What He Bore, We Need Not Bear!

Isa 53:4-5

4 Surely He has borne our griefs [sickness, disease] and carried our sorrows [pain] ; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
NKJV

Matt 8:16-17

16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,
17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."
NKJV

1 Peter 2:24

24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by whose stripes you were healed.
NKJV

My Comments:

The above portions of Scripture contain one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity; that not only did Christ bear our sins upon Himself at the Cross of Calvary, He also bore all our sicknesses and pain upon His body when He suffered on the Cross.

In Isaiah 53, the prophet Isaiah prophesied of the coming Savior, and what He would do for mankind in His atonement for the sins of mankind. However it must be noted that when Isaiah 53:4 was translated into English, the translators used an alternative meaning to describe the words 'griefs' and 'sorrows'.

In Hebrew, the word 'griefs' is the word 'choli' which more often than always refers to sickness or disease; and the word 'sorrow' is the word 'makob' which refers mostly to pain. By rewording Isaiah 53:4, it would therefore be more accurate to read it as

4 Surely He has borne our sickness (disease) [choli] and carried our pain [makob] ; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

In Matthew 8:17, Matthew is inspired of the Holy Spirit when He describes the ministry of Jesus and quotes Isaiah 53:4, correctly translating it as "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses".

Peter, in his letter to the Church states in 1 Peter 2:24 that Jesus bore our sins in His own body on the tree (or cross) in order that we need not bear them. He ends it with the statement "by whose stripes you were healed".

In the context of this particular passage, commentators say that it would have been referring to spiritual healing. However, I would like to comment that without God, Man was spiritually dead to start with and you can't heal something that's already dead to begin with; it must be recreated anew.

In order to be reconciled to God, we have to be born again through the Spirit, as Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:3, and Peter confirmed by writing that we were born again through the Word of God (1 Pe 1:23). Therefore I believe Peter was writing that not only were we able to live a new life of not having to bear our sins, we could also live a life of not having to bear sicknesses or pain because Jesus already bore them for us!

This is a promise that we can stand on in regards to believing God for healing, that not only could we believe that all our sins were borne by Jesus upon the Cross, He also bore all our sicknesses and pain. Therefore we need not bear them because He already bore them!