HEALING

Theme: “Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our pains as part of His atonement for us, therefore every believer has a right to receive physical healing from God for any condition. A seriously ill believer has the right to call for the elders of the church to anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray the prayer of faith for his healing.”

Jesus’ atonement did not just involve hanging on a cross.  Does that shock you?  Perhaps you got some more insight if you saw the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”. The scene that got the movie an R rating for gore was at the whipping post where Jesus was flogged before He went to the cross. Why did he have to bear those “stripes” on His back? Wasn’t the cross enough? God reveals what the purpose of that hideous whipping was.

1 Peter 2:24:
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.

Jesus bore that whipping in His body to legally redeem you from sickness and pain in your body!

The word healed here is used of physical healing throughout the New Testament and is the same Greek word from which we get physician.  It does not refer to “spiritual healing” because your spirit was not healed when you were born again; it was replaced with a new spirit that was alive to God, as we have discussed in an earlier lesson.

Isaiah, looking forward instead of backward to this event, said, “by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). He also said, “Surely He has borne our sicknesses, and carried our pains” (Isaiah 53:4). It was our sicknesses He bore, along with our iniquities, our transgressions. You are included in this prophecy because Jesus bore your sicknesses and carried your pains and bore your transgressions.

(Many Bibles translate Isaiah 53:4, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” but the word for griefs literally means sicknesses and is so translated many places in the Old Testament, and the word for sorrows means pains, and it is translated as such other places in the Old Testament. Anyone with a Hebrew concordance can verify that what I am saying is so. The New King James has a footnote next to these words indicating their literal meanings of “sicknesses” and “pains”.  If you have any doubt about it, just read Matthew 8:17 below and see if God thinks Isaiah was talking about sickness!)

Matthew 8:16-17:
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, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”

Sickness is declared to be part of the curse for breaking the Law of Moses.  In Deuteronomy 28:15 through the end of the chapter, many sicknesses are enumerated as being part of a curse for disobeying the Law.  Then verse 61 of that chapter declares that every sickness and every plague NOT specifically mentioned is ALSO included in the curse. This means that Alzheimers, Attention Deficit Disorder, diabetes, cancer, angina, AIDS, and all other illnesses are part of the “curse” for disobeying the Law.  Ready for some good news? Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having been made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13)! Since the curse in the Law included ALL sickness, and Christ has redeemed us from that curse, Christ has redeemed us from ALL sickness. There can be no other logical conclusion!

We can see that Jesus went about everywhere, healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38). That should clear up who the sickener is (Satan) and who the healer is (Jesus).  We know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), so what He was willing to do for ALL then, He MUST be willing to do for ALL today! And He is! It is modern theology that has blinded most of the Church to this glorious fact. You are just as much redeemed from sickness as you are from sin.

As with your redemption from sin, your redemption from sickness must be received by faith. You believe that you receive your healing when you pray (Mark 11:24). Just as you must receive the New Birth by faith before you feel any different, you must receive your healing by faith before you feel any different.

God made a declaration of Who He IS in Exodus 15:26: “I am the Lord who heals you.” (Or, depending on your translation, the Lord Your Physician, the Lord that Healeth Thee, etc..) Since God does not change (Malachi 3:6), He must still BE the Lord who heals you.

Some have said that this was a promise only for Israel, but this wasn’t a promise at all.  It was a declaration of God’s very nature.  He IS the Lord who heals you; He wasn’t just promising to heal you.  Besides, we have a better covenant established upon better promises (Hebrews 8:6), and our better covenant could hardly be better if God was not as willing to heal all of us as He was willing to heal the Jews under the Law of Moses!

God also declares that He “forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3). How clear is that? Instead of trying to rationalize away this wonderful declaration, just believe it! He is willing to heal you of any disease you have! Also, as Jesus showed in the New Testament, He also makes healing available for those with birth defects and injuries, not just traditional sicknesses.

Jesus came to give you life more abundantly (John 10:10), not life tortured by annoying, debilitating illnesses.  God’s will is for you to prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers (3 John verse 2). How anyone can believe that God WANTS some people to be sick for some higher good is beyond my comprehension!  Sickness is bad, healing is good. If sickness were good, it would be all over heaven along with all the other good things there.  But there is no pain in heaven, so nobody there has a headache, pancreatic cancer or any other illness!

The only person in Scripture to explicitly question the Lord’s will was a leper, who knew that Jesus COULD heal him if He wanted to.  Jesus answered him, “I want to. Be clean!” The leper was cleansed.  That would be His answer to you today, too, since He doesn’t change.

