 3, I’ve already quoted it to you. And so it takes the Holy Spirit coming in sovereignly into the heart of a man so that with new eyes, with a principle of life within the soul, he can hear the words of the gospel. See Jesus Christ as He is offered and respond, believing and turning from his sin. That’s the only way any man is ever saved, by a work of God. Salvation is of the Lord. When He says that, He is not saying that He’s just, salvation is provided by God. No, it is all God. And you would not seek Him, nor would I. Not in an eternity would we ever seek Him until He first draws us to Himself. And thus Christ’s work. Think about it this way. For whom does He pray?

Think of Him not in His vicarious atoning work. Think of Him in His intercessory work. For whom is He praying? What did He say in John 17? I pray not for the world. I pray not for them. I’m praying for those whom the Father has given to me. If that’s the limitation of His prayers, that is the limitation of His atonement. He is not in contradiction. He is not laying His life down for every single person without any discrimination whatsoever and then only praying that it might be efficacious for some. He is dying for them and He is praying for them specifically. Particularly, definitely, and that is why the work of Jesus Christ is fully successful. That is why there will not be an unoccupied seat in glory. They will all, those places, as we sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we will sit and there will be not one empty seat. Every one will be filled. Nor will there be those that are standing off with nowhere to sit. The precise number is appointed. The precise people have been given. When Christ came into this world for them, it was that He might save, what? His people from their sins. And that is the message of God’s Word. He gave Himself and continues to pray for a specific people.

And there you have it right here in this text, for the transgression of my people was He stricken. And if you understand this, you will respond exactly or similarly, I should say, to the way a lady in Calgary responded when she saw this without any arguments about Calvinism or any discussion about the five points or anything, didn’t mention it at all. It took her six months or so to realize, three to six months to realize that what I was saying sounded different to what the 26 years she had been in another church. It seems like you’re saying God is the one that saves and does all the work. I was like, I hope it’s more than seems like. I hope that’s what I’m saying.

And so just let it marinate there. And then about another six months later, I remember it because it was around Christmas time and she comes and she’s telling me about telling her son. And we’re sitting at McDonald’s and I just began to weep. Why did He choose me? And I sat there as a pastor of her soul and just thought to myself, yes, now she gets it. I don’t have to say anything. She now gets it. That’s the whole point. God will not give His glory to another. She had lived for years believing that she had some little bit to contribute, that she had been a good girl and responded to the gospel. But the first time in almost three decades, she had come to realize it was not me seeking for Him. He sought me. Then the question rises, why? Why would He ever be stricken for me? Why would He ever die for me? Why would He ever love me? And I want to go to glory with people like that who live in the wonder. They still can’t get over it. That He loves and died for them.

Maybe you’re here and you’re wondering, well, where does that leave me? I’ll tell you where it leaves you. It’s very simple. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You say, but you’ve said that Christ died for a particular people. I say, sure. Sometimes God’s word gives us a little insight into how God functions and the order and decrees everything. So we get a little insight into it, and we end up like Paul. Oh, the depth of the riches, and so on. His ways are unsearchable and past finding out. We end up there. We start prying into what God has revealed about His decree and His work and His sovereignty, and we go, we can’t begin to understand it. Sometimes the Bible goes there. Some of those things we’re addressing here tonight. But for the most part, God’s word is really plain. It looks at it from a human perspective and lays your responsibility on you and says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now is the day of salvation. Repent and believe the gospel. Look and live. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. They are all calling you to act now. Believing that He will save you, that He will have you. Why? Because you’re a sinner. Christ died for sinners. And He issues a call to all. The call goes without discrimination to the world. Repent and believe. So if you want it, you can have it. Repent and believe.

Let’s bow together in prayer. I trust you understand I hold no ill will personally towards those who may not fully grasp these things or may take things differently. And I’m not inclined to get into arguments about these things, but this is what I believe God’s Word says. Looking at the text tonight seemed appropriate just to reflect upon it for a moment. It’s for the transgression of His people. You can be one of those people. You can know it, not by prying into the eternal counsels of the triune God, but by simply turning from your sin and believing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Just believe. Don’t try to figure out. Am I one of those people? No, no, no. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

Lord, bless Thy Word. We pray for grace to open eyes. We pray for the Spirit to move upon hearts. We pray for salvation in this house. Grant, O God, that no one will be caught up in the confusion focusing upon the wrong thing, trying to figure out, am I elect? No, let them figure out that they’re sinners. Let them figure out that Jesus saves sinners who come to Him. So be merciful. We pray against the enemy and how he uses divine truth to distort in the hearts of people what Thou hast revealed. Please, O God, shepherd the souls of men and women and boys and girls. To be humbled by this truth, and to cry out to Thee for mercy. May we all live in an attitude of ongoing thanksgiving, for the transgression of me was He stricken. My sins laid on Him. Praise God.

Bless us now. Be with us. Help us to fellowship. Do so to the encouragement of each of our souls. Strengthen us with the week that lies before. Help us to live for Thy glory. Help us to invite others to come and hear Thy Word next Lord’s Day. May we think of Thy will, Thy desire, that Thy house would be filled. And so we pray that there would be an invitation that goes out and men would respond and hear and come and consider the great truth that Christ came into the world to save sinners.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all Thy people now and evermore. Amen.