“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)
In the post titled, my-journey-gazing-into-the-mirror-of-my-soul/ I wrote that repentance is to be the first part of any persons conversion and salvation experience; specifically that repentance which stems from the Holy Spirit of God interacting with our conscience and drawing us to a point of agreement with God concerning our sinful and rebellious nature and convicting us both of our lack of and of our need for Him. But there is actually something else which MUST occur even BEFORE such a drawing can take place – the preaching of the gospel is the foremost need of every unbelieving soul. Concerning the unbelieving of Israel, the apostle Paul wrote in (Romans 10:14-15):
“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?”
The need of the Israelites to hear the truth concerning Jesus Christ before they could trust in Him is the very same need of every living soul – those who have believed in Jesus Christ need to share the vital and lifechanging truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ with those who have not yet heard or believed it.
But what is the gospel?
The gospel IS NOT that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin – though He was.
The gospel IS NOT that Jesus Christ is the Son of God – though He is!
The gospel IS that Jesus Christ died for sinners – which every person who ever lived is! (with the exception of Jesus Christ [see Hebrews 4:15])
The passage I quoted at the beginning of this post from (Isaiah 53) comes from that larger statement made about Jesus Christ, the “Suffering Servant” of God. It states that He was wounded, bruised and chastised for us – for our transgressions, our iniquities and for our peace. Thus it seems to me, that until a person understands that Jesus died for him or her and that His death was our deserved condemnation (see Romans 8:1,5) and until they truly understand that they share responsibility for His brutalization, mockery, suffering and death – they have NOT “received” the gospel.
To understand that before Christ a person is “dead in trespasses and sin” (Ephesians 2:1) is a start but repentance begins with realizing that Jesus Christ “died for me.” Don’t make that statement so sentimental that you lose sight of its meaning; it is true that God sent His Son to die from a heart of love (see John 3:16) and while it is important that we make what Jesus did personal – the fact that He died (and rose again) is the most important aspect of the gospel message!
He was bruised for MY iniquity. He was mangled for MY sin. He was chastised – rebuked, disciplined corrected and ultimately rejected for my transgressions against the only Holy God! He bled because of ME!!! He was spit upon because of ME!!! He was mocked because of ME and He died on the cross of Calvary because of ME – for MY sake!!! He rose again in victory and because He rose, through faith in Him, once day I will rise as well and even now, I have victory in Jesus – “by His stripes we are (I am) healed!!!”
Make that personal!
A.W Tozer once defined repentance in this way:
“Repentance is mainly remorse for the share we had in the revolt that wounded Jesus Christ our Lord” – remorse which changes our mind concerning ourselves, our sin and our God; this is the kind of “godly sorrow” which leads to repentance.
The good news – the gospel of Jesus Christ is that “by His stripes we are healed!” Jesus’ suffering, as Tozer put it, “did not end in suffering, it began in suffering and ended in (our) healing.” What anyone coming to Christ must understand in order to be saved really comes down to what Paul said of himself in (1 Timothy 1 :15):
“…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”
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