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bore... on: Both our text and the Epistle to the Hebrews (9:28) make certain the strict sacrificial sense of ἀνήνεγκεν ("bore") when connected with the object, "our sins." (Thus with "spiritual sacrifices" "offer" is right, as in ver. 5 of this chapter and in Heb. 13:15. So it is with "Himself" in Heb. 7. as well as with "sacrifices" in the same ver. 27. With other objects, it is rendered "carry, bring, or lead up;" and it may elsewhere mean to bear or undergo.) So joined, this is the simple and sole sense of the word. Such too is the regular, if not invariable, employment by the LXX, as any scholar may satisfy himself. The notion of a pregnant sense "bringing up to," and "bearing on" the tree, equivalent to the altar, is as certainly a mistake as anything can be. For to express the former, the usage is προσφέιν or προσάγειν, as opposed to ἀναφέρειν. Thus we read in Lev. 1:2, 3, 5 (as in the corresponding cases), with the distinct term ἐπιτιθέναι which answers to the latter in 9. The same fact occurs in Lev. 2:1 compared with 2, as in 16 ἀνοίσει is given, the exact term instead of its substitute. Compare also Lev. 3:1 with 5; 6, 7, 9 with 11, and 12 with 16. The Hebrew is always exact, and does not warrant the weak confusion of the LXX. in 14. The due distinction reappears in Lev. 4:1 contrasted with 10, though the high priest himself was in question; and so for the whole congregation, 14 with 19; again the ruler, 23 with 26; and one of the people, the simple οἴσει being used in this case, and the proper ἀνοίσει in the other. In the intermediate mixture of sin and guilt, as well as the full guilt-offering, there is at least no violation of the usage, though other terms displace the latter; and so it might be shown from Genesis to Ezekiel that ἀνήνεγκεν ("bore") expresses the final sacrificial act, and not the preparatory "bringing up" which also some have sought to attach to it. This, as we have seen, has its own distinct and appropriate expression.
Our apostle and the still greater one to the Gentiles cite Isa. 53:12; which stamps these words of the Septuagint with divine authority. Heb. 9:28 has the deeper use of exhibiting in the same verse the exact distinctiveness of the two words (προσφέρειν and ἀναφέρειν.), which many scholars have confounded, and incomparably more who were far from being scholars. In the Epistle to the Hebrews is no wavering, as in the Septuagint though generally correct. Both terms are used with strict accuracy, as for instance Heb. 7:27 for the closing act, and 9:14 for what preceded it. Heb. 11:17 beautifully shows the proper word in the great trial of Abraham's faith, and with the added exactitude of the perfect and imperfect tenses, of which none perhaps but the inspiring Spirit would have thought, but which when revealed is appreciated by every Christian who understands it. (It may interest the Hebraist to note that it is not the technical term referred to which God used in addressing Abraham in Gen. 22:2. The LXX. therefore may have gone here beyond the word. Yet James (2:21) when he uses the figure "on the altar" says ἀνενέγκας. But fine as much is in their rendering of Isa. 53 (especially so long before the Advent, and revealing a portion so foreign to Jewish expectation), there are evident flaws. For who can defend μεμαλάκισται. in ver. 5? Even if it could express adequately the Hebrew for "bruised," the perf. is quite out of place. It ordinarily would mean "is" or "has been reduced to effeminacy." Even "the chastisement of our peace was upon him" is not cited here, but the last clause only. But the 9th verse is not well rendered, still less the 10th and 11th save the last clause. It is the 12th however which the N.T. cites for the atonement; and there the Hebrew verb is nasa, not yisbol. These verbs for "bore" occur in reverse order in ver. 4, where we have the invaluable light of the Spirit through Matthew (8:17), who applies the quotation, not to His expiatory sufferings as in ver. 5,6,8,10,11 and 12, but to the depth of the sympathy which characterized His spirit whilst acting in divine power toward the sick and suffering in Israel. With this does not agree the rendering of the Septuagint. Hence the Evangelist was led to a more correct rendering; for it is about griefs or sicknesses, not "sins" directly nor "selves" vaguely as the object. And this is the more important, because of the tendency to distract the attention of the faithful from apprehending the immense theme of Christ's moral glory, through fixing it only on what immediately ministers to peace for souls not well grounded in it. Another evil consequence is that making all the entrance of Christ's spirit to be only into what atones for the sinner not only detracts from Him much else to His praise, but it causes the testimony to the work of redemption virtually to lose its distinctiveness, and the word of God its definiteness. Thus the unwise effort to concentrate all on atonement cannot but enfeeble its own proper character and defeat itself.)
