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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Peter 2:24

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Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

24. who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree ] Here again we have an unmistakeable reference to the language of Isa 53:12. The Apostle, though he has begun with pointing to the sufferings of Christ as an example, cannot rest satisfied with speaking of them only under that aspect. He remembers that his Lord had spoken of Himself as giving His life a ransom for many (Mat 20:28), of His blood as that of a new covenant (Mat 26:28). He must speak accordingly, even to the slaves whom he calls upon to follow in the footsteps of their Master, of the atoning, mediatorial, sacrificial aspects of His death. Each word is full of a profound significance. The Greek verb for “bare” ( anapherein) is always used with a liturgical sacrificial meaning, sometimes, in a directly transitive sense, of him who offers a sacrifice, as Jas 2:21 (“Abraham when he had offered Isaac”), Heb 7:27; Heb 13:15, and in this very chapter (1Pe 2:5); sometimes of the victim offered, as bearing the sins of those who have transgressed, and for whom a sacrifice is required, as in Heb 9:28 and the LXX. of Isa 53:12. Here, Christ being at once the Priest and the Victim, one meaning seems to melt into the other. He offers Himself: He bears the sins of many. But if there was a priest and a sacrifice, where was the altar? The Apostle finds that altar in the cross, just as many of the best commentators, including even Roman theologians like Estius and Aquinas, recognise a reference to the cross in the “we have an altar” of Heb 13:10. In the word for “tree,” used instead of that for “cross,” we have the same term as that in Gal 3:13, where St Paul’s choice of it was obviously determined by its use in the LXX. of Deu 21:23. The word was somewhat more generic than “cross,” and included a whole class of punishments to which slaves were subject, impaling, the stocks (Act 16:24), and the like. It is possible that St Peter, in writing to slaves, may have chosen it as bringing home to their thoughts the parallelism between Christ’s sufferings and their own (comp. the “non pasces in cruce corvos” of Horace Epp. 1:16, 50:48); but its occurrence in St Luke’s reports of his speeches in Act 5:30; Act 10:39 makes it more probable that it was simply a familiar term with him.

that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness ] The Greek word for “being dead” is a somewhat unusual one, and is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. As a word it has to a certain extent an euphemistic character, like “departing,” “being away,” and is so far analogous to the exodos or “decease” of 2Pe 1:15. The context leaves no doubt that the English rendering of the word fairly expresses its true meaning. “Having died” would perhaps give more accurately the force of the aorist participle. The thought presents another instance of parallelism between St Peter and St Paul (Rom 6:2; Rom 6:11; Gal 2:19) so close that it at least suggests the idea of derivation. In both cases the tense used implies a single act at a definite point of time, and as interpreted by St Paul’s teaching, and, we may add, by that of St Peter himself (chap. 1Pe 3:21), that point of time can hardly be referred to any other occasion than that of the Baptism of those to whom he writes. In that rite they were mystically sharers in the death and entombment of Christ, and they were made so in order that they might live to Him in the righteousness of a new life.

by whose stripes ye were healed ] The word for “stripes” means strictly the livid mark or wheal left on the flesh by the scourge. Comp. Sir 28:17 . We may well believe that the specific term was chosen rather than any more general word like “sufferings” or “passion,” as bringing before the minds of the slave readers of the Epistle the feature of greatest ignominy in their Lord’s sufferings (Mat 27:26; Mar 15:15), that in which they might find the closest parallelism with their own. When the scourge so freely used in Roman households left the quivering flesh red and raw, they were to remember that Christ also had so suffered, and that the stripes inflicted on Him were part of the process by which He was enabled to be the Healer of mankind. The words are cited from the LXX. of Isa 53:5.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Who his own self – See the notes at Heb 1:3, on the phrase when he had by himself purged our sins. The meaning is, that he did it in his own proper person; he did not make expiation by offering a bloody victim, but was himself the sacrifice.

Bare our sins – There is an allusion here undoubtedly to Isa 53:4, Isa 53:12. See the meaning of the phrase to bear sins fully considered in the notes at those places. As this cannot mean that Christ so took upon himself the sins of people as to become himself a sinner, it must mean that he put himself in the place of sinners, and bore that which those sins deserved; that is, that he endured in his own person that which, if it had been inflicted on the sinner himself, would have been a proper expression of the divine displeasure against sin, or would have been a proper punishment for sin. See the notes at 2Co 5:21. He was treated as if he had been a sinner, in order that we might be treated as if we had not sinned; that is, as if we were righteous. There is no other way in which we can conceive that one bears the sins of another. They cannot be literally transferred to another; and all that can be meant is, that he should take the consequences on himself, and suffer as if he had committed the transgressions himself.

(See also the supplementary notes at 2Co 5:21; Rom. 4; 5; and Gal 3:13, in which the subject of imputation is discussed at large)

In his own body – This alludes undoubtedly to his sufferings. The sufferings which he endured on the cross were such as if he had been guilty; that is, he was treated as he would have been if he had been a sinner. He was treated as a criminal; crucified as those most guilty were; endured the same kind of physical pain that the guilty do who are punished for their own sins; and passed through mental sorrows strongly resembling – as much so as the case admitted of – what the guilty themselves experience when they are left to distressing anguish of mind, and are abandoned by God. The sufferings of the Saviour were in all respects made as nearly like the sufferings of the most guilty, as the sufferings of a perfectly innocent being could be.

On the tree – Margin, to the tree Greek, epi to xulon. The meaning is rather, as in the text, that while himself on the cross, he bore the sorrows which our sins deserved. It does not mean that he conveyed our sorrows there, but that while there he suffered under the intolerable burden, and was by that burden crushed in death. The phrase on the tree, literally on the wood, means the cross. The same Greek word is used in Act 5:30; Act 10:39; Act 13:29; Gal 3:13, as applicable to the cross, in all of which places it is rendered tree.

That we, being dead to sins – In virtue of his having thus been suspended on a cross; that is, his being put to death as an atoning sacrifice was the means by which we become dead to sin, and live to God. The phrase being dead to sins is, in the original, tais hamartiais apogenomenoi – literally, to be absent from sins. The Greek word was probably used (by an euphemism) to denote to die, that is, to be absent from the world. This is a milder and less repulsive word than to say to die. It is not elsewhere used in the New Testament. The meaning is, that we being effectually separated from sin – that is, being so that it no longer influences us – should live unto God. We are to be, in regard to sin, as if we were dead; and it is to have no more influence over us than if we were in our graves. See the notes at Rom 6:2-7. The means by which this is brought about is the death of Christ (See the notes at Rom 6:8) for as he died literally on the cross on account of our sins, the effect has been to lead us to see the evil of transgression, and to lead new, and holy lives.

Should live unto righteousness – Though dead in respect to sin, yet we have real life in another respect. We are made alive unto God to righteousness, to true holiness. See the Rom 6:11 note; Gal 2:20 note.

By whose stripes – This is taken from Isa 53:5. See it explained in the notes on that verse. The word rendered stripes ( molopi) means, properly, the livid and swollen mark of a blow; the mark designated by us when we use the expression black and blue. It is not properly a bloody wound, but that made by pinching, beating, scourging. The idea seems to be that the Saviour was scourged or whipped; and that the effect on us is the same in producing spiritual healing, or in recovering us from our faults, as if we had been scourged ourselves. By faith we see the bruises inflicted on him, the black and blue spots made by beating; we remember that they were on account of our sins, and not for his; and the effect in reclaiming us is the same as if they had been inflicted on us.

Ye were healed – Sin is often spoken of as a disease, and redemption from it as a restoration from a deadly malady. See this explained in the notes at Isa 53:5.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 24. Who his own self] Not another in his place, as some anciently supposed, because they thought it impossible that the Christ should suffer.

Bare our sins in his own body] Bore the punishment due to our sins. In no other sense could Christ bear them. To say that they were so imputed to him as if they had been his own, and that the Father beheld him as blackened with imputed sin, is monstrous, if not blasphemous.

That we, being dead to sins] That we, being freed from sin-delivered out of its power, and from under its tyranny.

Should live unto righteousness] That righteousness should be our master now, as sin was before. He is speaking still lo servants who were under an oppressive yoke, and were cruelly used by their masters, scourged, buffeted, and variously maltreated.

By whose stripes ye were healed.] The apostle refers here to Isa 53:4-6; and he still keeps the case of these persecuted servants in view, and encourages them to suffer patiently by the example of Christ, who was buffeted and scourged, and who bore all this that the deep and inveterate wounds, inflicted on their souls by sin, might be healed.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Who his own self; not by offering any other sacrifice, (as the Levitical priests did), but by that of himself.

Bare our sins; or, took up, or lifted up, in allusion to the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the same word being used of them, Heb 7:27; Jam 2:21. As the sins of the offerer were typically laid upon the sacrifice, which, being substituted in his place, was likewise slain in his stead; so Christ standing in our room, took upon him the guilt of our sins, and bare their punishment, Isa 53:4, &c. The Lord laid on him our iniquities, and he willingly took them up; and by bearing their curse, took away our guilt. Or, it may have respect to the cross, on which Christ being lifted up, {Joh 3:14,15; Joh 12:32} took up our sins with him, and expiated their guilt by undergoing that death which was due to us for them.

In his own body; this doth not exclude his soul but is rather to be understood, by a synecdoche, of his whole human nature, and we have the sufferings of his soul mentioned, Isa 53:10,12; Joh 12:27; but mention is made of his body, because the sufferings of that were most visible.

On the tree; on the cross.

That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; another end of Christs death, the mortification of sin, and our being freed from the dominion of it, Rom 6:2,6, and being reformed to a life of holiness.

By whose stripes ye were healed; viz. of the wound made in your souls by sin: this seems to relate to the blows that servants might receive of cruel masters, against which the apostle comforts them, and to the patient bearing of which he exhorts them, because Christ by bearing stripes, (a servile punishment), under which may be comprehended all the sufferings of his death, had healed them of much worse wounds, and spiritual diseases, the guilt of their consciences, and the defilement of their souls.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

24. his own selfthere beingnone other but Himself who could have done it. Hisvoluntary undertaking of the work of redemption is implied.The Greek puts in antithetical juxtaposition, OUR,and His OWN SELF, to markthe idea of His substitution for us. His “well-doing”in His sufferings is set forth here as an example to servants and tous all (1Pe 2:20).

bareto sacrifice:carried and offered up: a sacrificial term. Isa 53:11;Isa 53:12, “He barethe sin of many”: where the idea of bearing on Himself isthe prominent one; here the offering in sacrifice is combinedwith that idea. So the same Greek means in 1Pe2:5.

our sinsIn offeringor presenting in sacrifice (as the Greek for “bare”implies) His body, Christ offered in it the guilt of our sinsupon the cross, as upon the altar of God, that it might be expiatedin Him, and so taken away from us. Compare Isa53:10, “Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin.”Peter thus means by “bare” what the Syriac takes twowords to express, to bear and to offer: (1) He hathborne our sins laid upon Him [namely, their guilt, curse, andpunishment]; (2) He hath so borne them that He offered themalong with Himself on the altar. He refers to the animals upon whichsins were first laid, and which were then offered thus laden[VITRINGA]. Sin or guiltamong the Semitic nations is considered as a burden lying heavilyupon the sinner [GESENIUS].

on the treethe cross,the proper place for One on whom the curse was laid: thiscurse stuck to Him until it was legally (through His death as theguilt-bearer) destroyed in His body: thus the handwriting of the bondagainst us is cancelled by His death.

that we being dead tosinsthe effect of His death to “sin” in theaggregate, and to all particular “sins,” namely, that weshould be as entirely delivered from them, as a slave that isdead is delivered from service to his master. This isour spiritful standing through faith by virtue of Christ’sdeath: our actual mortification of particular sins is inproportion to the degree of our effectually being made conformable toHis death. “That we should die to the sins whosecollected guilt Christ carried away in His death, and so LIVETO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS (compare Isa53:11. ‘My righteous servant shall justify many’),the gracious relation to God which He has brought in” [STEIGER].

by whose stripesGreek,“stripe.”

