Isaiah 53:6c Means Jesus Took The RESPONSIBILITY For Our Sin

In prophesying about Jesus, Isaiah 53:6c says “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” A lot of gospel preachers don’t believe that is true. For example, Maurice Barnett wrote in Gospel Truths (July 2010) “It is said that Jesus took every sin of mankind into Himself on the cross … I deny that any … scripture says such a thing but to the contrary the scriptures deny it.” But obviously it is true that God laid every sin of mankind on Jesus; our text says that very thing.

But what does it mean when the Bible says “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”? As usual, the context should decide. Both verse 11 and verse 13 of the same chapter say Jesus would “bear their iniquities.” The same analogy is being used in verse 6 as in 11 and 13. God laying our sins on Jesus would be the same as saying Jesus “bare our sins” (I Pet 2:24) – when something is laid on someone, then they bear it. Heb 9:28 puts the same truth this way “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.”

But what does it mean that Jesus bore our sins? Well it doesn’t mean Jesus bore the guilt for our sins; that would be rewriting history. If John Doe commits a sin, it wouldn’t be accurate to say Jane Doe did it.  Instead the phrase Jesus “bare our sins” means Jesus “bore” the responsibility for our sins. Notice this meaning for the word in Lev 24:15-16 – “… Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”

This is exactly what Ezek 18:20 says will not be done by one man for another – “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” Jesus was obviously the exception to that rule.

And going back to Isaiah 53, we see that is exactly what is under consideration. The verse just previous to our text (verse 5) says “the punishment that brought us peace was on him” (NIV). So Isaiah 53:6c is saying our sins were laid on Jesus in the sense he bore the responsibility for them, he suffered the “punishment”/penalty for them – so we wouldn’t have to.

We should be so thankful the responsibility for our sins was laid on Jesus at his crucifixion (our sins were “laid on Him”). Else we would have no hope of salvation whatsoever.

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