Wesley Corpus

where the Prophet describes him as ‘bearing our griefs, or sins, ‘and carrying our sorrows. (Verse 4.) “All we,” says he, “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.” (Verse 6.) All mankind have forsaken God, and placed their own will upon his throne, and so were liable to the highest punishment, when the Mediator voluntarily interposed himself between them and the just Judge. And the incomprehensible love of God, that he might spare them, ‘spared not his own Son.” This is shown in those words: ‘The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. It was on this account that ‘He was oppressed and afflicted, and brought as a lamb to the slaughter;’ (verse 7;) while God ‘made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.’ (2 Cor. v. 21.) This is expressed in the ninth and tenth verses: ‘He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, when he ‘made his soul an offering for sin.” How exactly do his own words agree with these: “I am the good Shepherd, and I lay down my life for the sheep !” (John x. 14, 15.) For them “was he taken from prison and from judgment, and cut off out of the land of the living.” (Isai. liii. 8.) How doth God herein “commend his love towards’ us, in ‘delivering up his own Son to die for us!’ Yea, God “was pleased with bruising him, when, clothed with our flesh, and bearing our sins, he manifested to angels and men his infinite love of divine justice, till, being ‘made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,’ he satisfied its utmost demand. “It was then God “was pleased to bruise him, when “he made his soul an offering for sin. He then appeared before the Judge of all, under ‘the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, as the Apostle speaks. And therefore God was pleased ‘to condemn sin in the flesh;” (Rom. viii.3,4;) to ‘bruise him” whosustained the person of sinners. But this was only the prelude of a glorious victory.