The issue in Isaiah 53:4-5 is not whether Christ was getting punished for his own sins or ours; rather, it was whether he was being punished at all, and instead learning discipline for an awesome life-and-death battle against Satan to win peace and healing for humankind.

The righteousness, obedience, or faithfulness of the entire life and career of the Lord Jesus Christ was decisive for our salvation—including, most notably, our justification—yet not, as the Protestant Reformers theorized, because it was “imputed” to sinners (or even only to “the elect) when they believe, so as to become “their own” possession. Much rather, it was because of the EXTREME REWARD it made Christ worthy of receiving, which he, in turn, gives away FOR FREE (hence the expression “free grace“) to all sinners who, under the hearing of this Explanation and Proclamation of extraordinary divine power are thereby drawn back to God, acquiesce in faith, and consequently receive the Holy Spirit as experiential pledge of the promised full inheritance to come.

It’s at this point that the proper role of imputation (logiz-) kicks in. It is precisely this faith, generated by the power of God’s proclaimed Explanation for the cross—namely, that without such a conclusive public execution any alleged subsequent resurrection would be placed in permanent doubt and regarded as a probable hoax—that God considers, regards, credits, counts, or imputes AS RIGHTEOUSNESS! And of course the ensuing coming of the Holy Spirit “finishes” the job by maturing us in actuality into conformity with the image of Christ (including assorted fruits of righteousness). [3/3/11; 3/18/24]

The dogma of “penal substitution” is strangely reminiscent of some psychotropic drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft, etc.—it all too often produces severe, disinhibited, non-characteristic, bizarre, occasionally violent, side-effects, plus disfiguring after-effects that get misattributed to non-theological influences. They are unpredictable in specific cases of adherence to the regimen (“every body is different and responds uniquely,” “no two individuals react exactly the same,” etc.) and can be surprising, out of character, and profoundly shocking. The punitive inferno of “penal satisfaction” is like a sleeping fire-breathing dragon or slumbering volcano. It might even be said that this vaunted cure for human sinfulness is all too often worse than the illness of sin itself because, counterintuitively, it strangely exacerbates sin, making people mean, vengeful, unforgiving, conceited, arrogant, self-righteous, devious, hypocritical, exclusivistic…(“Please carefully read the enclosed drug warnings concerning known side-effects, adverse symptoms, etc.”). You get the idea. It’s like so many psychotropic drugs; they produce disfiguring tics, which do not always manifest until after withdrawal from the insidious substance (which alike triggered, aggravated, and masked its own dreadful effects). Hence, the destabilized state of being “in withdrawal” from penal substitution may risk prompting the brewing resentments to finally break surface unexpectedly, with explosive consequences. [3/4/11; 3/23/24]

In commenting on Isaiah 53:4a, “Surely he hath born our infirmities and carries our sorrows…,” the Geneva Bible note “f” declares, “That is, the punishment due to our sins: for the which he hath both suffered and made satisfaction, Mat. 8:17, I Pet. 2:24 [emphases added].” On the contrary, neither scripture cited says any such thing. Matthew explains its meaning in relation to Jesus’ expelling demons and healing the sick. And Peter expressly asserts that he bore our sins themselves, not punishment for them. ‘Satisfaction‘ is nowhere in sight, nor even implied.

The Geneva notes proceed similarly in comment on the next phrase, 53:4b, “…yet we did judge him as ^gplagued, and smitten of God, and humbled.” “^gWe judged evil, thinking that he was punished for his own sins, and not for ours.” Yet nowhere is it written that he “was punished…for our sins,” and certainly not by God! Rather was he smitten by Satan, as Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12 both make unambiguously clear at the outset and conclusion of Biblical Scripture, with no different doctrine sandwiched in between. The real issue in Isaiah’s text is not whether he was punished for his own sins or for ours (real answer: neither), but that he was undergoing necessary endurance training with the goal of achieving peace for us all after an ominous duel-to-the-death, winner-take-all encounter with a supremely daunting foe.

However, the Geneva Bible notes continue their error in the succeeding verse, 53:5, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was broken for our iniquities: the ^hchastisement of our peace [was] upon him, and with his stripes we are healed,” “^hHe was chastised for our reconciliation, I Cor. 15:3 [emphases added].” Yet that is hardly what this text teaches, much less the cited New Testament passage, especially not if punitive “chastisement” from God is intimated. Rather, Christ endured the Father’s discipline (LXX, paideia), without a hint of resentment or sin in response, nor of any wrath from God whatsoever.

