Sunday, August 3, 2008

Healing is a part of Salvation.....


Healing is just salvation impacting the natural man. That's all it is. Jesus didn't see a difference between salvation and healing to the person.
We can get a little bit of an idea of this in Mark 2:9, where Jesus said, "Whether it is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?"
We've taken what God put together in the Atonement and we've made it two seperate subjects. When Jesus went to the cross, He took our sin, iniquity, sickness, and disease there. Forgiveness and healing have never been different subjects. Healing is nothing more than the New Birth affection the human body.
We see that sin takes a toll on the human body. We can look at someone who has been in sin all their life, and we can see it on them. We can tell that they have lived a rough life. Their sin has had an adverse affect. If someone is an alcoholic for a long period of time, we can see the effects of that upon them. And when people get born again and healing begins to come into their body we can see the advantages of righteousness on them.

Jesus wanted to prove to the religious leaders that He could forgive sin. The religious leaders could only go by what they saw, so Jesus showed them salvation in the natural. He healed the lame man to show how salvation works. In other words, he said, "If you can't see redemption one way, I will show it to you another. I'll prove to you that I have the power to forgive sin. I'll tell this man to get up and walk, and he will do it." He did, and they were absolutely amazed. As the power of this gospel of salvation impacted his physical being, he stood up and walked, and salvation renewed the whole man.
Salvation is not to renew part of us, but it's to have all of us impacted by all of God.
Isaiah 53:4-5 "Surely he hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
Salvation and healing are not seperate issues. Jesus didn't see them that way. We will never walk in the full measure of power to get the sick healed until we have a proper, foundational understanding of healing in the atonement.
John 3:17 says, "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved."
Now if you look at this word "saved" in Strong's Concordance, in the Greek it means "sozo." That word means "deliver, protect, heal, preserve, save, do well, to make whole."
If you look at that word "whole" in Matthew 9:21, it says, "If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole."
The woman with the issue of blood touched His garment and she was made whole. That word "whole" is also the Greek word "sozo." The whole person impacted by the whole God.
In Mark 10:50-52 we read, "And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto him, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way."
In this passage the word "whole" is also "sozo", "to be completed." You see salvation is to impact or make whole the person in spirit, mind and body. It's not to push this work of healing on God and think that God's will is salvation for everyone, but not healing for everyone. When we push that responsibility on God, then it's "Whatever God does is OK with us." But God's will is for salvation to impact every person and also for healing to impact every person and also for healing to impact every person.
Romans 5:12 says, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
If we look into Deuteronomy 28, we see that sickness is incipient death, or death in progress.
The passage in Romans say that by on man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Through the fall of Adam, sin entered the world through disobedience, and death by sin. Sickness is incipient death. Since sickness is part of the curse, and only God could remove the curse, then the only way He could do it was through substitution, because of our free will.
We have a will to choose - God is not a dictator. He's not trying to force us to become His children. Through substitution, He could remove the curse.
Galatians 3:13 says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."
If healing is not for us, then how can justify us, and at the same time require us to remain under the law's curse, when the Apostle Paul says you're not under the law, but under grace? (Romans 6:14)
Why should anyone remain under the law's curse if they're not under the law? That would be like putting someone in jail and keeping them there when the court has declared them innocent.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. He became our substitute. He became the curse so that the curse of sickness would come off of us and go onto Him on the cross. He bore our sickness and carried our pain.
If we're to be redeemed to God through salvation, then why should we remain under the curse of the law, which is sickness? Sickness is part of that curse. See, if the body is not included in redemption, how can there be resurrection? How can corruption put on incorruption?
1 Corinthians 15:52-54 says, "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."
If we were resurrected with a body still under the curse - if redemption were not impacting the physical man - and we were raised with the curse of sickness still in us, then sickness would go right up to heaven.
But Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, because He was that substitute. Sin and sickness went upon Him, so that redemption would impact the whole man, not part of man. God is coming to redeem man in spirit, mind and body. That's why corruption will put on incorruption in that day - so that healing will impact the whole person.
Since our future destiny is both spiritual and bodily, our redemption must also be both spiritually and bodily. There can be no bodily resurrection without bodily redemption. It can't happen.
Isn't God as willing to show the mercy of healing to His Body as He is to show the mercy of forgiveness to His enemies? Think about that. If salvation and healing are to impact us, and He is willing to show His mercy for salvation to His enemies, then He is also willing to show His mercy for healing to His own Body.
If Jesus is the Head of the Church, and we're the Body of Christ, then we're connected, because we have been raised with Him and we're seated with Him. We are connected. And if salvation and healing are provided by the Head, then whey should it bot also impact the Body of the Head? Why should this Body only be impacted with salvation and still have the provision of the curse - sickness - impacting the Body?
Is the Body of Christ supposed to look like the world, or is it to represent what the Head provides for it? If sickness comes from the enemy, should the things of the enemy exist in the Body of Christ? We must not look at the Church as a body of believers disconnected down here, we must see it as connected to the Head. We must have a revelation of what the Body of Christ is to look like. Not a Body with a rapture mentality. Not a Body more impacted by what the devil had done than by what God has don.
Here again, we have to go back to 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're a connected Body. We must begin to exemplify all that Christ provided in the atonement as the Head of that Body.
I believe that Jesus has been looking down at His Body lately, saying, "This isn't what I had in mind. I want this Body to benefit from all that I provided when I redeemed it from the curse." Redemption is to impact HIs whole Body, not part of it.
God's purpose in sending His Son to the cross was to redeem all that He created, not part of it. God 's purpose in sending His Son to the cross was to redeem all that He created, not part of it. God did not make a disposable man. He did not say, "I am coming to redeem just the spirit of man, and I'm going to discard the rest of him.
1 Corinthians 15:53-54 says; "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."
When the power of redemption impacts a person, it is to impact the whole person. We must begin to move toward that understanding of redemption.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
It doesn't say "may the God of peace sanctify you partly". I says entirely. He's saying here that the spirit, soul and body must be preserved complete. When you preserve something, you leave it in the best order possible. When you preserve peaches, you get them to their optimum condition, and then you preserve them to keep them that way.
God is saying He wants to preserve His Body. He wants His Body to represent what the Head provides, so that it will be without blame at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When Jesus comes, He's coming for a Church in victory, not a church that's a victim -- a Church that is benefitting from all that He provided when He destroyed the curse, taking it upon Himself as our substitute. Salvation and healing are ours in the atonement. When Jesus comes for His Body, it's not going to be in a mess, it will be in victory, without spot or wrinkle.

(excerpt taken from Cal Pierce's teaching on "Healing in the Atonement." Cal reopened the Healing Rooms of John G. Lake, in 1999 and travels all over the US and worldwide holding conferences on Healing.)

No comments: