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The purpose of this writing is designed to show that emotional, mental and physical healing was God’s plan and purpose from the moment He first gave life to Adam and Eve. The early church understood that it was God’s desire that all His children live in complete wholeness. They also understood that complete wholeness involved both the spiritual and physical, which means that you are to be completely healthy in your spirit, soul (which is made up of your mind, will and emotions) and body. The early church operated in the gifts of the spirit and one of those gifts is healing. They did exactly what Christ commanded and commissioned them to do, they healed the sick by the authority contained in the Name of Jesus. Unfortunately in 590 AD, Pope Gregory 1 introduced the false doctrine that God uses sickness and disease as one of His methods to chastise and humble His children. This false doctrine is presently being taught in our churches today. Because this incorrect doctrine is still being taught, many Christians are needlessly suffering with sickness, disease and pain that is literally stealing the abundant life Jesus died to give them. They are told, God has put this sickness on you to humble or refine you in some way. Just be patient and carry the cross of your sickness until God sees fit to remove it from you. Ironically, these same preachers and teachers who tell their subjects it is God’s will that they be sick, will also tell them to go to a doctor and get some medicine to help alleviate the symptoms of their sickness. If God really does use sickness to chastise His children, why are they telling their subjects to go against God’s will by seeking medical attention? It grieves God to hear His children pray “Lord, if it be your will, heal me” just as much as it grieves God to hear His children pray “Lord, if it be your will, save me.” To God, you are already healed by Christ’s death on the cross. Salvation from both sin and sickness was accomplished in the same redemption by Jesus dying on the cross in your place. It is extremely difficult to have faith for something you don’t know you have. How can anyone have faith that God will heal them if they don’t know it is God’s will to heal them. Without faith, you cannot receive anything from God, because faith in Him and His Word moves God, not doubt. I am going to start in the Old Testament and move to the New Testament to show you that it is most definitely God’s will to heal you. I am not going to show you by my words, but by God’s Words. Old Testament God wants us to live long normal, happy, peaceful, healthy abundant lives. After all, Jesus said in John 10:10: ... I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. It is also God’s will that we live long lives free of sickness and when our bodies grow old and give out, we would die and return to the same dust from which we were formed. 1 ... You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Psalm 104:29 With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation. Psalm 91:16 God wanted us to lead a healthy, carefree life in His presence. But, through the sin of Adam and Eve sin and sickness entered the human condition. 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. (Romans 5:12) Now we know that both Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, but Paul only mentions Adam in Romans 5:12. Paul only mentions Adam because men have seed, women do not. We inherit our sin nature through Adam, that is why Jesus had to be born of a virgin. He could not have a biological earthy father because if He did, He would have inherited the same sin nature we inherit from our fathers. For Jesus to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins and sicknesses, He had to be sinless and blameless. The covenant of healing If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer. Exodus 15:26 The covenant of healing was the first covenant God gave to the Israelites. In it God identifies Himself as Jehovah-rapha - The Lord who heals you. This is one of God seven redemptive names. God does not bring sickness on His children, Satan does. He will allow it, if you get into disobedience, but He will never put sickness on you. The original Hebrew text reads: I will permit none of the diseases upon you which I permitted on the Egyptians. In Exodus 15:26 God enters into a covenant or a contract with the Israelites. A covenant is an agreement, contract, promise or a pact between two people or two parties. In this covenant God tells the Israelites, if you obey my commands, you will be free from sickness because I am your healer. Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter that outlines the blessings for obedience to God’s commands and the curses for disobedience to God’s commands. As you will see below, sickness is a curse. The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has 2 consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. Deuteronomy 28:20-22 If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which, not written in the book of the law, the Lord will bring on you until you are destroyed. Deuteronomy 28:58-62 Basically, God is saying in the above verses, if you break my commandments, you break my covenant I made with you in Exodus 15:26 and I will allow sickness to come upon you. The Israelites were a very disobedient bunch. They were always fault finding, complaining and grumbling about something. However, when they repented of their sins, they were healed. Numbers 21:4-9 below is a good example of how the covenant between God and the Israelites works. The Israelites became disobedient, then they repented and God healed them. Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable 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. Numbers 21:4-9 So what can we conclude from this. We know that God made a covenant of healing with the Israelites in Exodus 15:26. We know from Deuteronomy 28:20-22;58-62 if you disobey God’s commands, one of the curses is sickness. We know from what you just read in Numbers 21:4-9, the Israelites did not like the manna God was feeding them and they complained about it, which is disobedience. The Israelites broke the covenant by their complaining and snakes were permitted to bite them. When the Israelites repented and came back in obedience to God, God was able to fulfill His part of the covenant and heal them. God is not a covenant breaker, He may give you a better covenant, but He will never break His covenant because He said My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word which has gone out from my lips. (Psalm 89:34) 3 Isaiah 53, the redemptive chapter Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:4 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5 There are three words at the beginning of verse four that need to be looked at closer, these words are borne, griefs and sorrows. It is important to understand the Hebrew meaning for these words in order for you to understand what Christ did for you on the cross. The Hebrew word for borne is nasa - this word is used of the undertaking of the responsibilities for sins of others by substitution and it means to lift up, carry or carry away, to take up, forgive or accept. The Hebrew word for griefs is choliy- this word means sickness. The Hebrew word for sorrows is makob - this word means pains. So what is Isaiah really saying when he says: Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... . To paraphrase, He is saying, Jesus literally took upon Himself all our sicknesses and pains by becoming our substitute and dying on the cross on our behalf. Jesus does not suffer with us, He suffered for us. Now let’s take a closer look at verse five of Isaiah 53. If you look at verse 5 again, you will see three words. These words are transgressions, iniquities and chastisement. If you should look these words up in any dictionary, you will notice that the definitions of these words refer to sin or punishment for sin. Now let’s look at a couple of verses from the New Testament. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 We know that transgressions, iniquities and chastisement all refer to sin in some regard. We know from what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Jesus, even though He knew no sin was made sin on our behalf. We also know that the wages of sin is death. Therefore, we know that Christ had to die on our behalf because God put all the sins of humanity on His shoulders so that sin may die to 4 us because our sins died with Jesus on the cross. Now lets look at the last part of verse five. And by His stripes we are healed. We all know what and means, also, in addition to, plus. Isaiah 53:5 is a very important verse because it outlines our two-fold redemption. In this verse, we get salvation from sin and sickness by one final act of Christ dying on the cross. In this verse, the sin question and the sickness question of our redemption is answered, Christ bore them both. Now lets go to Isaiah 53:10 in which Isaiah clearly says that it was God’s will to make Jesus sick with our sicknesses. Jesus was to bear our sickness and disease so that we would not have to bear them. Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise Him; he has put Him to grief and made Him sick... Isaiah 53:10 Amplified Bible Even David equated sin and sickness in the same redemption. He knew when you are forgiven, you are healed. Isn’t that exactly what happened in Numbers 21:4-9, the Israelites repented, their sin was forgiven and they were healed. Lets read the words of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:2-3 New Testament As Jesus stood in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth, he proclaimed. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Luke 4:18-19 Jesus said My Father has sent me to do these things. Why? Because it was God’s will. Jesus also said in John 6:38: For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. Jesus also said He only did what He saw His Father doing. (John 5:19-20) We know it is God’s will to heal because throughout the four Gospels, Jesus went from town to town and city and city teaching the Good News, healing the sick, casting out demons and forgiving sin. He turned no one away, He was never too tired, He never told anyone that His Father had this sickness on them for some reason and to come back later, then maybe He could heal them. 5 In the sermon on the mount, in Matthew 6:10 Jesus instructs us to pray. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. There is no sickness in heaven and there is to be no sickness here on earth. There is no sickness in heaven because that is God’s domain and God’s perfect will can be accomplished because there is no Satan or demons in heaven. However, the earth is Satan’s domain and he is the little g, god of this world and he still attacks God’s children with sickness. We still have to contend with him and his fallen angels until Christ comes back to get us. Therefore, we are expected to use the authority given to us by Christ to heal the sick. Jesus redeemed us from physical sickness There are some religious scholars who believe the sickness Jesus bore on our behalf in Isaiah 53:4-5 was only spiritual. But, according to Matthew, this is not true. According to Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4-5 and Jesus came to redeem us from physical sickness. 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. Matthew 8:16-17 Even John the Baptist knew the miracles, signs and wonders that would be a token of the coming Messiah. This would be how the Christ would be identified. While John was in prison, he heard of the miracles Jesus was performing and sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus a specific question. Notice how Jesus answers John’s disciples. Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, Are you the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else? 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. Matthew 11:2-5 Jesus told John’s disciples. “Yes, I am the Expected One and here’s why.” I am the Messiah because I do these things, I restore sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, those who could not walk are walking and those whose flesh was once rotting are healed. Jesus is always willing to heal There is only one occasion in the Gospels in which a person ever questions Jesus willingness to heal. This occurred with a leper in Luke 5:12-13. While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You 6 can make me clean. And He stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately the leprosy left him. Luke 5:12-13 This leper by Jewish law was considered unclean. He was required to cover his upper lip and yell out “unclean, unclean” if anyone would come near. This man was an outcast and he was forced to live outside the city because of his disease. He was defying Jewish law and risking death by even attempting to approach Jesus. Verse 12 said this man was covered with leprosy, so that probably means the disease was in its final stages. This man was desperate and he had nothing to lose by approaching Jesus. He probably figured, “If I don’t approach Jesus I am going to die, but I can take my chances and go to this man who I have heard performs miracles, I just may get healed, so I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” So, he approaches Jesus with his request. “Lord, if you are willing, You can make me clean. The first thing Jesus does is correct this man by saying, “I am willing.” This leper had never heard Jesus preach, so he did not know Jesus was willing to heal. He didn’t know that Jesus was sent to preach the favorable year of the Lord. He didn’t know that Jesus was the Jubilee and the restorer of all things. He never questioned the ability of Jesus to heal, only His willingness. He found out Jesus was willing to heal and Jesus restored to him his health and consequently his life. There are many Christians today who like this leper don’t know God is willing to heal them. They know He is able and they know He heals some, but they are not convinced He will heal them. This is unfortunate because healing cannot manifest in unbelief and doubt. Peter knew Jesus bore our sickness Peter the apostle, walked and talked with Jesus. He was one of the favored apostles because he was allowed to see and hear some things that the other apostles weren’t allowed to hear or see. Peter knew why Jesus came to this earth. He knew of Christ’s redemptive work. 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. 1 Peter 2:24 Peter knew our redemption was two-fold. Jesus bore our sins and sicknesses so we would not die to them. This is the same Peter who outside the gate beautiful said to a crippled man in Acts 3:6: ... I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus 7 Christ the Nazarene – walk! This is the same Peter who in Acts 5:15, people would lay their sick on the street in hope that the shadow of Peter would fall on them and heal them. Peter was commissioned by Christ to heal the sick and he knew it, otherwise, he would have never attempted to do so. We are all commissioned by Christ to heal After Jesus died, arose and ascended to heaven, we became the hands, feet, eyes, ears and mouthpiece of Jesus. It is our duty and responsibility to continue to perform the same works Jesus performed while He was here on earth. We are all members of Christ’s body and Jesus Himself said in John 14:12 that anyone who believed would not only do the works He was doing but would do greater works than He because He was going to the Father. Christ commissioned all believers to continue His work. Christ commissioned the twelve apostles Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Matthew 10:1 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Matthew 10:8 Christ commissioned 70 others Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come. Luke 10:1 Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you; and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you. Luke 10:8-9 Christ commissioned all believers These signs will accompany those who have believed: In My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Mark 16:17-18 What Jesus says above is absolute. He said all believers will do these things. All means all and they will means they will, Jesus did not say maybe. 8 Christ commissioned the church Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. James 5:14-15 Conclusion We are commanded and expected by Christ to perform the same miracles He performed. The age of miracles did not pass away with the death of the last apostle. Healings are alive and well in today’s church because Jesus is alive and well. The healings He performed 2000 years ago, He is still performing today. He is still our Lord, He is still our Healer, He is still our Savior. Nothing about Him has changed, nothing about the redemption He died for has changed. Folks, He died for us and He entrust us with a wonderful responsibility, heal the sick. ... whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19 Healing is already a reality in heaven, there is no sickness in heaven because sickness is already bound in heaven. Therefore, perfect health and wholeness is now a reality here on earth because our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ bound sickness for us and gave us the authority in His name to bind the works of the devil, which includes sickness. We will always have the sick among us and we must stand up as Christians and exercise our authority in Jesus name and heal the sick. 9