One of the most foolish lies that the church tells to negate the truth of healing is that somehow healing in the Bible is a spiritual thing rather than meaning physical healing. People read Scriptures like 1 Peter 2.24 which says “By His stripes you were healed” and then they say “Well, healing here means a spiritual thing, it’s allegorical and metaphorical, it means you are better in your emotions, a better person, it means you are going to heaven”. That is simply not true. It just does not bear witness with Scripture.
Sin and sickness are both tied together. They both entered the world when Adam and Eve sinned, and the good news is that the redemption of Jesus Christ set us free from both sin and sickness! Salvation from sin, and healing from sickness are both parts of the redemption of Jesus Christ. Both are included! We do not have to choose. Someone once yelled at me after preaching “The new birth is more important than getting your body healed!” I said “If I had to choose, I agree, but I don’t, we get it all”.
Complete salvation is a born again spirit, a renewed mind and a healed body. It would be incomplete for your spirit to be totally transformed and your body to be sick still, just like getting your body healed but staying spiritually dead is incomplete. I know which is better long-term, but you can have both. The work of Jesus provided both salvation for the spirit and healing for the body.
God wants your spirit to be regenerated and He wants your body to be healed. That is a complete redemption. Every Christian should be healthy in their body, that is God’s will for them. It’s a double provision, so have both parts of it.
The problem is the church has realized Jesus is their substitute for sin, becoming sin so they can be righteous, but they have not realized that in an identical manner, He is our substitute for sickness, becoming sick so we can be healed.
When you preach the gospel to the lost, you should preach both bits. You should tell the lost to receive Jesus as Saviour and as Healer. He is both. He can heal you from all the sicknesses and deliver you from all sin at the some moment, and you can get both benefits of salvation. I like meetings where people get saved and healed in the same moment! But let’s not call the salvation a healing, it’s not. They are different.
Jesus told a man sick with palsy – this meant he could not walk or move his legs or arms – He said “Cheer up, son, you are forgiven”. That’s good news, Jesus revealed Himself as Saviour. But the man did not then say “Praise God, I am forgiven, that is the true healing” and was then carried out. Because Jesus also said “Pick up your mat and walk” – that was the healing. That man was saved and healed on the same day! He got both, and you can have both.
Jesus actually said “Which is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, your sins are forgiven or to say arise, take up your bed and walk”. This man was told the truth – your sins are forgiven, he believed it and he received it. He was then told the truth – you can get up and walk – you are healed, he believed that and he received that too. If we only preach half a gospel, we only get half the results. If we preach that healing is salvation, we get one benefit – forgiveness. But we can preach salvation for the spirit and healing for the body and get both! That’s wiser. That’s the way Jesus did it and that is the way to do it.
Always tell people – you can be saved and healed by Jesus! As many as touched Him were made whole (Mark 6.56). That means healing in the body, not some sort of spooky restoration and having a slighty better day while still sick! Jesus wants you well.
Christians do not need to be sick. Stop tolerating sickness in your body and start being healed. Jesus bore your sicknesses as much as He bore your sin. He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses (Matthew 8.17). That is the truth, and that is the reality of it, and sicknesses means sicknesses, not some spiritual spooky voodoo! Jesus healed physically back then and He still heals physically today.
If Jesus carried your sicknesses, then we do not need to carry them. We do not need to be sick. He bore them so we do not need to bear them. If you are bearing them then it was useless for Jesus to bear them. Do not make the work of the cross useless, believe and receive that healing means healing.
The Scripture is so clear. Jesus bore your sicknesses. He carried them away and set you free from them. So you do not need to bear them.
I have heard it taught that Christians were redeemed from their sins but have to keep suffering their sicknesses, that God may want them healed or may want them sick. I have been taught God has definitely healed others, but maybe they were blessed, holy, had a higher purpose. It was a special mercy God rarely bestowed. None of that is Biblical. None of that makes sense. The problem is if you accept that you can never have simple faith in the Biblical truth that Jesus bore your sicknesses. Not just some people, everyone’s sicknesses – including yours – have been borne by Jesus at the cross.
Disease is evil. It destroys bodies, and Jesus bought that body with a price. It is not reasonable after Jesus bore all the sicknesses across the world to expect God to still want people to bear them. To quote F F Bosworth, to believe that is “utterly unlike God’s Word”. F F Bosworth also said:
When I ask people if they think it is God’s will to heal them, and they reply that they do not know whether it is or not, I then ask them if it is God’s will to keep His promise.
This is what we all must understand. Sickness is part of what Jesus redeems us from. Healing is not a synonym for having your sins forgiven, healing is Jesus Christ eradicating all sickness from your body. He has done it all at the cross, and all you need to do is believe it and receive it.
The real reason more people are not healed is a lack of teaching on this. It’s that simple. If no one ever preached Jesus bore our sins, then no one would ever be saved. And because so many people have never healed the truth of healing, that Jesus bore our sicknesses, there’s not that many people being healed. But that’s not us – we preach the truth of healing. Healing is simple, all you have to do is realize Jesus bore your sicknesses and carried your diseases.
If I got up in church one Sunday, aware there were lost people in the room and I preached “I am not sure if God wants to save you or not, He might do, but probably not. It is possible you are sinning for God’s glory to advance His kingdom, and maybe God is using your sin to discipline you and train you, stay in your sin until you realize God’s plan to save you maybe one day. The day of people getting saved is over now, as the Bible has been complete”. If I said such nonsense no one in the room would get saved. But that is the nonsense about healing preached from so many pulpits! No wonder some places never see a healing. It is easy to grasp why some are not healed today.
And salvation is not healing, healing is not salvation. But you can be saved and healed. Today! Right now. Because Jesus bore your sins and He bore your sicknesses.
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