Three Gospel Truths Experienced, Believed,
And Confessed By All True Christians.
Isaiah 53:6
In this verse of Scripture the prophet
Isaiah speaks as the representative of all God's elect. In this one verse he
plainly states three gospel truths experienced, believed, and confessed by
every person who is born again by God's almighty grace.
ORIGINAL SIN - "All we like sheep
have gone astray." This is called the doctrine of original sin because
this speaks of man's first sin and of the origin of sin in men. We all went
astray from God in the sin and fall of our father Adam (Psa. 14:3; Rom.
PERSONAL DEPRAVITY - "We have turned
everyone to his own way." We are sinners by imputation, by birth, and by
nature; but we are all sinners by choice too. Because the heart of man is evil
and desperately wicked at birth, we were all estranged from the womb and went
astray as soon as we were born, speaking lies (Gen. 6:5, 12; Jer. 17:9; Psa.
58:3). Like sheep, foolish and ignorant, we ever strayed from the Good Shepherd
by nature. Until he looked us up, sought us out, and brought us back, we would
not return unto him. We had neither the will nor the ability to do so. Instead,
we "turned everyone to his own way." Some turned to the way of
profligacy, some to the way of morality, and some to the way of self-righteous
religion, but all "to his own way," and always away from Christ!
SUBSTITUTIONARY REDEMPTION - "And the
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Can you grasp this glorious
truth? God the Father, against whom we have sinned, whose law we have broken,
has laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, his own dear Son, all the sins of all his
elect! The Son of God was made to be sin for us, so that he might be justly
punished for sin and we might be made the righteousness of God in him (II Cor.
5:21).
Don Fortner