Is Healing Included In The Atonement?
This question is one that divides the church. Some link it to having enough faith, or not. We brand one another according to what we and they believe. Because of this I want to take a journey through the scriptures and try to arrive at a reasoned conclusion.
Let’s start!
Exodus 23:25 And you shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
sickness – machaleh makh-al-eh’
or (feminine) machalah {makk-al-aw’}; from 2470; sickness:—disease, infirmity, sickness.
The implication here is that if you serve the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then God will take sickness away. Of course the problem arises that we are incapable of serving God that way. So disease and sickness, weapons in the arsenal of God’s judgements, flourish in the earth.
Nevertheless God keeps reiterating this point about removing sickness from His people. This is grace indeed!
Deuteronomy 7:15 And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, upon you; but will lay them upon all them that hate you.
sickness – madveh mad-veh’
from 1738; sickness:—disease.
The scripture here differentiates between His people and the world. Surely this must be carried through into the new covenant because new covenants absorb the old and add to them, they do not replace them. This is the very nature of covenant – they are eternal.
Below in Deut 28:61 and elsewhere we see God’s sovereignty displayed in the operation of sickness. To say it comes from the devil may be true, but it is not the whole truth unless one wants to do violence to the scripture.
Deuteronomy 28:61 Also every sickness (malady, anxiety, calamity:—disease, grief, (is) sick(-ness)., and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon you, until you are destroyed.
Plague – makkah mak-kaw’
or (masculine) makkeh {muk-keh’}; (plural only) from 5221; a blow (in 2 Chronicles 2:10, of the flail); by implication, a wound; figuratively, carnage, also pestilence:—beaten, blow, plague, slaughter, smote, X sore, stripe, stroke, wound((-ed)).
Now there is without doubt plenty of examples of unhealed sickness in the Bible, particularly in the OT, and of God strengthening people on their sickbeds rather than healing them. For example – Psalms 41:3 The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: you will restore his bed in his sickness.
But in spite of man’s behaviour God also healed in that dispensation according to His will:
Deuteronomy 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god besides me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
heal – rapha’ raw-faw’
or raphah {raw-faw’}; a primitive root; properly, to mend (by stitching), i.e. (figuratively) to cure:—cure, (cause to) heal, physician, repair, X thoroughly, make whole.
I feel strongly that to argue that the Hebrew word for healing – rapha – only means healing in a spiritual sense and not a tangible physical sense is not to do justice to the language. What can be the basis for such a position? It seems to me to be denying the grace of God which we argue so strongly elsewhere.
The big question of course is whether physical healing is part of the new covenant, whether those who believe this have understood it correctly.
Putting to one side for the moment Is:53, the scriptures elsewhere point to physical healing being part of the atonement.
Numbers 21:5-9 And the people spoke against God, and against Moses, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loathes this worthless bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against you; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make you a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of bronze, he lived.
In this account real snakes bit real people and poisoned them. As a result there would have been a general failing of their vital organs until death came. Such organ failure can be seen today in heart disease, diabetes, renal failure etc. and even Alzheimer’s. These may not have been bitten by a snake, but in their own way each has sinned against God.
What was the solution? To place a fiery serpent of bronze upon a pole and lift it up and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live. This “living” was in the here and now; they were healed of the consequences of their rebellion, the debilitating symptoms of their sickness was removed. And of course this is a type of beholding Christ upon the cross.
The snake on the pole represents the sin of the world rooted in the activities of the serpent Satan, judged for all to see.
The snake is of bronze. Bronze represents the judgement of God. This is sin judged upon the cross. Therefore to look upon the fulfilment of the type, Christ crucified, is enough to receive healing according to a logical exegesis. I cannot believe that is a step too far!
This is further emphasised in Psalm 103
Psalms 103:1-3 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases;
We see here a logical progression through the forgiveness of iniquities to the healing of diseases. We have no trouble believing God has forgiven ALL our iniquities, in Christ; why should we not also believe that He has healed ALL our diseases too? Not to do so is illogical in my view. The Hebrew word here for diseases is talking about maladies, and grievous ones at that! In other words, disease and sickness as we understand them in modern parlance.
There is an undoubted link between sin and disease, sickness, malady, infirmity et al. We need to understand this in a general sense, as sinners living in a sinful world and all vulnerable to the consequences (of sin) that are at large. We should not take this too personally but understand that some of us become victims of what is at large simply because we are alive in the world. Notwithstanding that, the solution is the same for all of us, the receiving of the forgiveness of sins.
