Christ in the Old Testament

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. (NIV)

Isaiah 53:6

Today’s Reading: Isaiah 53:4-6

Because we are all sinners – each of us individually have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God – the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. The God of Creation, Jehovah, the Great I AM chose Jesus as the final scapegoat. God laid all of our sins and guilt on Jesus and he paid the punishment that we deserved.

The Hebrew word used for “iniquity” is the same word ʽāwōn that was used in Isaiah 53:5. The word combines the sinful deed, the guilt that it brings and the punishment that it deserves into a single word. Jesus paid for all of it so that we would be free from all of it. We are free from the bondage of sin, free from the guilt of our sin, and free of the eternal punishment we deserve for our sin.

Isaiah uses the Hebrew word pāgaʽ that he will use again in verse 12 to close out this beautiful chapter. It is translated in the NIV as “has laid on him.” Other translations say:

• to fall on him (NASB1995)
• to attack him (NET)
• hath laid on him (KJV)
• put on him (NCV)

Pāgaʽ means to meet or to encounter someone. It pictures the moment where two parties, paths or events meet. This encounter could be friendly or hostile, accidental or intentional. This word pāgaʽ has been used a few times before in Scripture:

• “He said to them, ‘If you are willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede (pāgaʽ) with Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf’” (Gen 23:8).
• “Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met (pāgaʽ) him” (Gen 32:1).
• “Then they said, ‘The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us (pāgaʽ) with plagues or with the sword’” (Ex 5:3).
• “The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death; when the avenger comes upon (pāgaʽ) the murderer, the avenger shall put the murderer to death” (Num 35:19).
• “Zebah and Zalmunna said, ‘Come, do it (pāgaʽ) yourself. “As is the man, so is his strength.”‘ So Gideon stepped forward and killed them, and took the ornaments off their camels’ necks” (Judges 8:21).

If we grab all these different uses and put them together in Isaiah, we could say that God brought all the sins of the world to the cross, put them on Jesus, and then struck him down. Recall that God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his one and only son, yet provided a ram as a substitute to spare Isaac (Gen 22). This was simply painting the picture for us of what God would eventually have to do to His one and only son.

God spared Abraham from following through with striking his son. God did not spare Himself of the task. He struck down His son to pay for the sins of the world for all eternity. God turned out the lights and brought darkness on the land for this pāgaʽ at the cross between God and His son. The crowd that day didn’t see everything when JHWH made the ultimate sacrifice to lay all of our sin on his son and sacrifice him for us.

“Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
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.
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.”

Today’s Prayer: Thank you Lord for loving me so much that you would sacrifice your own son for me.