He Bore Me in Himself
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God; smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5).
In about 1950 I ran across an article in Time magazine that told an astounding medical story. In those days doctors were just beginning to experiment with new kinds of treatments, and there was a young boy on the West Coast who had a kidney infection. The infection became so bad that his kidneys were contaminating his blood rather than cleansing it. His situation reached a crisis point, and the doctor told the parents that unless something radical was done he would die. The boy’s doctors had a conference with the best medical people in California, and one of them suggested a radical experiment. The idea was to hook the boy’s body up to another person with healthy kidneys and let the good kidneys clean the boy’s blood and give his kidneys a chance to recuperate. The doctors agreed that it might be possible, so they talked to the parents about it. The parents immediately agreed to the procedure.
The father’s blood type matched his son’s, so they took the father into the hospital, put him on a bed right beside his son in the operating room, and linked the blood systems together. The blood from the boy began to flow into the body of the father, and the blood from the father began to flow into the body of the son. The boy had maintained a very high temperature. As they lay there together, the boy’s temperature began to drop and the father’s temperature began to rise until they reached the same level. Then both temperatures slowly dropped until they were normal. The experiment appeared to be a success. They kept the boy in the hospital for nine days, and he was fine. After nine days they let him go home, but they kept the father for observation. On the eleventh day the father’s temperature suddenly skyrocketed, and he quickly died.
This is perhaps the best illustration of the Cross that I have ever heard. The heavenly Father has caused his holiness to meet the fatal disease of our sin—all our crookedness and twistedness—in his son. Jesus took our sin and disease in his body, bore our punishment, and died in our place.
—Dennis Kinlaw,
This Day with the Master
Isaiah 53:4-5 paints a staggering portrait of divine love and justice meeting in the suffering of the Servant. “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering… he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.” Here we see the holiness of the Father confronting the devastating disease of sin—not by condemning us, but by placing it all on His Son. Our twistedness, our inner distortions and hidden guilt, were not ignored but absorbed. Jesus became the meeting place where holiness judged sin and mercy bore it. The punishment that should have been ours was transferred to Him—every lash, every bruise, every crushing weight of guilt. In this divine exchange, Jesus bore more than physical agony; He took on the full spiritual burden of our rebellion. And yet, through that suffering, healing flows to us: “by his wounds we are healed.” What a mystery—our worst laid upon Him, and His best given to us. Today, we stand forgiven, healed, and made whole—not by our striving, but by His suffering. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics