Welcome to Phil Arnold’s File Cabinet

On Thanksgiving Day, 2004, Phil Arnold, beloved minister of the 84th Street church of Christ in Oklahoma City passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. Following his passing, these articles and lessons were found on his computer, a small cross section of his entire work in the service of God. Phil’s soft hearted spirit will ever be a part of the lives of those who knew him and these lessons, a tribute to his life’s work, will hopefully benefit all who are seeking to find and grow strong in Christ Jesus our Lord!

By His Stripes We Are Healed: Isaiah 53

Sermon Outline by Phil T. Arnold

Text: 1 Pet 2:21-24 NKJV

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: {22} “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; {23} who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; {24} who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.

Introduction
By His stripes we are healed. In this short phrase is summed up the whole Gospel and the greatness of God. For the greatness of God is revealed most powerfully in the atonement of our sins. The heart of the Gospel is Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice.

1 Cor 15:3
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the
This Gospel is presaged wonderfully in Isaiah 53.

Isaiah begins with the statement “Who has believed our report?” This story of atonement is so wonderful as to be unbelievable: God who is just and holy reclaims us, who are vile and sinful, for His own by taking on the form of man and offering himself up in the place of man. (Mat 20:28 NKJV) “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” That we might be made whole (2 Cor 5:21 NKJV) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

This substitution in our place for our sakes when we did not deserve it proves to be a powerful force for our redemption not only in paying the price of our sins but in motivating us to be what we ought to be. As Peter says: (1 Pet 2:21-24 NKJV) For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: {22} “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; {23} who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; {24} who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.
In Isaiah 53 where we learn first of the fact of His suffering, second of the world’s erroneous estimation of His suffering, third of the vicarious nature of His suffering, fourth of the atoning purpose of His suffering and finally of the blessed results of His suffering.

II. The Fact of His Suffering
All of you have considered the excruciating pain that Jesus suffered on the cross. This passage aptly describes all that and more. The words pile up. There are 20 words or phrases indicating the extent of His suffering: He was despised, rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (and how well He knew them). He has borne griefs, carried sorrows. He was stricken, smitten of God, afflicted, wounded bruised. He suffered chastisement, stripes, and the iniquity of us all was laid on Him. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, cut off, stricken, bruised, put to grief. He poured out His soul unto death.

There is a double meaning of these strong words of suffering 1) They obviously refer to the pain of His crucifixion. 2) They also refer to the inevitable and painful consequences of sin. We need to learn this lesson first before His atonement can become meaningful to us.

Rom 3:23 NKJV
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Rom 6:23 NKJV
For the wages of sin is death,

Our state is aptly characterized in this passage by the words transgressions, sin, and iniquities. These are strong words. We are not guilty merely of shortcomings or mild imperfections but of desperate wickedness. Indeed the punishment heaped on the Servant in our place would be excessive if we were guilty merely of shortcomings. But our sins are more than that. They are a violation of the essential nature of man’s relationship with the Almighty. (Isa 59:2 NKJV) But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.

How wicked is man? Hear God’s assessment.

Gen 6:5 NKJV
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Isa 64:6 NKJV
But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.

Jer 17:9 NKJV
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Thus, the punishment that God authorizes for sin is not spite, not just levying a legal claim but a natural consequence of our sin of separating ourselves from God, Who is the source of all light, life, reason and hope. It is these consequences that Jesus bore for us and suffered in our place. Thus, the cross becomes the symbol and fulfillment of the supremacy of the power of darkness brought on by this wholesale departure from God and giving over to wickedness. It reached its culmination metaphorically though not practically on the night that Jesus was arrested. (Luke 22:53 NKJV) “When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not try to seize Me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”

Imagine a world in which evil men got what they think that they want- to be left alone by God. Left to their own tender mercies (Prov 12:10 NKJV says the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel) and the dark imaginations of their heart unbridled by morality or reason or hope. Not even the worst criminals really want such a world. What they want is to live in a moral world but not to live by moral rules and thus to benefit by harming others who are themselves restrained from evil by morality. But I fear that we are beginning to see just such a world as law has become inimical to religion and violence and terror are let loose on the world.