ye were healedaparadox, yet true. “Ye servants (compare ‘buffeted,’ ‘the tree,’1Pe 2:20; 1Pe 2:24)often bear the strife; but it is not more than your LordHimself bore; learn from Him patience in wrongful sufferings.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Who his own self bare our sins,…. As was typified by the high priest bearing the sins of the holy things of the people of Israel, when he went into the most holy place, and by the scape goat bearing the iniquities of all the people unto a land not inhabited, and as was foretold by the Prophet Isaiah. The apostle here explains the nature and end of Christ’s sufferings, which were to make atonement for sins, and which was done by bearing them. What Christ bore were “sins”, even all sorts of sin, original and actual, and every act of sin of his people; and all that is in sin, all that belongs to it, arises from it, and is the demerit of it, as both filth, guilt, and punishment; and a multitude of sins did he bear, even all the iniquities of all the elect; and a prodigious load and weight it was; and than which nothing could be more nauseous and disagreeable to him, who loves righteousness, and hates iniquity: and these sins he bore were not his own, nor the sins of angels, but of men; and not of all men, yet of many, even as many as were ordained to eternal life, for whom Christ gave his life a ransom, whom he justifies and brings to glory; our sins, not the sins of the Jews only, for Peter was a Jew, and so were those to whom he writes, but of the Gentiles also, even the sins of all his people, for them he saves from their sins, being stricken for them. His “bearing” them was in this manner: he becoming the surety and substitute of his people, their sins were laid upon him by his Father, that is, they were imputed to him, they were reckoned as his, and placed to his account; and Christ voluntarily took them upon himself; he took them to himself, as one may take the debt of another, and make himself answerable for it; or as a man takes up a burden, and lays it on his shoulders; so Christ took up our sins, and “carried” them “up”, as the word here used signifies, alluding to the priests carrying up the sacrifice to the altar, and referring to the lifting up of Christ upon the cross; whither he carried the sins of his people, and bore them, and did not sink under the weight of them, being the mighty God, and the man of God’s right hand, made strong for himself; and so made entire satisfaction for them, by enduring the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and all that punishment which was due unto them; and thereby bore them away, both from his people, and out of the sight of God, and his vindictive justice; and removed them as far as the east is from the west, and made a full end of them; and this he himself did, and not another, nor by another, or with the help of another; not by the means of a goat, as the high priest, but by himself; though he was assisted in bearing his cross, yet he had no help in bearing our sins; angels could not help him; his Father stood at a distance from him; there was none to help; his own arm brought salvation to him; but

his own self, who knew no sin, nor did any, he by himself purged away our sins, and made reconciliation for them, by bearing them: and which he did

in his own body, and not another’s; in that body which his Father prepared for him, and which he took of the virgin, and was free from sin; though not to the exclusion of his soul, which also was made an offering for sin, and in which he endured great pains and sorrows for sin: and all this

on the tree; the accursed tree, the cross; which is expressive both of the shame and pain of his sufferings and death. The end of which was,

that we being dead to sin; “to our sins”, as the Alexandrian copy, and the Ethiopic version read; as all the elect are, through bearing their sins, and suffering death for them, so as that sin shall not be imputed to them; it is as though it never was; it is dead to them, and they to that, as to its damning power and influence; so as that they are entirely discharged from it, and can never come into condemnation on account of it, and can never be hurt, so as to be destroyed by it; nor by death, either corporeal or eternal, since the sting of death, which is sin, is taken away, and the strength of sin, which is the law, is dead to them, and they to that: in short, through the death of Christ they are so dead to sin, that it is not only finished, made an end of, and put away, but the body of it is destroyed, that it should not be served; which is an end subordinate to the former, and expressed in the next clause:

should live unto righteousness; live, and not die the second death, and live by faith on the righteousness of Christ, for justification of life, and soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world; which the grace of God teaches, and the love of Christ in bearing sin constrains to, and the redemption by his precious blood lays under an obligation to do; for those whose sins Christ has bore are not their own, but being bought with the price of his blood, they are bound to live to him who has a property in them, and a right to claim all obedience from them:

by whose stripes ye were healed; the passage referred to is in

Isa 53:5 which is a prophecy of the Messiah, as is acknowledged by the Jews g, who say h,

“this is the King Messiah, who was in the generation of the ungodly, as it is said, Isa 53:5 “and with his stripes we are healed”; and for this cause God saved him, that he might save Israel, and rejoice with them in the resurrection of the dead.”

Sin is a disease, a natural and hereditary one, an epidemic distemper, that reaches to all men, and to all the powers and faculties of their souls, and members of their bodies; and which is nauseous and loathsome, and in itself mortal and incurable; nor can it be healed by any creature, or anything that a creature can do. Christ is the only physician, and his blood the balm and sovereign medicine; this cleanses from all sin; through it is the remission of sin, which is meant by healing; for healing of diseases, and forgiving iniquities, is one and the same thing; see

Ps 103:3 on which latter text a learned Jew i has this note,

“this interpreters explain , “as expressive of forgiveness”;”

and the Jews say, there is no healing of diseases but it signifies forgiveness k: it is an uncommon way of healing by the stripes of another. Some think the apostle alludes to the stripes which servants receive from their masters, to whom he was now speaking; and in order to encourage them to bear them patiently, observes, that Christ himself suffered stripes, and that they had healing for their diseases and wounds, by means of his stripes, or through his being wounded and bruised for them.

g Zohar in Exod. fol. 85. 2. Midrash Ruth, fol. 33. 2. Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 53. 3. & 90. 1. h R. Moses Haddarsan apud Galatin. de Areanis Cathol. Verit. l. 6. c. 2. i R. Sol. Urbin Ohel Moed, fol. 64. 1. k Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 43. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Who his own self ( ). Intensive pronoun with the relative referring to Christ (note relatives also in verses 1Pet 2:22; 1Pet 2:23).

Bare our sins ( ). Second aorist active indicative of , common verb of bringing sacrifice to the altar. Combination here of Isa 53:12; Deut 21:23. Jesus is the perfect sin offering (Heb 9:28). For Christ’s body () as the offering see 1Co 11:24. “Here St. Peter puts the Cross in the place of the altar” (Bigg).

Upon the tree ( ). Not tree here as in Lu 23:31, originally just wood (1Co 3:12), then something made of wood, as a gibbet or cross. So used by Peter for the Cross in Acts 5:30; Acts 10:39; and by Paul in Ga 3:13 (quoting De 21:23).

Having died unto sins ( ). Second aorist middle participle of , old compound to get away from, with dative (as here) to die to anything, here only in N.T.

That we might live unto righteousness ( ). Purpose clause with and the first aorist active subjunctive of with the dative (cf. Ro 6:20). Peter’s idea here is like that of Paul in Ro 6:1-23, especially verses 1Pet 2:2; 1Pet 2:10).

By whose stripes ye were healed ( ). From Isa 53:5. First aorist passive indicative of , common verb to heal (Jas 5:16) and the instrumental case of , rare word (Aristotle, Plutarch) for bruise or bloody wound, here only in N.T. Cf. 1:18. Writing to slaves who may have received such stripes, Peter’s word is effective.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Bare [] . See on ver. 5. Bare up to the cross, as to an altar, and offered himself thereon.

The tree [] . Lit., wood. Peter uses the same peculiar term for the cross, Act 5:30; Act 10:39.

Being dead [] . Rev., more strictly, having died. Used here only in the New Testament. The rendering of the verb can be given only in a clumsy way, having become off unto sins; not becoming separate from sins, but having ceased to exist as regards them. Compare Rom 6:18. Stripes [] . Lit., bruise. So Rev., in margin. Only here in New Testament; meaning a bloody wale which arises under a blow. “Such a sight we feel sure, as we read this descriptive passage, St. Peter’s eyes beheld on the body of his Master, and the flesh so dreadfully mangled made the disfigured form appear in his eyes like one single bruise” (Lumby).

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Who his own self bare our sins” (Gk. anenegken) raised, bare or carried up –When He was lifted up upon the cross. Joh 3:14-15; Joh 1:29; Lev 16:21-24.

2) “In his own body on the tree” It was our Lord’s cross-body”, not His church-body” or assembly through which salvation was and is obtained. He bore all our sins in His body of flesh on the tree (cross) of Calvary. Col 1:20-22; Gal 2:20; Gal 6:14.

3) “That we, being dead to sins” (hina) “in order that” to or toward (mark-missing sins). We might be dying or moving away, (that) toward righteousness we might live — serving the right master. Mat 6:24.

4) “Should live unto righteousness” The saved are to reckon, consider or calculate themselves to be dead (unproductive, not fruitbearing to or toward sin) but alive to God, His Holiness and righteousness to produce. Rom 6:2; Rom 6:11-13.

5) “By whose stripes ye were healed.” By whose (molopi) “stripes, bruises, and lacerations” (Gk. hiathete) ye were once for all healed, cured, or made whole. Isa 53:4-5; Luk 4:18.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

Had he commended nothing in Christ’s death except as an example, it would have been very frigid: he therefore refers to a fruit much more excellent. There are then three things to be noticed in this passage. The first is, that Christ by his death has given us an example of patience; the second, that by his death he restored us to life; it hence follows, that we are so bound to him, that we ought cheerfully to follow his example. In the third place, he refers to the general design of his death, that we, being dead to sins, ought to live to righteousness. And all these things confirm his previous exhortation.

24 Who his own self bare our sins This form of speaking is fitted to set forth the efficacy of Christ’s death. For as under the Law, the sinner, that he might be released from guilt, substituted a victim in his own place; so Christ took on himself the curse due to our sins, that he might atone for them before God. And he expressly adds, on the tree, because he could not offer such an expiation except on the cross. Peter, therefore, well expresses the truth, that Christ’s death was a sacrifice for the expiation of our sins; for being fixed to the cross and offering himself a victim for us, he took on himself our sin and our punishment. Isaiah, from whom Peter has taken the substance of his doctrine, employs various forms of expression, — that he was smitten by God’s hand for our sins, that he was wounded for our iniquities, that he was afflicted and broken for our sake, that the chastisement of our peace was laid on him. But Peter intended to set forth the same thing by the words of this verse, even that we are reconciled to God on this condition, because Christ made himself before his tribunal a surety and as one guilty for us, that he might suffer the punishment due to us.

This great benefit the Sophists in their schools obscure as much as they can; for they prattle that by the sacrifice of the death of Christ we are only freed after baptism from guilt, but that punishment is redeemed by satisfactions. But Peter, when he says that he bore our sins, means that not only guilt was imputed to him, but that he also suffered its punishment, that he might thus be an expiatory victim, according to that saying of the Prophet, “The chastisement of our peace was upon him.” If they object and say, that this only avails before baptism, the context here disproves them, for the words are addressed to the faithful.

But this clause and that which follows, by whose stripes ye were healed, may be also applied to the subject in hand, that is, that it behoves us to bear on our shoulders the sins of others, not indeed to expiate for them, but only to bear them as a burden laid on us.

Being dead to sins (34) He had before pointed out another end, even an example of patience; but here, as it has been stated, it is made more manifest, that we are to live a holy and righteous life. The Scripture sometimes mentions both, that is, that the Lord tries us with troubles and adversities, that we might be conformed to the death of Christ, and also that the old man has been crucified in the death of Christ, that we might walk in newness of life. (Phi 3:10; Rom 6:4.) At the same time, this end of which he speaks, differs from the former, not only as that which is general from what is particular; for in patience there is simply an example; but when he says that Christ suffered, that we being dead to sins should live to righteousness, he intimates that there is power in Christ’s death to mortify our flesh, as Paul explains more fully in Rom 6:6. For he has not only brought this great benefit to us, that God justifies us freely, by not imputing to us our sins; but he also makes us to die to the world and to the flesh, that we may rise again to a new life: not that one day makes complete this death; but wherever it is, the death of Christ is efficacious for the expiation of sins, and also for the mortification of the flesh.

(34) Or, “Being freed from sins:” ἀπογενόμενοι, being away from, having departed from, or, being removed from. Beza renders it “being separated from.” Freedom from the power or dominion of sin seems more expressly to be intended, as the end of this freedom is, that we may live to righteousness; the end of forgiveness on the other hand is, that we may have peace with God. Beza, Estius, Grotis, and Scott, take this view of the sentence. The subject in hand is not the removal of guilt, but holiness of life, and Christ in his sufferings is set forth as the pattern to us. Then in what follows, our diseased state and our wandering from the right way, are the things referred to. Christ’s death was intended to answer two great ends, — to remove guilt and to remove or to destroy sin in us. The latter is the subject of this passage. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(24) Who his own self.This verse, like the for you in 1Pe. 2:21, is intended to make the readers feel the claims of gratitude, not to set before them another point in which Christ was to be imitated. But at the same time it serves to enforce still more strongly the two points already mentionedi.e., sinlessness and suffering. So far was Christ from doing sins, that He actually His own self bore ours, and in so doing endured the extremity of anguish in His own body, so that He could sympathise with the corporal chastisements of these poor servants; and on the tree, too, the wicked slaves death.

Bare our sins . . . on the tree.This brings us face to face with a great mystery; and to add to the difficulty of the interpretation, almost each word is capable of being taken in several different ways. Most modern scholars are agreed to reject on the tree, in favour of the marginal to, the proper meaning of the Greek preposition, when connected (as here) with the accusative, being what is expressed in colloquial English by the useful compound on-to the tree. It is, however, not obligatory to see motion consciously intended in this preposition and accusative everywhere. It is used, for instance, Mar. 4:38, of sleeping on the pillow; in 2Co. 3:15, of the veil resting upon their hearts; in Rev. 4:4, of the elders sitting upon their thrones. This word, then, will give us but little help to discover the meaning of the word translated bare. (1) That verb means literally to carry or take up, and is used thus in Mat. 17:1, Mar. 9:2, of taking the disciples up the Mount of Transfiguration; and in Luk. 24:51, of Jesus being carried up into heaven: therefore Hammond, Grimm, and others would here understand it to be, He carried our sins up with Him on-to the tree, there to expiate them by His death. (2) A much commoner meaning of the word is that which it bears in 1Pe. 2:5, to offer up (so also in Heb. 7:27; Heb. 13:15; Jas. 2:21). The substantive formed from it (Anaphora) is still the liturgical term for the sacrificial section of the Eucharistic service. This interpretation is somewhat tempting, because the very preposition here used, with the very same case, appears in Jas. 2:21, and frequently in the Old Testament, together with our present verb, for to offer up upon the altar. In this way it would be, He offered up our sins in His own body on the altar of the cross. So Luther and others take it. This would be perfect, were it not for the strangeness of regarding the sins themselves as a sacrifice to be offered on the altar. The only way to make sense of it in that case would be to join very closely our sins in His own bodyi.e., as contained and gathered up in His own sinless body, which might come to nearly the same thing as saying that He offered up His own body laden with our sins upon that altar. (3) Both these renderings, however, pass over the fact that St. Peter is referring to Isaiah 53. In the English version of that chapter, hath borne, shall bear, bare, appears in 1Pe. 2:4; 1Pe. 2:11-12, indifferently; but the Hebrew is not the same in each case, for in 1Pe. 2:11 the word for shall bear is identical with that rightly rendered carry in 1Pe. 2:4, and has not the same signification as that which appears as to bear in 1Pe. 2:4; 1Pe. 2:12. The difference between these two Hebrew roots seems to be that the verb sabal in 1Pe. 2:11 means to carry, as a porter carries a load, or as our Lord carried His cross; while the verb nasa, used in 1Pe. 2:4 and 1Pe. 2:12, means rather to lift or raise, which might, of course, be the action preparatory to that other of carrying. Now, the Greek word which we have here undoubtedly better represents nasa than sabal, but the question is complicated by the fact that the LXX. uses it to express both alike in 1Pe. 2:11-12, observing at the same time the distinction between iniquities and sin, while in 1Pe. 2:4 (where again it reads our sins instead of our griefs) it adopts a simpler verb; and St. Peters language here seems to be affected by all three passages. The expression our sins (which comes in so strangely with the use of you all round) seems a reminiscence of 1Pe. 2:4 (LXX.). The order in which the words occur is precisely the order of 1Pe. 2:11, and the tense points to 1Pe. 2:12, as well as the parallel use in Heb. 9:28, where the presence of the words of many proves that the writer was thinking of 1Pe. 2:12. We cannot say for certain, then, whether St. Peter meant to represent nasa or sabal. We have some clue, however, to the way in which the Greek word was used, by finding it in Num. 14:33, where the whoredoms of the fathers are said to be borne by their children (the Hebrew there being nasa). Many instances in classical Greek lead to the conclusion that in such cases it implies something being laid or inflicted from without upon the person who bears. Thus, in Num. 14:33, it will be, your children will have to bear your whoredoms, or, will have laid upon them your whoredoms. In Heb. 9:28 it will be, Christ was once for all presented (at the altar), to have the sins of many laid upon Him. Here it will be, Who His own self had our sins laid upon His body on the tree. Then comes a further question. The persons who hold the substitute theory of the Atonement assert that our sins here stands for the punishment of our sins. This is, however, to use violence with words; we might with as good reason translate 1Pe. 2:22, Who did, or performed, no punishment for sin. St. Peter asserts that Christ, in His boundless sympathy with fallen man, in His union with all mankind through the Incarnation whereby He became the second Adam, actually took, as His own, our sins, as well as everything else belonging to us. He was so identified with us, that in the great Psalm of the Messianic sacrifice, He calls them My sins (Psa. 40:12), sinless as He was. (See St. Matthews interpretation of the same thought, Mat. 8:17.)

That we being dead.Just as the former part of this verse is an expansion of Christ suffered for us, so the latter part is an expansion of that ye should follow His steps. The we, however, is too emphatically placed in the English. To St. Peter, the thought of our union with Christ is so natural, that he slips easily over it, and passes on to the particular point of union which he has in view. He bore our sins on the tree, in order that, having thus become lost to those sins, we might live to righteousness. The words present, perhaps, a closer parallel to Col. 1:22 than to any other passage; but comp. also Rom. 6:2; Rom. 6:8; Rom. 6:11, and 2Co. 5:14, and Notes. St. Peters word for dying in this place is not elsewhere found in the New Testament, and is originally an euphemism for death; literally, to be missingi.e., when sin comes to seek its old servants it finds them gone.

With whose stripes ye were healed.Observe how soon St. Peter reverts to the second person, even though he has to change the text he is quoting. Another mark of his style may well be noticed here, viz., his fondness for a number of co-ordinate relative sentences. (See 1Pe. 1:8; 1Pe. 1:12; 2Pe. 2:1-3; and his speeches, Act. 3:13; Act. 3:15; Act. 4:10; Act. 10:38-39.) He is especially fond of finishing off a long sentence with a short relative clause, as here. Comp., for instance, 1Pe. 2:8, 2Pe. 2:17, also Act. 4:12, where it would be more correct to translate, Neither is the salvation in any other, for, indeed, there is no second name under heaven which is the appointed name among men; in whom we must be savedi.e., if we are saved at all. The purpose of the little clause seems to be once more to make the good and ill-used servants feel, when the weals were smarting on their backs, that the Righteous Servant of Jehovah had borne the same, and that it had served a beneficial purpose, as they knew to their everlasting gratitude. Of course the stripes (in the original singular number, and literally weal) do not refer merely to the scourging. The words form a paradox.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

24. Who bare our sins The for us, of 1Pe 2:21, is now taken up, and it is further shown that our Lord’s sufferings were endured for us who have deserved to suffer, thus exalting both his character of well-doing and the example he has left us.

Our sins As acts of the sinner, they cannot be taken away except by preventing them before they exist; nor can they be assumed by, or transferred to, another; nor yet again will any moral effect flowing to us from Christ’s death, blot them from existence. Considered in relation to God’s law, they are transgressions, blameworthy, and drawing punishment after them. In taking upon himself the act of another, one assumes, not the act itself, nor the character of its performer, but the responsibilities and penalties which flow from it. So Christ took upon himself our sins.

Bare Rather, bore up, that is, on the cross. He took on himself the burden of our sins, a crushing load, truly, and as our substitute bore their punishment in his own body, thus expiating our guilt. See Isa 53:4; Isa 53:12.

On the tree One can hardly doubt that the apostle added these words from a recollection of Deu 21:23, and perhaps of St. Paul’s use of it in Gal 3:13: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” God’s curse was upon sin, and Christ, our voluntary substitute, taking our sins on the tree, placed himself where the curse, with its heaviest strokes, fell upon him. The purpose of this great suffering was, that they for whom it was endured might be enabled to lead a holy life.

Being dead Rather, having died; being through the atonement delivered from their power.

Righteousness The new master, whom through the Holy Spirit it becomes possible to serve.

By whose stripes See Isa 53:5. The word here means the wale caused by the stripe. Thus these maltreated Christian servants see in their Saviour and Lord all that was endured by any of their class; the buffetings, the cross, as a mode of punishment for slaves, and the stripes, so frequently bestowed, but with the wide difference that his stripes were for the healing of their own wounds.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed.’

And here we learn why Jesus made no claims of innocence. It was because He was there as the bearer of sin. He knew that what He was receiving was the just punishment, not for His own sin, but for the sins of others (compare 1Pe 3:18). And He was willing to suffer for their sake. So Peter fully knew that he could not stop at the fact that Jesus had suffered for righteousness’ sake, because he was deeply aware that Jesus’ death had accomplished far more than that. And so he adds the crucial element, ‘Who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree.’ In other words, by being crucified He was acting as a sacrifice made on our behalf in order to ‘bear’ our sins, that is, in order to take the consequences of our sin upon Himself (compare Isa 53:12). He was being offered as a ransom for many (1Pe 1:18-19; Mar 10:45). His blood was being shed as an atonement and propitiation (Rom 3:24-25) so that we might be purified by being sprinkled with it (1Pe 1:2). And He was being made a curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).

This concept of His being offered as a sacrifice is partly taken from Isa 53:10 where the Servant was to be made a guilt offering for sin, and from Isa 53:12 where He was to be ‘numbered with the transgressors’. It will also be noted how similar the language is to that found in Peter’s sermons in Act 5:30; Act 10:39 with its reference to the cross as ‘the tree’, where the point is being made clear that thereby He was bearing a curse for us, because ‘cursed is he who hangs on a tree’ (Deu 21:23; Gal 3:13).

But Peter then expands on it to make clear that He was thereby also dying as our representative, so that when He died we were to be seen as ‘dying’ (literally ‘departing’) with Him. And he emphasises the point that as a result of our having so ‘departed’ with Him in our old selves, we must now live unto righteousness. We must be obedient and Christlike. While not possibly going quite so deep as Paul does, this is very similar to Paul’s teaching in Rom 6:1-11; Gal 2:20. Compare also Eph 4:22-24.

He then again makes quite clear that he sees Jesus as fulfilling the role of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah for he adds, ‘by whose stripes you were healed’, which is a clear citation of Isa 53:5. This was very much apposite in this case as the sufferings of the household servants probably largely included receiving such stripes. And the thought therefore includes the consolation that they would then receive from Christ’s own stripes. He is saying, ‘do not be bitter when you receive such stripes. Remember that it is such stripes, delivered to the Innocent One, that make it possible for your souls to be healed’. Thus the overall point is that through His sufferings they have received healing of soul.

So Peter sees Jesus as being offered as a sacrifice for sin, as dying as our representative and substitute, as being cursed for us (on the tree), and as being the Suffering Servant on Whom was laid all the iniquities of God’s true people, with the result that spiritual healing is made available through His blood, something which he now stresses.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

1Pe 2:24. Who his own self bare our sins, &c. That which is deepest in the heart is generally most in the mouth; that which abounds within, runs over most by the tongue or pen. When men light upon the speaking of that subject which possesses the affection, they can hardly be taken off, or drawn from it again. Thus the apostles in their writings, when they make mention any way of Christ suffering for us, love to dwell on it, as that which they take most delight to speak of; such delicacy and sweetness is in it to a spiritual taste, that they like to keep it in their mouth, and are never out of their theme, when they insist on Jesus Christ, though they have but named him by occasion of some other doctrine; for He is the great subject of all they have to say.

Thus here the apostle had spoke of Christ in the fore-going words very fitly to this present subject, setting him before Christian servants, and all suffering Christians, as theircomplete example, both in point of much suffering, and of perfect innocence and patience in suffering. And he had expressed their engagement to study and follow that example; yet he cannot leave it so, but having said that all those his sufferings, wherein he was so exemplary, were for us, as achief consideration, for which we should study to be like him, he returns to that again, and enlarges upon it in words partly the same, partly very near those of that Evangelist among the prophets, Isa 53:4.

And it suits very well with his main scope to press this point, as giving both very much strength and sweetness to the exhortation; for surely it is most reasonable, that we willingly conform to Him in suffering,who had never been an example of suffering, nor subject at all to sufferings, nor in any degree capable of them, but for us; and it is most comfortable, in these light sufferings of this present moment, to consider, that hehasfreedus,iffaithful, from the sufferings of eternity, by himself suffering in our stead in the fulness of time.

That Jesus Christ is, in doing and suffering, our supreme and matchless example, and that he came to be so, is a truth: but that he is nothing further, and came for no other end, is, you see, a high point of falsehood; for how should man be enabled to learn and follow that example of obedience, unless there were more in Christ; and what would become of that great reckoning of disobedience which man stands guilty of? No, these are too narrow; he came to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, and for this purpose had a body fitted for him and given him to bear this burden; to do this as the will of his Father; to stand for us instead of all offerings and sacrifices; and by that will, says the apostle, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, Heb 10:10.

This was his business, not only to rectify sinful man by his example, but to redeem him by his blood. He was a teacher come from God. As a prophet he teaches us the way of life, and, as the best and greatest of prophets, is perfectly like his doctrine; and his actions, (which in all teachers is the liveliest part of doctrine,) his carriage in life and death, is our great pattern and instruction: but what is said of his forerunner, is more eminently true of Christ; he is a Prophet, and more than a prophet, a Priest satisfying justice for us, and a King conquering sin and death in us; an example indeed, but more than an example, our sacrifice, and our life, and all in all. It is our duty to walk as he walked, to make him the pattern of our steps, 1Jn 2:6.: but our comfort and salvation lies in this, that he is the propitiation for our sins, 1Pe 2:2. So in the first chapter of that epistle, 1Pe 2:7 we are to walk in the light, as he is in the light: but for all our walking, we have need of that which follows; that bears the great weight, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

1Pe 2:24 . A further expansion of the , 1Pe 2:21 .

. . .] “ Who Himself bore our sins on His body to the tree .”

, the third relative clause; though a climax too, cannot fail to be recognised here: He suffered innocently, patiently (not requiting evil for evil), vicariously, for us, still it must not be asserted that this third clause predicates anything of Christ in which He can be an example for us (Hofmann); the thought here expressed itself contradicts this assertion.