If you’re really sick and can’t go out to church, the church can and should come to you:

James 5:14-15:
Is anyone among you sick?  Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.  And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

This is a COMMAND that is just as binding on the church as the command to be baptized in water and the command to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  Yet hardly anyone seems to obey this command in the church world anymore! We do everything except obey the Lord and then wonder why we don’t see the results we want. The Bible does not say any of the following: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him be put on the prayer chain.  Let him be prayed for in absentia Sunday morning.  Let Him get a nice visit from someone who will pray that he will have the patience to endure his sickness.”  Now, it’s OK to put someone on a prayer list and pray for the person during a Sunday service, and we’d do that kind of thing, too, but not while omitting the one thing the Lord COMMANDED to be done, namely having the sick person call for the elders to come and lay hands on him in the name of Jesus to be healed.

Notice that the sick person is supposed to call for the elders of the church.  The elders are not supposed to just “sense by the Spirit” that someone is in the hospital and just drive to the Emergency Room!  You would think people assume that, though, by the way some of them have a habit of checking into the hospital and not even telling anyone at church!

If we would just obey the Lord, we would get His kind of results.  But if the elders of the church do not go and anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord, we have disobeyed the Bible and the Lord on this matter, so it should be no surprise if things don’t work out the way we would like them to.  Almost no one seems to practice going and praying “the prayer of faith” anymore, yet that’s what the Lord commanded to be done for a laid-up believer!
 

Question 16-1: Is it a sin to go to the doctor or take medicine?

No.  Luke was a physician and no one told him to repent of it in Acts! God does not mind if you go to a doctor or take medicine, but there IS a better way to be healed by receiving healing directly from the Lord.  However, don’t put yourself under condemnation or let other people condemn you for going to a doctor. If others were in your shoes, they might do the same.
 

Question 16-2: Should I throw away my medicine to prove my faith?

No, because throwing away your medicine doesn’t prove anything, and it does NOT obligate God to heal you supernaturally. The only thing that “obligates” God to heal you is for you to believe that you receive your healing when you pray. Since God cannot lie or break His word, He MUST heal you when you receive the healing that belongs to you as a Christian. But if you just throw away your medicine and you’re not in faith for your healing, you may find yourself urgently digging through your trash to find it!
 

Question 16-3: Why are some people not healed?

There are a number of different things that hinder healing.  The most common is just ignorance of what the Bible clearly teaches on the subject. You cannot receive something that you are not sure that God offers.  But unforgiveness can also keep your healing away, as can deliberate disobedience of the Lord’s commands.
 

Question 16-4: I went to a healing service, and God healed some people and not others.  Why was it His will to heal some people and not others?

It’s God will to heal ALL, and anyone there could have received healing by believing he received it when he prayed. Sometimes people are healed spectacularly through the gifts of the Spirit, but that will usually not happen to everybody. Interestingly, these are often young Christians or even unbelievers! Some healings just happen as signs and wonders.  But you ALWAYS have the right to receive healing from the Lord; you don’t have to go to a special healing service, though it’s certainly not a sin to do so.
 

Question 16-5: Wasn’t Paul’s thorn in the flesh a sickness?

No, it was a messenger (angel) of Satan sent to buffet Paul (2 Corinthians 12:7). Paul got beat up many places he went, but that’s different from being sick.
 

Question 16-6: But what if I’m another Job?

You can’t be a New Testament Job.  Job didn’t have the New Covenant, under which you have authority over Satan, who is explicitly cited as the one who made Job sick.  Besides, God healed Job after a few months and he lived over a century more without any recorded sickness, which just might be a better percentage of healthy days than many Christians enjoy!
 

Question 16-7: What about Timothy’s frequent stomach illnesses?
 

Paul advised him to lay off the water, which apparently was causing the problem. That’s just common sense, and besides, God must have wanted Timothy to be well since he advised him how to stay healthy.

Question 16-8: What about Trophimus who was left somewhere sick?

We don’t know why he was sick; Paul was just recording facts, not stating God’s will.  In the same chapter (2 Timothy 4), Paul said that Demas forsook him, having loved the present world. Again, Paul was recording a fact, not stating God’s will.  It was certainly not God’s will for Demas to love the world to the point of forsaking Paul, or for Trophimus to be sick.
 

Question 16-9: If we don’t get sick, how can we ever die?

We can CHOOSE to leave when we’re satisfied. Paul indicated in Philippians 1:22 that he had a choice whether to stay on earth or not.  Some people don’t realize the choice we have. We can have it as the Psalmist said, “You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust” (Psalm 104:20). You can be like one of the patriarchs who “gave up the spirit”.  You do NOT have to get sick and decrepit when you’re old – you can be as Psalm 92:14 says: “They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing.”

Question 16-10: Isn’t 70-80 years the most God has promised us, since Psalm 90 talks about that lifespan?

No, Psalm 90 is a LAMENT about how bad things were in Israel – “we’re only living 70-80 years!”  If that’s a lament, we should be living longer than that.

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