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Isaiah 53:5
“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.”
To explain the actual work of Jesus in securing our redemption from sin, death, and the wrath of God, theologians typically distinguish between the active obedience of Christ and the passive obedience of Christ. The active obedience of our Savior consists of all that He did to perfectly obey the law of God. Not only did Jesus completely refrain from sin, but He did exactly what the law requires in the precise way that God requires it to be done in order to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:13–15).
The passive obedience of Christ encompasses what He suffered to pay the penalty of sin on our behalf. It includes all the miseries of life in a fallen world that He endured from infancy to adulthood as well as His suffering the wrath of God on the cross. We call it the passive obedience of Christ because He is the recipient of suffering, but we must also note that He was not a passive victim. Jesus actively went to the cross, intentionally and purposefully laying down His life for the sake of His people. Jesus did not unwillingly suffer and die but surrendered to pain and death voluntarily (John 10:7–18).
When we think of the active and passive obedience of Jesus as our Great High Priest, we must also keep in mind the concept of substitution, especially with respect to the atonement. Our Lord obeyed, suffered, died, and rose again for us, in our place. We see the idea of substitution in today’s passage, where we read that Jesus “was pierced for our transgressions,” not His own (Isa. 53:5). He substituted Himself for us to atone for our sin, and He did not atone for His own sin because He had no sin Himself for which to suffer.
Substitution tells us that Jesus lived and died in our place, doing what we should have done and suffering the penalty that we deserved. Moreover, few concepts are as important to understanding the Bible’s theology as substitution. We see substitution as far back as the garden of Eden when God killed animals to cover Adam and Eve’s shame instead of killing our first parents (Gen. 3:21). Genesis 22 shows God’s willingness to accept a substitute in place of another when Abraham sacrificed a ram in place of Isaac. Judah offered to substitute himself for Benjamin as the slave of Joseph (ch. 44). Indeed, the entire sacrificial system of old covenant Israel operated on the basis of substitution, for animals were sacrificed in the place of sinners to reconcile them to God. All this foreshadowed Christ’s substitution of Himself to save us.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Without Christ’s substituting Himself for us on the cross, we would be without hope. As fallen creatures, we are unable to offer a suitable payment to satisfy the just penalty of God against our sin. Thus, if it were up to us to offer atonement, we would end up only in hell. Because the Lord is willing to accept Christ as our substitute, we will certainly be saved if we trust in Him. Let us thank God for the grace that we see in the substitution of Christ that saves us.
For further study
- Exodus 13:11–16
- Leviticus 16
- Romans 5:8
- 1 Peter 3:18
The bible in a year
- Psalms 99–102
- Romans 13