Mark 2:1-12 And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was told that he was in the house. And immediately many were gathered together, so much that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And they came unto him, bringing one, a paralytic, who was borne of four. And when they could not come near unto him for the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the paralytic, Son, your sins be forgiven you. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why does this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned among themselves, he said unto them, Why reason you these things in your hearts? Which is it easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins be forgiven you; or to say, Arise, and take up your bed, and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, (he said to the paralytic) I say unto you, Arise, and take up your bed, and go your way into your house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it in this fashion.
Jesus so clearly makes the link here between forgiven sin and physical healing. To walk, all the paralytic had to do was receive the forgiveness of his sin. Being told to get up and walk was secondary and is supplied for practical application, for our teaching and for the rebuke of the religious people.
We also know that Jesus healed ALL who came to Him.
Matthew 12:15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from there: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;
Matthew 8:16 When the evening came, they brought unto him many that were possessed with demons: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:
Luke 4:40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with various diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
Luke 6:17-19 And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; And they that were troubled with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went power out of him, and healed them all.
He healed them all! We all know of course that not everyone is healed of their sickness today. We can all point to examples where even death has occurred. But does this refute the teaching of the scriptures? How can it? Man’s failure for whatever reason to apprehend the teaching of the cross does not make the truth any less true. If we take the teaching of the scriptures as detailed above I find it hard to come to any other conclusion other than the atonement includes physical healing.
Hebrews 13:8-9 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Be not carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace……….
Our hearts must be established in grace. If healing IS part of the atonement, and I venture that it is, then how do we seek to receive it? The answer surely must be in coming to the cross and looking on Him who was pierced that we might be forgiven. Attached to that forgiveness and following from it is healing (Ps 103). I don’t believe we should “work at” receiving healing, but we should understand that it is established. The how and the when is in the gift of God alone. But we are still invited to stand in His grace from whence all healing must come.
Romans 5:1-2 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The healing may not manifest in this life. But that doesn’t change the material fact of its certainty whether in this life or the next. Based on the scriptures I would believe for healing in this life but accept that God knows what He is doing and in the interim His grace is sufficient for me. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not trying to ride two horses at once. I am stating categorically that in my understanding healing is a part of the atonement, but also as part of the atonement there may be other things in my life which are of higher priority to God. Everything in order so to speak.
Which brings me neatly to Is 53
Isaiah 53:1-12 Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no stately form nor splendor; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 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 everyone to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, and the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
……… and with his stripes we are healed. Theologians and learned commentators are clear that the reference here is to spiritual healing. In context it must be. But does that mean that there is no physical healing implied to? To draw such an implication is surely wrong because Jesus links the forgiveness of sins, a significant part of spiritual healing, and physical healing so clearly and indisputably, as we saw above in Mark 2:1-12.
Now let’s take a look at 1 Cor 11:
20 So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. 22 Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!
Here Paul is having to tell the believers how to behave. Many are historically in the habit of behaving rather badly and being greedy and drunken in their behavior around food. He rebukes them and says this is not to be the way. He then releases what he himself received from the Lord.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying,“This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
We are all very familiar with these verses and hear them regularly in one form or another. But it is what follows immediately after which I want to use to catch your attention.
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.
Do you see what is being said here? Verse 28 is not telling us to get on a guilt trip and reach deep within ourselves searching for unforgiven sin else we take communion in an unworthy manner. This is what most of us have been taught, but this is not in accord with the message of the Blood and of Grace. We ARE forgiven. No, this is about behaviour, not our state of forgiven-ness. We are not to take communion as part of an orgiastic meal, so to speak, but in a state of reverence and discernment.
The discernment is in understanding what the body of Christ has both bought for us and brought to us after Calvary. Because we have not done that we have brought judgement on ourselves in the form of sickness, weakness and sleep, that is to say death.
The Lord wants us to FULLY discern the wonder of His sacrifice; not to short-change ourselves by our idle understanding. As we take communion we are to receive all He did for us including healing.
I repeat – 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment.
God allows the judgement of weakness, sickness and death He tells us in v32 as a form of discipline so that we will grasp this vitally important truth.
It is because we haven’t put in the time and effort and the prayer – I speak to myself here – that these things prevail in our lives. We have accepted false teaching out of respect for the teacher, but we have not been like the Bereans about it. If we were, the scriptures seem to be clear, we would be healed. I say again that in my considered opinion I am convinced by the scriptures that healing is in the atonement.
God bless you all
John
