If the Johannine formula, “who takes away sin,” is understood as a reference to the “Servant of God,” it must be recalled that neither in vv. 4 nor 21 of Is 53 is the verb nāsā accompanied by the phrase, “upon himself,” in spite of the Greek translation in verse 4, tas hamartias hēmōn ferei, “he carries our sins.” When Matthew applies the statement of Is 53:4 to Christ, he wishes to say that he took away our illnesses, not that he took them upon himself. The same meaning is found in the Exultet of the Paschal liturgy: “he is the true Lamb who took away (absulit) the sins of the world,” and in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Thus Christ offered once for the taking-away of the sins of many, a second time—without sin—will be seen to those awaiting for salvation” [Heb 9:28]. (Stanislas Lyonnet and Léopold Sabourin, Sin, Redemption, and Sacrifice: A Biblical and Patristic Study [Analetcta Biblica Investigationes Scientificae In Res Biblicas 48; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970], 40)
(Just a fyi to my fellow bibliophiles, this is one of the best books on the theology of the atonement one will come across, so I would recommend hunting down a copy)