However, Geneva is not satisfied to cease and desist. In a culminating error it next asserts at 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid uopn him the ⁱiniquity of us all,” “ⁱMeaning, the punishment of our iniquity, and not the fault itself [emphases added].” Well that’s a comfort! Nay, but the diametric opposite is the case in actuality. Scripture, like its parallels and echoes elsewhere, always speaks of (and seems to mean) precisely the “fault,” i.e., the seriously harmful, injurious felony that landed the just, holy, and innocent One on a tree, under a wickedly misplaced curse! [3/5/11; 3/23/24]

Turretin erred in alleging that God’s unique Son stood as ‘surety’ for human debts of sin.

It stretches parables beyond the breaking point to insist that they be put to the yeoman service of abstract, technical dogmas. Case in point: the parable of the unjust debtor in Matthew 18:21-35. It teaches simply that we should forgive the sins (conceived as “debts“) of others against us, even as God forgives our sins (likewise represented as “debts” to Him) without demanding payment of any kind. Now, in line with the post-Reformation Genevan-Italian Calvinist theologian Francis Turretin, to interpose the assumption that all such forgiven debts of sin must be paid for by someone who stands as “surety” for our debts is to burden the poor parable to the brink of collapse. Instead, God Himself “absorbs” the loss from love, expressed as gracious forgiveness. He “stands surety” for His own “losses”; He did not exact them from His beloved Son at the bitter cross. For in tandem with the Father’s loss of His dear Son to a wretchedly dishonorable and undeservedly agonizing demise stands Christ’s own individual loss of life (though without loss of divine favor!) in the event. Accordingly, the role of Jesus on the cross was that of displaying, manifesting, and revealing to mankind exactly how his Father (whose perfect image and characterization he in fact is, after all) was at that very moment responding to the sins of His slayers, for is this not PRECISELY THE DEMONSTRATION OF GOD’S LOVE THAT WE NEED TO KNOW IN ORDER TO GET CONCILIATED TO HIM?

To imagine rather, with Turretin, that not only was even full “REPAYMENT of the debt” not sufficient to achieve forgiveness (flying in the face of abundant conciliatory appeals throughout the New Testament), but that additionally EXACTION OF PUNISHMENT was required, is not merely to make the analogy ‘walk on all fours,’ but to squash it ignobly like roadkill under THE JUGGERNAUT OF PENAL IMPOSITION, YEA, PUNITIVE PRESUMPTION! Thus does Turretin deal treacherously with Scripture in general and the Gospel in particular. We can leave it to God to judge those who depart from His Words. But we must not delay to correct them by whatever further Light He beams forth from Scripture in our day, furnished so abundntly with sophisticated and even computerized analytical tools unavailable until only decades ago. What excuse can we plead to keep plodding along in the treacherous aging ruts of fallible human traditions? [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

The Lord Jesus Christ paid for us and our salvation at the staggering loss of his own precious blood, for GOD REIMBURSED HIM WITH THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE TO FURTHER DISBURSE FREELY TO ALL WHO BELIEVE, SO AS TO CLEANSE THEM FROM ALL SIN AND THEN EMPOWER THEM WITH MIRACULOUS FAVORS IN ORDER TO TESTIFY TO GOD’S KINGDOM OF JUSTICE AND HENCE DRAW ALL MANKIND BACK TO GOD THEIR SAVIOR. [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

That the Greek preposition huper is by no means to be understood in a ‘substitutionary’ sense is clear, among other texts, from 1 John 3:16: “By this we know love, seeing that he, for our sakes, lays down his soul. We also ought to lay down our souls for the sake of the brethren.” That Francis Turretin* can so blithely overthrow the clear and simple meaning of such a Scripture where a perfectly obvious, uncomplicated, and ethically compelling parallel is drawn by the Holy Spirit is further evidence of the treachery of his scholastic tradition against the premial justice of God as laid down within inspired apostolic Scripture.

*Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. II (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994): 428. [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

Even as God gave His Son the Spirit “without measure” in order to heal and cure, in accordance with Isaiah’s prophecy (53:4), “Surely he bore our infirmities,” as Matthew quotes (8:17), so also God bequeathed Jesus the superabundant gift of the Holy Spirit, poured out at Pentecost and ever since, because he was willingly yet unjustly “pierced on account of our transgressions” and “crushed on account of our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5), for those supremely sinful human deeds of wicked ‘punishment’ that “God laid on him” (Isaiah 53:6) “brought us peace” and by those vicious wounds “we are healed.” The modus operandi was exactly the same on both fronts, contrary to Francis Turretin*, et al.

*Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. II (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994): 427. [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

Jesus did not suffer the ‘punishment due our sins‘ but rather the [unjust—”in his humiliation his judgment was taken away“! Isaiah 53:8 LXX, Acts 8:33] punishment of/from/by our sins! [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

The Devil has himself to thank for provoking the Power that is presently nullifying his kingdom and works of darkness. Seemingly clueless about the redemptive storm he would unleash by perpetrating such a magnitude of injustice and horror as the official, public, cruel crucifixion of his only rival for dominion over the world, he was foiled into overlooking the comparatively untapped potential of God’s restorative justice to save the upright and reward them despite even the interposition of death itself—in fact, all the more so because of its wrongful interruption of Jesus’ flawless career! [12/23/10; 8/15/23]

Sacrificial BLOOD was a type of Christ’s RESURRECTION

We know the blood of Jesus symbolizes resurrection from the dead because we know from Scripture that’s what happened to him necessarily after his blood was shed. The blood of cattle, sheep, and goats could ever only hint at this, but the Antitype fills it with its true, full, authentic meaning as a type of the Resurrection. [6/23/08]

One might have expected Christian theologians long, long ago to figure this out since resurrection was the unexpected key to the whole conundrum of Jewish soteriology. An actual resurrection is what unravels the whole tangle. [9/14/18]

If the blood is at the center of soteriology, then it follows that the Resurrection is at the center of soteriology.  Therefore, so is the Lord’s Supper…and in turn, Baptism…and, of course, so is the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and ever after.  There is a quite natural flow from blood to resurrection to Holy Spirit, and on to the ordinances that express them.  This concatenation of links has often gotten lost in the shuffle of post-apostolic theology and liturgy.  It’s long overdue to reconceive them both in light of the premial soteriology of the New Testament.  [6/23/08; 12/12/09; 7/06/16]

Jesus did at least one healing miracle (and thus “bore our illnesses” and “was burdened with our pains”—Isaiah 53:4) to prove that he could forgive sins—the visible to prove the invisible (all three synoptic Gospels report it—Matthew 9:2-8, Mark 2:3-12, Luke 5:17-26), the whole to validate the part!

Theologians routinely get this wrong because they still nurture a “penal substitution” view of the Atonement, and they can no healing in that sort of ‘atonement’. Indeed, it is not to be found there. Only on the resurrectionary atonement view can we clearly see that Isaiah’s language makes transgression, depravity and sin parallel to illness and pain, but such that the former (often invisible to humans) are included among the latter (usually visible), but all alike gathered up by the grand healing treatment flowing from Messiah’s wounding, crushing, beating, welts, humiliation, severance from the land of the living, i.e., death, via God’s vindicating justice that raised hum up from the grave with unearthly power and proof!

Thus James can likewise associate healing with forgiveness of sins (James 5:13-16), similarly making forgiveness follow healing! And Peter does something similar, drawing in fact from the very language of Isaiah (1 Peter 2:19-25). He finishes off his passage with a flourish, including all he has previously said about suffering unjustly (i.e., the very case of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant!), and, indeed, anticipating all he is going to say on the subject in the following three chapters(!) within the healing that comes “by [his] welt” (2:24; Isaiah 53:5)!

This should put to a much deserved rest, once and for all, those disparaging voices that claim to credit forgiveness of sins “in this age” but without its validating proofs and witnesses in healings of our sick, wounded, mortal bodies. Let’s get with the Kingdom program for this age of God’s lavish graciousness since the resurrectionary atonement manifested in His Son and our Savior, Jesus, the Lord of all, for goodness sake! [6/23/08]

There can be no greater proof that God is propitious toward us and our sins than that He raised Jesus from the dead instead of destroying his killers! And that’s why his blood is protective of us. It signals God’s righteousness into lifesaving, rescuing action on behalf of his needy, struggling, beleaguered, oppressed Covenant partners, i.e., all who trust His reputation for amazing salvations! ]6/23/08] His blood, being innocent in the extreme, never evoked God’s wrath so always triggers the flow of His graciousness to all who imbibe it with faith. [9/15/08]

An OPEN LETTER to Jesse Morrell and FRIENDLY CRITIQUE of The Vicarous Atonement of Christ (2012), part 9

The Governmental Theory of the Atonement doesn’t scruple to play in the same punitive ballpark conceptually as the penal satisfaction theory it claims to oppose and replace. In fact, they actually play by many or most of the same rules and agree on many shared assumptions. By far the most important common ground is their kindred blind spot concerning the flip side of penal justice, that is, premial justice. From what I have read so far, the latter gets virtually boycotted from any relevant discussion bearing on the Atonement by governmental theorists—exactly what I have come to expect of penal satisfaction discourse. Hence, Hugo Grotius and his followers had not fundamentally extricated themselves from the problematics of the party they were reacting against. (This is apparently not an infrequent occurrence, psychologically considered.) They remained immersed in a punitive mindset and thus attempted to account for the Atonement exclusively as a penal phenomenon.

However, distributive or retributive justice contains also a premial component. This component can single-handedly account for the nature and functions of the Atonement without any recourse whatever to punishment or legal penalty for sin(s). Jesus was the One for whom the entire ancient Covenant awaited with desperate anticipation, whom the Psalms and Prophets foretold: the One who, by his perfection of obedience, faithful to God without flaw, was worthy/deserving of receiving all the blessings promised in the Covenant, not to mention, he was not deserving of suffering any of the threatened/sanctioned curses of the Covenant. Therefore, when God, according to the unsearchable wealth of His wisdom, shockingly surrendered His dearly beloved and only-born Son to Satan’s ill-will—whose trial of him went beyond his prosecution of Job and even commandeered a curse of the Covenant in addition to a battery of assorted humiliations and torments intended only for chastening the wayward and vicious—God Himself bestirred His Spirit to do justice and avenge and fully compensate His suffering Servant according to his true just deserts…by raising him out of the grave as a crucified criminal and giving him glory, honor, power, sovereignty, all authority in heaven and on earth, plus a throne above all others. Oh, and did I mention wealth and control to graciously give gifts to mankind—all his believing brothers and sisters—the full measure of the very salvation for which he had been named Jesus: an inheritance of the agelong life of God’s covenanted Kingdom on the New Earth, with all the trimmings! (pant, pant!)

That gigantic package was the judicial payoff Messiah was bequeathed for “finishing” his training through the wrongful adversities that God appointed for his maturation into King of the created universe and qualified Savior for all mankind.

Hugo Grotius’s governmental theory of the Atonement must be understood against the backdrop of the utterly devastating barrage of arguments leveled by Faustus Socinus against Calvin’s novel penal satisfaction/substitution theory. Grotius recognized very evidently the crushing force of those arguments. Therefore his own theory, first and definitively articulated in the pages of his Defense of the Catholic Faith on the Satisfaction of Christ against the Sienese (referring to Socinus, who hailed from Siena, Italy), was a noble but in the end unsuccessful attempt to provide some more authentically Biblical accounting for the inner workings of the Atonement. In fact, as I have already pointed out, Grotius himself backhandedly confirmed this by his marginal glosses later in his life. He wrote in haste (to be fair, he might well have felt his life was on the line) but repented in leisure. The last I knew, those notes had not yet been published or subjected to concentrated study, such as a dissertation. Here’s another project begging for Latin laborers! We could surely learn an immense amount from the thoughtful repentance of a figure like Grotius, and such an examination could go far to illumine his own dark, complicated passages, which, as they stand, have tried the patience of many a painstaking scholar. That kind of undertaking will likely demonstrate the weakness of his “natural law” alternative to truly Biblical roots for founding his governmental theory of the Atonement. He may have presumed, as he certainly did elsewhere in his treatise on international law, that such a “natural law” basis “would be valid even if God did not exist” (as per Klaas Runia, “Hugo Grotius,” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Vol. IV, Philip E. Hughes, gen. ed. [Marshalltown, DE: The National Foundation for Christian Education, 1972.], pp. 421-22. However, it may be unfair to allege this quite so flatly as his own position. See the fuller context in John Witte, God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition [Grand Rapids, Mich.; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006], p. 463).

