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11/4 Reading Portions: 2 Kings 17; Titus 3; Hosea 10; Psalms 129; 130; 131
Psalm 129:3
The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows.
WOUNDS
The Lord Jesus was brutalized by sinful men. Isaiah wrote,
I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Isaiah 50:6
Again, from today’s R. M. M’Cheyne reading portions, we read:
You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, Hosea 10:13
Hosea speaks of the sinful ways of men in general, and of Israel in particular. Isaiah and Hosea were contemporaries (Isa 1:1; Hos 1:1). Their names come from the same Hebrew root word, “salvation.” Isaiah means, “Yah, He has saved.” Hosea means, “Savior.”
Our verse today should remind us of another verse in Isaiah,
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. Isaiah 53:5
Are we healed by Christ’s wounds (or stripes, KJV) because His physical sufferings provided an even exchange, tit for tat? Certainly not! Nevertheless, when the Lord Jesus suffered the infinite and eternal wrath of God for sins He did not commit, the blessed God-Man was brutalized so severely by depraved and ruthless human beings that when He hung upon the cross, Jesus was at His weakest point physically. Because no one walked more intimately with the Father than Jesus did during His earthly ministry, no human, including those sent to hell for their rebellion against God, can ever or will ever suffer as Jesus had when He hung upon the tree. In fact, the collective sufferings of all humanity could never match the sufferings of Christ upon the cross. Hallelujah! What a Savior!
There’s no truth like the gospel truth in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The gospel blesses our souls and sets our hearts aflame like nothing else in the universe (Luke 24:32). To consider what our Lord Christ had gone through to save miserable wretches like us will stir us like no other truth— and if it doesn’t, we must examine ourselves to see what, where, and how there is a stumbling block to our faith (2 Cor 13:5).
The gospel truth in Jesus Christ
Is glory to our souls;
Pondering Christ’s awesome price
Does heal and make us whole.
