I had intended to continue on with my discussion from August seventh about discerning the times, but after giving it some thought, more like I had a divine nudging, I thought I would discuss another topic today which the Body of Christ so desperately needs some logos revealing on. It has to do with the healing power of God in relation to sickness and disease; and not forgetting even the smallest little aches and pains that we as people suffer.
Now this is a very dangerous topic of discussion especially amongst the Christian culture. I say it is dangerous because, I have experienced that pointing out some of the wrong beliefs on the topic of healing, with some in the Body of Christ, can invite literal persecution from people whom we are suppose to be family with. Sometimes even, scorn develops in the heart of those who disagree with what is actually truth from the Word of God concerning this topic. But, on the other hand, it delights my soul when a brother or sister is so eager to receive knowledge from the Lord about healing. They put off what they have been incorrectly taught, and then believed (which keeps them in bondage), and put on what is actually true according to what our Father has said in his Word.
To some people, I can seem to be too dogmatic in the subjects that I bring up when it concerns the Bible. I sometimes without meaning to tick some of my brothers off when I teach, or share, with them the truths of God, because it goes against everything they have been taught in church, especially when it comes to the topic of healing. It does not matter to them that they have never really studied God’s Word on this subject; they are going to believe what they have been taught by their Pastors and Teachers, who may not have been fully correct in what they have preached or taught from the pulpit. I am not saying that these Kingdom Officers are intentionally misinforming God’s people, but sometimes we can get it wrong if we don not use the Word as our foundation. You may ask, as many have already asked me, well how do you know Robin that you are not wrong. I always retort with the same answer: “Check out what I teach with the Word of God, because our God is not a liar.” One reason why we can sometimes get it wrong, especially when it comes to healing, is because some seem to think that experience is the key to knowledge. But, when I read and study my Bible, I see that the key to knowledge is the Word of God itself, and not what we have experienced.
Do you know that experience can sometimes masquerade as a lie from the devil, to throw us off from experiencing the truth? The devil knows that if he can deceive you even just a little bit, he can then rob you of what God has actually promised to you. And the healing power of God is a promise to everyone who has received God’s free gift of salvation. Yes, this is true child of God, but don’t believe me personally, but believe the Word of God that I will present to you in this blog. Do not worry, you will not hurt my feelings if you do not believe me personally, although I somehow have the sense you are not worried about that (which you should not be). Even the Apostle Paul’s teachings were not believed fully by the Jews at Berea, until they studied the Scriptures for themselves to make sure that what he was teaching was from God. And that is what I encourage you to do too. Take what I say and see if it lines up with the Word of our Father. But please, do not mix your experiences with the Word of God to try to make a truth. Just take the Word of God and make that truth, even if it goes against everything you have been taught in the past, and or have believed was true.
The healing power of God is included in our salvation, when we first believed the Word of God, and received Jesus Christ as our Lord. When we first received the “word of faith” into our heart, and put it in our mouth, and made the confession that Jesus is the Lord and believed that the Father raised him from the dead, we were saved (See Romans 10:9). It says this in the following verse: “For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10, HNV). You might say, well where is the guarantee, that the healing power of God, is part of our salvation? I know that you are so exited, brothers and sisters, so I am going to show you. I am going to show you from the Word of God, which you are going to check up, to make sure that what I am teaching you is from the Word of God.
Let’s first look up, a psalm of King David, which is actually a prophecy pertaining to the work of Jesus at the Cross.
“Praise the LORD, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name! Praise the LORD, my soul, And don't forget all his benefits; Who forgives all your sins; Who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from destruction; Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Psalms 103:1-4, HNV).
At the time when the king wrote this psalm (about 1000 years prior to Christ’s first coming), having all your sins forgiven (fully) was not a reality because: “It is impossible for blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4, Young’s Literal Translation). The yearly sin sacrifice was insufficient to take away all our sins, because the sacrifice in itself was a reminder each year to the Jew, that they were a sinner in need of forgiveness. So with the knowledge that David had at the time he recorded this psalm, he could not have known the reality of “all your (our) sins forgiven” unless the Spirit of God revealed this to him as a future event. So it is clear to see that this psalm is a prophecy pointing to the atoning sacrifice for sins, made by Jesus Christ our Lord, on the Cross at Calvary. In this prophecy, David reminds his soul (something we should also practice) to not forget all the Lords benefits, which is, the Lord “forgives all your sins.”
The second part of this exhortation is for his soul to not forget another of the Lord’s benefits, which is, the Lord “heals all your diseases.” This benefit was also not realized (fully) until the day when Jesus was crucified. We know that the Lord made a promise to Israel in Exodus that he would heal them, if they served Him: “And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee” (Exodus 23:25, KJV). But again, this was only a temporary thing as long as they would keep the Lords commandments, and His statutes, and His judgments (See Deuteronomy 7:11-15). We know from reading the Old Testament that keeping the Lord’s commandments, and His statutes, and His judgments was a very difficult thing for them to do. Thus, the children of God did not realize the healing power of God at its full strength. So again, King David is prophesying that the day would come when the Lord would “heal(s) all your diseases,” just like He would “forgive(s) all your sins.” The two acts, of all our sins forgiven and all our diseases being healed, are a packaged deal. We can not have one without the other. By the way, I want to bring to your attention; the Hebrew word used for diseases can also refer to sickness (even a cold or flu virus).
