Why Jesus Was Beaten
If you look at all the New Testament Scriptures that teach that Jesus redeemed us from our sins with His blood, you should start to wonder something. We know from Scripture that blood atones for sin, so why couldn’t Jesus have just shed His blood for us to complete our redemption? If all we needed was the shedding of innocent blood, He could have just had His wrists slit by the Romans and He would have shed His blood and died a sacrificial death for us. By that logic, we would have been redeemed from sin if it had happened that way. (Of course, the Old Testament foreshadowings of Jesus would have had to have been different, as it was clear that the cross was foretold in the Old Testament.)
So why did the plan of redemption have to include having Jesus’ body scourged mercilessly by the Romans before He ever went to the cross? Surely He shed blood at that time, but it’s hard to imagine blood not pouring out as He was nailed to the cross. That would have satisfied the requirement for the shedding of innocent blood. Then the Lord’s Supper could consist just of the fruit of the vine representing His shed blood, as there would have been no need for His body to also be broken for us.
Why, in Isaiah’s literal terms, did God “make Him sick” (Isaiah 53:10)? We would have been just as much redeemed from sin if Jesus had been healthy on the cross when He shed His blood. But we know that it was not a healthy Man who was nailed to that tree. He was so ruined physically before He even got to the cross that He was unable to carry His cross, which He no doubt would have been able to do if He had been healthy until He was crucified. He was so unhealthy that He died sooner than either of the two thieves who were crucified beside Him.
Isaiah tells us explicitly why Jesus was beaten. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us well-being was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. Jesus was physically tortured to purchase physical healing for us. We are not physically healed by Jesus’ blood; we are physically healed by Jesus’ stripes. Peter mentions that He bore our sins in His BODY on the tree, and by His stripes we were healed. Jesus suffered spiritually to redeem us from spiritual suffering, and He suffered physically to redeem us from physical suffering.
So Jesus was not beaten to grant us forgiveness for sins; His shed blood purchased that for us. He was beaten to purchase healing for our bodies.
That HAD to happen because Deuteronomy 28:15-68 specified that God would lay illnesses on people who sinned. To redeem us from that curse (Galatians 3:13), Jesus had to have God lay those illnesses on Him as punishment for OUR sins.
Now, is this healing that He purchased available in this lifetime, or just in the world to come? Clearly it MUST be for this lifetime, because our new bodies will never be sick, and thus, they will never need to be healed! The fact that Jesus bore “our sicknesses” and carried “our pains” proves that what He did was for this lifetime, because there will be no sicknesses or pains in heaven that He could have carried for us. Because what He bore pertains solely to this lifetime, the redemption that He accomplished from sicknesses and pains must also apply to this lifetime. When we get our new body, our old body will be “transformed,” not healed. We will get immortal replacement bodies. We won’t keep our current bodies and just have them be “healed.” So the false comforters who talk about death “being the ultimate healing” are technically incorrect, as healing is not what will happen after you die. Therefore, healing for our bodies cannot be for the next age; it must be for RIGHT NOW!
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