BY GREG CRUM
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” I Peter 2:24
Have you ever read I Peter 2:24 and thought the last portion, the “by whose stripes ye were healed” part, was oddly out of context with the rest of the verse? I mean, here is Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writing of Jesus carrying our sins on the cross and of righteousness with God. Then all of a sudden, he pivots to the beating Jesus took and how that afforded us healing.
Now, the Cessationist crowd loves to chime in here and say that is because the Bible is speaking of spiritual healing, the forgiveness of sins. But that ideology turns a willfully blind eye to the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of Isaiah 53:5 (and by extension, I Peter 2:24) found in Matthew 8:14-17. There it is declared that Jesus’ healing of the physical body was the proper interpretation of “by whose stripes ye are (or were) healed.”
So, is I Peter 2:24 an instance of Peter jamming two ideas together where they do not belong? Nope! Peter knew both through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and through his personal experience with the Lord Jesus, that forgiveness of sin, righteousness with God, and physical health can go hand in hand because they are all the work of the Lord’s salvation!
For the past couple of weeks, we have written of our “common” salvation, as Jude puts it. Our salvation, or “sozo,” is our access to forgiveness of sin and a restored relationship with God. The end result of our salvation is eternal life, something none of us can fully appreciate as of yet.
With that said, what if I told you that our salvation was intended to do for us even more than that? What if I told you that the Scriptures and understanding of the original languages of the Bible declare that our salvation through Christ includes a healthcare policy that is unrivaled?
Believer, the Scriptures declare that when you got “saved,” you received more than just a future trip to Heaven. You received all that the word “saved,” or “sozo” in the Greek, conveys. You have been given all the provision you would ever need to live well, and that includes the health and healing that you need to function effectively on this Earth.
Now, last week, we answered a few objections to this idea that our salvation includes provision for health and healing for these bodies. We have found that those who believe in the Lord’s ability and desire to heal us today are not misunderstanding or misapplying the Scripture. We have also seen that healing for the body did not stop with the last Apostle, and that Jesus healed people when he walked this planet and heals people today for the same reason—not to prove he was God, but because he loves them!
So, if we are applying the text correctly, as the early church did, and Jesus still heals because he still loves us, why are so many Christians struggling to receive what God has made available?
Well, let us think back to what we read in Acts 14:9. What did Paul see in that man that enabled him to receive God’s “sozo” in the form of physical healing? The text states Paul “…stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed.”
Did you catch that? Faith! “Pistis.” Firm Persuasion. The key to enjoying “sozo” in the form of physical healing is faith.
Now, think of our most common understanding of “sozo,” our eternal salvation. How did you receive this? By faith, right? Yes, faith actions and faith words. It is not complicated. Receiving our healing when needed should be that simple.
It is the same process in God’s perspective—the process of faith. The problem arises, and health is compromised, when it is not the same process in our perspective. We make it more complicated. We feel like there are different factors involved, but really, there is not.
Our brains might tell us it is different. Our bodies might tell us it is harder to receive. The symptoms of sickness and disease scream at us to doubt, but we do not have to take the bait. We do not have to allow doubt to cause us to miss out.
Greg Crum is the pastor at Calvary Temple Church in Lovely.