Does it surprise any reader that so plain a point should be proved so elaborately? Look at the margin of the A.V. and especially of the Revisers. And who does not know the bitter zeal of too many in our own day to found, on the gross ignorance of that mistranslation, the dangerous misconception of Christ's work involved in Christ's bearing "our sins in His body to the tree?" To translate competently one must know a great deal more than a grammar and dictionary; one needs to consider the varied usages of the language as modified by its application, and especially the scope and requirement of the context. Who but a tyro could write, "It is the same word that in the verse before us is rendered on, that in the following verse is rendered to, 'Ye are returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls?' this, then, we apprehend, is the apostle's statement, 'He himself bare our sins in his own body to the tree.'" (John Brown, D. D., on 1 Peter (i. 453, Sec. Ed. 1849).) The blunder led him and many another to the utterly false doctrine, that Christ "as really, though not so obviously, bare our sins when he lay a helpless infant, in the manger in Bethlehem, as when he hung, an agonized man, on the accursed tree.”
O foolish theologians, who bewitched you? One may not expect all to read the Greek Testament with intelligent and reverent care, especially if persons doubt that "every scripture is inspired of God." A single word of the text before us upsets bushels of essays, sermons, and expositions. The dark and perilous hypothesis would require the imperfect tense to give continuity of bearing our sins, which men have imagined and reasoned on. It is the aorist, on the contrary, which above all shuts out relative duration, continuity, repetition, or action commenced and not accomplished. Here it is a simple fact of the deepest moment for God and man, for time and eternity.
The hypothesis is incompatible, not merely with the word used by the Holy Spirit here and everywhere else, but with the broadest and most solemn facts which the most unlettered of believers, taught of God, receive with awe and adoring gratitude. What meant that supernatural darkness which in the hours of broad daylight wrapt up the cross from a certain point? What the cry of Him who had ever, in the fullest enjoyment of love, said "Father," but now "My God, my God, why didst thou forsake me?" Had He not, when His baptism might have raised a question, received the testimony of the Father's absolute complacency in Christ as His beloved Son? How strange bearing up our sins in His body to the tree! Undoubtedly Christ did never so profoundly glorify God; but His bruising, His stripes, His being made sin and curse, were they all while He was enjoying His Father's love? His suffering for our guilt, and God's face shining at the same time! If He had been all His life bearing our sins, He must all His life have been abandoned by God who cannot look on sin with the least allowance. But no: Isa. 53:6 attests that Jehovah laid our iniquity on His Anointed when He hung on the tree: nothing more characteristic of the atonement, or more opposed to the perfectly enjoyed communion of His life.
Christ's work on the cross, then, is here before us, the answer of divine grace to man's need and danger, and the base of divine righteousness; but this last was left for another, Paul, to treat formally and fully. The practical aim was that which fell to the fervor of Peter, "that, being dead to sins, we should live to righteousness." Both apostles delighted in these wondrous antitheses which gave glory to God and to the Lord Jesus, His Son. (Epist. of Peter, p.166-170)
bore... on: It is not "up to" the tree. The margin, after many others, so gave it; but this was an ignorant and total oversight of the sacrificial language in the Old Testament. There are two forms employed in the LXX., and always distinctly. When it is a question of "up to," or "to," another different prepostion is compounded. Where the one found here is expressed, it invariably means "upon," and not "to." It is allowed that in other connections this may not always hold; but in sacrificial language the distinction is certain and constant. Now it is plain that here the apostle Peter is referring to the sacrificial language of the Old Testament. All his Epistle indeed abounds in allusions of a similar kind.... It is sadly plain that there is, at the bottom of all these efforts to mystify, a want of faith in the true inspiration of God's word as well as in the perfect efficacy of Christ's work. But let me refer to another point showing how unfounded is the idea that our Lord was bearing sins all His life. The word "bare" excludes the desired notion. "Bare" (ἀνήνεγκεν) does not convey continuity but a transient act. The aorist is the definite expression of such a fact. It expresses therefore what took place on the cross, certainly not what was in process before, any more than after.... The form of speech excludes anything begun before that solemn epoch, and it implies a completeness on the cross, where it began. Therefore the notion "up to" is false, not perhaps in the form of the word itself, but in its contextual and sacrificial usage. (Bible Treasury N4:4-5) [See also Bible Treasury 14:79, 16:50, N7:235-6]
died: The word ἀπογενόμενοι, "being dead," is so uncommon in the N.T. that this is its only occurrence. It occurs in the best classic authors, and answers to our "deceased," rather than the ordinary word for "dead." This the apostle Paul used for the privilege into which the Christian is let in order to know his deliverance from sin, as distinguished from the remission of his sins. The further privilege he treats from chap. 5:12 of his Epistle to the Romans to the end of chap. 8. It is too often confounded with what goes before, though it is clearly a grave question of the Christian's state which arises generally for the soul when he knows his sins forgiven. But our apostle speaks of "having died to sins," which is quite another thing from Paul's doctrine. It is simple and practical (having done with sins), as was his province generally. It is true that the word sometimes means "having taken no part in," and "being absent or aloof from"; but the context even of a correct writer always suffices to fix what is intended. Here it proves that death spiritually is meant, because it is that we may live to righteousness. No other sense would apply here. It never implies "being freed from," as some have said. (Epist. of Peter, p.171)