The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6
We have seen that God’s great purpose is to bring about a complete restoration of all that was lost through the entrance of sin into the world. And we have learned that God purchased our restoration, and He did it by substitution.
Today, we are asking a question that takes us even further. What did it mean for Jesus to become our substitute? Isaiah says, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
The word that describes what God did is imputation. To impute means to charge or to count. It is used several times in older translations of the Bible: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity” (Psa. 32:2, NKJV). You are blessed if God does not count or charge your iniquity against you.
How could God, in justice, not charge our sins against us? Jesus became our substitute, and God charged our sins to Jesus. Our sins were laid on Him, and because they were laid on Him, they are no longer on us.
So, if we were to try and summarize the first six—stunningly simple and yet unfathomably profound—verses from Isaiah 53, it would be this: Jesus purchased our restoration by substitution and imputation.
In your own words, what did God do in order to make Jesus our substitute?
