It’s one of the most radical phrases in all of Scripture. It’s found in Isaiah 53:10 – “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief.”
I like using other translations for this verse, because they use a variation of the word pleasure – “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief” (NASB) or “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief” (NKJV). You need to get your mind around this radical phrase. How could it be that God the Father would ever find pleasure in the crushing and the grief of his Son?
If you’re a parent, think of the protective heart you have for your children. You don’t want any harm to come to them, and you try to protect them from danger and difficulty. You can’t imagine them being crushed or grieved, nevertheless you personally inflicting that pain on them. This verse is meant to make you stop short and ask questions.
What could be so powerfully motivating in the heart of the Father to enable him to crush his Son and find pleasure in his grief? The answer is found in John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God looked at this broken world and the separation between himself and man and was motivated by love. His heart was grieved by sin, and the only solution was to crush his Son, the perfect sacrifice.
For many of you, John 3:16 is a verse that can be found on your refrigerator, a coffee mug, or a picture frame somewhere in your house. You know that God “so loved world;” you know that you’re going to heaven when you die; your theology on the love of God is strong.
Or so it seems. What about the love of God today? Does God really love us, right here, right now? We wouldn’t never say aloud that God doesn’t love us in the present, but I think we all have our doubts.
The Apostle Paul combats these doubts in Romans 8:32 when he says, “He who did not spare his own Son but have him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
Here’s the logic: if God subjected Christ to the extreme suffering described in Isaiah 53:10 for our eternal salvation, it would make no sense for God to turn his back on us during our present time of need. In other words, the guarantee of our future (sealed by the Cross) also guarantees everything we need right here, right now.
We have other Scriptural evidence of this promise too: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life…” (2 Peter 1:3, NIV) and “My God will supply every need of yours…” (Philippians 4:19, ESV).
God knows what you need, and he will provide everything for you today and tomorrow and everyday until you meet him face to face. God’s love not only applies to your past sin and your future eternity; God’s love meets you where you are, right here, right now.
As you celebrate Christmas today, remember that there is no more clear-pointed, rest-giving demonstration of the love of God for you than the gift of his Son. Jesus faced the rejection from the Father so you would never see the back of God’s head.