WHY, WHY, WHY did God “desire to crush” His Servant and “cause him to be wounded”?

“Yet Jehovah desires to crush him, and He causes him to be wounded.” Isaiah 53:10

But why? Was it to bring God’s punishment, condemnation, and wrath upon him “to pay for sins”? Nothing of the sort! The true answer will be identical to the one given in reply to why God desired to bring afflictions on Joseph, Job, Jeremiah and even Isaiah himself, not to mention the apostles, martyrs, indeed all those whom He desires to be His beloved children!

God tests His children to prove what they’re made of, to try them as gold is tried, to purify them and strengthen their faith, to cause them to draw nearer to Him, to burn off any dross and confirm their commitment to His expressed truth, to show the world what solid righteousness looks like, and, ultimately, to prepare worthy vessels to rule Kingdom-come in His new creation. “Through many afflictions must we be entering into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “[I]f so be that we are suffering abuse together, that we should be glorified together also. For I am reckoning that the sufferings of abuse of the current era do not deserve the glory about to be revealed for us” (Romans 8:17-18). “[A]nd we may be boasting in expectation of the glory of God. Yet not only so, but we may be boasting also in afflictions, having perceived that affliction is producing endurance, yet endurance qualification, yet qualification expectation. Now expectation is not making ashamed, seeing that the love of God has gotten poured out in our hearts through the Wholesome Spirit which is being given to us” (Romans 5:2-5). [6/24/08] “All joy deem it, my brethren, whenever you should be falling into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith is producing endurance. Now let endurance have its perfect work that you may be perfect and unimpaired, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). [9/16/08]

Even as the apostles were the official witnesses to what they saw (Acts 10:40-41), namely, the Messiah’s resurrected life, so the Wholesome Spirit is the divine witness to what God, “the Knower of hearts” (Acts 15:8), alone can see, namely, faith. Faith’s saving operation in human beings is God’s witness to what Jesus, the risen Master, accomplished by his whole life, death, and resurrection. [6/24/08]

Justification did not come “by grace,” à la Puritan and Reformed theology; much rather, graciousness, of the extravagant dimensions measured by authentic apostolic doctrine, came by justification. We can see this only when we grasp that God’s righteousness, that justifies, is restorative, rescuing, delivering, ransoming, remunerative…TOWARD THE FAITHFUL, OBEDIENT COVENANT KEEPER WHO HAS BEEN VICTIMIZED. Puritan and Reformed doctrine, however, knows nothing of such a “righteousness of God,” although it is displayed throughout the Psalms and Prophets, and in fact REQUIRED BY LAW (Torah)! Indeed, Martin Luther caught a stunning glimpse of this restorative justice, and it set his feet a’ dancin’! BUT LUTHER NEVER FIGURED OUT EXACTLY HOW IT WORKED. Instead, he spun out a complicated mechanism (with indispensable assistance from his scholarly associate, Philipp Melanchthon) worthy of the pre-Copernicans, whereby PENAL JUSTICE somehow did service via epicyclic “imputations” and “substitutions” for real saving justice. But this counterfeit had evil ethical fruits mixed with the good. [6/25/08] One might have expected that the later so-called “covenant theology” of the Calvinistic wing of the Reformation could get this right at least, but it did not. In fact, Calvinism sewed it up tighter even than Lutheranism. [9/16/08]

God’s Premial Justice Exalted Jesus to Give Us Expectation in Our Own Sufferings

Embrace the agony in your life within your embrace of God, and God will transmute it into a matchless pearl.  Believing Christ’s resurrection and expecting our own, let us endure suffering and thus become perfect in all things, lacking nothing.  [11/28/99]

God’s justice in the Old Testament Scriptures had demanded that the sinner/offender must repay or redress his own infractions himself, with interest.  But the New Testament Scriptures—the Proclamation of God’s Kingdom—revealed that, because of human inability and deficiency, God Himself would repay Israel’s and the nations’ sin of crucifying His only-born Son.  For this was an impossible burden for deceived mankind to carry, feeble and auctioned off to sin as we were.

However, what was impossible for us was possible for God.  He therefore repaid His only Son for the loss that human injustice under Satanic inspiration had wrought.  God raised Jesus from among the dead and exalted him to the highest post in the created universe, far above all his enemies on the earth, under the earth, or in the skies above!  Not only so, but God gave Jesus the vast storehouse of Wholesome Spirit held in reserve until this very moment, even as God had exalted Joseph over all Egypt and gave him authority over all of Pharaoh’s kingdom  and servants and subjects and treasuries of grain, food, cattle, and eventually even the very land of Egypt, to redistribute as seemed wise to Joseph.  Jesus, son of Joseph (“according to law”) was exalted yet higher and has given us Wholesome Spirit beyond measure as a mere foretaste of an unimaginably wonderful future throughout the eons ahead!  Similarly, we Christians are “lambs for the slaughter,” suffering with Christ…to share his ultimate glory.  Lord, help our unbelief!  [12/8/99]

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #64)

64.     Doesn’t God predestine some people to be saved and others to be lost?

Good heavens, no!  God desires everyone to change their minds about Him and start trusting His Son Jesus.  He destines that all who acquiesce in faith and keep trusting the abundant testimonies and proofs He furnishes in Scripture and personal experience will happily end up as adopted sons and daughters, hence heirs of allotments in His impending Kingdom.  That’s His intended destiny for all who keep believing; that’s where the train’s goin’.  If anyone decides to pry open a safety door and jump from the train of God’s amazing deeds rumbling down the track toward His Kingdom, coupled to the thundering locomotive of His superabundant graciousness, fueled by the Holy Spirit’s inspired testimonies to the Cross-Resurrection-Pentecost events, it’s most certainly not God’s intention.  For in that sorrowful case a tragic destiny does regrettably commence activation and is to be avoided strenuously at all costs!  Why should we defect when God is offering free passage, all expenses paid?  We’re just along for the ride…if we care to stay instead of falling out.  God’s proposal in His resurrected Son Jesus Christ to our otherwise doomed species is just too good to be false!  This accounts for the apostle Paul’s urgently sensible plea to the whole human race:  “For Christ’s sake be conciliated to God!”