The phraseology of this verse arose from a reference to the passage in Isa 53 , and the actual fulfilment of the prophecy herein contained. The words of that chapter which were chiefly present to the mind of the apostle, are those of 1Pe 2:12 , LXX. ( ); cf. also 1Pe 2:11 : , ( ) and 1Pe 2:4 : . ( ). The Hebrew with the accus. of the idea of sin, therefore: “to bear sin,” is equivalent to, “to suffer the punishment for sin,” either one’s own or that of another. Now, as is in the above-quoted passage a translation of , its meaning is: “He suffered the punishment for the sins of many.” [156]

This suffering of punishment is, in the case of the Servant of God, of such a nature that by it those whose the sin is, and for whom He endures the punishment, become free from that punishment; it is therefore a vicarious suffering. [157] Since, then, Peter plainly had this passage in his mind, the thought here expressed can be no other than this: that Christ in our stead has suffered the punishment we have merited through our sins, and so has borne our sins. But with this the subsequent , which means not “on the tree,” but “ on to the tree ” does not seem to harmonize. Consequently it has been proposed to take in the sense which it has in the phrase: (cf. Jas 2:21 ; Lev 14:20 ; 2Ch 35:16 ; Bar 1:10 ; 1Ma 4:53 ); cf. 1Pe 2:5 ; where would be conceived as the altar (Gerhard: Crux Christi fuit sublime illud altare, in quod Christus se ipsum in sacrificium oblaturus ascendit, sicut V. Testamenti sacrificia altari imponebantur). But against this interpretation, besides the fact that . is thus here taken in a sense different from that which it has in Isa 53 , there are the following objections: (1) That in no other passage of the N. T. is the cross of Christ represented as the altar on which He is offered; [158] (2) That neither in the O. T. nor in the N. T. is sin anywhere spoken of as the offering which is brought up to the altar. [159] might be explained by assuming a pregnant construction, as in the Versio Syr., which runs: bajulavit omnia peccata nostra eaque sustulit in corpore suo ad crucem, [160] that is: “ bearing our sins He ascended the cross ” But the assumption of such a construction is not necessary, since can quite well be taken to mean “ carrying up ,” without depriving the word of the signification which it has in the passage in Isaiah, since “carrying up “implies “carrying.” In no other way did Christ bear our sins up on to the cross than by suffering the punishment for our sins in the crucifixion, and thereby delivering us from the punishment. The apostle lays special stress on the idea of substitution here contained, by the addition of , which, as in Isa 53:11 , stands by way of emphasis next to ; but by not “ in ,” [161] but “ on His body” we are reminded that His body it was on which the punishment was accomplished, inasmuch as it was nailed to the cross and died thereon. It is quite possible that this adjunct, as Wiesinger assumes, is meant at the same time to serve the purpose of expressing the greatness of that love which moved Christ to give His body to the death for our sins; but that there is in it any special reference to the sacramental words of the Lord (Weiss, p. 273), is a conjecture which has nothing to support it. The addition of is explained by the fact itself, since it is precisely Christ’s death on the cross that has redeemed us from the guilt and power of our sins. Peter also uses the expression to denote the cross, in his sermons, Act 5:30 ; Act 10:39 . It had its origin in the Old Testament phraseology, , rendered by LXX., denoting the pole on which the bodies of executed criminals were sometimes suspended; cf. Deu 21:22-23 ; Jos 10:26 . Certainly in this way attention is drawn to the shame of the punishment which Christ suffered; but it is at least doubtful, since there is no reference to it in any way, whether Peter, like Paul, in Gal 3:13 , used the expression with regard to the curse pronounced in Deu 21:22 (as Weiss, p. 267, emphatically denies, and Schott as emphatically asserts). Bengel is entirely mistaken in thinking, that by the adjunct the apostle alludes to the punishment of slaves (ligno, cruce, furca plecti soliti erant servi).

[156] It admits of no doubt that in connection with or has the meaning above given; cf. Lev 19:17 ; Lev 20:19 ; Lev 24:15 ; Num 5:31 ; Num 14:34 ; Eze 4:5 ; Eze 14:10 ; Eze 16:58 ; Eze 23:35 , etc. (Lam 5:7 : ); generally, indeed, the LXX. translate this by , but also by and ; in the passage quoted, Isa 53:4 , by ; in Num 14:33 , as in Isa 53:12 , by . This proves how unwarranted Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II. 1, p. 465, 2d ed.) is in saying “that in view of the Greek translation of Isa 53:11-12 , it is arbitrary to assume that means simply to carry.” Of course every one knows that in and of itself does not mean “to carry;” but from this it does not follow that the LXX. did not use it in this sense in the phrase above alluded to, the more so that they attribute to the word no meaning opposed to its classical usage; cf. Thuc. 1Pe 3:18 : ; .; Pol. 1:30: ., see Pape, s.v. , and Delitzsch, Komment. z. Br. an die Hebr. p. 442. Doubtless , Lev 10:17 , is said of the priests bearing away sin (making atonement), but there the LXX. translate by . Plainly there can here be no allusion to the meaning “to forgive sin.”

[157] Weiss is inaccurate when he asserts (p. 265) that the passages, Lev 19:17 , Num 14:33 , Lam 5:7 , Eze 18:19-20 , allude to a vicarious suffering; these passages, indeed, speak of a bearing of the punishment which the sins of others have caused, but this is suffering with , not instead of others, without those who have done the sin being freed from its punishment.

[158] Schott, whilst admitting the above, asserts “that it will hardly be contradicted that in all the passages which speak of Christ’s death on the cross as a sacrifice, the cross must be presupposed to be that which served as altar.” This is decidedly to be contradicted, the more so that the animal sacrificed suffered death not upon , but before the altar.

[159] If be here taken as equivalent to “to offer sacrifice,” as in Heb 7:27 , not only would the thought which Delitzsch (p. 440) terms a corrupt one arise: per semet ipsum immolavit peccata nostra, but would then have to be interpreted: “ on the cross .” Luther: “who Himself offered in sacrifice our sins on His body on the tree.” Here, too, Schott admits what is said above, but seeks to destroy its force as a proof, by claiming for the sense: “to present or bring up in offering,” at the same time supplying as it seems as the object of offering, the body of Christ, which the expression of the apostle in no way justifies.

[160] Schott brings the baseless accusation against the circumlocution of the Syr. translation, “that in it peccata is to be taken differently in the first clause from the second;” in the former, as equivalent to “the punishment of our sin;” in the latter, as “the sin itself,” for peccata has the same meaning in both members, although the bearing of the sins consists in the suffering of the punishment for them. Comp. Num 14:33 , where in the expression , the word has by no means the meaning “punishment for fornication,” although means as much as “to suffer the punishment for fornication.”

[161] So, too, Schott, who interprets as equal to “in His earthly bodily life”(!).

REMARK 1. The interpretation of many of the commentators is wanting in the necessary precision, inasmuch as the two senses, which has in the different phrases: and . , are mixed Up with each other. Vitringa (Vix uno verbo ; vocis exprimi potest. Nota ferre et offere. Primo dicere voluit Petrus, Christum portasse peccata nostra, in quantum illa ipsi erant imposita. Secundo ita tulisse peccata nostra, ut ea secum obtulerit in altari), while drawing, indeed, a distinction between the two meanings, thinks that Peter had both of them in his mind, which of course is impossible.

Hofmann explains on the analogy of the phrase: , without, however, understanding the cross as the altar; the meaning then would be: “He lifted up His body on to the cross, thereby bearing up thither our sins, that is to say, atoning for our sins.” Although Hofmann admits that Peter had in his mind the passage in Isaiah, he nevertheless denies that has here the same meaning as there. In his Schriftbeweis , 1st ed., he gives a similar interpretation, only that there he says: “He took up our sins with Him, and so took them away from us .” He, however, justly adds that has the same meaning here as in Heb 9:28 . Wiesinger has adopted this interpretation, as also, in substance, Delitzsch, Hebraerbrief , p. 442 f. In the 2d edition of the Schriftbeweis , Hofmann has withdrawn this explanation; but, on the other hand, he erroneously asserts that here is “the of Heb 7:27 .”

Schott justly combats Hofmann’s view, that the sufferings of Christ for our sins consisted essentially only in what befell Him as the result of our sins, and maintains, in opposition to it, the substitution of Christ. His own interpretation, however, of our passage is equally inadmissible, since he attributes to the meaning: “ to bring up or present in offering ;” yet adding to the idea of “ offering ” an object other than which stands with , thus giving to the one word two quite different references. Schott makes the object of “offering,” taking it out of the supplementary clause: ; but this he is the less justified in doing, that he explains these words by “ in His earthly corporeal life.”

This is not the place to enter fully into Schott’s conception of the propitiation wrought by Christ’s death on the cross. Though it contains many points worthy of notice, it is of much too artificial a nature, ever to be considered a just representation of the views of the apostle.

Luthardt interprets: “He bore His body away from the earth up to God. No doubt it was not an altar to which Christ brought His body up; but the peculiarity lies precisely in this, that His body should at the same time hang on the accursed tree.” “Away from the earth to God” is evidently an addition; and had Peter wished to emphasize the cross as the accursed tree, he would have added . [162]

[162] Pfleiderer (p. 422) is entirely unwarranted in maintaining the sense to be: “that Christ, by His death on the cross, took away, removed our sins, so that they no longer surround our life,” and “that by this removal is meant, that we free our moral life and conduct from sin”(!).

REMARK 2.

This interpretation agrees substantially with that given by de Wette-Brckner and Weiss; yet de Wette’s reference to Col 2:14 is inappropriate, inasmuch as that passage has a character entirely different, both in thought and expression, from the one here under consideration. Weiss is wanting in accuracy when he says that “Christ ascended the cross, and there bore the punishment of our sins,” since already in the sufferings which preceded the crucifixion, the bearing of our sins took place.

Nor can it be conceded to these commentators that the idea of sacrifice was absent from the conception of the apostle. Its existence is erroneously disputed also in Isa 53 , in spite of the , 1Pe 2:10 . No doubt prominence is given, in the first instance, to the idea of substitution; but Weiss ought not to have denied that this thought is connected in the mind of the prophet, as in that of the apostle, with the idea of sacrifice, especially as he himself says that the idea of substitution is that upon which the sin-offering is based, Lev 17:11 . And was there any other substitutionary bearing of sin than in the sacrifice? It must not, however, be concluded that each word in the expression, and especially , must have a particular reference to the idea of sacrifice.

] Oecumenius: , ; cf. Rom 6:2 ; Rom 6:11 (Gal 2:19 ). Bengel’s rendering: fieri alicujus dicitur servus, dicit sejunctionem; Germ. “to become without,” which Weiss (p. 284) supports, is inappropriate here, since in this sense is construed with the genitive. For the dative, see Winer, p. 398 [E. T. 532]. corresponds to the foregoing . The use of the aor. part, shows that the being dead unto sin is the condition into which we are introduced by the fact that Christ . . . The actions of the Christians should correspond with this condition; this the apostle expresses by ; cf. Rom 6 .

means here not: justification or righteousness, as a condition of him whose sins are forgiven, but it is the opposite of : righteousness which consists in obedience towards God and in the fulfilling of His will. The clause, introduced here by the final particle (as in 1Pe 1:18 ), does not give the primary aim of Christ’s substitutionary death: that, namely, of reconciliation, but further the design: that of making free from the power of sin. Weiss (p. 285) is wrong in thinking that Peter “did not here conceive the redemption as already completed in principle by the blood of Christ,” but “accomplished in a purely physiological way, by the impression produced by the preaching of His death and the incitement to imitation which [163] it gave.” Thus Pfleiderer also. The refutation of this is to be found in what follows.

[ ] ] Isa 53:5 , LXX.; return to the direct form of address: is, properly speaking, marks left by scourging ( Sir 28:17 , ); therefore, taken strictly, the expression has reference to the flagellation of Christ only; but here it stands as a pars pro toto (Steiger) to denote the whole of Christ’s sufferings, of which His death was the culminating point.

By the apostle declares that, through the suffering of Christ (of course by the instrumentality of faith), the Christians are translated from the sickness of a sinful nature into the health of a life of righteousness.

[163] In his Lehrbuch der bibl. Theol. (p. 172), Weiss only says: “It follows from 1Pe 2:2 that the being released from sin is certainly a consequence, but only the indirect consequence of the death of Christ. Because it has released us from the guilt of our former sins, the further consequence will be, that henceforward we will renounce those sins which He vicariously expiated.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2398
THE VICARIOUS SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

1Pe 2:24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

AN attentive reader of the New Testament cannot but have observed, that there is one subject in particular to which the Apostles frequently recur, and on which they delight pre-eminently to dwell: and that is, the great work of redemption. St. Paul scarcely ever has occasion to mention the name of Christ, but he digresses from his main subject, to indulge the feelings of his heart in expatiating upon the glory and excellency of his Divine Master. It is the same with the Apostle Peter. He has been speaking to servants; and instructing them to bear with meekness and patience any injuries that may be inflicted on them for the Gospels sake: and he has proposed to them the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose patience, under the most painful sufferings, was altogether unmoved and inexhaustible. But he could not be satisfied with the bare recital of the Saviours excellence. Having touched on the subject, he must enlarge upon it, and not leave it till he has more fully declared the greatness of our obligations to him. Yet was this digression not by any means irrelevant to his purpose. It had a manifest bearing upon his main subject; and was, in that view, capable of the richest improvement.

