Jesus and Bearing Our Sins

ISAIAH 53:5: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."
 
1 PETER 2:24: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."

Question:

What's your take on this principle of Jesus bearing in his body our "sins"? I'm comfortable writing off some of the nonsense that comes from one person's writings, but when two or more say similar things, it takes on more credibility for me.

Comment:

The verse from Isaiah was, of course, written hundreds of years before the ministry of Jesus Christ. And it is phrased in the past tense; it would seem clear that the prophet is writing about a spiritual leader—scholars don't really know who—who had been maligned, punished and deformed ("marred ... beyond human semblance" (Isaiah 52:15)) and ultimately put to death at some time before the passage was written. It is entirely possible to apply the description to Jesus, as early Christians did. But it would be a mistake to assume that that was the prophet's intention. Remember that the role of the prophet in Hebrew Scripture is not to predict the future, but to interpret the present—to point out the ways in which the people are ignoring or flouting the Presence and Power of God.   The passage from 1 Peter certainly pertains to Jesus, and expresses a common Christian belief that Jesus, by his death on the cross, healed us all and freed us from the consequences of sin. I believe this is true, but in a different sense than is usually understood. Jesus Christ moved through the experience of death for the same reason he shared every teaching, and offered every demonstration, throughout his earthly ministry—to encourage us to follow his example, to find within ourselves the same Christ Nature that he taught, demonstrated and fully became. His death was not a sacrifice; it was proof positive that no sacrifice is needed, or even possible, in the Allness of God. He doesn't literally remove our sins; he rather empowers us to remove our sense of ourselves as sinners by dissolving error thought and replacing it with an awareness and affirmation of spiritual identity and possibility.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed