Lent is time set apart in preparation of Easter. Christianity has set this season apart to express grief and repentance over sin. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we but dust and to dust we shall return. This is also a season of rejoicing in anticipation to the new life and hope found in Jesus Christ. Simon Peter taught: “He bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Pet.2:24-25).[1] Christ suffers upon the tree of the cross so that the broken and lost can be restored to the Lord. God is the one who cares and watches over the very lives of His people.
All those within the first century community of Christ familiar with the Jewish Scriptures would have immediately recognized Peter’s connection between the passion of Christ and the Suffering Servant spoken about by Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah declared, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; | he was crushed for our iniquities; |upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, | and with his wounds we are healed. | All we like sheep have gone astray; | we have turned—every one—to his own way; | and the Lord has laid on him |the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:5-6). [Modern folks get this by just checking their cross-reference notes in barley legible tiny fonts.] What Isaiah foresees concerning the Suffering Servant, Peter finds fulfillment in Christ.[2]
Christ’s suffering and death is in one sense judicial. Sin is an offense and transgression against God. Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, and they fell into sin. This original sin even affects their progeny. Nevertheless, we too commit actual sins against God and others. All stand as condemned sinners before a holy and righteous God. Our sin kindles upon us divine wrath. Yet, Jesus suffers and dies on behalf of sinners. Propitiation for sin is made through the shedding of His own blood. He dies so that others can live. Put it another way: “the scourging Jesus received before he was crucified and the wounds inflicted on him when he was crucified were the penalty Jesus paid for the redemption of the believer.”[3] Believers are made righteous by the blood of the Lamb (Rom. 3:21-30; Heb, 9:11-10-12; 1 Jn. 2:1-2). It is on account of the vicarious suffering and death of Christ that believers can die to their sin and live righteously.
Christ’s suffering and death is in another sense medicinal. Sin is like a disease that has infected us all ever since the fall of Adam and Eve. We experience life in a fallen world severed from union with God, the source of all life. Just as the severed branch withers and dies, cut-off from God, we devolve into sinful depravity until our expiration date. Yet, it is by Christ’s wounds that we are healed. He provides the remedy that restores us to wholeness. Christ is the true vine, we are the branches, and He provides us with supernatural sustenance for everlasting life (Jn. 15:1-11). The wounds of Christ that bring healing 1 Peter 2:24 concerns the mending of the broken relationship between God and humanity. The healing in this context is spiritual.
There is still an element of Isaiah 53 that pertains to physical healing. The Gospel of Matthew tells of Jesus healing a leper, the paralyzed servant of a Roman centurion, and Peter’s mother-in-law along with many others who were sick then notes “this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases’” (Matt. 8:1-17; cf. Isa. 53:4). What Isaiah prophesied about the suffering servant taking on our infirmities and bearing our diseases finds realization in the healing ministry of Christ.
Make no mistake, supernatural physical healings are possible, for all things are possible with God, but divine healings are never guaranteed on this side of eternity. Even the physical healing miracles performed by Christ were just a foretaste of something even greater that descends from heaven. Hank Hanegraaff says, “One day, ‘there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’ (Revelation 21:4). However, as Paul points out, ‘We hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently’ (Romans 8:25, emphasis added). In the meantime, we will all experience sickness and suffering. Indeed, those who live before Christ returns will all die of their last disease—the death rate is one per person and we’re all going to make it!”[4]
Jesus raised the dead; however, what we see with the centurion’s servant (Matt. 8:5-12; Lk. 7:1-10), Jairus’ daughter (Mk. 5:21-24, 35-43; Matt. 9:18-26; Lk. 8:40-42, 49-56), and Lazarus (Jn. 11:1-43) are extensions to the present life. They were miraculously given additional years to live, but they eventually passed from this life to the next, and they are presently anticipating of something greater. When Jesus appears a second time, the saints will be raised immortal, imperishable, and incorruptible (Heb. 9:27-28).
Our spiritual health is restored in Christ and He gives us the blessed hope of bodily resurrection at the final consummation of all things.
