Isaiah 22:25 - Homiletics

Messiah's burden and Messiah's death.

How Christ's death atones for sin we know not, and need not too curiously inquire. But, if plain words have a plain meaning, it is impossible to doubt that this is the teaching of Scripture. "By his stripes we are healed" ( Isaiah 53:5 ); "He is the Propitiation for our sins" ( 1 John 2:2 ); "One died for all" ( 2 Corinthians 5:14 ). It is quite possible that there is something in the nature of things, which we cannot fathom, that made it impossible for man's sins to be forgiven unless God died for them. Our wisdom is to avoid curious speculation, and to view the matter on its practical side. Thus viewed, it manifestly calls on us for three things.

I. INTENSE HATRED OF SIN , ON ACCOUNT OF ITS HAVING CAUSED MESSIAH 'S DEATH . If an animate, or even an inanimate, thing has caused the death of one we loved, how bitterly we detest it! Often we cannot bear to look upon it, nay, even to see a thing of the same kind. How, then, should we hate sin—hateful in itself, hateful in its effects, hateful in its origin, most hateful in that it caused the death of the one Man who alone of all that have ever lived did not deserve to die! And he, moreover, One who dearly loved us, who came down from heaven for us, lived a life of privation and suffering for us, at last died for our sakes.

II. INTENSE LOVE OF CHRIST , ON ACCOUNT OF HIS HAVING DIED FOR US . "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But Christ died for his enemies. Sin is an insuperable barrier between God and man, sets them at variance, makes them adversaries. And till Christ died man could not be forgiven. So he died for those with whom he was at enmity! And died by what a death!

1. More painful probably than any other.

2. Considered at the time more disgraceful.

3. Aggravated by the insults of lookers-on.

4. Regarded as bringing a man under a curse.

III. INTENSE LOVE OF GOD THE FATHER , ON ACCOUNT OF HIS GIVING HIS SON TO DIE FOR US . We cannot realize the love of the Father for the Son; but we cannot doubt that it transcends any love known on earth. Yet he gave him to suffer all that he suffered—and why? For us. Because he loved us. As our Lord himself says, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" ( John 3:16 ). If the knowledge of this fact fail to stir up love towards the Father in our souls, we must be "past feeling" ( Ephesians 4:19 ), utterly dead to any high motive, scarcely better than "brute beasts" (Jud Isaiah 1:10 ).