81. Christopathy.

With his stripes we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5.

WHAT a chapter! A Bible in miniature. The Gospel in its essence.

When our subject brings us near to the passion of our Lord, our feelings should be deeply solemn, our attention intensely earnest.

Hark, the scourge is falling! Forget everything but "his stripes."

We have each one a part in the flagellation: we wounded him, for certain; is it as certain that "with his stripes we are healed"?

Observe with deep attention:

I. THAT GOD HERE TREATS SIN AS A DISEASE.

Sin is a great deal more than a disease, it is a willful crime; but the mercy of our God leads him to consider it under that aspect, in order that he may deal with it in grace.

1. It is not an essential part of man as he was created: it is abnormal, disturbing, and destructive.

2. It puts the faculties out of gear, and breaks the equilibrium of the life forces, just as disease disturbs the bodily functions.

3. It weakens the moral energy, as disease weakens the body.

4. It either causes pain, or deadens sensibility, as the case may be.

5. It frequently produces visible pollution. Some sins are as defiling as the leprosy of old.

6. It tends to increase in the man, and it will prove fatal before long.

Sin is a disease which is hereditary, universal, contagious, defiling, incurable, mortal. No human physician can deal with it. Death, which ends all bodily pain, cannot cure this disease: it displays its utmost power in eternity, after the seal of perpetuity has been set upon it by the mandate: "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still."

II. THAT GOD HERE DECLARES THE REMEDY WHICH HE HAS PROVIDED.

Jesus is his Son, whom he freely delivered up for us all.

1. Behold the heavenly medicine: the stripes of Jesus in body and in soul. Singular surgery, the Healer is himself wounded, and this is the means of our cure!

2. Remember that these stripes were vicarious: he suffered in our stead.

3. Accept this atonement, and you are saved by it.

· Prayer begs for the divine surgery.

· Belief is the linen cloth which binds on the plaster.

· Trust is the hand which secures it to the wound.

· Repentance is the first symptom of healing.

4. Let nothing of your own interfere with the one medicine. You see the proper places of prayer, faith, and repentance; do not misuse them, and make them rivals of the "stripes?' By the stripes of Jesus we are healed, and by these alone. One remedy, and only one, is set forth by God. Why seek another?

III.THAT THIS DIVINE REMEDY IS IMMEDIATELY EFFECTIVE.

To the carnal mind it does not appear to touch the case.

But those of us who have believed in the stripes of Jesus are witnesses to the instant and perfect efficacy of the medicine, for we can speak from experience, since "We are healed?'

1. Our conscience is healed of its smart: eased but not deadened.

2. Our heart is healed of its love of sin. We hate the evil which scourged our Well- Beloved.

3. Our life is healed of its rebellion. We are zealous of good works.

4. Our consciousness assures us that we are healed. We know it, and rejoice in it. None can dispute us out of it. Application

1. Friend, you are by nature in need of healing.

· You do not think so: this disease affects the mind, and breeds delusions.

· You ridicule such teaching: your disease leads to madness.

· You oppose it. Thus do the sick refuse medicine, and the insane hate their friends.

2. Friend, you are either healed or sick.

· Do you not know which is your condition?

· You ought to know. You may know.

3. Why are you not healed?

· There is power in the remedy, for you, for you now.

4. If you are healed, behave accordingly.

· Quit diseased company.

· Do a healthy man's work.

· Praise the Physician, and his singular surgery.

· Publish abroad his praises.