Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. In other words, you are blessed if God does not count or charge your sins against you. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick. And Colin, that’s an important issue. If God is a God of justice, how can he not count those sins against us? Well, because of what Isaiah says in the verse that we’re going to look at today, that the Lord has laid on him, and that’s a reference to the Lord Jesus, the iniquity of us all. You know, we all know by instinct that forgiveness cannot come simply by God saying, oh, it doesn’t really matter. God is holy. God is just. You can’t just brush it all under the carpet. That’s not justice. That’s not right. And so the only way in which forgiveness can actually be released to us, real forgiveness, real forgiveness that reconciles us with God, is if our guilt is actually taken from us and placed somewhere else. And that’s what Isaiah says God did at the cross. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So we’re really at the very heart of the Christian message, the wonderful good news of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ has taken our sin so that forgiveness, real forgiveness and reconciliation with God is offered to all in and through him. That is good news. And it’s what we’ll hear from the message today. We’re looking at Isaiah chapter 53 in verse 6. So join us, if you can, in the Bible as we begin the message called Imputation. Here’s Colin. Now, we’ve seen that God’s great purpose is to bring about a great restoration of all that was lost by the entrance of sin into the world. And Isaiah begins there. He tells us that Jesus bore our griefs and he carried our sorrows. Now, griefs and sorrows are obviously the effects of the entrance of sin into the world. And so Isaiah is telling us that Jesus took all of the effects of sin on himself, all that blights human life for us in this world. We live in a fallen world where griefs and sorrows abound. But God has promised a new creation, a world that is going to be free from sin and from all of its ugly effects, a world where death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more, a world where God himself will be present with us and we will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There will be a great restoration. This is the good news of the Bible story. And it will come about because Jesus carried our griefs and our sorrows. The effects of the entrance of sin into the world will be no more. Now, in order to deal with the effects of sin, God had to deal with sin itself. And Isaiah tells us that God dealt with sin itself through Jesus becoming our substitute. We saw this last time in verse 5. He, Jesus, 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. So, Jesus purchased our restoration. And how did he do this? He did it by substitution. Now, that’s verse 4 and verse 5. And today, we’re asking a question that will take us even further. What then did it mean for Jesus to become our substitute? And what does this mean for us today? And Isaiah tells us in verse 6, that is our focus today. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now, the word that describes what God did here is the word imputation. And to impute is simply to charge or to count. It’s a word that’s used several times, mainly in older translations of the Bible. For example, in Psalm 32 and verse 2, we read these words. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. Or it could be translated against whom the Lord does not count iniquity. In other words, you are blessed if God does not count or charge your sins against you. And of course, that leads to the question, well, how could God in justice not charge our sins against us? And the answer is that Jesus became our substitute. And God charged our sins to Jesus. Our sins, we’re told in this verse 6 that’s before us today, were actually laid on him. And because they were laid on him, they no longer lie on us. So the message of these remarkable verses that take us to the very heart of what Jesus accomplished on the cross, in summary is this, that Jesus has purchased our restoration. And the way that he did it was by substitution and by imputation. Our sins were laid on him. Now, the verse that’s before us today is stunningly simple. And yet at the same time, it is unfathomably profound. I want to make three very simple observations from it. First, what we have done. Second, what God has done. And thirdly, what we must do. So first then, what we have done, and notice the first part of the verse, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. Now, notice that Isaiah describes here both our common condition and its individual expression. He tells us what is true of all of us, and then he tells us what is true of each of us. Notice what’s true of all of us. All we like sheep have gone astray. Now, we saw last time from verse five that God describes this in words. Transgression, which speaks of our defiance. Iniquity, that speaks of our twistedness. Chastisement, that speaks of our guilt. And woundedness, that needs to be healed. And now having used these words, God gives us this remarkable picture as an illustration. Here’s what our defiance, our twistedness, our guilt, and our woundedness look like in practice. We’re all like wandering sheep. All we like sheep have gone astray. Now, remember that Isaiah is speaking here to God’s people, and he’s reminding us that we are sinners as much as those who have no time for God at all. Try and take that in. Because the reality is that when you’ve been a Christian for a few years or a few decades, it’s very easy to get the idea that somehow other people need a Savior more than you do. It’s easy to get the idea that somehow our sins are less than the sins of others, because, well, at least we’re making an effort to live for God. But do you see how Isaiah humbles us here? We who love the Lord have this in common with all humanity. We go astray. And notice that Isaiah includes himself. All we like sheep have gone astray. He doesn’t say all of you have gone astray. He’s not talking down to others. He knows that this is the reality of his own life as well. That’s why he says all we. And you may remember that earlier in his life, Isaiah had a remarkable experience that shaped him. In the year that King Uzziah died, he says in chapter 6, I saw the Lord. Isaiah was given a glimpse of the holiness of God. And when he saw how holy God is, he also saw how sinful he was. I am a man of unclean lips, he said, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. And then notice that Isaiah moves beyond the common condition to its individual expression. And he tells us now what is true of each of us. We have turned everyone to his own way. All of us have in common that we are sheep who go astray. But each of us has his own distinct way or her own distinct way of straying. Your way of straying will likely be quite different from the way of straying of the person who’s sitting next to you. And it’s always easier to see someone else’s way of straying than it is to see your own. Try and take this in. Every sinner has a distinct way of going astray. For some, it’s pride. For others, it’s lust. For some, it’s greed. For others, it’s laziness. Think about this. In Jesus’ famous story, the prodigal son rebelled. He wanted to get as far from the father as he possibly could. And he gave himself, the Bible says, to reckless living. He looked at how his father lived and he said, I’m going to go in exactly the opposite direction. Whatever my father would not do, that’s what I’m going to try. But you remember that the prodigal son had an elder brother who never rebelled. He was a very dutiful son, stayed at home, worked really hard for his father. And yet, in Jesus’ story, this older brother’s heart was filled with resentment. He felt in the light of all that he’d done for the father that the father owed him something better. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. Sheep go astray in different directions. Think about it. Wolves hunt in packs. But sheep, well, they like their own space. If you look at sheep on a hillside, you’ll find that they’re just dotted all over the place, isolated from one another. When the shepherd’s not there, each turns to its own way. Which reminds us that when we get away from the shepherd, we find ourselves at a distance from one another. If you find that you are becoming more distant from other members of God’s flock, it may mean that you are wandering away from the shepherd. Now, of course, it’s always possible that it’s all the other sheep that have wandered away, and only you are close to the shepherd. But if you find yourself more distanced from other believers, ask yourself this question honestly. Am I wandering away from the shepherd? All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. Here’s the truth about each and every one of us. We are all like wandering sheep, who even now, if it were not for the shepherd, would wander off to our own everlasting destruction. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and today we’ve been looking at what we have done. And when we get back to the message in a moment, we’ll see what God has done. So I hope you’ll stay with us. The message today is called Imputation, and it’s part of our wider series, The Gospel According to Isaiah. And remember, if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always go online, go back, catch up, or listen to any of the messages that you’ve missed. They’re all there on our website, openthebible.org.uk. You can also find them as podcasts. Go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and look for the purple banner. We’re in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6 today. As we get back to the message, here’s Colin. Here’s the truth about each and every one of us. We are all like wandering sheep, who even now, if it were not for the shepherd, would wander off to our own everlasting destruction. What we have done. That’s the first thing, and here’s the second. I want you to see in this verse what God has done. In the light of our wandering, in the light of our straying off in our own distinct ways, what has God done? The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now, suppose that we go out for a meal together. And when we’re done, the waiter brings the bill. And you say, oh, let me take care of that. And then I say, no, no, no, I’d be glad to do this. And you know what this is like. You know, you take out your purse or your wallet, and I fumble around sort of looking for mine. That’s an old Scottish trick, by the way. Look in the wrong pocket first, and perhaps by the time you get to the right one, the other person will already have got a hand on their wallet or on their purse. But you know the picture. The bill is on the table. It’s going to be charged to someone. It’s going to be imputed to someone’s account. Someone is going to pay for it. Either it’s going to be on your credit card, or it’s going to be on mine. And do you see what we are being told in this amazing verse of Scripture? That God has taken all that would have been charged to us, and he has charged it to Jesus instead. And this is what it meant for Jesus to be our substitute. God laid our sins on him. Now, to help us grasp this, God has given us a very wonderful illustration in the Old Testament Scriptures. You can read it in Leviticus and chapter 16, where we’re told about the Day of Atonement. It was a remarkable occasion when God’s people gathered outside the tent of meeting, and a live goat was brought forward and presented to the high priest. Then we read in the Scripture that Aaron, the high priest, shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat. And then notice what he was to do. Laying both hands on the head of this goat, he is to confess over it all the iniquities of the people, all their transgressions, all their sins. That must have been a very long prayer indeed. He had to announce, holding onto the head of this goat, all the sins, iniquities, and transgressions of all of the people of God. And then notice what the Scripture says next. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness. So he calls out these sins by name. He names them. He confesses them with his hands on the head of the goat. And as he does so, there’s an act of transfer. There’s a movement with regards to the guilt, even the responsibility of these sins. They’re being moved from one place to another. They’re being put on the head of the goat, taken off the people. And then the goat is to be taken right away from all of the people of God. Now, what the high priest did on the Day of Atonement is a marvelous picture. It is an illustration of what God himself has done for us. God himself has transferred our transgressions, our iniquities, our sins. He’s moved them. He’s taken them off us. And where have they gone? He has laid them on his own dear Son, Jesus Christ. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now, literally translated, what Isaiah says here is that God has made to meet on him the iniquity of us all. Dr. Alec Matier, a renowned Old Testament scholar, translates the verse this way. We’ve all like sheep gone astray. We’ve turned everyone to his own way. And God, and God, God brought together on him the iniquity of us all. Think about a room in which dirt and dust are spread everywhere. And you get out the vacuum cleaner and you hoover this up so that what was spread in many places is now gathered into one place. And when you are done, you empty out the bag with all of this muck that you have gathered. That is what God has done with regards to our sins, our self-absorbed rebellion, our self-pitying resentment, our self-indulgent laziness, our self-righteous presumption. What has God done? He’s gathered it all up into one place. And then what has he done with it? He has laid it in its entirety on his own Son, Jesus. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And that’s exactly what Isaiah is saying here. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That really is good news. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and the message Imputation, part of our series, The Gospel According to Isaiah. And remember, if you ever miss one of our broadcasts, you can always go online and go back, listen again. All of those messages are up there on our website. That’s openthebible.org.uk. And our messages are also available as podcasts. Go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and look out for the purple logo. Remember, if you subscribe to our podcast, you’ll receive updates and information. Our website address again is openthebible.org.uk. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners. That’s people just like you. And this month, if you are able to begin a new donation to Open the Bible in the amount of five pounds or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a copy of a book. It’s called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer. Colin, give us a taste of what’s in this book. Well, it’s really all about what God does in bringing people to faith in himself and what he calls us to do, the responsibility that he’s given to us. And these two things work together. One way that I find quite helpful to think about this is if you think of a surgeon and he’s performing an operation, there are certain tools that are in his hand. The instruments become the means by which the surgery is performed. But it’s the hand of the surgeon himself that uses these instruments and actually gets the work done. And God uses us as instruments, our praying, our sharing the gospel. That’s a trust that he’s given to us. And we are instruments in the Redeemer’s hand. And that’s a very wonderful privilege. But the really good news is that we are in the Redeemer’s hand, that it’s the Lord who actually does the work and by his grace. On the one hand, we learn that we have a great privilege and we have a great work that God has called us to do. And on the other hand, we learn that we have tremendous hope because it is God who’s actually doing the work in and through us. This book’s a wonderful encouragement. I’ve gone back to it year after year and just find it to be refreshing as a reminder to me that I have great privilege in being trusted with the word of the gospel as every believer is. And yet it is God who uses the word of the gospel to save people. And he does it by his own power and by his marvelous grace. Full details of this offer and how to give online are at openthebible.org.uk For Open the Bible and for Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. If you’re a Christian and find yourself straying from God, you can still have peace. Find out how. That’s next time on Open the Bible.