He Wants To Heal You + ”It Pleased the Lord To Bruise Him”
Download the He Wants To Heal You + ”It Pleased the Lord To Bruise Him” audio/episode here.
It Pleased the Lord to Bruise Him.
WOKE UP LATE! Woke up with the phrase, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him;” in my mind.
“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief: When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,…and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.” Isaiah 53:10
MOSTLY: “YET IT PLEASED THE LORD TO BRUISE HIM.”
NLT: “But it was the LORD’s GOOD PLAN to crush him & cause him grief.”
CSB: “Yet the LORD was pleased to crush him severely.”
PLEASED = #2654 - “to delight in; to have pleasure in”
DAKA (WOW - I’m not sure if I realized this was “bruise” here?) #1792 - crush (BDB) “to crumble; to bruise” (Strongs)
HE HATH PUT - #2470 - 1. make oneself sick 2. it pleased to bruise him, making him sick = to bruise him sorely.
TO GRIEF - #2470 - definition 2
the PLEASURE - #2656 - that in which one takes delight, his business (LATE), or matter (very late, compare in Mishna = thing) the good pleasure of YAHWEH will prosper in his hands.
I love the Word of God. This one simple phrase has ministered to me for the last hour. I know this passage is about the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus. Isaiah 53 is prophetic of Him as a suffering servant. But a wider point can be drawn from it.
Sometimes God delights in the crushing and bruising and crumbling of our lives, because He sees past the momentary suffering.
Jesus’ crushing; His bruising was a “moment” in time. The devastating weight of grief and the collective sins of humanity were placed on Him; “bruising Him; reducing Him to dust.” And the sovereignty of God saw the whole picture. He could delight in the suffering of our Savior because He knew this was the pathway of salvation for humanity. He had a “good plan,” and this bruising would serve His ultimate purpose. This crushing would serve and advance the plan of God, as Jesus would be “The Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world,” (Revelation 13:8) fulfilling God’s plan of redemption. And it was (as NLT says), “A good plan.”
And so it is with suffering in our lives. Not all our suffering is enacted by God. Some suffering is simply the effects of life in a fallen world, where death and disease are an unfortunate reality. Some suffering is a result of our decisions which produce consequences; we reap the harvest of pain as a high price of going against the will of God. Other suffering may come as a result of Satanic attack—think Job. He faced brutal mental, physical, and emotional pain because God allowed Satan to touch everything but His life. And while all suffering is not enacted by God, all suffering can be used by God.
Suffering, like we read in Isaiah 53, with its bruising, crushing, and breaking is a tool God can use to “conform us to the image of His son…” (Romans 8:29) As Elisabeth Elliot has said many times, “How is a statue formed? It takes a chisel and a file and a hammer.” Often the image of Christ is formed in us under the crushing blows of a hammer; the “bruising” of God’s tools.
Jesus’ suffering, His bruising, His grief unfolded as the sound of a hammer rang across Golgotha; the nails driven into His hands and His feet.
And we, in turn, may hear the pounding of a hammer ring in our own lives, as we daily “take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him.” (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23) It may, and will likely be, the crushing blows of life’s circumstances that will see the image of Jesus formed in us.
And this is God’s GOOD PLAN: to change us from “us” to Him. To make us in His image; to slowly and methodically make us less like us and MORE like Him.
So, if we hear the sound of a hammer and feel the crushing blows of suffering, let us respond in faith, knowing that God in His infinite wisdom is at work through every circumstance; He can use every shred of pain for His ultimate purpose. He is still the One Who can “work ALL THINGS together for good.” (Romans 8:28)
And while God is not “pleased” with suffering simply for suffering’s sake, He is pleased with suffering because He sees the whole picture. And suffering is one of the greatest tools He has to create His image in us.
It is the hammer He uses to produce a work of art.
“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him.” (Isaiah 53:10)
Thank you for joining me for this journey!
Go grab your Bible and your journal!
I look forward to the power of this habit in your life. This is Unedited.