Healing 101
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· 4 viewsA comprehensive study and teaching on the subject of divine healing
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A Comprehensive Teaching on Divine Healing
A Comprehensive Teaching on Divine Healing
Healing in the Atonement
Healing in the Atonement
When we speak about the atonement of Christ, we are addressing what Jesus accomplished on the cross and through the resurrection. When Jesus died for our sins, did that include pain, sickness, and disease or just our moral failures? If divine healing is in the atonement, then it is the will of God for every person (especially believers) to be healed.
Sickness and Disease is Death
When sin entered creation through Adam and Eve, death came with it. At its core this is what sin is — death.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Anything that produces death has its roots in sin. It is a corrupting force that spreads all throughout the world.
Sickness and disease by nature are death. Cancer corrupts and damages cells in your body. Lameness, blindness, and deafness are death at the level of your physical members. Hashimoto's disease is an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the thyroid gland, leading to inflammation and damage.
Lets look at the Old Testament and see how physical healing is linked with the atonement:
Passover
Passover
In 2 Chronicles 30:13-19, many people gathered at Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread and then Passover. They slaughtered the Passover lambs and ate, yet many had not properly purified themselves beforehand. Hezekiah prayed for them and asked the Lord to atone everyone who prepares his heart to seek God.
In response to Hezekiah’s prayer, the Lord healed the people (2 Chron 30.20). The Pulpit commentary states that the Hebrew word for “healed” here is the strict word for physical healing. Therefore, consuming the Passover lamb is linked with both forgiveness and physical healing.
This passage is likely what Paul had in mind in 1 Corinthians:
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
Some believers in Corinth were partaking of Communion (the Passover lamb) in an unworthy manner, without examining themselves. For this reason many among them were weak and sick, some even dying. Again there is a tie between the Passover lamb and physical healing.
Ritual Cleansing
Ritual Cleansing
In Leviticus 14 & 15, we see a list of sacrifices to cleanse individuals who were ritually unclean. The sacrifices would not heal the individual, but just remove their ritual impurity.
Christ’s atonement however is greater than all of these atoning sacrifices and rituals, as it cleanses the inner heart instead of just the outer man, and it provides real healing not just ritual healing.
The Year of Jubilee
The Year of Jubilee
Leviticus 25 is where we find the Year of Jubilee. Every 50th year on the day of Atonement, a ram’s horn is to be blown and a year of Jubilee is to be proclaimed (Lev. 25:9-10). During this time we find these four things should take place:
Proclamation: Initiated on the Day of Atonement (tenth day of the seventh month) by blowing the ram's horn throughout the land.
Release from Bondage: All Hebrew servants/slaves were freed from their contracts and returned to their families.
Return of Property: Land and houses that had been sold reverted to their original owners, preventing perpetual poverty or accumulation of land by a few.
Sabbath Rest for the Land: No crops were to be planted or harvested, ensuring a rest for the soil and trust in God's provision.
Debt Forgiveness: A total liberation from debts.
Isaiah uses Jubilee language when he writes:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted [proclamation];
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners [Release from bondage and debt forgiveness];
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
Jesus quotes this passage in Luke 4:17-21 and states that “…today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”. He is the Promised One who is declaring a year of Jubilee to God’s people! This is the favorable year of the Lord!
Taking this further, Jesus references this passage once more when reporting to John’s disciples:
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see:
the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
“And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
Jesus combines two passages in his report — Isaiah 35:5 and Isaiah 61:1-2. Both refer to the freedom that the Messiah will bring in the future.
My main point in saying all of this is this: Jesus’s ministry was a proclamation of the year of Jubilee, which includes physical healing.
The Bronze Serpent
The Bronze Serpent
In numbers 21 the people of Israel were at war with the Caananite king of Arad. In the midst of battle he took some of them captive, and Israel made a vow to the Lord that if He delivered them then they would utterly destroy the wicked cities of the Negev. God delivered them and they set out to the land of Edom, but became impatient on the way and spoke against God and Moses. After complaining heavily about the food:
The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”
And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
God took the thing that was killing the Israelites (serpents) and placed it on a piece of wood. When the Israelites would look to it in faith, they will be healed and not die.
We know that this bronze serpent was a picture of what would happen to Jesus on the cross and is therefore a picture of the atonement:
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
God took the thing that was killing us (sin) and placed it on Jesus on the cross. Whoever looks to Him in faith will not be destroyed, but have everlasting life.
All this is true, however it should be noted that the Israelites received physical healing when they looked to the serpent. Poisonous serpents bit them, and physical healing took place through their faith in God.
Notice — Time and time again we see that the atonement provides forgiveness of sin and physical healing. The two are inexplicably linked together.
