Faith Healing Part 3

Salvation is in three stages: (1) eternally chosen in God’s purpose, (2) purchased in Christ’s death at Calvary, and (3) applied at the time of regeneration. Christians were not there when chosen, not there when purchased, but were there when salvation was applied. God is omnipotent (has all power), omniscient (knows everything), and omnipresent (is everywhere).

So-called “faith healers” say it is unscriptural to pray, “If it is God’s will.” Their argument is illustrated by the following statements: They say that no father or mother would pray, “Oh God, save my child, if it be your will.” Furthermore, they say that no person would pray in that manner because such praying would be (1) a slander on God’s love, (2) an arrogant denial of God’s word, and (3) an insult to God’s honor. They affirm that healing is in the atonement, according to Matthew 8:17— “In order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES, AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES” (NASB).

The following illustration has also been used by them: In England in World War II, a mother praying for her son in battle, said, “After I read that God neither slumbers nor sleeps, I decided there was no need for both of us to stay awake.” The faith healer then said, “After I read where God neither slumbers not sleeps, I decided that there was no need for both Christ and me to bear my sickness.” This was followed by their three views of Matthew 8:17—(1) For the past, we have Christ’s public ministry. (2) For the future, we will have the Kingdom. (3) For the present, there is no need to pray, “If it be Thy will.” They say that Christ taught us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” They say there will be no sickness in heaven, and one cannot pray the prayer of faith if he adds, “If it be Thy will.” Therefore, they say, God corrected the false theology of the leper: “When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed” (Matt. 8:1-3 KJB). They are saying that the Lord corrected the false theology of the leper because he was wrong when he prayed, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.”

If physical healing is in the atonement, as Charismatics teach, then God must disapprove of the use of any means, because “It is finished” (John 19:30 NASB). This was said by Christ in connection with His death. Furthermore, the body of the Christian would be deathless, because it would never come into judgment.

Charismatics make fools of themselves by saying that Christ corrected the false theology of the leper. They rely heavily on II Peter 3:9—”The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (NASB). The Charismatics, along with other Arminians, cannot apply II Peter 3:9 to all without exception. What about “vessels of wrath,” “wicked men foreordained to condemnation,” those to whom “God sends upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe a lie,” and those who are already “in hell”? (See Rom. 9, I Pet. 2:8, Jude 4, II Thess. 2:11, and Luke 16.) A good place to learn the importance of the context when it comes to handling the Scriptures correctly is II Peter 3:9. Look closely at the opening statement: “The Lord is not slow about His promise…” (NASB). The word “promise” (verses 4, 9, and 13) refers to Christ’s second coming. The key words in the text are “you,” “any,” and “all.” These are the persons God would not wish to perish. Scripture teaches that Christ’s sheep cannot resist God’s will (Rom. 9:16-19). The “any” and “all” are limited by “toward you.” God is not willing that any of those included in the covenant of grace should perish, but would have them all come to repentance. There is a vital connection between “you” and the elect of God (I Pet. 1:1-9; II Pet. 1:1-10).

There is an old saying: “That can never be too much taught which cannot be too well learned.” Truth is infinite, but our minds are finite. The most elementary doctrine is virtually a summary of the Bible. During the days of the Reformation, the Romans made the charge that the Reformers always “harped on the same string.” In Philippians, Paul continues to repeat his statement about joy.

It has been pointed out that the seventy scholars who gave us the Septuagint were mistaken in translating a Hebrew verb into an incorrect Greek verb and a Hebrew noun into an incorrect Greek noun in Isaiah 53:4. In contrast, Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, chose the correct verb and noun. The difference was inspiration. There is a vast difference between the choice of a certain word by one who was inspired by God and seventy men who translated the Hebrew into Greek.

The verb involved in the translation is bastadzo, which means carry away, remove, or to bear what is burdensome. How can we determine how to translate the verb? (1) Sickness has not been removed for Christians. (2) How is the verb used in Scripture? The verb is used 27 times, but it is never used when referring to sin or sins. (3) Did Christ bear the illnesses, or did He carry them away or remove them?

Matthew 8:16 gives the reason for Christ’s popularity: “And when evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill” (NASB). Miracles and healing draw crowds; the Person of fulfilled prophecy is not as interesting to the unregenerate. The unregenerate became interested in One who could cast out demons and heal the sick. However, did they have any interest in the fact that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy? Christ not only manifested His own human sympathy in His ministry, but it was by reason of His hypostatic union of His two natures. Christ could not bear weaknesses in His life (ministry) in the same sense that He bore sins in His death. One took life, and the other took death.

Isaiah 53 is a prophecy of the sorrowful lament and future confession of repentant Israel. The prophecy begins with Isaiah 52:13 and concludes by describing the exaltation and glory of the righteous Servant (Is. 53:12). However, between the two mountain peaks of glory lies the deep valley of suffering for which Jesus Christ came into the world and died. It was prophesied that Christ would be a man of sorrows (Is. 53:3). Christ’s sorrow was the sorrow of unique humiliation, opposition, and anticipation. Many times in sudden calamity we have been constrained to say that it is good for us that we do not know what lies before us. Christ foresaw all that was before Him; nevertheless, He came to give His life as a ransom for many, the elect, not for all. Christ’s sorrow was a sorrow of unique separation, described as His treading the winepress alone. His sorrow was that of a unique relationship; He bore our sins.