The horror of evil embedded in the shooting of children by children, parental abuse of the innocent so horrible as to be nauseating, tortured self abuse in sexual relationships that are worse than what others would do in anger, drug induced paranoias that surpass our worst nightmares, and the general degradation of man to a merely physical resource to be used abused and used up like any other physical thing- the daily killing of the unborn by the thousands and prostitution of women by the millions. It was just these consequences of sin and separation from God that Jesus took on Himself for our sakes. And there is no describing the horror of being made sin for our sake or bearing the sins of the whole world especially for one who was pure and sinless Himself. The fastidious like my wife would suffer more in the slaughter house than I would. Imagine then the pristine pure creator taking to Himself the garbage of our lives. The cross itself is painful, but being pierced though with our sorrows was surely worse. This is the fact of His suffering. How do we understand it? There is in the passage a recognition that many didn’t understand it correctly.

IV An Erroneous Estimation of His Sufferings
Such suffering surely indicates a very bad person. So reasoned Job’s friends as they tried to consol him.

Job 11:6 NKJV
Know therefore that God exacts from you Less than your iniquity deserves.

So reasoned Jesus’ disciples when the saw the man born blind. John 9:1-2 NKJV
Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. {2} And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

And so reasoned men when they saw Jesus suffering. Isa 53:3-4 NKJV
He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. {4} Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.

BUT WE WERE WRONG!
We thought it was His fault that He suffered but it was our fault and our suffering all along. Instead of looking to Him with wonder and gratitude we looked at Him as a pariah.

WE WERE WRONG!
Artists could not see his beauty and theologians could no more interpret His substitutionary sacrifice than they could understand Job’s suffering. Even today philosophers are unable to properly assess sufferings much less His atoning suffering. But despite philosophy’s judgement or lack thereof, His sufferings were not through His own fault and they were not meaningless. In fact His sufferings were the most significant event in human history and in your life and mine. For He suffered for me and for you.

V. Vicarious nature of His sufferings
His suffering was not His own it was ours. There are in the passage 11 statements of the vicarious nature of his sufferings.

1) He has borne our griefs. 2) He has carried our sorrow. 3) He was wounded for our transgressions. 4) He was bruised for our iniquities. 5) The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. 6) With His stripes we are healed. 7) For the transgressions of my people was He stricken. 8) The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 9) Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin. 10) He shall bear their iniquities. 11) He bare the sins of the many.

Though He suffered and though He suffered for our sins He never sinned:

1 John 3:5 NKJV
And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

2 Cor 5:21 NKJV
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Heb 4:15 NKJV
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Thus He was the perfect sacrifice: a lamb without spot or blemish like the requirement of the old law. Lev 22:21 NKJV
‘And whoever offers a sacrifice of a peace offering to the LORD, to fulfill his vow, or a freewill offering from the cattle or the sheep, it must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect in it. But much more than the old law.

1 Pet 1:18-19 NKJV
knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, {19} but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

These griefs He suffered were not his own, but He lifted them up off of us. He embraced them as His own, and carried them away personally, in His body, for our good not His own.

1 Pet 2:24 NKJV
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.

VI. The Atoning Purpose of His sufferings
But He didn’t just suffer with us. He suffered for us that we might not have to suffer. He took away our sins.

1 John 3:5 NKJV
And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

His sufferings satisfied God’s legal requirements for sin. Isa 53:11 NKJV
He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.

The greatness of God is revealed in this monumental undertaking of carrying away all our sins. All the sins committed since the beginning of the world. How many lies? How many acts of meanness? How much injustice? How many murders? How loud the cacophony of the cries of pain caused by others if they were all added together? How high the pile of ill gotten gain over the centuries? How many tears? And how many pangs of conscience and sleepless nights racked with guilt with no way to find relief until God’s atoning work in Christ.

