Did Jesus die for our Sickness?

Full color painting of Jesus on the cross by Simon Bisley|Full color painting|Jesus|jesus,cross

18 March 2014 by Rev Dr Steven Kau –

Is there physical healing in the atonement? That is, can the believer today claim bodily healing from all sickness, disease or physical abnormality as a result of what Jesus Christ accomplished when He was crucified on Calvary’s cross? Many Pentecostal and Charismatic teachers and preachers claim this physical healing. They are constantly pointing to the phrase “….with His stripes we are healed” from Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2 as proof positive that bodily healing has been provided by Christ’s atonement; now all the believer has to do is accept that fact, by faith and receive God’s healing. Many Pentecostal and Charismatic teachers and preachers have millions believing this is what the Bible teaches; that it is God’s will for all to be healed! If one is not cured, it is due to a lack of faith in God’s plan for “health, wealth and prosperity” for His children.

What a tremendous appeal! Who is not concerned about illness, financial difficulties or success in life as the world gauges success? Multitudes are, indeed, anxious about these things and the Charismatics are capitalizing on that virtually universal desire of the natural man to be relieved of the suffering that inevitably results from a life lived in bodies cursed by the Fall. However, in order to validate their divine authority for healing ministries, they need a Biblical basis. Hence our subject for this article: “Did Jesus Die for Our Sickness?” One female Pentecostal preacher has gone so far as to note that there are, evidently, 39 categories of bodily illness which are, she claims, linked to the 39 stripes that Christ received at His crucifixion!

But what does the Bible say? We will look first at the Old Testament account and then at the New Testament usage of the “…by His stripes we are healed” statement and consider the context to find out whether or not the Charismatic healers have a theological basis for their claims. Isaiah 53:5-6 declares: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

The ailment of those whom the prophet Isaiah was addressing, the Jews in Judah, was their spiritual wickedness, the transgressions, their iniquities. Bodily afflictions are not mentioned in the immediate context. This prophecy which so wonderfully speaks of the future substitutionary death of the sinless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ on the Roman cross of execution details God’s remedy for sin, not sickness! Notice further in Isaiah 53:11-12, “He (God the Father) shall see of the travail of His (the only begotten Son) soul and shall be satisfied (Jesus’ sacrifice satisfied His righteous demands for judgment of sin) by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities… He bears the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” The remedy for sin, the healing of the transgressors of Judah, is the immediate, contextual application of this “with His stripes we are healed” (vs.5) phrase.

But why use the term healed when so often this word primarily refers to physical restoration? The answer is found in the more remote context of this verse as we look at chapter one of Isaiah. The entire message of Isaiah directly affects those who initially received this prophecy “concerning Judah and Jerusalem” (1:1) and their sin-sick spiritual condition in verses 4-6: “Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evil doers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked His to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward…The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment.”

Isaiah used physical sickness and corruption as an obvious metaphor, a word picture of the backslidden, spiritual sickness that could only be healed by the substitutionary sacrifice of the coming Lamb of God. The Jews sinful condition, introduced at the beginning of Isaiah, is further developed and described in the intervening chapters and then the glorious cure of their sin is stated in chapter 53: “The LORD has laid on Him (the suffering Savior) the iniquity of us all” and as a result, “With His stripes we are healed.” Nothing is said about sore backs or shortened limbs. No, the greatest of all ailments is at the crux of the matter, paying the penalty of sin due the sinner!

Please notice, however, that the death of Christ does also provide the power and authority over all sickness and the deteriorating effects of sin; power that will be gloriously manifest when the Messiah returns to establish His millennial reign on earth. His miracles performed at His first advent bear testimony of how the Kingdom will be administered on earth. Matthew 8:16-17 is a vital text that reveals the nature of Christ the King’s healing testimony to those Jews to whom He was offering the Kingdom. All were healed because the King had come! For a season, Israel witnessed how it will be when the King shall reign. Yet their rejection of the Messiah resulted in the postponement of the Kingdom’s inauguration until Christ’s Second Advent. (Zechariah 14:4, 20-21; Matthew 24:29-31)

But for a time, the Jews had a foretaste of that rule as Christ demonstrated His credentials as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords at His first advent. Why are today’s “faith healers” not able to heal every sick person of every disease in the Church Age? To the best of my knowledge, no “faith healer,” Christian or otherwise, has ever gone to a hospital and healed every sick or infirmed patient! Why? They are not the King! During Jesus’ earthly ministry, “They brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils and He casts out the spirits with His word and healed all that were sick. (This is the answer to the question as to why all are not healed today – this is not for today.) That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esias the prophet, saying Himself took our infirmities and bear our sickness.”

Notice carefully the Gospel Jesus proclaimed – it was the good news of the Kingdom yet future: “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogue, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” (Matthew 9:35)

Yes, an element of physical healing in the Atonement does exist but it will be manifested fully only when the Messiah/King will rule over a righteous, healthy population. The curse of sin will then be lifted – only willful sin against the King will result in death. Longevity and vitality of life will mark God’s people in His Millennial Kingdom as prophesied in Isaiah 65:19-22, “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in My people; the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; For the child shall die one hundred years old, but the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed… They shall not build and another inhabit… for as the days of a tree are the days of My people and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

Please notice 1 Peter 2:24, for in this text, the same prophecy recorded in Isaiah 53 is quoted by Peter in the New Testament: “Who His own self (the Lord Jesus Christ) bare our sins in His body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.” The application for the Church Age has to do with spiritual cleansing, not spiritual healing.

Here again, the issue that is resolved by Christ’s death on the cross, by the stripe He suffered during His crucifixion is the matter of sin, not His, but ours; not just for the Jew but for the Gentiles as well – all men!

Please do not misunderstand me here. God can and certainly does restore believers to good health again, if it is His will. James 5:14-20 presents the need for believers to pray for one who is in need of physical recovery. When prayer is offered in the way Elijah did, according to the will of God and with fervency, the Lord will answer accordingly. Prayer does indeed charge things and bring to pass the will of God in the lives and in the bodies of those whom we pray. But let’s be honest, not all are restored to health and many have died in spite of much prayer for healing. Paul was not healed of his own thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12: 7-9). “Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor and fellow soldier…had been sick. For indeed he was sick nigh unto death but God had mercy on him.” (Phil. 2:25-27) The apostle prayed for him but did not heal this faithful godly servant of Christ.

And one more important consideration: The Bible clearly teaches that we will receive at the resurrection a complete and perfect body that will be like unto “Christ’s glorious body” at His appearing. In this sense, the victory gained by Christ on the cross does, indeed, secure the perfect, disease-free and immortal body that is assured every believer in Christ. However, the realization of that perfect body is yet future. It is not for the believer now, though many Charismatics and Pentecostals say it is. Notice Romans 8:9-11 “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His (the Holy Spirit indwells every born again believer)…But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you.”

Yes, we will be physically healed, completely and forever, when we see our Savior and this mortality puts on immortality, like unto Christ Himself. But as this verse states, we must “wait for the redemption of our body.” That is the great “healing meeting in the air” that could even be today! The victory wrought by Christ death on the cross and His triumphant resurrection from the dead guarantee this future glory for the blood-washed saints. At that time, the curse of sin upon the mortal body will be removed and there will be no more sickness, sorrow or dying. We may groan in our physical bodies now but a grand day of bodily redemption is sure.

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