Isaiah 53:4 teaches that Christ is the sympathetic Savior. This took place in Christ’s public ministry. It did not take place at Calvary. A strange and erroneous deduction has been drawn from this verse. Some believe that Christ carried into the Calvary experience our sicknesses and pains; therefore, recipients of grace should never be sick. Christ’s redemptive work is absolutely perfect and complete Godward so that He is the propitiation for the sins of the elect (Rom. 3:25). However, the application of His redemptive work to our bodies remains to be accomplished when we step out of time into eternity (Rom. 8:23; II Cor. 4:16-18; Eph. 5:27; Phil. 3:21; Col. 3:1-4; I John 3:2). Our bodies are still under the power of death (Rom.7:17, 23; 8:23; I Cor. 15:26; Rev. 21:4). We are groaning in this body waiting for its redemption.

If Christ stood in the place of the sick as He stood in the place of chosen sinners, our sicknesses would be as far removed as our sins. However, Christ did not destroy sickness at His first coming. Disease is a part of the curse. The believer is not free from sickness. Christ removed, bore, or carried up sickness in a miraculous way during His public ministry so that the prophecy might be fulfilled in a shadow. In the same manner, Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River fulfilled all righteousness in a shadow or figure (Matt. 3:15; Acts 3:18). Throughout Christ’s earthly ministry, He saw the misery that sin caused. Therefore, He was “touched” with the feeling of our infirmities: “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted [tried] in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16 NASB).

Those who teach that people are healed by their faith are in error. Christ healed some because of the faith of others without regard to the faith of the ones healed. He healed some who were incapable of having faith. He healed some in spite of their protest. On one occasion, He rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith, which was the reason they failed to heal. Jesus Christ manifested that He was the Son of God by confirming His message with healing.

The diseases cured by Christ were types of another disease—the spiritual effects of the fall. The Jews will be granted repentance when they see Jesus Christ whom they pierced; then Isaiah 53:4 will be their penitential confession. They will confess their former blindness and ignorance regarding Christ. Grace is absolutely necessary for the correct evaluation of the Person of Jesus Christ.

Some misinterpret Isaiah 53:5 to teach that Christ purchased physical healing at Calvary. Those who hold this belief teach that provision was made for not only the full forgiveness of sin, but also the complete healing in this life of sickness and bodily disease. They attribute every sickness, disease, and deformity to Satan’s work. They are in error to say that disease never comes from God and that it cannot come out of heaven. These people fail to realize that Satan can do nothing without God’s permission. God had to give Satan permission before he could afflict Job, and the governor in John 19:11 could do nothing without God’s enabling. They ignore the fact that the Lord struck David’s child with sickness (II Sam. 12:15), and that He smote King Azariah, one of Israel’s good kings, so that he became a leper until his death (II Kings 15:5). The Lord plagued Pharaoh (Gen. 12:17). The hand of the Lord plagued Egypt (Ex. 9:1-12). The Lord plagued the Israelites because they made a golden calf (Ex. 32:35). God continues making people sick and killing them (I John 5:16).

The message to Israel was that God is the Healer, but He also inflicts calamities, even on his own people (Deut. 32:39; Jer. 7:14, 15). The children of Israel should observe and do all of God’s commandments (Deut. 28:1). Blessings would come on them if they hearkened to the voice of the Lord (Deut. 28:2). If they would not hearken to the voice of the Lord to do His commandments, curses would come on them (Deut. 28:15). The Lord would send on His covenant people curses, confusion, rebuke, pestilence, consumption, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, the sword, blight, and mildew; and they would be pursued until they perished (Deut. 28:20-22).

Jesus Christ, the incarnate Savior, sympathetically bore the burdens of poverty (II Cor. 8:9), pain (John 18:22; Luke 22:63-65), hunger (Luke 4:2), thirst (John 4:7), weariness (John 4:6), reproaches (Rom. 15:3), abuses (Luke 4:28, 29), and sorrow (Is. 53:4). These involved no sin on Christ’s part. In what sense did Christ take our infirmities on Himself and carry our sicknesses? It was not in the sense that He became afflicted with them, but that He had sympathy and compassion for those afflicted with them.

The Son of God vicariously bore the penalty of sin on the cross on behalf of the elect. Isaiah 53:5 begins with the conjunction “but,” showing the contrast between Christ’s public ministry in verse four and His sacrifice on the cross in verse five. There is a different aspect of human nature in verse five than that in verse four. Griefs and sorrows are not violations of God’s law. The light of God breaks in on the verse and shows that ours was the transgression; Christ’s death was the scope for it. Ours was the iniquity; His was the wound for it. Ours was the sin; His was the suffering on behalf of it.

Jesus Christ was the suffering Savior on the cross. He was wounded for our transgressions. The word “pierced” (Is. 53:5) speaks of severe and mortal wounds. Christ was bruised—pressed hard or crushed—for our iniquities. This was one way excruciating pain could be inflicted. The chastisement of our peace was on Him. The suffering by which our reconciliation was secured was in the death of Jesus Christ. He took the debt of sin on Himself. It was imputed to Him, and He carried it as His own. He bore the punishment occasioned by the sin of the elect (John 1:29). With Christ’s stripes we are healed.

The Jewish law forbad more than forty stripes, but Christ was scourged by Romans who recognized no such merciful limits. Isaiah saw the stripes prophetically. From that unseen scourge held in the Father’s hand, which fell on the inner nature of Jesus Christ, His soul was made an offering for sin. By His soul being made an offering for sin, our souls are healed. Thus, we are healed of our inattention, unconcern, self-righteousness, and the pleasures of the world.

Isaiah 53:5 is a certainty. However, with every Arminian, it is a possibility. Neither prayer nor faith heal. If they did, that would be our application of the remedy. The remedy comes from God.