1 Peter 2:24

24. Who… bare our sins The for us, of 1 Peter 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 Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 53:12.

On the tree One can hardly doubt that the apostle added these words from a recollection of Deuteronomy 21:23, and perhaps of St. Paul’s use of it in Galatians 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 Isaiah 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.