In opening to you his words, I will,

Consider the work of redemption, as here set forth

And, that we may enter the more fully into it, let us distinctly shew,

Who is the person here spoken of

[He was a man: for what he did, he did in his own body. But was he a mere man? No: he was God as well as man, even Emmanuel, God with us [Note: Mat 1:23.]. He was Jehovahs Fellow [Note: Zec 13:7.]; the Mighty God [Note: Isa 9:6.]; God over all, blessed for evermore [Note: Rom 9:5.]. He it was, who, being in the form of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with God, yet made him-self of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross [Note: Php 2:6-8.].]

What he did for us

[He, his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree. What this imports, will be understood by referring to the rites by which it was shadowed forth. Under the law, sacrifices were offered. The victims were beasts: to them were transferred, by the imposition of hands, the sins of the offender: in the offenders stead they died; their flesh was consumed upon the altar: and, through the sacrifice thus offered, the sins of the offerer were forgiven.
But Jesus, who came down from heaven to redeem us, had no other offering to make but his own body: on him, therefore, our sins were laid: and the cross was, as it were, the altar on which he was placed; and the fire of Gods wrath, the flame with which he was consumed.
Stupendous mystery! But it is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation.]

For what end he did it

[Doubtless he did it, in the first place, to effect our reconciliation with God; as St. Peter says, in the very next chapter, He died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God [Note: 1Pe 3:18.]. But he had also a further end in view; namely, to destroy in us the power of sin; and to restore us to that life of righteousness which is indispensable to our happiness, either in this world, or in the world to come. In truth, if this were not effected, it would be to little purpose that an atonement had been made for sin: for as long as sin retained its dominion over us, we must of necessity have a very hell within us: nor would heaven itself be any source of blessedness to us, for want of a disposition suited to it, and a capacity to enjoy it.]

What is already the issue of it to every believing soul

[By his stripes every believing soul is healed. The whole elect world was virtually healed in him, as soon as ever his sacrifice was offered; even as a debtor is absolved, the very moment that his debt is discharged; or a captive is liberated, the very instant that the redemption price is paid for him. But really, and in fact, our souls are healed, the very instant we believe in Christ: our sins are blotted out as a morning cloud, and are put away from us as far as the east is from the west; nor shall they be remembered against us any more for ever [Note: Heb 8:12.]. A principle of grace, too, is infused into the soul, just as the cruse of salt was into the fountain by Elisha the prophet [Note: 2Ki 2:19-22.]; and by it are its deadly qualities corrected; so that whatsoever proceeds from it in future is, comparatively at least, salubrious: the Holy Spirit in him is a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life [Note: Joh 4:14.].]

That we may not lose sight of the objects for which this mystery is here adduced, we shall,

II.

Improve it in the precise view in which the Apostle intended it to be applied

We must bear in mind, that he is speaking to servants, and exhorting them to take patiently whatever injuries they may be called to sustain for righteousness sake. For their direction and encouragement, he proposes to them the example of our Lord Jesus Christ: and, not content with specifying his conduct under the most cruel injuries, he suggests the ulterior ends of his sufferings, and the benefits which we derive from them; intending thereby to fix our attention on that mysterious subject,

As a balm for all our wounds

[Be it so; we are suffering wrongfully, and because we endeavour to maintain a good conscience towards God. But what are our sufferings, when compared with those which our blessed Lord endured for us? Hear the revilings that were cast on him: Say we not well, that thou hast a devil, and art mad [Note: Joh 7:20; Joh 8:48; Joh 10:20. Nothing less than this would sufficiently express their contempt for him.]? Behold the sufferings inflicted on him! Go into the hall of Pilate; and there see the thorns driven into his temples, and his sacred body torn with scourges, the ploughers ploughing on his back, and making long their furrows [Note: Psa 129:3.]! Behold his meekness and resignation; and will not you be ashamed to complain? Will you not rather take up your cross with cheerfulness; and rejoice that you are counted worthy to partake of his sufferings, and be conformed to him [Note: 1Pe 4:12-13.]? If he submitted to stripes, that you might be healed, will not you welcome them, if by any means he may be glorified [Note: 1Pe 4:14.]? Surely, if you reflect aright on this subject, you will regard the sacrifice even of life itself as a small matter, or rather as a ground for self-congratulation [Note: Php 2:17-18.], and for thankfulness to God, who has conferred upon you that high honour for Jesuss sake [Note: Php 1:29.].]

As an incentive to every duty

[What shall constrain you [Note: 2Co 5:14-15.], if this do not? or what other motive can you wish for, than that which this stupendous mystery affords? Will you hesitate to forego any thing for Him who gave up all the glory of heaven for you? or to endure any thing for Him, who endured the penalties of Gods broken law, and became a curse for you? Methinks, the more arduous the duty is, the more eager you will be to perform it; and the more self-denying your labours be, the more will you account yourselves honoured in being called to sustain them. Nothing will be any obstacle to you, if only his will may be done by you, and his glory be advanced [Note: Act 20:24.].]

As a pattern of every grace

[In all that Jesus did, he intended to set you an example, that you should follow his steps. Mark his steps, then, from the cradle to the grave. Mark him, especially under those peculiar circumstances referred to in my text. See how he held fast his integrity, amidst the fiercest opposition. Do ye the same: nor let all that either men or devils can effect, ever divert you from well-doing; or cause you to violate, in the slightest degree, the dictates of your conscience before God. Mark what returns he made to his persecutors: never, for a moment, did he render evil for evil; or cease to seek, to the uttermost, the welfare of his very murderers, praying to his Father to forgive them. Let this be your invariable line of conduct also; blessing them who curse you, and praying for those who despitefully use you, and persecute you [Note: Mat 5:44.].. There is no grace which you may not see exercised by him, during his last hours, in the highest possible perfection. Set him then before you, under all those circumstances; and endeavour to walk in all things as he walked: so will you have an evidence that you are his, and that your hope in him is well founded; seeing that you have the same mind that was in him, and purify yourselves even as he was pure [Note: 1Jn 3:3.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Yet. 24. Who his own self ] Without any to help or uphold him, Isa 63:5 ; he had not so much as the benefit of the sunlight, when in that three hours’ darkness he was set upon by all the powers of darkness.

Bare our sins ] Gr. , bare them aloft, viz. when he climbed up his cross, and nailed them thereunto. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,” Isa 53:4 . He “taketh away the sins of the world,” Joh 1:29 .

That we being dead to sins ] , or, separated from sin, or uumade to it, cut off from it, the old frame being utterly dissolved.

By whose stripes ] Or, welts. This he mentioneth to comfort poor servants, whipped and abused by their froward masters. Sanguis medici factus est medicina phrenetici . The physician’s blood became the sick man’s salve. We can hardly believe the power of sword salve. But here is a mystery that only Christian religion cau assure us of, that the wounding of one should be the cure of another.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

24 .] who Himself (now the reaches its height. He was not only negatively innocent, 1Pe 2:22 , but suffered in the pursuance of the noblest purpose of love, and that love towards us : by which fact His example is further brought home and endeared to us) bore our sins (but in the pregnant sense of “bore to sacrifice,” “carried and offered up:” see notes on Jas 2:21 , . : see Lev 14:20 ; Heb 7:27 . It is a word belonging to sacrifice , and not to be dissociated from it. In Isa 53:12 , , (Heb 9:28 ,) we have the sense of bearing on Himself more prominent: and by that passage our rendering here must be regulated: always remembering that the other sense lies behind) in His ( own ) (this is almost required by the repetition of after , when it might have been well omitted, if no emphasis had been intended) body on the tree (constr. prgn., “took them to the tree and offered them up on it;” as the above sense of necessitates. Cf. Vitringa in Huther: “Vix uno verbo vocis exprimi potest. Nota ferre et offerre . Primo dicere voluit Petrus, Christum portasse peccata nostra, in quantum illa ipsi erant imposita. Secundo, ita tulisse peccata nostra, ut ea secum obtulerit in altari. Respicit ad animantes, quibus peccata primo imponebantur, quique deinceps peccatis onusti offerebantur. Sed in quam aram ait Petrus, lignum, h. e., crucem”); tha (purpose of that great and crowning suffering of the Lord) having died (not, as some Commentators, “having past away,” being removed to a distance (“longefacti a peccatis,” Grot.), but literally, “having died:” so Herod. ii. 85, 136, : 1Pe 2:4 , vi. 58, and other examples in Raphel and Wetstein) to our sins (reff.), we should live to righteousness (the same contrast is found, but with another image, of being freed from, and become servants to, in Rom 6:18 . In Rom 6:11 , where the same figure of death and life is used, it is , ), by whose stripe ye were healed ( , the weal left by a stripe. From Isa 53:5 , . “Paradoxon apostolicum: vibice sanati estis. Est autem , vibex, frequens in corpore servili, Sir 23:10 .” Bengel).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

1Pe 2:24 . Christ was not only well-doer but benefactor . . comes from Isa 53:12 , LXX, ( usually translated ), used also Heb 9:28 . Christ is the perfect sin-offering: “Himself the victim and Himself the priest. The form of expression offered up our sins is due to the double use of for sin and sin-offering. , a Pauline phrase derived from the saying, This is my body which is for you (1Co 9:24 ), explaining of Isa. l.c. , replaces the normal complement of , , in view of the moral which is to be drawn from the sacrificial language adopted. So Jas 2:21 , is substituted for of the original description of the offering of Isaac, Gen 22:9 . Christ died because He took our sins upon Himself ( cf. Num 4:33 , ). Therefore our sins perished and we have died to them, Col 2:14 . . Compare Targum of Isa 53:10 , “and from before Jehovah it was the will to refine and purify the remnant of His people that He might cleanse from sins their souls: they shall see the kingdom of His Christ an prolong their days”. = (i.) die (Herodotus, Thucydides) as opposite of come into being OR (ii.) be free from , as in Thuc. i. 39, . The Dative requires (i.), cf. Rom 6:2 , . The idea is naturally deduced from Isa 53 , Christ bore our sins and delivered His soul to death, therefore He shall see His seed living because sinless. from Isa 53:5 ; properly the weal or scar produced by scourgeing ( Sir 28:17 , ) thus the prophecy was fulfilled according to Mat 27:26 , . The original has . The paradox is especially pointed in an address to slaves who were frequently scourged.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

His own self = Himself.

bare. Same as “offer up”, 1Pe 2:6.

own. Omit.

tree. Compare Act 5:30; Act 10:39; Act 13:29. Gal 1:3, Gal 1:13.

being dead. Greek. apoginomai, to be away from, to die. Only here.

live. App-170.

righteousness. App-191.

stripes =

bruise. Greek. molops. Only here, but in the Septuagint in several places, one of which is Isa 53:5.

healed. Greek. iaomai. See Luk 6:17.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

24.] who Himself (now the reaches its height. He was not only negatively innocent, 1Pe 2:22, but suffered in the pursuance of the noblest purpose of love, and that love towards us: by which fact His example is further brought home and endeared to us) bore our sins (but in the pregnant sense of bore to sacrifice, carried and offered up: see notes on Jam 2:21, . : see Lev 14:20; Heb 7:27. It is a word belonging to sacrifice, and not to be dissociated from it. In Isa 53:12, , (Heb 9:28,) we have the sense of bearing on Himself more prominent: and by that passage our rendering here must be regulated: always remembering that the other sense lies behind) in His (own) (this is almost required by the repetition of after , when it might have been well omitted, if no emphasis had been intended) body on the tree (constr. prgn., took them to the tree and offered them up on it; as the above sense of necessitates. Cf. Vitringa in Huther: Vix uno verbo vocis exprimi potest. Nota ferre et offerre. Primo dicere voluit Petrus, Christum portasse peccata nostra, in quantum illa ipsi erant imposita. Secundo, ita tulisse peccata nostra, ut ea secum obtulerit in altari. Respicit ad animantes, quibus peccata primo imponebantur, quique deinceps peccatis onusti offerebantur. Sed in quam aram ait Petrus, lignum, h. e., crucem); tha (purpose of that great and crowning suffering of the Lord) having died (not, as some Commentators, having past away, being removed to a distance (longefacti a peccatis, Grot.), but literally, having died: so Herod. ii. 85, 136, : 1Pe 2:4, vi. 58, and other examples in Raphel and Wetstein) to our sins (reff.), we should live to righteousness (the same contrast is found, but with another image, of being freed from, and become servants to, in Rom 6:18. In Rom 6:11, where the same figure of death and life is used, it is , ), by whose stripe ye were healed (, the weal left by a stripe. From Isa 53:5, . Paradoxon apostolicum: vibice sanati estis. Est autem , vibex, frequens in corpore servili, Sir 23:10. Bengel).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

1Pe 2:24. , who) Peter infers, that we are able, and ought to follow the footsteps of Christ.- , Himself bare) , personal exertion, becomes a servant, so that he himself should do what is to be done. [Er muss selber daran.-Not. Crit.] Jesus Christ Himself undertook the part of others: He did not substitute others for Himself, as they do at the present day, who assign [locant, let out] Canonical Hours to others. Peter agrees with Isa 53:11, Septuagint, , And He Himself shall bear their sins. Comp. Heb 9:28, note.- , in His own body) which was most afflicted.- , upon the tree) Slaves were accustomed to be punished with the tree the cross, the fork.[22]-, that) This word, that, declares that the expiation of sins, properly so called, was made on the cross of Christ: inasmuch as the fruit of it, and of it alone, was our deliverance from the slavery of sin.-, being dead) This expression appositely describes our deliverance from the slavery of sin: for a slave is said to become the property of any one, . signifies separation; as Job 15:4, Septuagint, , thou castest off fear: German, ohne werden. The opposite term is in the Septuagint. The Body of Christ , was presently taken away from that tree to which He had borne our sins: so ought we to be removed from sin.- , to righteousness) Righteousness is altogether one; sin is manifold, to sins. Respecting righteousness, comp. Isa 53:11.-, we may live) in a free service.

[22] The furca consisted of two pieces of wood in the shape of the letter V, which pressed upon the neck and back, while the hands were bound to the two ends. A slave thus punished was called furcifer.-T.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

sins Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 3:23”).

righteousness (See Scofield “Rom 10:10”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

The Ethics of the Atonement

Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness.1Pe 2:24.

There is no subject so surrounded with difficulty and so fruitful of misrepresentation as the one which Passion Sunday suggeststhe Atonement effected for us by Christ on the Cross. No thoughtful man can fail to be struck by the intense moral difficulties which its ordinary and naked presentment involves, and even when he has forced his way beyond them to some more rational standpoint, he still sees only a little light that is ever shading into mysterious darkness. If there is any subject which demands in a Christian teacher reverence and modesty, and a profound conviction that he knows in part, and that he sees through a glass darkly, it is surely this. At the best our standpoint of knowledge is like a little island floating in a sea of mystery.

There are many devout and intelligent Christians to whom it no longer appeals. They may still hold it as an article of their creed, but it is no longer the vital centre of their faith. It is at best a profound mystery, which they must accept but can never hope to understand.

Yet, as we read the New Testament, we feel that to the first Christians the Atonement was not a puzzle, but a revelation. To Paul and John and Peter it was not an intellectual fog, but a glorious flood of light cast upon the fundamental facts of life. The Word of the Cross might be a stumbling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Greek; but to them it was the power of God and the wisdom of God.

This thought penetrates the First Epistle of Peter. It will out, even when we least expect it, even when to minds void of Christian experience it would seem to mar the force of his argument. It is better, he cries, if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer for well-doing. Why? Because Christ gave you the great example? There surely is the supreme motive for Christians. But no. He cannot gaze at the Cross and speak thus. Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. There is the paradox of the Christian life. The punishment of Jesus became the power of Christian patience just at the point where there is no comparison between His sufferings and ours. More remarkable still is the passage out of which our text is taken. Here there can be no question that in the humility and patience of the Master the Apostle sees a motive for the endurance of the servant. Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps. But as though taught by instinct that such an appeal was utterly inadequate when addressed by a Christian pastor to children of the Resurrection, he immediately breaks out into those grand sentences, every syllable of which is redolent of the power of the atoning Sacrifice and breathes the merit of the vicarious Death. Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.

When St. Peter wrote, Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness, this was not the testimony of a person in a distant age, who never knew our Lord; St. Peter said this of one with whom he had lived, whose words he had noted, and with whom he had been in daily intercourse and communion. And yet what a difficult, what a sharp and trying test this for such supernatural pretensions! To say of one person that His death was an atonement for the sins of the world, that He bore them in His own body on the cross, was to assert a profound and awful mystery respecting Him, because it is saying that the whole world was saved by His death; but to say this of one whom he had lived with and knownthis is what we have no example of except in the testimony of the Apostles to Christ.1 [Note: J. B. Mozley.]

The doctrine is the doctrine of vicarious suffering. Now in considering the doctrine of vicarious suffering it is important to remember three things.

(1) The vicarious suffering of Christ is not an isolated fact.Below the surface of human life lies the great universal fact of vicarious suffering, not a dogmatic but an experimental truth. All true service for men involves the bearing of the sins of men, not in the same sense as that in which Christ bore them, but in a sense that helps us to understand the meaning of His suffering.

(2) The vicarious suffering of Christ must not he separated from its purposethat we, being dead unto sins, should live unto righteousness. The ultimate efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ depends on what it does in us. The old hymn is rightHe died to make us good.

(3) Only through suffering do we learn the meaning of His suffering.Slaves bearing ill-usage patiently will by the mysterious power of sympathy learn to see more clearly into the mystery of redemption than the subtlest theologian who has not suffered. The deep truths of Is. 53. were wrung from the heart of the nation as it groaned under the captivity of Babylon, and St. Pauls knowledge of the meaning of the death of Christ was won on the same battlefieldI bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal 6:17). Christianity is stamped with the image of the Cross, and the whole life of each true Christian has something of the form and look of Christ crucified.

The Vicarious Suffering

Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree.

1. Let us first of all try to understand St. Peters language. He has here four remarkable phrases.

(1) His own self.Christ did not employ any one else to accomplish the great work of our redemption; He did it Himself, in His own proper person. The priest of old brought a substitute, and it was a lamb. He struck the knife and the warm blood flowed, but our Lord Jesus Christ had no substitute for Himself. He his own self bare our sins. O thou priest of God! the pangs are to be thine own pangs; the knife must reach thine own heart; no lamb for thee, thou art thyself the Lamb; the blood which streams at thy feet must be thine own blood; wounds there must be, but they must be wounds in thine own flesh.

A little girl brought me half a sovereign for missions. Is this all from yourself? I asked. Pointing to her heart, she said, Yes, it is all from my own very self. So St. Peters words mean, Christ did bear our sins really and truly; He bore them all alone; He had no rival, or partner, or substitute. When the king travels, the newspapers sometimes tell us that Mr. So-and-so, the superintendent of the line, drove the engine himself. The word himself shows that he did then in person what he usually does by the hand of his servants.1 [Note: James Wells, Bible Echoes, 138.]

(2) Bare our sins.The word rendered bare has a singular fulness of significance; it is a sacrificial term, constantly used in the Septuagint for offering sacrifice: here it includes two meanings. Our Lord took up our sins, and in His own body which He offered on the cross He expiated them. It must also be noted that when He took up our sins, He took them away, enabling us to be rid of them.

If we examine Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, we shall find four senses in which the words bearing sin, are used: First, representation; second, identification; third, substitution; and fourth, satisfaction. If we take those four conceptionsrepresentationone standing as a representative before God; identificationone being made identical with those he represents; substitutionone substituted in the place or stead of others; and satisfactionthe furnishing of a satisfying atonement in behalf of others,we have the scope of the meaning of these words.2 [Note: A. T. Pierson, The Hopes of the Gospel, 87.]

(3) In His body.That body so purely born, which must have been a fair casket for the holy jewel it contained; which in the Jordan waters was first identified in outward seeming with the weight of human sin, though in itself without sin; which was the very shrine and home of God, who had prepared it for Him; which was the vehicle for so many blessed words and deeds of ministrythat body was made a sin-offering, and, so to speak, was burnt in fire without the camp, as the bodies of the bulls and goats under the Levitical law.

The depth, the fulness, the perfection, of His Being and of His character endowed Him with capacities for suffering which transcend all our most powerful imaginings. We can reach only imperfect, but still very significant, ideas of what He consciously realized in the Crucifixion. So weak are our powers that great injury stupefies the senses to the pain belonging to it. His perfection of mind would support the sense of pain and intensify it. And not only so, but every part of His Being would be quick, because of His fulness of life, to see and feel all that was contained within the act of men to Him. The pains of the flesh would not so absorb His mind that He could not see and feel also the meaning of all that He endured in His body on the tree. Clear before Him would stand out the hate, the malice, the wrong of His murderers. In the pain of the thorns He would be conscious of and would feel the cruel mockery of that shameful act. When His sensitive frame was pierced by the iron nails and racked with the anguish of hanging on the tree He would in this feel with equal reality the moral state of those who inflicted this upon His body. And as, with that penetrating vision which enabled Him to know what was in man, He looked through the present moral state of His murderers He would see the developments of sin which had built up their evil characters; all the several acts of disobedience and wickedness which had gone to fashion men who would murder the Just One stood out with vivid distinctness. Back beyond the present generation He would see the sins of their fathers, sins whose force lived in their degenerate offspring. A long line of ages of human sin, rank beyond rank, stretching back even to the flood and beyond it to fair Edens garden, where man first ate the forbidden fruit. All would be seen and felt in and under the nails which fixed Him to the tree. He would read and realize also in the acts of the immediate instruments of His death the moral state of the teeming millions of living sinners, east and west and north and south. And as all this sin would be seen in its past and present, so also would the latent possibilities in it for the future pass before Him. He would see in the sins of His crucifiers those sins, the very same sins, which still have existence after nineteen centuries of graceour sins. And knowing, as He alone could know, the dire evils linked everlastingly to all departure from right, He would behold the destined end of sin, if left to work its waydeath and misery, hell and anguishscenes such that only infinite strength of soul could enable Him to look upon them. His all-powerful mind measured this mass of moral corruption; His infinitely pure and infinitely sensitive moral nature felt its terrible turpitude; His love, all-embracing, was pained by the wrong of it; His soul filled with suffering pity at the prospect of its dark issues. That which to us is, at best, but a dim conception in idea, was to Him a most terrible and real experience; Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree.1 [Note: R. Vaughan.]

(4) Upon the tree.The word for tree used here is also used twice in Acts (Act 5:30, Act 10:39) by St. Peter for the cross. Its use in Gal 3:13 is due to the Septuagint of Deu 21:23. Upon the tree is a pregnant construction. He bore our sins up to and upon the tree. Irenaeus speaks of Christ as remedying the disobedience in the matter of the tree of knowledge by the obedience of the tree of Calvary. And we think of the tree of life of Rev 22:2, whose leaves were for the healing of the nations.

There are three great trees of the Bible, towering above all other trees, as the cedars of Lebanon tower above the humble shrubs. These are the tree of life in Eden, the tree of death on Calvary, and the tree of life in heaven. The first is the tree for the sinless, the second is the tree for the sinful, and the third is the tree for the saved in glory. We are neither sinless nor saints in glory, and therefore the tree for us is the tree on Calvary. Notice that St. Peter calls it simply the tree. A family have been promised a Christmas-tree by a friend. All their talk for weeks beforehand is about the tree, just as if there were no other tree in the world for them. One day a cart with a nodding fir-tree is seen approaching the house. They rush in and shout, Oh, mother, the tree has come! And so the Apostle says, the tree. No Christian can mistake it. It is the tree of trees, the prince of trees for us.2 [Note: James Wells, Bible Echoes, 145.]

2. Now in what sense can it be truly said that Christ bore our sins as a burden? It cannot mean that He bore the guilt of our sin, for guilt is by its very nature inextricably attached to the sinner, and cannot be transferred; no one else can be guilty of the sin which I have committed. Nor can it mean that He bore the punishment of our sin; for punishment, likewise, can attach only to the one who is guilty of the sin. Another may suffer for my sin, but his suffering cannot be called punishment. In what sense, then, could Christ bear our sins?

(1) He bore them by sympathy.A good mother once heard that her only son had done a deed of shame. The evil news caused her intense agony, her hair soon grew grey, health and joy forsook her, and soon she was brought down in sorrow to the grave. She bore her sons sin by sympathy. It caused her such grief, because she was so near him, and loved him so fondly. If one sin, or rather that small part of one sin we can know on earth, be such an awful burden, what must it have been to bear the sins of us all? What bounds can be set to the unknown agonies of Christ, who has made Himself one with us sinners? Let Gethsemane and its bloody sweat, let the cross and its pains explain these words, Who bare our sins.

(2) Christ also bore our sins by sacrifice and substitution.The whole Bible is filled with this truth, and the names of Jesus help us to understand it. He is the Lamb of God, upon whom the Lord hath laid the iniquities of us all. The Jew laid his hand upon the head of the lamb, and confessed his sins. The lamb then in a type had the burden of the Jews sins laid upon it, and bare them by being offered as a sacrifice.

In Dr. Bainbridges Around The World: Tour of Christian Missions, there is a curiously interesting and suggestive incident. When in his journey he had reached Tokio, Japan, intending to remain there some little time, he was waited upon one morning by an official, with this singular inquiry, Who stands for you? Supposing it to be a question of passports, he presented his, but that was not what was wanted. He then offered some letters of introduction he had, but they also were unsatisfactory, and the question was repeated, Who stands for you? It was finally explained that there was an ordinance in that city to the effect that no foreigner could take up his residence there for any length of time, unless he provided himself with a substitute. And as a matter of fact there were natives who hired themselves out to foreigners for this purpose. If the foreigner transgressed any law the substitute suffered the penalty for it. Even if the penalty were death, the substitute suffered death. Dr. Bainbridge secured a substitute, and was thereafter permitted to remain in peace and security as long as he chose.

The Ethical Purpose of the Suffering

That we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness.

What was the object of Christs death? Why did He come and live on earth, and die, and rise again? This may seem a very elementary question, but it is really an all-important one. Our answer to it will colour, if not determine, our theory of atonement. Why, then, did Christ die? You would probably answer, offhand, that Christ died to save men. And you would be right, provided you used that word save in the right sense. What does save mean? Salvation, save, are great words which have been used so much that, like worn coins, the original sharpness of their meaning has been almost rubbed away. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes would say they needed depolarising. To the ordinary man in the pew, salvation too often means simply safety. To be saved is to be safe. A saved man is a man who has got off the just punishment of his sins, who will escape hell and go to heaven when he dies; and this because he has accepted some mysterious saving work that Christ wrought for him, and instead of him, on the cross. But that is not the New Testament idea of salvation. To save, in the New Testament, means to make whole and sound. When a sick man is cured he is said to be saved; that is, made well and healthy. To be saved, in the spiritual sense, means to become morally sound, morally healthy, morally well. The idea it conveys is emphatically ethical. In New Testament language, a saved man is a good man, or a man who is on the way to becoming good.

1. Having died unto sins.Every Christian is like Christ. He was born to die for our sins; and we are born again to die to sin. Our death to sin is like His death for sin; our new life is like His new life when He rose from the grave. Until we have died to sin, we have not begun really to live. We live truly only when we live together with Him.

Dead to sins. What a change it speaks of! Offer gold to a corpse. The man may have been a miser all his lifetime, but his eye glistens not now at the sight of the yellow heaps. Place before him the delicacies of the table; he needs them not. Sound in his ear the sweetest strains that the genius of the musician ever gave birth to; they do not touch a single responsive chord; they float by unnoticed, uncared for, unheard.1 [Note: G. Calthrop, Pulpit Recollections, 141.]

A fellow-student, who was a Jew by birth, once gave me the story of his life. By reading the New Testament he was convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah promised to his fathers. He was converted, forsook the synagogue, and was baptized. His parents were shocked, legally disowned and disinherited him, held him as a dead man, and went the length of having a form of burial, and a funeral service over what passed as his coffin. By his conversion he became dead to Judaism, and alive unto Christianity. He was dead to Judaism every way; in law, in love, in life. He was dead in law, for he had lost all his lawful rights as a Jew and the son of a Jew, and Judaism could no longer claim him as its own; he was dead also in love, for his affections had entirely changed, and their love for him was also clean gone; he was dead also in life, for Judaism was as a dead thing to him, and he to Judaism. What cared he for their phylacteries, and new moons, and carnal ordinances? He gloried only in the cross of Christ, by which Judaism was crucified unto him, and he unto Judaism. But he was alive unto Christianity, for he had devoted himself to the work of Christ. On the day of his conversion he died as a Jew, and began to live as a Christian.1 [Note: James Wells, Bible Echoes, 147.]

2. St. Peters phrase is in the plural: dead to sinsit is not sin; and this is even better yet, and more gracious and more satisfying to the soul. The difference between sins in the plural and sin in the singular may be stated thus: Sin refers to our sinful nature, the sin in which and into which we were born, while sins refers to the consequences or fruits of that nature in the actual transgressions of our lives. How wonderful, therefore, that the atonement of Christ covers not only our sin but our sins, that in Him we are not only dead to sin in our nature but dead to sins in our everyday life.

What we mostly fail to understand is the measure and extent to which that sacrifice of Christ has to be made practically potent to enable us to cease from sin in its activities, its determinations, its intentions, and in the knowledge of it. We were intended by God to cease from sin. And why? Because, as the Apostle says, Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; that is, once for all put on the armour which you have given to you now by Godthe mind and purpose and determinationand you shall be enabled, by arming yourself with this determinationwhich is not merely a will, but a reasonable ground of expectationto cease from sin, as your Saviour, Christ, hath ceased from sin. That it is not an absolute deliverance I affirm; that it is not an absolute deliverance that I will affirm to the last breath I draw in this life, for I think I should dishonour my Lord if I were to say I had ever seen a man whom I could speak of as being altogether without sin. I remember (and I speak it tenderly but firmly) some who have claimed to be free from sin, and my only utterance in my heart has been, God help me if I had no better Christianity than yours; if I could not find One to look at with greater admiration, I would hardly care to leave this world. But because we yearn in vain after perfection, it does not follow that we need not, and ought not, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, to be getting nearer to Christ now, and be more and more reflecting His image. Because we cannot attain to the absolutely perfect is the very reason why we should seek to attain the relatively perfect, and have the ambition of being conformed to that Perfect One, that we may live according to His example, and tread in His steps. Is there nothing beyond the judicial in ch. 3. v. 18That he might bring us to God? Thanks be to God, there is something more than the substitutionary, the representative, the vicarious; there is the drawing up until every faculty of the being is made to approach to God, until we draw nigh to God; and you cannot draw nigh to God except as being pure in heart; and the measure of the vision is exactly as we are pure in heart.1 [Note: Prebendary Webb-Peploe in The Keswick Week, 1899, p. 86.]

After the sins of the past have been blotted out, is it necessary to the perpetuity of atoning grace that others shall perpetually take their place? A simple illustration may perhaps show the unreasonableness of this thought. Sins spring from sin, as the eruptions on the skin of a patient suffering from measles or scarlet fever spring from the disease. Now suppose the eruption on the surface were soothed and relieved by medical skill, would this be full healing, even should it be continually repeated and perfectly performed? Surely not. While caring for the effects of the disease, true medical science always aims, as we know, at counteracting the exciting cause of the illness; so our Lords atoning work, while making provision for the putting away of sins in forgiveness as fast as they appear and are presented to Him in true repentance by the sin-sick Christian, aims at the healing of the disease, and the raising up of a perfectly healthy organism.2 [Note: Helen B. Harris, Heart Purity, 62.]

3. Might live unto righteousness.The New Testament writers are full of salvation as a realized, personal experience. They are men who have met Christ, and to whom He has made all the difference. The moral and spiritual change they have experienced is so great that it baffles description. Out of his own experience St. Paul says: If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things are passed away; behold they are become new. They try to describe it by striking metaphors, as a passing from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life. And they rightly attribute it to Christespecially to His death, or rather not so much to His death as to Him dyingChrist crucified.

It is one thing to tell men that Christ died; it is quite another to preach, as St. Peter did, the Death of Christ. It is one thing to declare that by His Cross He taught His brethren and inspired to suffer and to die; it is quite another to proclaim with St. Paul that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is one thing for the shepherd to be ready, if need so require, to bleed for the flock; it is quite another to say, I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. That, and that alone, is the secret of a life not only like Christ, but in Christ. The Christian lifeI cannot begin it unless I am buried with Him by baptism unto death; I cannot continue it unless each closing day it is brought beneath the covering of His finished work, to be within Himself made pure; I cannot end it save as the chief of sinners, pleading not my righteousness, but His, who will put into my story what He did. But when my faith looks up to my crucified Saviour, I begin to be a disciple and in my mouth He puts this new song: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And I follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.1 [Note: J. G. Simpson, Christian Ideals, 277.]

The Ethics of the Atonement

Literature

Bonar (H.), Gods Way of Holiness, 48.

Brown (C.), Trial and Triumph, 89.

Calthrop (G.), Pulpit Recollections, 133.

Clayton (C.), Stanhope Sermons, 432.

Eyton (R.), The True Life, 49.

Gray (J. M.), Salvation from Start to Finish, 33.

Groser (W. H.), Outlines for my Class, 80,

Hall (J. V.), The Sinners Friend, 27.

Hamilton (J.), Works, iv. 217.

Harris (H. B.), Heart Purity, 61.

Horton (R. F.), How the Cross Saves, 41.

Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., ii. 286.

Meyer (F. B.), Tried by Fire, 105.

Moinet (C.), The Good Cheer of Jesus Christ, 33.

Mortimer (A. G.), Life and its Problems, 119.

Mozley (J. B.), Sermons Parochial and Occasional, 278.

Palmer (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 3.

Pierson (A. T.), The Hopes of the Gospel, 85.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, vi. 345.

Sauter (B.), The Sunday Epistles, 242.

Simpson (J. G.), Christian Ideals, 263.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xix. (1873) 649; xlviii. (1902) 361; 1. (1904) 277.

Thomas (W. H. G.), The Apostle Peter, 197.

Wells (J.), Bible Echoes, 137.

Wood (W. S.), Problems in the New Testament, 147.

Christian World Pulpit, xlvi. 170 (Goodrich); xlvii. 245 (Brooks); lxxi. 261 (Martin).

Churchmans Pulpit: Good Friday and Easter Even: vii. 36 (Vaughan).

Clergymans Magazine, New Ser., i. 241 (Mozley).

Homiletic Review, xxxi. 320 (Brooks).

Keswick Week, 1899, p. 84 (Webb-Peploe).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

his own self: Exo 28:38, Lev 16:22, Lev 22:9, Num 18:22, Psa 38:4, Isa 53:4-6, Isa 53:11, Mat 8:17, Joh 1:29, Heb 9:28

on: or, to

the tree: Deu 21:22, Deu 21:23, Act 5:30, Act 10:39, Act 13:29, Gal 3:13

being: 1Pe 4:1, 1Pe 4:2, Rom 6:2, Rom 6:7, Rom 6:11, Rom 7:6, *marg. Col 2:20, Col 3:3, *Gr: 2Co 6:17, Heb 7:26

live: Mat 5:20, Luk 1:74, Luk 1:75, Act 10:35, Rom 6:11, Rom 6:16, Rom 6:22, Eph 5:9, Phi 1:11, 1Jo 2:29, 1Jo 3:7

by: Isa 53:5, Isa 53:6, Mat 27:26, Mar 15:15, Joh 19:1

healed: Psa 147:3, Mal 4:2, Luk 4:18, Rev 22:2

Reciprocal: Gen 22:6 – laid it Gen 22:9 – bound Lev 3:8 – he shall Lev 3:13 – lay his hand Lev 4:32 – a lamb Lev 4:34 – the horns of the altar Lev 4:35 – and the priest shall make Lev 5:1 – bear Lev 7:18 – bear Lev 9:3 – Take ye Lev 10:17 – to bear Lev 16:17 – no man Lev 17:16 – General Lev 22:16 – General Num 7:15 – General Num 15:31 – his iniquity Num 18:1 – shall bear Num 28:30 – General Deu 25:2 – General Jdg 14:14 – Out of the eater 2Sa 24:17 – let thine Psa 69:4 – then I Psa 88:7 – Thy wrath Isa 53:10 – when thou shalt make his soul Jer 30:13 – hast Jer 30:17 – For I Eze 4:4 – thou shalt bear Eze 18:20 – bear Eze 45:17 – he shall prepare Dan 9:26 – Messiah Zec 13:7 – smite Mat 20:28 – and to Mat 26:38 – My Mar 15:24 – crucified Luk 16:22 – the rich Luk 22:19 – given Luk 23:33 – they crucified Joh 10:11 – giveth Joh 10:15 – and I Joh 11:51 – that Jesus Joh 12:32 – if Act 16:22 – the magistrates Rom 4:8 – to whom Rom 4:25 – Who was Rom 6:13 – alive Rom 7:4 – the body Rom 8:3 – condemned 1Co 13:7 – Beareth 1Co 15:3 – Christ Gal 1:4 – gave Gal 2:16 – we have Gal 2:19 – dead Gal 6:2 – Bear Eph 1:7 – whom Phi 2:8 – the death 1Th 5:10 – died 1Ti 2:6 – gave Heb 9:14 – offered Heb 9:26 – he appeared Heb 12:2 – endured 1Pe 2:21 – because 1Jo 3:5 – to 1Jo 3:16 – perceive 1Jo 4:10 – and sent

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

1Pe 2:24. Bare our sins. Jesus never sinned and hence none were literally attached to Him at any time. But something had to be done and some one had to “take the blame” in order to satisfy the vengence of a just God. No mere man was good enough and no angel was human enough to accomplish the purpose, hence the Son was called upon to make the sacrifice. Thayer’s first definition of the original for tree is “that which is made of wood . . . a gibbet, a cross.” When Jesus died on the tree of the cross He became a perfect sacrifice that provided for the remission of sins for all who will accept it on the Lord’s terms. Those terms require that man become dead to sins which denotes that he separate himself from a life of sin, then follow up with a life of righteouness. Stripes is from MOLOPS which Thayer defines, “a bruise, wale, wound which trickles with blood.” Since it is the blood of Christ that brings salvation from sin, we can understand why Peter says by whose stripes ye were healed.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