Still, for all that, there can be little question that Grotius was indeed seeking by his “refutation” a via media or middle way between Calvin’s position (also evidently still Arminius’s position, who might have seen through it, as he saw through so many other errors of Calvin’s soteriology, had he lived to old age) and Socinus’s regarding the Atonement, for if the attempt proved successful, it would incidentally have helped to vindicate the Remonstrant cause of which Grotius was an ardent devotee and defender, soon to suffer extended imprisonment for those beliefs.

Governmental atonement theory’s replacement of premial retribution with so-called public justice accounts for the distant, grim, impersonal, severe cast of its character. For this kind of justice, whether “personal” or “public,” is STILL PENAL AND THEREFORE DOES NOT—CAN NOT—DO JUSTICE TO THE JUST ONE OF GOD! This miserable alternative framed by early 17^th century judicial theory, steeped in Enlightenment (ultimately pagan Stoic) “natural law” ideology, is indeed a POOR “SUBSTITUTE” for pure, premial, apostolic Explanation. It is a toxic amalgam of a little Bible and a lot of babble. This may seem a severe judgment, but I speak of doctrine, not of persons. (A beloved mentor, Dr. H. Evan Runner, used to counsel us to be “personally gracious, but principially ruthless.”) Such elaborations can get wordy in the extreme, as a survey of 19^th century American (and a few English) champions will attest. I wouldn’t be surprised if they outstripped, or at least rivaled, contemporary penal satisfaction/substitution theorists in this respect. The point is that such proliferation reduces to rationalization, and is needless once premial justice is acknowledged in its proper role and atoning function.

If we may play into the terminology of governmental atonement theory for a moment to illustrate the premial truth:

It alleges that “atonement is an alternative replacement, or substitute for our penalty…” (Natural Ability, p. 453 and inter alia, emphasis added) We could quite easily, even perhaps enthusiastically, live with such a declaration if thereby was meant the just award that Messiah Jesus deserved from God on account of his flawless perfection of obedient faithfulness in doing all God’s will. For thereby he triggered or activated the release of long-awaited, long-dormant, long-sequestered, and (if theology can supply a backhanded mute witness) long-forgotten yet oath-bound divine promises of blessings to restore the face of the earth.

The problem is, you don’t mean that, Jesse. To be sure, you affirm, “He was innocent and therefore did not deserve to be treated the way He was” (p. 453). The obvious next question would be, “Then when did he get the treatment he rightfully did deserve?” You seem to move in the direction of answering this query correctly: “Christ did not deserve to be there [i.e., on the Cross] and therefore retributive justice was not satisfied in his case” (p. 453, emphases added). Okay, okay! Go on, go on!

But instead of going on and elaborating how premial retribution marvelously did supply God’s justice, as required by the covenanted promises of Scripture to the upright, you quote two Scriptures to prove, if possible, a very different point. “The dying man next to Christ said, ‘And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss’ (Luke 23:41). Christ was not wounded for his transgressions, ‘he was wounded for [or “by”!—R.L.R.] our transgressions’ (Isaiah 53:5). Therefore, the atonement could not have possibly satisfied retributive justice” (p. 453, your italics; my bold emphasis).

My whole point, of course, is that this conclusion is a non sequitur; it simply does not follow logically…Unless, that is, you first assume that retribution is penal by definition, and, second, that the Cross is where the atonement was consummated, instead of after a brief delay. But most dictionaries will state that retribution does not exclusively denote deserved punishment, but sometimes also rewards for good deeds. The Latin stem simply means to repay. But Biblical teaching demands both punishments and rewards—both penal and premial repayments (apodo-, antapodo-), depending on individual deserts or worthiness or (although cautiously) “merits.” On this founding assumption the Atonement could indeed have “satisfied retributive justice,” provided that you include the premial demands of divine justice as taught in Scripture.

And with this single corrective stroke the whole colossal, grim edifice of “Governmental Atonement” comes crashing down. It was all a phantom “alternative” to premial justice, no less then “Penal Satisfaction/Substitution” was, for they shared the same exclusively penal founding presupposition.

The peculiar and endlessly recurrent vocabulary of the Governmental Theory of the Atonement simply does not suit the superlative grandeur of the subject. A stream cannot rise higher than its source; its flow of words streams out of the foothills of early seventeenth century natural law theory (rooted, as I mentioned, in classical Stoic philosophy), of which Hugo Grotius was one of the greatest exploiters, as the generally acknowledged founder of “the law of nations” or international law. It is non-covenantal in any properly Biblical sense. It lacks a sufficient doctrine of rightful super-compensation. It sidelights the resurrection of Christ. And as if these prominent failures were not glaring enough, it far overemphasizes punishment and overestimates its positive moral influence.

~to be continued~

God was quick to CONDEMN SIN by JUSTIFYING JESUS with a LIFE sentence!

The resurrection of Messiah Jesus was indisputable PROOF POSITIVE that GOD’S GRACIOUSNESS had never left him, but that the despicable treatment accorded him at his trial and execution by crucifixion, right down to the very curse of the Law, were execrably DAMNABLE in God’s eyes. Thus in the Lord’s RESURRECTION THAT PARTICULAR CRUCIFIXION WAS DECISIVELY REVEALED AS SIN, and not one that could be passed by until some ever-receding “Day of Judgment” when all would hopefully be set right in accord with apocalyptic speculation and comfortless symbolism. NO! NOW! If Jesus was actually who he said he was, NO DELAY WAS PERMISSIBLE. The stakes were by that time in human history far too high for this gargantuan SIN also to pass without a whimper into the oblivion of ESCHATOLOGICAL NEVER-NEVER LAND.

And so God came down from Heaven in judging mode and executed an immediate verdict of NOT GUILTY BY HIS JUDICIAL SENTENCE OF LIFE. [01/23/08]

Every “stroke” or “smiting” of Jesus the Son by God the Father must be interpreted by penal substitution theorists as “God’s wrath” and nothing less (for instance, “discipline”—paideia—although this is the Greek term used in the Septuagint of Isaiah 53:5 and is also a quite allowable translation of the Hebrew term musar, which has the sense of “correction,” and especially “instruction”—we  might think of “training”). For they insist, to be consistent with their penal or punitive payment theory, that it must express God’s attitude of abhorrence toward human sin, or nothing vicarious and substitutionary is achieved at all. [01/25/08]

THIS the Son and the Father have done for you. WHAT will you do FOR THEM? [02/04/08]

I deliberately stay on the lookout for any serious errors on the part of those theologians who show otherwise such excellence in their understanding regarding the Atonement. Why? Well, for the simple reason that such errors perceived by their “orthodox” opponents have probably served as the thin pretext for jettisoning their often stunningly true insights and contributions to the debate as a whole.

Therefore, the above errors, far from diminishing for me the esteem of the pioneering authors, serve sufficiently to account for the disfavor shown them when they touch on the truths long forgotten or misapprehended (for the apostles themselves must surely have known and taught them without admixture of error). [02/04/08]

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #73)

73.     “Is healing in the Atonement?”

And how!  Inasmuch as God atoned for the miserable death and shed blood of Jesus by raising him from the grave through the wholesome power and glory of the Spirit exalting him to Lordship over all nations, consequently every spiritual favor of the Spirit springs from that atonement in rich profusion, including expulsion of demons, miraculous healing of human ills, and other startling precursors of the future thorough housecleaning of the cosmos.  Christ Jesus suffered from the illnesses of others and was burdened with their pains.  He was wounded by their transgressions and crushed under their depravities.  He learned obedience through this pedagogic discipline and experienced our human plight in depth.  So in exchange for his willingness to share our misery, itself caused by our own aggregate depravity, and hence being perpetually afflicted by human vice and viciousness at every turn his whole life long, without complaint or vengefulness, he was bequeathed by God the highest estate in the created universe, complete with fresh resources of creation-renewing power.  It is in this manner that by his welts there can be healing for us.  Only in this way are we equipped and deputized for our assigned task to start renewing the face of the earth as a testimony to what Christ has by his heroic obedience rendered…inevitable!