All His Benefits, Part 2
The Benefit of Health and Healing
Part of a short series on Psalm 103
The fourth and fifth lines of Psalm 103 declare that it is God “who heals all your diseases” and “redeems your life from the pit.” This is an amazing promise to God’s people if you have faith to receive it. God the Father wants you to be healthy. Unless the Holy Spirit tells you differently, you should always assume it’s God’s will for you to be healthy and well. It’s our default position. This means you should not be sick, and if you suddenly find yourself sick, you should seek the Lord Jesus for healing.
When Jesus walked the earth, he was a healer. The scriptures tell us, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.” This is such good news to us because it speaks to Jesus’ character. Jesus has a compassionate heart and feels deeply for those that suffer. Since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we must also believe that he still has a compassionate heart and a will to heal today. Jesus’ return to the Father did not change, reduce, or eliminate his compassion or his ability to heal.
The Hebrew prophets prophesied the work that Jesus did on the earth. Their words are well worth our attention. The prophet Isaiah looked into the future and saw a suffering servant, one who would be “wounded for our transgressions” and “bruised for our iniquities” and that the “chastisement for our peace” would be upon him. This speaks to the forgiveness of sin that was won by Christ for us at the cross. The prophet then widens the net by adding this glorious phrase: “and by His stripes we are healed.” Long before Christ came to earth, it was the Father’s good will to reveal the benefits of health, healing, and wholeness that the Messiah’s suffering would bring to his people. Some have called this a birthright for those who have been born again and live daily in the presence of the Lord, and I would agree.
Peter references this passage from Isaiah in his letters, which confirms that the apostles and the Early Church believed this scripture accurately applied to Christ’s atoning death on the cross. Peter wrote that Christ himself “bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” Consider what this means. Christ willingly stood at the Roman whipping post and endured thirty-nine lashes with that horrible whip called a cat-o-nine-tails just that we might live in supernatural health and find healing for any disease that might afflict us. It’s not just a footnote to the salvation story. Health and healing are a central part of the redemption that Christ brings to his Church.
In the Early Church, we have dozens of examples that healing and divine health were understood to be a part of the redemption package that Christ brought to his Church. The Apostle James mentions healing for the believer on several occasions:
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
You can see that he connects a tender heart (confess your sins) and community prayer (pray for each other) to the healing that God brings. It is important to understand that asking God for healing while living in a state of sin or holding unforgiveness in your heart is problematic. This passage suggests that James is correcting believers who were praying for healing without seeing it manifested in their bodies. He’s saying to the Church that clean and tender hearts are required to see the healing prayer answered. Look at that opening verse again:
“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
The lesson here is simple: if your prayers are not being answered, it’s not because God stopped caring about you. Rather, it’s because you wandered away from the pure and true state of your redemption. Repent and return to the Lord with a pure heart, then you will see that your prayers are powerful and effective.
James continues:
“Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the Church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.”
You will notice how the prophetic word from Isaiah has been turned on its head here. Isaiah tagged this reference to healing (”by His stripes”) onto the end of the passage about the forgiveness of sin. Here, James tags a reference to being “forgiven” for sin at the end of his instructions about prayer for healing. The full Gospel message is simple: the atonement accomplished by Christ’s death on the cross includes both forgiveness for sin and healing from disease. To separate these two things is to cut Christ’s message in half. I cannot speak for others, but I don’t want half a Gospel message. I don’t want to suffer in poor health when my Savior suffered for my healing.
There are biblical exceptions to the notion that all Christians should live in divine health. The Apostle Paul suffered under some strange malady that troubled him greatly, which he referred to as a “thorn in the flesh.” Many Bible scholars have surmised that there was something wrong with Paul’s eyes. God had allowed this malady to befall Paul to keep him dependent upon the Lord. Paul asked the Lord to take away this “thorn,” but the Lord responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul himself acknowledged this, saying, “in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” His response is priceless:
“I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
It must have seemed strange to Paul that his prayers would bring healing to sick people, even as his own physical weakness remained.
What about all the Christians who are sick? What about all those Christian people who died of their illnesses? These questions are not without foundation. We see sickness and death all around us. Much of this sickness is in the Church. As I unpackage some of this, I would encourage you that your faith should be established upon the truth of scripture and not on the evidence that surrounds you. Sure there are sick people in the Church, and we want to believe the very best in these people. The reality is this: we don’t know their inner thoughts, we don’t know where they stand in their walk with Christ, and we don’t know why they are sick. Like Job from the Old Testament, they may be suffering for the cause of Christ and giving God all the glory. Like Paul, they may be suffering as a means of amplifying the Gospel story. Perhaps they are suffering as a means of demonstrating the healing power of God. We just don’t know. If we allow the reality of illness and poor health in the Church to undercut our faith in God’s goodness as revealed in scripture, we will surely miss the glory of God in our own lives as a result. Eyes up. Behold, your Savior lives.
Next: All His Benefits, Part 3 - The Benefit of Love and Mercy
About this series: Drawing from Psalm 103, these posts explore the rich benefits Christ’s passion has secured for his people. We’re discovering what belongs to us in the Inner Room.