Thus atonement is a greater work than the destruction of the wicked by the flood. Greater even than the eternal punishment in the hereafter. Greater than the creation of the world in the first place. And greater that we may live there than the work of creating the New Jerusalem, that magnificent city He has prepared for us. How great thou art!

Taking away even one sin is no easy matter as we all know. Like Esau we’ve searched futilely for repentance with many a tear. Sin is a stain too deep for even the most modern of cleaners to remove. It is a burden too heavy for even the most powerful machinery to lift. It is a debt too great for even the greatest treasury to pay. It is an illness too malignant for even the most powerful medicines to cure. It is an obligation too great for even the most fervent religious practices to pay. Even the Old Law was unable to completely remove sin.

Heb 10:3-4 NKJV
But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. {4} For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.

And how many were the sacrifices that were futilely offered. On one occasion 1 Ki 8:63 NKJV:
And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to the LORD, twenty-two thousand bulls and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. But even then not a single sin was forgiven. And these sacrifices had to be repeated over and over.

Heb 10:11 NKJV
And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But God had a plan- and it was effective. It accomplished the salvation of our souls by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus in the place of our sins.

Heb 10:12-13 NKJV
But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

Heb 10:14 NKJV
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

The greatness of God’s plan of salvation is further indicated by the fact that this subsitutionary and propitiary sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf is not a radical departure from His creative work but is instead foreshadowed in the rest of creation and is an extension of the moral order of His created world.
Substitutionary sacrifice is principle at the very heart of the natural world.

Life everywhere is fed by death
In earth and sea and sky;
And that a rose may breathe its breath
Something must die.

1 Cor 15:36-37 NKJV
Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. {37} And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain; perhaps wheat or some other grain.

John 12:24 NKJV
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”

And it is at the very heart of human society as well. The altruistic thread runs throughout man’s history and is one of its most ennobling and powerful forces. Maternal sacrifice is a parable. So is real sacrificial love. Love is in principle, vicarious and self sacrificing. What is love but identifying oneself with others so as to suffer their adversities and pains and to take on the burden of their faults. (1 Cor 13:5 NKJV) does not seek its own, (Phil 2:1-4 NKJV) Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, {2} fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. {3} Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. {4} Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

The law of sacrifice is the law of the home: there is no home without sacrifice. Whether rich or poor good parents give their children the very best thing they can- themselves.

The law of sacrifice is the law of society. There is no society of men without the willingness and the fact of service for others that is rendered despite no hope of being repaid. We recently celebrated memorial day to remind ourselves however fleetingly of the war dead who sacrificed that we might have freedom. (John 15:13 NKJV) “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

The suffering of the innocent for the guilty is one of life’s great mysteries. This too has become a parable “No good deed goes unpunished.” The innocent wife who suffers for here profligate husband, the honest business man who is taken advantage of , the merciful by passer who is robbed for his trouble. On and on the list goes. It is a mystery that we cannot solve outside of scripture that the good suffer for the sake of the wicked. (Eccl 8:14 NKJV) There is a vanity which occurs on earth, that there are just men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. But we may live with it even if we do not understand it in light of the Scripture’s teachings about atonement and eternal justice. (Rom 2:3-11 NKJV) {3} And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? {4} Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? {5} But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, {6} who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: {7} eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; {8} but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness; indignation and wrath, {9} tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; {10} but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. {11} For there is no partiality with God.

But suffering even when we are not guilty is more than something to be borne, it has value. (1 Pet 2:20 NKJV) For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.

1 Pet 3:17 NKJV
For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

1 Pet 4:16 NKJV
Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.

Col 1:24 NKJV
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,

Substitutionary suffering is the law of moral reclamation in the lives of men. Dr. Lyman Abbott the Superintendent of an alcohol withdrawal institution in NY said “Some men are driven here by their friends; and no such man is ever cured. No man has ever gone from here cured unless there was someone- a sister, a wife, a mother- who prayed for him, hoped for him and wept for him at home. The great redemptive power in life is the power of a suffering heart.”

