Healing in the Atonement.....

The Power to get the sick healed

by Rev. Cal Pierce

Part of the problem that we're experiencing in the Body of Christ today comes from a thinking that is called dispensationalism. The thinking behind here is that God has dispensed of the power for the Body of Christ to get the sick healed. Rather than a Gospel of the Kingdom, we've developed a Gospel of Grace, and this dispensational thinking puts the responsibility for healing off of the Body of Christ and on to God. It says, "Well, God is sovereign. He will heal some and not others. It's up to Him." 
Isaiah 53:4 in the Hebrew meaning of that Scripture, says "Jesus bore our sickness. He carried our pain. By His stripes we were healed." 
1 Peter 2:24 in the New Testament reiterates this: "By the stripes of Jesus we are healed." 
If we go to Isaiah 53:6, it talks about the iniquity of us all being upon Jesus. From there we get our salvation.
If we can get our salvation out of verse six, then we need to get our healing out of verse four. The provision for salvation and healing are both in the atonement for a reason - so that the Body of Christ can have all the provision for the whole person to be impacted by God.
The problem with the dispensational thinking that has crept into almost every denomination is that when we say God is sovereign, we then put the responsibility of healing upon God. If the scripture is true, and the Hebrew meaning of Isaiah 53:4 is that Jesus bore our sickness and carried our pain on the cross, then it is wrong to put that work on God, as if God was going to decide whether or not He's going to heal us. Putting that responsibility on Him takes it off of us, and then we don't want to become responsible. This comes from a wrong thinking and a wrong understanding of healing in the atonement. 
Matthew 8:17 takes what Isaiah 53:4 says and brings it into the New Testament: "....so that what was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah....he bore our sickness and he carried our diseases on the cross." 
So God made provision not only for salvation impacting us, but for healing impacting us. What we're seeing happening today, and why this healing movement is coming so fast, I believe, is because as we get closer and closer to the end time, we're going to begin to carry a salvation message to the street, and we're going to back up that salvation message with a Kingdom message that doesn't just come in word, but in power, so that healing can be a sign to the lost that our God is real. 
God has kept the healing evangelist before us, but the healing evangelist was never going to do all the work. The Church has pushed the work onto the healing evangelist to come into a community, bring the anointing, do a crusade and leave. The anointing would follow after them, and the sick would also have to follow after them. But God is going to bring this healing anointing in this hour - not on somebody, but on The Body. There's a connection being made between the healing evangelist and the Healing Room type of ministry, a work that will reside in the community all year long to get the sick healed.
Part of this work is to break the barrenness off of the Church, and this wrong understanding of healing in the atonement, and to break off this dispensational thinking. 
This is fairly recent thinking. It goes back to about 1830. It says that God is somehow dispensing with that part of the Gospel--that Jesus healed the sick, but then stopped, and now today we're not to move in that kind of power. The thinking is that there's just a a Gospel of grace. This has not allowed us to be like the frog in the pot, slowly getting boiled, not knowing that we have the power and authority to walk in. This thinking puts the responsibility on God. It causes us to have a rapture mentality rather than a harvest theology. We want to get bailed out. This thinking preaches a gospel of a kingdom of heaven, a future kingdom, and leaves us in the kingdom of darkness in this world, with that rapture mentality.

God is saying to the Church in this hour, "thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." 

1 Corinthians 4:20 says, "The kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power."

In the Greek that means "dunamis" or "dynamite power." See, we're to have a kingdom message here and now in order to move into the harvest field and move in power to destroy what the enemy has done. We're God's Body, we're the Body of Christ. It's the Body that does the work. We're to move in power, not form. We're to have a salvation message that will be backed up with a Kingdom message. We're to bring the Kingdom of God to this planet here and now as it is in heaven, so that we can move into the end-time harvest with power and authority and begin to destroy the work of the enemy.

Why would God dispense with power in the Church, yet allow the power of the enemy to exist on the planet, when He says greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world? For some reason, we're not supposed to work and move in that greater power? 

Part of the problem that this causes is that we show up on Sunday at church, we get born again, and that's it. Nothing happens. We sit in church waiting for and talking about a rapture as if we're running out the back door with the devil kicking in the front door. We think the enemy is greater than the power of God in us. 

