“Jesus, My Healer” Part 2

Introduction

I am presenting a collection of sermons and series focused on Rediscovering God as a healer of our bodies.

These sermons have two goals:

• My first goal is for you to see God as someone who heals readily and not reluctantly.
• My second goal is for you to receive healing from God readily and not reluctantly.

If you have access to Jesus, you have access to healing.

The clarity about Jesus as a healer begins in the Old Testament, not in the New Testament.

Healing Is Holistic

The Old Testament applies God’s concept of healing broadly:

• The root of rāpā = [heal, restore, make whole] (From Michael L. Brown, Israel’s Divine Healer, pp. 28-29]
  • 2 Kings 20:5 – “the ‘healing’ of a sick body”
  • I Kings 18:30 – “the ‘repairing’ of a broken alter”
  • 2 Chronicles 7:14 – “the ‘restoration’ of a drought stricken and locust-eating land”
  • 2 Kings 2:21-22 – “the ‘making wholesome’ of undrinkable waters”
  • Psalms 60:2 – “the ‘mending’ of the earth’s fissures”
  • Jeremiah 19:11 – “the ‘fixing’ of a smashed piece of pottery”
  • Leviticus 14:18 – “the ‘recovery’ of a mildew infected house”

This further confirms that references to healing in the book of Isaiah are not just spiritual.

The Old Testament is also important because it also presents that standard by which Jesus is evaluated.

Healing As Christ’s Credibility

• Matthew 11:2–6 (ESV) – ² Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples ³ and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” ⁴ And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵ the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. ⁶ And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Why Jesus uses healing as validation:

1. There was another deity who made the same claim: “Jesus is called sōtēr, ‘Savior,’ approximately seventeen times in the NT. . . .this title was also applied to Asklepios/Aesculapius, the preeminent Greco-Roman healing deity of the age.” (From Michael L. Brown, Israel’s Divine Healer, p. 212)
2. Jesus’ miracles, signs and wonders places him in an elite group of prophets who command respect: Matthew 16:13–14 (ESV) – ¹³ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

• Matthew 4:23 (KJV 1900) – 23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

3. Physical healing is a form of metonymy.

• Metonymy is when one thing becomes a substitute for something with which it is associated.
  • Examples
    • Hollywood (The Entertainment Industry)
    • The Press (Journalism)
    • The White House (President)
  • Healing is a special category of metonymy called synecdoche
    • Synecdoche is when the part represents the whole:
    • Examples of Synecdoche
      • Boots on the ground (soldiers on the battlefield)
      • Nice wheels (Nice car)
      • I need head count (counting people)
• Healing is synecdoche.
  • It is the part that represents the whole.
  • What is the whole?

Isaiah’s New Earth: A Vision for Comprehensive Healing

Healing of the physical body is symbolic of the conditions on the new earth.

This earth has been made new by God’s comprehensive healing of the planet and its inhabitants.

Isaiah documents a vision of this new earth:

• Isaiah 2:2-4 (ESV) – 2 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
• Isaiah 11:6–9 (ESV) – ⁶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. ⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. ⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. ⁹ They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
• Isaiah 35: 3-6 (ESV) – 3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!
  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

The New Earth is a fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant:

• Genesis 12:2–3 (ESV) – ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
  • Abraham’s covenant is eternal, unconditional and based on faith. (Genesis 15:10-19; Romans 4; Galatians 3:5-9)
  • The Mosaic covenant is temporary, conditional, and based on works.
    • Exodus 19, 20 – The initial terms of the covenant given (The Ten Commandments)
    • Exodus 24:1-8 – The covenant ratified by animal sacrifices
    • Deuteronomy 5:2 – The covenant reaffirmed and distinguishing it from the Abrahamic covenant just before entering the promised land.
    • Deuteronomy 28 – The terms of the covenant/treaty at length.

Isaiah Diagnoses and Prescribes Israel’s Condition

Isaiah’s diagnosis is based on the terms of the Mosaic Covenant:

• The condition: Isaiah 1:5-7 (ESV) – 5 Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. 7 Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.
• The cause: (Covenant/Treaty violation): Deuteronomy 28:15 (ESV) – ¹⁵ “But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Deuteronomy 28:25 (ESV) – ²⁵ “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
• The Cure
  • Isaiah 1:5-7 (ESV) – 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Once Jesus starts doing His healing flex, it’s very clear that He’s the dude.

The Jewish people who followed Jesus rushed to seize the moment once this became clear.

• After He heals feeds the 5000: John 6:15 (ESV) – ¹⁵ Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
• After He heals Lazarus and after He meets Zacchaeus: Luke 19:11 (ESV) – ¹¹ As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

The Other Half of the Cure

There were two parts to the cure.

Most people did not notice or understand the other half the cure: Jesus had to die

• Isaiah 53:4-5 (ESV) – 4 Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,and with his wounds we are healed.
  • Galatians 3:13 (ESV) – ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
    • The curse represents the consequences of violating the treaty, and it represents the general state of the world:
      • A world subject to death is a world subject to sickness and disease
        • Deuteronomy 28:27–29 (ESV) – ²⁷ The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. ²⁸ The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, ²⁹ and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.
        • Deuteronomy 28:60–61 (ESV) – ⁶⁰ And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹ Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed.

Sin has physical repercussions that Jesus had to bear to redeem us from them.

Sickness is a Symptom of Death

Sickness is the sign of a body that is vulnerable to death, which is a consequence of sin.

Our vulnerability to physical death is a condition that requires healing.

• Genesis 2:16–17 (ESV) – ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
• Genesis 5:3–5 (ESV) – ³ When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. ⁴ The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. ⁵ Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
• Revelation 21:4 (ESV) – ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2023