1Pe 2:24. who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, or, as in margin of the R. V., carried up . . . to the tree. From Christs fellowship with us in suffering, and from His innocence and patience as a Sufferer, we are now led up to the crowning glory of the example which He has left of an endurance not for wrong-doing, but for well-doing. What He endured was not only without personal cause or personal demerit on His own side, but in the cause and for the demerit of others. The vicariousness of His sufferings adds to His example a power and grandeur higher still than it receives from the qualities already instanced in it. So far, therefore, as vicarious suffering is a possibility to us, this new statement applies to the example which we are to study in Christ. It is clear, however, that in taking up here the idea of suffering in your behalf with which he had started, and showing what that involved, Peter speedily carries us beyond the idea of example, and into a region in which Christ stands alone as a Sufferer. He places us now before the Cross itself, and in words each of which is of utmost value, touches upon the great mystery of the relation in which Christs sufferings stand to our sins. The phrase to the tree points us at once to the climax of His vicarious suffering, His death upon the Cross. In designating the Cross the tree, Peter is supposed by some (e.g. Bengel) to have selected a term which would appeal with peculiar force to slaves, their class being familiar with punishment by the tree in various forms, the cross, the fork, etc. Peter, however, uses the same term in Act 5:30; Act 10:39, where there is no such reference to slaves. So here he adopts it simply as it had been suggested by such Old Testament passages as Deu 21:22. It is probable, too, that he has in view those ideas of criminality and shame, and the position of one under the curse of the law, with which the word is associated in the Old Testament passage. The same great Passional of Isaiah (specially Isa 53:4; Isa 53:11-12) is also manifestly in Peters mind, some of its characteristic terms, as rendered by the LXX., reappearing here. No interpretation, therefore, can be just which fails to be in harmony with the prophetic basis of the statement. How, then, is the central phrase bare our sins to be understood? The verb occurs indeed in the New Testament (see also on 1Pe 2:7) in the simple sense of carrying up, or bringing up, as e.g. of Christ bringing Peter and James and John up to the Mount of Transfiguration (Mat 17:1), of Christ being carried up into heaven (Luk 24:51), etc. It has also the sense, frequent enough in the Classics, of sustaining. Here, however, its accessories shut us up to a choice between two technical meanings, namely, that of offering up, and that of bearing punishment. Hence some (including the great name of Luther) take the sense to be made an offering of our sins on the tree, or brought our sins as an offering to the tree. In favour of this, it may be urged that the same verb has already been used in this sense in 1Pe 2:5 (as it is again in Heb 7:27; Heb 13:15; cf. also Jas 2:21), and that there is a distinct analogy in the Old Testament formula used of the priest offering on, or bringing offerings to, the altar (Lev 14:20; 2Ch 24:16). But there are fatal objections to this view, as e.g. the unexampled conception of the sins being themselves the offering; the equally unexampled description of the Cross as an altar (notwithstanding Heb 13:10); the fact that it was not upon but before the altar that sacrificial victims under the Old Testament were put to death; and the difference thus created between Peters use and Isaiahs use of the same terms. The other sense, viz. that of bearing the consequences, or paying the penalty, of sin, is supported by the weightiest considerations, as e.g. the fact that the verb in question is one of those by which the Greek Version represents the Hebrew verb, which (when it has sin or iniquity as its object) means to bear punishment for sin (whether ones own or that of others) in numerous passages both of the Pentateuch and the prophets (e.g. Lev 19:17; Lev 20:19; Lev 24:15; Num 5:31; Num 14:34; Eze 4:5; Eze 14:10; Eze 16:58; Eze 23:35); the New Testament analogy in Heb 9:28; the harmony with what is said of the Servant of Jehovah in Isaiah 53. The addition in His body brings out the fact that this endurance of the punishment of our sins was discharged by Him, not remotely as was the case with the Israelite under the Law who brought a victim distinct from himself, but directly in His own person. The phrase to (or, on to, not on) the tree is not inconsistent with this meaning. It gives the whole sentence the force of a picture representing Christ with our sins upon Him, and carrying them with Him on to the final act of penal endurance on the Cross. The statement, therefore, is more than a figure for securing the forgiveness of sin, and means more than bearing sin sympathetically, burdening ones heart with the sense of sin, or destroying the power of sin in us. It involves the two ideas of sacrifice and substitution; the latter having additional point given it by the Himself (or, as our E. V. puts it, His own self), which is set both emphatically first and in antithetical relation to our sins. It can scarcely mean less than what Weiss recognises when he says: It is plain, therefore, that in consequence of Isa. iii, Peter regards this sin-bearing of Christ in behalf of sinners as the means whereby sin has been removed from them, and by which, therefore, the stain of guilt has been effaced (Bib. Theol. i. p. 233, Eng. Trans.). It gives no theory, however, of how this sin-bearing carried such efficacy with it.

in order that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness. The ransom, from the necessity of ourselves bearing the consequences, or legal liabilities of our sins, however, is not an end to itself. It is done with a view to the killing of the practical power of sin in us, and to our leading a new life. A death unto the sins which He bore is given here as the position into which we were brought once for all by Christs great act of sin-bearing. Hence the use of the historical past having died. The idea of this death, though it is expressed by a term not found elsewhere in the New Testament (which some wrongly render being removed away from), is the same as the Pauline idea (Rom 6:2; Rom 6:11). And through this death comes the new life which is dedicated to the service of righteousness; which term has here, of course, not the theological sense of justification or a justified state, which some still give it, but the ethical sense which it has, e.g., in Rom 6:16; Rom 6:18-19, etc.

by whose braise ye were healed. The word rendered both by the A. V. and by the R. V. stripes, occurs only this once in the New Testament. In the original it is a collective singular, and means properly a weal, the bruise left by blows or by the scourge. Hence it is thought that Peter uses it with reference to the slaves punishment. He takes it, however, simply from Isa 53:5, adopting what applies properly only to the effects of one kind of punishment as a vivid figure of Christs sufferings as a whole, and passing at the same time naturally from the we and our to the direct personal address ye, which so distinguishes the Epistle. Bengel calls this a paradoxical expression of the apostle. It gives the double paradox of gracehealed with a stripe, and healed with what is laid upon another than the patient himself. The moral sickness of sin is translated into the health of righteousness by the pain of the Sinless.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The Purpose of Christ’s Death

Peter had gone through a time when he did not understand the purpose of Christ’s death ( Mat 16:21-23 ). In 1Pe 2:24 , he explains the full meaning of that great event by telling that He bore our sins on the cross. Christ bore the consequences of sins when He died for obedient sinners ( Rom 6:23 ; Mat 20:28 ; Mat 26:28 ; 1Ti 2:5 ; Rom 5:6 ; Rom 5:9-10 ; 1Co 11:24 ; 1Co 15:3 ; 2Co 5:14-15 ; Heb 2:9 ; Heb 9:26 ; Heb 10:10 ). The tree would, of course, be the cross. Jesus died that Christians might die to sin and live to do what is right in the sight of God ( Rom 6:1-18 ; Col 3:1-10 ). God’s commandments are righteousness, so those keeping them would be righteous ( Psa 119:172 ). In an obvious reference to Isa 53:5 , Peter spoke of “stripes,” which Thayer says means “a bruise, wale, wound that trickles with blood.” This would seem to refer to the scourging Jesus experienced on the way to the cross ( Mat 27:26 ).

Perhaps we have read the words “scourged Jesus” without a full understanding for too long. Jesus’ sufferings are well explained by Dr. Davis in an article which was first printed in Arizona Medicine and then reprinted in

Great Commission News. Preparations for the scourging was carried out. The prisoner is stripped of his clothing and his hands tied to a post above his head. It is doubtful whether the Romans made any attempt to follow the Jewish law in this matter of scourging. The Jews had an ancient law prohibiting more than forty lashes. The Pharisees, always making sure that the law was strictly kept, insisted that only thirty-nine lashes be given. (in case of miscount, they were sure of remaining within the law.) The Roman legionnaire steps forward with the flagrum (or flagellum) in his hand. This is a short whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of lead attached near the end of each.

The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back and legs. At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blook (sic. blood) from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The small balls of led (sic. lead) first produce large, deep bruises which are broken open by subsequent blows.

Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When it is determined by the centurion in charge that the prisoner is near death (sic.), the beating is finally stopped. It was by such stripes that Christians were healed from the dreaded disease of sin.

The figure of sheep wandering away from the fold, confused, in grave danger from wild animals, while traversing potentially dangerous terrain, represents the soul that has wandered from the fold of God by stepping into the path of sin ( Luk 15:3-7 ). Those who are Christians are back in the fold of God and under the watchful eye of Jesus who is the shepherd and bishop, or overseer, of their souls. A shepherd guides his sheep with love and tends to their every need ( 1Pe 2:25 ; Joh 10:1-18 ; Heb 13:20 )

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

1Pe 2:24-25. Who his own self In his own person, and by the sacrifice of himself, and not of another, (Heb 9:28,) bare our sins That is, the punishment due to them; in his afflicted, torn, dying body on the tree The cross, whereon chiefly slaves or servants were wont to suffer. The apostle alludes to Isa 53:12; He bare the sins of many. The phrase, bearing sin, is often used in the Old Testament. It signifies sometimes the making atonement for sin, Lev 10:17; sometimes the suffering punishment for sin, Lev 22:9; Eze 18:20; and sometimes the carrying away sin from the sight of God; as the scape-goat is said to do, Lev 16:22. The apostle uses here the first person, our sins, to show that Christ bare the sins of believers, in every age and country; and to make us sensible how extensive the operation of his death is in procuring pardon for sinners. That we, being dead to sins Or, as is more literally rendered, freed from sins

That is, from the guilt and power; from which, without an atonement, it was impossible we should be delivered. By whose stripes ye were healed Of your spiritual disorders: evils infinitely greater than any which the cruelty of the severest masters can bring upon you. See on Isa 53:5. By changing his discourse from the first to the second person, the apostle addressed those slaves who might be beaten unmercifully by cruel masters; because, of all the considerations by which they could be animated to patience, the most powerful was, to put them in mind of the painful stripes with which Christ was beaten, when he was scourged by Pilates order, (Mat 27:26,) and to tell them, that with these stripes the wounds in their souls, occasioned by sin, were healed; wounds far more painful and deadly than those inflicted on them by their froward masters. For ye were as sheep going astray From their pastures, their shepherd, and his flock, and exposed to want and the danger of being lost in the wilderness, or destroyed by wild beasts; ye were wandering out of the way of truth and duty, of safety, holiness, and happiness, into the by-paths of error and sin, of guilt and misery paths leading to certain destruction. But are now returned Through the influence of divine grace; unto the Shepherd The great Shepherd of the sheep, brought again from the dead, through the blood of the everlasting covenant; and Bishop the kind Observer, Inspector, and Overseer; of your souls Who has graciously received you under his pastoral care, and will maintain that inspection over you which shall be your best security against returning to those fatal wanderings. Though in this passage the apostle addressed his discourse immediately to servants or slaves, yet, by giving titles to Christ which marked his relation to men of all ranks and conditions, he hath intimated that his exhortation to suffer unmerited evils patiently, is intended for all who profess the gospel.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

ARGUMENT 12

LIFE AND HEALTH IN THE ATONEMENT

24. Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree in order that we being dead to sins may live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed. This verse, in beautiful, lucid and cogent simplicity sets forth the vicarious atonement, in which the Son of God actually redeemed the whole world when He died on the cross, sweeping from the field very conceivable defalcation as to the gracious possibility of universal salvation, hence the vile sinner need only, in the utter and eternal abnegation and abandonment of all his sins, in the profound contrition of a broken heart, look to Calvary and by simple faith in the Word of God, receive and appropriate the full and free pardon of all his transgressions, rising with the shout of victory over sin, Satan and hell. Not only is life from the dead for every lost soul purchased by the vicarious atonement of Christ on the cross, but perfect soul health gloriously delivered from the remotest lingering contamination of the diabolical virus engendered by the fall, is abundantly provided for in this triumphant expiation of the human malady, unfurling the banner of entire sanctification to wave triumphantly over the blackest hell-dens of slumdom.

25. The omnipotent, crucified, risen and triumphant Christ is the tenderhearted, loving Shepherd, now calling every human soul this side the infernal portal to come unto Him. Meanwhile to all the spiritually dead He offers life and to all the sick perfect health.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 24

Bare our sins; the penalty for our sins.–By whose stripes; by means of whose stripes.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

2:24 {26} Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

(26) He calls the servants back from considering the injuries which they are constrained to bear, to think instead on the greatness and the end of the benefit received from Christ.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Jesus’ sufferings reached their climax on the cross. Peter taught that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and laid down His life as payment for those sins (i.e., penal substitution; cf. Deu 21:23). He viewed Jesus’ cross as an altar on which a sacrifice was placed. [Note: Bigg, p. 147.]

We could translate the second part of this verse as follows: ". . . that, having broken with our sins, we might live for righteousness." Jesus Christ’s death separated our sins from us. Consequently we can now live unto righteousness rather than unto sin (cf. Rom 6:1-11).

"The idea is that, Christ having died for sins, and to sin, as our proxy or substitute, our consequent standing before God is that of those who have no more connection with our old sins, or with the life of sinning." [Note: Alan M. Stibbs, The First Epistle General of Peter, p. 121.]

Some writers have cited the third part of this verse to support the non-biblical doctrine that Jesus by His death made healing from any physical ailment something that every Christian can claim in this life. This is the belief that there is "healing in the atonement." The context of Isaiah 53, as well as the past tense "were healed" here, implies spiritual healing from the fatal effects of sin rather than healing from present physical afflictions. Peter used healing as a metaphor for spiritual conversion, as Isaiah did (cf. Mar 2:17; Luk 4:23). "Wounds" refers to the bruising and swelling left by a blow that a fist or whip delivered.

"The expression is highly paradoxical because stripes, which make bloody welts and lay even the flesh bare, are said to have wrought healing." [Note: Lenski, p. 124.]

Undoubtedly some of Peter’s original readers had received wounds in a similar fashion or were in danger of receiving them.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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