Sadder and Mysterious Aspects of Vicarious Suffering
Isaiah 53:4-6
Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.…


Some of these aspects are so unspeakably sad that it is only in the light of a future life that I can bear to gaze upon them. We do but skim over the surface of the deep mystery of vicarious suffering, unless we recognize the fact that the spiritual world is full of wasted lives, of marvellous abortions, of grand and heroic failures, of illustrious scapegoats dying in the bleak wilderness of ignominy and defeat, bearing away the sins of the many, and yet by them misunderstood, condemned, and anathematized. In many respects these outcast scapegoats of the spiritual world are the truest saviours of our race, though by commonplace religionists they "are numbered with the transgressors," and die unhealed and unredeemed, and "make their graves with the wicked."

(A. Crauford, M.A.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

WEB: Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.




Redemption
Top of Page
Top of Page