Objection: Isaiah 53:4 Is Chronological – the First Part Refers to Jesus’ Earthly Healing Ministry and the Last Part to His Later Atonement.  So His Bearing of Sicknesses Was Not Part of His Atonement.

This objection tries to resolve the “problem” that Matthew 8:17 cites fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4 without mentioning the atonement by theorizing that Isaiah wrote chronological events.  Supposedly, Jesus’ taking of our sicknesses was during His earthly ministry in the first part of the verse, and then being smitten of God and afflicted in the last part of the verse referred to His atonement for our sins that He accomplished later.

The idea behind this is to “disprove” that Jesus’ bearing of our sicknesses was part of His atonement, though even someone who believes in divine healing being for all could mistakenly use this “logic” to try to explain the difficult fact that Matthew appears to cite fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that He took our diseases away before He was tortured for our sins.

This particular objection is easy to dismiss when you look at Isaiah 53:3, which clearly describes Jesus’ atonement.  He was not a man of pains, acquainted with sickness at any time before He suffered in our place.  So this busts the objector’s time line.  Now Isaiah would have to go from the atonement to an earlier time and back to the atonement, which makes no sense.

If it weren’t for Isaiah 53:3, the “chronological” explanation might be more tempting to believe, but God had Isaiah say things the way he said them to show us that His carrying of “our” diseases was part of His suffering for our sins.

The theme of the whole chapter is the atonement.  In Isaiah 53:10, Isaiah said literally that God made Jesus sick.  The only explanation for that is that He was made sick in OUR place, bearing the sickness that WE deserved for our sins.  Jesus was never sick before He suffered for us.

Also, there is a very important “yet” in Isaiah 53:4.  He took our sicknesses and pains YET we considered Him smitten of God and afflicted.  The “yet” shows that both portions of that verse have to refer to the SAME event.  Because He was smitten of God for our sins when He was punished for us, the entire verse MUST refer to that event.  The grammar just doesn’t allow the verse to be split down the middle into two events at two distinct times.  So Isaiah HAD to be talking about Christ’s atonement at the end of His life and not to His ongoing healing ministry before that.

The only logical conclusion is that Jesus healed based on His future atonement, which would be the only reason why He forgave sins before His actual atonement as well.  This is covered in more depth in another objection reply.