This power of reclamation reached its pinnacle in the life and death of Jesus for whom these principles were after all and all along a type, an effort of creation to prepare us for the ultimate atonement of His death. The death of Christ is not only the central event of history it is also its most powerful. It is the climax of all feeble imitations of substitutionary sacrifice that had occurred in the world up to and even since that point and gives meaning to the lives of those who have given up their lives for others. For the results of His sacrifice are wonderful indeed.

VI. The Blessed Results of His sufferings
Peace – with God, that which passes all understanding (Isa 53:5 NKJV)The chastisement for our peace was upon Him ….

Health- well-being life abundant. Isa 53:5 - And by His stripes we are healed.
Satisfied (Isa 53:11 NKJV) He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.
Justify (Isa 53:11 NKJV) …..By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
Intercession (Isa 53:12 NKJV) ….. And made intercession for the transgressors.
How his suffering heals us: 1) justification 2) calls us to him 3) makes demands of us 4) Sets example for us 5) Demonstrates His love for us.

By His suffering we are at peace with God and we may enter into the healing that follows forgiveness. We may start afresh with the renewed motivation for goodness that characterizes the innocent.

There is an ethical force to vicarious suffering. The ultimate end of atonement is not merely waving away of the proper consequences but the restoration of proper character. The guilty past is forgiven not for the sake of escaping punishment alone but that a better future may be attained. Forgiveness aims not just at restoration of relationship or reputation but of heart and character as well.

Ethical teaching unless it is reinforced by a compelling motivation is useless to curb the excesses of the human heart. Christianity is the story of the cross not the sermon on the mount. Certainly it has the highest ethics but it also has the highest motivation it furnishes us with a virtue making power and adequate moral motive. (John 14:23-24 NKJV) Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. {24} “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
We need such enabling power as much as we need forgiveness for we are inherently weak and cannot save ourselves without His power. (Jer 17:9 NKJV) “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked;

Who can know it?
Jer 10:23 NKJV
O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.

Rom 5:6 NKJV
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
The power of forgiveness is intimated in the Berenger’s Law so called for Senator Berenger through whose efforts it was instituted in France in 1891. First time offenders sentenced to a term of two years or less were put on probation with the stipulation that if they lived five years without a further offense they were pardoned of the first. During the first ten years of its operation it is estimated that the rate of second crimes fell from above 90% to less than ten percent. And this thorough the mere offering or parole. How much more powerful the moral force of subtitutionary sacrifice. In a recent movie Red Corner, an American named Jack Moore is arrested in China and accused of murder. He is assigned a defense lawyer but there is little hope that he will prove his innocence. He escapes to the American Embassy where the lawyer comes to see him and tearfully congratulates him on his escape. She leaves and the American counsel tells Jack that she will now suffer the punishment that he would have since he had escaped while paroled to her. He is so moved by her willingness to die for him that he leaves the embassy and returns to the custody of the Chinese and the trial that is stacked against him.

Though the atonement of the cross is much more efficacious than this pale imitation, the atonement of the cross does not free us of obligations but instead binds us more tightly than any other method God may have chosen to obedience and character building. Yes Jesus did it all- all that could be done both inside and outside the human heart but to suppose that His sacrifice frees us from the bonds of moral obligation is a compete misunderstanding of atonement and a travesty of the doctrine of Grace (Rom 3:31 NKJV) Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! (Rom 6:2 NKJV) How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

The passage tells of this victory for Him and for Us
Isa 53:10-12 NKJV
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. {11} He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. {12} Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

And Peter in one of my favorite passages because with it’s irony and satire it makes the same point of absolute and total victory.
Acts 2:24 NKJV
“whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
Acts 2:32, 36-40 NKJV
“This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.’ {36} “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” {37} Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” {38} Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. {39} “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” {40} And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.”