Identifying With Christ

Isa. 53:3-5,

HE WAS MADE SICK

The next step in this awful drama is found in Isaiah 53:3-5. (R. V., marg.) “He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of pains, and acquainted with sickness: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our sicknesses, and carried our diseases; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”

It was not what the Roman soldiers nor the angry mob did. It was what God did. It shocks us when we realize that He was stricken, smitten of God with our diseases and our sin. There was laid upon Him the diseases and sicknesses of die human race. Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath made him sick.” He was not only made sin and separated from His Father, until His broken heart cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” but the diseases of the human race fell upon Him. Isaiah 52:14 (Margin, Cross-Reference Bible) “Just as many were amazed over Him, and princes on His account shuddered, were astonished and appalled, amazed, frightened. His visage was so marred, unlike to a man, and His form unlike to the sons of man, so deformed was His appearance not to be a man, and His figure resembled a man. “This was spiritual suffering. This was when the hidden man of the heart became not only sin, but sickness. This was the spiritual side of the agony of the cross. This was when our sin and diseases were laid upon His spirit. His spirit was made sin. His spirit was made sick. If the heart could only take it in that He was made sin, and that we were identified with Him on the cross, then we could grasp the reality of His Substitutionary work. This truth has been a doctrine instead of a reality to most of us. He not only laid our sin on Him, but He laid us on Him. Whole man was involved in this sacrifice—His spirit, Soul, and His body. We were nailed to the cross with Him and in Him. Our diseases were part of Him. When the heart recognizes this, it will be the end of the dominion of disease. For if He was made sick with our sickness, Satan has no legal right to put diseases upon us, and in the Name of Jesus we can free ourselves from Satan’s power. True, we have mortal bodies, but this mortal body is. Filled with the life of God. 2 Corinthians 5:4 “That what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.

Romans 6:i4 “Sin shall not have dominion over you,” or literally “Sin shall not lord it over you.”

Neither shall disease and pain lord it over us. We see now that if Satan has lost his dominion, he cannot put disease upon us. We understand that sickness is spiritual. It is manifested in our physical bodies as a disease. The world sees sickness in our bodies, God sees sickness in our spirits.

• God heals us through the Word,
• It is the Word that heals our spirits.
• It is the Word that recreates us.
• It is the Word that produces faith.
• It is the Word that unveils to us what we really are in Christ—New Creations.
• It is the Word, then, that brings healing to these sick spirits of ours.
• Sickness is a spiritual condition manifested in the physical body.

If He was made sin, and if He put our sin away, we need not be ruled by it. If He was made sick with our sickness, and if He put diseases away, we need not be ruled by sickness and disease.  We, with our diseases and sicknesses, were nailed to cross in Christ. When we recognize this, we will no longer struggle  for faith, for Righteousness, and holiness, because we will know that we were nailed to the cross and died with Him, were buried with Him, suffered with Him, were made alive with Him, were Justified with Him, conquered Satan with Him, were raised with Him, and finally were seated Him. The whole program of that Substitutionary Sacrifice is made real in us by the Spirit through the Word. All these things are ours now. Ephesians 1:3.

JB