That's the church that God is not coming for. God is not coming for a church in a mess. He's coming for a church in victory, not a church that's a victim. Not a church with spots and wrinkles, but a church without spots and wrinkles. This dispensational thinking says, "Well God is sovereign. He will heal some and not others." 

God is sovereign, but He's no liar. He says none should perish. All should come to repentance. That's what God's will is. A sovereign God will tell His Church what His will is so the Church can move in it. We're to move in the power to get the sick healed. We're to move in power to get the lost saved. We're to be impacted with Isaiah 53:6 for our salvation, and as the Body of Christ we're to be impacted by Isaiah 53:4, which states that He bore our sicknesses and He carried our pain and by HIs stripes we were healed 2000 years ago. 

We're to take that message of salvation and healing to the street, so that we can move in power to get the sick healed. Not looking for a future kingdom, but bringing the Kingdom of God into this planet here and now. It will not come in word, but it will come in power. We're to move in power in the Body of Christ. He wants His Church to move in power in order to take this harvest. 

After 9-11, when those airplanes hit the twin towers, we began to realize that in Islam they have been taught and trained not receive a salvation message. But the only message that will bring them to Christ is the Kingdom message that brings signs and wonders following after it. Those signs and wonders are undeniable. 

In Matthew 16:19 it says; "I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven." This is talking about power. "And whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 

You see, God gives power that we might bind and loose down here, and it will be backed up with a binding and loosing in heaven, because God stands behind His promise and His word. And we're to walk in that promise, we're to walk in that word, we're to walk in that power to get the sick healed. 

Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." 

You see, God is saying if you seek Him first and His righteousness, then He will bring the provision. He will bring the power to back up His word so that it will not be void. It will not go out of His mouth without accomplishing what He sends it to do.

Matthew 24:14 says; "This gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come." 

If we don't have a gospel of this Kingdom, how on earth will that be fulfilled? It will be fulfilled on earth with a Church that doesn't have a partial gospel getting a partial result, but a Church that has a full gospel getting a full result, so that the Kingdom message will not just be in word, but it will be in power. So that signs and wonders will begin to follow after the Church. 

Matthew 12:28 says; "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you."

If we do this work of the gospel of the Kingdom, then the power has come. If we expel the enemy and destroy his work by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come upon us. God wants this Kingdom message to come into the Body of Christ. But dispensational thinking is putting the responsibility of this healing work onto God, and not allowing it to be on us. If Jesus is the Head of the Church and we are His Body, then it's the Body that does the work. God does not dispense with part of His gospel. Otherwise, He's not the same God that He used to be. When He says in His word, I am the same yesterday, today and forever. 

Did God hold some of His healing power back, because He's sovereign, so that some would be healed and not others?

Jesus said, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." What part of "all" are we having a hard time understanding?

Ephesians 1:22 says; "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church." 

Ephesians 2:5-6 "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

We've been raised with Him. We've been quickened with Him. We sit with Him in heavenly places. We're not a disconnected body, but a connected body. The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in this Body in order for it to carry out this Kingdom work. But this dispensational thinking has caused us to be filled with doubt and unbelief that comes through fear. It's developed in the Body a "hope so" faith for healing rather than a "know so" faith for healing. It has pushed the work on God, so that we can't pray with faith, because we don't need faith for healing when it's not our responsibility. But without faith, it's impossible to please God. 

When the Father gave all power in heaven and earth to the Son, then the responsibility for this healing work, this Kingdom work, went to Jesus and from Jesus to the Church. That's why He said that He has put all things under the feet of Jesus and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church. So God transferred the responsibility for salvation and healing to Jesus, and through Jesus to the Body, because Jesus is the head of the Church, and we're the Body of Christ. When Jesus wen to be with the Father, what did He say to the Apostles? "Where I go you cannot follow. But it will profit you, because I will be sitting at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you, and I give you the Holy Spirit." 

The same Holy Spirit that raised Him is dwelling in us - not a seperate Holy Spirit, the same one, the Bible says. And that's to bring resurrection power into the Church. 

This is why it says in John 14:12 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also: and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." 

Because we're the Body, and the Body is to move in power and authority, the Body is to bring this Kingdom message, this Gospel of the Kingdom, into the planet here and now. 

The Church will begin to walk in authority and they will begin to carry this healing power to destroy the work of the enemy, because we're the Body, and the Body is supposed to do it. 

(to be continued....)