Psalm 103
Psalm 103
Another place this connection is clearly seen is Psalm 103
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Pardoning of iniquity and healing of diseases are both part of His wonderful benefits and are found in the atoning work of Christ.
The Seven Redemptive Names of God
The Seven Redemptive Names of God
Each of these redemptive names point to Calvary where the redemption was purchased in full.
Yahweh Shammah — The Lord is There
This speaks of the presence of God. We have been “brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph:2.13).
2. Yahweh Shalom — The Lord our Peace
This speaks of having peace within ourselves and peace with God. The chastening of our peace was upon Jesus (Is. 53.5 ) and we have peace with God and man (Rom. 5:1, Eph. 2:14).
3. Yahweh Ra-ah — The Lord is our Shepherd
This speaks of Jesus, our Shepherd, laying His life down for His sheep (John 10.11).
4. Yahweh Jireh — The Lord our Provider
This speaks of the Father providing Jesus as the greatest sacrifice for our redemption.
5. Yahweh Nissi — The Lord our Banner
This speaks of Jesus the Victor! Through the cross and resurrection Jesus defeated sin, death, the grave, and all the demonic powers (2 Corinthians 2:14, Colossians 2:13-15).
6. Yahweh Tsidkenu — The Lord our Righteousness
This speaks of Jesus becoming sin on the cross so that believers can become righteous (2 Corinthians 5.21).
7. Yahweh Rapha — The Lord Our Healer
This speaks of Jesus being our Healer and purchasing our healing on the cross. He bore our sicknesses and pains (Is. 53.4).
Isaiah 53
Isaiah 53
This passage in Isaiah is the last of the four Servant songs, ultimately speaking of the Messiah, Jesus. The passage refers to a man who seemed ordinary in every way, but he was despised and forsaken, a man of sorrows (pains) and acquainted with grief (sickness). He bore these on his body, was pierced through and crushed for our sins, and scourged so that we could be healed.
Now the Hebrew words translated as sorrows (makob) and grief (choli) in verses 3 and 4 have been incorrectly translated. These two words should respectively be translated as “pains” and “sicknesses” as seen in the NASB footnotes.
In the Old Testament, this word choli is translated as “disease” and “sickness” (see Deut 7:15, 28:61, 1 Kings 17:17, 2 Kings 1:2, 8:8, 2 Chron 16:12, 21:15).
The word mokab is rendered as “pain” (see Job 14:22, 33:19).
Matthew the gospel writer knew this when he referenced the passage:
When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.
This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”
Jesus bore our sicknesses, diseases, pains, and sins on the cross and left them in the empty tomb when He rose! This language of bearing is like that of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16:
“The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.
In 1 Peter we see the same passage referenced:
and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
Again, to reiterate, Jesus bore:
OUR sicknesses
OUR pains
OUR transgressions
OUR iniquities
OUR peace
OUR healing (for by his stripes we are healed)
Is Healing for All?
Is Healing for All?
In the Old Testament, we do see several examples where the entire nation of Israel was healed.
In
Jesus is the Perfect Will of God
The clearest picture we have of the will of God is found in the person of Jesus Christ. In His ministry, He healed everyone who came to Him and everyone He came to.
“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.
This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”
Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured.
And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.
Common Objections
Common Objections
Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh
Some Bible teachers will teach that Paul Himself was sick throughout his ministry. It was his “thorn in the flesh” that kept him humble.
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
The best way to interpret the Bible is to use the Bible. Where else is an expression like this used? Two places:
‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land in which you live.
Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you,
and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done?
“Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.’ ”
Both instances we see that the thorn in the flesh is the pagan nations that Israel will fail to drive out. These people will be “a pain in the butt” to them, causing them to fall into idolatry and compromise.
For Paul, his thorn in the flesh was indeed a person — a messenger of Satan, who was negatively influecing the church as a false apostle and causing people to believe that Paul is not a true apostle sent from God. He is undermining Paul’s authority and harming his reputation.
2. Paul’s Eye Disease
Some Bible teachers will try to say that Paul had large handwriting since he had poor eyesight.
See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
He also told the Galatians:
but you know that it was because of a bodily illness [gr. weakness of the flesh] that I preached the gospel to you the first time;
and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself.
Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
Was this true? Was Paul wrestling with sickness? No! He did have some weakness in his flesh, particularly an issue with his eyes. But this was not from a sickness but rather from persecution, where he was stoned to death in Lystra (Acts 14.19-21). Lystra was in the region of Galatia, and Paul entered the city right after being stoned, where rocks were surely hurled at his head and most likely damaged his eyes.