Some might say, but this does not prove that this passage is predicting Christ’s work at the Cross. Well, if you take this passage in context, it does. What did verse four say again? It says that the Lord “redeems your life from destruction.” The word ‘destruction’ is an English translation of the Hebrew word ‘shachath’ (feminine noun), which literally means: Corruption, destruction, grave, or pit (Young’s Hebrew Lexicon). This action that delivered man from the pit, which is actually a reference to Hell, was also not realized until Jesus took all our sins upon himself at the Cross.
The proof that this passage in the Psalms, is predicting the day when Jesus was sacrificed as the Lamb of God, can be found in Isaiah. We all know that Isaiah chapter fifty three is a reference to the day when Jesus was crucified, because we have had it preached to us in church so many times, that many can quote Scripture and references by memory. But unfortunately we have had only part of the truth preached to us. We all know that: “He [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5a, KJV), which reveals Christ bore (took) our sins on the Cross; because again, we have had it preached to us, right! We sing about it, we confess it, and we love it; as we should (even though some take it for granted, which is another sermon). Yes, this is a very important part of the truth, but there is also another important part as well.
The second important part of what King David prophesied is: “Who heals all your diseases”. You might ask; where do you find this in Isaiah’s prophecy? We find it in the first part of verse four, and the last part of verse five, where it reads: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4a and 5c, KJV). Now, if I am not mistaken, I have heard many times, through many different preachers, that Christ bore our heartaches with this statement. The component words being; grief’s and sorrows. This is the way some ministers interpret this phrase, so this is the way they deliver it, or should I say, feed it to the sheep in their care. The reason I guess, that many have preached it this way, is because of the way most of our favorite English Bibles have translated this phrase. Most of our English translations do not reveal the complete truth of these two phrases, especially verse four.
To get a proper translation of verse four, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,” we need to see what the component words grief’s and sorrows are in the original Hebrew language.
First: The word we are most accustomed to in our English translation is, grief’s; which in the original language was the Hebrew word; choliy. Choliy actually means sickness, and can also be translated as disease.
Second: We usually read in our English Bibles, in verse four of Isaiah chapter fifty three, the word, sorrows. But in the original language, Isaiah used the word mak'ob; which actually means pain (both mental and physical).
Now our English translations are not fully misinterpreting these Hebrew words because, both choliy and mak'ob, can be translated as grief’s and sorrows. But what most English Bibles are doing, is misinterpreting the intent (what Isaiah’s intention of meaning was) of the phrase “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” I say they misinterpret the intent of this verse because, Christ did more then just take and carry our heartaches; but Christ took and carried our sickness, disease and pain (both mental and physical). Some English Bibles did translate the intent of Isaiah’s meaning correctly. Here are a couple of them.
“Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains -- he hath carried them, And we -- we have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God, and afflicted” (Young’s Literal Translation).
“Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering (sufferings mean, pain); yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted” (Hebrew Names Version).
Now let’s look at Isaiah 53:5c, which says: “And with his stripes we are healed” (KJV). When Isaiah prophesied this phrase, he was referring to the time when Jesus was being whipped and beaten, by the Romans soldiers, just prior to his being nailed to the Cross. The word that Isaiah used, that the English Bibles translate “healed” is the Hebrew word, rapha'. Rapha' means: To make healthy or quite literally to heal. The intent of this phrase, through Isaiah’s prophecy, is to complete the statement “Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains -- he hath carried them” (Young’s Literal Translation). The prophecy is saying that “with his (Christ’s) stripes (wounds) we are healed” of sickness (disease) and pain (both mental and physical).
The Apostle Peter, about thirty years after Christ’s work at Calvary, confirmed Isaiah’s prophecy by saying: “Who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24, HNV). Do you notice that Peter said “you were healed?” Now Peter (and Isaiah) through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was either lying to us, or we have either misinterpreted the Word of God. If my brothers and sisters are still looking for, God to come down and heal you, then you have misinterpreted what God has said through the Holy Spirit.
I hope that everyone is seeing now (if you have not already previously), that because you have been made a New Creation in Christ Jesus, you have not only been forgiven of all your sins, but you have also been healed of all your sickness and disease. It is not something that will happen in the future, like when we receive our glorified spiritual bodies at the Catching Away of the Bride of Christ. But we are, if you are a Christian, healed already of all sickness and disease, just like you are forgiven already of all your sins, because of the sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ endured at the Cross. It is all of our responsibility to appropriate this truth to our lives daily! (If you are not a Christian, according to the Bibles interpretation of what it means to be one, you can be; just leave a comment on this blog and I will get back to you.) The way we appropriate this truth about healing to our lives is to believe it, without an ounce of doubt (this takes faith). Jesus said this when he was tempted by the Devil: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, KJV). This means that we do not live by the food that this world, with all its experiences, feeds us; but we live by the Word of God only (again, this takes faith).
