“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5

This prophecy concerning Jesus is one of the most famous recorded in all the books of the Old Testament, and for good reason, as it so accurately predicted the events of the Passion of our Savior. The lead-up to the cross, his trial and cruel beatings, the shame he endured in a most public of executions, it was all foreseen and foretold in this vision of Isaiah hundreds of years before it would happen.

As we look in hindsight, the facts of the sacrifice of Jesus were seen clearly in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, but there’s more to this chapter still. Yes, if you’ll just take a few extra moments and consider what you read, you’ll see that not only the forensics of the death of Jesus are detailed, but the purpose as well!

The last several weeks we have written of Jesus’ rightful position in the Universe. The Bible declares that it should be “first place,” yet we don’t see Jesus in first place in many lives, even many Christian lives.

What’s the solution? According to the Scriptures, a key in Jesus being able to ascend to his rightful position in the hearts of humanity is the proclaiming of his gospel. So, we need to preach Christ’s gospel, but what really is the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Distilled down, we’ve seen that the gospel is the “good news” of what Christ has done for us through his death and resurrection. It’s the practical significance of the salvation that he won for us, a canceling of debts that we couldn’t pay, a freedom and future that we couldn’t earn no matter our efforts. Yet, as we look further into what the Bible has to say about the “gospel of Jesus Christ,” we see it’s even more than that because Jesus, well, he’s even better to us than that!

The base understanding of the “gospel” in our area is the eternal life Jesus provides to all who will believe in him. Eternal life is most definitely a huge part of the gospel and part of what Jesus made available for us on the cross, but according to Scripture, both Old and New Testament, there’s more. There’s a fulness of the gospel that Paul spoke of, and this is a fulness that not many New Testament Christians are enjoying today.

Eternal life, a life enjoying the presence of God throughout the infinite ages, is going to be wonderful, just beyond what these finite minds can currently comprehend. But as hard as it may be for us to believe this, the sacrifice of Jesus provided more than this.

No, really! It’s right there in the Biblical record. Case in point: the aforementioned Isaiah 53. There, when reading about the sacrificial death of Jesus, we see that “he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Even on the surface, that’s more than just a trip to Heaven, right? Of course it is! That speaks of something that Jesus did, not just for our future in the next life, but what he did for us so we could live better now. Think about it: there are no griefs or sorrows in the Heaven that awaits us. If he was saddled with our griefs and sorrows as a substitute for us (the contextual implication for all that he did through the cross), it was for this life in which we are exposed to those griefs and sorrows!

So, Jesus took the punishment of sin that should have been ours and paid the price so we wouldn’t have to pay it. We no longer have to go to Hell as a just payment for our sin. This is something every Christian believes because it is the Biblical record. This same Bible states that Jesus also carried our griefs and sorrows. Why? So we wouldn’t have to bear them ourselves. He did this as our substitute, bearing what God never desired us to bear.

Friends, Jesus is so much better to us than what we give him credit for!

Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.