He Suffered for Us All

… so that, as Paul says, he might sanctify the people through his own blood (Hebrews 13:12). For he suffered not for himself (far from it) but for the whole world under heaven.

The all-wise Paul will bear witness, writing of God the Father: “He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, so that with him he might also give us all things” (Romans 8:32). And the Son himself says somewhere, through the lyre of the Psalmist, to his Father and God in heaven: “Sacrifice and offering you did not want, but a body you prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.’ To do your will, O God, I have desired” (Psalm 40:6–8; compare Hebrews 10:5–7).

The worship under the Law was of no use to those on earth for taking away sin, since the sacrifices of oxen and the slaughter of sheep were not what God wanted. So the true Lamb, “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), offered himself for us “as a fragrant aroma” (Ephesians 5:2). Then, having endured death in the flesh, he set the whole world under heaven free from both death and sin. For One who outweighs all in worth suffered for all, so that he might rule and reign over all.

Paul will confirm this again when he writes: “For this reason Christ died and lived, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9). And again: “One died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15).

Rightly, then, the prophet says: “This man, who was under the blow, who knew how to bear sickness, whose face was turned away, who was dishonored and not esteemed, bears our sins and suffers pain for us; and we reckoned him to be in toil, under a blow, and in affliction” (Isaiah 53:3–4).

Look again, I ask you, with what skill the prophetic word moves forward here. It takes on the part of those who did not know the mystery of Christ, and who thought that he came to suffer as one paying for his own sins. “For we reckoned him to be in toil, under a blow, and in affliction,” he says; that is, we supposed that the suffering had come upon him from God, as if for some sins, and that he was in toil, under a blow, and in affliction because of that sin.

But it is not so at all; rather, “he was wounded because of our sins, and made weak because of our lawless deeds” (Isaiah 53:5). Then he gives further reasons, through which one can see that he “who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21) came to suffer for the sake of our salvation and life.

For long ago we stood apart from God in enmity, fighting against his holy laws, not bearing the yoke of obedience, and refusing to serve him. But it was necessary …