Christ suffering and death is even the pattern for a Christian’s response to the injustices that are part and parcel of life in this sinful and fallen world. He reminds the believers, “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?” But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:19-21). When a person who professes to be a Christian commits a sin, the institutions of law and order have every right to punish the criminal. Nothing is gained in committing offenses against others, but all the honor is due to the righteous sufferer.
It is through humility and self-sacrifice that Jesus is exalted above all, given the name above all names, and every knee will bow and confess Him as Lord. This same attitude is to be incorporated into the life of the Christian (Phil. 2:1-11).
The model of Christ’s vocation as Isaiah’s Suffering Servant is then directly applicable to social relationships. The servant is to submit to the master whether the master is just or unjust (1 Pet. 2:18).[5] The same applies to being in subjection to human institutions (1 Pet. 2:13-16). Peter calls us to “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Pet. 2:17). This honor would have even been extended to civic leaders who were less than honorable. Nero Caesar, the ruling Roman Emperor around the time of the composition of 1 Peter, had no qualms blaming the Christians for the fire that destroyed much of Rome, allowing them to be “covered with the skins of beasts,” “torn by dogs,” “nailed to crosses” or “doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired” (Tacitus, Annals xv. 44). The Christian receives divine mercy and the same sort of divine mercy can be extended to others.[6]
Peter is hardly turning a blind eye to the injustices being inflicted upon the Church, calling devotes to simply accept suffering in silence; rather, believers were to find ways to bring those duped into waging spiritual warfare against God and His people to come to a true evaluation and defect to the other side. “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable,” writes the Apostle, “So that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Pet. 2:2). The mission objective is never total annihilation. No. The mission is to bring the lost to the cross so that they can find their way back to their true home. C.S. Lewis gets the idea in stating, “Enemy-occupied territory—that is what the world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say, landed in disguise, and is call us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”[7]
Christ suffering and death upon the tree of the cross resolves the problem of sin. He dies for our sin so that we can live righteously before God. He reconnects us to the source of life so that we can be restored to spiritual heath and participate in the resurrection to everlasting life at the final consummation of all things. He is quintessential example of the kind humility and self-sacrifice which defeats the powers of darkness.
— WGN
[1] All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016) unless noted
[2] Even Jesus made it quite clear that the vocation of the Son of Man included suffering, death, and rising again after three days and the disciple received a severe rebuke for his own disbelief (Mk. 8:31-33; cf. 9:30-32; 10:32-34; 14:3-16:8). Luke even tells us that two disciples met the resurrected Lord on the road to Emmaus, “and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
[3] Simon J. Kistemaker and William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Epistles of Peter and the Epistle of Jude, vol. 16, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 112.
[4] Hank Hanegraaff, The Complete Bible Answer Book (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008, 2016), 183; https://www.equip.org/bible_answers/does-isaiah-535-guarantee-our-healing-today-/; Walt Russell, “1 Peter 2:24: Is there Healing in this Application,” Christian Research Journal, 24, 1 [2004]: https://www.equip.org/article/1-peter-224-is-there-healing-in-this-application/; Elliot Miller, “Healing: Does Always Heal?” Forward, 2, 3 [1979]: https://www.equip.org/article/healing-does-god-always-heal/
[5] People in ancient Rome became servants or slaves for a variety of reasons but there were nuances between slavery in the first century Roman Empire and what was common to the Black slavery common to the West from the 15th to 19th centuries, which included the United States of America. See Jeffrey B. Russell, “Christianity and Black Slavery,” Christian Research Journal, 36 , 1 [2013]: https://www.equip.org/article/christianity-black-slavery/.
[6] Rather than condemning the whole world, God the Father gave the Son so that whosoever believes will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16-17). Christ even taught us to move beyond the eye-for-an-eye lex talion justice to extending mercy through turning the other cheek, going the extra-mile, and so forth, for even God gives rain to the just and unjust, which is the common grace from above (Matt. 5:38-48; cf. Lk. 6:27-36; Rm. 12:14-21).
[7] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Scribner, 1952), 36.
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